I release the parking brake, back up slightly, and then turn away from my parents’ house and down spruce ave. In the mirror I catch a glance of my mom talking over the fence and across the driveway with Doris. My dad remains in front of us and he is waving goodbye. I offer a weak smile because that is all I have left and focus on the road. One I could drive in my sleep. We get to the bend in the road and Yang starts to cry and she is not the type that cries easily as far as I know. Aidan in the back seat says “mom, are you crying?” to which there is no response. We just keep driving. Aidan repeats his question a couple of times and Yang tells him in Chinese, “no problem”. Aidan understands what’s going on and starts to cry a bit too. Elisa, ever learning from her big brother joins quietly. Lydia remains silent as is the car except for the numbing beat of sports talk radio. We stop for Mexican takeout. ...

I am standing at my niece’s Tori’s baptism in Houston Texas. Somewhere nearby is Aidan and Yang. Aidan is maybe a year old so this is 2003. No Lydia yet. No Elisa. No Beijing Allios. My mom is standing next to me. She whispers into my ear that I could take Aidan up for a little dip; to be baptized. I politely decline, not reveling myself, caught in between being respectful to my mom and being respectful to myself. Her faith is strong and mine goes unstated. So, with my Mom’s remaining days dwindling, I thought I would use this letter to state my faith after all. And the message I want you kids to understand. ...

My self reward for a mostly successful first business trip with my new team was to watch the MLB All Star game. It was the perfect year to watch the all star game as four Giants were in the starting lineup. I scheduled my day such that I would be back to the hotel by 5pm and in front of the TV with peanuts in time for the first pitch. My only question is whether I would actually be able to sit in front of the TV and relax. ...

I crawl into the back of my parent’s scion tc and do the 180 degree spin into the seat. It is not unlike the crawl and spin move needed when I was a kid and getting into the back of station wagon. Back then, you see, station wagons didn’t have third row seats that folded down; they just had a flat area that was useful for lugging plywood and kids. I am number seven of eight kids, so I was seldom alone in the back there. ...

I am on the 4th ring road driving Aidan home and the subject of animals comes up. I ask him if animals can think and he thinks they do. I ask him if animals can speak Chinese or English or any other language. He thinks not. I ask him how they can they think without language. I ask him if he can think without language. He smiles. I do not know if it is a thinking or unthinking smile. I mention to him that maybe we do think without language. Maybe that is why sometimes you feel happy or angry and can’t explain why. We drive on. Traffic is heavy and I need to focus on the road. ...

We are sitting down to lunch on the first day of a three day weekend. A drill from construction nearby starts to buzz. And buzz. And buzz. It is loud and annoying. Lydia asks Yang to complain to property management. Yang makes a phone call and the drilling stops a moment later. If I had only known it was that simple. Living in an apartment complex in Beijing means you put up with a fair amount of noise. Most of it you just get used too. Cars driving on wet pavement, buses heaving, shutters opening, the occasional pipe making itself known. Construction noise comes from time to time too however the past 18 months it has been almost non stop from our neighbors’ apartments. By neighbors I mean next door, above, and below. It first stuck me in December of 2010. I was home, laid up with some kind of stomach virus. I could not sleep, think, or relax. Drill, drill, drill. As I spent the next year working from home the noises would subside for a few weeks and then pick up again. The only way I could get any peace was to wear headphones. It was a contributing factor on why I returned to a job in a normal, mostly quiet, office. ...

It is 4pm and I’m looking for the remote control so I can listen to some music as I write this. It is 4:10pm and I am still looking for the remote. I give up. I think maybe I should enforce a house rule to put the remote back on the TV stand when you are done watching TV. But I don’t want to be that dad. The enforcer dad of things kids will figure out anyway. ...

I am driving Lydia to a classmates birthday party. We are a bit late. We can blame my driving or we can blame China. Yes, it is a China moment. To get directions to the party was a bit of a challenge as I only had the place name in Chinese. I used the phone number to find the address and English and then used Google maps to get me driving directions. Once on the road I naturally missed the exit which means I had to take the next exit and make a U-turn. On the Beijing expressways this means a 20 minute detour. I found the street I needed to turn onto and it was a disaster. It is a scene a bit hard to describe but one familiar if you’ve spend anytime exploring Beijing. A village surrounded by urbanization. Narrow streets with cards squeezing by in both directions and occasional deadlocks when street obstacles only allowed one way traffic. Everyone, from pedestrians, to bicycles, to carts, to cars, to buses all operating by their self interest. ...

Elisa is asleep in the back seat as Yang is driving me to the airport to catch my 3:35pm flight to Singapore. I’m running a bit late but not too late until we hit a traffic jam at the airport expressway. Traffic jams on the airport expressway are not too uncommon as police often escort third level diplomats from third world countries. The delays tend to be brief and traffic picks back up as soon as the diplomat passes by. In this case, however, cars were not moving. 10 minutes passed. Then 20. Yang calls he friend who works for the airline and he asked them extend the last check-in time to 2:40pm. But at 2:40pm we were still 5K away from the terminal with traffic at a stand still. Some people in the cars behind us got out and started jogging or walking along the expressway. I would not have been able to make it by 2:40pm if I ran so I stayed put. ...

I have just joined a conference call at work and I’m waiting for it to get started. It doesn’t look to be a very exciting call. One of those calls where either my manager or myself should be on the call, but not both. So I take a peek at facebook on my phone to check in on my niece Catie’s status. She’s dead. I reread the post from my sister in law a few times to make sure there’s no misunderstanding. There is none. My body heaves. The call continues. ...