Sunday Slow Sleepy Saliteration

I will definitely miss the little routines of the house. Sundays in particular, even though when there's school tomorrow you sort of feel like making it to the nearest bridge with a hard landing. Alone, they are horrible, dark, frozen slow moving stones. Even with family members or friends its not like they move quick or anything. Naps cut things down, the hours in the afternoon when it invariably rains hard. I always think meals will take a long time to prepare and eat but I'm always done in under fifteen minutes and even washing the dishes takes five. TV shows, though, those take forever. Each commercial break stretches it's five segments over and over, the disputes and drama between characters could be resolved in seconds. The lies every episode of Seinfeld is based around (it's true, isn't it? The characters always lie) are so frustrating; Kramer should just go to therapy and get it over with. Of course, there's nothing as wonderful as Seinfeld on on a Sunday. It's mostly Drop Dead Diva re-runs and ancient movies about horse racing.

Abuela and abuelo and Romario were over today as well. I still don't really understand how Romario is related to the family. I think he is a godson which seems to fall between biological child, recipient of scholarship and servant. He lives with Carlos, the suspiciously unmarried Cordova brother and has his own room and stuff. He's over at abuela's every day after school on facebook. And then he came over to help abuelo move around and is always cleaning things with Javier the guard who definitely falls somewhere on the child-empleada spectrum. But it's good that he came because Abuelo really needs help. He is just so old and frail. He has to live in the lowlands of the coast because he has lung problems and there's not enough oxygen up here. He came to Quito for Christmas and either cannot (physically? logistically?) or does not (consciously? actually?) want to return. There have been many attempts and plans and strategies but in Quito he stays.

When I entered the house he was asleep on the floor. His head and shoulders were on the bump of the futon but the rest of him was on the floor, slip on sneakers with skulls and music notes, ripped cardigan, pants far too large. Pilar and Abuela were asleep too, watching said horse-racing movie. Romario was watching it too, seated on the floor. Is that because he's a 16 year old boy and doesn't want to be too close to anybody or because he is a servant and must sit on the floor? the mysteries of another culture! But anyway, abuelo woke up after a while and Pilar and I hoisted him up by the armpits and helped him walk to the bed.

"Mi amor," he croaks to the half-asleep abuela.
"Hola mi marido, ven aca, hay una pelicula de caballos" says abuela. She is very into the word "marido."

I found him a while later with his cane still in his hand but his body slumped over the kitchen table. He hadn't fallen, just resting bent at an 80 degree angle with his face smushed into the wood. It was a napping kind of day, he fell asleep on the bed again, I took a bone-crushing nap, and even Romario drifted off.