Jefflog

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.