Alas, new gym, we hardly knew you

A little more than a year and a half ago, we joined a gym. After our one-year membership expired, we checked out another gym near us and decided we liked it better- the price was a little better, the yoga classes were free, the treadmills had fans, it wasn't in a basement, and they didn't have heat lamps shining on you while you exercised (OK, so gyms here aren't exactly like the ones in the States. We occasionally see people walking backwards on the treadmills. And one gym said they don't need toilets because "people can just use the showers").

So we joined the newer gym that had just opened, and we've been faithful members there for two months. And then our old gym bought our new gym so they could close it down.

This is a common phenomenon we've experienced here. Once you find something you really like, it tends to get shut down. Our favorite restaurant, favorite sauna, favorite you-name-it- once you make an emotional attachment, you can be sure it won't last.

Fortunately, all members of the new gym get their membership transferred.
Unfortunately, we're back under the heat lamps...

wash with like colors only...

Every now and then, as we go about our daily life here, we run into something that highlights just how different this country is from the U.S.

We bought some new laundry detergent this week, and as I (Rob) was reading the directions to figure out how much to use per load I noticed that the instructions weren't making a whole lot of sense. And then I realized- I was reading the hand washing instructions. Most laundry detergents have instructions both for hand washing and for machine washing. Many people still don't have washing machines, an item I never used to consider a luxury. Now imagine how we try to explain to our friends here what a clothes dryer is...

Remembering

Today would have been my dad's 60th birthday. I don't think I ever was able to imagine my parents in their 60's- they always seemed so young to me, more so as I grew older.

My father taught me the importance of childlike faith and the value of play. No one worked harder than my father did, but he also took every chance to laugh, relax, and enjoy every moment. He was always trying to figure out what would make someone smile, and I hope I've inherited that precious gift of making people comfortable.

As hard as it was to imagine my parents growing "old," it's been even harder to imagine my future without them. My children will never know them as grandparents. I won't have them to turn to when facing the compounding confusion of adulthood. Maybe most of my sadness is pretty selfish- maybe that's usually the case. I feel deprived of the future I expected. Even now I wonder what home-spun wisdom my father would have to say about all that (and what down-to-earth practical perspective my mom would give).


Happy Birthday, Dad.
We're celebrating in our own way here- a continent and a lifetime away.
Maybe we'll watch Oscar and eat popcorn with M&M's...
Love,
Rob and April

Rob's Confessions- Part 2 and 3

When hanging up my clothes, whenever possible I try to match the color of shirt with the color of the clothes-hanger. This presents some problems-
1) I have very few "metal-colored" shirts (solution: I hang black shirts on unpainted hangers, since black is the absence of color and a metal-colored hanger is unpainted)
2) One of our last hanger purchases was pastel colored hangers, and I have (almost) no pastel shirts.
3) I have more gray clothing than any person in the world should. Which leads to confession number 3:

When doing laundry, I have whites, colors, and grays. My wife (who ironically is maiden-named Gray) teases me about this. I just tell her gray is my favorite color...I felt so symbolic yesterday...

Rob's Confessions, part 1

We recently moved, and life is a bit crazy. We finally got internet hooked up, but there's so much else on our plates that blogging is not even on the back burner- it's in a box in a closet somewhere, along with most of my books and badminton rackets.
Anyway, I thought I'd share a few mildly humorous confessions- this one being the first:

I am so technologically challenged that when my internet is slow, I check the cord for kinks, because part of me still thinks of it like a water hose. I imagine a kink in the hose and a great big back-up of information filling the cord. Once I straighten it out, I'm just sure that everything will move faster...
Sometimes I think I make our I.T. guy cry...

Year of the Tiger

Another new year = Fireworks aplenty. Today was the fifth day of the Chinese New Year, the day on which we welcome the arrival of the money god. Apparently, the money god likes a lot of noise. Perhaps he is nocturnal- because the fireworks went all night. Even now, 24 hours later, I still hear fireworks every other minute. I get pretty cynical about the money god, because even though most people here would say it's only a tradition, superstition, nothing they really believe, the god of most people in this city really is money. Can I be both judgmental and tempted at the same time?

Anyway, it's nice to be back in our apartment after a few weeks away. Our lease expires in 3 weeks, though, and we've decided not to renew. It's time to downsize. One year ago, we really did need a place this size, but things have changed over the past 12 months, and we're looking for something smaller and cheaper. It'll be sad to not have a kitchen that both April and I can fit in at the same time, but who knows- maybe there's another one out there somewhere :)

Sunshine, Sicknesses, and Smiling Babies

So I feel somewhat humbled and embarrassed. After my weather rant a few weeks ago, we've ended up having the mildest December I've ever experienced. I think I need to apologize to the universe (or at least the local weather system). April keeps reminding me that December isn't always that bad. It's January and February that you have to look out for, so maybe my nibbling on humble pie is a bit premature. I still think we've had a few amazingly sunny weeks. My apologies to the atmosphere.

In other news, I'm just getting over dysentery. Chalk that up as one sentence I never thought I'd be saying (or typing). First, I never thought I'd get dysentery. Second, I didn't realize dysentery was ever not fatal, so I couldn't conceive of "getting over" it. I think when I was young I read too many missionary biographies where the protagonist has a friend or loved one die of dysentery. Apparently, there's plenty of non-fatal versions; though for a few days I was pretty sure I was a goner. It's good to be able to once again eat food and keep it in my body for more than a minute. Major kudos to April, who for the first 3 days of my dysentery (which actually went undiagnosed until day 5) also had to care full-time for Helen. Helen went back to her foster family on Saturday.

And just so this post ends on a happy note, let's close it with some appropriately censored pictures of Helen. The one of April feeding her is possibly one of my favorite pictures from the past few months:

Welcome Helen

As promised, here are a few Helen videos. The organization that set her up with us asks that we not show pictures or videos of her publicly without blurring or blocking the eyes.



Helen will be 1 year old next Monday, but she's developmentally more like a 5 month old. She had surgery to remove a large something (not sure if it was a tumor, sack of fluid, or what) from the back of her skull, and the bone still hasn't re-formed back there, so she's really sensitive on the back of her head. She also has a shunt (don't worry, I had to look that word up, too) in her head that drains the excess fluid down into her stomach. Because of her special physical needs, she's been in foster care since her surgeries. We're watching her while her American foster family is out of the country for a few weeks.

She sleeps most of the night, which is good. But she can get fussy during the day. 'Fussy', for the uninitiated, means she may cry and scream for 2 hours with no apparent reason. But like most babies, when she's happy and sweet, you forget the fussy times:

Helen Arrives

We got our foster baby today. Helen will be with us for 2 weeks. She'll turn 1 year old on the 28th, had surgery a few months ago and is with us while her foster family is overseas for a few weeks. We'll try to get some pictures and videos posted soon. Right now we're a little busy with our trial run at parenting :)

It's crazy (Rob's reflections)

Something I have found morbidly entertaining in East Asia is that whenever someone commits or attempts murder (including suicide) or causes some other atrocious, headline-grabbing spectacle, the news reports that the person was later determined to be suffering from a mental disease. When you press the issue further, you find that this is a society that believes you would have to be mentally messed up to do anything like that. It's a real, live Catch 22.
"Why did he stab his boss?"
"Because he was crazy."
"How do you know he was crazy?"
"Because he stabbed his boss."

Well, forgive my naivete, but could there be another explanation? Could the reason be (warning: four-letter word ahead) EVIL? For years I have brushed this off as an quirk of East Asian culture. But then, a few weeks ago, I read an opinion column on the Fort Hood shootings, and within a few sentences the author said he "takes for granted" that anyone who would shoot other people has a mental disorder. Have we gotten to that point? Has evil been factored out of the equation? How long until we realize that, without that component, the equation will never add up?

One thing I appreciated about George W. Bush was his unabashed re-introduction of the concept of 'evil' into public dialogue. He spoke of certain people, actions, ideologies and even governments as just plain evil. He also took a lot of flack for that, but I for one admired it.

C.S. Lewis, 60 years ago was writing about the danger of seeing criminals as nothing more than mental/emotional/social problems that just need to be 'fixed'. is it too early to call Lewis a prophet?