But It Totally Up-ends

My little one announced that she wanted to go to the gym with me.  It’s been well over a year since she or her sister have accompanied me in the wee hours to visit the gym.   I was given notice last night that she intended to join me.  And as we examined what this would mean it became clear that the only other bike we owned wasn’t ready to ride and it would mean going over in the car.  Not a big deal, it’s a five-minute drive.  But it totally upends my routine.  I have biked over every day I’ve gone this year.   And this means that when I arrive, I’m pre-done with the cardio reqs.  I like it this way.  And I think, more than I probably should about what it will mean to drive there tomorrow morning. 

I’m up early, as always.  And I’ve time or everything:  the night’s emails, the morning paper, the second morning paper, the morning’s translation of news in Chinese, (let’s re-read about the black-hole photograph in the Chinese press, now.) and by 5:20AM I’m good to get down on the floor and meditate in the dark.  Stretches at the end, it’s the only way they ever happen, and now, as agreed, a bit earlier than I’d usually go I trod up the stairs to let her know it’s almost show-time. 

The initial reaction isn’t promising.  Frowns.  Turn around.  Buried beneath the covers.  “Be down in five” I state flatly as I toss her phone which is still faintly humming along as it has all night with an infinite BTS loop.

I assemble a small wash cloth and some gym socks and before long I hear her plodding down the stairs.  Well, well.  Cool.  We’ll head out ensemble.  I notice that I back out of the drive with extra care.  I press play the Herbie Nichols CD that has accreted a permanent place in the car’s CD player.  I am conscious of driving extra carefully.  I haven’t bothered to drive here in a while and mediate on all that would be ruined were I to have a fender bender or worse.  At the school, I park where I usually park my bike, out of habit.  We head in and she goes straight into it on the running machine.  Around the time I’m half way through my routine she is standing near me, starring, suggesting that it is time to leave, which I don’t agree with.  Can’t say whether she’ll join me again tomorrow, but it was good to have her with me this morning.  Felt like old times 

Thursday, 04/11/19

Deliveries with Six Other People

Haven’t had a chance to read Anna K., with my little one for a while now.  Making dinner she flipped open her lap top and asked if she could play some tunes.  The new RM song which has an unwieldy long title was fine to set it off.  She asked and I suggested the tune “Boomerang” by some individuals that came together for that song and promptly disbanded (Wanna One).   My little one appears to have a crush on Hwasa the sultry brunette from the band Mamamoo and we hear one and then another of her pouty ditties while I, and I alone, chop the garlic. 

But this K-Pop indulgence allows me the good will to suggest we ought to read a dose of Tolstoy before it’s late and everyone is tired.  We pick up where we left off a few weeks back and Levin and Kitty are at Levin’s brother’s Nicholas’ death bed.  And, as happens with uncharacteristic frequency i the hands of Leo's mastery, we are suddenly there, uncomfortable and all-too-human, working through a prolonged death from multiple angles.  The protagonist nearly passes, and then recovers, and then descends again, his emotions trailing, uncontrollably.  Levin feels sorrow, and regret and boredom as well and doesn’t know how to properly be, in this situation.  His wife, just is, and she knows, instinctively how to afford comfort and be genuine to her husband’s brother.   And as so often happens I’m left wondering how he could so convincingly inhabit each person’s soul, so that we can believe the boredom and the terror and the faith in such effortless equal measure?

The chicken is in the oven, baking away.  So is the cauliflower casserole with mustard and onion bits.  The potatoes have been in the longest and believe they’re early done by now.  May as well reheat that bowl of fedelini that I made last night.  We don’t need the extra starch, but it will all go to waste otherwise, and the older one appreciates more veggie options.

I try to return to work after dinner, but it is hopeless.  I’m a morning man.  I try to write an email and nod off with my finger on the space-bar.  I walk out to the kitchen and back and pick up where I was.  But soon I’m dreaming of making deliveries with six other people in an open-back pickup. We’re all wearing helmets and the people we are making deliveries to are a strapping on gas masks to receive us.  It’s a strange world I’m happy to awaken from again.  But clearly, it’s time to head up stairs and go to bed. 

Wednesday, 04/10/19

Why Does this Story Merit

Up with my New York Times perusal in the early morning hours.  What the hell is this story:  A Chinese woman who was staying at Trump’s Mar-E-Lago estate in Florida was detained because she A. had a Chinese passport, (clearly suspicious) B. had four cell phones, (that’s two more than many people carry) she had trouble answering questions, (as 99.9% of Americans would when interrogated in Chinese) most damning of all, she had “suspicious malware” on a thumb drive in her room.  (Wechat AND Baidu maps, no doubt).  She became “argumentative” with the secret service and was charged with a crime.  Why does this story merit front page coverage in the New York Times?  Must they fuel xenophobia by blowing such an insipid non-story into something troubling and suspicious? 

From an article on this incident in the Guardian:  “An interview with the state-run tabloid Global Times, Song Guoyou, deputy director of the American Studies Center of Fudan University in Shanghai said the incident underlined current US hostility toward China.   “The US media has magnified such small things and elevated the unintentional behaviour of the Chinese in the United States as deliberate moves by the government… creating an atmosphere in which Chinese people close to important facilities or people in the US are suspected of spying,” Song said.”    Indeed.

Jimmy Heath has a big smile to go with his big eyes.  They define him whether you’re looking at pictures of him when he’s young or old.  Escaped the draft by being underweight, he played with Coltrane all the way back in the end of the 40s, in a combo that backed Charlie Parker.  You’d think that the fifties would have been a prolific time for Jimmy Heath but like so many of his luminary contemporaries he was saddled with a habit that sent him to jail once and then twice and it wasn’t until he kicked at the end of the decade in 1959 that his career began to take off again.   Enjoying “The Quota” this morning which was released two years later.

I warned my wife that while I was willing to make dinner, as the kids hadn’t had baba comfort food in a while, I had a bunch of calls on this evening as well.  I pushed through on one call to closure and went out and shared some time with the younger one, chopping garlic and rolling lentil balls, and then meatballs.  But mid-lentil fry I ran out of run way and had to set them off to the side and jump on a call with Boston.  With the mic unmuted first an older daughter let everyone know she was starving.  Then the Mrs. demanded to know when I’d be back on-duty?  I wasn’t quick enough with the mute button either time.  And, begging my clients indulgence I suggested a quick wrap-up for now and a more diligent follow-up sometime in the future would probably be best. 

And . . . the meatballs were damn good in the end.  I have missed my food too. 

Tuesday, 04/09/19

Pens Used to Mean Something

I called for a DiDi while I was still talking with the person who’d come to visit me at noon.  I needed to be at the next place by one.  The guy needed to circle around the block and then, then he figured out where I was and waved to me from the corner.  I’ve had some excruciating problems with my phone of late: the touch pad isn’t receptive and so I need to press deeply with my thumbs into various points of the glass real estate to activate any engagement and get the Wechat to close and the DiDi to open.  This results in touches often registering a few seconds after I’ve moved on and indeed my driver points out to me that this has indeed happened: “Hey, you just cancelled the trip.”  “I did?”  “Yeah, you did.”   “Now what?” he asks.  “Cash” I tell him. “I’ll settle with you in cash.”

When it comes time to do this, he doesn’t have change, and I don’t have anything other than one-hundred-yuan notes and some U.S. dollars and Brazilian real in my wallet.  “No.  I don’t have enough Wechat money.”  Why I didn’t just pay him one-hundred RMB and take Wechat money back, doesn’t occur to me.   He does the conversion wrong on precisely what value to assign to twenty U.S. dollars and I reject the notion of giving him one the Andrew Jackson as its still worth a lot more than the pink Mao one-hundred note.  The real might be closer but he’d never understand what it was.  Eventually he concedes defeat and accepts twenty two kuai which, all things considered, isn’t too far off. 

Entering a building on the Bund I proceed up to the elevator, luggage in-tow and take in a remarkable hallway with a commanding fresco at the far wall.  I’m running late but wonder just what this building was?  I find out later this, Bund 22 is a former Swire building, and later home to the Fenghua Pen Company.   Pens used to mean something.  Up on the fifth floor I plow into El Willy the Spanish restaurant where I am to meet this delegation visiting Brazilian financiers.  I see my colleague who gestures me to the table, but not before I can marvel at yet another remarkable view of the famous curve of the Bund from this angle and the imposing skyscrapers across the water.

Soon I’m sharing a thing or two about Zheng He and Henry the Navigator with this group who are finishing their lunch.  The lunch looks good and I let the waitress who’s bringing desert know I’d like a helping of their bacalao and a soda water, if she would.  It’s a grand setting and I think I rise up to the challenge and manage to have these gents craning their neck away from the food and away from the view towards the tale I have to tell. 

During the Q&A one inquisitive gentleman questions my thesis and wonders what will happen to countries who fall into debt with China.  I acknowledge China’s questionable dealings with Ecuador to the Brazilian northwest and the damn China built which the Ecuadorians are now in spiraling debt to pay for.  I draw their attention to the view outside the window and remind them that each of these buildings built in what was then a, Concession were built by foreign investors, who enjoyed daunting economic power, but in the end, each and every building was lost to their host country who expropriated them all.  Our Chinese friends I suspect are rather familiar with the risks of expropriation in far away lands.

Monday, 04/08/19