Weepin' Jumping Beans

Colombia. Oxbear and I were bringing Yali home through the mountains, on foot with a mass exodus of humanity. I became separated from them just as we reached the summit of the next mountain – a large, quiet plaza.

“Halt!”

I, and four other visitors, stopped in our tracks as a group of, whom I thought were Vietnamese soldiers, took us hostage. Except they were from Hong Kong, as the woman with them explained to me. I tried to be friendly to keep them from shooting, and talked casually. After awhile I explained to the woman about Oxbear and Yali waiting somewhere on the mountainside, and that we had to get Yali home to see doctors for his medical condition. I guess she took pity on me because somehow she found a nun in the village, a weeping nun no less, and sent her off to find the boys.

Sometime later it was night, and I had Joe with me, but he was still a baby. The mountains were filled with parties and loud music. So I somehow felt the need – while still being held hostage – to walk out into the night with Joe and sing Gospel songs as loud as I could into the darkness.

This is what I get even when I don’t eat chocolate before bed.

“I HAVE A STOMACHACHE!” Puck whispered to me during church, at about the same volume as my regular talking voice.

Two minutes later I looked over at him again. He had removed his rain boot to smell his sock. An hour later after the service, he was guzzling pink lemonade and choking down chocolate chip cookies with the other church kids. Nothing fixes a stomachache like more sugar.

On the afternoon plate: Elmer and Jaya were on a serious hunt for their first house, so Mom joined them with Jaya’s parents on a house tour in Old St. Charles. Francis was driving back from visiting a buddy at MIZZOU. Irish was at work. Oxbear took Yali to buy a new toilet seat. Puck ran off to play with a buddy down the street. Carrie-Bri and Rose went shopping to re-frame Rose’s aerial photograph of the 1904 World’s Fair. Sabbath rest, indeed.

Francis was also gifted an early birthday present from Rose, a fancy new Stührling wristwatch in a long, dark orange box.

“Oh, wow! Shoot, Rose!”

Puck sort of ran in and out all afternoon for different things. At one point I think he was juicing clementines in the kitchen sink. After taking a sample he concluded that:

“Weepin’ jumping beans! That’s horrible!”