the world is too big for you to understand

Yesterday we talked about family for a while as we traveled.  It was intense.  I said how some of the men in my family were more like cartoon characters than fully-developed people.  We talked about what goes on that can't be seen. 

I love those oak trees we pass, leaving the coast, the valleys and hills.

We stopped in Arvin at the Vallarta.  Ming got two pineapple tamales and ate them at a long wooden picnic table.  I looked around at things--rice, beans, little pickled apples and octopus. 

Wanted to buy the inner parts of pumpkin seeds.  Wanted to buy star anise but didn't know what I'd do with it.  But it's so pretty.

Then in Tehachapi at a park, a red truck had a flat tire, and there was a note on it saying Don't tow.  I saw a raven.  My phone died.  I was using it and the gmail app paused.  Then the screen went black.

I tried turning it off and on--didn't work.  I asked Ming to help.  "Do you know how to take the battery out?" I asked.  He was walking across a field and I was walking toward him, naked phone in hand, and a flock of blackbirds flew by in the wind.  I laughed.

Ming couldn't fix it, so at our hotel I googled How to fix iphone and fixed it.  Turned out my memory was almost full so I put 1700 pictures onto my computer and deleted them off my phone.  Ming supplied the cord.

When we first got to the hotel, I lay down in bed and Ming took a shower.  I woke up and he was lying beside me.  I said, "I got the wrong mule."  I'd wanted him to unload the minivan. 

He said, "I'm stubborn."  I laughed and remembered that mules are known for a few things, including carrying a lot and stubbornness.

Then I got up to pee and saw he'd brought in everything from the minivan.  He must have come in and out the door five times, not waking me up.  I had been dead asleep. 

So I started cracking up.  Later we went to Thai food.  Ming said he liked the look of my phone without its case.  I said, "What, are you a phonosexual?"  It did seem little and cute in its vulnerability.

I asked Ming about his last name.  "What's that 'a' doing there?  Seems like it's doing nothing!"  He said it keeps Lai from being Li like Lee.