On the routine of ordinary days

If you want to know what these are..keep reading

I am beginning to feel that my life and thoughts might not be interesting enough to blog about any more!?!? It may also be that I am not seeing the novelty anymore. So I humbly submit today's ordinary schedule for your perusal:

6:00 am -- Wake up, rouse Thomas, check email, make coffee

(Have I mentioned that we have a coffee pot? It hurts me to realize that what the Chinese think of as coffee is Nescafe instant. No wonder they prefer tea. If only I could buy ground coffee someplace other than Metro...but no dice so far, unless Starbucks makes it to Xiamen while we are here. Of course my monthly journey to Metro makes for some fun...I found tortilla chips, refried beans and salsa..on Saturday we had nachos, seasoning the meat with a spice packet --fortunately it WAS cumin -- I bought in the Muslim market in Xi'an)

7:00 am Tai chi chuan practice --- I ride the bike there -- the last 2 mornings were almost cold in my sweater. Now my lessons on the 24 basic positions are over, and I've returned to my retirees group on the basketball courts. I must say, I am enjoying having a clue about the basic routine, especially when there are newcomers. When we get to the 42 and 44 positions I still manage to look ridiculous at least every 2-3 minutes, however.

7:35 race back to the guesthouse to pick up Huan Huan and take her to the bus stop

7:50 back home to my Sophia and morning chores...we do not have hot running water in the kitchen, so we boil the water for dishes. If its a sunny day, I always do laundry, so it can dry quickly on the balcony..if its windy, its even better because I don't have to iron.

Morning --Today I spent a good part of the morning online trying to find a plane ticket. As mentioned previously ..I am going back to the US for a week to be with my mom for her surgery. She will have surgery Nov 30th to remove most of a brain tumor, then the long recovery process, along with radiation treatments, will begin. Until the last few days I felt I was coping well with my worrying for her..but now I am anxious to get there..Michael will be on his own for the week, with sitters in the works for the nights he has class. Please pray hard for her to come through the surgery OK, and also for her state of mind, as she is very anxious right now.

11:00 Take Sophia to the supermarket. Today we walked, because its easier to load more bags on the stroller than the handlebars of the bike. Bought some assorted household items and groceries..even a bottle of wine in honor of visitors coming this weekend (our friends who live in Xi'an). Did not opt for "catch your own" at the sea food counter..instead -- tofu and slivered pork

12:00 No lunch date today, so back to the house and lunch for me and the baby -- she is getting addicted to peanut butter.

1:00 Sophia's nap -- my favorite time of day..the sunlight streams in our apartment and it's so quiet! Usually I do my Chinese homework..today I did some online Christmas shopping for the kids, since I will be in Michigan and can cart some items back with me.

2:30 Michael home so I head out to the travel agent down town (by bus) to buy my plane tickets. I usually pay in cash because they charge a service fee of 4 % for credit cards (on top of the foreign currency transaction fee -- that's pretty stiff), So I have to keep a fair amount of cash around when I am planning a trip. Fortunately there is an HSBC in the same building, so I can withdraw some more..Making big purchases in Chinese money is weird because the 100 kuai bill is the largest in circulation, so to buy plane tickets I needed more than a hundred of them -- doesn't fit in a wallet!

3:00 Heading home, got off the bus early to find the knitting store and get some needles, which I don't usually get to because its between bus stops -- too much trouble with Sophia. I decided to walk home, which took about 40 minutes, but full of sights, mostly little cubicle stores along the street which sell everything you can think of . Its a bit of a narrower road, with apartments above the shops, laundry hanging overhead, and alleys of even smaller shops and restaurants off to the sides. I love walking in the city when there are lots of other pedestrians and stuff to look at -- hate the sterile car-oriented parts of Xiamen, where it is no fun to be a pedestrian.

4:15 Stop at the vegetable market for the rest of tonight's dinner, since I am now too snobby to but the wilted veggies at the supermarket, when I know these fresh ones are out here at a fraction of the cost..today for $1 I bought 3 tomatoes, 2 eggplants, 2 crispy fresh green peppers, and 2 small heads of bok choy.

4:30 Thomas gets home, Micheal meets Helen at 5:00.

6:00 Tonight's dinner at home : noodles with sesame oil, fried tofu, a stir fry of pork, garlic, onions, eggplant, green pepper and bok choy, along with these lovely mild mushrooms that I buy dried and rehydrate called wood ear mushrooms (see photo above -- still can't seem to put those pesky photos where I want). Also Asian pears.

6:40 Short bike ride to work, as tonight was one of my teaching nights..we played store with plastic fruit again (2 different classes this time). The students also REALLY like "the very Hungry Caterpillar." Several of my students are also classmates of Helen's. Tonight one girl's mother told me -- "she is always talking about Huan Huan and about you coming to the class")

9:00 Walked the bike back while accompanying one of my fellow teachers. She was trying to explain to me all the different ways that Chinese is typed on the computer. Some younger people rely mostly on pinyin, but you can also memorize the radicals (parts of characters, really simple characters in themselves) on the key board and type them in the correct order/combination to generate the character you need. Did you follow that? I had trouble myself.

10:00 Home blogging to you..an ordinary day, but somehow pleasing, too.