Last night I climbed into bed with David Sedaris. It seemed like a good idea at the time. But then my sister Mood Ring Momma joined me. She brought along Jennifer Weiner. What to some would be a happy, if odd, foursome, I was spent from the day and a fine at-home party and so turned off the light and went to sleep. This week’s activities have been no less time-consuming and mundane than last week’s and I needed my beauty sleep before church in the morning. But then I woke up at 3:30 this morning giggling, mentally reviewing yesterday’s events. I didn’t actually know it was 3:30, I was just guessing by the light shining through a little shade-less window in my bedroom. Mood Ring had just been to the bathroom so my laughter didn’t wake her up; she helped me review the events which made me laugh even harder.

So, anyway, yesterday I was giving my father a pedicure in the kitchen, MCV and the Radish were skewering pork, onion, and apricot kebabs, Thing 2 was checking his computer game, and Things 1 and 3 were lounging on the sofa, books in hand. The nephews were downstairs. A regular Rockwellian scene minus the husbands. All was quiet above deck except for the whooshing of the electric foot bath. And it was into this idyllic silence that my nephew Cheese Fighter intoned, “There’s poop on the stairs.”

Earlier, he and all the cousins had been roughhousing on the carpeted stairwell leading my parents’ first floor TV room. Cheese Fighter said this matter of factly, no hint of alarm, his voice not even rising a note, let alone an octave.

When the laughter died down, someone was brave enough to inquire:

“Is there really poop on the stairs?”

“Yep.” Cheese Fighter replied. His brother verified this, likewise not alarmed. But now that we had confirmation, adult inspection was required. Each parent mentally scrolled down the list of her children and duly queried each offspring, resulting in a chorus of inevitable “Not me”s.

“Maybe it was the cat,” Cheese Fighter said.

“We don’t have a cat,” Grandma Radish replied.

“Oh. Right.”

The most likely culprit was the four year old nephew. I happen to know that underneath his hand-me-down Lilly Pulitzer shorts he was not wearing any underwear. Also, he had just eaten a bowl of cherries and had been wrestling with the cousins on the stairs. Heaving a sigh, MCV laid down her kebab and gamely trooped downstairs.

“Dear Lord,” she exclaimed from down the stairs, confirming the veracity of the claim. It was this young mother exasperation of her’s that made me laugh so hard in the middle of the night.

Again, riotous laughter upstairs. Ever the inquisitor, she demanded an answer, “Who did this?”

Coming up the stairs for carpet cleaner and a roll of paper towel, MCV defiantly said, “Well, I just checked G3’s bottom and there’s no poop. Plus, it looks like someone stepped in it. Everyone check your feet.” The last bit was said with a certain smugness.

All of the children were barefoot so this announcement produced shrieks as soles were frantically scoured for signs of poop. Nothing doing. The mystery continued, MCV still maintaining, as she scrubbed the carpet, that her four year old was innocent.

It was then that I turned my attention to my Thing 2, who claimed to have just bathed. He was sitting at the counter 3 feet from me, wearing shorts. His hair looked freshly washed. On his knee was a dark green smudge.

“How do we know it was poop?” I asked.

“Oh it was poop alright.” MCV replied, heading down the hall to the powder room to wash her hands.

“And you,” I said to Thing 2, “how is it that you have bathed and missed an entire swatch of dirt on your knee?”

“Oh that. That’s grass.”

“How do you know it’s grass?” I persisted, following a hunch.

“Because it’s green.”

“Poop can be green,” we all said.

“Here, let me smell it.” Thing 3 said (can you believe? Dear Lord, indeed.)

By then Thing 2 had arisen from his chair and taken a good gander at his knee. “Holy crap!”* he said, jumping off his chair and running to the bathroom to remove the offending matter. A fresh round of guffaws ensued. Nothing could be grosser to a tween than a poop schmear on their skin.

I finished When You Are Engulfed in Flames today at the beach but Mood Ring is still engrossed in Good in Bed. It’s almost anticlimactic by comparison. As my sisters and nephews piled in the fancy pants mini-van to head for home this afternoon, I could only wonder if next weekend’s Tommy Bahama Tropical Fest on the Fifth will be as much fun. Well, maybe, if Mr. Understanding tells his pork chop story. But I’m a little dubious.

*He really said this.

Where to start? It’s been a busy week in America. Some of it I am saving for separate blog posts so I don’t inundate you with mundane detail all at once. I like to piecemeal my inanity. The biggest event was the lopping off of the familial tresses for Locks of Love [hereinafter referred to as LOL], the charity organization which makes wigs from donated hair for economically challenged children with “long-term hair loss”. MCV made appointments for Things 1 & 3 at the Bocz Salon in downtown Seattle with her and Mood Ring Momma’s stylist Juan. I knew it was swishy when I saw what looked to be a Mariner’s wife sitting in a chair, her hair in foils, toenails painted an elegant Chanel eggplant black, feet ensconced in Prada sandals, and a Louis Vuitton parked at her elbow. Then again, maybe it was just a Mercer Island/Medina/Bellevue prima donna. Same diff.

If memory serves me correctly, Thing 1 got the idea to grow her hair for Locks of Love during a visit to Raftbuddy’s approximately six years ago. Both Raftbuddy and her Thing 1 had both cut off their hair to donate to LOL. In order to donate a hank of hair, one needs ten inches in length of non-colortreated hair, hair preferably hydrated with few fly away ends. I had never seen Raftbuddy’s hair so short. Her hair short was longer than my hair long ever was, which is to say it came to the middle of her back. Able to sit on her natural honey blonde locks in college, Raftbuddy was the subject of many a man’s Rapunzelian fantasies (to say nothing of the fact that she was a cheerleader). She and her heir, it turns out, had hair to spare.

Then Thing 3 decided about three years ago to grow her hair as well. When it came time to cut the hair, I admit I was a little worried that Thing 1 would feel upstaged by her little sister since she had been growing her hair twice as long. Thing 1’s hair grows agonizingly slowly. Thing 3’s hair, half as thick as her sister’s, grows alarmingly fast, one of life’s little trade offs.

So in we trooped sporting our Target wardrobes to the fancy pants salon: me and my Things, Mood Ring, MCV, and the Radish, prepared for tears. Thing 3 went first. Juan, the only hairdresser I have ever met who does not like to chat, measured the tresses with a metal tape measurer after first combing out the hair into a ponytail. Then he snipped snipped snipped. And just like that, voila, Thing 3 was shorn and shaped, followed by Thing 1. They have never looked cuter. Years of awkward hair styles, sweaty necks, and hair wrapped around ponytail holders in tangled messes, gone baby, gone.

I don’t think I have ever had ten inches of hair in my life. Well, at least not all at one time. I did not, do not, have the patience. My grandmother kept a braid of her hair in the top drawer of her dresser. She cut it off into a bob when she was a teenager in the roaring 20’s. Where is that hair now? Did she feel as liberated as my daughters when the braid fell to the floor? Or did she feel violated like the Chinese when their queues were forcibly cut off? Hair, as I have discussed before, is a highly personal subject.

I confess my eyes welled when each hank of hair was severed, but not with remorse or sadness. My tears reflected the happiness of my girls as they joined the ranks of people, like Raftbuddy, who have gifted their hair, some several times over. And that is what I call the best “up do” ever.
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Locks of Love (www.locksoflove.org) receives a 4star rating on www.charitynavigator.org.

There are little messes everywhere from last summer. The Things are busy straightening the house as Mr. Understanding and I have bribed them with one of those Wii things to take back to China if they are duly cooperative. They have cleared out the game closet and collected a stack of books for the church bazaar. In addition to purchasing the video entertainment, I am paying 10 cents a weed, which, if they are enterprising, could earn them a Land Rover if they clear the entire lawn. Then there are spider infestations to be dealt with, the septic tank to be pumped, moss on the roof to be stripped, and the 4th of July to plan. I have my mother’s notes on the subject last year and will be consulting them, but mostly ignoring them. Don’t you think a treasure hunt is a little over the top? Me too.

I thought about a million and one things in the middle of the night for the last two nights and now I can’t think of a single one of them. Except that if there is an earthquake, my bedroom will fall directly onto the earthquake preparedness kit stored in the garage. Should I bury the kit in the yard or build a small hut to protect it? The first night awake I read all of Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My Neck. If that is all she feels bad about in her mid-sixties, she is in good shape. Thighs and upper arms were not mentioned once. Can you channel a living person? I think we have a lot in common, Nora and I. Perhaps I am not really a wannabe Catholic but a Jew. This could explain a lot.

Last night I read Debbie Macomber’s Back on Blossom Street. I have read a few of Debbie’s books, which are light fiction set in Seattle. The writing is not high brow but the books satisfy one’s middle-of-the-night jet lagged entertainment needs. Think Danielle Steele for knitters.

Today an order from Amazon arrived which included:

A Wolf at the Table – Augusten Burrroughs – a memoir. I really thought I was buying a book by the Kitchen Confidential dude and that I could share with my mother. Ooops.

When You Are Engulfed in Flames – David Sedaris. This book will make the rounds of the entire family.

The Enchantress of Florence: A Novel – Salman Rushdie. If I comment on the book, I’ll probably have one of those fatwa thingys placed on my head.

Parenting by the Book: Biblical Wisdom for Raising Your Child – John Rosemond. I am going to pass this one around too. I might have to get out of my armchair for the teenage years and I will need some ammunition, Biblical and otherwise.

I Was Told There’d Be Cake – Sloane Crosley. Who can resist such a title? Such a preppy name?

Then there are the Costco books I bought yesterday on my first shopping expedition of the summer:

The Island – Victoria Hislop – which I touted last year via Ms. Dela but have not read.

The Good Husband of Zebra Drive – Alexander McCall Smith - have to find out what Mma Ramotswe is up to, it’s been awhile.

Empress Orchid – Anchee Min. China fluff? I need to read something to make me want to go back in August.

Rebecca – Daphne Dumaurier – purchased for Thing 1 because my mother made me read this when I was a teenager. I remember loving it.

Add to the above lists The Smartt View, a book KT sent me by a local columnist, Lisa Smartt, in her Hooterville newspaper, and Ahab’s Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund which my SIL gave me for my birthday in preparation for our trip to Nantucket this summer. I started Ahab’s Wife awhile ago but then put it down because I thought I needed to read Moby Dick first. Although a seminal work in American literature, Moby Dick taxed my brain beyond its feeble capacities in the past year and I ditched reading it. If I die tomorrow, that I did not finish that whale of tale will not be on my conscience.

Enough spouting. What’s it going to be tonight? I have a veritable feast on my nightstand, from the flaming wolf to the cake. With my luck, I’ll sleep right through.

Getting on plane in a mere 3 hours. 10 suitcases plus carryons, 3 Things minus Mr. Understanding. Lord have mercy. Father’s Day was glorious.

Father’s Day is this coming Sunday. During a foot massage last week, Princess Ai Lin commented that she was attending a Judeo/Christian Tabernacle BBQ on Father’s Day and that the women were cooking recipes from a local Mormon cookbook. I hope someone gives me one of those books because the photography is stunning and the commentary priceless. No, there is no Polygamy Pulled Pork Sandwich recipe but there are about a hundred recipes for popcorn balls, however.

I have not been invited to join the BBQ because Princess Ai Lin likes to “compartmentalize” her friends, as she puts it. The other women with whom she is BBQing form part of her Secret Book Club of Three. This is because so called Secret Shoshanna (Glickman) is from main line Philadelphia and eschews conversations with the likes of women from Detroit and rural America. Secret Shoshanna has, in effect, compartmentalized herself. Which is why I have never met her and am not part of the Secret Book Club of Three. The other member, whom I have met and find delightful, is a working woman and an Old China Hand; she is not in the market for expanding her circle of friends.

In any event, I mind not a whit that I am not invited because I am cooking up my own kind of fun for Mr. Understanding come this Sunday. I am content to live vicariously and which is why you will too, as I propel this paragraph to the main point of my post. Herewith, a sample of our foot massage conversation from last week.

EPP: So are you going to do anything special for Mr. Nuts-n-Bolts for Father’s Day?

PAL: Besides the BBQ? Nope.

EPP: Not even a card?

PAL: The kids will have made him cards at school.

EPP: But nothing else?

PAL: Nope.

EPP: But won’t that hurt his feelings?

PAL: Probably.

EPP: And you don’t care?

PAL: Nope.

For those whose Mother’s Day was underwhelming, proceed apace. Liberate your calendar. Print my post “Prizeworthy” and gluestick it to some colored construction paper and write “Better Luck Next Year.” If you feel generous, find some of those funky scissors and cut some fancy borders. Slip this gem into an envelope and leave it on your beloved’s pillow. Mr. Understanding, however, will be duly honored. He took my advice on Mother’s Day. To the “T”.

Can you hear Carly Simon singing? Ever since my babysitters brought their vinyl records over to my house, I have loved her. “Mockingbird” I made my ex-uncle, who was between wives, play over and over on a ski trip to Tahoe as I penned my name to valentines in the 4th grade. My mother made me give valentines to each of my classmates, even the boys I hated, those who punched me in the arm daily. Boys like Ronald Zipper (not his real name – this is a variation) whom I always thought was destined for life in prison. The Vixen, a former roommate, and I played Carly nonstop during finals in law school. In any event, “Anticipation” has been playing in my head non-stop as I prepare to get out of Dodge. We have gone into party/shopping/cleaning overdrive. It’s keepin’ me wakin’ ….

************

“Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder,” Mr. Understanding purred the other night as the sugar cube above the cute little slotted spoon was carmelizing on fire at the Glamour Bar. Rarely does Mr. Understanding make me laugh. This is because my sense of humor is so far superior and refined to his. I do not hold this against him, in fact I rather cherish his role as straight man. Having said this, I bust out guffawing. We were at a going away party, held at a bar, and some yahoos ordered the beverage for all around, curious to taste the forbidden fruit. Not readily available on the Piggly Wiggly’s shelves or your local package store, “the green fairy” is illegal to produce or sell in the US (but you can hop over to Canada if you are really jonesing for a slug). Reputedly hallucinogenic, absinthe was the beverage of choice for the literati of the late 19th century. Van Gogh, it is surmised, whacked his ear off under it’s influence. So it would not be understated to say that I was leary of the drink. Already I am not sleeping well and hallucinating now would be downright inconvenient. So I took just a wee sip.

Most unfortunately, there are few alchoholic beverages I do not enjoy. Most of you know of my predilection for aged scotches, martinis, and margaritas. Absinthe, however, is just plain ghastly. A mere swig tasted like I had dipped my tongue in a vat of melted, moldy black jelly beans. I was tempted to take a cocktail napkin and rub the taste off, it was so bad; the flavor lingers like the smell of dog poo squashed in a child’s tennis shoe.* God. But I was in the Glamour Bar, surrounded by chic people, and it would have been unseemly.

*************************************************

Many expats in Shanghai are packing up for good, leaving a vacuum that will soon be filled with newbies and divas vying for their very own crumbling castles at even higher rents than last year. It is the slippery slope of expatdom: those you want to stay, leave, and those you want to leave, stay. For me, I am just happy to be pulling out the suitcases, headed towards our summer island life less than a week away.

*Cheese Fighter’s latest scrape.

Although I did not write the Armchair Guide to Parenting, I adhere to many of its tenants. Like not having a party for children all day, several times a week, for the last 6 weeks of school. Parent volunteers are wanted almost every day. The teachers tell me this phenomenon is parent driven. If that is the case, get me OFF this bus. Things 2 & 3 have had so many festivities, outings and events I will be astounded if they have learned anything during the last month. Is this what Expat National Company pays $20k in tuition for for each kid? So my life is encumbered by a raft of cupcakes, brownies, and tug-of-war games? I don’t think so.

Against my better judgment and in violation of the aforementioned philosophy, I attended a field trip today with Thing 3 to a local Peking Opera boarding school for children. The last field trip was such a muck up I swore off all things school related. But the lure of the opera was too great. The boys from the soccer boarding school had already run such circles around Thing 2 and his soccer team, I am convinced China will win the World Cup in 2018. If the soccer team was so great, what tricks could a bunch of twelve year old operatics perform?

Plenty, as it turns out. Think Cirque du Soleil meets yoga in platform shoes meets vaudeville at a high pitched whine only certain animals can hear. Children, scouted from all over China, are selected to attend the school starting at age 7. They train daily, get Sunday afternoons off, and return home for Chinese New Year. I asked V3 about the grueling training schedule and he responded with proverbial wisdom, “If you stop training for one day, your body will notice. If you stop for two, the teacher will notice. And if you stop for three, the audience will tell the difference.” During a female dance practice, I thought one little girl’s lumbar spine was going to disengage from her thoracic, she whipped it back and around in a circle so fast. Three preteen boys, in platform shoes, stood on their right leg, one arm outstretched and holding two long knives, with their other arms flexing the left over their head. Impressive. The opera is not for wimps.

The music, however, gets tiresome after about two minutes. Instead of waterboarding, the CIA might want to try Chinese Opera Torture. Cymbals clang and clash like unruly garbage men lifting off aluminum trash can lids. The three stringed instrument produces a sound not unlike a baby’s sustained teething scream. And you all know what a gong sounds like. One little number, performed by students who had only been there a year, portrayed a tea house woman who protected injured Japanese POWS from Chinese soldiers in the Sino-Japanese war of the 1940s. The mustaches were a little Hitler-esque, a look that might have been popular back in the day but sent shivers down my spine. V3, who stayed for the performance, his first live one ever, did not enjoy it so much and called it a “government story”. Everyone agreed that the performance of the men fighting with swords in the dark was much better – there was no music.

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In other news, Thing 2 was afflicted for two days with the June Bug, a mystery fever which started on Sunday during a soccer BBQ for 50 here at our house. Thing 1 has her panties in a bunch over finals. Science, her hardest final, is on Friday and she is already grumpy about it. Why be a crankster on Tuesday in advance of Friday? Mr. U reminded her that “life is short”. “Especially in China,” Thing 3 rejoined. A new, postquake awareness in nine year olds.

Packing paralysis has set in. Gifts are piling up in the guest room at an astounding rate. I just look at the mound and think, “Later.” I don’t want to get too excited about going home just yet. Packing the suitcases makes it real. It has been a long 10 months since we first set foot in Shanghai. This trip, I am flying solo with my Things. Finally, we are back in the expat groove. Ironic, no?

Happy Birthday, Winnie!

A few weeks ago my nephew Gabriel, named after the archangel, was sent to the principal’s office. He had been involved in a “cheese fight”. For his penance, Gabriel had to fill out a form entitled “Think About It” and enumerate ways he could improve his behavior, i.e. “not get involved in cheese fights.” The firsts offspring in family history to be sent to the principal’s office, we, in our family, were quite proud of the cheese fighter’s ingenuity at using dairy products as a weapon. A cheese fight sounds like a lot of fun!

Princess Ai Lin came over yesterday for a quick lunch and we took the opportunity to call Mood Ring Momma to wish her a happy birthday. Princess Ai Lin and I also had a few questions for MRM about the cheese fight that I had been unable to answer. We had imagined bricks of cheddar clonking kids on the back of the head, wheels of Brie and Camembert whizzing through the air like Frisbees, gobs of Cheese Whizz flung around like silly string, and sheets of Velveeta sticking to the walls, only to slide down when the cafeteria became too humid; all in all, a cheese brawl.

The truth, of course, was much simpler than our imaginations. Grated yellow cheese for taco day became cafeteria confetti. The altercation was over quickly and punishment, via the written word, administered swiftly. I like the form so much (“How did your decision affect others?”) that I am going to incorporate it into my own parenting handbook. Thank you, state of Washington, for such a brilliant use of my tax dollars!

So happiest of birthdays to Mood Ring Momma, mother to a cheese fighter and sister to a fool. Next year she promises to visit me and cruise the Huangpu River on a pirate ship for her landmark birthday. I’m thinking cupcakes for dessert with cheese sprinkles.

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Question of the day: do you remember your elementary principal? I do! Mr. Donald Nietzche (sp? but pronounced Nitch).

It’s smokin’ hot in Shanghai, dear readers, from the woks to the pavement to the gossip. Sizzlin’! I cannot (publically) comment on the latter but let’s just say my address has officially changed, once again, from the Jewel Box to Peyton Place. Boo! Hiss! Lordy. What happened to flying underneath the radar? Let’s just say whack! jobs live in my neighborhood and I am not one of them ….

Moving along …. on Wednesday, Bea Long and I went to a “simple and fun Chinese cooking class” in a high-rise apartment across town. The chef and his wife, a Hong-kinese couple and his wife, lived in Hawaii for thirty years and now give Cantonese cooking classes to expat ladies of leisure. Lily Allen played on a stereo in the background as six women watched Mr. Choo mince and chop! chop! , a cleaver in each hand. The backsides of his hands looked as smooth as puff pastry but the palms of his hands were criss-crossed with creases like a San Francisco city map, peaks and valleys of flesh grooved by over-exposure to heat, water, and knives. The recipes were in English, the tiny kitchen pristine with good gas burners (Siemens), and some of the women … downright weird. Meow! One dour Aussie said she was allergic to peppers of all kinds which begs the question of why she even came. Maybe she thought we’d make noodles?

The menu of the day consisted of ginger fried rice, chicken and bell peppers with sacha sauce, and eggplant stuffed with minced pork in black bean sauce. YUM! Mr. and Mrs. Choo told us where to get every ingredient, down to which aisle in Carrefour. For example, the best sacha sauce (made with fish and shrimp) comes from Taiwan. Along with the all the national treasures, the KMT party took all the good sauces, it turns out. Mr. Choo cleaned the kitchen and washed dishes as he explained about flavors, importance of vegetable size, and slicing techniques.

At $20 for the lesson and lunch, it was a bang! for my buck. Get out your chopsticks, Radish.

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On a side note, today is our former maid Nilda’s birthday. On Monday I stayed home this week and unloaded junk from the final two moving boxes sitting in my bedroom. (Just so we are clear, there are plenty of unopened boxes in other parts of the house.) I had been thinking of Nilda for a long time, wondering how she was. Gamamae had hold me she had returned to her parents’ home in Rondonia but did not have the phone number and I had lost my address book with her cell phone number in it in Hong Kong. But there, amongst all the bits and bobs was an envelope from last summer with her sister’s phone number on it. Something had made me keep that envelope and I found it in the nick! of time. I called her sister who gave me the telephone number in Rondonia. We got up early this morning and rang the birthday girl, knock!ing her socks off in the process. She is doing well, taking care of her parents, and looking for a boyfriend. My kind of woman. We miss her so!

The news from Sichuan continues to get worse. McDonalds is sending 10,000 gift bags with hand-written notes from children. Thing 3 wrote how sad she was the victims of the earthquake were “suffering from death”. Keep them in your hearts, these poor displaced people. The situation is overwhelming. Have you ever heard of “quake lakes”? Me neither until last week. Sharon Stone made news in China by opining that the earthquake was “bad karma” . Hmmm … will she think the same when her house slides into the sea in California’s Big One? KA-BOOM! Was it bad karma when she had a brain aneurysm? Or was that just science? Or was God getting her back for ignoring her basic instincts and making poor choices in her acting roles? Mull that one over and get back to me, moviegoers.

Thing 1 and I played hooky this past Tuesday, venturing across the river in search of a cobbler. I made the mistake of giving her Benadryl for her silver dollar sized mosquito bites. She slept most of the morning in the car and at the fabric market where she did not have the energy to design clothes for herself. I picked up several items I’d had made the week before, one of which is a Pepto-Bismol pink trench coat which might be donated right away to the earthquake victims. What was I thinking???? Then there is the silk dress, which makes me look like a bridesmaid attending a wedding on the Hindenburg; I will go down in flames if I wear it in public. Having said that, the bodice fits nicely …

After lunch we went in search of the cobbler. Thing 1, as many of you know, has Marfan syndrome (www.marfan.org). At nearly 6 feet tall, she wears a size 12, 4 narrow women’s shoe. This is hard to find in America, let alone the rest of the world. My baby has been consigned to poor footwear her entire life and part of my mission in Asia is to rectify that. So, armed with only an address from Mrs. Pom who wears a size 11 and who said this cobbler can copy any shoe, we trolled the streets of the Hongqiao section of town.

When V3 pulled up to the address in question, he woke us up from our post-prandial snoozes, and said, “It’s just a t-shirt shop.”

Groggy, I opened the van door to get a better look. Indeed, it looked like a regular store front selling random clothes. But I spied some shoes on the far wall and said, “I’m going in for a closer look.”

Appearances can be deceiving in China, I have learned. What one thinks is a quaint piece of fading architectural glory is in fact a heaving hotbed of commerce or gambling. Earlier in the week I had visited the Through the Kitchen Secret Purse Lady, traipsing through a shikumen kitchen and behind a teddy bear flannel curtain where I bought the cutest pair of Louis Vuitton (? they look like the real deal) loafers and a handbag “inspired” by Marc Jacobs. This was after I had gotten lost in the alleyway and mistakenly went into another Secret Purse Lady’s den.

So, once inside the t-shirt shop, I saw a small rack of shoes displayed, a floor length mirror reflecting behind them. I could tell at once they were not Vans, Nikes, Clarks, or Jimmy Choos. One pair was made of Pepto-Bismol pink leather. We were in the right place.

“Shoes?” I asked the salesgirl, pointing.

“Through here,” she said, pushing on the mirrored portion of the shoe rack. Voila! A door magically opened.

“Let me get my daughter,” I replied, and went back to the van for Thing 1.

“We’re here!”

“Really?” she said, getting out of the van uncertainly.

“Really.”

Through the mirrored door, we hooked a left through a small courtyard littered with junk, plastic buckets and mops, and a thousand shoe forms, following the girl like Alice in Wonderland tumbling down the rabbit hole. Ducking under a low ceiling, where we passed two cobblers making shoes in a space the size of my pantry, we entered a “showroom”. Thing 1 pulled photos of shoes cut out from magazines out of her purse and we began the tedious process of designing ballet flats. The leather was real, the prices high, and the hardware less than exciting (no, they cannot get the Ferragamo bow). Manolo Blahnik it’s not. But three pairs of shoes will be ready in two weeks and for the first time in her life, my daughter might have something to wear with a summer dress that is not flip-flops or tennis shoes. She will have more than one option. I take my good news where I can find it.

What to write? What to write? What I wrote on Monday seems woefully inadequate. Hideously, piteously, pathetically understated. While I stand by my earlier statement that the Chinese are doing everything they possibly can, with so much devastation it is not enough. The earth continues to tremble, every day bringing a fresh set of dilemmas and crises. Photos of children being pulled from demolished buildings continue to beep across my cell phone. One of them showed a pair of hands holding onto each other, forever pinned together under the wreckage. In a country of only children, the grief is overwhelming.

The foreign media continues to insinuate that China is plagued with problems (and here they provide a laundry list) because of its’ government’s political stances on various issues, subtly implying that the mega quake is God’s retribution for the Tibetan situation. Is cyclone Nargis payback for the Myanmar junta’s killing of the Buddhist monks last year? Would these same media outlets claim that the tsunami wiped out a quarter of a million people in Muslim countries as God’s way of evening the score for 9/11 and the mass graves of Iraq? Or that Hurricane Katrina is revenge on those living in the Deep South who enjoyed gambling on river boats or Mardi Gras in New Orleans? Like sorting through the devastation, one has to search for and salvage the truth. Last time I checked, God wasn’t into playing politics.

Thing 2 is home safe from his school trip. Last year’s 6th grade class went to Chengdu. It could have been him, visiting a school. It could have been me digging with my hands looking for my son. And to think I was worried about the age of the aircraft … Although Chengdu was not affected to the extent of the nearby cities, the American government is warning travelers to stay away from Sichuan province. I had forgotten how a mere 2 months ago, on our trip, we had been told of an 8.0 earthquake in Xi’an some 500 odd years ago that supposedly wiped out nearly a million people.

Our first year as expats in China is drawing to a close. In less than a month, we will be heading for home, to our very own earthquake zone. We have a disaster kit in the garage but now realize that if the garage is flattened, the kit probably will be too. Next week, this story will no longer be front page news. Global ADD will have set in, our minds inured to yet another tragedy.

I promise to write something more upbeat next week. In the meantime, CONGRATULATIONS TO LADY TEA for walking a marathon (The Moonwalk) with her mother and sister in the UK in support of breast cancer research yesterday. She’s my hero of the day.

There is nothing funny about earthquakes. (Or shikumen houses*, for that matter.) Just to be clear, as a former insurance adjuster, an earthquake, for insurance purposes, is an “Act of God”; it is usually defined on the declarations page of your homeowner’s policy. For this you are usually uninsured.

I have lived through many earthquakes, shakers, rattlers, rollers. I do not like them. Most I experienced in Northern California as a child; cramming myself under my desk as part of an earthquake drill was a monthly occurrence. Once I surfed in a bedroom in Southern California – that one I heard before I felt it, a hideous roaring, whooshing noise moving from the back of house to the front. On December 26, 1994 we were awoken to one shaking the wooden house of my parents. Mr. Understanding and the newly baptized Thing 1 were in bed with me. Christmas was over and we were all together so, as my mother said, it would not have been a bad way to go. Then there was the time I was getting my hair cut in a second floor apartment in the Polanco section of Mexico City when everything began rattling; I grabbed the hairstylist and looked for a doorframe. There was none. We ran outside where my driver was waiting pale-faced on the opposite of the street looking like he was going to throw up. “I thought the buildings were going to smack together,” he told me. “They were about 2 inches apart from hitting each other.”

Right before moving here, I had many earthquake dreams, which I generally interpret as fear of upheaval.

Yesterday, however, I felt nothing.

Last night I hostessed bookclub at my house. The book, On Chesil Beach, by Ian McEwan, is a gem. (He is a genius writer, if I have not waxed on about him before.) On the final page he writes, “This is how the entire course of a life can be changed – by doing nothing.” Haunting. One of my book club friends, Mrs. Cookbook, said that her husband was in a tall building in Shanghai yesterday during the earthquake. He said it was worse than anything he felt when they lived in Tokyo. S-C-A-R-Y. Thing 2 left yesterday morning for Xi’an in Shaanxi province with his classmates. He was standing outside watching a martial arts performance when the earth moved. I have not spoken with him but know that he is safe even though he was much closer to the epicenter (this will make you get out your atlas: find Chengdu and Xi’an).

As I write this, the death toll steadily rises. Like Myanmar, the final tally is not in. Unlike Myanmar, China has nothing if doesn’t have bulldozers and heavy earthmoving machinery. They will get the people out. They are doing something.

* see my response to the last post’s comments.

After several days of stellar weather, rain moved in and lashed the city today. Bea Long and I went on a walking tour of shikumen (stone gate houses) with a local celebrated artist and a group of fellow gringos, weaving our way through massive puddles, the rubble of razed houses, and clambered inside several dwellings. I like to think I am a tough cookie, that not much can shock or surprise me anymore. But this cookie is crumbling, the day’s events deflating me, in a kind of subcutaneous emotional beating that only true squalor can inflict on a mind accustomed to privacy, order, and softly scented dryer sheets. A figurative cyclone of wreckage in a metropolitan, man-made, functioning setting, this is no Act of God.

I am up and blogging at 4 a.m. because my mother wrote in that she was getting impatient for a post. A continent away, the Radish still holds sway. It has been holiday weekend here in the PRC, May 1 being Labor Day, the biggest date on the communist calendar. We had 3 days of glorious, pollution -free sun. By pollution-free I mean not visible to the naked eye. The Princess was busy.

Highlights:

*Family work parties on the 1st and 3rd. The junk is out of the upper hall and into my bedroom, but still. The vista is much improved.
*Furniture shopping with Bea Long for her house. I’m all about helping others spend their money and Bea was on a mission. The Things were with Mr. U at the X Games across town – we saw them on TV on ESPN while we were eating our pulled pork sandwiches at Bubba’s!
*Dinner party for 17 on Saturday. Many thanks to ayi, husband & children for helping make it a great success. Or so Princess Ai Lin tells me. She was laughing pretty hard at the other table and I wasn’t even sitting at it. Something about male waxing and plucking, both recurring themes on this blog. Everyone well behaved, can you believe? I am still stunned.
*Reading Bridge of Sighs, by Richard Russo, on loan from Princess Ai Lin. I am not sure this is my favorite of his but am withholding judgment until finished. (Currently, Straight Man is my all-time fave).

In the meantime, here’s a heads up: Mother’s Day is one week away. To my male readers, if you have toddlers or teenagers, now is the time to step up to the plate. As I believe I said last year, this day is akin to Employee Appreciation Day. Spare no expense. Bankruptcy be damned. Cards from the children are a must, preferably handmade. To my female readers, regardless of the age of your children, now is the time to be explicit with your family as to your deepest desires, whether that be sleeping til 10 followed by breakfast in bed, a house free of children for the day, or a new Coach handbag.

Mr. Understanding himself has been forewarned. This year I have ultra high expectations. He must run offspring bickering interference. He must be the decision maker, the go to parent. (A tall order for a man who asked me where we kept the knives during our dinner party). I do not want to make the reservation for the restaurant, remind the children to put on sunscreen, and tell them to clean the litter boxes. I like my coffee with lots of frothy foam (they already know this). This year I deserve a prize and I am guessing that most of my readers do too. How’s about a really nice bowl?

Now I am frigging tired and think I will return to Mr. U’s side. Don’t fret, Radish. The Princess will call, she will post. Stay tuned.

I have been blog “tagged” by my mother, affectionately known as The Radish (www.grandmere.typepad.com) who was tagged by her cyber friend Sue Hepworth, a British author who somehow found my mother’s blog and sometimes writes in. Sue’s website is www.suehepworth.com.

Here are the rules:

- Post the rules on your blog
- Write six random things about yourself in a blog post
- Tag six people in your post
- Let each person know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog
- Let the tagger know your entry is up

I am only tagging Leezer (www.leezer.wordpress.com). Leezer is Mood Ring Momma’s dear friend and my virtual twin but, unlike me, Leezer actually uses her law degree and is 90 lbs. thinner. Nearly a year ago, Leezer adopted Anna, a toddler from China, and has a blog devoted to just this subject: www.asongforsongsong.blogspot.com (she hasn’t posted here in a long time). She is also the mother of smart-as-a-whip Georgia and wife of El Rod (I prefer the Spanish spelling). Leezer has a bawdy, scatological sense of humor and is a history buff. She and the Radish inspired me to have my own blog.

I am also giving a shout out to the blog www.leavingdominica.blogspot.com and/or livingdominica.blogspot.com. Fascinating reading for those fantasizing about expat tropical island living full time.

Lastly, there is www.redroom.com where you can link on to your favorite, participating author’s blogs, such as Amy Tan’s.

Herewith 6 Random Things About the Princess:

1) I wore 3 different, equally hideous, bridesmaid’s outfits to my younger sister, MCV’s wedding. Well, actually, one was quasi-attractive but it did not go with the other bridesmaids’ get-ups. As I was 5 months preggers with Thing 3 and living in Mexico, finding just the right outfit was well ‘nigh impossible. But no worries. The outfits were obscured by big, beautiful hats made by La Lucy, the nutty British milliner whose claim to fame was that she made hats for the movie

Four Weddings and a Funeral

. Mine was the biggest, as befits a rotund matron, and I had to stow it in the first class storage bin. The other 3 hat boxes were stored in the plane’s overhead cabinets. Quite the spectacle: me in the family way, two kids, 4 hat boxes, and a husband smuggling a box of cubanos in his waistband parading through Customs.

2) Speaking of weddings, I was sober for three receptions: my own, MCV’s, and Mood Ring Momma’s. Felled by food poisoning from MRM’s rehearsal dinner, a Chinese wedding banquet, I was barely able to make it to the church, let alone imbibe. And that was due to a lovely waxen pill inserted in an uncomfortable location. Awful. I stayed for an hour at the reception and then Mr. Understanding took me home, along with my grandmother. Utterly miserable at missing the fun of my sister’s reception, he fed me a piece of frozen wedding cake from our own wedding four months previous. What a guy!

3) I married Mr. Understanding because he is the epitome of patience, is generally quite civil, and looked good in a pair of short shorts. I abhor men who wear short shorts but obviously overlooked this wardrobe faux pas; it was the 80s after all. He is easy on the eyes, smells yummy, and is capable of learning a few new tricks. I am so not worthy of him.

4) I have fallen in love “at first sight” three times in my life: Things 1, 2 & 3. Sorry, Mr. Understanding.

5) Last week, I followed a man down a dark alley in a Chinese marketplace. Bea Long was with me and objected strenuously. We reversed our steps, still following the man, and climbed 6 flights of stairs and eventually came to the man’s locked room where he displayed bowl after bowl. While haggling, we heard a grinding noise emanating from the building. The man was simply trying to take us to the elevator. I would never have done this in Latin America but felt it was okay to in Asia. And it was. But don’t try it yourself.

6) I swam in a river in Brazil where anaconda are reported to lurk. Later the same day I held a boa constrictor. I hate snakes and was trying to overcome my fears. My three Things all draped the boas all over their bodies, one slithering up Thing 1’s face. Having been there and done that, I feel no need to ever repeat the experience.

I was too inept to post this photo at the same time as the other but here are the Laundry Ducks up close:

It’s Thursday and I am out the door, late for my bowling league.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust …. Yesterday Thing 3 and I commended her turtle, Tiny Tina, to a muddy grave lined with camellia blossoms. Amen. I have never liked turtles, a Chinese auspicious symbol of longevity, ever since I received one on my 5th birthday from Elizabeth Gregorio as a present. My mother made me clean the turtle’s bowl regularly. Turtle output is copious. I think I did this for a few weeks and then said, “Enough”. I was directed to return the turtle to the giver; I can still remember the face of Elizabeth’s younger brother, Richard, as I handed him back the turtle in a brown paper bag as if it was a hot potato and said my carefully rehearsed speech: “I am sorry. I can no longer keep the turtle.” I then turned on the heels of my red leather Mary Janes and hoofed it back home as fast as I could. It’s really no wonder Elizabeth punched me in the arm at the bus stop for years. Then again, her parents were getting divorced.

So when Thing 3 asked to adopt a turtle from Thing 1’s friend, I was leery. “You have to clean the bowl,” I told her. I told the teen-aged giver of the turtle I was onto her and that she had to agree to the return of the turtle if Thing 3 was overwhelmed with, well, shall we say, turdle output. I had been making vague promises about turtles ever since we visited the Projeto Tamar sea turtle project in Brazil several years ago. Thing 3 was fascinated by Tiny Tina and cared for her lovingly (we know it was a her because girl turtles apparently have longer tails). For about a month. I had even gone so far as to negotiate on Tina’s behalf an attractive porcelain turtle bowl. So much for longevity. My suspicion is that the cat scared her to death. Arms and legs stuck straight out of her shell and eyes wide open all pointed to the fact that Tina met her maker in a panic. The cat has been known to get on the table ….

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In other news, Carrefour is a dream to shop in now that it is being boycotted by the Chinese. A groundswell of text messages and emails from the populace have created a China Tea Party. Dodos, the French, biting the hand that feeds them. Sarkrazy is for sure not my moral arbiter. The headlines today were beyond absurd. While the French government has apologized for the roughing up of the torch bearer in a wheelchair (who does that?) by a pro-Tibet activist, they did not apologize for boycotting the Olympics themselves. Hunh? So while I can now freely wheel down the aisles of my least favorite grocery store, it makes me sad. There’s nothing like being lumped in with the French, eyed with disdain as you purchase your milk and cheese. For those of us living here trying to make a positive, and I don’t just mean capitalist, contribution to the culture, boycotting the Olympics is not a solution.

Bad girl, bad girl, not blogging for a week! Excuses: continuing Poppy Letdown, Recipe Club (I am too old for that kind of drinking), round 2 of the watered down flu (this time for Thing 1), a return to the gym, bible study, book club (Thirteen Moons by Charles Frasier who also wrote Cold Mountain), coffee morning with the ladies of the Jewel Box community whom I have not met before, American Idol highs and lows, a birthday lunch at a cool new restaurant, travel planning, bill paying, camp signups, and Season 2 of Ugly Betty. Total naughtydom. Total lunacy.

And did I mention the interior decorator, Mrs. Pom? She might really be my NBF. Half the women I’ve met here are already moving. And, as my mother says, sometimes you have to buy your friends. I have been in contact with her ever since I was stationed on a home tour in her house in the French Concession. After Poppy left and she was home from jet-setting on various continents, I rang her up:

“I need someone to ride to my rescue. The house is an organizational disaster. I cannot think straight.”

“I’m saddling up, darling!” she cheerfully replied in her British accent.

She came the next day and made me buy some plants for instant gratification. At the birthday luncheon, I had heard that snakes frequently live in houseplants; one has to poke to soil to make sure they do not pop out. When I told her this she said:

“Rubbish,” Mrs. Pom said. “Worms, maybe, snakes no.”

As I helped the delivery men slipped the palms into their gigantic pots, I remembered Adinilton, the keeper of the palms in Brazil, and laughed. He would have approved of the purchases.

Moving along …

Yesterday Mr. Understanding and I awoke to the Pope and went to bed with him (no sniggering, it’s not funny). Lovely to have him book-end our day. The singing/chanting was over the top and it confirmed why I am a Wannabe but Not Quite Catholic. (Did anyone else notice the four types of Italian marble columns at the back of the Washington church?). One cardinal, assisting the Pope in the baseball stadium, was absolutely beatific, his happiness radiating out from him like a contagious disease. I could feel him beaming through the TV. I was so happy for him.

Part of my ability to fake out many a Catholic, besides my name, is my love of their religious accessories, for both the home and body. Juan Diego, the Virgen of Guadalupe, and a donkey adorn the top of our bar/armoire. Doves, symbols of the Holy Spirit, form a cote on my coffee table and in living room. Around my neck I wear I medal I bought with Happy in HMB in the Insurgentes Market in Mexico City years ago. I thought I was buying a Mary/Guadalupe medal, which it is, of sorts. Happy in HMB is Catholic and even she did not understand the medal. At least there are rays coming out behind the virgin. My driver Polo tried to educate me on this point but although I wanted to understand, I did not quite. The medal is worn on a chain my grandfather gave me along with a cross I bought at the Zocalo as I was leaving Mexico, a mini Brazilian Christ the Redeemer charm Mrs. O’Leary gave me, and a locket Mr. Understanding gave me for Valentine’s after Thing 1 was born. I wear this necklace in times of distress, especially when traveling, and have pretty much not taken it off since arriving in China. Talismans of faith, as it were.

During my clean up this week, I came across a book Maria the Dentist sent me. It is about St. Catherine of Laboure. She bought it for me in France on my birthday last year (there is another story here but it is hers to tell). I sat down for 15 minutes to read it and was immediately sucked in. It was the most illuminating 15 minutes of the week. There, in the middle of the book, is an explanation of the medal I wear around my neck, the result of a vision by a young girl in France who tirelessly served the poor. Voila! I have my explanation after all these years. Happy in HMB, for the first time ever, and Maria wrote in on the blog within hours of each other, the cyber convergence of friends. Coincidence? I think not.

And I did not go back for that damn bowl.

*the photo was taken in Beijing, from a car.

“Dude, that’s insane!” Thing 3 said to me last night.

“I KNOW!” I replied gleefully.

I was showing her photos I had taken earlier in the day, after a naughty trip to the junk market, a doctor’s appointment, and the flower market. I think it might have qualified as my best Shanghai morning ever. No traffic, blue sky, eyeballs no longer burning with smut and grit.

Last week with Poppy I had seen a porcelain (?) bowl in the junk market that I became obsessed with, sky blue on the inside and chocolate brown with gold chrysanthemums on the outside. The asking price was outrageous as befits my white face. I knocked the price down a bit but did not go much higher, left the vendor, and purchased some other more reasonably priced goodies. That damn bowl stayed in my mind ‘til the end of the day and I actually went back. But it was gone. Of course! Come back in a week, the vendor next to him said.

I was beginning to think I was a little crazy, to be so possessed by this bowl. I have a lot of bowls. In my heart, maybe I am replacing all of my beautiful Mexican ones dropped by the movers. I had only used them for special occasions, keeping them out of the hands of the domestic help and children so they would not be chipped or shattered, kept pristine with disuse and esthetic admiration. All to be broken by an unknown group of movers. My mother’s Mexican bowls are chipped but she still uses them. Hmmm, what’s the lesson there? Then I was reading

The Year of Pleasures

by Elizabeth Berg and the main character, too, had a bowl fetish. Relief! Vindication?

“How old is this bowl? V3 asked.

“No idea. Old but not too old.” I said.

“Old, like 100 years, 50 years, or old-new, like one and a half years?” He asked.

I knew what he was talking about. I am sure half of the things I have purchased were made a year ago and have had dirt vigorously rubbed onto their surfaces.

“Who knows? You tell me when I get back!”

So yesterday, I went back up into the market, the only foreigner in the jam-packed place, second-hand smoke filling my lungs to the brim in search of this bowl. The bowl was not there. Of course. Come back in a week, the vendor said. What, were they making the bowl? Probably. So I visited another vendor from the week before and knocked the price down off a lesser bowl but one that was still pretty. My real find, I thought, was a rice (?) bowl with a sky blue interior and black and orange goldfish with gold detailing on the outside. Wouldn’t this make a nice hostess gift, I thought to myself. The interior looked rather worn and discolored. A group of women stood off to the side watching and giggling. As the vendor was boxing it up, there was another one which he sold me too, the Chinese liking to make things in pairs. Had I been had again? Of course. I pulled my money out of my Mexican wallet, my bra, which everyone loved, and left with my arms full of treasures.

Back in the van, I showed V3 my finds. I lied when I told him what I paid for them but he still said he could get them cheaper. The goldfish bowls he thought might be old-old but the bowl he thought was old-new. Whatever.

At the flower market I bought bought peach tree branches, orchids, and peonies and an azalea for the pots by the front door. The peach tree branches remind me of weddings, the white and pink blossoms like the froth of a skirt or veil. Gorgeous. V3 bought his wife a bunch of roses and, as he perused my purchases, told me he could get everything I bought cheaper. As we drove home, he slowed down at the section of the road where we saw the chickens last week.

“Let’s look for the chickens,” he said.

Slowly we drove by. V3 started to speed up as we were coming to the end of the area where we thought they had been, almost pulling back onto the freeway, when suddenly there they were!

“Ducks,” he said, “not chickens!”

“Go back, go back, go back!” I shouted, laughing. I stuffed a camera in my purse this morning at the last minute, aware somewhere at the back of my brain, that I should be prepared.

I have posted a photo below, one far away so you will get the idea of their actual location of the elongated bodies without me getting run over in the middle of the freeway.

My advice to you: Use your bowls. Keep a camera handy. Remember that someone can always get something cheaper than you but might not have enjoyed buying it as much. Buy your wife flowers. Look at the flowering trees and remember a wedding, even if it’s not your own.

It is good to have a good day, even if it is a half of one. And I am not going back for that bowl next week. It will just have to find me again.

We are experiencing Poppy Letdown. Mr. Understanding flew to Singapore in the middle of a rain storm, but even before he got on the plane, he was glum. Me too. I spent Monday in bed watching a terrible movie, Feast of Love with two of my favorite actors, Greg Kinnear and Morgan Freeman. The message, in the end, was good, but some of the imagery made even me blush. I threw it in the trash that afternoon. That is one of the nice features of $2 movies. It costs less than a latte and if it is junk, you can just throw it away.

Part of Poppy Letdown is not having someone to share the daily wonders as I am chauffeured around Shanghai. First, there is the chauffeuring. My father would agree that I need one. Currently, Voldemort 3 is working out just fine. He is a cautious driver and a wealth of information. He gave my father a souvenir plate of Shanghai before he left, in a nice gift box. Poppy’s name was properly spelled on the tag, a feat most Americans cannot accomplish. In all my years as an expat, I have never had an employee give a visitor a gift.

Then there are the unusual sights themselves, such as a worker motoring home on a scooter with an upside-down dead chicken, its feathers flapping in the breeze, and a sack of oranges strapped to the luggage rack. Or, my recent personal favorite, approximately twenty plucked and trussed chickens hanging on poles like laundry by the side of the freeway, the fumes from cars and trucks smoking them. If we could have, we would have turned the van around to take a photo, it was that unbelievable.

In the midst of the staggering pollution, flowers, bushes and trees persistently bloom splashing pink, purple and white blossoms onto the gray landscape as if in defiance. They will not be choked. Is it defiance or is it hope?

I think about these things as I am transported by V3 from point A to point B. Yesterday, he took me to bible study. He later asked what bible study was. I tried to explain. He had never heard of Jesus. To be fair, I do not think he had heard of the other world religions either besides Buddhism, which his mother practices. I wondered what he thought the churches, for there are a few even if they are empty, were for, long ago; the crosses still grace the roofs. Regardless of your religious status, it is stunning to actually confront a vacuum of knowledge. Where to start? The world is not flat, people. Except for here.

And it is this small fact that weighs me down more than any other and yet, paradoxically, buoys me at the same time. Perhaps we are living here to offer a different perspective. Not to convert, just to be ourselves. To have our eyes opened as we open the eyes of others, to witness the transformation of a tacky souvenir into a gift of love, an act of respect: the “quotidian mysteries” as the poet Kathleen Norris refers to them. Like a child being handed a complicated, time-consuming homework assignment, I thrill and despair at the same time. Fortunately, in my case, it’s not due for a long time but I know just where to start.