Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

It's that half-chinese kid! Michael is on his way here. We'll pick him up around 1:30 p.m. today at SFO. Whooohoooo!

The last couple weeks have been VERY busy with:

hiking
quilting
birthdaying
bbqing
partying
strawberry-picking
and lots more ings.

Hope to post more often in June!

Head 'Em Up, Move 'Em Out

It's me, ha ha , taking a photo of a cow. Yeah, I'm enough of a city girl to think bovines are pretty cool when you can get this close to them. We were on a bike ride in the Wildcat Canyon Regional Park (northern Cali) when we ran across these lovelies.

We've been riding our bikes quite a bit lately, and I'm getting a little bit more in shape. The long winter took its toll on my fitness level. I have more photos to post but no time today, so I will try to do that after the 21st, when my schedule eases up just a bit.

Tomorrow Mike and I leave for Florida to visit his dad and step-mom. We'll be back on Friday. My cousin, Laurel, will look in on the cats while we are gone. I hope they don't have too many parties and wreck the house. (The cats, I mean, not Laurel, LOL!)

My Precious (my laptop) is not going with us and there's no internet at Art & Betty's house so I'll be totally off-line until late Friday. If you need me, call my cell phone!

Back soon!!!

Plan and Prepare for Your Dreams

And they're off! To Chile, that is!

My sister, Karen, and my Dad have been saving a little money every week for four years; yep, you read that right - four years! They've had a joint savings account and they have always said, as soon as they have enough money they would take a trip together.

It was their dream to do this. And because they planned for it (although they didn't know exactly when) and prepared for it (even though they hadn't decided exactly where they'd go), the day came around when the account was big enough that they decided it was time.

They decided on two weeks in Chile -- including 5 days on Easter Island! -- set the dates, bought their tickets, make reservations for lodgings, and got their passports ready.

This past Monday evening my mom and I drove them to LAX and they were off, their dream had come true.

We've had a couple e-mails so far, that they arrived safely, and are having a wonderful time!

It's a great lesson to the rest of us. If there's something you want to do, start planning for it, even put it on the calendar if you can. Most dreams don't just come true on their own; you have to do your part. Somewhere I read that you should take at least one step every day toward the fulfilling of a dream, or a goal.

Just one step. What are your dreams? Have you started preparing?

One-Word Wednesday

AWESOME.

Trials, Tribulations, and Trips

So, the trial lasted exactly one day, including seating the jury, the opening and closing statements, witness testimonies, AND the jury deliberation. Yeah, it was a shorty. It basically involved a homeless man who interrupted a police officer occupied in towing the guy's abandoned and unregistered car from a public parking lot. The man got riled up, claimed he "owned the city" and threatened the cop by saying, "I'm gonna burn you, this entire city, and everyone in it." He began walking away and the cop, figuring the guy was irrational at the very least and that he'd better find out just what he intended to do next, yelled at him to "Stop." Of course, the guy didn't, even after the second "Stop" command, so the cop grabbed him by the shirt. The guy took a swing at the cop with his right arm which was in a plaster cast but the cop took him down and placed him under arrest. It seemed the trial was nothing more than the homeless man asserting his right to a trial by jury. It was open-and-shut; the only testimonies were his and the cop so it came down to who we thought was more credible. Based on the homeless man's assertion (on the witness stand, mind you) that he had inherited, from a great-grandfather who once owned a racetrack in the city's boundaries, all the land that the city was built on so HE owns it and therefore the cop was trespassing on HIS land, AND the fact that he claimed he would, in three years, receive a $60,000 settlement from an insurance fraud case, we decided the police officer was more credible.

After much deliberation. Not.

So that was that, and my civic duty is done for the next 12 months, darn! I love being on juries, and had hoped for a long, very involved, and high-profile case. Ah well, next time.

When I got home, this is what I found:
My poor laptop! Actually, it (my "Precious") fared pretty well this time. Last time a cat laid on the keyboard it was Bo, and he somehow caused all my desktop icons to clone themselves and scatter all over the screen, downloaded some funky toolbar from the internet, AND turned on sticky keys. AUGH!

I also found Mike running about like a crazy man, packing for the sailing trip which, apparently, is ON. He also mowed the lawns, instructed me on where to send insurance payments for the next two months, and cleaned both litter boxes. That last item proves, like nothing else ever would, that he feels bad about going off and leaving me here alone for the next 8 weeks!!!

Today he is at the boat with Leo working on the anchor and the water-making system; they will also fit in a trip to Costco for provisions. Last I heard, around noon, the plan was to leave at zero-dark-hundred tomorrow a.m. That means I will be getting up ultra-early, too, to drive Mike there so that we don't have to leave a vehicle in Richmond.

I rather hate the thought of coming back home to an empty house. It's going to be lonely.

I Received a Blog Award!

I'm sooooo slow getting to this (sorry, Tracy)! I received the "I Love Your Blog" award (you can see it on the left-hand side of my blog) from my blogger friend, Tracy, of Scrappin' A Latte'.

Thank you, Tracy!

Tracy is also a digital scrapbooker and we connected online because I am a scrapbooker-for-hire, and she creates awesome digital scrapbook elements. I have bought a number of items from her to use in my digital scrapbook layouts, and we read each others' blogs, too.

ANYWAY! Long way 'round of saying now that I have received the award, I get to pass it along to three of MY fave blogs, and here they are:

JUDY (aka BrizzySis) - this is my BFF who blogs about her life (which includes her two woofies) and any random thoughts float through her same-age-as-mine, interestingly-creative-type brain.

Organized, Naturally - my L.A.-area niece, Seana, who is a Gen-X neat phreak and who has created a business and blog geared toward helping those of us who are organizationally-challenged, and all in an eco-friendly way.

On the Road Again - my fave pet- and house-sitters, and my friends, Richard and Mary, who chronicle (ok, Mary writes most of it but Richard is in the photos) their travels throughout the northern hemisphere as they take excellent care of vacationer's homes and pets.

I hope you'll take a moment to check out each of their blogs, I know you'll enjoy them!

And Judy, Seana, and Mary, now you get to pass this award on to YOUR fave three blogs!

Last Post from China

I only have a few minutes for one last post from China, so thought I'd leave you with a photo of me trying sheep eyeballs for the very first time! Yeah, they were delicious -- NOT! I also tried sheep testicles! Now I can say I've tried them and didn't like them!

I have more stories about eating strange things in China; hopefully, I will have time to post some of them when I get home. So much more to tell and just not enough time! We've got another travel adventure ahead of us, too, as we take a taxi to the train station, a sleeper train to Shanghai, then either a bus or another train to the Shanghai airport. It's truly exhausting. Then I've got a 14 hour, overnight flight ahead of me as well. Hm, somehow it's just not sounding so bad when HOME is at the end of it all!

That's it for now; thanks for coming along with me on this incredible journey! Next stop -- The United States of America!!!

Animal Rights in China...

...can be summed up in three words. There aren't any.
Cats and dogs roam the streets. Sometimes they are shooed away with brooms or feet, sometimes they find a handout, once in a great while someone will take partial responsibility for them and bring a meal every few days. Mostly we saw them scavenging, finding scraps of food in the garbage and drinking water from puddles formed when someone threw out the day's wash water.
There is a small trade in animals for pets. In Luoyang there is a row of shops where they sell cats, dogs, mice, hamsters, fish and birds. The conditions in the stores would never be allowed in the U.S. Many of the animals are in cages that are too small, too crowded, open to handling by anyone who comes along, often sitting outside in the hot sun, and with no food or water.




We'd like to have bought every animal and taken it home!

Even these pet shop animals could be considered better off than the cat in the following two photos. She is kept chained to a tree in front of a row of stores where there is heavy foot and bicycle traffic and dogs roaming free. Michael often brings food to feed her. I asked him if the owners minded him doing that and he said, "I don't care if they do or not."

In Zhouzhuang we came across this tiny orange kitten seemingly roaming free outside a small shop. Turned out she kinda belonged to the owner of the shop who said, "she attracts all the foreigners!" Poor little thing barely big enough to walk. We bought some sausage and she attacked it like she'd not eaten in days. We also brought water.
Most of the Chinese walking by looked at us like we were crazy to be so interested in this kitten.
SO tiny!
In that same city we came across a couple who had these strange-looking birds tied to a boat, on display, and they were offering to take photos of people with the birds for money. The poor things were out in the hot sun, panting, tied by the legs to the boat, and not even water to drink.
I snapped a quick photo but the "owners" didn't like that and came rushing over to stop me.
Here is the man coming over to make sure Michael puts his camera away. It's all about making money in China.

In Michael's university classes the students are amazed at the photos of my cats, Jack and Scout, living in my house, fat and healthy, because most have never seen an animal treated as a "pet," let alone as part of a family. Animals are expendable here, and that won't change until China becomes more developed. It's true that portions of the country are seeing amazing growth and prosperity, as anyone who has visited Beijing, Shanghai, or Hong Kong knows. But the rest of China, the major portion of the country for the most part, still live under very harsh conditions.

People can't care about animals until they have enough to eat themselves.

Attending Class in China

Michael took me to his classes as a special guest. He has over 220 students! I think I went to class 4 0r 5 times before I met everyone. Each time when I walked in the door at the beginning of class the students applauded and were all smiles. Everyone wanted to meet "Michael's mom."

In each class we showed pictures of Michael as a little boy, his family and friends, and places in America. I had also scanned a lot of Michael's elementary schoolwork and the class enjoyed seeing the mistakes he made when he was learning to read and write. After the picture show we opened up the session to any questions the students had that they wanted to ask either me or Michael. I can't tell you how often, over the course of all the classes, I was asked whether Michael had been naughty as a little boy! Everyone wanted to know what he was like when he was small.

They were also very interested in my impressions of China, the Chinese people, and life in China. I also got questions about, of all things, women's liberation, and which presidential candidate I favored.
At the end of the classes we passed out the hand-made cards I had brought, and which had been made and donated by a lot of my scrapbooking friends. Beaded bracelets made by California girl scouts, and crisp new dollar bills, were given to the students brave enough to ask me a question. Suddenly I got TONS of questions!
A room full of very attentive students.
At the end of class the students posed with their cards and bracelets. I'm in this photo, too, but you probably can't see me. Let's just say I'm up to my nose in Chinese students!

More of my Birthday in China

As mentioned in a previous post, Michael threw a big birthday party for me at his regular Wednesday night dinner. Many of his friends and colleagues came, there was a fantastic meal, I got presents, and we had a huge cake.Here we are having dinner cooked by Michael and his friends. I met a lot of new people that evening, as well as got to see many that I already knew from my previous trip here, or from attending Michael's classes.
My cake. That's Xiao Rui (Michael's girlfriend) to my left. Not only did I have a big dinner and cake, but I also got treated by Dr. Lee and another doctor, Faye, to a splint for my wrist.They arrived with the splint and sling and, when they realized they didn't have anything to tie the splint on with, they used the laces from a pair of Michael's shoes! Behind us you can see Dr. Lee showing off his new watch -- it takes photographs!
Michael with Faye, Aggie (from Portugal), and Mike from Spain. Faye is Chinese and a doctor here in Luoyang, and Aggie and Mike (also known as Spanish Mike) are also teachers.
Dr. Lee in front. In back is Aggie, Xiao Rui (right next to me), and Faye on the far right. I can't remember the names of the two Chinese girls.That day, Wed'day, was the third day of a three-day mourning period in all of China, in memory of the earthquake victims (which are now numbering over 55,000). One of Michael's friends brought white candles, placed them in a heart shape on the table, and lit them so that we could offer a few moments of silence.
Another birthday cake, this time at a nightclub called "The Image" where many of the foreigners living in Luoyang gather for dinner each Friday evening. This was my "real" birthday so I was treated again to dinner, friends, and a cake. Everyone sang "Happy Birthday" to me and I blew out the tall, skinny chinese candles. The cakes are not as sweet as in the U.S. but they are very good and have a cream & and fruit filling. And they are huge!
One of the new people I got to meet that evening was Jim Medsea, the original drummer for the 70's rock band "Boston!" That was great fun and I got to sit and talk with him and another friend, Allen, about their experiences living in China. Jim still plays the drums and is going on a revival tour with Boston this summer, but most of the time he lives here in China teaching English to kindergartners! He absolutely loves it here and has no plans to go back to the U.S. on a permanent basis anytime soon.

Hard to believe my visit is winding down soon. I have much more to blog about, though, so stay tuned for photos and description of my "appearances" as a special guest in Michael's classroom, and Animal Rights in China, to name a couple of the upcoming subjects!

Take care, all!

Zhouzhuang

A city over 900 years old; I could spend days here just photographing the buildings, river, bridges and people. Fascinating! Here are just a few of the photos I took.

Photos from China!

First good view of Shanghai (at least a small portion of this huge city!) from the 14th floor of Mike and Maya's apartment building.
Me, Michael and Uri, ground floor of the Oriental Pearl Tower.
Michael, Mike, Uri, and Xiao Rui consult a map of Shanghai.
Michal, Xiao Rui, and I in the Oriental Pearl Tower, 253 meters elevation, with Shanghai in the background.
Michael and Xiao Rui in Zhouzhuang. You'll see lots more photos of this fascinating and ancient city.
Uri outside the Oriental Pearl Tower.