HUM-DRUM...NOT REALLY!

     Wednesday is supposed to be this calm, hum-drum day, when nothing happens. Well, it didn't, until a little later in a day...
     Hanah is still trying to get her package ready for sending to Japan. It's a picture of a Japanese countryside that she painted, with mountains, a big pine tree (the Toyoda family crest) and a rice paddie with people working in it. I think, by now, the rice has grown and everyone left the paddie to go home for dinner in that picture! Hanah and Sonny sleep too long. They wake up too late, do some things that they need to do, but they don't succeed in finishing anything. 
     So, the first part of the day was spent in my continuously trying to get kids out of their beds and onto their tasks. They didn't start moving until I had to go get Reina from her class. I let them know the day before that: I will not drive them or let Sonny use the car if they don't finish their chores. Sonny just managed to do it by 2, so I let him take the van to school. Hanah and I were stuck at home. 
     Like I said, it was supposed to be a hum-drum day... On Wednesdays we have a Family Night, and we usually get some pie to spend time pleasurably together. I waited for Sonny to come back to go buy the pie. At about five thirty, he called to say that he got lost somewhere in Oakland. After that I didn't call him, afraid to distract him in such stressful situation. At six, I got a text from Hanah's friend, Christina, who together with her daughter and a boyfriend recently lost housing. Christina was asking if they could stay with us for one night. I replied that, "there was no room at the Inn"... Just kidding! I said that, we can pay for their motel room, since our house is packed right now. It was possible to put them in Sonny's room and he could sleep in the living room where Hanah is staying, but:
     1. Sonny's room is a pig sty, and we couldn't clean it in a couple of hours it would take Christina's little family to get here;
     2. All our plans would go awry, because now we would have four guests, including a small child, who would need to be fed, and that would mean a lot more money.
     I forgot just one small detail: I had no car to go to the ATM to withdraw money! Sonny had it, and he was looping somewhere around the MacArthur Maze, a really confusing stretch of freeways in Oakland area.
     I managed to assert control over my "caped-crusader personality",                                                                                                       
and we waited patiently until Sonny arrived. He came in, we told him of the situation, texted  Christina that, we'll meet her in 15 minutes at the bank and prepared to leave. 
        Sonny left the car's lights on, and it wouldn't start! I thought of Hanah's friend and her family, sitting in the bank's parking lot, thinking that we were not going to show up, after all, and panicked for a few minutes. Then Taka came home from work! We left Sonny home to feed his dad and went off in Taka's car.
     By the short time it took me to get money out of the ATM (Roberta gave me her Debit Card and told me to take a twenty dollar bill out of her account for the family in need), Christina's daughter, Alice, fell in love with Hanah. She sat in Hanah"s arms, for some reason, trying to feed Hanah her hair! She also tried to eat Hanah's hair, hugged her with all the little girl's might and animatedly talked to the seagulls flying in the sky over us. 
     Christina assured me that, she will return the money as soon as she finds a job. Apparently, they were going to Florida the next day, where Christina's boyfriend's family lived. I felt a twinge of worry: here, at least, Christina had people who could help her. In Florida, she knew no one. If the couple broke up, or he turned out to be a different kind of person than she thinks he is, she and Alice would be in real trouble!
     I didn't say anything about my thoughts to Hanah's friend. Instead, I told her to just keep the money and let us know, what was happening with her, time to time.
     The little girl refused to leave Hanah's arms. 
- "Say goodbye", - Christina told her. 
- "Noooooooo!"
     I laughed and told Alice: 
- "Say goodbye, honey!"
- "Goodbye, mommy!" - that was directed to Christina... It couldn't be easy for a small kid like that to keep moving from place to place and from people to people.
    After we parted ways, we went to get a pie for our family night. Hanah and Reina went into Safeway and chose a beautiful fruit tart for our treat. 
     I keep thinking (and Hanah, for once, supports me in this thinking) that, it's a big mistake for Christina to go to Florida. I should remember to pray for them and think good thoughts.