Spring

I'm watching an episode of Winning Time when Lydia calls me. She's about to have the final exam for her pre-calculus class and she's feeling anxious. I leave my apartment and go down a flight of stairs into her mom's apartment and find her petting their cat, Saisai. She describes her anxiety and I say I will hang out. I really don't like hanging out in that apartment that used to be my apartment. I sit in living room then decide I want water. While in the kitchen I eat a couple cold dumplings from the fridge. Aidan is in the den playing a video game; I call out to him.

When the exam starts and Lydia is taking it, I head back upstairs and continue watching Winning Time. At some point Sabrina and I take Kobe for a walk but I cut my part of it short to be with Lydia when she finishes the exam, at 8pm. She emerges from her room and I ask her how she did and she said she make a lot of stupid mistakes. Do you know your score? 99. She wants to see Kobe so she heads up with me to my apartment. Elisa is there and we play our daily game of Woodle. I found Woodle to be really annoying but for some reason introduced it to Lydia which led to the three of us playing it together. It is really fun as a collaborative game. We had something like a 40-game win streak going until Foyer foiled us. Almost every time either Lydia or Elisa come up with the word.

Lydia goes down to take a bath and then comes back up. The three of us and Sabrina watch episode one of Severance. I liked it ok; they liked it more. I kind of wish I could separate my work memories from my life memories. Maybe not. I do want to remember how much an asshole a certain boss is. Calling for a midnight Beijing time meeting on a Friday night and then blaming his subordinates. Own it, asshole. A bit of a tangent.

It is getting warm here and I rode my bike to and from work four days last week. 10.5 miles in each direction. My legs tired by the fourth day. In my 20s and 30s and even 40s, four days riding and I'd be getting stronger. In 50s, it's just about maintaining; don't expect I will get stronger.  China testing, tracking, isolating for covid is going on. Stories on Shanghai being locked down for a month, in some communities' weeks longer, are all over twitter.  People are nervous Beijing could be next as there's been a couple upticks in cases. People signal there nervousness in Wechat groups and by wearing masks but otherwise everything is the same. After all, there's only been one dust storm this year.