I HATE MY COMPUTER!!!‏

Dude, I wasn't doooooooooooooooone. So. My mouse just goes all over randomly and selects random things by itself sometimes. I'm not kidding. It's been like this forever. It's a laptop, right? And I think that, if it sees a shadow from one of my fingers, it goes there. We've tried using a normal mouse, but then the laptop mouse won't turn off and allow the normal mouse to do its thing. It's crazy. And it really, really makes me mad.

So just a couple of more things to add. An appendix to my last e-mail, if you will. I was going to write about Ben's trip to Beijing. In that e-mail, it just says, with no period to end it, "Ben went to Beijing". Nice.

Mr. Smith Goes to Beijing

Kay. So Ben went to Beijing last Monday. He had to pay a company there to translate some architectural drawings from the states into Mandarin - just, like, the notes on the sides and all that stuff. But they wouldn't take a credit card number. Ben had to pay them cash. And they required him to go up and pay it in person. No kidding. So he and Jack headed up there. Ben arranged a meeting with the Chinese company he works with on this project, NCPE. Their main office is up there, so he wanted to meet with them regarding some of the LIES the guy down here has been telling.

So they got up there (they took the "bullet train," but it still took an hour to go 80 miles), got a taxi, drove for a zillion years and paid an enormous taxi fare, and delivered the money to the translation service. There is a mass transit system there - an underground subway - but Jack is really unfamiliar with it and was nervous trying to navigate it, especially since they had to have this meeting at a specific time.

So then they went to the meeting. The liar man was actually there, and he continued with his lying. But everything got ironed out in time. When Ben and Jack were leaving the meeting, Jack said, very naively, "You know, I think that man is using you as an excuse because he is not doing his work." Ben said, "Ya think??" Haha!

Then they got into another taxi and drove for a zillion years and found my western market. The sweethearts. It was very over-priced, so Ben only bought a few things. Baking powder, baking soda, yeast, chocolate syrup, and chocolate chips. We actually made pancakes the other morning, but we didn't have syrup. Ben tried to make some of his own with our sugar, but it didn't turn out very...syrupey. Maybe next time he goes up there he can find some maple syrup.

Then they drove for another zillion years, went to the train station, waited in a huge line for a zillion years, and finally got on the train and headed home. He didn't get home until 10 at night. Left at 7 a.m. and got home at 10 p .m. A long day. Most of it spent in a taxi.

Household Cleaning Adjustments

See? My laptop just did it again. It tried to make me type clear up by "Mr. Smith Goes to Beijing." My heck. Welll, you can't see that it happened. But you'll have to take my word for it.

Kay. So. Our kitchen does not have hot water. I think we would have to purchase a little separate water heater for the kitchen if we wanted hot water. And I don't get the feeling that Professor Han cares to put any more work into our apartment. So what I do is I get a big old bowl, go to our bathroom, fill it up with hot water, and bring it into our kitchen. Pour it into the plugged sink. Then do that two more times, then add a little bit of cold water from the faucet, and voila. I have warm water for cleaning my dishes properly. Sheesh.

So these bathrooms don't have any, like, shower doors or curtains or anything. The bathrooms are set maybe 2 inches lower than the hallways outside the bathroom doors. The floors are supposed to slant down to the drain under the shower head. "Supposed to" being the key words there. Our floor does no such thing. So it's a good thing the bathroom has that big lip by the door, because otherwise it would flood our entire bedroom every time we showered. So anyways, when we're done showing, there is a two-inch pool of standing water. So we have to use our floor mop and kind of sweep the water toward the drain. Sweep, sweep, sweep. Then it gets to the point, after a long while, that you can use the mop as a kind of squeegie. Sweep to the drain, squeeeze the mop. Sweep to the drain, squeeze the mop. What a pain in the arse.

They're Kids; They Don't Need to Match.

So with fall/winter quickly approaching, we've decided to start buying cold weather clothes. We didn't have space to pack both summer and winter clothes, so we planned to kind of buy clothes here. You gotta do what you gotta do - we had a flight luggage weight limit per person, and that was that. I decided that we should kind of spread the expense out into several weeks, buying one family member's winter clothing one week, another family member's winter clothing the next week, etc.

So I decided to take Gagey with me (and Summer, of course) to the flea market to get some clothes. I say "flea market," but it really is nice. Think Portabello Road. Or if you haven't been to Portabello Road, think several booths, all with new clothes that are, like, the price of Old Navy. And you got it.

I had to take Gage along, because their sizes are different here. They have baby size small, medium, and large. Then children's size small, medium, and large. And then adult's size small, medium, and large. Etc. I had no idea what to get for him.

They have tons and tons of adorable clothes. My problem is that nothing matches each other. And I've noticed that on the streets. Kids wear clothes that don't match. The adults' clothes match, but not the kids' clothes. It's bizarre. So I would find the cutest little shirt, and then look around for some pants to go with it - none to be had. And no plain jeans, either. All the jeans have huge, neon writing on them and fake paint splashes on them and stuff. Or I would find the cutest little pants, and no tops to go with them. I saw the cutest little Angry Birds pants. I had to get them. And then I had Summer ask the lady, "Is there a shirt that matches it?" The shopkeeper looked at me like, "Why does it matter if your kids match?" She halfheartedly pointed to some random shirt that did not in ANY way match the pants. I was getting really hot, and Gage was having a barfing day and had barfed all over me, and he was ornery, so I got just these few random things, none of which matched each other, and hightailed it out of there. I think I'll try to go back this week and see if I can find matching stuff, just all on my own. Sheesh.

Again, I am persnickity. I like clothes to match. If I get a Plants vs. Zombies shirt (Summer calls it Plants and Zooombeey. So cute), which I did, by the way, that is red, with a green plant on it, I want to find either some jeans for Gage to wear, or maybe a green pair of sweats. Or a black pair of pants. Or something. I don't want to put him in bright orange sweats with big purple English sentences with bad grammar! People here wear shirts that say English things on them all the time, but they're written badly. Like, I was telling my friend Nicole this - one girl I saw wore a shirt that I saw that said, "Done't leave me." Another shirt I saw in the store says, "Sports is life in the history." Just funny stuff like that.

Kay. So now I'm done with my e-mail for reals this time. Sorry so long, guys.

Peace out,
Kar