Family

I am walking in The Box and carrying Amanda. She is squiggling in my arms like I imagine a ferret would. She wants down. I place her down. Down on her own two feet. She steadies herself a bit and then she’s off. We walks with joy and determination. I try to hold her hand and she brushes it aside. She turns, walks back in the direction from whist we came. She turns again. If she encounters a stair or uneven ground she will pause and wait for me to hold her hand for balance. Once past the obstacle, she shakes free and continues. ...

After 10 hours on the road from Chengdu, we arrive in Xian and then the driving really starts. First across the city in rush hour traffic. This takes maybe 45 minutes. Then, when we are two miles from our hotel, the road gets next level crowded with cars, scooters, and people. I’m inching along, checking the navigation to make sure I don’t make a wrong turn. Often, there are no easy corrections after wrong turns in the big cities, so one mistake could mean 20 minutes. I get through the most crowded narrow road and onto a big road. But wait, only 50 meters then a sharp right into an even narrower street which our hotel is on. All I’m thinking about is where to park. Well, that and not running over anyone. Or scratching the car. A spot magically appears on the left. Our car’s auto parking does’t recognize it, so I need to manually park. Parallel park to the left. Thankfully the car has lots of cameras and eventually I’m able to focus on the right three views and zig/zag my way into the spot. It’s then that I noticed we have parked at the base of Xian’s historical city wall. ...

The water is not hot. The shower water. I open the bathroom door a crack and yell to Sabrina “hot water” and she in turn yells to her father to turn it on. He responds with what sounds like frustration in Chinese. A few minutes pass and the shower still lacks hot water. I’m thinking maybe it’s the universe telling me to join the cold water immersion cult. Nah. I yell out the door again, Sabrina tells me it’s on but it’s not and then I hear the hot water heater fire up and a minute later the shower has hot water. ...

Five years ago when I visited Sabrina’s hometown of Xiangyang, I hatched a plan. What the plan lacked in substance, it made up for in naiveté. We would buy a new apartment and car and retire here. The new apartment would take two years to complete, which would give me enough time to self fund. We’d be able use the rent from our place in Beijing to pay for daily expenses. But a few things got in the way of the plan. First, real estate developers in China including ours went bankrupt leaving our apartment, mostly paid for, in limbo. Second, Amanda. ...

We are leaving the coliseum in the family station wagon with my dad at the wheel. He’s trying to find a short cut to get to the freeway and to get home. One of his famous short cuts. He decided to follow another driver - “that guy knows where he’s going”. We follow that car for miles. Right until the car pulled into it’s driveway. Looking back, I wonder if my father had been drinking that night and I think likely he was. Four boys at an A’s game, half price night, sneak a flask into the bleachers and forget. I have other memories about his driving plans to and from the game. San Mateo bridge faster than Bay Bridge? Dumbarton bridge on the way back taking advantage of the reverse toll? Parking on the side streets outside the Coliseum to save parking fees. ...

I’m waiting for a Didi to take me to the public security bureau to pick up Elisa’s passport. I’m in a bit of a rush. I was waiting for Elisa to get home from school so we could go together like we did a year ago but she has an extra class today and can’t be home until it’s too late. That and the location has apparently moved from a 10 minute bike ride away to south of Qianmen which is about 30 minutes by car. ...

It’s 5:30am and I am driving Lydia to the airport for her return to Toronto. She’s flying through Warsaw on Polish Airlines which I didn’t even know existed. Maybe it’s better known as human trafficking airlines. Ok, that’s not funny, except to me. A few days before, I get in the elevator at our apartment on my way to pickup a Luckin Coffee americano. It stops on the 5th floor. A middle aged man, shorter than me and with a lean, gets in. He’s wearing a white chef’s outfit including the hat. The outfit is not freshly washed. He’s on a weixin video call talking about what I do not know. His head leans in the other direction as his body. He’s shaving with an electric razor although I see no facial hair. As we exit the elevator on the ground floor, his video call and shaving continues. ...

(the following post is from 2018. I haven’t written the actual story; yet) Prologue I am at a small farewell dinner for someone I don’t know very well. I am making small talk while we waiting for the final two guests to arrive. I compliment the guest of honor for some work related thing. He then asks me how often I workout since he recently saw me running on the streets near the office. I tell him, appreciating what I was expecting to be the reciprocal compliment. Instead a sucker punch. He smirks in a way that that a non funny man who thinks he is being clever smirks. He asks me if if I eat a lot of junk food. I say no, not really. Burgers? Occasionally. Lots of beer? Occasionally with burgers. He smirks again, pleased with himself for explaining why I am so fat. ...

I’m standing in the NIO showroom at Oriental Plaza, about a kilometer away from Tiananmen Square, starting at an ES8 when I flash back to 1980. The ES8 is a beautiful EV SUV. It’s huge. Great range. Luxurious. Third row. Lie flat seats. Massage seats. Sabrina loves it. I think if I get it, then she may watch her TV dramas in the car. But I’m resistant. Being somewhat unreasonable like I can be. It’s too big. If we get it, then she needs to make sure it can fit in our condo’s parking spot. I’m irritated at the thought of getting it but have a hard time saying no. I’m not sure why I’m getting emotional about it. The car I was thinking was the EC6 and it’s not that much smaller. ...

The elderly male doctor’s is friendly with good English. He asks me how I’m doing as he locks the exam room door. At my age, I guess I should be getting annual health checks but I haven’t gotten one in maybe five years. Five years in part because of my own procrastination and in part because the English speaking hospital I normally go to only does rudimentary checkups. That’s because checkups done locally are pretty through and covered by standard insurance. I had one in 2006 and again in 2018. As far as I know, I passed without anything significantly wrong in those checkups. The two prior checkups also had an elderly, slightly overly friendly, good English speaking doctor. I knew what I was in for even before they locked the door. ...