all made of stars / bit by a bad dog

We just got back to our house last night and it is all crazy unpacking, cleaning house (plus spontaneous furniture rearrangement) and getting ready for school (for Mina only) and work tomorrow, but I need to write this down lest I forget…

We arrived here in the middle of a ferocious heatwave; the locals say it got so hot that water buffalo died because they got too hot and their livers burst (!). We took the kids to play at the big bounce house at Big C and basically sweated out their own body weight. Then I dropped off everybody at home because I had to change out a bad relay at my pal’s garage. It was of course the relay for the air conditioner, so it felt like driving around in a big black oven most of the day.

When I was gone, Nam took Max and Mina a couple streets down where the neighborhood kids gather to play. Long story short, Nam got bit by a little yappy ass dog that some stupid people who just moved in let roam around outside (until now, there were no dogs on that street, which is one reason it’s the designated kid area). She called me and told me to come home and watch the kids while she went to the hospital for rabies shots (although the bite didn’t break skin and the dog is a house pet, this is something you don’t fuck around with in developing countries).

I got home and got Max and Mina inside the gate while Nam was getting ready to go. I noticed a young dead sparrow on our driveway and pointed it out to the kids to distract them from mommy’s departure (they had seen mommy get bitten and were worried when I told them she was going to see a doctor).

Max was entranced by the dead bird and asked if I could “fix” it.

I said “no.”

Then he asked “what about mommy?”

Thinking he was asking if mommy could fix it, I said, “no.”

He burst into tears and was inconsolable for quite some time.

— — —

It finally came to light that when he asked about mommy, he was asking whether she could be fixed or not, and I inadvertently equated her to a dead bird on the ground.

Oops.