I showed back up at work after ten days of vacation to discover nothing was accomplished. It was like the entire tv station had spent the previous week in a time vacuum. The International still hadn’t moved to the new building after a month of delays, none of the articles or news items for the week had been translated despite a quickly impending  deadline, and my boss seemed to feel it was all somehow my fault as she felt compelled to chew me out for a story I had been given a half hour to write despite a dearth of English language sources on the “Dalian Classic Car Museum.” Then she said I needed to “show my passion for my job by coming to work every day despite having nothing to do and despite a paycheck that was two months overdue.

When I was finally paid, they tried to cut my salary down by a quarter. And that was the tv station’s version of being nice. I was able to argue my way into full pay, whereas both the cameraman and the English translator, tired of being professionally abused, decided to quit. They were the last original remnants of this show.

Then the tv station, knowing full well that I’m on a spousal visa and not a working permit (and thus technically not allowed to work for money) sent me down to the headquarters of the Exit-Entry Bureau (the guys in charge of visas and who gets to stay and who has to go) to interview some vey important and very friendly PSB officer who was all too happy to point out that what I’m doing is illegal and needs to be remedied, leading to the admittedly minor possibility that I could get kicked out of China. Then he cheerfully rewrote our entire news story just to add insult to injury and suck out what little life it had left.

That was a bad month.

Way back in July 2007, a very light thin pink line was the only proof Christian and I had of a huge impending change plotting to take over our lives. This time around, it’s a UPS package fresh from America.

The package arrived last week with the good news that an agency on the other side of the largest ocean in the world is interested in representing us in an adoption that will take place on the far side of yet another ocean. Along with our acceptance letter, was a bunch of paper work, including contracts and document releases to sign, as well as a darkly humorous (well, if you possess my perverted sense of humor, anyway) questionnaire in which we got to pick which “special needs” we were or were not willing to accept in our potential offspring (Missing limbs? Yes. Deformed limbs? No.). After some very strange and pretty wrong dinner conversations (”Well, yes, I can see your point, but I don’t really want to have to go to kidney dialysis every week.”), we sent our signed copies back across the sea, along with a hefty pile of gold.

And I guess that means we are now officially expecting our second child (although this is promising to be one freaking long pregnancy).

I’m not really clear on when you’re supposed to know that your mini-person is ready to upgrade from a crib. The usual baby websites have lots of vague generalizations about the topic with the conclusion usually amounting to, “you’re child will let you know when the time is right.” I hate advice like that. I mean, how’s he supposed to do that? Is he going to climb out of his bed one day, open two doors (Nico’s an active sleeper, and I’m attuned to every little sound he makes, so I get absolutely no sleep unless we keep as many doors closed as possibly to muffle the sound–it’s like “the princess and the pea”), march into our bedroom, and announce, “Hey, mom! Now that I’m eighteen, don’t you think it’s time I start using an actual bed instead of that Pack ‘n Play? It’s kinda cramped.”

What drove the matter home for us ultimately was a period of two weeks wherein our usual system for getting Nico settled down during middle-of-the-night wake ups broke down (we suspected he would sleep better if someone was able to lay down next to him for a few minutes until he calmed down). Plus we now had a local Ikea at which we’d been very, very good about not spending money. Thus 14 month old Nico has been awarded with his very own “big boy” bed.

The bed itself is a toddler mattress tossed on the tatami platform in Nico’s room. Christian blocked off most of the platform with a board so Nico can’t accidentally roll off the platform while asleep or groggy (normally Nico has amazing spatial awareness, especially when it concerns steps and drop offs) then he built a step at the far end of the platform so that Nico could easily get down (the platform is just a tad too high for the little guy). Since Nico like to move around and wedge himself into corners during the night, we’ve padded the walls with stuffed animals.

In general, Nico is sleeping much better in his new bed than he ever did in his crib (or during the first few months when he co-slept with us). I think a lot of it has to do with the new mattress being considerably more comfortable than the pitiful excuse that was the pad that belonged to the crib. Having more freedom may play into it, too, though. For naps, his bedroom door stays shut, but during the night, we leave all doors open, so that the little monster can come padding into our room in the morning.

In the past week, Christian has only threatened to go back to using the crib twice (during a 6:00am and 6:30am wake up respectively), so I’m think the new bed is a general success.

Today marked the final coffee meeting of one of the expat wives, a friendly fiery-haired Swedish lady who returns to Europe tomorrow. As is the case with most farewell coffees, she got to hold court over much of the conversation, reminiscing over good times and bad, and waxing on over all the things she’s missed in her time in China and all the things she will miss upon her return to “civilization.” Of course, as these things are wont to do, the conversation frequently went off in some random directions as topics remind people of other topics and whatnot.

At one point, the discussion had veered toward the topic of dubbing versus subtitles. In much of Continental Europe, movies are generally dubbed into the native language of the country. I frequently give Christian a hard time about this when he makes comments like, “Wow! That’s not what that actor sounds like in German,” though it’s now one of my secret wishes to moonlight as perhaps the English voice of Audrey Tautou if dubbing ever catches on in the English world. Anyway, everyone was pretty much in agreement that they thought having English movies subtitled
rather than dubbed would make learning the language easier, and the Swedish lady made some comment about how she thought subtitles were more common in the countries of Northern Europe compared to middle and southern Europe, when some loud-mouthed man, who had obviously been listening into the conversation, piped up that Finland had the number 1 English educational system and that the Swedes were all conservative racist bastards and that he knew because he had lived in Sweden for two years; not visited, lived.

Before we all realized we should just ignore the guy, someone asked, “Well, where did you live in Sweden?”

His answer: “With my girlfriends.”

One of the Australians whispered what pretty much everyone was thinking at that moment, “Obviously there was a messy break up over there then,” which the guy apparently overheard and sent him off on another tirade, making it even more obvious that, yes, he had been rejected pretty badly (though he insisted to the contrary).

It was quite a shock to the system as it occurred to me that it’s been a really long time since I’ve been in the presence of a true a$$hole. Sure, I regularly meet jerks (although even those have been more rare of late), egoistical maniacs, and racists, but it’s just been forever since I’ve witnessed a loud-mouthed jacka$$ in true form. Part of me felt sorry for the guy. He kept trying to toss out Swedish swear words for his brief tenure in the country, but kept slipping into Mandarin, suggesting this was the first time he’s gotten to use any language other than Chinese in a while (for the record, Mr. Loudmouth was American, stereotypically enough). If I were to hazard a guess, I’d say he works at one of Dalian’s shipyards and this was probably the one free day he’s gotten off in weeks if not months. As such, he was probably desperate for some interaction that didn’t involve screaming obscenities at Chinese coworkers. Shipyard work must be really difficult emotionally. Most of the dockworkers I’ve met around town have come off rather desperate if not a little disturbed (though the vast majority are also very nice people). The hours are long and hard with little if any time off. For all appearances, this guy had been ridden too hard and thought the world was responsible for every mistreatment in his life, which is too bad, because I suspect he’s been to some wonderfully exotic locales which I can only presently dream of.

Some people have all the luck.

We’ve finally resolved the picture uploading problem we had by picking up a card reader that could handle the big camera’s memory card (a mere 45 yuan investment). Thus I bring you this picture of Nico and the cat sharing some carrots.

Also, my family’s been riding me hard about viewing my stint as a famous tv-type person. For those interested, here’s a link with what I believe are my episodes (ironically, my mac can’t play whatever the heck file format these use no matter what I download, so I can’t even watch).

Other than that, not much news. Nico’s still a rascal. I can still walk and was informed today that when the TV station moves in May, I will be getting my own honest to goodness desk… Oh! And we’ll be taking a trip to Beijing from the 21st to 25th of May and to Chengdu from the 25th of May to the 1st of June. I’m really, really excited about the Chengdu aspect of the trip as it will include Sichuan food, Buddhist temples, minority villages, and pandas (well, it will if I have my way).