Is Step Out In

My best friend arrives in China tonight with his girlfriend.  Under any normal circumstance I’d be out at the airport to meet him.  But this isn’t a visit.  They’ve bundled up their things and put their life in storage, (albeit in my New York home’s basement) and decided to make their way to Beijing to teach English and live here in town for a while.  They have a host company who will meet them this evening and steward them to the hotel they’ll be staying at until they find an apartment to reside in.

They left some twelve hours ago and are apparently flying through Shanghai en route up here to the capital.  They ping me sporadically after they land at Pu Dong.  “I don’t have connectivity.  She does.”  By the time they finally land in Beijing its nearly eleven thirty and I’m rather glad I’m not now riding along in a cab with them to Haidian, so that I could turn around and return here later. 

My friend has visited here before.  This is probably his fourth time to visit China and so it isn’t a complete shock.  But I know him and this is the first time he’s headed out, away from the United States, with no return ticket in hand.  I have so many “critical” things to tell them.  “You must never do this.  Do not let that ever get you down.”  “Language, language, language!”  But, in the end it’s all pointless.  The only thing for them to do is step out in and make sense of it themselves. 

I won’t be dinning with them this evening.  My daughter has gotten her nails and eyelashes done.  She’s heading out tonight herself.  I’ll be home alone then.  There is a large bowl of linguini in the fridge.  It’s from two nights back, which isn’t too bad.  I’ve a bag of frozen shrimp which I fry up with an entire clove of diced garlic, some tomatoes and pesto.   I cut up carrots and whatever else is left in the fridge and make the best of it with my solo, left over meal.

Friday, 07/26/19