Much They Were Spending

Another sunny day.  Coincidence?  The new, blue, Beijing.  I was determined to make it to the gym today.  A phone interview.  Smart guy.  Personable, good English.  A debrief call.  A debrief set of text messages. I’ll set him up with someone who can ask more trenchant questions than I about his technical ability.  But now it’s already noon on Saturday.  Saturday always looks so promising when you first wake up. 

My older one wasn’t going.  The younger one said she had volleyball, later in the day.  No one was in the mood to join me.  So made my way over myself.  On the weekend, the school is open to the rest of the community and unlike my early morning jaunts over the place is quite busy on the weekend, with families pursuing various sports.  The work out room though was mercifully as empty, as always.  Down below the stair master a middle aged guy of indeterminate cultural background and a young Chinese kid, perhaps seven years old or so, were squared off against a pair of blond girls aged roughly ten and fourteen.  I reckoned it was not a family, and tried to piece together the story, in my mind.  Every time the male team scored they high-fived each other.  I noticed they were playing hard.  They were playing to win.

My wife called on the way home.  Suddenly, now, there was a need for the car.  “Coming dear.”  But first, I had promised the little one I’d get some jianbing guozi.  I took a left where I normally took a right and then another left at the corner.  The old lady with the cart was still there.   Jimi Hendrix was mid dialogue in “Hey Baby” and I popped out the ear bud so that I could listen to the chatter of the young security guards ordering in front of me.  I wanted to know how much they were spending.  It should be five yuan.

Fortunately the three guards were only getting one jianbing.  I ordered three.  Yes.  Spice please but no hot dog or whatever it was you put in the last person’s bing, there. She sets to work spinning the batter with a flat ladle.  There was a bit of a tear in cake and she blamed a bent handle on her griddle.  "One egg?" she asked.  I confirmed before I could think much about it. One egg is then spun round the cake till its evenly distributed and loosening the edges she flips the cake and begins to add sauces and chives and finally the least nutritious part of the meal, the deep fried dough cake that makes it crunch and probably adds a thousand unnecessary calories. 

She mentions something once and then repeats the same message again about her son’s preferences for bings.  Its almost as if she is suggesting to the other guests that I am her son.  That would be cheeky and odd but not unprecedented.  I control the urge to say something about this and listen more until I can confirm, through her thick provincial brogue that her comment about her son, is not implicating me, in her genealogy.  Discretion.  Always the high road.  

Saturday, 01/13/17