Sunny Orange and Indian Formula

I may not be the fastest renovator, but I've got to tell you: I do excellent work. The bathroom is FINALLY finished (yes, long-term readers--the same bathroom I started this time last year.) I mean, I haven't found the right mirror yet, but the five layers of wallpaper and the cement that was holding them together are all gone, and in their place is a perfectly patched square of walls covered with a lovely, fresh, happy hue that the good people at Brandman's call Sunny Orange. (Muy sunny. More pumpkin than orange. The wainscoting is stained white, so the room can tolerate the color. Can you stand how tedious this account is already??) Moments ago, I left the utter chaos that is the rest of the house, and sat on the beautiful bathroom floor, and felt so proud: I finished something. Don't want to get carried away, but maybe next week I'll put some paint on the living room windows that I primed 18 months ago...

Tonight, to celebrate (and because my obsession with the bathroom overtook all other tasks including grocery shopping), I took Liam out to a little Indian restaurant down the road. I love Indian food, but I've got to be in a social mood to tolerate a visit to an Indian restaurant with Liam; every Indian woman in the place flirts with him, and we're watched. White Americans in my circle have been trained to act like they don't notice color; all their reactions, by and large, are internal, so I don't have to deal with them. But Indians have none of that: they notice, and they ask. "Is your husband Indian?" And when I say, "No," they follow up. I've vowed not to tell strangers that Liam is adopted--it's nobody's business, and besides, it's pretty obvious. So at some predictable point I'm smiling brightly and asking non-sequitur questions in return. (Note to self: must learn how to tell strangers to f off without actually saying the word.)

Anyway, we're sitting there enjoying the food, and Liam tells me that he can tolerate more spicy food than I because he's Indian. "I like spicy food, too," I tell him.

"But I'm more used to Indian food because I ate it when I was in India," he explains, and though he's told me that a million different times, this time I pointed out the timeline:

"Liam," I say, "you were a baby in India: you didn't eat food--you drank baby formula."

"Acha!" he squeals. (I swear: "Acha!"--which happens to be a speech mannerism you'd hear in Bengal.) "It was INDIAN formula."

I laugh. (In fact, it was a Nestle formula. I've got the empty tin.)

The other day he offered up a new twist on his standard reincarnation narrative--the one in which he begs me to wait for him when I die so we can go into our next family as siblings. "Mom," he calls out from the back seat on the highway. "I don't think I'm going to come back after this life. I think I'll be done."

"Oh," I say. "What do you think will happen then?"

"I'll just be part of God," he says, and pops the thumb in the mouth.
***
Maisie's classroom assignment arrived in the mail yesterday, and the boobs at school put her in the same class as the little "Mean Girls" wannabe who caused such grief for her last year. I've fired off a note to the principal begging for a reassignment, but what are the chances? Alas, I may have to actually interact with Mean Girl's parents, who are an utterly depressing, dysfunctional duo.

It begins.