“I don’t know how big a baseball is,” Ming said, setting the bowl of rice before me.
I looked into the bowl.
“That’s definitely between golfball and baseball,” I told Ming.
I had asked for a baseball amount of rice.
“Softball?” Ming asked.
“Softballs are waaaayyy bigger than baseballs,” I said. “Thank you!”
ways to explain rice
I don’t know ounces well, by looking at things. Liquid ounces vs solid ounces threw me off. A cup or half cup, I can estimate. But Ming cannot.
I know how much a quart is, a gallon, a two liter bottle.
Long ago I was part of a poetry project where poets were asked the size of an ant, and everyone said a grain of rice. I wonder if that book was ever physically made. But I like rice as a way to measure, and I like rice being measured.
spinach
My good friend’s land is five acres, and they explained that’s like a football field. That helped because my way of conceptualizing was going to be imagining the house I grew up in from age 8 or so, which was on 3/4 of an acre? and multiplying that. But there was a hill in the back, and that throws off my mental measurement.
Is an acre as the crow flies? How do we handle slopes? I missed that day of third grade.
It’s bigger than a breadbox, anyway. Bowling ball, softball, baseball, golf ball, eye ball, marble, pea.
Tire, dinner plate, salad plate, saucer, bottle cap, pencil eraser.
I’ve heard of cinnamon rolls the size of tires, and naan “as big as my head.”
Ordering a spinach dish at an Indian food restaurant, Ming or I said it was a hectare of spinach. That became a joke ten years ago that we keep.
yummy
Rice is one of my favorite foods, and I’m glad I can eat it. (So many favorite foods, I can no longer eat.)
There’s a cat I feed these days, at the Sanctuary. I feed him three small handfuls of cat kibble dropped into his dish. Then I walk to the kitchen sink and wash my hands.
I heard we’re supposed to measure how long to wash our hands by singing the Happy Birthday song. But I never do that.
I heard a second is “one Mississippi” but to be real, we can say Mississippi so many speeds.
vision
Time isn’t real, but space isn’t real either. Yet here we are together.
Many disabled people need to know when to take our medicines. I save my spoons for an event, and when it starts an hour late, I’m screwed. My body seems to exist in time. But being a visionary means I’m often swirled up in a vision.
Love is inside of us. I can’t measure love, but it makes me strong.
Ming was being particular about how to hang some art, and I said, “Sweetheart, I think you’re gay. Maybe gay men love you because you’re gay, but on the inside.”
Then we laughed. Our sexualities and genders are a Mystery. Let’s stay in flux together always.
