Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Day 48

Round One: A student wants 24 classes with me, most of them in August, but some in September are okay.  No problem.
Round Two: She wants 24 classes all in August, but only in the morning and no classes from the fifth to the seventeenth.  A squeeze, but if we switch some of her classes with another student, we can make it work.
Round Three: She wants 15 classes to take place on August 2-4, 17-22, and 29-30.  She wants classes only in the morning, and only one class per day.  For those of you following along at home, yes, that's 15 classes in 12 days, when I can only have one class per day.  Please no one else tell me about how the Chinese are beating us in math scores.  On top of all this she wants to schedule this at the last minute in the busiest time of the year.  I don't think this will end well.

Monday, July 30, 2012

Day 49 (grown-ups only)

I once posted something that had a mention of condoms toward the end and someone (I forget who) got mad because they'd looked at it with their kid.  Come to think of it, this may have happened to someone else.  But it's still relevant.  So here I am clearly stating: don't read this blog post with your kids.  And, if you are rattled by my mentioning condoms, you may just want to scroll on by even if you are a big person.

For those of you who are still there (anyone?) I want to tell you that...Peter made Thai Chicken again.  I had to borrow money from my boss.  Peter got the AC fixed, and Max got a new rawhide.  That's what I did on day 49. 

It is not, however, why chased away the condom people.  The reason is this: in my building there are five elevators, all with drop ceiling lighting.  Right?  So there's a translucent plastic panel, and behind it, a light.  Well, starting not today but yesterday, soneone has started cutting a particular shape out of blue paper, lifting up the panel on the drop ceiling, and sliding this shape behind it so the light illuminates this shape.

Now that, by itself is amazing.  Why do it?  Why choose blue paper?  Why the elevator?  Why why why?  The amazing part is that not only is Blue Rocketship #1 in place, and has been in place ever since yesterday, in spite of hundreds of people riding the elevator, but now Blue Rocketship #2 has appeared in another elevator. 

Anyway, without further adieu, here is Blue Rocketship #2:



Photo quality is not great...but do we really need it to be?

Anyway, why don't I step up (literally) and remove the offending Rocketships myself?  Well, for one I am too short, and I am not interested in bringing my dining chair into the moving elevator and climbing on it.  For another, I don't want to touch the rocketship because who on earth has any idea who made itand where it's been.  But finally a most importantly, I want to see how long the hundreds, yes hundreds of occupants of this building (25 stories, 5 of which are hotels and some of which are businesses or offices) will collectively tolerate the Invasion ofthe Blue Rocketships.

Now that you are sufficiently traumatized, here is a gratuitoous picture of my puppy to re-equilibrialize you:







Aww, isn't he sweet?  Minus 1,000 points to anyone who thought "puppy" was anything other than a baby doggie.  Titus 1:15 on you!

That's the thing.

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Day 50

We spent all our money on plane tickets, so even though I had the day off we couldn't afford to do anything other than cook and eat fried rice, vegetable curry, and spam soup, and then sit and pretend we're not yet while we run the AC as little as possible.  The AC repaid us by breaking down about a half an hour ago, well after it was possible to get it repaired today.

Peter fussed with it a bit, standing atop a percarious stack of furniture, to which I strongly objected, but he did it anyway and I used all my puerpwers to resist nagging.  Whenever he doesn't heed my warning the next best thing that works is for whatever he does to fail.  Eiter fortunately or unfortunately he did not fall down and damage himself, and his explorations did not further break the AC unit.  He didn't fix it either, though, so now it just drips water all over the futon and wall while we run it, and it's seriously too hot to even think of not running it.

The worst is that the AC broke in this exact same way last year, and we replaced the hose.  Now, a mere 12 months later, it's broken again.  Am I the only one that thinks a thing should stay repaired for more than 12 months?  A part that fails after a year?  Seriously?

So now i have to find someone to hit up for money or sweat for the next 12 days until I get paid.  That's gonna be awesome and not akward at all.

There are 50 days until I get out of here, and they cannot go by fast enough.

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Day 51

Me: Do these flowers look like bacon?
Peter: Yeah, I think it's time we got you some dinner.

Friday, July 27, 2012

Days 53 and 52

Last night my boss invited me out to dinner.  Peter wasn't invited, because that's how they do things in China.  He took me to a candlelit Portugese restaurant.  When I came home, however, the Portugese had apparently decided to take revenge on me for ordering Italian, and I wasn't able to come to the phone, so to speak. 

Today this happened:

Me: ...and we need to pay the rent, and the electric, and the shipping, and eat Bejing Duck at least one more time, and you wanted to go to the all-you-can-eat seafood buffet again.
Peter: Maybe I just want to eat seafood when we get back to the US.
Me: We could stop by the fish market before we leave Seattle.  Or we could go back to Joe's Crab Shack.
Peter: Yeah.  I don't know which one I want.  Look up the menu for Joe's crab shack.
Me: Okay...hey, look, this is the couch I want to buy if we ever have that much money to spend on furniture.
Peter: Okay.
Me: Do you like it?
Peter: I don't care.
Me: You think it's too expensive.
Peter: No, I just don't care.
Me: Just tell me if you like it!
Peter: I don't care.
Me: Well, do you hate it?
Peter: I don't care.
Me: I get that you don't care, just tell me if you will hate it if I ever buy it. 
Peter: I---
Me: Remember, when we go to Joe's I order chicken.  Now tell me that you like this couch and I'll show you a picture of shellfish.
Peter: I quacking love it.


The couch in question is the Tidafors corner sofa in dark brown, because I know someone's reading this and wondering about the couch.  I don't know if we'll ever be the kind of people who pay retail for furniture, but if I were to pay retail for one piece of furniture it would be a good couch in a neutral color.  Also a mattress.  Probably the mattress before the couch, but that's just because I'd prefer to sleep on a marshmallow and Peter thinks concrete has too much give, so we will, one day in the future, probably buy a sleep number bed.  (I'm still hoping he will spontaneously decide he likes memory foam, though!) Or go all Lucy and Ricky.  (If you enver want a giggle, ask Peter to say, "Lucy, I'm home!)

Why am I couch shopping?  We're still almost two months out from the US and probably four to six months out from having our own place, but a girl can dream, can't she?  I've had almost no say over my home's furniture or color scheme for three years, I want to make something pretty, dammit.

Later tonight we are going to watch the olympic opening ceremonies.  I am a little afraid, because Peter showed me the olympic mascot last night, and it's terrifying! 

Right now, however, I am applying for jobs online and Peter is telling me how awesome low-riders are and how much he wants to have one.  Yeah, I'm so ridiculous with my couch.  At least he found a low-rider the color that I want to do our bedroom in.  Because it's best when your urban transportation matches the bedroom drapes.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

54 Days

For those of you playing along at home, the cliff's notes version is that I am leaving China in 54 days, and I have decided to post something every day until I go, for no other reason than that I want to.  This may turn out really boring, but we'll see.  It will probably be good for one of us.

The first thing I should tell you is that you shouldn't be OCD about the day count.  We leave September 17th, but because of the international date line we actually arrive in the US before we leave China.  We travel into the future a few hours, and that is just one of many things that makes international travel awesome.

So today I had the day off.  We are, erm, financially handicapped thanks to the price of plane tickets, so we couldn't afford to do much.  Plus I spend my workdays running around in the extreme humidity, so I don't feel like conquering it when it's optional.

Today I woke up from a weird dream at 8:30, which is exceptionally early for me.  I have since forgotten the dream, which is okay with me.  I once started a dream journal because I read that it can help you remember more of your dreams.  However, I have always been afflicted with weird-ass dreams; so yes, a dream journal does make you remember more dreams, and no, that's not always a good thing.

If, upon waking up I rehearse what I dreamed a few times by imagining I am telling others about it (or actually tell others: see about 30% of my Facebook posts) I can usually remember it, but if I don't it's gone.  Sometimes it will come back to me during the day in a random flash, and sometimes not.  For example, the other day my dream about Woolite came back to me on the bus.  In the dream I was somewhere in someone's basement and saw a bottle of Woolite and thought, "Aha!  Just what my homemade laundry detergent needs!"  This proves that I read Pinterest too much. 

I can usually figure out the associations of my dreams.  The other dream from that night was the dream of flossing a mosquito and a tiny, tiny baby shrimp (which often goes in soup around here) out of my teeth.  That one came from the other day when I thought I had something in my teeth during class and I tried to use a piece of my hair to floss it out during the class break.  That's also something I read on Pinterest, but it didn't work because my hair is really fine like a baby's and is not interested in multitasking.

So the thing that happened today is Peter made his So-Good-I-Want-to-be-a-Better-Person Thai Chicken.  Also it's my mom's birthday, so if you know her you better call her or wish her a good one on my dad's Facebook wall, because my mom is vintage and doesn't mess around with social media.  Now Max is asleep on the floor with a rawhide beside him, like when a binky falls out of a baby's mouth.  Peter and I are arguing about whether we should spend the evening playing Chinese Checkers or play poker for Monopoly money.  Yes, I have Monopoly money with me in China, yes that is one of the many reasons I am awesome, and yes, poker is the obvious choice because I can never ever beat Peter at Chinese Checkers.  I suspect it's rigged.

Ta!

Respawn

Since I am going back to the US I decided a little bloggety update was necessary, since I can't be China Excerpts when I'm living in Portland.  Also I have slacked off shamefully on writing any excerpts, so now is a good time to start in anouther direction.  The first confession I will compulsively make is that I titled this post "Respawn" not because I know a whole lot about video games (it's video games, right?) but because it is the title of an episode of 30 Rock and that's where I know it from, and ism't that just a little telling and a whole lot sad. 

So I went ahead and changed three things: the title, the background picture, and one of the fonts.  I left the blog title font alone because when I think yes it does come out in text and yes this is pretty much what it looks like.  So that's a win.  Changing three things qualifies as a relaunch, right?  That's what they keep doing with the iPhone.  (Okay, to be fair, every cell phone.  And every reality TV show.  And Windows, too.  Damn, things are getting telling again.)

So for me the time is going both quickly and slowly.  I tried to explain this to Peter and he laughed at me.  He can see my brain-font, so he sometimes laughs.  Anyway it made no sense to him, but it's about to make sense to you when I tell you that I feel like each day goes on for-ev-er, but that I keep saying things like, "Wow, June's already half-over!"  I have a day countdown written in dry erase marker on my ridiculous sliding glass kitchen door, and I feel like I update it often, but there are still so many days lurking on there!  I have no energy when I am at work, but tons as soon as I manage to wangle a day off, like today.  So I write spastic blog posts and choose background images that are, let's face it, disturbingly bright and pink, even though they kind of work. 

To be short, my dear chickens, I have shorttimer's disease.  I'm sure you've diagnosed me already.  I am getting a bit of shorttimer's goggles (aww, soon I won't get to do this awesome thing anymore) but mostly I am ready to go and start a new chapter.  So I decided that, starting from 50 days to go, I would post every day about something that happened, banal or amazing.  Then it was today and I was bored so I decided that 54 days is good enough.  However, since I am a little OCD, I will be ending this post here and starting another so I can title it 54 days.  Watch out, here it comes!