Family

I text an expat friend “Merry Christmas!” and he audios me back “Hey, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, it doesn’t feel like it but hey, Merry Christmas”. My childhood memories of Christmas start with leaving wine and cookies out for Santa on Christmas Eve until the wine stopped. Then on Christmas morning waiting on the basement stairs for my parents to give the all clear, open the door, and then rush to the gifts under the tree. When I was Elisa’s age, 10, it would be quite the scene as my father handed out gifts and we would open them one by one. My father’s delight hidden by his frustration with the mess from the wrappings and the unimaginable spoils of his children. My grandmother’s refrain to “try it on”. The excitement over gifts large and small especially. My imagination engaged as my older siblings were adults and had money to buy significant gifts. I wish I could remember who bought what. Pong, air hockey, Clue were awesome. Later, when I had kids of my own I would sit under our tree and hand out gifts. First to Aidan. Then to Aidan and Lydia. Then Aidan, Lydia, and Elisa. The excitement in their eyes as they tore open the gifts made a lifetime. It’s toned down in recent years. In part because they spend their play time on their IPads, never really needing a new toy. In part because if they need something, we get it for them. In part, because Christmas is celebrated in two homes. On Christmas Eve, Kobe (our beagle puppy) and I went to Hairun which is the apartment complex I used to live with their mom, some six years ago. We ate a fairly typical Chinese meal the nanny prepared. The kids grandmother was taking photos with her IPad, looking all ghetto without realizing it. When it came time for gifts the mom sat under the tree and handed them out. The kids were nice and got gifts for Kobe and Sabrina. I got athletic long johns which I appreciated. I’m pretty sure I will look anything but athletic with them on. Christmas day was my turn. I took the day off work which allowed me to sleep in to 7am when Kobe wanted me to take him outside. I live in a fairly large apartment complex and downstairs was bustling with kids going to school and adults going to work. I made my mom’s lasagna (actually just traditional lasagna from an internet recipe), deviled eggs, and chips and dip. I ordered salad. We had a pretty full house - seven adults and five kids. I gave my kids walkie talkies. “A Star is Born” played in the background. The lasagna was a hit. Christmas is not the same here, that is true. I’m pretty sure my parent’s Christmas wasn’t the same as their childhoods memories. My kid’s Christmas won’t be the same when they grow up. Yet we hang onto the traditions for they push us through the good times and bad times. They have the power to connect generations. And besides, the chips and dip are damn good. ...

So this is the story about a dog joining the family. A few weeks back Sabrina’s sister asked us to watch her dog while she went away for the weekend. I thought it would be a good idea, an enjoyable experience for the kids who have never had a dog. But this dog, some kind of Pembroke mix was uber hyper. barking, wanting to play bite hands and feet, and not house trained. The kids didn’t want anything to do with him and Elisa was afraid of it. By the end of it’s four days with us I could see the dogs behavior was improving. I didn’t want him, but i felt sad to see him go. It got me thinking about a dog which I’ve blocked from my mind as possible in Beijing. I blocked it for a few reasons. When the kids were younger and wanted one I knew I’d end up taking care of it and I just didn’t want to. It reminded me of a time when I had a dog before and I didn’t want to be reminded of that time. Yang was firmly against getting one because she didn’t want to deal with it dying in 10 years. Later when I got my own place I thought about getting a dog. Surely it would be better company than the places I was looking for company. But I travel a lot for work so getting a dog was not an option. It was out of mind until a week ago or so when it dawned on me that Sabrina could watch the dog when I’m travelling and should we both travel we could easily enough find a place. And I still wanted my kids to have a good experience with a dog especially after the time with Sabrina’s sister’s dog. So how to get a dog in Beijing? A rescue dog is the most moral choice. I searched online and found a couple places with English websites. Not well maintained. I’d actually have to speak with someone to find out, which I didn’t want to do. Truth was I didn’t want a rescue dog really, I wanted a puppy of my selfish choosing. I lightly researched different dog breeds online and settled between a Shiba Inu and a Beagle. I’ve always wanted a Beagle but never had one. Upon reading the profiles, a Beagle didn’t seem like a good choice. Great with kids, but noisy, hard to train, and not good in an apartment alone. The Shiba Inu seemed like a better choice. Yesterday, Sabrina and I walked to a couple pet stores. The first one was actually a “pet salon” where pets can come for a spa weekend. The should tell you something about the price. They had two completely adorable Inus and I probably would have taken one home on the spot except for the price. (I know from the rescue dog mafia that pet stores are supposed to be a horrible way to buy a dog. I would say the woman at this pet store was generally caring about the dogs in her care). We went to a second pet store, less a salon, and more commercial. Similar price. So we just went home. Sabrina shifted from supporting to interested. She pinged friends with dogs, how they got them and one who might have an extra newborn Inu. She checked out online shops and found breeders 25 miles away in the suburb of Tongzhou. She connected with one of them via Wechat and saw live feeds of the puppies. They all looked good. And the price was about 1/5th of the in-town price. So we got a car and headed out. On the 40 minute drive there it did cross my mind that I could be entering the territory of puppy factories which are even more evil according to the mafia than buying a pet at a pet store. As we drove through Tongzhou I noted how much more modern it seemed than the last time I was here when it seemed crowded and unfinished. Then we were past the urban area and driving along a country road with farms and small shops on either side. Our taxi left us out in front of a medical clinic where a someone from the breeder would be picking us up. He did, and we drove down a smaller country road until we arrived at 7pm. The dirt parking lot was noticeable for the quality of cars in it. The driver remarked to Sabrina that they sell puppies to Europe too. So I thinking it was a puppy factory and I’m going to hell (which had already been determined by this point anyway). Past the parking lot and inside the gate was a long one story building. A series or glass walled rooms really, with each room having either dogs or cats inside, in cages. It sounds awful, but it wasn’t. The rooms were big. The cages were large and mostly just had one dog per cage. The first room had a kind of Spaniel that looked interesting but I had not researched. Upon a quick search is did not seem like a good house dog. When then went to the room with the Shibu Inu in them. None were the black fur which the woman had previously sent over Wechat. Wasn’t a live video after all. They had six light fur Shibu Inu, two of which I thought were adorable. Sabrina exchanging words with the vendor in Chinese, something about the price which was much higher than when discussed over Wechat. Sabrina asks about the Beagles. We go out to the parking lot and there is a cage with five beagle pups in it. All different prices based on appearance. The runt of the litter with the worst color was the one for the price we were quoted on Wechat. We paid a bit more. After paying there’s and upsell for dog supplies and official show papers. We bought the minimum. I’m learning in my 50s to focus on the positive, to focus on what we want, and to let go of what other people want me to want. The same driver took us back out to the main road where we flagged down a taxi and headed back to town, pup in lap. Yes, a Beagle, which we named Kobe. ...

It’s been a long travel day and we finally reach our villa in Bali. (It feels weird to even write that; we’ve come a long ways in many ways) The hotel manager opens the gate to our villa and Sabrina, Lydia, and Elisa walk inside. I did not tell the kids what kind of hotel we were staying at and haven’t provided any details despite Elisa’s persistent questioning. As soon as they cross the gate, they are excited. Our villa is a courtyard, with a living room and bedrooms facing each other. In the middle, our own pool. Lydia says “I’m so happy” which is quite a thing for her to say. She loves the simple, modern, wood and concrete atmosphere. As soon as we are settled Sabrina and Elisa are using the pool. We snack on the appetizers the hotel provided. Later that night Lydia and I head out in search for an ATM which GPS tells me is about 750 meters away. As we walk we encounter unkempt dogs, off leash, some sleeping, some pacing in front of properties. I don’t think the dogs are a threat but it is unnerving. The roadside is a mix of small shops and fields with the only light provided by the small shops. As we walk alongside a field I turn to my right and a full grown cow is staring back at me. This quite startled Lydia. If you haven’t guessed already, we are city folk. Up past the cows are two dogs prowling the middle of the street at which point Lydia and I turned back. Cash wasn’t that important. There is always room service. I’ve been taking kids on vacations for a few years now as my photo memories remind me (thanks Google Photos, thanks Facebook). I’m not a great planner and I tend to stress over the logistic details and whether the kids are happy. It never exactly feels like a vacation for me although I’m not sure I know what that would feel like. As I write this, I am looking out at our pool. It is raining. I am taken back to Russian River and a cabin we stayed at. It was notable for a few reasons. We didn’t camp. It was during the period of years my mom also went on these summer vacations. My dad decided to quit smoking on this trip. And we swam in the river in the rain. I think the last two items were connected. Back to this vacation, it started on a bit of a downer. The week before the trip Aidan hurt his knee wakeboarding. A MFPL tear caused by a kneecap dislocation and a slight meniscus tear. The MFPL tear needed surgery which meant Aidan had to stay behind. Aidan was afraid before the surgery and in quite a bit of pain after. A six month recovery process is in front of him. With Aidan in the hospital bed overnight, we first flew to Singapore. For some reason I really like Singapore. Something about the moderness of it, some historical buildings and English being spoken. We spent three nights there and did some sightseeing and exploring. I even tried a taste of Sabrina’s Durian McFlurry which I must say was truly horrible. Actual highlights included the botanical garden, the man made gardens by the sea (and light show), and wondering around Chinatown. With both Bali and Singapore it’s obvious there are layers of richness which we can’t access. Can’t access because we are self (screen) involved. Can’t access because we are not connected with locals. For me, I like a mix of insular time and a mix of being pulled into the local scene. My proxy for local scene is walking and reading about the communities. In a few hours we will start our trek back to Beijing. We will say goodbye to this villa and the amazing in room catered breakfasts. We will say goodbye to the scooters zipping past on the wrong side of the road. We will say goodbye to the whisper of another kind of life and fall back into our own. Our own lives which would not be recognizable if we were not in them. ...

When we first lived in Beijing we would occasionally go as a family for a traditional American breakfast. A place called “Paul’s Steak and Eggs”. It was a place tucked behind the Friendship Store and felt comfortable, like a jet lagged Denny’s. I’d get a denver omelette and fret over the pile of hash browns that I’d eat. The kids, just Aidan and Lydia then, would get attention and we would feed on that too. The place was populated mostly by expats, none to rich and none to poor. Over the years the traditional American breakfast stopped being a regular family outing except for on Easter. We even kept the tradition going in the years after the nuclear family went nuclear. The other part of the Easter tradition we kept going was the easter egg hunt, where we’d hide candy in the bushes of the apartment common area and the kids would frantically race each other to collect the candy. This year on Easter, it was my week with the kids, and I thought Elisa as the main candy hunter and one nostalgic nine year old would want the hunt back at her mom’s apartment. But she surprised me, and wanted to do it at my place, so that’s what we did. But first was Easter breakfast. Paul’s Steak and Eggs is long gone so we went to a place in Sanlitun called The Rug , It is like the version of Denny’s that flew first class to Beijing. Thier brunch menu is vast, subtle, and well executed. It was a place that one would think would only appear to well to do expats instead it appealed to well to do locals with few foreigners to be found. It is a far cry from Paul’s. Yang joined, with hard boiled eggs she made for the kids to paint. In fact it was the first time she’s ever made hard boiled eggs and I had to send her the instructions. Sabrina was next to me and the kids scattered about. Did I also mention it was April Fool’s day? After breakfast came the gathering back at my complex. Kids upstairs while the adults hit the Candies. I assumed Lydia and Aidan would be too cool at 13 and 15 to run for candy. But no, never underestimate the power of a snickers in the grass to an Allio. The kids ran and excitedly collected their candy and the showed the spoils. It was a repeat of a scene we’ve played over the years. One that always hit my human bone. After dinner, I had the uncomfortable feeling. The need to move. So I went for a walk. Into the polluted Beijing night. ...

I wake up Elisa at 6:40am and she starts to get out of bed. I turn back to the living room to say bye to Aidan and Lydia who are leaving for school together. I had been expecting they would be growing further apart but they seem to be getting closer this past year. Elisa dresses and doesn’t want to eat breakfast, which is normal. We go downstairs, I order a car via Didi, and we wait five minutes for it to arrive. I have a busy day in front of me and am in A go mode. Elisa is not. The car arrives and during the 10 minute drive she teases me about my bald spot, my belly, my intellect. I tease her back. When we get to her school two things cross my mind. The first, is a recurring one, the gratitude I have for these moments. Even though my weekly single dadum is five years in, I often reflect back on the moment I figured out I could swing it with my work schedule. And how that changed everything for me. And it’s a lot easier now than when I started since the kids are older. My second thought is, I recall my dad ever walking me to school. Not a complaint, just a realization. And then I’m walking to the subway thinking of my father. I’ve been wanting to write about him, and have tried to, but I keep losing the narrative, so I stop. I hope and expect that someday I will because I do want my kids to have a sense, a 360 degree sense, of where they came from. And just for my own personal story. I want to tell them that their grandfather had an edge. That like me, people didn’t see him relaxed often. That like me, he cared about things. That his life was a journey and the man he was when I was born wasn’t the man he was when he died. That he became more self aware or at least incorporated that awareness into his actions. I want them to know that we were all afraid of him and with reason. And I hope they are not afraid of me although I know sometimes Aidan is. I want them to know that my dad showed up. That he couched my baseball teams, came to my basketball games, got me a job in college. But I also want them to know he didn’t really seem to enjoy any of these things. That coaching baseball never seemed like fun to him, just a responsibility. I want to tell them that he worked 24 hours shifts as a fireman. That he would work day on, day off, day on, day off, day on, three days off. That we would track the days when he worked for we could breathe on those days. And we would dread when the three or four days off in a row came. I want them to know that my relationship with my father was complicated. He was my dad. He cared. It came out in ways. ...

It is week before Christmas when I return to Beijing from my father’s 90th birthday party and a subsequent business trip. I make it through customs and immigration and then walk through the arrivals areas looking to see if someone is there to pick me up. I do this even though I know those days have long ago passed. Down to the airport basement to take the express into town. A young woman greets me, her job is supposedly to help newbie foreigners. I brush past her, bo humbug. I find my way home. Sabrina has put up the christmas tree while I was gone and had done quite a stunning job with it. At first I thought it was a new tree. The kids arrive the next day and would stay through Christmas. I don’t know why, but I just wasn’t very excited about Christmas. Not anti Christmas, just not into it. Maybe because of the jet lag, which takes me a week to get over, or because of my dad’s poor health effect on me (he would pass the day after Christmas). I wasn’t even going through the motions of wrapping gifts and putting them under the tree. Worse yet, I was in a “mood”, both at home and at work. Two days before Christmas, it felt like a normal saturday and then I noticed Elisa, who is nine. She was sitting at the dinner table drawing and cutting. She was making presents and cards, keeping her work a secret. She then made her own wrapping and put them under the tree. That is what did it - I was in. I went to the store and bought wrapping paper proper - not always easy to find in Beijing - and wrapped the simple gifts I had bought in the US. Elisa really wanted to know what I had bought for Aidan and Lydia. We then went Christmas shopping, I provided the kids with some money to get some small things . Wrapping ensued that evening, with Sabrina helping Elisa. The next day I made the christmas meal shopping list and had to visit five stores before finding ricotta. We watched “die hard” as our Christmas Eve movie night. Morning came. We had dunkin donuts and then opened gifts, most of them, since Sabrina had to go to work (Christmas is a normal working day here). Kids were grateful and excited even though the gifts were really basic this year - basically I had no idea for what big ticket items to get. In the afternoon Yang, her mom, and a friend came over and we had an early Christmas dinner. I made my mom’s lasagna and devil eggs but the big hit was the chips and dip (sour cream plus onion soup mix). The kids left with Yang around 6pm and would spend the next few days at a ski resort. I cleaned the stray wrappings from under the tree and had a glass of wine or two. ...

Elisa is jumping rope on top of the yoga mat and trying to do a cross jump. She’s getting frustrated because she can’t do the cross and there is a school skill competition tomorrow. I watch her technique and besides thinking she is jumping too high, I have no idea. What do I know about cross jumps. She tries a few more times and the I hit on it - YouTube to the rescue. And sure enough there are plenty of YouTube instruction videos. We pick one. Tights are not good on everyone. The instruction is good, Elisa is rapt with attention, playing parts over and over again. She still can’t do it. She’s frustrated. I ask her to take a break. She asks me if I think she can do the cross jump tomorrow. Yes, I lie. ...

I’m in the Starbucks of Yang’s apartment about to pick up Elisa for a morning performance of Disney on Ice. I text up to see if Yang and the kids want anything. Vanilla Frap for Aidan, Chocolate Frap for Lydia, decaf coffee for Yang, and pita bread for Elisa. I’m thinking this sure ain’t breakfast food when Sabrina says she wants the New York Cheesecake. We get upstairs, fortifications in hand. Talk with the older kids while Elisa gets ready and Yang puts on some pants. Sabrina books a car and we take off. ...

Yang sends me a WeChat that Elisa’s school will have her participate in some government event this week. I text back that Trump is in town on Thursday. “That must be it”, she says. I am added to the WeChat group with the other parents of the 10 American kids selected from Elisa’s school. There are instructions in Chinese and English including dress code. The coordinating teachers ask for photos of what the kids will wear and we dutifully send. No black stockings for Elisa, white or grey is ok. Some details trickle in - welcoming ceremony, outside of great hall of the people, kids up front. There is no direct mention of Trump. We all know. ...