A Bunch of Things I'm Thinking About Today

This morning (Sunday, May 9, Mother's Day), I'm thinking about...

• How when I don't blog for a few days, I get into this weird state of mind that makes me not blog for longer...and longer...and then two or three weeks pass and I realize, oh, crap, two or three weeks have passed since my last blog installment. So...sorry I haven't posted since (gasp!) April 25. I've been writing (novel #2), teaching (yay!), reading student work (missed this), momming (my favorite), planning the upcoming reading (Out Loud! on May 16), and writing some more.

• How much I love how things are moved from place to place in Shanghai. Some like this:

Others like this:

• It's Mother's Day! I love celebrating mummahood and nearly melted when Tully gave me this after school on Friday. She made it herself:

 

• #28 at the massage place around the corner from my house who gave me the most incredible Chinese head & neck massage last night. A life-changing massage. An oh-my-god-I'm-never-getting-up-from-this-table massage.

• How sometime in the middle of the massage, I decided I want to bring #28 home to live with me, buy a massage table and install it in my living room so that at any given moment, I can hop up on it for more life-changing body work. (Let's all bow our heads and pray that #28 does not quit, get fired, or move back to his home province any time soon.)
  

• The fact that I paid a mere $11.50 for this life-changing 1 hour massage and how when I someday move back to the U.S. I will not have these weekly life-changing massages for less than $20.

• Chinglish. It's everywhere in Shanghai. Weird, head-shaking, sometimes embarrassing, sometimes silly translations of Chinese into English. I showed you an example of it in my April 25 post and shortly after that, the NYTimes wrote an article about it (great minds, same track). (Read the NYTimes articles here.) And then, just days after I read in the NYTimes about how Shanghai is trying to get rid of all the Chinglish around town, I see this brand new sign hung above the brand new hospital building down the street from my house. And I laugh. I'm pretty sure Chinglish is here to stay.

• Entrances and exits. I like this one:

• Gouqi (Níngxià gǒuqǐ) & chrysanthemum tea. Love the stuff. And just found out the gouqi berry (also know as goji berry and wolfberry) is amazingly good for you. Check it out at Wiki.

• Out Loud! (the reading series I run in Shanghai) takes place on Sunday, May 16, at 4:00. Steve Thomas and Barb Shaya (two terrific Shanghai writers) are headlining. If you're in our neck of the woods, come on down to the Glamour Bar on the 16th. (More info here.)

• I just finished reading The Calligrapher's Daughter by Eugenia Kim & loved it. Loved it, loved it, loved it. Slowed down near the end so I could make it last longer. (More info about it here.)

• And I'm looking forward to reading Steve Almond's new book, Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life. Mostly because Steve Almond could probably stand perfectly still in an empty room and I'd still fall on the floor laughing. He's funny.

• And finally, because I'm a mom and today is mom's day...a few cute pics of Tully.

(Whew! Thank god that non-blogging feeling is gone.)

Comments

[Casey Freeland]

Hi! Nice to see you. Your little one is so beautiful. She's lucky to have you as her mommy. I hope you have a wonderful Mother's Day... or had considering the hour. :)

Casey

[Kristin Bair O'Keeffe]

Thanks, Casey! She is beautiful...and hilarious. Nice to see you, too.

[Ameya]

I have the same problem, if i miss a few days of posting, it turns into at least a month and a half =\. In fact, I just got antsy and instead of finally writing something, I deleted 75% of my blog LOL. Trying to figure out how I want to use it once we move to China this summer...

Happy belated mothers day :)

[Kristin Bair O'Keeffe]

Hey Ameya,

I hadn't thought of deleting instead of writing! A novel idea! So you're moving to China? Cool. Have you decided where in China?