It *is* what it looks like

There's this hotel close to my house called the Schengen. It has the most unusual sculpture out front.



Every time I drive by it I think, "That can't be what it looks like..."

The other day I had the chance to go inside the hotel and if I had any doubt about the sculpture out front, the lobby decor makes everything perfectly clear.



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Post Script: After seeing this post my Mom sent the following mail to the Schengen Hotel: "As an artist I'm interested in the sculpture outside your hotel and in the lobby. Could you tell me the name of the artist? I would like to know what his/her vision is for his/her work. I also would like his/her name, address and social security number."

As always, dear Readers, I'll keep you posted.

Traffic Jams and CDs

Traffic in Beijing is a nightmare.

The government estimates that 2,000 new cars hit the road every DAY. That means about 800,000 new cars joined the roads in 2010. That means I spend a lot of time at traffic lights looking at other people's license plates. Lately I've noticed a new phenomenon - the CD over the license plate trick.



Why would anyone do that, you might ask?

To avoid the traffic controls. The controls are based on the last digit of your license plate, so if your last digit is a 1 or a 6, you can't drive in the city on Wednesdays. 2s and 7s can't drive on Thursdays, and so on.

The idea is to take 20% of the cars off the roads every day of the week but guess what? It didn't work out that way. Lots of people like to have a license plate with the number 8 in it because they think it's lucky. So on the day the Lucky 8s are banned from the roads there is considerably less traffic for the rest of us.

File that under "To Talk About At Next Cocktail Party".

Some people find these traffic controls cramp their style so they simply cover the last digit of their license plate on the day they're not supposed to drive. A CD has apparently become the preferred medium. I have no idea why. If you do please leave me a comment.

I would think the police would pull over anyone who attempts this trick but based on the number of CDs I see every day, they don't.

On Dec. 24th the government instituted new measures that will reduce the number of new cars to 400,000 in 2011.

They should institute a crackdown on the people who cover their plates with CDs too. I would be happy to help out. If they would just give me a police woman hat and a note pad I could catch ten of these guys every day.

That's what I will be fantasizing about next time I'm stuck behind one of them at a red light.

Most Irresistible Dish at Thanksgiving Dinner

I hosted Thanksgiving Dinner at my house on Friday night. Check out the fruits of my labor.

Appetizers. Yes like a true Southern Belle I have a deviled egg plate, and the goldfish crackers are homemade.


Sweet Potato Casserole


Turkey and Ham (both of which I outsourced this year)


Mac and cheese


Cauliflower au gratin


But this juicy little morsel stole the whole show:

When Grandparents Make Newbie Mistakes

vs.

My Dad is in over his head.

I mean, he’s 75. He has four daughters and four grandchildren. How could such a veteran make a newbie mistake?

It all started when he sent us an email with lots of cute dog pictures in it.

That prompted Grant to reply:
“Dear Popo, I want this dog and this dog and this dog and this dog and this dog and this dog and this dog. I really like all these dogs and I wish I had some.”

Afraid that Dad might not recognize the obvious trap, I sent this follow-up:
“Dad I know this goes without saying but please don't buy us a dog.”

But he fell right in to that trap:
“Tell the kids I’m going to rent a dog for them for Christmas. love, Popo”

A few weeks later Grant double-checks:
“Popo. Are you still going to rent a dog for us when we come to Alabama at Christmas?”

Popo begins backpedaling:
“Grantmeister would you consider a parrot that could learn Chinese?”

Grant remains polite but firm:
“Actually I want a dog more. With a parrot, you can't play with it. It's just not cute. You can't cuddle with it."

One last feeble attempt from Popo:
"How about a rented gerbil?"

Grant is less polite and more firm:
"Popo it needs to be a dog. A gerbil is too small."

Popo gives in:
“I will contact a dog rental service and Grant and I will go down and select one.”

Already victorious, Grant delivers a surprising coup de grace:
“Dear Popo, is it a big dog or a small one? I want a small one. But not like a baby one. Babies aren't cute, they're all white. “

At peace with his role as beta male, Popo replies:
“It will be a small dog and he likes small people. love, Popo”

So basically I see two possibilities for this Christmas:

1. Popo rents a dog. The chaos that we normally enjoy at my parents’ house at Christmas gets whipped into an outright frenzy. Someone will be hospitalized.

2. Popo doesn’t rent a dog. My children spend the holiday wailing and gnashing their teeth at the injustice. Someone will be hospitalized.

Dec. 31 update: My brother-in-law Jeff came up with a brilliant idea that saved the day. He has a beautiful, sweet dog named Brunnen and instead of kenneling Brunnen in Nashville he brought him to Alabama for the holiday. Brunnen was happy to be on a chain in my parents' backyard for the week and Grant was able to play with him any time. It really was a win-win and I don't know if my Dad appreciates how his newest son-in-law saved him! I do Jeff - thank you!!!

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p.s. We would never call our grandparents "grandma" or "grandpa" in the South. We are more creative than other Americans.
p.p.s. I have never heard of a dog rental service. In Alabama or anywhere else in the world.

My Sister Asking Obama a Question

Last week I went to visit my sister Christi in Japan. She was there to cover Obama's participation in the APEC Summit in Yokohama and had a few days free afterwards, so I went to hang out with her.

BTW this is Christi asking the President a question in India.


Here's Obama answering.


Cool, huh? I know, I totally know.

Since I was going to Japan I decided to take Grant so he could spend some time with Buddy's parents also live in Yokohama. They're Chinese but they live in Japan.

Sometimes I have to pinch myself to believe this is really my life.

Grant had to miss school but we figured loving attention from his grandma and grandpa would more than make up for it.

Plus they did homework with him every day.


This is only tangentially relevant but I want to insert here that I adore my in-laws. I think I'm the luckiest wife in the world because they love me like their own daughter. And I'm grateful to them for raising their son to be the man he is.

Here are some reasons I love Japan.

You can go into any random sushi shop on any corner and be assured that it will be reasonably priced and will taste FABULOUS.


Sometimes you're walking in the city and you stumble upon an absolutely serene temple in the middle of all the urban chaos. You walk through the stone gate and suddenly - welcome to Heaven!


There are lots of doughnut shops where you can sit and have a coffee and a pastry and watch the world go by. This pictures captures one of the best moments of my life.


The kids' menu has sushi on it. Which Grant LOVED. Go figure. A 7-year-old loved sushi. That's how good sushi is in Japan.


As you can see I'm so feeling the love right now. I love my in-laws, I love sushi, I love my sister, I love my son, I love coffee, I love Obama. It was a good trip.

Would you have stayed or left?

Last week Buddy and I went to lunch together, which is something I would never have done back in my days of full-time employment but now that I'm free as a bird I can meet my husband for lunch and watch movies in the afternoon and go for jogs whenever I want.

Employment is so seriously over-rated.

Except when the time comes to pay the bills, then it seems like a pretty good idea.

This is me right now, at 10:40 on a Thursday morning in Starbucks.



Anyway at lunch two interesting things happened.

1. A mouse scampered across the dining room floor. We debated for a few seconds about whether we should leave or not but I had ordered this Cajun shrimp wrap and I really wanted to eat it so we stayed. Which just goes to show that although I got married and changed my last name, deep down I am still a Parsons.

The wrap wasn't actually that great.

2. Just outside the window there was this 2-story building with something like a 2,000 square foot footprint. There was a bulldozer next to it. As we ate lunch the bulldozer started to tear down the building. By the time I finished my Cajun shrimp wrap the building was gone. GONE. In the time it took us to order, debate the wisdom of eating in a restaurant that clearly had a rodent problem, and eat our lunch - that building just disappeared.

Things can change so fast. Yes in China, to be sure, change comes quickly. But lately I've been noticing changes in general and appreciating them. I don't know if it's the fall and the turn of the seasons, or the fact that I'm transitioning between careers now. But for some reason I'm in awe right now of how dramatically things can change.

And how quickly.

And how nice the new can be.

Beijing Marathon!

We finished the "mini-marathon" (迷你马拉松) 4.2k in 30 minutes and 8 seconds. Buddy and I crossed the finish line together, hand in hand. Isn't that sweet?



Just so you know, that means Buddy waited for me just in front of the finish line for something like 10 minutes. That act, and the "all we have to do is run" quote sums him up pretty well.

You might remember I was stressing about finishing within 25 minutes because I thought all runners were going to get picked up by the van after that but somehow that rule was not enforced. However the pick-up van did drive right alongside me for much of the route. Taunting me.



This race was my first and I had so much fun. I felt GREAT the whole time. Everyone was in a good mood, the runners smiled and waved and high-fived each other along the route. It was raining and we got soaked but that helped keep us cool while we were running.

Once we stopped running and our bodies cooled off, that soaking wet clothing was awful. And we had to take the subway back home so we shivered for a good hour.

Buddy thinks he's getting sick.

Here are a few observations from the race.
- The AQI was over 300 today, which is "hazardous". And yet there was no discussion of canceling the race.

- Is it strange that there was not even an attempt to record our time? I'm not sure the race officials even know I ran.

- All of the foreigners I saw were listening to music and almost none of the Chinese were.

- Did you know it's possible to run while holding an umbrella? Possible, yet oh so inadvisable.

- Getting up at 4:45am, getting the kids to Xin's sister by 5:45, and getting to the race venue by 7:00am was a mini-marathon of its own.

"All we have to do is run"

It all started one sunny day last month when Buddy called me and said that we should run the 5K leg of the Beijing Marathon. His company would pay for our registration, all we have to do is run.

All we have to do is run.

That statement right there sums my husband up so well.

If I had to choose between registering for an event and running 5K, I would easily choose the former. But not Buddy Gao. He has the energy of 12 cheetas pent up in one human body.

"Sure, let's do the marathon," I said.

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"We will never run in that marathon," I thought as I hung up the phone.

Something always comes up when Buddy and I attempt things like this. I can see it now - sick kid, flat tire, sprained ankle, broken garbage disposal. Something will happen that prevents us from running in the marathon.

I checked the website to get some details on the event, because Mr. "All We Have To Do Is Run" couldn't even tell me the date. The website says our event is actually 4.2K and there's a time limit, a fairly aggressive one if you ask me - 25 minutes. After 25 minutes all 4.2K runners will be asked to get in the pick-up van.

How humiliating would that be? To cross the finish line on my first race in the back of the pick-up van?

So basically I'm fixated on one goal, which is to finish the race before that damn van. And I think this is a smart move on the part of the Marathon organizers. If it weren't for this time constraint I would probably be stressing over whether I can complete the race at all. Now I've moved my anxiety to a whole new level.

So I'm running laps around my complex this week like crazy, trying to get my time down.

And as a back up plan I am grinding corn cobs down my garbage disposal.

I love your comments. I shout out there into the internet and you all shout back. It warms my heart so comment, please. Even if you don't think you have anything important to say. Come on, it's a diner.

Clearing up some rumors about me

Number one I'm thrilled - THRILLED - that there are rumors about me. I mean, this means someone is talking about me and that there is presumably something interesting to say. This is big for me, really big.

I'm considering putting a small dog in my purse and seeing if the papparazzi will follow me around.

If that happens I'll learn how to spell "papparazzi".

So by all means please continue talking about me, I'm flattered beyond belief.

(For the record, I know no one is talking about me anymore but humor me.)

Now let me clear up these rumors.

Rumor #1: Melanie is going back to the U.S.
Nope, we're staying in China at least until Grant finishes 6th grade and he's in 2nd grade now. Most likely we'll stay until both kids finish high school.

Rumor #2: Melanie is going to Africa.
I'm not sure where this one came from. I think I said once that I want to go to Africa and I do but I meant to visit.

Rumor #3: Melanie is going to work for Adobe.
Although scores of Sun employees, especially those from the G11n department, have gone to Adobe I don't plan to.

Rumor #4: Melanie is dating George Clooney.
Not true, but you can see where the confusion is coming from.

Turn the Page

You can probably tell from the nostalgic nature of my recent posts but I'll go ahead and make it official -

After 11 years with Sun, my last day with the company was August 31, 2010.

It feels weird, really weird. I adored my job. I loved the company. I had the best manager a person could ever hope for. I worked on a wildly successful product. My co-workers were like family. My whole management chain, all the way to Larry Ellison, was rock solid. Sun trained me to be a corporate trainer for the company and they let me deliver classes once or twice a quarter.

I had it all. Truly.

But I wanted more.

I want to be a free-lance corporate trainer. I want to do what I love all the time. I want to make a difference in people's lives, a real difference. I want to be able to say I don't work in the summers when my kids are on vacation. I want to take them to the US so they can fish and swim and eat grits and sing along with Miley Cyrus and shop at Target and drive-thru at McDonald's.

I could go on and on. But suffice it to say that corporate training, and especially being a free-lance trainer, is the right thing for me right now. I know it. I just know it.

And just in case I was considering not heeding His calling, God made Sun give me this amazing severance package which gives me some padding in case I need some time to build up my business. That pretty much sealed the deal for me.

And by the way things are looking good. I've already got 2 jobs lined up for November. Maybe I won't have to touch that package.

On a parting note I give you a picture of Melanie Gao in November 1999 on her first day at Sun Microsystems. Wasn't she cute?