as the sisterclub and i ventured forth with a portion of my belongings to the new home of Supergenius, Inc, max decided he was gonna ride in ruby with me.

“so you digging first grade?” i asked.
“yeah,” he said. “my girlfriend xyla is in my class.” (which totally calls into his question that he’s a little bit gay)
“so have you learned anything new?”
“apple day is coming up,” he said. “we get to make applesauce.”

then we talked about his mom’s new job (that she started today), going to the Y for morning daycare, and somehow the talk turned to animals, as it often does with max.

“here are the animals we saw at the zoo,” he said. “meercats, hippos, african penguins, emperor penguins, giraffes, otters, zebras. . . ” he went on and on, but i can’t remember the list.
“were the ‘march of the penguins’ penguins emperor?” i asked.
“yes,” he said.
“do any penguins live in alaska?”
“no,” he said. “most of them live in antarctica, and some of them live in peru,” he said.
“peru,” i said. “of course.”
“did you know the african penguin is almost extinct?” he asked.
“no. why?”
“because they keep putting garbage in their environment. they are so bad.”
“yes.”
“i think i used to be a cotton topped tamarin,” he said. “but now that my hair is cut, i might be a cat, or something else that doesn’t like water.”
“oh, i think i’m probably a wombat or a giraffe.”
“well,” he said, as we pulled in front of the new home of Supergenius, Inc. “when i come back i hope i come back as an animal that isn’t going extinct.”
“yeah, me too,” i said.