An afternoon on Lake Austin Blvd.

This afternoon the girls of the neighborhood held a "salon" where, for a quarter, you could have your hair styled with shampoo. I got Princess Leia buns, 5 minutes of pulling & teasing, and 2 brush-tangled-in-hair episodes. 10 minutes after I'd paid and returned home, 2 of the girls knocked on my door to reclaim the elastics they'd used. Harry, as you can see in the picture below, got a mohawk. In other neighborhood news, Taku (middle, orange shirt) found our missing plasma car "at the second stop" (for the public school bus) so I rewarded him with a bag of army men bought at the Target Dollar Spot. Later Jackson came in asking for a quarter to buy some army men because Taku was selling them off in sets. And while I'm telling entreprenuering neighborhood kid stories, the other day Jackson asked to play "trash for treats", a game invented by neighbor Kristin wherein kids find stray trash and are rewarded with said treats. After seeing Jackson scoring candy, Charlie (8, not pictured. He and sister Claire-Ellen had just left for a baseball game with heads full of dried-up shampoo) began bringing me bag after bag. After about bag number 5, I asked, "Where on earth are you getting all this trash?" He informed me he'd been stowing away piles all around the neighborhood for weeks, waiting for just this moment. Smart boy.