People That Aren't Waiting

Heading back home now.  I just told the driver to circle back.  We-chat communication.  A note about a meeting.  I assumed they wanted to meet today, Saturday.  And, like last Saturday when I headed out for a meeting, I didn’t really want to go.  He suggested South Station.  The worst place for me to meet anyone in Beijing.  But his morning meeting was closer to my home so I agreed to meet for lunch around noon.  If I was going to meet him I’d need to shower and go now.  Suited up, dried off, called a cab and headed out to meet this gentleman.  I pinged him once and I pinged him twice and looking over the thread of our we-chat snippets, I noticed that he was properly coming Monday.  Oops.  That’s not today. “Hey, driver, let’s head back home. “

I’d let the driver use his GPS till now and we’re going across town on a back street Shunhuang Lu a few kilometers below where I live.  There is Cathay Courtyard and Tahoe Villa;.  a ghetto of new, wealthier-than-thou compounds I've never heard of.  How many of these actually succeed?  How many flop?  The place where we reside is so last century.  Perhaps the new airport in the south and the new capital office out east will render this neighborhood sterile before long.  Then again, New York and LA, which have fewer people and increasingly no more wealth can certainly support more than one airport and more than one wealthy section of town.

It’s a lovely day.  I’d like to get the kids outside to the country.  I’ve wanted this for a while.  But it seems to be a perennial long shot.  They’re both busy.  I didn’t plan ahead.  I let myself get distracted by trips out to meet people that aren’t waiting there to meet me.  Next weekend perhaps.  It really does look nice outside though.  Especially after we’ve had so much shitty pollution earlier in the week.  A solo bike ride then?

Last night I thought I heard rain.  There was a tinkling sound ringing atmospherically around my room behind the music.  It surprised me as Beijing is dry and it isn’t really the season for much precipitation.  Indeed, there was no rain.  The leaves on the ground are still crackling dry.  It must be mice.  Some kind of critters are up in the wall moving through the heating ducts.  Are they actually in my book shelf?  We’re going to have trouble if you’re in my books. In the Lower East Side, I’d now go out and by glue traps at the bodega downstairs.  They are horrible but effective.  What does one do to get rid of critters here in Beijing?  Some course of action will be required, certainly. 

Saturday, 11/17/18