Family

It is Saturday morning and I am barely alert when Lydia decides to tell me about the household politics behind the small iPad. In fact, the small iPad is not an iPad or anything Apple made except for the brand. And the brand is strong. The “small iPad” is actually a Google Nexus 7 tablet, circa 2012. I decided to give it to Lydia and Elisa when I bought the Google Nexus 7, circa 2013 version. And, yes, we are that spoiled. So back to the story. The main reason Lydia wanted to tell me about the small iPad politics is for the same reason all big sisters talk about little sisters – vengeance. ...

“On your left, on your left” comes the voice and I turn my head and see the oncoming bike rider. I am startled not by the voice but that someone would bother to call out. That someone would call out on this running/biking trail that connects Bellevue with Seattle over some lake they call Washington. I am not running to Seattle on this day, only about half way there and back, and it is a beautiful day. Sky is blue, temperature warm, air fresh. I run past a mom and her maybe eight year old daughter who are biking on the trail. The go in 200 yard segments. First the daughter bikes in front with the mom following and then the daughter stops and the mom keeps going for a bit at which point she stops and then the daughter starts riding again until she reaches the mom and then she stops. And then they repeat. They are being so safe. ...

It is Saturday morning and Yang tells me that we are going to Xie Dao (crab island) water park with Lydia’s friend’s family at 10am. I am 48 hours away from ending my oncall rotation and my initial thought is to play it safe and stay near an internet connection but it’s been a quiet week so I decide to just go ahead and go. Lydia’s friend’s parents are known to me as “Naomi’s mom” and “Naomi’s dad”. They have three kids, all girls, with a fourth on the way, also a girl. In the five years we’ve lived in our apartment Lydia’s been best friends with Naomi and then Naomi’s younger sister Emily. We’ve had a family outing with them maybe once or twice a year; mostly it is just the kids playing with each other. The Naomi family is moving back to France after seven years in Beijing and have sold their car so I drive them in one of our cars while Yang drives the rest of the Allio clan in the other. Stuck in traffic on the Airport Expressway on the way to Xie Dao my work ankle bracelet kicks in and I get an automated page from work saying there is a problem which needs my “immediate” attention. The voice response system doesn’t accept my acknowledgement so my backup is paged. My backup is also driving and the voice response system doesn’t recognize his acknowledgement either. This causes the incident manager to get paged, which is not a good thing. Knowing this, I frantically go nowhere in traffic eventually making it to Xie Dao which is a zoo. It’s not a water park, it’s a people park. I park and the families minus me head to the water park. I spend the next three hours hunched over the computer, in the suburbs of Beijing, trying to resolve the problem in Latin America which I eventually do. It is not my first wasted Saturday with the kids but my first for this reason and it’s not a good favorite feeling. ...

It is 6am Monday morning and I am finishing my breakfast when Lao Ma (Yang’s mom) asks me what I want for breakfast. Nodding at my plate I say that I already ate. She asks me if I want some eggs or a steamed bun. I say no. I get up and start to get ready for work. Lao Ma asks me how I will get to work and I say I will ride my new bike. She says it is raining. I look outside and say it is not raining. She says a big rain is coming. I say maybe not till later. In the hallway outside out front door I am tying down my backpack to my bike and Lao Ma suggests I take a taxi. She says it will be very fast to my office this time of the morning. I tell her that I want to ride to work and she repeats that the taxi is very fast. I tell her that I know the taxi is fast in the morning, that I’ve taken it many times. She reminds me that it is raining. I clumsily finish tying down my backpack and push my bike to the elevator. Somehow she got in front of me and is standing in front of the elevator door. Hey eyes light up with a great insight. She tells me that if it rains very hard then I can spend the night at her apartment, since her apartment is just a five minute walk from my office. I tell her “maybe” which means “no” and she repeats how hard will rain later and how close her apartment is to my office. I go from “maybe” to “we’ll see” which means “no”. ...

It is Friday morning July 5th and I am planning on taking a mental health day when I check my work calendar and realize I need to be in the office in the afternoon to lead a meeting and to conduct an interview. Drat, I think. Either that or some other four letter word. In any case, I plan a mental health morning as the only real break I’ve gotten the past three weeks feels like the 12 hour flight from San Francisco to Beijing. Work has just been too much. But this morning, no work, just me an Elisa walking to her kindergarten. ...

It is 11:15pm and along with 15,000 fellow runners I’m waiting for the start of the Sundown Marathon. I’m not feeling the same buzz I normally get at the start of a race; I’m just waiting as I’ve been waiting all day. The problem with a midnight race is you can’t spend the day sightseeing and expect to be able to run. Especially when the race takes place 85 miles from the equator. I’m not sure if the relatively boring day led to my calm at the start line or it was a factor of the race starting so late. Like last year, I was alone because Yang could not make the trip. ...

I am in Lido Park with Elisa when she says she says “babi, I want to pee pee” which isn’t great news since I suspect wherever in this park the restroom is, it won’t be clean. This doesn’t bother Elisa at all; she just wants to go on the grass behind the trail that circles the lake. I ask her if she can wait and she says no. Then I notice her “boyfriend” mao zaheng is being led by his ayi to the area Elisa wants to pee. The boyfriend drops his pants, squats, and takes a dump. I now know why Elisa wants to pee. It is a sympathetic pee. I ask her to wait and she agrees. I mean, Yang and I have been married for almost 12 years and I don’t think she ever wanted to pee when I took a dump. At least not with me. ...

It is maybe 1992 and I am sitting along the back wall of a conference room when my manger asks me to describe the work I did on some project. She is asking me because her boss’s boss, our General Manager, is in the room to check in with the team. I am immediately nervous, heart racing. I am not nervous because I’m about to speak to someone important but because of all the people in the room. All the people paying attention to me. A reaction of fear. I start to introduce myself and then to describe my project. My mind goes to someplace where there are no words. I cannot formulate a sentence. I string words together but not in a way that has any meaning. One set of words are not connected to the next set. I am staring at my lap. I glance up and catch a knowing and partially sympathetic look from an older coworker. Mostly knowing. I glance back down and mumble my words until I am done. The situation, which was orchestrated to give me visibility and a sense of recognition has left me shattered. ...

I am communicating with Yang via Weixin (WeChat app in English) because this is how adults in China communicate when not in the same room. Even sometimes when in the same room. Yang tells me that she needs to go to Guangzhou over the weekend for work but that she will be back before I go to Singapore for my half marathon. I tell her fine, but that’s a long time to be in Guangzhou. She says only a few days. I say I leave for the marathon on May 30, no April 30. Oh, she says. Weixin, or no Weixin, there are communication gaps. ...

I have the afternoon free so I pick up Aidan and Lydia from school. Their school is very close to the apartment we lived in when we first got to Beijing in 2005. In some ways those days were simpler before what was unknown became known and then unknown again. Our apartment, which we call Chaowaimen after the name of the building, was changing tenants so I brought Lydia and Aidan by for a visit. ...