Tom in town… off to Hong Kong

My friend Tom is here for a few days packing up his stuff and closing down his house. Things are not going well for his wife, Cathy. She is at her parents’ home in Portland and is very sick. I spent a good chunk of time last night and all…

Polite pirates

Jacob and Caroline Madden lined up for a relay race last week. Susan Price writes: The story about jacob quoting that puppy poem? then laughing? totally sounds like my niece again...sounds like someone might like caroline! one day emma came…

Should I be proud of Jacob for this one?

Slam Managing Editor Susan Price writes: Ok, so that girl getting in jacob's face about winning and him hitting her? i know kids shouldn't hit (or adults for that matter) but i love how he fought for his team! love it! i can hear my sister…

Chaoyang Park – Eli healed

We visited Chaoyang Park on Saturday to celebrate Eli's visit with Dr. Ma, who declared him healed and said he didn’t have to come back unless we saw anything we didn't like. Hip hip hooray! I heard…

This is what looks like around here…

Some people have been asking me to post more picturees of what things look like around here. Yesterday driving home from Anna’s ballet class I had my camera with me so I snapped a few pictures at red lights on Jing Shun Lu, the crazy busy…

Ballet Pictures

Finally got the pictures up... see the post below.

"I have a daughter! She is different than a boy."

Anna was so excited all week about her ballet class with her friend Olivia Moy. These pictures only begin to capture the cuteness. I think it was the first time that it hit me -- "I have a daughter! She is different than a boy." Sounds dumb…

"Mr. Lilo"

We have been using Mr. Leo , one of the Chinese teaching assistants from Eli’s class, to babysit. He is a very sweet man and the kids all love him. Anna calls him Mr. Lilo, as in the cartoon character. She loves having him read her Chinese…

Black tie ball

So they have these big balls here every few weeks.. the Australian Ball, Irish Ball, German Ball, and on and on. They are all black tie affairs. We went to the Australian Ball a few weeks ago and it was a bit of a flop. It just felt so…

More column response

Alan,Sorry to hear about your unsettling incident. In '94, I felt far safer in Chinese streets than most here, except late at night in crowds in Nanjing, when our Chinesetour guide advised us not to go out alone. Even then I would probably…