I walked through the HK airport thinking I’ve seen all of HK and I’ve seen nothing at all. As I near the gate, I see a final chance to buy a toy for the four year old who is awaiting my arrival. I walk on past, thinking I have already done enough. Thinking that the rest, as they say, is history. Thinking that I’m glad her tastes are not yet expensive. ...

We are driving north towards what I call the “mega spa”. I refer to it as the “mega spa” because I don’t know its actual name. Not in English or Chinese. It is slightly north of the 6th ring road and will take us about 30 minutes to drive there. Our new GPS is telling us that I need to take the off ramp 4K ahead. Then 2K. Then now. It is remarkably precise…or so it seems…being it talks in Chinese I can’t actually tell. Yang bought me the GPS for fathers day but since all the instructions were in Chinese it sat around on a counter until Yang had time to set it up. Yang has had other things on her mind and in her womb recently. ...

“Your twitters are so dark” and “i don’t understand your status messages” are the most common response to his micro blogging. He thinks he needs to find a new micro blog neighborhood where he will not coax his messages for his audience. But, of course, – and there is always an “of course” -- his messages will be coaxed for his audience anyway. It’s a matter of whether he wants to coax it one way or the other. ...

I head out on a run (or as I like to call it – accelerated walking) and realize it is about time from Aidan and Lydia to get out of school. It is the rare workday that I am home early and an even rarer Friday. I had been in training across town and decided to work from home when a repeated wrong number call woke me up from my cat nap. In any case, I decided to run to the school to see if I could catch Aidan and Lydia. I walked into the playground and wandered a bit when Aidan came running up holding his jump rope. The one with a pink tint which seems weird. He gave me a demo of his jump roping skills. I think he made 10 loops. ...

She told me I need to be less cynical. That I needed to be more visibly passionate. I told her this was hard for me to do. That the thing I liked the best about me was my cynicism. That when it was right, it was right. To ask me to stop doing that would be the same as asking me not to be me. She said, that well, that was the only way I could achieve and grow. I thought maybe I didn’t want to grow then. That maybe I didn’t want to become her, in all her splendor. But I didn’t say this out loud. I just turned on my mental cynical filter which went something like this: ...

I am driving. Aidan, Lydia, Elisa, and the mother in law unit are in the back seat. Yang is in the passenger seat. There is some type of conversation going on about the weather. I haven’t showered and somehow have ended up wearing with a black polo sweat shirt with dark blue sweats. My hair is uncombed, my face not just unshaven but unevenly unshaven. It is just then that I think this is an all together different type of expat life that most folks sign up for. ...

She didn’t see him reaching for the lifeline. It was a windy late spring afternoon when they headed off for the sail. The small boat’s captain said always keep one hand for yourself and one hand for the boat. In the first hour he did this pretty well. But then he started to get a lizzy dizzy and a little weak. He guessed that the coffee only breakfast to avoid heaving was not such a good idea. Couple that with an exhausting work schedule the past few weeks and he was running on fumes. In the morning he tried to talk with her but she was annoyed at something. She has every right to be annoyed, he thought. After all, he was the classic nice guy/asshole combination that she had repeatedly made the mistake of falling for. He was a guy who would suck her kind personality dry…use if for his own interests…while giving nothing of himself to her. They argued…in their quiet seething way…over where to go for dinner the night before, who wasn’t paying which bill, who was the real breadwinner. The only common ground they could find was silence. As the sail reached 90 minute mark, he started to feel giddy and stood and walked toward the front of the boat. He lifted his arms in the big “look at me mom” way, in a way he hadn’t done since he was eight. And for the first time since he was eight, he felt like a kid again. Free and without a care. It was just then that the captain swung the boat around, tossing the man into the cold dark water under the cold dark moonless sky. He bobbled up for air and saw their flashlights but they could not see him and his sunk away. The lifeline was never really within reach. ...

Aidan is starting to see my flaws and Lydia is starting to see my values. I’ll call this progress. During our vacation Aidan noticed a toy gumball machine. One of those put in a quarter, turn the handle a few times, and a round hard piece of gum drops down. But in this case, the gumball machine was not dropping gum, but rather small plastic egg enclosed toys. And it wanted four quarters, not one. Aidan is a bit of a toy addict and as soon as he spotted the pokemon gumball machine he was asking for me to buy him one. I first told him no, too expensive. Then I told him I didn’t have four quarters. He protested, at which point I showed him all the coins in my pocket. The problem being that I actually did have four quarters. So, now I was stuck buying the toy. But the pokemon gumball machine was jammed, it would not take my quarters. Aidan wanted me to try anyway, I tried to show him that it was broken. He settled for another toy from a neighboring gumball machine. ...

I’m sitting alone in our Beijing apartment having just returned from a two week US vacation. It feels large and empty and they dryer takes a long time. Yang and the kids remain in Fremont for a few more days. We headed out on our vacation with some trepidation. We are not used to watching the three kids by ourselves and it must be said that the main worry in this regard was me. In our 3.5 years in Beijing, I’ve cooked three times, done laundry 4-5 times, changed at most a half dozen diapers, given the kids a dozen baths, and washed dishes maybe once. It is a hard life, I know. Another worry we had was that one of the kids might get sick as they have on past trips. ...

Sometimes it feels like I live in a commune. Shortly before Elisa was born, three goldfish appeared in a small fish bowl in our bedroom. I’m not sure how they got there and I didn’t ask. Last Saturday morning at 6am, Aidan came into the bedroom, woke me up, and with sheer glee taped a drawing he made onto the wall. There are now drawings of his all about the house. The drawings are remarkable for two reasons. First, they don’t show a lot of…how do we say…talent. Second, they are happy pictures drawn by a damn happy boy. I never used to buy into the thinking that pictures drawn by a child give some deep insight into the child’s mental health. I thought they more or less just demonstrated what crayons the kid had that day or some random thought in his mind that had nothing to do what we adults consider happy or sad. ...