3 years!

Happy anniversary to my love!

(summer 2006 and wedding day 2007.)

--da

No Water..No Electricity...maybe

There was a notice in our complex today....from 5 am tomorrow morning until 12:00 am tomorrow night (or the next day..whatever is easier to understand) the electricity and water will be turned off.  Fun stuff.  However, b/c our water is heated by solar panels on our roof, there are tons of water tanks on the rooftop and so I'm hoping for enough "reserve" water from those tanks for a shower in the morning.  (I did fill the mop bucket in order to be able to flush the toilets...that's for sure.)

Logan says he'll believe it when he sees it.  They have put up notices like this before but we didn't lose water or electricity.  I can't help but think this time it is for real.  I guess we'll see tomorrow morning at 5 if our A/C shuts off.

--da

anything can be qualified as typical when you live in a foreign country

10:00 am:  Leave the house w/ my passport, Logan’s passport, and a copy of another friend’s passport in order to check at the post office for two packages that we are expecting.

10:05 am:  Run into a lady that I have begun to love dearly over the past few weeks.  She is one of the cleaning ladies for our apartment complex.  She sweeps, mops and empties trash cans all day long, starting around 6 am, but not before applying bright red lipstick and painting her eyebrows on.  After having tons of random, 30 second conversations over the past few weeks, she finally asks me what my name is, allows me to call her by her last name and the equivalent of Aunt, and then we end our discussion on the topic of how ridiculously hot it has been the last few days. 

10:10 am:  Arrive at the post office.  I find the usual situation of a loud crowd of people all competing for service, and I am hesitant to elbow my way through to the front and to the guy I know is accommodating to my stuttering Chinese, but is busy at the time.  My other option is to approach the not so accommodating woman who happens to be entering data into a computer, but without a crowd of people around her window.

After 3 minutes of indecision, I approach the woman. 

“After you are finished with that, can you look for maybe two packages for me?  One is for me, and one is for a friend of mine that has moved, but a package he was expecting did not arrive before he moved.”

She actually smiles, and quickly finishes what she is working on.  Then she looks up at me, and without checking the back say, “There are no packages.”

“You are not able to look?” I reply.  (There is a hint of sarcasm in the way this would translate; however I refrained from rolling my eyes.)

She gets up, consults another lady, who then tells me, “It isn’t a package, it is a letter.”  (As if I don’t know the difference between the two words.)  She does, however, allow me to sign and take the “letter”, which is actually a priority mail envelope..so smaller than a package, yes, but not simply a letter.   

10:25 am:  I leave the post office, head back towards my apartment, but stop to make copies first.  15 copies.  $1.17 USD.

10:28 am:  Cross the street to return to the apartment and pick up my bike before running another errand.  At the entrance, I witness a man try to steal a woman’s wallet, although at first I am not aware that is what is actually happening.  Here, he doesn’t run up to the woman w/ a gun and yell for her to hand over her wallet.  There are no guns, so what you see is not a production of yelling and force and fear.  Rather, I see him simply walking behind the woman, and then suddenly, but so subtly, he inserts what appears to be a long pair of tweezers into the pocket of her skirt.  She feels it, grabs her pocket and then turns towards him.  With the umbrella she is carrying to protect her skin from the sun, she hits him, and undoubtedly curses him too.  As he simply walks away, her two friends have to refrain her from following him across the street and wounding him….both his body and his pride.  Thief:  Fail.  But I have no doubt that he will try again, sooner rather than later. 

--da

Feeling hot, hot, hot...

With that title all I can actually think about is the episode of The Office where Michael and Jan go to Jamaica (or was it the Bahamas?) and Michael brings back the set of drums and plays "feeling hot hot hot" all day long in the office, that one line being all that he can play.

We've neglected the blog....so sorry.  There are a lot of posts in my head, pictures that I want to take...but I just haven't done it yet.  This post is to let you know we are alive...and hot.  My meat thermometer says 92 degrees in my kitchen.  My computer says it is 99 degrees outside.  I am not for sure how accurate those are.  But it feels like 105.  (That would also probably be a total exaggeration on my part.)  I know it could always be hotter...

Stay tuned for new and exciting posts....hopefully.   :) 

--da