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The day is over and she is tired and she just wants to get home, have some tea, curl into a blanket and sleep. She waves down a taxi, gets in and says “Zhichun Lu”. The taxi driver replies “qu nar”? She repeats. He repeats. She then says the larger area name, Zhongcunsun followed by Zhichun Lu. The driver still asks where. She is so frustrated. Then the taxi driver says the damndest thing. that he doesn’t understand what she is talking about. At this point she decides he’s flake and she gets out of the cab. ...

the kid played with his small gi joe soldier. he had just the one gi joe and no enemy soldiers so he had to use a stick in their place. he found that the stick naturally beat the gi joe but then found himself bored and needed to break the stick himself and start over. there were no other boys he could play with beause the other boys his age wanted to punch and kick and otherwise do things he wasn’t interested in. he liked to play catch and play games. but not touch. not fight. not tease. ...

How do you eat an elephant? You start by taking a bite. Such was our move strategy when packing. Just do it. So we packed bit by bit over a week, in between meals, cat naps, nights on the town. And when the movers arrived Friday morning everything was mostly packed into plastic bins and plastic bags. There were three movers and three supervisors. Yang supervised from inside the condo and our ayi and I took turns supervising the elevator area and the truck area outside. We don’t have anything super valuable but it would still be a bummer to have stuff stolen, so we stood and watched as the workers lifted, carried, and placed. We also had to supervise as our apartment security guard would occasionally hassle the movers for no apparent reason. On time they asked them to keep a man at the truck at all times so that it could be moved even though they clearly left enough space. ...

I’m in this place of mind, maybe it is work, maybe it is the friends I keep, where I feel people over-think things. For the most part this doesn’t bother me – hey go to town on your discussion of three inch washers – but does kind of annoy me when I get asked to participate in the hyper analysis of such things. Yes, it’s true that if your only tool is a hammer everything looks like a nail. But it is also true that a hammer is a damn good tool. If you have a nail, you should use a hammer. There are lots and lots of nails out there. ...

Lydia finishes her 15 kuai ice cream and she wants more. She asks for one more, a pinky one this time, and being denied this asks for Aidan’s but not mine because it is chocolate. She is such a strong willed little girl who knows what she wants and knows when she wants it. One may consider he spoiled or selfish. I call her Lydia. In lieu of ice cream I ask her if she would like a piggy back ride. She gently suggests that she would prefer ice cream. Gentle as in “No!”. But she relents and it turns out she didn’t know how much fun a piggy ride could be, at least for the rider. ...

James Blunt came onstage, made a sound with his guitar and then his voice and the Star Live club in Beijing came alive. In a kind of middle aged expat, rich young Chinese kind of alive. I appreciated that he was on time. Yang and I were 20 or so feet from the stage, off to the side, and when as the rest of his band joined in and the lights came on Yang’s heart skipped a beat and she asked me to let my hair turn back to brown and grow it long and maybe grow a shaggy style beard. I noticed Blunt’s eyes were unnaturally white and alert as he ripped through the song and toyed with the audience. ...

Aidan tells me he is not sleepy as I pick him up. Two minutes later he is asleep in my arms as we ride the Beijing subway eastward, towards home. The subway train isn’t as packed as it was on the way to the game when people forced their way in and off the train and young girls took took pictures of Aidan with their cell phones. But it was still crowded and Aidan is getting heavy so I was grateful when a stocky older Chinese woman ushered me towards a seat as she chased out the existing seat occupant. I sat and looked at my son sleeping so peaceful and thought this would be perfect if we had actually saw the game. Then decided the game was secondary anyway. ...

My cell phone rings and it is Aidan. He just off the plane and is waiting with Yang and Lydia for the stroller. He starts to tell me about his new lego toy and that he put it together all by himself. I am waiting just outside the gate, wearing my blue sweatshirt, hood on. My hair has been an out of control mess for about a week and it will be another day before it is orange, so I feel more comfortable hiding it. ...

It is about 11:30pm when I return to the hotel room in Tokyo, Asaka district. The day has been long and since I started out tired to begin with, I worry that sleep will not come easy. The restless night of the over-stimulated and over-tired may await. It then dawns on me that my son has turned five today. Or was it yesterday? Or is it tomorrow. Or both. I settle on both. Aidan is 17 time zones away and is 5000 miles away, with Yang in the Bay Area. He is probably awaking now, his first day of five. ...

It is Chinese New Year eve and we arrive at the small public square across the street from our home. The square is dark and empty. While Aidan and Lydia wait with anticipation, Yang asks the security guard if it is ok for us to set off our fireworks here. “Keyi, keyi 可以 (sure, sure)” comes the response. We make our ways towards the center of the square and light our sparklers. Its cold and dry and a bit windy so the sparkrs take a bit to light. Once lit, Lydia is waving and dancing and Aidan is stabbing and jaunting. Another group of people joins us on the square and they light fireworks that shoot maybe five stories high and explode in light. We quickly run through our meager supply and dash to the fireworks stand to buy more. I want to buy a box of high flying exploding rockets but don’t want to lay down they cash (40 USD). We buy some more sparklers. In an unexpected occurrence of common sense, the fireworks stand does not have any matches. ...