Perhaps Like She Might Have

Rejected at 10:30AM. Rejected at 11:15AM.  I got to read to the older one last night.  Napoleon’s doom is swelling.  Tolstoy's been setting up the coup de grace for eleven hundred and fifty pages now.  The younger one had a friend sleep over last night.  They walked past my study this morning and got to fixing up something in the kitchen.  She was frying sausages in a little pan.  It looked functional, if rough.  I asked if they wanted French Toast or some fruit, but no one was interested. 

I asked the friend when she was leaving.  She said her dad was coming to pick her up shortly.  He had a badminton “thing” he had to do.  The bell rang not long after.  Not sure how he got in the compound without calling.  Do they live in this compound?  I got up and paused, matted down my hair, which must have looked a bit ridiculous, and went out to see the young lady off and greet the father.  “They had a great time.  She’s welcome any time!  OK.  Zai Jian.”   “You don’t have to say ‘zai jian’ dad.  They aren’t Chinese.”  She had been speaking with the girl in Chinese just the other day on the phone, but I guess I knew this.  “Right.  They’re from Korea?  The mom too?  OK.  Where does he work.”  “At the embassy or something.”  I searched my mind but couldn’t recall how to say “good bye” in Korean.  They had already driven off.

Rejected then a few minutes later when I went up and pleaded for the right to read Anna Karenina.  “No.  I’m too busy.  I’m doing math.”  Jim Croce moment: she used to plead with me to come and play and I was too busy.  “So can I come back in forty minutes?”  I asked hopefully.   “We’ll see.”  I did my meditations, did my calisthenics, made a pot of coffee and tip toed back up.  She was practicing French conjugations aloud.  Proud to hear it, I suppose, but I knew without asking that I was not going to be granted reading rights.  “Not now.  I’ve got French, then English, and then, it’s too much.”  I pleaded.  Perhaps like she might have once upon a time.  But it was clear.  I’d need to retreat. 

The older one is up too.  She said she had diarrhea again.  Damn.  Once again, we all ate the same thing.  How can that be?  “What did you have that might have done it?”  “ Eggplant.”  “Huh? " "It’s the third time I’ve gotten sick and each time I had eggplant.”  “But you always loved eggplant.”  “I know!  I used to love cheese too.”  A part of the nightshade family, it does appear, after a quick look, that people can develop allergies to eggplant at any time.  Other nightshades are often involved, like potatoes, peppers and tomatoes.  Damn.  That is gonna make being a vegan rather limited.  We’re dropping down to notably narrow set of possibilities which remain.  I joked and suggested we revert to McDonalds.   That was not well received. 

Sunday, 10/14/18