I got some … expected but disappointing news today. It would have been awesome if it had worked out, but it didn’t, and I’m just a teeny bit disappointed. I’m not sure if it’s that, or that I’ve been having extended conversations about the earthquake in China with my Chinese acquaintances today, but I’m feeling particularly melancholy today.

One lady in particular showed me some pictures she had come across. “I cry every time I see pictures of it”, she said apologetically. She showed me this one after I told her that I thought her government handled the disaster much better than my government (and yes, it made me cringe to say that – I’ve never felt like the government was something I had any say in) handled Katrina – a disaster of much smaller proportions.

A day or so ago, I spoke with a Chinese friend about her life growing up. She is an older woman who was “sent to the country” during the Cultural Revolution. (Her parents were intellectuals who also ended up in the camps, however she was young enough to be ‘trained’ in the ways of Mao so she was treated a little better than her parents.) She told me of working in the rice fields during that time, and of the 1976 Tangshan Earthquake. A dam was weakening upstream of the village where she was staying, so she was evacuated to higher ground while soldiers worked through the night with sandbags. “There were so many people,” she said, “so many that there was no room to sit down, so we stood all through the night alongside the mountain”. “I wasn’t scared – it was exciting! They told us if we heard three BOOMS that the dam had broke. We heard one BOOM, then a little later another BOOM. But the third boom never came.”

She thinks the US is the best country in the world. “In China, we had bread. Here, you have bread, bread, bread, bread, so many types of bread!”.

These conversations put that very small disappointment I had today into perspective.

here’s the conversation we had last night, in bed, me half asleep

me: “i love you”
her: “do you love me enough to take me to a new kids on the block concert?”
me [without hesitation]: “no”

it’s funny, the things they tried to teach me in high school spanish class are not the things i’m learning from my neighbor. she now has an email address and knows how to search google and read her hometown newspaper, and i’m learning how to speak basic conversational spanish. it’s working out pretty well…although wow, español es difícil, especially for us visual/tactile learners.

also, today i decided that i really do like my job. it was great to be on vacation – and believe me, i could stay on vacation for a very long time – but it was great to be back in action, too.

vacation was wonderful. beyond wonderful, even. the very first morning at the cabin we got massages – it was the best a man has ever made me feel in my entire life. (hah – seriously!). then lots of lounging, hiking, reading, grilling ensued. spent a day at six flags in atlanta and had a bunch of fun there, too. i’ll get pictures up later.

this afternoon i got my little paws on one of the xo laptops. the mayor – larry “crazy train” langford – bought a bunch of these for birmingham city schools, and the neighborhood elementary school is the first school in the city to get them. [insert joke about developing countries here]. angelina ballerina (not her real name) was running around outside with one, trying to take a picture of BadKittyW. the laptop screen is pretty cool – even in direct sunlight i could see the picture on it – and the ‘neighborhood’ view was neat – but it was slow and crashed when i googled the school name.

anyway, i made angelina ballerina’s day by talking with her mom about setting them up to use my wifi…and then actually doing it. her mom and i are going to trade spanish lessons for computer lessons – which should work out well for both of us!

i don’t want to go to work tomorrow.

I’ve been slacking off on my picture-a-day motif. I’m going to try harder, promise.

The last month has been a whirlwind of activity. I’ve been working especially hard, trying to get caught up to go on vacation. (It’s worked, I only have a handful of things to do on my to-do list. That will change, I’m sure, by the time I return). E. got some bad news about school that pushes her back six months, so I’m hoping this vacation will be a stress-less one for us both. The cabin is perfect – isolated, built around trees (literally, there are trees growing up through the deck!), has a hot tub, and is close to a bunch of hiking. We’re getting our very first massages on Tuesday, going biking Wednesday, and on a wildflower walk on Thursday. Hope to get lots of day hiking and picture taking in as well…then Six Flags on Saturday.

I drove down to Montgomery last week with L. and saw BB King. He is so very old – 82, if you want me to be precise about it – and all he talked about was sex. This isn’t unusual for a blues player, but he talked more than he played. It was good to see him, but the show wasn’t as good as the last time I saw him in the Alabama theater. He played excerpts from his songs, not whole songs. I guess you get tired easily when you’re 82 years sold. Also, if you buy tickets at the Montgomery Performing Arts Center, and they’re in the balcony, make sure to get row a-e. Row F sucks – there’s a handrail blocking your view of the stage. Luckily L. is brave and we snuck to better seats. I hope when I’m 82 I have as much fun (and as much sex!) as he does.

A few weeks ago E. and I went to see Spamalot. I wasn’t going to go, but Joel insisted that I would love it. He was right about Lost and he was right about Spamalot, too. I’m not so sure about Battlestar Galactica (he says it’s the best sci fi show on tv)…maybe I’ll give it a shot later on.

A week or two before that E. and I saw Ani Difranco at Workplay – it was a good show, not a great show. Sort of a “greatest hits” tour – she played lots of songs I haven’t heard her play since the 90s, and it made me feel old. She is so cute and motherhood suits her – although it isn’t helping her songwriting a whole lot. (The two new songs I heard I didn’t really like). Love seeing her with a band again, though.

That’s just about all the news around here. See ya in a week.