This Great Work

 Tom was all alone in the middle of China on a business trip when his sweet Mom passed away.  But for the Chinese it was business as usual with not much more than a word or two of condolence.  Tom had to go to the ribbon cutting of another company and be the eye candy for Waston to show off their foreign employee.  A death in the family did not trump that.  So he showed off for them with a very heavy heart.  He didn't return to us for more than 24 hours.  I was as sad for him to be alone as I was to have his Mom leave us.   We frantically bought tickets and made arrangements to be back for the funeral.  Thankfully conditions here were such that we could actually make it back into China if we left (that wasn't the case when we came).  It was such a crazy tight time frame and we threw things together haphazardly.  We knew we would have to quarantine upon return, but we didn't have much time to put much thought into that. We were ...

Our shipment has been a complicated math problem. While complicated, it might simply be expressed simply as  s=d I'll define the variables:  s=shipment    d=drama Every few days a new point on the graph is added.  On again.  Off again.  Up a little.  Down a lot. Up a lot, down a little.  The plots on the graph definitely reflect a roller coaster ride rather than a smooth glide on a serene pond.   Here are just the highlights of the plotted points. 🎢Point A:  While still at home:  review the long list of prohibited items to be taken into China.  Unpack many things we had wanted to take.  (mostly food items and seeds for herbs, tomatoes etc.)  Re-itemize every single item that goes into the boxes (tedious!!). 📈Point B:  Fly to Dallas and only after obtaining permission to fly into China do we summon the movers to pick up our boxes. ⊶Point C:  Make arrangements for the shippers to meet Chandler at h...

Jacky and his family came to Changzhou last week. The night before, his wife, Daisy, told me our plans for the next day.  She said, "Tomorrow we will go to the temple."  She had no idea how much my heart skipped a beat with that statement!  And how much I wished I could show her pictures of our temples.   Our weather for the day was pretty uncomfortable, but it is the tallest pagoda in the world, so it was very cool to see! It is some place we've been wanting to visit, but because it costs money to enter, we were postponing the visit as a family until we got paid.  We'll have to go back another time so Tom can see it.  It is the icon of Changzhou, so we need to go back again. And I wouldn't mind spending more time looking at some of their statues when the temperature is more bearable. Thankfully a couple of areas of the temple were air conditioned and the elevator took us up to the 11th floor so we only had to hike the stairs a few floors.  The vi...