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I am standing at the counter with Lydia waiting for our drinks. Cold drinks on this hot Beijing May afternoon. Lydia is getting a mango lemon drink and me, feeling super, went for a Strawberry milkshake and by the looks of things it was going to be a good one. Just as I started to wonder why it was taking the stand’s worker so long to blend the milkshake a boy, maybe 12, scooted between me and the counter and right into any sense of space I had. My good mood disappeared and over my right shoulder came the boy’s parents asking him what he wanted. They could have whispered in my ear, they were that close, but instead if felt as if they were yelling over my body to reach the boy. At first I held my ground in some kind of childish demonstration and when that had no effect I became even more childish and stepped away with a flurry and stood at the edge of the street, fuming. Lydia walked up to me and put her arm on my back and said “relax, dad, relax”. And I did. Is it possible this girl isn’t even 10 yet? ...

I tap open the Baidu Music app, search for “Beat It” by Michael Jackson and stream it over my living room speakers. I move in front of the coach gently dancing and then into a full out dance when the lyrics start. My two daughters look up and laugh. I keep dancing. They join and soon we are all laughing and dancing and happy. I play YMCA next. And this is how I knew my descent from Everest had begun. ...

I wake up and grab my phone. In Beijing, it is said that checking weixin before sleep and after wake has replaced “good night” and “good morning” as well as a few other human interactions. In this case, however, I have no messages on my phone. In fact my phone is at the factory install screen and google is asking me if I want an account or already have one. Yes, this means I am screwed. Well, not too bad, since everything I care about, mostly photos and notes, are backed to the google cloud where only I and the US government have access to them. I re-set up my phone a little bit by little bit. It is a waste of time for it was meant to die. ...

Spring in Beijing lasts as long as a whisper in the wind. In some ways it is the perfect spring, as short as it needs to be. In some ways it is the most in-perfect spring, never as long as you want it to be. For me, this was the spring that I will always remember as being felt and not heard after two worthless winters of darkness. This tale doesn’t start from today but the story told here will. I arrive to the kid’s home after a perfectly delightful May 1st holiday and Elisa runs up to me happily hugging me and saying “baba, baba”. Lydia comes flying around the corner of her bedroom and hugs me the same. Aidan offers a cool hipster “hey bobbie” which carries no less love. During the two winters darkness this was the very scene that ripped me like shredded glass opening my chest. Today it felt fill of joy, light, and hope. ...

My thumb is shaking a little and my fingers trembling. I am not nervous. I am at lunch trying to put a soup spoon to my mouth. I put the spoon down and switch to the solid food. Someone would later compliment on my use of a chopsticks. I need to relax; or is it something else. Or both. Middle age hits and it is hard to know what is normal and what is not normal. Physically I feel mostly the same. Mentally I have the same weaknesses I’ve always had but I am stronger for accepting them without malice. I can’t seem to concentrate for long period of time anymore be it a TV show or a book. I seem to move from one weixin or facebook post to the next. ...

It is smog apocalypse year two as I hold Elisa’s hand and cross a busy street in what could be called downtown Beijing. Lydia and Aidan are trailing just behind and I am keeping an eye on them as well. We are not quite half way across the street when a car making a left turn, turns sharply into the cross walk inches from me an Elisa. Cars killing us is inevitable, either through smog or this more expedient behavior. I don’t think this until later. At that moment I am angry and I want to punch a hole through the driver’s side window which was dangerously, yet conveniently close. Elisa is tethered to my right hand which would make the punch difficult so I settle for a glare and a curse. I don’t have the ability to curse in Chinese and the windows are tinted darker than a Hearst so my anger is in vain. Except it felt good. Emotion is good. ...

The daughter learned how to make flowers out of construction paper by watching videos on youku.com. She got frustrated at first but stayed with it since her objective was clear and her motivations were strong. Over the next week she perfected her skills and she made a purple, a green, and a red rose. The red rose was for her father. A few weeks passed and the daughter asked the father to come home for dinner after work, which he did. Sometime later the mother also came home at which time the daughter beamed with excitement. The daughter called for the mother and father and had them face each other. The parents stood two feet apart. The daughter said “ok, give the rose to mommy” and the father did so. “ok, give the flower to dad”, and the mother did so. The daughter then took the father’s arm and placed on the mother’s side and pulled the parents together. She smiled, anxious now, not seeing the result she had so hoped would come through. ...

To my delight, Lydia and Elisa are sitting at the kitchen table and playing tic tac toe. I do not know who is winning. The win for me is that they are playing and not fighting. It’s not that they fight so much as Lydia is a bit hard on her younger sister. Just the other day Lydia called me at work to complain that Elisa had broken the house rule of playing games on the computer for more than an hour straight. Don’t get me wrong, Lydia isn’t Matt on Joe level fighting and with Elisa, Lydia is mostly indifferent to unsupportive. I can only guess which parent that is from. More than guess, I guess. Anyway, on this weekend the girls were sans Aidan who was snowboarding in the US with his mom. Aidan gets the slopes of Aspen; Lydia and Elisa get tic tac toe. It was certainly warmer. Oh, the reason Aidan being away is important is because Aidan and Lydia are super close and when Aidan is around Lydia is harsher to Elisa. It may have to do with Aidan also being super close to Elisa but who am I to say. The father. ...

It was a warm August afternoon along the shoreline in Vancouver and the father strolled along the seashore with his wife and children. It didn’t matter that their home was far, far away. Home was where the family was. The eldest, a boy, wanted some popcorn so they stopped and the father let go of his need to control his middle aging weight and joined in. The mother kept track of the youngest who was barely a year old. ...

I am staring at the mirror and questioning. Questioning the value of gel. I thought it was supposed to make hair look better. Turns out there is a skill to it or at least a skill to making it look bad. Check. Last weekend I decided to go to a haircut place closer to where I live. Aidan helped a little bit with translation (“my dad wants a haircut”) and soon I was whisked away for a hair wash and then seated in front of a mirror staring at my wet, tossed hair. A man with cross between a Jheri Curl and a poodle on his head stood to my side and asked me something in Mandarin. Since he has scissors in his hand I figured he was the barber. I used my hand to show that I wanted my hair line to run above my ears. I thought everything else would be relative but he continued to ask more questions and I continued to point at other parts of my head until he gave up and just started cutting. This made me happy. At first. ...