When it is Being Yelled

This morning I awoke wondering why I’d booked a flight for 8:00AM.  Why I’d thought a second round of double scotches was such a scorching idea at 1:00AM.  I gently assembled my things, gingerly adjusted the shower.  Slowly checked the room for my things, all activity designed to pacify the throbbing.  I was late, but it was all do-able until I made my way out the first floor door and saw runners and more runners indeed, an entire marathon was making its way west up Jiujiang Lu towards the park.  “怎么办?” I asked the bellhop, considering the phalanx of people in shorts and sneakers.  He eyed my luggage:  “地铁.“ 

Dully aware that this would probably mean I’d miss my flight, I made my way over to the subway stop.  At least at this hour the pedestrian park on Nanjing Lu would be free of “sajeee?” touts.  At the ever-so-secure baggage scan at the Nanjing Lu station a young girl who looked like a brat was screaming at the top of her lungs at the luggage inspector lady in Shanghaihua.  Not to be outdone, the middle aged attendant was screaming back, whenever the goth-girl paused to breathe.  Shanghainese is always at its most effective and least appealing when it is being yelled. 

Home then.  Back to the chill of Beijing.  Everyone including me now, is dressed rather differently.  I look for a place to sit in the recently refurbished Starbucks there in the arrival hall.  I find a perch that allows me to stare out at the people moving by and I sip at my espresso until my nephew tells me, he’s arriving upstairs. 

In Shanghai I traveled all the way down to do a one-hour presentation.  Now I have traveled all the way back to do a one-hour presentation to young children in English.  I have a rough idea of what I’d like to do.   We start with some Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes and try to find words that match.   To me, most words in Chinese necessarily rhyme.  I’m noticing the concept is not making as much sense to everyone else, as it does to me.

Dinner’s getting complicated.  The older one only wants fish.  The younger one won’t eat fish.  So it’s Sloppy Joe’s and stir fried haddock.  Each one seems happy.  I like them both, well enough.  The Mrs. isn’t taken with either. 

I’d like to try to finish a letter to a friend.  It’s late though.  And I have taken out my contact lenses.  Normally this means I can read as I’m near sighted.  But presently but this doesn’t seem to work with the computer.  I beef the font size up to twenty-four and certainly I can now see the text.  But it’s clear that there is more going on than merely vision, to interrupt any useful editing right now.  Nothing more will happen today.  Go to bed.