The house cleaner comes so I take Kobe for a walk. It is not lost on me how fortunate I am and how untrained my dog is. Kobe does well on the walk. Well for him. Pulls when a smell excites him. Stops and lies down when he sees another dog. But on this December afternoon he’s mostly walking at my side with a couple pee breaks mixed in. We have about 10 minutes left on our hour long walk when a young man walks up to me on the sidewalk. He is bright looking. He says to me “I eat dogs”. I keep walking. He repeats, “I eat dogs”. His tone isn’t a joking one, more mocking. I say “ok”. He’s not satisfied. I ask him why he would say such a thing. I actually said “why the fuck would you say that?” and he said “because you are white”. “What?, I say. “That’s what white people think, that Chinese eat dogs”. There is a little bit back and forth after that, I was trying to express “what the fuck?” and he was trying to express that “You are white, so I think these things about Chinese”. Before he turns to leave he asks “How much for your dog?”. He then adds “I am also cheap labor, did you know that”? He doesn’t look like a laborer, I’m thinking, he is pretty well dressed and his English is decent. Then he’s off and I continue walking Kobe. 30 seconds later he’s back. I hear a voice “hey, sir. hey sir”. I turn around to see him running up to me. He’s close. He says “you know what? You know what? I’m a n(word). I’m a n(word)”. I mumble “whatever” and turn back up the street as he turns and jogs away. He doesn’t reappear. In the final minutes of the walk I replay all the clever things I could have said to him. None of it really matters as Kobe leans forward to pee like Beagles do. ...

It’s 2:30am and I can’t sleep. I know it’s 2:30am because I flipped my phone over to check. I can’t sleep because my eyes are crazy itchy from allergies. I can’t sleep because I am dealing with a work decision which for others would be a simple. I can’t sleep because I’m frustrated the house is a mess and I am the only one who seems to notice. So I put my headphones on, those original Apple iPhone ones, and stream the 49ers radio broadcast into my ears. It’s halftime, they are losing. I try to sleep but cannot. Around 4am, after Garoppolo’s third pick sealed the game for the Vikings, I unplug the earphones. I’m cold. Sleep comes. I dream I am in the kitchen. There are dishes that need washing. There are towels lying about. There are appliances that don’t quite appear right. This was what I felt before bed, when I was washing dishes after helping Elisa with her English homework. But the kitchen in my dream is different. It is a combination of the kitchens I’ve spent time in. At my parents home. At my first apartment. At my first house. At the first place I lived in Beijing. Where I live now. And as I looked around this kitchen I realized something wasn’t right. The appliances were all on but doing odd things. Microwave on with nothing inside. Juicer streaming tonic water. Bluetooth speaker working without power. Just as this oddness dawned on me I heard a cackle. I turned and then I was in my parents’ kitchen, near the front door. I looked left down the hallway and there was a young woman, maybe 20, petite. In an other worldly shadow. Looking at me with neither a smile or a hiss. I woke up. Later that morning I drop Elisa off at school and start to walk to the subway for my commute to work. I’m listening to a podcast and one of the guests is talking about driving in Ireland, on the wrong side of the road. My mind flashes to when Elisa was six months old, Lydia four, and Aidan five. We were on an island in Malaysia, driving on the wrong side of the road. Three small kids, far away road, we still managed a romantic dinner along the shore with Elisa in a crib and the elder kids playing with the waitresses. We could do anything. Until someone not me fucked it up. And I felt sad, just really sad. ...

So this is the story about a dog joining the family. A few weeks back Sabrina’s sister asked us to watch her dog while she went away for the weekend. I thought it would be a good idea, an enjoyable experience for the kids who have never had a dog. But this dog, some kind of Pembroke mix was uber hyper. barking, wanting to play bite hands and feet, and not house trained. The kids didn’t want anything to do with him and Elisa was afraid of it. By the end of it’s four days with us I could see the dogs behavior was improving. I didn’t want him, but i felt sad to see him go. It got me thinking about a dog which I’ve blocked from my mind as possible in Beijing. I blocked it for a few reasons. When the kids were younger and wanted one I knew I’d end up taking care of it and I just didn’t want to. It reminded me of a time when I had a dog before and I didn’t want to be reminded of that time. Yang was firmly against getting one because she didn’t want to deal with it dying in 10 years. Later when I got my own place I thought about getting a dog. Surely it would be better company than the places I was looking for company. But I travel a lot for work so getting a dog was not an option. It was out of mind until a week ago or so when it dawned on me that Sabrina could watch the dog when I’m travelling and should we both travel we could easily enough find a place. And I still wanted my kids to have a good experience with a dog especially after the time with Sabrina’s sister’s dog. So how to get a dog in Beijing? A rescue dog is the most moral choice. I searched online and found a couple places with English websites. Not well maintained. I’d actually have to speak with someone to find out, which I didn’t want to do. Truth was I didn’t want a rescue dog really, I wanted a puppy of my selfish choosing. I lightly researched different dog breeds online and settled between a Shiba Inu and a Beagle. I’ve always wanted a Beagle but never had one. Upon reading the profiles, a Beagle didn’t seem like a good choice. Great with kids, but noisy, hard to train, and not good in an apartment alone. The Shiba Inu seemed like a better choice. Yesterday, Sabrina and I walked to a couple pet stores. The first one was actually a “pet salon” where pets can come for a spa weekend. The should tell you something about the price. They had two completely adorable Inus and I probably would have taken one home on the spot except for the price. (I know from the rescue dog mafia that pet stores are supposed to be a horrible way to buy a dog. I would say the woman at this pet store was generally caring about the dogs in her care). We went to a second pet store, less a salon, and more commercial. Similar price. So we just went home. Sabrina shifted from supporting to interested. She pinged friends with dogs, how they got them and one who might have an extra newborn Inu. She checked out online shops and found breeders 25 miles away in the suburb of Tongzhou. She connected with one of them via Wechat and saw live feeds of the puppies. They all looked good. And the price was about 1/5th of the in-town price. So we got a car and headed out. On the 40 minute drive there it did cross my mind that I could be entering the territory of puppy factories which are even more evil according to the mafia than buying a pet at a pet store. As we drove through Tongzhou I noted how much more modern it seemed than the last time I was here when it seemed crowded and unfinished. Then we were past the urban area and driving along a country road with farms and small shops on either side. Our taxi left us out in front of a medical clinic where a someone from the breeder would be picking us up. He did, and we drove down a smaller country road until we arrived at 7pm. The dirt parking lot was noticeable for the quality of cars in it. The driver remarked to Sabrina that they sell puppies to Europe too. So I thinking it was a puppy factory and I’m going to hell (which had already been determined by this point anyway). Past the parking lot and inside the gate was a long one story building. A series or glass walled rooms really, with each room having either dogs or cats inside, in cages. It sounds awful, but it wasn’t. The rooms were big. The cages were large and mostly just had one dog per cage. The first room had a kind of Spaniel that looked interesting but I had not researched. Upon a quick search is did not seem like a good house dog. When then went to the room with the Shibu Inu in them. None were the black fur which the woman had previously sent over Wechat. Wasn’t a live video after all. They had six light fur Shibu Inu, two of which I thought were adorable. Sabrina exchanging words with the vendor in Chinese, something about the price which was much higher than when discussed over Wechat. Sabrina asks about the Beagles. We go out to the parking lot and there is a cage with five beagle pups in it. All different prices based on appearance. The runt of the litter with the worst color was the one for the price we were quoted on Wechat. We paid a bit more. After paying there’s and upsell for dog supplies and official show papers. We bought the minimum. I’m learning in my 50s to focus on the positive, to focus on what we want, and to let go of what other people want me to want. The same driver took us back out to the main road where we flagged down a taxi and headed back to town, pup in lap. Yes, a Beagle, which we named Kobe. ...

It’s been a long travel day and we finally reach our villa in Bali. (It feels weird to even write that; we’ve come a long ways in many ways) The hotel manager opens the gate to our villa and Sabrina, Lydia, and Elisa walk inside. I did not tell the kids what kind of hotel we were staying at and haven’t provided any details despite Elisa’s persistent questioning. As soon as they cross the gate, they are excited. Our villa is a courtyard, with a living room and bedrooms facing each other. In the middle, our own pool. Lydia says “I’m so happy” which is quite a thing for her to say. She loves the simple, modern, wood and concrete atmosphere. As soon as we are settled Sabrina and Elisa are using the pool. We snack on the appetizers the hotel provided. Later that night Lydia and I head out in search for an ATM which GPS tells me is about 750 meters away. As we walk we encounter unkempt dogs, off leash, some sleeping, some pacing in front of properties. I don’t think the dogs are a threat but it is unnerving. The roadside is a mix of small shops and fields with the only light provided by the small shops. As we walk alongside a field I turn to my right and a full grown cow is staring back at me. This quite startled Lydia. If you haven’t guessed already, we are city folk. Up past the cows are two dogs prowling the middle of the street at which point Lydia and I turned back. Cash wasn’t that important. There is always room service. I’ve been taking kids on vacations for a few years now as my photo memories remind me (thanks Google Photos, thanks Facebook). I’m not a great planner and I tend to stress over the logistic details and whether the kids are happy. It never exactly feels like a vacation for me although I’m not sure I know what that would feel like. As I write this, I am looking out at our pool. It is raining. I am taken back to Russian River and a cabin we stayed at. It was notable for a few reasons. We didn’t camp. It was during the period of years my mom also went on these summer vacations. My dad decided to quit smoking on this trip. And we swam in the river in the rain. I think the last two items were connected. Back to this vacation, it started on a bit of a downer. The week before the trip Aidan hurt his knee wakeboarding. A MFPL tear caused by a kneecap dislocation and a slight meniscus tear. The MFPL tear needed surgery which meant Aidan had to stay behind. Aidan was afraid before the surgery and in quite a bit of pain after. A six month recovery process is in front of him. With Aidan in the hospital bed overnight, we first flew to Singapore. For some reason I really like Singapore. Something about the moderness of it, some historical buildings and English being spoken. We spent three nights there and did some sightseeing and exploring. I even tried a taste of Sabrina’s Durian McFlurry which I must say was truly horrible. Actual highlights included the botanical garden, the man made gardens by the sea (and light show), and wondering around Chinatown. With both Bali and Singapore it’s obvious there are layers of richness which we can’t access. Can’t access because we are self (screen) involved. Can’t access because we are not connected with locals. For me, I like a mix of insular time and a mix of being pulled into the local scene. My proxy for local scene is walking and reading about the communities. In a few hours we will start our trek back to Beijing. We will say goodbye to this villa and the amazing in room catered breakfasts. We will say goodbye to the scooters zipping past on the wrong side of the road. We will say goodbye to the whisper of another kind of life and fall back into our own. Our own lives which would not be recognizable if we were not in them. ...

I am in a dream. I see my father and two of my brothers walking askew. One brother slightly in front angled away. The other brother behind and at another angle. My dad walking next to a white stone wall. And then my father’s feet give way and his legs slide out in front of him. His head bangs against the wall and then the ground. There’s blood. I look away. I’m not sure what triggered this dream. I have been thinking about my father’s legacy. How to describe him to my children. I want to find a balanced view but mostly I find contrasts, contrasts that don’t balance out. I was afraid of him, like many sons are of their father, like Aidan is of me sometimes. But the fear went a lot deeper than that. I tiptoed around him. Always. Even as a middle age man. I try to avoid conflict and smooth over tension is most work and life situations. He made me fiercely independent, to the point I didn’t ask him for anything. As soon as I could afford to move out of the house, with $300 to my name, I did. As an adult I never ask anyone, except those very close to me, for anything. My father was not the most positive person. He would find the negative point of view of many things others would celebrate. New car - loses have the value the moment you drive it off the lot. Four star hotel - just a room. A meal out - just “ok” for the price. Happy grandkids playing - misbehaving spoiled kids. There was a certain lack of joy. My father coached out local baseball teams but I never figured out why. It didn’t seem to bring him any joy or satisfaction, in retrospect it seemed like a duty. He showed up. This is something I do too. He could often be a jerk, to strangers and to family. ...

To my son Aidan, upon his graduation from 9th grade. July 10, 2018. Follow your heart. Follow your heart, it will not lead your astray. Follow your heart, for you have a good one. Follow your heart, it will always be true to you. Follow your heart, it will lead you to meaning and purpose. To follow your heart, you need to know your heart. This is a difficult task as there are many false prophets. It may take years before you are able to listen, to really listen, to your heart and follow its path. For some of us, including your dad, it is an ongoing journey. We may not get there, but you will, if you take the time and listen. Listen to your heart. ...

When we first lived in Beijing we would occasionally go as a family for a traditional American breakfast. A place called “Paul’s Steak and Eggs”. It was a place tucked behind the Friendship Store and felt comfortable, like a jet lagged Denny’s. I’d get a denver omelette and fret over the pile of hash browns that I’d eat. The kids, just Aidan and Lydia then, would get attention and we would feed on that too. The place was populated mostly by expats, none to rich and none to poor. Over the years the traditional American breakfast stopped being a regular family outing except for on Easter. We even kept the tradition going in the years after the nuclear family went nuclear. The other part of the Easter tradition we kept going was the easter egg hunt, where we’d hide candy in the bushes of the apartment common area and the kids would frantically race each other to collect the candy. This year on Easter, it was my week with the kids, and I thought Elisa as the main candy hunter and one nostalgic nine year old would want the hunt back at her mom’s apartment. But she surprised me, and wanted to do it at my place, so that’s what we did. But first was Easter breakfast. Paul’s Steak and Eggs is long gone so we went to a place in Sanlitun called The Rug , It is like the version of Denny’s that flew first class to Beijing. Thier brunch menu is vast, subtle, and well executed. It was a place that one would think would only appear to well to do expats instead it appealed to well to do locals with few foreigners to be found. It is a far cry from Paul’s. Yang joined, with hard boiled eggs she made for the kids to paint. In fact it was the first time she’s ever made hard boiled eggs and I had to send her the instructions. Sabrina was next to me and the kids scattered about. Did I also mention it was April Fool’s day? After breakfast came the gathering back at my complex. Kids upstairs while the adults hit the Candies. I assumed Lydia and Aidan would be too cool at 13 and 15 to run for candy. But no, never underestimate the power of a snickers in the grass to an Allio. The kids ran and excitedly collected their candy and the showed the spoils. It was a repeat of a scene we’ve played over the years. One that always hit my human bone. After dinner, I had the uncomfortable feeling. The need to move. So I went for a walk. Into the polluted Beijing night. ...

I wake up Elisa at 6:40am and she starts to get out of bed. I turn back to the living room to say bye to Aidan and Lydia who are leaving for school together. I had been expecting they would be growing further apart but they seem to be getting closer this past year. Elisa dresses and doesn’t want to eat breakfast, which is normal. We go downstairs, I order a car via Didi, and we wait five minutes for it to arrive. I have a busy day in front of me and am in A go mode. Elisa is not. The car arrives and during the 10 minute drive she teases me about my bald spot, my belly, my intellect. I tease her back. When we get to her school two things cross my mind. The first, is a recurring one, the gratitude I have for these moments. Even though my weekly single dadum is five years in, I often reflect back on the moment I figured out I could swing it with my work schedule. And how that changed everything for me. And it’s a lot easier now than when I started since the kids are older. My second thought is, I recall my dad ever walking me to school. Not a complaint, just a realization. And then I’m walking to the subway thinking of my father. I’ve been wanting to write about him, and have tried to, but I keep losing the narrative, so I stop. I hope and expect that someday I will because I do want my kids to have a sense, a 360 degree sense, of where they came from. And just for my own personal story. I want to tell them that their grandfather had an edge. That like me, people didn’t see him relaxed often. That like me, he cared about things. That his life was a journey and the man he was when I was born wasn’t the man he was when he died. That he became more self aware or at least incorporated that awareness into his actions. I want them to know that we were all afraid of him and with reason. And I hope they are not afraid of me although I know sometimes Aidan is. I want them to know that my dad showed up. That he couched my baseball teams, came to my basketball games, got me a job in college. But I also want them to know he didn’t really seem to enjoy any of these things. That coaching baseball never seemed like fun to him, just a responsibility. I want to tell them that he worked 24 hours shifts as a fireman. That he would work day on, day off, day on, day off, day on, three days off. That we would track the days when he worked for we could breathe on those days. And we would dread when the three or four days off in a row came. I want them to know that my relationship with my father was complicated. He was my dad. He cared. It came out in ways. ...

I’m not sure when the dreams started or many of the details. But I remember the sense of fear and the inevitable sense of being destroyed. They would start out with me in the backyard of my parents house. I would be by myself, playing. But not at play. Tense. Something was coming. Then I move to the side of the house, behind the red wooden gate that I could not see past. Dread. Something was coming. I would then be in the house, the garage and then downstairs. Something was coming. I was alone in the house. I would go upstairs thinking it was safer. I would look out the kitchen window towards the street. I would be overwhelmed with fear; the presence of something coming. I would move to the tv room but the sense of something coming was so strong I would not stay and I would go into the middle of the house. But then I would not know if it was inside the house so I would go back towards the windows and hide. Often this is how the dream would end and I would wake up knowing that whatever was out there was going to one day get me. I was convinced of it even as the dream faded and I awoke to full consciousness. I went about life, denying that day was coming, until the next time the dream came. In other variations of the dream, I would venture out of the house and onto the street. There would be a car coming that I’d think was friendly and then realize was not. At times I felt it was lingering on the hill across from the house, in human form, waiting to come and get me. What was sure, was it would get me. Sometimes I’d be crouched on the stairs like we used to wait on Christmas morning but the biggest fear was the front of the house. The front rooms windows looking towards the street. It was coming. I feel this dream has been with me a long time but peaked after I moved to Beijing and after my third child, Elisa was born. It would recognize the dream signs early on and ride it out until I knew whatever it was, was going to get me. The dreams stopped a few years back. I didn’t really notice, like one doesn’t notice a sprained ankle healed. Occasionally it would dawn on me that I wasn’t having the dream and it would be a relief. Last month, I stayed at my parents house for the last time. They have both passed away now and it’s time to discard the things we no longer want and sell the house. The dream returned to me a couple of nights ago. But I wasn’t afraid. I walked around the backyard, the side of the house, and then inside. I was an observer, guiding my dream self to look around. The sense that something would come and get me was gone replaced with an unknowing. ...

It is week before Christmas when I return to Beijing from my father’s 90th birthday party and a subsequent business trip. I make it through customs and immigration and then walk through the arrivals areas looking to see if someone is there to pick me up. I do this even though I know those days have long ago passed. Down to the airport basement to take the express into town. A young woman greets me, her job is supposedly to help newbie foreigners. I brush past her, bo humbug. I find my way home. Sabrina has put up the christmas tree while I was gone and had done quite a stunning job with it. At first I thought it was a new tree. The kids arrive the next day and would stay through Christmas. I don’t know why, but I just wasn’t very excited about Christmas. Not anti Christmas, just not into it. Maybe because of the jet lag, which takes me a week to get over, or because of my dad’s poor health effect on me (he would pass the day after Christmas). I wasn’t even going through the motions of wrapping gifts and putting them under the tree. Worse yet, I was in a “mood”, both at home and at work. Two days before Christmas, it felt like a normal saturday and then I noticed Elisa, who is nine. She was sitting at the dinner table drawing and cutting. She was making presents and cards, keeping her work a secret. She then made her own wrapping and put them under the tree. That is what did it - I was in. I went to the store and bought wrapping paper proper - not always easy to find in Beijing - and wrapped the simple gifts I had bought in the US. Elisa really wanted to know what I had bought for Aidan and Lydia. We then went Christmas shopping, I provided the kids with some money to get some small things . Wrapping ensued that evening, with Sabrina helping Elisa. The next day I made the christmas meal shopping list and had to visit five stores before finding ricotta. We watched “die hard” as our Christmas Eve movie night. Morning came. We had dunkin donuts and then opened gifts, most of them, since Sabrina had to go to work (Christmas is a normal working day here). Kids were grateful and excited even though the gifts were really basic this year - basically I had no idea for what big ticket items to get. In the afternoon Yang, her mom, and a friend came over and we had an early Christmas dinner. I made my mom’s lasagna and devil eggs but the big hit was the chips and dip (sour cream plus onion soup mix). The kids left with Yang around 6pm and would spend the next few days at a ski resort. I cleaned the stray wrappings from under the tree and had a glass of wine or two. ...