NFL China

I just came form a meeting with the NFL guys who are here setting up an exhibition game for next August. I am doing a story on the NFL’s push into china for the WSJ. Becky is in NYC now for a Bureau chief’s meeting – I keep imaging a meeting of the Justice League with everyone jetting inform around the globe – so making it to this 9 am meeting on the other side of Beijing – and I mean the other side – was quite a feat.

The kids have been really helpful since we’ve been alone – they do usually rise to the occasion – and some frien s came through this morning as well. I sent Jacob off on his bike at 7”:40 to his friend Edward’s house then threw Eli and Anna into the car and drove them over to the just-over-the-way-in-another-compound home of Jacqui and Wyatt Cameron, who took them into school with their own kids. Then I rushed back home, grabbed my stuff and hopped into Mr. Lu’s car for a breakneck journey.

Traffic was horrible, which was no surprise. He decided to get off the throughway and make his way through surface streets. Big mistake. We were so stuck. I said, “I’m supposed ot be there at 9.” It was 8:30. He said, “oh.”

He tried to take all kinds of crazy shortcuts, which mostly backfired. Then we finally broke free and cut through all kinds of local streets. I was eying the little dumpling stands and thinking, Homer-like, “Dumplings! MMM.”

Then he sort of admitted he didn’t know exactly where the hotel was, so we called and lo and behold there we were. The throughway we got off was right in front of u, moving alogng just fine. We pulled in at 9:02 and he said, “9 am. I tell you ok.”

Unreal. I stumbled out and the NFL guys were just arriving there to wait for me. Beautiful. Now I am downtown at the Bookworm, a really nice bookstore with excellent wireless connections. I wrote these posts in the car on the way over and now I am reading NY Times, which I oddly can’t access from my home computer, savoring yesterday’s result. I think I forgot how to not be miserable after an election.