… thinking that the blog reads a little like a pollyanna account of five months of easy, blissful travel through China and a sweet life in Beijing.  Hmmm.  It has been a lot of that. And it’s in my nature to call out all the great stuff and gloss over the crappy parts (in public forums, anyway), so maybe I’ve ended up with a tidy account wherein it all looks easier than it’s been.  But for anyone who’s curious, we’ve not been without frequent stressful moments here.  I just don’t bother to record those because once they’ve passed who really cares.  But if I’d been online on Sunday or Monday, that would have been one of those days that I whimpered a really discouraging word about being here. Because for two days, everything was wrong.

Cece and Elle were bit by mosquitos so killer that we ended up in the ER of Beijing United Family Hospital on Sunday morning.  I’m paranoid about things like mosquito-borne Japanese encephalitis and malaria, so when Elle swelled all over and her chin got so big she looked like an alien… and when, for the second time in 10 days, Cece’s eye swelled shut and the hives were all over, and the benedryl wasn’t kicking in, I cried uncle. Four and a half hours later we left the hospital with negative blood and urine results, and $4 worth of Chinese loratadine (claritin) and liquid chlorpheniramine.  Oh, and a $450 bill for the “urgi-care” visit.

At exactly the same time (and clearly adding to my anxiety), I had my first bad reaction to something in China.  Likely something I ate at a party on Saturday night… or maybe it was the delicious organic lunch we had on Saturday afternoon.  Not the best way to lose weight, but effective.  Enough said.  Suffice to say that all the time we waited in the lobby of that fancy hospital I never mooched a single crumb of French pastry from the coffee bar (it’s a really nice hospital).  I was sick as a dog and spent 18 hours in bed once we were back in the apartment.  Sick.  And pissed about it.

So there was that… sick kids and a sick mom (never a good combination)… and the general build up of all the things I never mention… like the fact that I am bone tired of camping.  Which is what living in this apartment feels like.  I know now that my threshold for long-term “camping” is about 106 days.  We passed that mark a while ago.

I’m getting old, plus I’m from a land where appliance shopping is a weekend sport (a sport I’m really good at).  So it turns out my biggest gripe these last five months has been about how much I miss my appliances.  Petty.  Shallow.  But true.  We have no stove, no oven, barely a refrigerator, no ice, no toaster, no coffee maker, no dishwasher (and remember, no hot water in the kitchen), no dryer, no iron… and on and on.  We have a psychotic washing machine that makes me nervous.  A single broken hand held shower that requires parent oversight of every kid’s shower.  One toilet that needs to be plungered daily. (is “to plunger” a verb?)  I never dreamed I’d use a toilet plunger so regularly in my life.  Funny how things sneak up on you.

So.  I’m not good at long-term camping, and I was whining…  But all is well now.

Living in China has been such a dream come true.  I love this country and its people and I will weep, profoundly, when we leave, I know.   If living in a Green Acres apartment with wacky internet rules that change so often I can’t keep up with them was the trade off, then I think we got a great deal.  And yes, if we were going to be here a single day longer we surely would have gone out and purchased appliances and furniture (don’t get me started on beds.  Go sleep on an elevated plywood board for 5 months and let me know how you’re doing)… and lamps and rugs and bathroom fixtures…

But I didn’t rant it all out because by Tuesday the girls woke relatively better and went back to school (v. good because we’re running out of Modern Family episodes).  And I went back to the Renmin track with the beautiful Chinese people who inspire me.  They have no idea they inspire me, but they keep going around, so I keep going around.  These are the Chinese who work out wherever/whenever they can.  So at the track I (the sole westerner) join this wonderful range of people: grandfathers walking in groups and hitting themselves (this is a circulation thing they do… repeatedly raising each hand up and whacking the alternating shoulder.  Go ahead.  Try it.); women in office dresses, nylons and pumps carrying their purses and chatting on iphones while they get in a few laps; college students in Hello Kitty clothes that neither my 7 nor 8 year old would wear; a cook in his striped pants and chef’s jacket who I see jogging every day; ayis (nannies) with toddlers dressed in Baby Gap clothes and tiny baby girls with adorable shaved heads (they will have Pantene-hair-commercial hair one day); and super fit star athletes. Everyone fits in.  Everyone is working out.  And working it out.  NO ONE is complaining about anything. Not a single discouraging word.  Anywhere.  Ever.  A long story for another day.