The Fab Four!

My dad gave my mom a Christmas present in which, the family would go to a professional
photographer and get family pictures. The first time we went to see them, we took the subway
to the path and then we took the light-rail train to Hoboken. The studio looked like an
apartment to me. Of course, there were no beds and other furniture, but the layout seemed like
it could become an apartment if they got the right furniture. We met the photographer and his wife. The photographer seemed to be a very nice, relaxing guy. We talked about what we would use the pictures for, what type of pictures we wanted, what we should wear, all that boring stuff. By the time the adults were finished talking, I was ready to start posing! As we were preparing to leave, the photographer offered to take us to a nice restaurant for lunch. He let us ride in his little car. The car was really small and bright orange convertible! I had never seen a car like that. He dropped us off at the restaurant and also told us that we could take the ferry home! After having lunch, we went to the ferry and got on and sailed back to Manhattan.
The next time we went to the photographer, we brought our dog with us, Miss Murray. Of course, we didn't take the train. We rented a car instead. Once we arrived, mom and I put on
the littlest make-up and got ourselves dressed. Mom wore a white denim jacket, a green skirt,
and a white top. I wore a shirt with a star on it and some pink pants. Dad wore khaki slacks and a blue shirt.
Our dog, Miss Murray, was frantic. Mom probably already wrote all about her but just in case,
let me tell you that she was born in Oklahoma and raised on a farm. She was not socialized and
wasn't used to different people. It was hard to get Miss Murray still so that the photographer could take pictures of her and the family. The photographer was very flexible and funny. He would make noises to attract Miss Murray's attention. Usually his little tricks would work. It was like he could speak dog! We posed in many different ways. Mom always says that there was no camera I didn't like and she may have been right. I did many different things. I jumped up in the air, ran toward the camera, did twirls in the air, and many other things.
The wife was the business women. She worked out what we were buying, what size, what type of material we were going to use, the costs, all those type of things. The photographer had already narrowed it down to about twenty pictures that he thought were the best. In the end, we chose a picture of me jumping in the air, a picture of my mom and Miss Murray, and the picture you see above.

THE limo

Well I didn't intend to capitalize the THE but it works for this story. We went off to have dinner in the Village with friends last night carrying our contribution of french bread and blue and red Le Creuset pots full of short ribs. Yesterday was cold and rainy, snowy and generally disagreeable with people on every street corner trying to hail cabs. So we agreed that we might abandon our principles about only taking yellow cabs and take a Black Car if one came by. One came by and we passed but as the situation became colder and more desperate, we reverted to plan B. So we agreed to take the next Limo or Black Car that came by. And lo: it was a white stretch Limo that had 12 seats, indirect lighting, air conditioning, wines by the glass and a very chatty Wewst Indikan driver who regaled us with stories about the rich and famous. Clearly something we weren't as he rescued us from our corner of Madison Avenue. We are so uncool that we called our friends to alert them to our arrival by stretch limo. We had such a great time and as the driver drove off he was chuckling that he had made our day. Indeed he had.

That was just the perfect kick off for Christmas Vacation. We leave on Monday for Columbus and a week of festivities....yowsah, yowsah. We are all so looking forweard to this. Bring it on.

Christmas

In spite of the toxic cloud of the economy, christmas is thundering along. For us it's about getting presents and clothes and ourselves down to Georgia via Delta, Fed Ex and whatever else moves people, equipment and presents.
Last night was the Museum Christmas party which I avoided in order to go to the John Murray Christmas party which I always prefer. Although I am on record as not liking parties unless, of course, I am giving them, this is one that I really enjoy. The lobby is overflowing with poinsettas, a large Christmas tree and several oversize balsam wreaths. There was a musician playing a steel drum, drinks, nibbles, wonderful egg rolls made by the Philippino housekeeper down the hall and Santa Claus played by the day doorman. It was all well staged with what I would describe as a non-clown clown giving out balloons and people from all over the buidling stopping by for a drink or a quick chat. There are so many children living in the building now and most of them are 3,4 and 5 year old little boys who scream at the top of their lungs and careen through the lobby. Kate is now an old lady in this group but she still hangs on and insists on a stocking and sitting on Santa's lap.

She came upstairs last night lamenting the lack of faith among the kids. "Did you know that all the kids know that Santa is really Joe the doorman? I didn't know that for a long time."

"Well," I said, wasn't it more fun when you beleived in Santa?

Oh, yes.

Getting ready for Christmas

I made another effort to make ice skating here at the Museum on plastic more palatable by inviting another kid to join Kate. Neither of them liked it. No spraying ice as they turn or really going fast. So I'm over this effort. I actually liked it just for the reasons that kids don't like it. You don't suddenly find your find your feet going out in front of you and your rear end on the ground. Kate looks like a hockey player as she goes around the rink and so I'm arranging a safety lesson for her on Sunday. She doesn't skate well enough to go as fast as she does.

It was damn cold this morning and blissfully we did nothing as the windows glazed over with the interior heat and frigid temperatures. I finally roused myself went off on a solo visit to the hair dresser carrying the requisite Christmas offerings. Because we are trying to be abstemious, it's not so fun when you emerge newly coiffed and find that you're hungry -- should I waste the money on eating out -- and interested in buying new socks -- should I buy them at that store -- or just want to
look around and pass amongst them. So I nipped into one store cluthcing my coupons and then came home to find all my family in exactly the same positions that I had left them. Then I dealt with lunch. Next time I will definitely stay out longer and the money spent on lunch being served to me will definitely not be a waste. It will be part of the pleasure.


We finally bought out Christmas tree and for me this is a sacred routine and tradition where you go out to look over the stock of the local guys who have trucked down from Canada with their trees. You have to get them to unwrap every tree, shake it so that you can see the leaves and then bargain. I remember that my father did this in an overcoat and hat. Well, that part of the routine doesn't exist anymore. But we found a tree we thought might fill the room and carried it home. This was another of those ill fated decisions. We didn't really measure the tree and after we go it home we had to cut off some more height. Then after we set it up, we discovered that last year we had splurged on a beautiful top ornament. Too bad we forget about it until the tree was standing. And then there is always a fight about the tree, the lights, the tinset, the something. And then we ran out of time to finish but we had to get moving to go to Kate's soccer which is at the revolting time of 7:00 pm.


Good that we have no life and no commitments to the opera, theature or friends. However it is a real pleasure to watch her play soccer now. She is really very good and not surprisingly, when she started she wasn't so good at all. Plenty of energy but no skill. Now she still has all that energy and good skills.

Sunday we went off to the park with Miss Murray in tow, back to pick up kate for her skating lesson, "I hated it Mom" and then off to her tutoring. Whew. We finally found some time to go meandering and went to the movies without Kate who was safely nestled in with Kathy and Buff.

Tomorrow Kate and I will finish the tree.

Holiday Concert

Last night we went to the Holiday concert at school to see Kate play trumpet as part of the 6th grade concert. She looked sensational. She was wearing a wonderful dress and had just had her hair cut! I've always tried to tell her that it looks elegant, stylish or makes her look older. Anything other than the dreaded "You look so cute, sweetheart." But according to Kate, all her friends think she looks better with long hair. I'm sure I'll live through this period with her hair hanging down her back limply or looking like a failed Farrah Fawcett Majors. But why do I have to?

Global Warming

It's 60 degrees today. Yesterday was 50 and Monday was 16 degrees. Totally discombulating....And I finally heard Christmas Carols today which made me feel much more jolly and in the spirit of the season.

The Weekend

I kpet thinking all weekend that I had momentous things to write about but now that I have 3 minutes carved out of my day....it all seems pretty banal. I learned that work from one of Kate's vocabulary lists! Bravo for me.

Last week seemed crazy in its intensity with heavy work pressures for me and an "encounter" for Kate. She and Lile went to a theatre/circus performance and were bullied by several 11 year old boys who were sitting behind them at this afternoon performance for school groups. They pulled her hair, called the girls "chinks" -- a word that Lile had never heard -- and started to trash talk. I think Kate was furious butnot sure how to deal with boys other than to beat them to dealth but that seemed not possible because everybody was sitting in a theatre. The chaperones apparently missed the encounter and it wasn't until Lile's Mom got there that anything was done. Susan swung into action and was an amazing avenging angel who made people accountable. The girls were still steaming that night and me, too. But these are the encounters that we never want our children to have, although we know that they will. Our job is to let them know that stuff like this happens, it's unacceptable and to give them the tools to take care of themselves. "Throw 'em a beating" seems good to me except that boys are usually much strong. And giving them a tongue lashing sounds good but I'm never sure how effective that is. The irony for me is that I'm always predicting something awful will happen when we leave New York and sometimes it does. But not always. Sometimes these kinds of outright prejudcie and stupidity happen right here in my very own home town.

the rest of the weekend was fairly predictable. We took Miss Murray to Central Park on Saturday which is a most worthwhile investment. She gets to run off all her energy and as she continues to be more and more comfortable in her own skin, and with us, she has more and more energy. When she first came at the end of September
07, she was virtually comatose. Well, not comatose but so depressed as to seem boneless. Not now.

We went ice skating this weekend over at Bryant Park which has real ice as opposed to the Museum's rink which has fake ice. Well, Kate and Lile went ice skating while Susan, Arnie and I all watched from the warmth of some inside tables and chairs. Then I went off to challenge the shoppers and get a new Cuisinart at Macy's. I was a warrior on a mission because I hate Macy's and I hate Macy's even more when it's full of tourists and gaggles of kids all going to see Santa. Yuck. Got my severely reduced Cuisinart and got out! And then I made scones in my new cuisinart.Nearly severed a finger because my old Cuisinart was OLD and this one has much sharper blades.

The Talk

Well, the ubiquitous they say that you cannot have The talk and then just be done ith it. It's more like a constant chat.Sort of the way they say that there is terrorist chatter....that's the way you talk to your kids about sex. actually although I had a major chip on my should going into this morning meeting, I came out thinking that the school was doing a good job. Talk to my child about oral sex. i think not. But by the time I left it seemed more reasonable to me to establish some open conversation about sex and to transform that conversation into an exchange about what I expect from her and what her family expects from her. We've had some open discussions, provided the books but then I'm always afraid that we will leave it too long and be sorry. So this is just another way to talk about self identity, limits and balance.

And I was thrilled to have this teacher say that this is a very young and immature class. Not budding Lolitas, thank you.

Perfect Parenting

Just received an e-mail from kate's school calling all the parents to an early morning meeting to hear about the curriculum for their Human Relations class. Last semester it was about nutrition and this semester it's going to be about teeens, tweens and sex. Get the drift here? One of the topics will be oral sex so you can bet your bottom dollar I'm going to go to the goddam early morning meeting to hear how they are going to talk about stuff I definitely don't want to talk about.

When I casually, is it ever?, mentioned oral sex as a topic for this class to kate, she asked what it meant. And in my best shrinky mode, I said, What do you think it means? Ah, oral sex is talking about sex?

It's over. The holiday that has the least meaning for me is done for this year. As a child my mother would always carry on about how this was a Yankee holiday and how silly it was to be cooking Turkey which she didn't like. It was also probably silly to her because all her family was in the South. So after fretting about Turkey, she would set up the card table and we would wrap Christmas presents for the dozens of cousins in the south.

Done. During one period of my life we used to forego Turkey totally and cook a huge steak and just go to the movies. That was very relaxing and the movies were never crowded. This year was almost like that. No trips to Arizona, although just before Thursday, I began thinking that we should be in sync with millions of our fellow americans and take to the road. But sanity prevailed. No warm weather, no family and no incredibly long flight. Next year I am hoping that we can persuade everyone to go to California. Or Vienna. Wouldn't that be nice?

On Thanksgiving We took Miss Murray to the Park, went to the gym and saw a new kids movie, Bolt, which was a pretty funny send up of the movie industry and then had dinner at about 6. I had to work on Friday but since we closed early, very early, it was a stolen day. that day Kate and Lile went skating on the Museum's new eco rink and then we all had dinner together. Saturday Kate had a playdate/sleepover and we had a playdate for dinner with friends. All very relaxing and seeming like lots of down town. Read books, went to the Library, fretted about conditions in Mumbai and then went out for a celebratory lunch with Kate to a cuban restaurant with live music after her tutoring. She is doing so well with the Hunter test prep. I think this test is always a scene but this year with so much economic upheaval it will really be a madhouse. Actually we went to the main library that has just mounted a show about Yaddow which is very text heavy but quite interesting. As interesting was trying to explain to Kate why people wrote such long letters. Arnie said the modern equivalent is blogging. Hard for her to realize that there was a world with typewriters and no computers....

Now I'm on to Christmas. On Donner and Blitzen....

Way Cold

It is way cold. When I took Miss Murray out this morning, I knew that there would be no relaxed trip up to Central Park today. Too cold.

However I had to come into work this morning for the opening of the
Museum's new Polar ice skating Rink which is not only eco friendly because it's not real ice but plastic and it is outdoors! I absolutely wore the right coat but the wrong shoes. I wore stylish boots for an earlier shoot and forgot the guiding principal: be warm and be comfortable.

This has been a killer week in terms of being very busy and having to work nights and some part of this weekend.

In addition to all the craziness at work, we had our parent teacher interviews at Friends for Kate who is absolutely doing gang busters at school. She has some great teachers and asks good questions, both at school and at home. However i think we need to work on her leadership skills because if she is too bossy than she will be a leader of no one....

Wordsmith

So my favorite expressions right now are "What a noonoo brain." That's for Sarah Palin and then anybody else who seems to fit right in. "Fuck a duck" which everybody in my office uses all day. Ya know, it's the stress. And then "Are you barking?" That's my current fave because the British are so understated...

We watched 60 minutes last night broadcast their interview Barack Obama's first major interview since being elected and I thought it was splendid and a major event. Arnie got it. I got it. But Kate wanted more information about his family which is pretty normal i think. When the Johnson girls moved into the White House, I used to fantasize about how that would be. Not for long, but enough to enjoy the day dream.

And then last night we emptied our coin jar and discovered that it toted up to $200. Cause for a family discussion. Go out to dinner, put it in the bank, or buy really great christnas presents. So we comprimised and everybody got $25 and then we are putting the rest into a stock that we can watch. Carefully because we must be noonoobrains and absolutely barking to do this now.

We are now the owners of one share of Warren Buffet's heretofore amazingly high perforing Berkshire Hathaway. I am thrilled. I don't want to climb the Materhorn but I've always wanted to own some Berkshire Hathaway stock. some=one. And I've rationalized this expenditure as being educational for Kate because she will start following the stock market. I certaily will.

Specially since this morning she pitched a fit about taking a cab to school and I fianlly worked my way through all the grown u- caveats, it's not raining, we're trying to save money, it's not so cold, and what do you mean you want to get there early? Ok, spend your allowance. To my shock she said fine, here's $5. Do you think that's because she received a $25 windfall last night.

I'm worried about my Christmas present....

The last 2 months efore Xmas

That is the countdown to Christmas and the New Year which are for me absolutely jammed packed with Must do's and gotta spend. Normally I would love that and all those articles about how people feel guilty about spending money....bag humbug. If I
had it, I'd spend it with pleasure, with gusto. But this year I'm looking to skate through in a frugal waltz with necessity. I'm actually trying to find joy in the depression. Actually just carrying a Christmas tree home may be a good thing this year. Kate always wants to do that since we did it the first year. But I'm so lazy that I like to go way west to the piers and choose a beautiful tree, bargain for it in the style of my father who always wore a hat and gloves on these hunting forays. But the difference is that I then want to have it sent. So this year we're gonna carry it back. In fact, if anybody wants to know how I'm economizing -- this it.

We're still playing fall soccer outdoors and unfortunately we've been rained out for the last 2 or even three weeks. But for the winter we get to play at chelsea piers which I hope will be fabulous because it's a far newer facility than Pier 40. Although Pier 40 with its enormous outdoor green and acrobatics on the upper level is a pretty astounding surprise here in the City. i've always hated chelsea Piers because of the parents that used to accompany their children to ice skating...whining. It's not just at soccer.

And next week the Museum will be opening an ice skating rink with artificial ice. I once saw such a rink in China in 1999. It was an indoor rink in the south China town of Nanning and people were quite happy to be ice skating in August! The Museum rink will be open from 11:00 am to 11:00 pm and that should be a great place for a date and a cuppa hot chocolate.

So, my greatest news -- forget world peace and other obtainable goals -- is that Kate ate cheese souffle for dinner. It was the offering of the evening but who knew that she would actually eat. Maybe I can add it to the
other 5 items of food that she will ingest. yowza, yowza.

and I may just give into my latest lust and buy an iphone. More will be revealed on November 22.

The Day After

Well, metaphorically speaking because actually it's several days after. Arnie and i went to bed early and neglected our civic duty to Kate and refused to let her watch the returns come in. Well, refuse is a harsh word. I was scared that McCain would win and I would have 4 years of trying unsuccessfully to distinguish Sarah Palin from Tina Fey. Bingo I am in good shape because Biden and Obama neither look nor sound alike.

In spite of riotous celebrations in Harlem, most of the people I know let out with a few cheers and heartfelt thanks that we didn't go over into the abyss. But now I really have to stop reading the newspapers because it's all so grim...except for the weather which this November is amazingly warm. We are all still in light jackets and the idea of Thanksgiving and Christmas are pretty foreign. It's not cold enough and the idea of randomly spending money that you may not have for too much longer is pretty scary. Apparently I'm not the only one and that's the case for millions of consumers across the country.

However all that frugal talk aside, Kate's new rug arrived and looks gorgeous. I don't know that I ever had wall to wall carpeting in my bedroom and my bedroom growing up was the maid's room. But Kate has very large room and now she has a very large green rug which is gorgeous. Just no spilling of milk or vomiting please.

Our Dog Only Poops on east 72nd Street

Well,thats not true today. But I was beginning to think that a cab ride uptown and the smell of Central Park were the essential ingredients for this dog to do what she needed to do.

However this Election Day -- can you believe that it's actually here? -- she, too, seemed to get the message that this is a time for change. Arnie and I went to vote at 6:00 am and we had to join an already long line. Eureka. Unfortunately the poll watchers and poll helpers are usually rude and incompetent. Parr for the course but when they are stupid on top of that, it's teeth grinding time. However all that comoplaining aside, I was out of there in 15 minutes. Arnie may still be there for all I know even though I offered to let him change his name to Slate and vote in a more timely fashion.

Now it's tooth grinding time tonight as we watch the returns come in which we will do as a family. I really think we should be watching them with someone who voted Republican so that we can spend the entire night screaming at each other. That's actually something that I enjoy but maybe after 2 years, it's enough. But still I have that sneaking urge to take the entire subject on....we have been ever so polite and not really rammed the subject home with family or friends. Of course we know about our friends, it's just our family that seems to be inscrutable...

Because I'm off today I also have the great pleasure of picking Kate up from school. Something that any working mother wants to do more often than not. And today the rug guys are here to install Kate's new carpet which will be a great and one hopes pleasant surprise for her.

A Day at Home

I usually feel guilty about staying home from work unless I am so sick that I hardly know where I am, and just stay in bed, just barely responding to anything except the feel of cool, clean sheets.

For the past week I felt as if I've been dodging a cold or to be more accurate, a cold has been stalking me. So on Thursday I gave up. I stayed at home and as soon as I made the decision I felt better. I wasn't dying but I sure didn't feel good. But perhaps the most therapeutic part of my cure was being in the apartment alone. No husband. No child. Of course you're really never alone. I had Miss Murray and then there were innumerable comings and goings all during the day. The housekeeper, the grocery store delivery, the dog walker coming, the dog walker going, the housekeeper leaving to pick up Kate and then Kate was home.

But the bulk of my day was spent lying flat on my back on the bed. I looked at the ceiling, considered the folds in the green and white curtains, listened to the whosh of pneumatic brakes on the Madison Avenue bus, watched the motes of dust dance in the sun and became aware of the rhythms of the building. In Ian McEwan's book, Atonement, he describes a woman lying in bed with a migraine. She is immobilized with the pain that results of she speaks, or even lifts her head but she is super aware of everything around her. Well, I didn't have a migraine but I became so aware of the sounds laughter and conversation floating up from the street, the vibration of the elevator doors opening ad closing, and the whosh of water running behind the walls when a toilet was flushed. That part of Atonement was just brilliant.

My day at home was wonderful.

school days

Last night we went to the annual Friends open house for Middle School parents which gives us an opportunity to follow a sample school day of classes compressed into 2 hours but without incurring any homework. I've been doing this this for 7 years now and Arnie has been doing it for at least 5! (Eureka) and so we have made friends and enemies out of this group, that is,parents we like tremendously and those we don't like because they behave as if they belong to some kind of high school clique. But back to the main focus which is the quality of education that we think Kate is getting and a real emphasis at Friends on learning for its own reward, without a constant barrage of tests as the benchmark. Kinda nice. And the teachers seem to be very committed and diverse. I specially liked Kate's Science Teacher who admitted that his real goal is to turn his students into scientists.

In addition to her homework, Kate is also taking Chinese and test prep on the weekends. Add a couple of hours for soccer and the requisite chores at home like setting the table and this child is overworked. So she says.

Bringing Up Baby

I've tried twice before to post and discovered to my dismay that everything evaporated which i took as a sign that I should quit trying to blog and get back to my normal state of sloth.

Kate and I played monopoly this weekend and she has become really very very good at it. I usually win but this time I saw that with Alice's coaching, kate had become a very sophisticated player. She immediately advised me to borrow severl thousand dollars from the bank, take out a mortgage, set up a long term payment plan and build hotels. I must say that I was totally taken aback. This was not my game of Monopoly but what the hell, in for a penny, in for a pound.

Ironically it gave me the opportunity to demonstrate some basic economics to Kate like why the stock market tanked and what it means to buy sub prime mortgages. I even understood the subject myself. Modern living.

Chinese lessons and soccer completed my life as a suburban mom on Saturday and then Sunday we off for tutoring to help Kate prepare for the Hunter highschool entrance exam. I always hated tests and really wasn't very good at it. Something I didn't share with her because she loves this kind of competitive testing of what she knows. In retrospect I would have loved this kind of help and Kate's really lucky to have this kind of preparation which will stand her in very good stead with the Hunter test for sure but also for the SAT's and any other competitive test she takes.

After several months of facade construction at the Museum, I have newly renovated and uncovered windows in my office and the weather is so spectacular that I am positively thrilled. Soon i will be able to watch them blow up the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons. Last night we were able to have dinner on the roof for the second time in as many days. About 5 years ago i remember going to the Columbus Day parade thinking that I would die from the bone chilling cold. This weekend was warm and wonderful. And it continues.

Saturday

The Sky is Falling

Well chicken little the sky is falling. That's clear. Although it's still not clear in New York that people will be out selling apples tomorrow. Maybe the day after. The restaurants are crowded and we are all looking over our shoulders as we go about our day to day life. And the debate last night between the vice presidential candidates did little to make me rethink my doomsday scenario. I fear that like the Russians we will get the government that we deserve. What dopes they are. And what dopes we are not to have paid more attention as we swanned through the malls of life!!!

However my bright spot was taking Kate to school this morning. She is suddenly taking some care with her appearance. And today we out in the crisp October air wearing light jackets. Hers was an olive quilty jacket and she was wearing black flats. And my jacket is also an olive quilty jacket, and me too, I was wearing black flats. I think I always wanted to dress like twins, well maybe not like twins but like someone. That's perhaps one of the yearnings that only children have which is to see themselves in duplicate. But I remember seeing a young blonde type couple in France who were wearing matching blue checked shirts. Sounds not so great now. But at the time I thought it was very cool and so French. The thought must have lingered because I loved that Kate and I were wearing similar clothing and yet managed to look like our individual selves.

Just a weekend...

I think my weekends as a 10, 11, 12 year old kid growing up in New York were pretty laid back and casual. My favorite Saturday morning activity was curling up in one of our large green leather armchairs in Harry Potter's cloak of invisibility to listen to my favorite radio program which had the Teddy Bears Picnic as a theme song that went something like " if all the bears that ever there were....I was quite confident that I was alone on my chair and no one could penetrate this safe space. Then my father and I would go out for our Saturday date which meant lunch at Longchamps Restaurant and a movie. Or an exploring adventure in the City. That seemed to be about all we did.

But of course memory consistently fails you. By Friday, the three of us are pretty tired from work and school, and Miss Murray is also pretty tired from nothing but sleeping through the week. So as we are thinking about kicking back, she is looking forward to playing with us and going to Central Park. And on Saturday as the weatherpeople were beating the toms toms about yet another storm and endless rain, we set off for the Park. We have a ritual now where Arnie goes out in the street to hail a cab, Kate plays on her Rocket Stick which is a skate board with only two wheels, and I try to pretend that I am unconnected to these people and just happen to be walking by with the dog. So that when Arnie opens the cab door, I am in a good position to leap into the taxi almost before the cabbie can object.

The Park was heavy with rain from the previous 24 hours so that while the ground was muddy, all the trees all looked misty green/grey and there was a slight fog that made me think about Paris. All very romantic. Miss Murray knows where we're going now and positively bounds into the Park which represents amazing progress. Miss Murray arrived at LaGuardia from Oaklohoma via Houston just a year go and three trainers later she is really very well socialized now. Well she is well socialized at home with us. I actually thought this morning that a diagnosis of ADD would be right for her because at 5:30 am she is distracted from doing what dogs traditionally could and should do by the sound of a car door slamming, the whosh of bus brakes or the sight of someone walking along in the early morning gloom. But we love her and give her unlimited hugs. And she gives limitless love.

Accelerated Growing Up

I think that Kate has changed very little physically during the past couple of years with one exception and that is her newly developed love for wearing Black clothes. This is just the end result of living in New York with a mother who wears black more than any other color.

However in the space of about two weeks it seems to me that Kate has CHANGED. Big Time. A late birthday present allowed her to have her ears pierced at Spa De Da which made her look older and she was interested in watching herself in any and all mirrors. Then she cut her hair from a straggily down her back do to a short shoulder length bob which gave her a decided air of sophistication. Follow that with a trip to the Dentist for braces which I gather are something of a status symbol. A nusinace but statusy all the same. And since Kate has finally taken responsibility for her second pair of glasses, she wears them all the time. The first pair remained in her possession for two weeks and bit the dust somewhere in Maine.

Last night she and Arnie went out for one of their Japanese Daddy Daughter dinners and Kate looked sensational. She also spent a great deal of time preparing for this evening out. She wore a gorgeous black dress, hand me down from Maggie Gibson, put on pearl earrings, ditched her glasses, applied lip gloss and eye make up judiciously and then tried to slip into her party shoes. No dice. Her feet have grown so after a whole sale search in all of our closets, I sent her off wearing a pair of my black not so high slingbacks which were too big but not so big that she couldn't shuffle for 3 blocks to the restaurant. I also wrapped her in a shawl so that she would remaine elegant and not freeze in the September air.

So, she's changed physically and emotionally. The other day she couldn't even figure out why she was such a wretch which made me smile because I was a truly hideous teenager and never understood why I could never do anything right. But now the eye rolling and slightly rude confrontations are beginning in earnest. I understand that it's part of the process but I hate it in the morning when I don't want ajida (sp) and incessant criticisms about how I do everything wrong. But when I talked about this with our house keeper Alice, she said that she always describes me as a West Indian mother who gives her child love but also sets limits and disciplines bad behavior. Made my day.

From 1.6 billion people to 100

I'll have to check the actual statistics because while I am sure about the population of China with its small towns like Xian, population 8 million, I'm not as sure about the real stats for the island of chebeague, right off the coast of maine withs lobster fisherman. There is a number for winter and summer.

I'm sorry that I didn't have my brand new computer with me on this trip and every day I've been thinking about posting about the simple and delicious pleasures of our life on Chebeague where Kate and I have been spending one or more weeks every year since she was 3 years old. Grandma Dot has rented a wonderful-awful house on Aarons Wharf Road with a great view of an madly untrimmed meadow and the red/white/ and blue Casco Bay Line boat that plies the Bay. Kate has always called it "My Boat" because she knew that that was the way she could go home.

The rental house is ramshackle and tilted with doors that don't close properly and windows that sag. But it also has a claw foot tub on the second floor that looks out over this meadow of wild flowers with the bay in the distance.Iit's been my morning ritual to sit in the tub with the windows opening on chilly Maine mornings and watch the vapor rising from the rapidly cooling bath water and just feel enormously contented. Usually Kate is downstairs with Dorothy and I am happy to hear the hum of their voices in animated conversation.

This summer Nick Wessel, the owner of the property, announced that he had finally sold the house to a Harvard type. Good luck to her because I think there are all manner of problems just lurking in the house. No, not sour grapes because we have so enjoyed the house and being in Maine. I can't say that I am a Maine fanatic because I'm far too fond of my creature comforts and actually like to swim when it's hot, but increasinly I am a big fan of Chebeague. So much so that when I heard that the house had been sold, I got busy researching a house for us to rent next year and have Grandma Dot as our guest! I have to make that decision by January.

When we first came up to Maine, there was a swing hanging from a tree in the backyard and when we could get Kate to go outside -- too many bugs, Mommy -- by herself, then she would install herself in the swing and be amused for hours. Painting with Dorothy was another happy pastime and the summer that Arnie came up with us, they painted together. We told Arnie that there was Nothing to do. No bars, no restaurants, no stores. Nothing to do. So Arnie did the intelligent thing which was to transport books, cigars and good scotch along with a very warm sweater. He had a good time. I think that was the summer that the Inn didn't want locals to patronize the restaurant at the Inn. I remember that we tried to make a reservation for dinner and they wouldn't let us do it. We walked up there and actually saw the empty restautant which the staff was totally booked. They went BK. This summer he was too busy with the AM C to take off for a week but next summer looks to be better in terms of scheduling a vacation there.

Every year Kate has had her birthday in Maine and it's always been deliciously low key. Anna Hamilton has been the constant Birthday guest and participated in Pin the Tail on the donkey, Statues and other real kid birthday activities. A cake with candles to blow out has been essential along with some presents. This year one of Kate's best presents, although not exactly labeled a birthday present, was the freedom to take off on her bike in the morning and came and go around the island as she chose. This is the freedom that people write books about and kids who live in New York City rarely experience. It was great for her. And it was great for me. I could clean up after breakfast and then tuck myself into an Adirondack chair with a book resting on my lap and consider the cloud formations until it was time to busy myself with preparing lunch.

Really heaven.

Catch up

My posts from our annual visit to Grandma Dot on Chebeague don't exist because I didn't take my new computer which wasn't up and rolling. Silly of me. The week that Kate and I spent in Maine were glorious. We

had sensational weather, freedom to bike up and down hills, and enough leisure time to just sit in an Adirondack chair and consider the cloud formations and carelessly turn pages in a book restig in my lap.

We spent the night in Portland at the worst hotel, the Eastland Park, imaginable which was in a very convenient part of town which is really any part of Portland which is very tightly organized like any good old fashioned port.

Wrap up

We're all happy to be back home where we can have cold drinks with ice, use tap water to brush our teeth and in most cases speak English to people who will generally understand us. Kate is specially happy to be back where people won't stare,, to be in her own room and to be sleeping in her very own bed. Its the sleeping, of course, that will be a problem for all of us because we are still on China time which is 12 hours ahead of New York. It's 2:30 in the afternoon now but I'm so tired because in my mind it's 2:30 am in
the morning. I just want to lie down and sleep.

Instead we will be going out to get a hamburger as soon as the tennis match between Nadel and Federer is over! Which is a good thing because for the last two weeks I've not had to make any decisions. In China my most serious decision was what to wear in the morning...after that all other decisions were made for us. No thinking about what you're going to do, what restaurant to go to and once there what you're going to eat. It was all on the itinerary. It's no brainer to arrive at a restaurant, sit with the other parents at the adult's table and just watch the food come out of the kitchen. My cooking, housekeeping, and creating menu skiills are definitely rusty.

But we are finding the New York air this July 4th weekend cool and almost arctic after the heat of Shanghai which at 9:30 am on the morning we left, was so hot that I almost didn't visit an amazing 4 story English language boostore that had everything from Danielle Steele to Nathanial Hawthorne.

One of our first tasks today has been to go through our mail and so I had some time this morninf to read Paul Goldberger's recent piece for the New Yorker about the architecture of Beijing which he thinks is stunning. It is stunning as is some of the Shanghai architecture where they are erecting phantasmagorical buildings shaped like pretzels, like bottles, like fans. But for me the thing I really noticed about Beijing's architecture was the size of the buildings. They are truly enormous. Gigantic even. Also for me Beijing was a big dusty sprawling frontier town where in certain seasons the dust from the Gobi still sweeps in. People are always on the move, rushing about in some aimless but restless pattern that I could never understand. And all manner of vehicles clog the streets. People on bikes carrying cannisters, chicken coops,or children, one or two people on motorcycles, people scurrying along on foot, in taxis, in vans, in small trucks, large trucks, in parades of concrete grinders, all moving through streets that have no traffic lights and seemingly no traffic rules. It would be a scary place to drive. And it's a scary place in which to be a pedestrian and to try and cross a stret. Even Arnie who likes to challenge everybody on the road agreed about that. Ironically however I noticed that many of the major highway signage, not street signage, but highway signage, was in Chinese and also in English.

Some other random thoughts :

* We often saw Mother's carrying small children wearing pants with a large slit that ran from the crotch up the back. Most Chinese kids don't grow up wearing diapers but instead wear these pants which give them more freedom especially in the chinese toilets which are generally two footpads and a hole in the ground. Kate's reaction when I pointed this out to her was "Yuch" and then I reminded her that when I first picked her up, she too was wearing pants just like that. And yes, of course, I still have pants. And the shirt and her shoes.

* There is tremendous reverence for uniforms and many people in China who deal with the public wear them. Whether it's the same red t-shirt that all the waiters in the dumpling restaurant wear, or the spit n polish uniform of the toll takers, subway workers, airline workers, Museum guides, there is a great love for uniformity. You often see large tour groups,this was especially true on the Great Wall, where everybody wears the same red or orange baseball cap.

* There were 5 families from all over the US on this trip and out of 20 people, 10 were children and 10 were adults. And out of that number, 5 girls had been adopted from China. At the adult table we talked several times about the cirumstances that had brought us together and wondered if the time period from 1993 to 2007 would be considered an aberration in Chinese history. During the last year, China drastically changed the requirements for international adoptions which has made the wait time increase from nine montyhs that I waited to be assigned Kate to up to 3 years. Some of these changes include totally excluding single parents, requiring a hefty minimum income, mandating that adoptive parents not be overweight, or sick, etc. Perhaps these changes were part of a public relations campaign to better position China as an economic powerhouse in preparation for international media attention during the Olympics this summer, and perhaps this reflects the ability for the Chinese to adopt domestically.

I'm just waiting for the historical revisionism to begin.

JULY 4TH

Arrived in Shanghai yesterday afternoon on an early flight from Guilin. By the time we left for the aiport, Arnie was in real pain and unable to walk. We negotiated the flight and the airports in a wheel chair. He stayed in bed all afternoon and wasn't able to go on a evening boat ride in this incredible city of 18 million people. Yikes

This morning we went to a nearby hospital aided by Michael Han, our fearless tour leader, where we had a terrific experience, spending only 1 hour there, and learning that Arnie has a kidney stone. So much for a groin pull. He spent the rest of the day in bed drinking bottles of water and resting. Kate and I went to the Shanghai Museum which was sensational. More stall souvenir shopping in extreme heat persued by the most aggressive peddlers I've ever encountered. Little bit like being Princess Diana fleeing from the paparazzi. I went to buy some tea and had a tea tasting.

We spent some on the roof of our hotel drinking with the other parents on the tour which was a great way to end the trip. We fly out tomorrow!

A day in Liu Zhou

It took us some 2 hours to finally arrive at what had been Kate's orphanage and is now a nursing or old age home in the non descript town of Liu Zhou which means near the forest. OUr guides are always talking about what the government is doing for the people; parks, holidays, gigantic buldings, etc. And in this case it's my idea that the Governmentkis also building 4 lane highways in all these towns and consequently there is some similarity among some of these places. We take the Liu Zhou exit and then start frantically calling to figure out the location of the orphanage/old age home. It's way off the beaten track past several factories, a mountain of refuse and other industrial wastes. This is not going to be the Eureka moment for Kate. The Director has not been available by phone for several days, the head of nursing who comes out to geet us looks to be 12 and is not specially interested in our visit. She tells us that none of the files are available and that all of the staff has scattered. We are invited to take a look at Kate's old quarters but they are now a parking garage amid a sprawl of a pleasant enough interconnecting one story yellow buildings. There are no answers to our carefully crafted list of questions and no possibility of ever seeing the files. Finish

Kate and I dissolved into tears of anger and frustration. But then we drove onj to Kate's finding location which was a local police staion. I hadn't realized that I even had this information until just before we left for China and this was a great find. The police were really nice and seemed interested in our quest for information although they said that all the police had retired 5 years ago. But we were able to take pictures of Kate at the police station.

So much for all that. Then our guide suggested a quick lunch at a local restaurant. We actually went native and stopped at a roadside restaurant where they cooked in an open stall and everybody eats at tiny roadside tables sitting onj small plastic stools. Our guide took one look at the stalls and said, We go to the crowded one because the food will be better. We sat ourside and ate a steaming bowl of noodles in broth spicy with red peppers which were so slippery because I'm not that ept with chop sticks so I was practically wearing my lunch. In the end I had to toss my white shirt and white pants which were freckled with red oil.

This was really a case of food being a restorative and we all felt better about our day. We also felt better once we got back to the hotel and hit the swimming pool.

By this time Arnie seemed to be in increasin pain from a groin pull that was moving around to back.

E

Crunch Time

Today's the day we visit Kate's orphanage in Liuzhuo. This place is so rural, even our guide isn't sure how to get there. A small town, industrial, but said to be pretty. If there's a focal point for our visit to China, this is it. We're all a bit nervous about what we will or will not find. Still, we believe we'll be a stronger family unit when the day is done, for having undertaken this adventure. Wish us luck!

Guilin - River Li

Sue Tsai is our terrific guide here in Guilin and she took us firmly in hand from the moment we stepped off the
plane into incredible humidity. Even before we were allowed to check into our hotel, she took us to a park with large lake that the Chinese who can see animal forms in anything, call Elephant Trunk Hill. It's supposed to look like an elephant's trunk of course but in spite of my lack of imagination it was a great place to really breathe some fresh air and detox from the plane. But at Elephant Trunk Hill I also saw some Cormorants and I was delighted. I remember these birds from reading Ping the Duck as a kid and then it was all reinforced when I read to Kate about the fisherman on the Yangtzee River. The cormorants wear tight rings around their necks so that they can dive for fish but the rings prevent them from actually swallowing.

Yesterday we took a half-day boat trip down the River Li which gently floats you through some incredibly beautiful country with amazing limestone hills which are called Karsts after the explorer who discovered them. We continue to look for the China that we imagined at home but the reality is often very different. Here we did see something of that older China house There is alot of life lived on the river with people bathing, washing clothes and just watching the flotilla of tourist boats. At one point I felt vaguely like Captain Cook putting into shore when two persistent hawkers hooked up their very thin bamboo rafts to the boats offering up buddahs and other souvenir stuff.

After the boat ride we took what they call an electric car with another family we met on the boat into the country and again this was the China that we thought we would see. Very slow pace of life, very hot of course and people squatting in shade. We were all glad to get back into Guilin and head for the swimming pool.

For dinner we negotiated our way through rush hour traffic of green taxis, bikes, motor bikes, private cars, vans, trucks and motorcycles with and without a side car to get to a Szechuan restaurant. Luckily we were dfriven because I would not live long here as a pedestrian.

Dad Gets a Cold

Dad has this terrible cold consisting of a running nose and a cough. Poor dad. Mom said that how miserable dad felt she loved him. I said that no matter how miserable he felt, I loved him and no matter how miserable he was, I loved him too. My mom had this cold too. I almost got it too but it did not affect me the way it affected them. My mom had brought some medicine to China but sinced she had the cold first, she used all the medicine. Now we cannot find the medicine that helped my out so much. We keep on buyung medicine that our guide recommends. Oh well. I feel bad for dad.

The Li River

We had so much fun going down the Li River just outside of Guilin. As we saw beautiful mountains we took lot of pictures of the wonderful scenery. Sue, our personal guide in Guilin, pointed out many different land marks in China along the river. The Chinese have great imaginations because they are always looking for some other meaning of a simple object. They have a mountain with nine horses, painted it seems, on the mountain. Really it is the coloring of the lime stone rock. All the mountains are limestone. They say that Guilin was underwater for some time, and all the mountains were under water. Hard to believe when you see how large the mountains are. There is also a rock that is called something like "The Yearning for Husband Rock." The rock is supposed to look like a woman with a baby on her back and it seems that she is looking for her husband. I did not get it at all. All the rocks had some different colorings in the limestone. I could not see the nine horses either. Oh well.
We met this very nice Indian family on the plane to Guilin. There father sat next to mine and they got to talk to each other. They have a daughter around my age and a son. We saw them on the cruise along the Li River. We got to travel together. We got go down to the water and under the bridge. the rock underneath was very slippery. The little boy almost fell in. I was standing next to him so I immediately grabbed him. Of course it gave everyone a scare because people say that millions of people die in the Li River each year. If he did fall in, I might have gone in after him because the water was so nice and cool, so inviting.
By the end of the day I was ready to swim. The out door pool is wonderful. Mom and I went down and played Marco Polo. Of course my mom cheated like always when she plays Marco Polo. She gets frustrated when she cannot find me. Then we played dunk the other person in the water were I lost. Then suddenly, there was a loud burst of thunder. Then the rain came down in torrents. Sheets and sheets. It all happened so quickly. Soon the life guard said that we had to get out of the pool. I was very dissapointed because I am not going to get a lot of time to swim because the pool opens pretty late. As soon as we got to our the rain stopped and we went back down stairs. I was still very cranky about having to leave the pool for five minutes. That is all for now!

Guilin

The group split up yesterday with all the families taking different flights to their orphanage towns. We will meet again in 3 or 4 days in Shanghai and I think it will be so interesting for the girls to share their individual experiences. Some of the orphanages have basically gone out of business and are now old age homes and the few children they have there are probably special needs kids. Kate's orphanage has never been open and I've never been there. I picked her up in Nanning a charming town very near the Vietnam borded so this trip to her orphanage in the town of Liu Zhou will be a first.

We flew into Guilin in the souther part of China, which is known for its beautiful scenery. Every Chinese scroll seems to be painted with the mountains of Guilin. The guide explained yesterday that this area had been under water for many years and I was really reminded of the black smokers in the Hall of Planet Earth at the Museum. The mountains look like black smokers just covered with vegetation. Quite striking.

This morning which is the anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, we are going on a boat ride on the River Li and ikt turns out that all the foreigners go on one boat and all the Chinese go on boats together. I secretly just want to go to the swimming pool! And we've reached that stage in our trip where we are all a little homesick. We want to sleep in our own beds, we miss Miss Murray and me, specially, I want to eat something other than Chinese food. There seem to be no ethnic or immigrant groups that are large enough to sustain a restaurant of their own food. Even the French who only eat French food have restaurants of other cuisines. Therefore here there are no vietnamese, Thai or any other kind of restaurant. Last night we had dinner in a restaurant called McFound which looked exactly like my idea of a Wendy's but had great food. But Chinese.

On The Road Again

We left Beijing some time ago and came to the beautiful and historic city of Xian. The reason I'm so shaky about dates is that we organized ourselves around the computer, and blogging of course, and when we got to Xian, all of our computer stuff went down.

We've been to a sort of Panda Preserve outside of Xian, toured the improbable and amazing Terrac Cotta warriors and of course we've gone through all kinds of souvenir and food markets. The Pandas were to have been a big highlight of the trip and all sorts of photo ops planned around cute children holding cuter pandas, but the Chengdu earthquake put a stop to all that. We saw pandas but the entire zoo, because that is what it was, seemed rooted in the 1950s.

In fact the earthquake has made this trip more relaxing because we are spending more time in each place. But since the temperatures are hovering in the 102 to 105 range, I'm glad that we are moving more slowly. Although early the other morning we all rented bikes and rode 9 miles on the Xian city walls which was great fun.

Today we are going to the Big Goose Pagoda. Sounds like a destination to me.

All the kids continue to bond and the adults as well. It's a very easy group and will be happy to leave them this afternoon as we go off to Guilin andthen to Kate's orphanage and then glad to see everybody again in Shanghai for a day or two before we fly back to the States.

Temple of Heaven, Ming Tombs, Great Wall - Yow!

On Tuesday morning, our tour group went to the Temple of Heaven, one of the largest temple complexes in China. More inspiring than the architecture - Hall of August Heaven, Red Step Bridge, Echo Wall, Seven Star Rock, Hall of Abstinence - was the park setting itself. Hundreds of people engaging in physical and spiritual exercise Groups of retirees practicing tai chi, various martial arts, flying kites, ad hoc operatic concerts...it's like Central Park with heart. Our local guide, William, has bonded with Kate. He loves her grasp of the language, she his exuberance and humor. The rest of the day included visits to a silk museum, a local marketplace, an acrobatic show and a Peking Duck dinner.
Wednesday morning, we visited a jade factory and walked the Sacred Way at the Ming Tombs. Sixteen Ming emporers are buried in the hills, spread over fifteen square miles. The Sacred Way is a four-mile approach to the tombs, lined with 36 stone statues of soldiers, animals and mythical beasts. The morning was misty, the arrow-straight walkway secluded and quiet, lined by weeping willows. It was an eerily beautiful walk, thoroughly rejuvenating...Which was a good thing, since the morning was spent clambering, climbing and clawing our way up the Great Wall. The section at Badaling, where we went, was built around 1505, during the Ming Dynasty. It was restored during the 1950s and 1980s, and has tourist amenities, unlike other sections of the wall. I don't think you could ever find a time of day when there weren't a gazillion people climbing alongside you there. But it was awe-inspiring nonetheless.

MARCO POLO

kate has been spending as much time as she can in the pool with Mei and some of the other children on the tour playing Marco Polo which is pretty much a water version of blind mans bluff. So last night exhausted from too much of everything, kate called out in the middle of the night, "Marco" and when there was no answering "Polo," said again in an aggrevated voice "MARCO" and when I answered "Polo," she went right back to sleep.

Today's sermon...

I got a call this morning at 3 am (3pm yesterday in NY). A friend and business associate who wasn't aware I was in China. Ed worked with me at my previous job, under the same tyrannical egotist. He was calling to let me know he lost his job. I couldn't get back to sleep after that call. My first thoughts were of recollecting my anger with my former boss, and of how I might help my friend. But then, selfishly, I began to think of the contrast between Ed's situation and where I am in my life these days. I love my new family (and my old, too, of course) and I love my job. Our health is good, and we're on an awsome adventure in a magical place. Life is good. I found myself thinking happiness is a fragile thing, and when you have it (whatever "it" is for you) it's so important to recognize it, wallow in it..

Imagine a forbidden city of 9,999 & 1/2 rooms (1/2 less than the Emporer's boss..God). Incredible craftsmanship. Nesting palaces within palaces. Enormous wealth..and (for the accountants out there) an intricate mathematical hierarchy dictating the size of each palace, the number of bridges, the size of doors, the number of mythical beasts guarding the portal, the color of each roof (nine beasts and a yellow roof reserved for the emporer).

And that was just the first stop on the first official day's tour. We visited a kindergarten where our kids sung the Do Re Mi song (from the Sound of Music) to the class, and they sung it back, in Chinese. Cheesy? Yeah, a little bit, but touching, as well. We had lunch at the home of a local resident who resided in one of the thousands of hutongs (ancient alleyways bordered by walled homes). After lunch, he serenaded us with some ancient stringed instrument, while our male guide sung opera in the female's role. Then Kate was invited to play the instrument, and several cats in the neighborhood fell off their fences. Then, on to the drum tower. Seven zillion steps to the top, followed by a 360 degree view of Beijing. Kate bonded immediately with the other kids, so when the tour ended for the day at 4:30, they met for a swim at the hotel pool. We met a friend from the States for dinner at a lovely Vietnamese restaurant, looking out on a lake...Kate's head was in her plate before the appetizer came.

Well rested now, though, and ready for another fulfilling day. More later.

BEIJING - Sunday

Another hot and steamy day. I'm hoping for rain and a great cooling. But so far it's just damn humid...We met Martin,a guide I had arranged through Grandma Dot and he came by the hotel at 9 am so that we could explore and feel more comfortable here. We immediately sat him down and said that we had an urgent need for a cup of coffee and croissant. Arnie is having sugar withdrawal because everybody seems to eat watermelon and not have his compulsive need for chocolate. And now add coffee to that list. So with this mid course correction firmly in ace Martin took us to the Mall, I can't remember the name, but it is the largest mall in all of Asia. I hate malls but it was pretty impressive and most of all we had COFFEE. Lots of coffee.

I am whining about the heat, Arnie wants coffee and Kate is in heaven. She can't believe that we are really here and she is the object of a lot of very positive attention from both casual passersby and other people we have some contact with such as tour guides and waitresses, etc. Everybody wants to know her Chinese name which she now gives in the Chinese way with the last name first. There is always some conversation about the real meaning of her name in Mandarin and then a runaway discussion of the tonalities involved. Her name Wen Fu seems to be a combination of Lucky or Fu and then Wen could be warm or it could be interested in literature and writing. Well you can see how much fun this is for Kate. Many discussions about the shape of her face and what region she might really be from. Even though she is from Guangxi these topics are rich. And then there are the people who just stare. The Chinese tend to stare at everybody including other Chinese so Kate is a good target. The other day our taxi was stuck in traffic along side a bus and by the end of 5 minutes or less, everybody in the bus was staring at Kate who was alternately defiant, shy and then in gales of laughter.

Our life so far is reasonably relaxed, swimming this morning, off to the Lama Temple Complex which is still the home to many lamas who live and work there. The Lama Temple, bordered by innumerable small stalls that sell incense and other memorabilia,is a series of interconnecting squares with braziers set up in the middle for people who want to burn their joss sticks. You start with the traditional happy Buddah and by the time you wend your way back through these mirror squares you come to the big and towering Wenfu Ge which is enormous, maybe 55ft high.

We went on to lunch in some nameless but very good Chinese retaurant and then bought jade bracelets and a jade necklace for kate. We then staggered into the Modern Museum of China which is quite sensational with alot of avant garde and interactive art. Full of families checking it out. Nap time. We all had trouble getting up and going on to dinner at an open air restaurant by the Lake which seems to be a popular gathering place for families and then at night it becomes the street of bars. One bar after another all with live music. We are all exhausted now.

The real tour begins tomorrow.

BEIJING - Saturday

We're trying to figure out what kind of city Beijing is and at this writing it's still a mystery. Of course we haven't been here very long, and the neighborhood of our hotel is somewhat sanitized and architecturally boring with enormous and I do mean enormous buildings that tower over the 8 lane streets that are always teeming with cars and bicycles. I think we're a little nervous about venturing into other neighborhoods handicapped as we are with our non existent Mandarin.

The first night at the hotel we met a family from Bklyn who also came to Beijing for our tour and who came early to give themselves time to get over jet lag. What a joke that is. Everybody in our family and in theirs is still sleeping at inappropriate times and waking up in the middle of the night. Maybe we should have done the jet lag diet! Anyway we wll went out together on Saturday morning to see what we could see. First off we took the new subway. So modern, clean and very futuristic. It's so clear what a force the Olympics has been on Beijing with the massive construction, and other initiatives. I was interested to know that there is no smoking in restaurants and you will be charged for asking for a plastic bag in a shop.

Anyway we went off to Tia'an men Square just to see what was there. And what is there is a very large square indeed which is really not so interesting looking unless you remember that the
student protestors were crushed by tanks in 1989 or so. And then it's interesting. However on this humid Saturday morning it was full of tourists, Chinese families protecting themselves from the sun with lilac colored umbrellas, children in party dresses and a sprinkling of oh so thin Chinese military moving around purposefully.

We went off to a dumpling restaurant that we had read about in the WSJ and finally found a cab to take us there. Like cab drivers world wide Beijing drivers are a grumpy lot but in their case they never seem to have any knowledge of where you want to go. We always get there but it seems to be a major production. Great dumpling house and Arnie was in hog heaven. He loves Chinese food and anything that is not moving seems to be fair game for him. So after plates of dumplings with lamb and coriander or pork and carrot, it was wonderful to watch the two girls go slack jawed in astonishment at this large earthenware bowl covered with a two inch layer of ed peppers. The waitress scooped off alol the peppers and what was left was fish that I certainly didn't touch but I loved the drama of the presentation.

Beijing

Our hotel room is on the 15th floor and we have great light and a window that reminds me of the Musee D'orsayhYesterday I sat our window

The day after we arrive.

When I woke up ( four in the morning,) we all went to the pool. What fun! The pool was very big and it was shallow. I could touch the floor in some places, some places I could not reach but it was still easy to touch after dunking into the water. The problem was that we had to wear swim caps. I hate swim caps. They make you look weird, and they are uncomfortable.

We met up with some friends who is on the tour. They had a a girl my age and we spent the whole day together, mainly in the pool! We met them at a breakfast buffet. The watermelon was so delicious! The girl is very nice and talkative, just like me! We had a lot of th ings in common. We both loved sports for one thing. When we went to the pool I did not realize that there were free combs! The other family pointed that out to me.

We went to the Tian'an Men Square, rumored to be the largest square in the world! It was so hot! We got bottled water. Well actually we got bottled ice, which quickly melted on the hot sun.

The hotel is placed in a very deserted neighborhood. Dad and I took a walk while mom was still half a sleep. We walked a couple blocks, fearing that we might get lost if we went to far, and headed back because there was nothing to see. Later that day we realized that if we had taken a different street we would be amongst lots of shops to look at.
We took the subway! We got tickets that look like metro cards except thicker. It was easy to use. All you had to do was hold the card up to the picture of the card that was on the machine. You would hear a beep and the little doors would slide open. It was easier than in New York because sometimes you swipe the card to fast you have to try again. That is the same if you swipe to slow.

en route

Sallie says

Imagine what might happen if you left home without a wristwatch, cellphone and/or blackberry? No, there's no answer just imagine that. I'm doing it.

We left New York on Thursday morning via La Guardia for Toronto and then straight on to Beijing. Like making movies, so much of your time is spent waiting. Waiting for a taxi, the traffic, the airline personnel to check you in, the TSA security....you get it. Finally it's your moment in front of the camera or on the plane. And Air Canada was trumps. I had been imagining this flight in my darkest moments as sitting up in a straightback chair for 18 hours, like the night watchman do in certain Manhattan ATM's. But we quickly learned that not only was our NY to Toronto flight undersold but so was the Beijing flight. Empty seats which I decided quickly to liberate for myself, Arnie and Kate. We managed to spread out in such a way that what I did without a wristwatch, cellphone and blackberry was to sleep. Even clutching the newest Lee Child's book, I was that sleeper you sometimes see on planes. And it was only 12 hours and amazingly enough the plane was clean, the service was mostly helpful and food plentiful, hot and tasty. I know I'm writing like I never travel but too many trips on domestic airlines to Arizona can make you really quite appreciative of a flight like the one we had. Yeah Air Canada.

The Beijing Airport is newly constructed or some parts of it are newly constructed and the whole thing will look like a dragon! It's high tech, clean and enormous making New York airports look pretty third world! You see how finely organized Beijing is about the Olympics. Quick lines through immigration, an airport train and squads of efficient looking personnel are positioned everywhere, and the whole atmosphere is very impressive. Actually what was just as impressive as the corporate can do culture was the ability of our guide to reach out person to person and cut through a real problem we had when Kate left her fanny pack and new digital camera in a ladies room in the airport. I thought it was gone forever -- who gets stuff back from airport ladies rooms --because we couldn't go back through immigration but as we were driving from the airport in heavy New York type traffic, I mentioned this problem to William Li our guide. He picked up his cell phone and in a matter of seconds called someone to find out that a fanny pack with a camera and pack of Mongolian playing cards had been turned in. Holy Cow. Now how did he do that? That's my idea of being a fixer.

We are comfortably ensconced on the 15th floor of a really nice hotel in Central Beijing and we've all been down to the rococo Egyptian swimming pool. A perfect antidote for too much time spent on a plane. We also met one of the families who arrived in Beijing today....more time to see them for the next two weeks.

Tomorrow we will actually go out and see stuff. We are so off schedule in terms of time that
we will probably be up by 6!
I'

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That be me, the dad. So...I'm as excited as Kate and Sallie, to be taking this trip. It will be poignant for them, piercing, touching, both painfully affecting and pleasurably stimulating...err, wait, that was last week's party.
But seriously, I'm thrilled to be part of a trip that will serve to make us stronger as a family. Reliving the past, and transitioning to the future. Not to mention the food. What, 12 regional cuisines to sample? So much to gluttonize, so little time.

The Day Before the Flight

Today is the day before our travel to China. I am Kate writing. I am so excited I feel that if I keep too still my head is going to explode like a volcano!

I am looking foward to this trip. I still cannot believe that I am about to go on a plane all the way across the world on a, what seems to be a "legendary", trip to China. My mom keeps on saying, "Oh this summer we should go to China." She has been saying that for a couple of years now. Now we actually are going!

I am waiting to have an eurika moment when suddenly something reminds me of when I was a baby. Maybe a smell or a sight, something that reminds me of, what I call, my "babyhood."

I was born in China and my mom adopeted me from the orphanage. This will be my first time back to China. Infact, when I think of it, there will be a lot of firsts for me. First time I get to have my own digital camera, first time I will have to endure a very long flight since my babyhood, and my first time having my dad's old phone that only works as a toy. (cool)

Now I am going to prepare for cranky parents during security check and sitting in one place for eighteen hours.

The China Trip Begins

It's taken all of us months to really focus on this trip. It just wasn't real. We mad our airplane reservations in February, had endless helpful communiques galore with Michael Han and time to read the posts from a variety of groups devoted to going back to China. Not even irritating encounters with the Chinese consulate in my increasingly desperate quest for visas seemed to make this real.

Then Kate's school let out for the summer and the very next day she woke up early and packed her suitcase. I think that was the signal for all of us to take notice. Her previous ambivalence about the trip has seemed to diminish. She packed her suitcase, repacked her suitcase, at my instigation she made lists of what to pack and then packed the whole thing again. Arnie has now also packed. I'm still the
only one who hasn't packed. I've begun slinging stuff in the direction of my favorite orange suitcase, made
some notes about what I might pack, what I might really wear in high humidity and taken a crack at who
I wish to be during these two weeks: chic traveller, comfortable tourist or a combo of both. Those are
my image obsessions along with a real reluctance to acknowledge how long the flight is going to be. So of course along with the clothes are a ton of books.

We will leave on Thursday morning at 8:30 am for the airport, and if we're very lucky, then we and all our
little suitcases should surface in Beijing on Friday afternoon at about 5. Isn't that a daunting thought?
When I went to China in July of 1999 to pick up Kate, the entire flying thing was different. I used to go up
to the United checfk in desk and ask confidently for three empty seats together. And I got them on every leg of the trip. I somehow can't imagine doing that on this trip although my experience with Air Canada is nil. It's just that flying is like taking a greyhound bus now. Soon the stewardesses whatever they are called will really be teamsters. We are flying from New York to Toronto, changing planes and then flying from Toronto to Beijing.

We are all so excited.....Me, too even though I feel totally
absorbed in the details, such as remembering to pack a lunch for our trek, making sure that Michelle who will be dog sitting for Miss Murray knows where the fuse box is, thats just in case she turns on two air conditioners at the same time and tries to iron anything, picks up the right key so that the dog walkers can still get into the apartment, etc. Enough already! this is my vacation and a two week vacation at that.