Alex Catching Lightening Bugs

It's easy to forget about the little things in life. I never really thought about lightening bugs or catching them recently, but I got a big kick out of watching Alex catch his first one at our house in Indiana.

Fat-Tastic

Ok, so you know that it has to be big these days if I’m posting pictures or blogging! About six weeks ago I suggested to Jocelyn that we should get a cat --  to which she responded by vehemently rejecting the idea. She hates cats, would probably sooner die than live with the majority of the cats who have crossed her path throughout her life...

Today, we brought home Fatty, our new two-year-old Tabby cat from a rescue shelter near our home. There’s a story that gets us from rejecting the idea of a cat to visiting a cat shelter, to telling off the woman who didn’t want us to have the cat (all of these are Jocelyn’s actions :)

Basically, after the fourth “spider as big as your head” that we saw in our apartment, I was losing sleep and going slightly insane looking everywhere for the next one to jump out. So I started asking neighbors if they’d seen spiders. One said she barely had any at all, but they have a cat who eats them or chases them away... I mentioned this to Joce who had tackled three of the four hideous spiders.

A few days later, she sends an email with research she’d done on local cat shelters... she decided she hated both cats and spiders, but she hated spiders more... let’s get a cat!

So we went to the Mayhew Animal Shelter and found Casper AKA “Fatty”. We instantly loved him. He crawled into our laps the instant that we knelt down and we knew he wasn’t likely to hiss at us or bite us, two of the main things that really concerned Joce.

I can’t go through all the details of how much work it took to get Fatty, but we now have him on a foster basis until we move in December, at which time, the Mayhew will be coming out again (yeah, again) to our new home to inspect it just like they did our current place.

So we picked him up today, he didn’t cry in the cat carrier or get sick on the Tube or freak out when we opened the door. He promptly walked out and began inspected the place. He rubbed up on all the walls and then plopped himself in the middle of our living room and rolled on his back.

So far, we’ve been able to cut his claws, successfully feed him, he’s gone to the bathroom in his litter box and  we’ve figured out that the more attention that we can give him the better. I also took him outside on our balcony to give him a quick hairbrush (which he loved indoors, but obviously brushing him inside is an oxymoronic idea if it’s meant to help keep down the pet hair). So I took him outside...

Previous to doing this, he’d simply purred his little heart out... Not so outdoors. He actually growled although he still let me brush him. So, I think he’s not such a great outdoors kind of cat, but maybe it was just cause it’s his first day.

Right now, we have foil on the couch so he won’t sleep on it at night and he’s fairly happily curled up on the mat in the kitchen ready for a long nights sleep. Both me and Joce have officially turned into those people who can only talk about their babies or their dogs or in our case our cat. We absolutely love him!

Spider

Ok, so I haven’t written in months and I apologize, but nothing like a good old fashioned scare to the heart to get you writing again. Today, I saw the biggest spider I’ve ever seen in my life apart from at a zoo. And no, I didn’t see it on the street or in a park or somewhere I could forget about it, it was in my room. Literally, the body of this thing was about the size of two quarters next to one another. That doesn’t count its legs, which had proper joints on them like humans. It also had fangs, real hissing fangs.

Yup, such a beast was just hanging out in my room, just before bedtime. I literally didn’t scream because I didn’t want to startle it and have it move. So I ran into Joce’s room and she came to survey the situation. She must have understood the no screaming thing as well. Since she was on the phone with her dad, she got some advice and went to get her whiffle ball bat (yup the old school fat red one, it was necessary, they don’t understand baseball in this country). 

On the other hand, I went to find a male who could properly deal with the situation. I knocked on the door of two of my neighbors. No luck. So I looked out on the balcony and saw that another neighbor across the courtyard was in his kitchen. So I ran downstairs and stood under his window flailing my arms in an attempt to get his attention. I did so he came to our flat and took a look. 

When he walked in, he said, “Oh that’s no big deal”.  But when the thing moved, he jumped so hard he broke my dresser drawers, but I couldn’t care less...

Oh yeah, he’d brought over one of his sister’s shoes with him, there was no way this heel was going to do anything for this thing. If we splattered it it would have created a huge mess on the wall. Plus, we were advised from some other Brits that Joce was on the phone with, that killing it might release babies and they would hatch (I thought that was cockroaches, but whatever). 

So this guy gets a Tupperware container, slams it over the thing and then closes the lid on it. Takes it home with him and puts in on its porch to basically suffocate...

I can’t sleep, because I’m sure there will be another one. There is a good reason to have screens on your windows. Why is England like a third world country? Even worse, Africa has nets everywhere, why does it seem so hard for these people? That thing was too big to get in through a crack in the wall. It just waltzed in from my big window that we keep open because they don’t have air conditioning here. Oh geez, screens people, screens.

Leaving China

I’m on the plane now headed back to London. Shanghai was incredible. The people, the culture, the food, all so different from anywhere I’ve lived or travelled. I don’t know that I could ever live in China, but I see why Querston likes it.

Thanks to her, Omar and Sly, I’ve now been on three continents in this world! Hopefully we can meet up again in London or even in a more exotic beach town... Lord knows we all need the sun!

Jade Temple

After considering walking around yet another Chinese temple, clueless to the significance of what we were seeing, hearing and smelling, Querston and I did the smartest thing we’ve done yet, I think... we asked for a tour guide! Welcome to finally understanding what the hell is going on.

I even took notes on the whole thing. I really wanted to remember everything that we were doing. Since this was a Buddhist Temple, many people were praying to the statues, bowing on the pillow stools, lighting incense, etc. It was hard to know when we were being respectful or disrespectful, what was a good god for them, what each statue meant. The temple was fabulous, so many bright colors, things to see and the history was incredible.

the temple was also the unraveling of my good sense. Heretofore I had done well, spending very little about $130 or £65. Not bad. But all that good bargaining was lost nearly at the door of the temple. I noticed that lots of the tourists (anyone with a white face - I call them Gringos in my head for some reason on this trip) had these little gift shop type bags. I was instantly intrigued because it was about the first time that we’d seen such a thing. 

Then, as helpful as our tour guide was, he was a salesman. He took us to an upstairs jade room where I spent $150 on a jade bracelet. Now, I don’t ever wear bracelets. I’m not that into jewelry, I’ve never been a jade connoisseur. But, again, my good sense left me at the happy buddha downstairs. 

The bracelet would probably have been ok, if that was my last purchase. My friend Samira had me intrigued about this eastern tea she buys in London that is supposed to clear you out and help you lose weight. So we go for a tea tasting... $150 later ($50 for me, $100 for Samira) I have some marigold flowers that the monks grew out back in my possession. What in the world made me buy $50 worth of TEA, no actually herbs, for myself. I don’t even drink tea that often and I certainly don’t go the rigamarole that this stuff takes. 

I tell you what, my four-month supply of tea better... well I better look about like Eva Longoria by time October rolls around...

I can’t ever come back to China with money again! Someone remind me to never buy anything at the temples. They have it at the fake market, they have it at the fake market.

Click here to see the gorgeous pictures from the temple!

Confucius Temple

My handy guidebook says that Shanghai’s Confucius Temple is in the southwest quarter of Old Town. It was restored and reopened in 1999. But the most important detail is that the ground are tranquil and seldom crowded...

Well they weren’t kidding. In the most overpopulated country in the world, Querston and I were two of only 15 maybe 20 tourists at the Confucius Temple (hence the above photo). 

The Temple is beautiful, but again, Querston and I were aliens in a world we’d seen from afar but really knew nothing about. We were great at taking pictures, but as you’ll see in the captions, we weren’t really sure what we were looking at. 

The gardens were very quiet and peaceful, but we wish that there would have been more placards to give us some of the history. Sadly, my guidebook only offers about a paragraph for each general site, so it was no help either. 

That has been a bit of the theme on this trip, but we are learning from it. No more strollers on outings, taking pictures is good, now let’s see about learning some history at the temples. The saga continues...

Click here to see the pictures from our Chinese lunch and Confucius Temple.

Chinese Lunch

Oh gosh, how to describe our traditional Shanganese lunch... Querston’s Mandarin teacher was gracious enough to take us for lunch. Querston and I knew that we were very likely to be in trouble, but I had no idea just how hard it would be. 

The food here is simply nothing like I’ve ever eaten. Anyone who knows me well, knows that I’m a picky eater, but it wasn’t even so much of a taste thing as it was a preparation issue. 

We started off with what I like to call clammy chicken. It was set down on the table cut into pieces with the head cut off, but still on the plate. The waitresses, undoubtedly seeing the distress in our faces, quickly removed the head, giggling a bit to one another as they did it. 

Side note: I was pretty sure they were laughing at us the entire time, but Yvonne assured us that they weren’t. 

The chicken still had it’s blood, bones and skin, which wasn’t so much the issue as was the cold, uncooked sort of texture and taste the chicken had. We determined it must not have been cooked in an oven, rather steamed or something. It didn’t go down very easy, two bites tops.

Next was the soup round. It was a crab tofu soup and was the most edible thing besides the vegetable that we ordered. It was hot and good, but there were some small bones or scales or something that I was constantly picking out of my mouth.

Steamed dumplings were next. Thankfully, I got a pass on these as they were pork, which I don’t eat. Querston suffered through one, but it wasn’t to her delight, I’m sure. Asparagus was next and it was good. Although they gave us the bottom part instead of the top, comparatively, it was what we ate the most of.

Lastly came our actual meals that we’d ordered. Querston got sweet and sour pork and I wanted the same thing with chicken, but no go, so I got it with fish. Let me back up and qualify how the Chinese serve your fish. First they brought the fish out to our table in a big bucket. I wasn’t quite ready for it, so my reaction probably didn’t match decorum. Then it’s chock full of bones. Although it didn’t taste bad, I’m just not accustomed enough to eating around the bones. Three bites, that’s it, can’t take the bones.

My strategy was to simply talk throughout the meal to avoid eating too much and looking rude for not doing so. Querston suffered more than I did, I’m positive of that. All in all, the food actually didn’t taste too bad, it was just prepared very differently.

Click here to see pictures from lunch as well as Confucius Temple.