04 MAY 26
Yali’s sitting at the table early that morning... bowl of Froot Loops in front of him... piece of leftover Domino’s in-hand... staring me down with the kind of face that reads... “Please don’t make me learn how to convert mixed numbers to improper fractions today... I’m not even sure I remember what a mixed number is... or an improper fraction”...
Twenty minutes later while Yali is learning how to convert mixed numbers into improper fractions... because this information is certainly vital to his future success as a stuntman.... he’s squishing Patience’s homemade cornstarch-in-balloon ball in one hand... **squish squish squish squish**... POP!
Cornstarch all over my laptop keyboard... Patience hurries it downstairs to Oxbear and his shop-vac while Yali begins cleaning with damp paper towels... this eventually leads to him reenacting street evangelism conversations for me... anything to distract... distract...
A growl of thunder somewhere in the southwest... “IKEA?” Puck asks expectantly... halfway towards a chokehold on his younger brother just for fun... “YES!” Yali agrees...
Puck has been postponing his birthday lunch until the next viable rainstorm... and we’re all (especially Yali) available so...
Thirty minutes later all five of us are housed around a table loaded with meatballs mashed potatoes gravy fries chicken strips slices of cake and cold pear sodas... tiny Swedish paper flags flooded over in hot Swedish gravy... watching swathes of rainfall suspended above the city…
Despite the thunder and the lightning and the stacks of smorgasbord... books are still waiting at home... conversation on federal state and local government while Yali whirls a power drill in the air... “Yali put that away...” and he does but then shards of scissored rubber bands are bursting in the air above the table like fireworks...
Maybe Yali is fortunate that it’s around this time in the afternoon that my keyboard is hit with a second plague on the day... Patience sends a whole glass of water sloshing over my laptop and onto myself and a stack of active notebooks... back to the shop-vac...
