Doug: Rice Balls

The rice is sticky in my palms as I roll it back and forth, attempting that most impossible of geometric shapes, a sphere. We made a pot of rice for our burritos, but the burritoes were done before the rice was, and then we forgot about the rice in favor of The Animatrix.

Now we have sticky rice. I'm doing the dishes, loading the sticky rice into a container that I know is just going to stay full of rice until it goes bad, like everything else that gets saved in our fridge. Rice on its own really isn't that good anyway.

I'm tired, and the fact that I know that the rice is going to be wasted is depressing me. But right as I finish loading it into the tupperware, I get an idea.

Rice balls.

I have no idea how to make rice balls.

How hard can it be?

I try rolling the rice into a ball, pieces stick to my hand and my fledgeling sphere comes apart in my hands. I dump the rice back into the tupperware, frustrated.

"There's got to be a way to digitize this." I pause a beat, and then realize Sgt. Google will enlighten me.

A few minutes later my hands are wet and I'm picking up the rice again.

This time the ball maintains integrity. A breif smile flickers at the corners of my mouth as I pick up another fistfull of rice. Very slowly, ten little balls appear on my tray. Erica comes up behind me, nudgeing me with her elbow and holding up some pieces of mango she's chopped. I nod, not answering, to disturb the silence would ruin this somehow.

I form thumb depressions as she drops the mangoes into the newly formed holes. My worn and rough hands gently pluck the loaded sphere from the tray, compressing the mango and forming a cocoon around it.

A pinch of salt finishes them off and while I finish the dishes Erica puts saran wrap over our rice balls and slips them in the refridgerator. Without a word, we both return to homework.

It has been a long time since I used my hands for creation. I forgot how satisfying it is.

-Doug

"I'm kind of excited to see how this turns out."