Events of the Last Week.

I agree, it has been way to long since my last blog. I do not even know where to start. I keep this running list going in the front of my Necessary Chinese Commonplace Book. A Commonplace book, for those of you that have not read any of Lemony Snickets Series of Unfortunate Events, is a book you carry with you every where you go. In my commonplace book, I write down phrases, words, bus routes, stores, anything I may need to recollect at a later time and especially, material I may want to include in a future blog. Well this blog list is so big right now I do not no where to start...So, I have chosen to go with an EVENT THEME as many of the events occur concurrently.


Major Events listed on page 1 of my Commonplace Book:

1. Leak in the apartment


2. Move into a hotel


3. Tree branch smashes Chris's car


4. Tae Kwon Do evaluation


5. Wii

I think I need to start with the Wii. This has been a saga since we arrived in China. We brought our Wii to China with us from the US. I brought the remotes, the nunchucks, the games, the console, the adapters....Well we move in and wait a week to set it up. Only within the first week the TV dies. It takes 10 days to get the TV fixed, but hey it works now. So I plug in my Wii A\C Adapter and poof...all the circuit breakers blow. I reset them and replug in the Wii to a power strip. POOF, it explodes!!! I scream, it smells terrible. Obviously it is a 110V Adapter and the power here in China is 220V. Why would I check, they AC adapters on the computers work fine. Thank God. I now have a project - find a new Wii AC adapter. I search high and low. I mean I had to get Chris to get the company driver, car and translator and spend 8 hours driving around Qingdao, stopping at every place that look promising and begging. Hell, we even tried an electronic parts market to see if they could build us one. I gave up. Then I met Debbie. Debbie casually mentions that on Jimo Lu you can get any Wii game you want. My eyes bug, my heart skips a beat, dare I ask? Well I ask and we head off to Jimo Lu. I buy a Wii adapter and return home. Chris comes home the very same day with guess what - yeah an AC adapter for the Wii!!! Apparently his translator is a miracle worker too. Now, we plug in the Wii. Set up the remotes, start up a game and...and...and nothing happens. Chris asks if I had connected the remote sensor. What!! I never packed a remote sensor. What is a remote sensor? You mean I need a REMOTE SENSOR! So, the Wii saga continues. I will return to Jimo Lu, where they sell the cutest puppies on earth for $15, attempt to return the AC adapter and get a remote sensor.

Now, for the leak in the apartment. Last Saturday morning our downstairs neighbor came up to visit. Well his English is just a bit worse then Chris's Chinese, so the conversation was going nowhere. I happen to overhear a couple of words that I recognize: water and down. So I ask, "Oh is it raining?" Chris immediately looks at me like I am a complete idiot and says, "No, there's a leak." I am truly impressed at Chris's understanding. Can you see the stooge slap coming? The guys comes in and we make a call. Plumbers on the way. Apparently, there is a leak from our apartment into his. The plumbers start in a closet with a hammer and Chisel. 10 hours later, we ask them to leave. They return the next day with a jackhammer. They start in the closet and then move to the bathroom. By this time we have no hot water and the apartment is covered in white dust. They are about to move into the hallway, so I am about to move into a hotel. This is an oversimplification, but you get where I am going.

Meanwhile, there is a terrible ice storm in the North East. My father, you know the guy living in my house, calls to tell me that there is no power and that a tree branch has fallen and smashed Chris's car. The first thought to enter my mind is how did that branch get all the way over the van and land on Chris's car. You see, before we left NH, we strategically parked the new car on the other side of the old van so it would not get damaged. Ignoring the Tolfree (my dad) exaggeration factor I begin to investigate why the car was moved. Get this. It's my fault. Yeah, that's right, I apparently told my father that I wanted him to have the driveway to himself. I told him that I want my cars parked under a giant pine tree that looses branches every winter so that he can have the driveway to himself. That sound so much like me. Not only do I want him to have the driveway to himself, but I have no resentment that he is living in my house. Finally, he says, that it is not his fault that there is an ice storm came and a branch fell. What can I say, he has me there. If he thinks he is getting power of attorney to repair the car, I think Judas Priest sang this for me, He's gotta another thing comin!!

This very same week we had to go to Tae kwon Do every night so that the kids could prepare for a show and their testing evaluation to move up to the next color belt. Well here it is, evaluation day. Talk about cultural experiences. It is a packed theatre. All door locked except for the main entrance. 100 kids sitting on the floor in front of the stage. Tripods set up in all the aisles. Yes, we were the only westerners in the room!!! The show starts off with the National Anthem. It Chinese, so Jackson wants to way its not he one he usually hears in America. Our Tae Kwon Do Master is Koren, so next they play the Korean national Anthem. I guess all the people that sit down must be Chinese. The show open with some traditional music and dance and the cheering squad from Qingdao University perform. Finally the kids are on stage and the exam starts. McKinley has a higher number then Denali, so we are not off to a good start. They all successfully complete the exam and break a piece of wood with there fists. That is all except Jackson. He thinks he is being demoted from a white belt to a rope. I wonder who put that idea in his head. he is done with Tae Kwon Do. He is mad at me for making him do this in the first place....Alas, they all get their yellow belts and peace is restored in the Smith Household!!! Belts were not given out until the following Tuesday, so it was a rough 2 days.

Everything seems back to normal. Or at least what the new normal is. We are back int he apartment, Chris's car is back on the other side of the van, the downstairs neighbor hasn't visited all week and the Wii saga continues!!

I can't seem to find the pictures on my hard drive, so we will have to wait for the visuals.