I suck, got it!

I keep telling myself to be more faithful to the blog but alas, I am not.

I do have stuff to say and I do have this running dialog with you, the readers, in my head. I just seem to suffer from a lack of ability to sit down and write. By the way, that dialog is funny, charming and you adore me.
What am I going to do to harness this long suffering inability to focus? I am going back to the basics of time management. I am committing myself to the following:
Monday mornings from 11am to noon.
Wednesday afternoons from 2 pm to 3pm.

These are my scheduled times to be on the computer. No, I will not be on the computer dinking around with facebook or any of the other mind numbing activities that are out there to waste a day away. This is my time that I will sit and write to you. I will astound you with my stories of Chinese interactions, photos of my wanderings and general rhetoric about my opinions of nothing and everything.
This is my commitment to you and to me. God help us all.

Another China Moment

Let me try to set the scene….
Bill and I had a wonderful day with friends. We sat at the pool for hours with Tammy, Chris and several other families that reside at Yulan Villa, our compound in Nanjing. After many hours of sun worshipping Bill and I went to Tammy and Chris’s unit for supper. We grilled salmon, tilapia, veggies and had a huge salad with garlic bread. Several bottles of wine and an Eddie Izzard DVD, wonderful evening, oh, we were also joined by a new family to the compound, Bruce and Lynn.
Derek had a party that he went to at another compound for friends that are going home for the summer and was staying the night with one of those buddies.
Bill and I returned home before midnight and went to bed. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ…

Fast forward to 1:40am….(doorbell rings, again and again)…
I wake up, pull on my skirt (t-shirt already in place) and stumble down two flights of stairs to the door. I know it is not Derek since he knows the door code, so what the heck. Open the door and there are two guys from compound security, two CHINESE guards who do not speak English. We spend the next several minutes playing charades and using my basic language skills…

There is a person at the gate, drunk and passed out.

What the hell, the only person not home is Derek. I am freaking out. Freaking out as putting in mildly, I was scared to death. The guards escort me to the gatehouse which is a short walk but I swear it is about 100 degrees and muggy, my adrenaline has already kicked into overdrive and causing a panic sweat…they show me out the compound to a guy passed out cold in the grass. A foreigner. I cannot describe my relief that it isn’t my son; I may have even swooned a bit from said relief. That joy lasted for only a millisecond because now I am looking at this guy -that may or may not be alive and I don’t recognize him as someone from our compound. Either way, he has now become my problem.

I bend over and check for a pulse (yep, EMT training still in affect ABC’s: airway, breathing, circulation,another sigh of relief…not dead. Holy sweet mother of God, I have to back away from him because the smell of the alcohol is enough to make me dizzy. I look to the guards, of which now there are seven, in hopes of some insight on what to do next.

I say in my best Chinese, “Not my friend, I don’t know.”
Guard: “What?”
Me: “I don’t know.”
Guard: “Friend?”
Me: “No, no friend. I don’t know. Yulan? I don’t know.”
Guard: (blank stare)

This is getting me know where. Passed out dude just sleeping away – now I am pissed, time for action. I bend back down to Mr. Sauced and pinch off his nostrils. Yep, I am not suffocating a stranger in a strange land. What is my life coming to?

Mr. Sauced finally makes the mental connection that he isn’t getting oxygen to his overly intoxicated brain and wakes up. The guards are laughing out loud. This is probably the most entertaining thing that they have seen in their lives.

Mr. Sauced is attempting to communicate but I cannot understand what he is saying…French, English, German, Columbian, Austrian, Swede, Italian, Russian...I say hi in every language I know, I even make up several more. His speech is so slurred but he is answering my questions in English.

Me: Do you live at Yulan?
He: What.
Me: Where do you live?
He: What?
Me: Do you have a business card?
He: What?

Yep, we are getting somewhere now. Mr. Sauced stumbles up and says something about getting a taxi and immediately walks directly into a parked car, falls back to the ground. Yep, he is getting somewhere now.

Me: Do you have a wallet? Billfold? ID? Money? (If I put him in a taxi, can he pay?)
He: Yes.
Me: Can I see it? (He hands me the wallet.)

I go through and find a library card, a subway card, a medical insurance card a little money but no name and no business card. I finally see it….a driver’s license….from New Zealand and his name, Ted. (Name has been changed to protect the idiot.)

Me: Ted, I don’t know where you live. I don’t think you live in Yulan, do you live at Bamboo? (The compound around the block from Yulan.)
Ted: Yes, get taxi.
Me: Ted, Bamboo is just down the block, no taxi. Lets walk.
Ted: I do it myself.

He starts to walk off but nearly wiped out on the curb. I grab one arm and a guard grabs the other and we get him going in the right direction. We followed him around the corner and the guards called the guards at Bamboo Garden to meet us so that they could take over the escort of Ted, who is now able to say the number of his building and his unit number.

The Yulan guards insist on walking me back to my apartment. The whole way they are trying to talk to me and I cannot understand most of what they are saying. I am sure some of it was in reference to the suffocation methods used to revive Ted. I am now hot, sweaty and tired, adrenaline crashing and I want my air conditioning. I tell the guards that I don’t understand what they are saying, Ted was not my friend, just another foolish foreigner, Ted was an ass. Thank you and see you later. Ass is my newest Chinese word.

I make it back home and Bill is waiting on the sofa for the story. I am so thankful that it wasn’t Derek. I assume that Ted made it home and has no memory of our little adventure. My evil side definitely hoped that he has the mother of all hangovers.

To Cambodia With Love

I think I have fallen in love, no, not with another man but with another country, Cambodia.

Bill, Derek and I were fortunate enough to be able to go to Siem Reap for a long weekend and the country and its people touched my soul. I now have a better understanding of why Angelina Jolie adopted her first son and though it may have seemed impulsive to those of us on the outside looking in – I believe without a doubt, it was not.

Siem Reap is a large “city” in central Cambodia. It has the ruins of Angkor Wat as its biggest draw for tourist. These are the ruins that have made Cambodia known to Derek’s generation as it was used as a backdrop for the Laura Croft: Tomb Raider movie. South of Siem Reap is a large, think huge, lake that becomes a gigantic lake during the rainy season.

Our trip was mid march which is at the end of dry season; our guide told us that they have not had recordable rainfall since November. During the four days that we were there, we saw no but there were puddles at one of the ruins. The weather was significantly warmer than it was in Nanjing. Even though it was only mid-march the daily average was high 80’s. There seems to be a gentle breeze most days due to the land itself being so flat. I was a bit surprised by the lack of hills and vegetation. The trees were all tropical with the most beautiful array of orchids and lotus’s. They were everywhere. Lotus root is the stem of the lotus flower, the “petals” are cleaned out and the “stem” is sliced up for various recipes. Both are yummy, especially the fried lotus root. I practically liked the blue sky; it is rarely seen here in Nanjing due to all the ozone abuse. We try not to talk about it since we are breathing it in.

Our first evening we went to Tone Slap Lake to tour the floating village by boat. It was amazing, several hundred families that live and work from their floating homes. The homes don’t amount to much more than floating shacks; but none the less, it was beautiful. You can see the poverty that is a given but you also could see the joy of life that comes through in their eyes.

On the way to lake we passed several homes that were on stilts about 15 feet above the ground. This is due to rainy season, at that time the lake that we were going to overflows and the whole area becomes a part of the lake.

We cruised around the floating village and made a small stop at a tourist market with crocodiles and a large snake that this little girl was responsible for; I didn’t think much of the whole snake thing. It is a slight phobia of mine, if you call peeing my pants and stop breathing - SLIGHT. We then went to the Tara which is a boat/restaurant for a sunset dinner. Food was wonderful and the hostesses were so kind. I was on high alert the whole time since Bill is deathly allergic to shellfish. Traveling Asia is a very stressful for people with this allergy as most ethnic groups use shellfish as a primary source of protein.

The following few days were filled with touring the ruins and visiting the town proper. More of these adventures to come……

Why? Why? Why?

Holy Geez, Batman. Where did all this grey hair come from?

Why didn’t someone tell me that my distinguishing Cruella Deville stripe as exploded all over my freaking head?

Why didn’t someone send me a text telling me that my hair was the same color of roofing shingles?

Who the hell broke into my house and colored by hair while I was sleeping?

Is it the same person that keeps “photoshop”ing that bald spot on my husband?

Why? Why? Why?

I apologize for any discomfort my rapid aging has caused you – my fresh and never aging peers. I know how difficult it must be for you to look upon my obvious deterioration and wonder how the God’s could be so cruel to one so vivacious.

I am going Monday to try to correct this gross injustice. Please light some incense in my honor since I am intrusting my curly locks to a Chinese man who probably has never worked on natural curly hair.

Agua Fria to Alconbury

The past couple days I have been on a walk through my memory. The memories revolve around my high school experience, which are wonderful, funny and sad. I went to two different high school s. The first school was in Avondale, AZ, just outside of Phoenix, Arizona, the year was 1982. My freshman year was on the Freshman Campus for Agua Fria Union High and sophomore year was at the main campus, someone thought freshman needed more adjustment time or something so we had our on campus, I don’t get it but whatever. In 1984, my family moved to RAF Alconbury, outside of Huntingdon, England. This is where I finished my high school career at Alconbury High School. It was a small campus on the military base for dependents. My graduating class consisted of 61 delighted students.

Major relocation is not that big of a drama for our family. I was raised as a military brat, my father was in the Air Force, and typically we moved every three years. Moving in the middle of your high school career is more of a challenge.

These are the years that you make your friendships that may last a life time. This is the people that you bond with over heart aches, hangovers and acne. This is the time when it may take a year or more to find your place in the pecking order. Don’t get me wrong, how many of my classmates were going to be living outside of London, England – just me. Thank you very much.

What I didn’t realize at the time I was sacrificing a proper high school experience by being overseas - limited to no driving and all that in tales, no homecoming parades/floats, school dances were not the same, no skipping class to hit the mall (so I did skip a lot of class but the accommodations were not nearly as entertaining), dating was a strategic nightmare in England. We were scattered all over the area.

Twenty five years later, shhhhh, don’t remind me, I realize how much I have gained with my vagabond life. I know that I can adapt to most anything thrown at me. I may not do it gracefully but I will survive.

With the help of the internet, my UK classmates stay in wonderful contact, especially in the past 8 years. I love getting on facebook to see what the latest with everyone. We are global, most are spread around the US, some are in the UK, some in Japan, some in Iraq (be safe), I am in China.

Yesterday, I started finding the classmates from AZ. Charlie was on facebook, he lived down the road at Luke AFB. I then got a memo from Steve, a classmate that I don’t really remember but his photo is familiar, to register on an alumni site. From there it has been a snowball effect. Yesterday, I found Kaki, Liz and Laura. Today, I found Famie; I wish to find Rodi but no luck yet. Yes, I know: Kaki, Rodi, Famie and Tressie – what did we do to piss our parents off….really that is our names. I am not making it up. Liz was the model. She was all school spirit, I envied her beyond measure. She had a wonderful heart and was like everyone’s personal cheerleader. Kaki was the strongest woman I knew. She was just fearless. I know she had some inner demons but I was just in awe of her presence. Rodi was the momma. She handled everything. I never had to worry about making a decision, see wrong decision, you just let Rodi take over and don’t worry. Famie was our comedian. That woman could crack me up. Her family was great too. I hated to be at my house due to other issues, Famie house and Kaki’s were my hideouts.

Laura, I remember when we first met; standing at the bus stop at the entrance to base housing, her momma would drop her off in that big old caddie. Out would jump little Laura, she was like sunshine but such the drama queen. I decided immediately this was someone that I was going to be around. She was my introduction to the teen wars, all the hurt, tears and laughter. I think I spent more Fridays at her house then my own. Friday Night Videos and sipping her sisters wine.

So it has been a great couple of days and I look forward to hearing their stories. I hate that I have all these great pictures of all of these women and many more not discussed but alas the photos sit in a storage unit in KY. Hopefully, all the stars will align and the winds will blow from the east and we will all be able to sit at one table and share a bottle of wine.

Big Brother or User Error

I am fighting with the blogging from China.

Big Brother has a bunch of blocks on sites and blogger is one of the forces of evil.

I can only access when the wind is blowing from the south while it is raining and temp. is between 45 and 55 degrees. Once I have the correct weather conditions I have to hold my laptop at a 45 degree angle and point it to the north, south, east and all the while chanting….please, please, please.

If I do this in the right sequence and at the right speed I can log in through a photo program, not directly from IE. By logging in this way I can put a few photos up and the text. I cannot alter the background or post videos or any of the little extras that some would expect to see.

For those of you that know me, know that patience is not my thing and since I ran out of Xanax – you can just imagine my inability to deal with internet chaos.

I have to be in just the right frame of mind to do battle with the internet in a normal environment so add the challenges of creative access and I am typically a freaking nut case by the time I get a solid post.

I am trying to do the text in Word so I can paste it into the site and pictures are limited to a few because I never know if I can get the add photo option to work.

I really appreciate all the comments and interaction with those of you that take a few minutes out of your life to keep up with our life here in Chinaland.