As I was running through the light rain in my “Free Winona” tee-shirt a couple of thoughts occurred to me. First, I hoped one of the Olympic security volunteers who I pass on every block do not interpret this to be a “Free Tibet” shirt because I’m not sure my Chinese is good enough to explain the context of my Winona shirt. But I am not too worried, the security volunteers are mainly young men who just sit around and observe and do not really appear to be paying much attention at all. They carry no guns or weapons of any kind and they look worn down by the heat and humidity. They are all over town and not just by the events. Their job is to report any strange behavior. A foreigner running in this heat may quality. ...

Random thoughts and observations. I’m pretty sure this is the first Allio born in Beijing. A thought popped into my head during labor. When Aidan was born, a group of nurses came into the room to help encourage Yang to push. It seemed like the whole floor of nurses. Today, during labor, it dawned on me the nurses may have in fact come in to watch over the elderly doctor who was rushing Yang and whose nurse disagreed with having Yang push at that time. ...

Yang is mad. They won’t give us the Olympic tickets I ordered online. They say it takes one day to process and we’ve only just placed the order today. Yang plays the “I’m nine months pregnant card” to full effect and eventually a nice American chap emerges with our tickets. Yang has a feeling that if we don’t pick up the tickets today, it could be a while. Tickets safely fetched (two baseball, two boxing, two basketball) Yang says she feels like Teppanyaki for dinner and we find an all you can eat, really nice, Teppanyaki place in the China View building. Next to The Den, but that is a story for another day. We eat well, really well, and make it home by 9:30pm. I tell Aidan and Lydia about the tickets and ask both what country they will cheer for in the Olympics. Lydia says China, Aidan America. When asked how about America and China, Lydia sticks with China and Aidan says, America, China, and just for good measure Cuba. ...

It is the night before Lydia’s birthday and Yang and I are sitting in the bread store trying to decide to have a snack in the store or just go home. Yang’s new cell phone rings but she doesn’t answer it because it is in my back pocket and the phone sounds like something a 13 year old village girl would have. I continue on the great stay/go debate when Yang asks for her phone, sees the Ayi called, calls back, and gets up with more speed than a nine month pregnant woman should have. She is still quite slow, so I am able to catch up and ask who’s called and she says “Lydia’s been hurt” and then Yang is out the back door and we see our Ayi holding Lydia near the playground behind the bakery. We see some blood in a cloth and Lydia has a gash under her chin, right away it is obvious that she will need stitches. Yang calls ahead to the hospital where the kids get their check ups and where Elisa will be born (any day now) and finds out they don’t take this kind of emergency. Luckily, another very western style hospital is a block away from our house and they have a full service emergency room. American, white doctor, chinese nurses speaking excellent English, and Lydia all stitched up within an hour. Aidan’s eyes swelled up when retelling the story of how Lydia got the cut. Lydia was very strong when getting the stitches and while she let us know she good feel the pain, she kept the wiggling and fussing to a minimum. The whole thing cost 3800 kuai (about $550 USD) and my insurance covered it. A year ago, the insurance I had would not of covered it so it is lucky Lydia decided to crack that chin this year. Yang told the Ayi the cost and the Ayi said that in her hometown, the cost of a c-section is less than half what these few stitches cost. ...

As Yang packs her bag thinking #3 is coming soon, I am left with thoughts of Fuwas and machine guns. What exactly is a Fuwa? A Fuwa is a mascot of the Beijing Olympics in the great tradition of Olympic mascots. I mean, who can forget Izzy, 1996 Atlantic mascot. In my 1997 trip to Atlanta, I bought an Izzy for $2.50. Beijing did not have a lot to live up but just to be safe, they came up with five fuwa mascots, which gives Izzy a run for his/her money. ...

We are in the United lounge getting ready to board a flight for a vacation in a far off place. It is the first time we’ve gotten away alone together in a long time. Since the kids, since the move. I have enough United miles that we get upgraded to business class. She’s happy with this. We get on the plane and I feel pride and a sense of peace. I’ve been away for a few days so while we wait to takeoff she catches me up on what happened at home the past week. A certain play at school, a typical swimming lesson, the usual lunch with the girls, the usual gossip about who’s happy and who’s not. Then she mentions the call from the investigator from our old hometown, asking routine background questions for a case he is trying to close. I pay a bit more attention but I am not concerned, they are just running in the same circles they did five years ago. Then she mentions the phone call from the ex sister in law, asking a seemingly innocent question. But it isn’t so innocent. My first thought is to end it myself because the police will surely be waiting on our return. My second thought is this is just a dream. And it was. And I awake. To another reality near by. ...

Our family will make five soon and while Yang always wanted three kids, I had my doubts. Mainly around the numbers. Think about this: Five means longer waits at restaurants for a table. Five means two hotel rooms instead of two queen beds in one room. Five means two taxis or someone sitting on a lap. Five means a bigger car. Five means 2x2x1 seating on plane rides. Five means three bicycles instead of two w/kids seats. Five means a three bedroom house instead of two bedroom and forget about a den. And the topper ...

What is a man’s form of nesting? I’ve been wanting to buy some things for a few weeks now. Some out of need (cell phone, bike bag), some out of vanity (tee shirts), some out of obsession (head phones), and some out of insanity (R9 honda scooter). I was able to accomplish nearly all of these goals, minus the scooter which Yang told me was pure insanity in Beijing and if I were to be that insane the least I could do is buy a real bike. This way our kids would have some semblance of pride in describing their father’s death (“Well, you see, he was crossing on his scooter sanyuanqiao when his murse got entangled with a taxi’s mirror and the subsequent fall from the overpass led to his death”). ...

I read that the elusive northern passage was first navigated last summer due to global warming. Seems the ice in the Arctic melted enough that a ship could make it through without incident. The European explorers tried 600 years too early. When we moved to Lido, I looked on google earth to see how far away my office was and what the best path to it. The map revealed something interesting. We live just outside of the 4th ring road on the northeast corner of town and my office is on what is essentially 3.5 ring road in the northwest section. In my mind’s eye, I would bike directly west and then drop down south to reach my office. Instead, Google Maps revealed that my office is directly west of our home. This would be great if I was a bird. And since I am not a bird and even if I was, likely I would not be of the flying variety. Given these facts, I needed to find a roads. The problem is google earth did not show the perfect path and all the maps here are in chinese. ...

As Beijing makes its final Olympic preparations, we are making ours. Our major Olympic event will be the birth of child number three, with the tentative English name of Melissa Anne Allio and a Chinese name of 巢 where the first character is Yang’s Chao and the 2nd isn’t something I quite have a handle on yet. In addition to number three’s arrival, I do have a single Olympic ticket, for the closing ceremonies. Here is the story of how “easy” it was to obtain such a ticket. But first, a couple of Aidan/Lydia pictures just for fun. ...