28 SEP 25
Radio's featuring some high-powered American Gospel that morning while Yali's snake contemplates these tunes resting his chin on a stick in his tank...
Yali walks out of the bathroom his hair split down the middle and slicked 90s style to check out live fat bear week cams from Alaska but it's still dark out there and the only thing moving is glowing salmon eyes surfing up-river...
Then Patience walks out to announce... “I'm not very obsessed with K-pop anymore... I'm obsessed with kung fu”...
An hour later I'm slicing up Chinese and American desserts at long tables in the church gym in preparation for the combined service and missions luncheon festival...
English with Mandarin translation throughout the next several hours... the strange effect of sitting in an international airport... some words translating less easily than others e.g. “epicurean”... eventually the poor Chinese translator is translating so much that she accidentally begins translating Mandarin back into Mandarin again...
Some four hours later all red bean cakes and chocolate cakes have been consumed and or cleared and all tables and chairs stacked and for any true introverts in the building **hands raised**... feeling a little bit more tired than on a usual Sunday...
Patience and I hit highway to the Big House mid-afternoon for some conversation and laughs... young R running over in his little Scottish kilt returning from golf with his older brother and dad who is also wearing a kilt... it's a Scottish crew...
About four o'clock Patience and I spin back east... Patience wants me to explain the stock market to her so that takes most of the drive... stopping for a half-gallon of chocolate ice cream for Oxbear on the way at Schnucks...
Patience thinks she'll be funny and runs up behind Puck stocking some kind of greenery in the vegetable department... jumps on his back... no reaction whatsoever... “I mean it's Puck... you can't surprise him... but let's not go around jumping on people's backs while they're at work okay?”... Patience... unable to understand this level of self-restraint when encountering spontaneous surprise... la-de-dahs away to hunt up a box of chicken dumplings in the frozen aisle... there will be more opportunities to annoy big brother later...