Scenes of summer

It's 5:30am and I am driving Lydia to the airport for her return to Toronto. She's flying through Warsaw on Polish Airlines which I didn't even know existed. Maybe it's better known as human trafficking airlines. Ok, that's not funny, except to me.

A few days before, I get in the elevator at our apartment on my way to pickup a Luckin Coffee americano. It stops on the 5th floor. A middle aged man, shorter than me and with a lean, gets in. He's wearing a white chef's outfit including the hat. The outfit is not freshly washed. He's on a weixin video call talking about what I do not know. His head leans in the other direction as his body. He's shaving with an electric razor although I see no facial hair. As we exit the elevator on the ground floor, his video call and shaving continues.

The sidewalk and stairs outside of our building have recently been redone as part of some district wide beatification project. Sidewalks and streets for the entire area have been dug up and replaced anew. It started in April and who knows when it will end. The new stairs in front of our complex serve as rest areas for waimai drivers. They sit their with their yellow or blue helmets waiting for the lunch rush. Most stare at their phones, some are more social. Their electric bikes wait on the curb.

I drop Lydia and Yang off at the terminal entrance and then I go to park. The past couple times I've done this I've missed side exit for parking and ended up leaving the airport and wasting 20 frantic minutes. This time, I go against where my instinct says to drive and see the little P sign. I park my car in the massive underground garage. Actually, it parks itself. A modern perk.

A few days ago I was driving in front of my apartment about to enter the garage. The small white sedan in front of me pulls over. Two young men, the driver and a back seat passenger explode out of the car. They yell at each other. Before I could even drive past, fists are thrown. Fists land. More fists are thrown. Wild long arm punches. Punches that are not afraid to land. I park the car. I look out our apartment window to see what's going on. The police are there, talking to the combatants. I have no idea what happend. It is highly unusual to see fists thrown here. People yell. There are plenty of "hold me back" moments. Hardly ever even see pushing.

Lydia and Yang zig zag the check-in line while I get Starbucks for everyone. It sucks to fly without privilege. Yang says the other people in the check-in line look like "workers". They get to the counter and the attendant says Lydia's passport has expired. She brought the wrong passport and for some reason when it was renewed last year the consulate in Shanghai didn't punch holes in it. Yang calls back home and has the ayi take the right passport to the airport via didi. Fortunately, the airport is only about 30 minutes from their home (the south airport would be about 70 minutes).

When Sabrina and I moved back to our old apartment last year one of the things we noticed were the next door neighbors. They seemed nice when we met them in the hallways. But boy did they fight. We could hear them through the cement walls, once, twice, three times a week. Then about a month ago, they said their landlord was moving into the apartment so they moved out. This seems like good news on the noise front. Until the construction started. Tearing out the floor, the walls. Apartment re-counstruction is normal here and staying home during the weekdays one typically needs to suffer some noise. But this, being next door, is next level. The construction notice on their door, says it will last through October.

Lydia now checked in heads to the gate. She's heading back to Toronto about a month earlier than Aidan and Yang. Wants to see her cat, saisai. Wants to have a little quiet time. We take the obligatory photos and then she's off, turning and waving as she gets to the first checkpoint. And then she's gone.