Jefflog

Since my last post, our grass has come in about as good as it’s going to get without additional work. It looks great from the neighbors houses but an upclose view shows that there are still a lot of unseeded spots and rocks.I’m not sure how much more work I want to do on this but I will probably be overseeding in the fall.

You may have heard about all of the rain we’ve been getting in Indiana lately, 8.28in in May and 9.38in for June so far, versus a normal average of around 4in for each of those months. It made my job a lot easier.

When we returned from our trip last week, the first thing we noticed was that our backyard looked different. When we moved in, the front yard had been sodded but the backyard was nothing but dirt. While we were gone, the home builder had graded and hydroseeded our backyard. That’s great and all, except that we’re supposed to be around to water it every day. We had told the builder we were going away and to wait until we returned to begin the hydroseeding, but it turns out they forgot. Luckily, they had just done the seeding the day before and we really hadn’t sustained any disadvantage by the day-and-a-half we weren’t able to water.

Since then, watering the yard has been my primary task. For the first six weeks, I’m ideally supposed to keep the ground moist at all times. They say that a light 10-minute watering four times daily is all that’s required, but due to the size of our yard, I can’t cover the whole yard with two sprinklers. Watering the yard means moving the sprinklers to several locations and watering other places manually with a hose. I may be home all day but I don’t have that much time. I just do what I can.

I saw some seedlings pop out of the ground for the first time yesterday. That’s exactly the encouragement I needed.

We got back home from our trip to China on Thursday night. Once again, the trip was exhausting, with the kids only managing to get a few hours of sleep during the 24 hours of travel, and Hong and I getting even less. Even so, we were all in good spirits, especially the kids who simply loved being in the airport. I don’t know how old I was when I lost my fascination with escalators and moving sidewalks, but I do know my kids are still young enough to find the ride exhilarating. Oliver exclaims a sweet little “Whee!” any time he goes up or down an escalator, and airports seem to have plenty of them.

Once again we are all going through the process of getting our sleep schedules back in sync. Even since we got back, the kids have been averaging far less sleep than usual, yet they remain in great spirits. Hong and I, too, are getting less sleep than we normally do, with no sign of crankiness. Perhaps the adrenaline of the travel, combined with trying to catch up with a lot of things, is keeping us alive and awake.

I’ve posted some photos of the trip in the China 2008 photo album. They’re mostly family photos but there are a few pics of the sumptuous dining we enjoyed. I’ll speak more about that in a future post. In the meantime, I’ve got a lot of other things to catch up on.

I have to admit that this trip has probably been the best trip to China yet. Once again my adopted family has pulled all the stops to take care of us while we’re here, but everything else had worked out great so far.

During our trip last year, it took both kids more than a week to warm up to their Chinese-speaking relatives and to adjust to the time difference, at which point it was soon time to go back home. This time, they warmed up to the relatives within a day, and their sleep-schedules were fully adjusted within four days.

Last year, Oliver was at the age where he couldn’t yet walk yet wanted us to hold his hands to be walked everywhere. Since he warmed up slowly to the relatives, this meant that we were often the ones walking him and couldn’t be too far away. This time, he’s walking and even starting to talk a lot. He’s playing with Maggie and his eight-month old cousin Dong Dong. He’s laughing a lot. In short, he’s a lot of fun this year.

Last year, because the kids didn’t adjust well to the relatives, Hong and I never got to go out on the town by ourselves. This time, we’ve already gone out on our own four times with a week to go before we leave. Considering we only managed to get out alone twice in the previous six months, it’s a real blessing.

Last year, the kids didn’t adjust well to the Chinese food. We ended up buying some breakfast cereal for Maggie in the imported food section of Wal-Mart just to get to her to eat something. Oliver also had a hard time adjusting to the baby food that was available to us; jarred baby food isn’t widely available, and the one brand we found (Heinz, no less) had strange flavors, like ground bone, salmon, and lotus root paste to which he didn’t adjust well. We even brought along a jar of peanut butter this time in case the kids needed it. We didn’t need it at all. Maggie will eat most things as long as they aren’t spicy. It’s sometimes tough to get Oliver to eat, but we have the same problem at home, and at the very least he loves red bean buns — he proudly exclaims “Mean Mun!” as he chows down on them. In short, the kids are healthy and happy.

The weather has been very nice during our visit, with high temperatures in the 60s and 70s, so we’re able to go out often, either with the kids or without. It seems that we always get some attention no matter where we go.

If a Westerner visits Beijing, they’re not likely to get much notice; it’s an international city and there are always plenty of foreign tourists. In Taiyuan, the largely industrial city where we’re staying, there not much in the way of the tourist trade so I stick out a little bit more. I think I’ve only seen five or six white people within the five visits I’ve made here. I get the occasional stare from passersby, inflated prices from street vendors, and shouts of “Waiguoren!” (”Foreigner!”) from little children, but that’s about it.

When my kids come along, though, look out. Crowds gather around to watch. Peasants stop in their tracks with their mouths agape. Women stop and turn their heads as my kids pass by. Young people take pictures of our kids with their camera-phones. It’s like being a celebrity, complete with paparazzi. It’s a bit unnerving, looking around and suddenly realizing that suddenly a crowd of ten people are standing around watching your kids. Some will get way out of line, trying to pick them up or grab their hand, but most are content just to look at them. I attribute it to my kids having both mixed blood but also so dang cute that people can’t help but watch.

Yesterday, I reported that I couldn’t access Wikipedia from China. Apparently, it has been unblocked since then. According to the report, the opening might be explained by the following report:

The Internet must be open during the Beijing Olympics.

That was the message a top-ranking International Olympic Committee official delivered Tuesday to Beijing organizers during the first of three days of meetings, the last official sessions between IOC inspectors and the host Chinese before the games begin in just over four months…

This is fascinating. I wonder what the fallout will be when they block things again after the Olympics are over.

I tried to find any mention of the Beijing International Airport being the largest airport in the world on it’s Wikipedia entry, but the only relevant quotes I could find were

Another expansion, terminal 3 (T3) was completed in February 2008, in time for the Beijing Olympics. This colossal expansion includes a third runway and another terminal for Beijing airport, and a rail link to the city centre. It will become one of the largest airports in the world in terms of land size, and a major landmark in Beijing representing the growing and developing Chinese city.

and

Far grander in size and scale than the existing terminals, [Terminal 3] is the largest airport terminal building complex built in a single phase with 986,000 sq. meters in total floor area.

We arrived safe and sound in Taiyuan, China a day-and-a-half ago. After three planes and nearly 24 hours of travel, we were all exhausted, and spent yesterday just trying to get settled in. The 12-hour jet lag is not easy to get adjusted to. In the past, I used to take sleep medications to help me along the path, but with two kids in tow, I can’t allow myself to get adjusted until my kids are adjusted too. Yesterday, we all accidentally took an afternoon nap of four-and-a-half hours, and trying to get the kids up at that point involved a lot of crying. I expect today will offer a similar story, maybe with a shorter nap duration, until everyone has adjusted. We’ve been giving the kids Children’s Benadryl to attempt to get them to sleep longer at night, but it’s only having a small effect so far.

As such, we haven’t gotten out to see the city except for the trip coming in. I can report that the Beijing airport was completely different from our trip last year. They’ve constructed an entirely new terminal located about 5 minutes from the old terminal, in effect doubling the size of their airport. We saw construction workers still at the terminal, with light fixtures missing in places and sections closed off. No doubt the terminal is scheduled to be completed in time for the Olympics in August. On our arrival, the pilot called the Beijing International Airport the largest airport in the world. I tried to verify it using Wikipedia, but it appears to be inaccessible from China.

There was construction at the local Taiyuan airport as well, which is very rundown compared to it’s Beijing counterpart and in bad need of renovation. Alas, I didn’t see any signs of improving the current terminals, only expansion. In fact, there’s construction everywhere you look in this city. It seems like every other skyscraper in town has a crane on top of it.

One lighthearted observation before I go: most dishwashing detergent is lemon-scented in America, but here I found ginger scented dishwashing detergent. It smells good.

We sold the old house today. As much as I loved the old house, it’s liberating to get it and its accompanying mortgage payments off of my chest. We didn’t get as much money as we would have liked, but at least we were able to sell it in this depressed market.

Now that we don’t have to worry about the sale of the house, we are taking a trip to visit family in China. We leave tomorrow morning, and there is Internet access where we are staying so I hope to post some messages and pictures about the trip while I am away.

To prepare for the trip, we had to finish up all of the food in the refrigerator and pantry that would go bad while we were away. Hong made us a stir-fry using onions, green peppers, lettuce, ham, chicken, and andouille sausage. It wasn’t palatable but at least the andouille sausage was tasty.

I love to eat Reuben sandwiches. I love the rye bread, I love the corned beef, I love the swiss cheese, I love the Thousand Island dressing. I even love the sauerkraut on it, even though I’m typically neither a fan of cabbage or pickled anything.

One piece of advice in the book Stumbling on Happiness is that if you’re at a restaurant, you can maximize your happiness simply by choosing the item that you think you would most enjoy, even if it means passing on trying out new dishes. Thus, if I see a Reuben sandwich on the menu at a restaurant, I will almost always order it. I don’t eat the pickle that’s normally served with it. Like I told you, I don’t usually like pickled anything.

Before I continue relating my reverence towards Reuben sandwiches, I need to break into an aside and tell you a story about domestication.

When a man gets married, he starts down a path of “settling down”. If he gets too wayward in life, his wife will usually rope him in. There is less time for “I” activities, for you must now make room for “we” activities.

After a house is purchased, he must spend time in various maintenance-related chores. Sometimes I have observed wives pitching in by mowing the lawn, shoveling the snow off the driveway, or taking the garbage can to the curb, although I have only managed to observe other husband’s wives in these tasks. Even if a man’s wife pitches in, there are always other tasks involving hammers, drills, screwdrivers, and pliers which are invariably taken care of by the husband. Don’t get me wrong here — men enjoy these kinds of tasks. Nevertheless they must be done, and take priority over the games he could otherwise be playing.

Children are next, and this is where domesticity becomes even more apparent. Most time at home deals with the kids in one way or another, and whatever time is left over is used for maintaining the house or spending time with his wife. There is no time for “I” activities any longer. The husband has become a slave to his family.

In the rare case that the husband is also the primary caregiver for the children, as it is in my case, the domesticity goes to even greater heights. In addition to the kind of home maintenance that involves errands to Home Depot, there are maintenance issues that involve errands to the grocery store, Target, and Kohl’s. Cleaning is de rigueur.

I became fully aware of my conversion a few months ago, when Hong had received some “award points” from her company that she could spend on various items in the award catalog. Not finding anything that she really needed or wanted, she asked if there was anything I wanted. The only thing that I could really think of was a new vacuum cleaner. The catalog didn’t have the kind of vacuum cleaner I was looking for, so we ended up getting some toys for the kids instead.

As I am no longer bringing any money into the household, the next best thing I can do is make sure less of it leaves the household. I fastidiously fill out all rebate forms, and watch their progress like a hawk to make sure they follow through. (One aside: the only company I have really had any trouble with is AT&T. If you receive any offers of rebates from them, they should not be trusted.) I also watch Amazon.com for special deals, and go through the weekly grocery store circular while making my shopping list for the coming week. If I got a newspaper, I would undoubtedly clip coupons. It’s a wonder I haven’t started collecting Betty Crocker points or making my own clothes.

Last week’s grocery store circular was featuring St. Patrick’s Day as its theme, and among the specials on pots of shamrocks and Guinness beer were sales on nearly all of the ingredients needed for a Reuben sandwich: corned beef, sauerkraut, and swiss cheese were all discounted. I saw my chance to indulge and assembled everything I needed to make the sandwiches at home.

The recipe had been solely for myself. Hong hates rye bread, sauerkraut, and swiss cheese, so she won’t go near it. I invited my kids smell the sauerkraut and they wanted nothing to do with it either. Yet, I managed to tempt them into taking some bites of my sandwich, and whaddya know, they liked it! Even finicky Oliver, who typically must be cajoled or distracted in order to eat anything but rice and bread, was asking for more. I felt proud that indeed, these are my kids.