Author Archives: Michelle Ross

A Fantastic Five

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As a firm believer in always looking on the bright side of situations and appreciating the small wonders on a daily basis, last Friday shaped up to be an absolutely fantastic day. One after another, little bits here and little bits there fell together to make it a perfect end to what was a super busy and tiring week. (With our big FLOTUS visit just a week away, there’s a lot of overtime being logged in Chengdu! I always know the stress is ramping up when I start to have dreams about work and Saturday night, all I dreamed about was the million ways my “meet and greet” event could crash and burn: kids out of control, a ballroom without air conditioning, forgetting flags, a podium, a stage…if it is a possible disaster, it has run through my head over the last week.) Regardless of my out of control stress-induced dreams,  last week ended on a series of high notes.

1) It was Friday! That in and of itself was a nice little gift, even if I did have to work Saturday morning.

2) When I got up and put on my brand new dress, I discovered it had pockets. This is about as great of a start to a new day as I can think of. I got the dress as a birthday gift when I was in Hawaii back in January, but it is just now starting to warm up to the point where I can consider busting out those summery clothes I wistfully bought in the middle of winter. So, Friday morning, the tags came off, the dress went on and EUREKA! Pockets!

3) Sunshine. Actual rays of sunlight were coming in the window of my office on Friday morning. It was absolutely glorious and I took every opportunity to get out and about that I could. I went to Noodle Alley for lunch, and then ran back out to go to the bakery for bread when my jinjiang rousi ended up being 98% green peppers and only 2% rousi! Later in the afternoon,  there was a pile of welcome packets that needed delivered to a hotel that is a few blocks from the consulate, so I jumped at the chance to deliver those. (I may have walked slower than necessary for that little errand!) All of this was done sans jacket! So nice. I had planned to walk home on Friday (about an hour walk), but my walking buddy was caught up in FLOTUS visit issues and my MP3 player was dead, so I did opt out of that chance at some sunshine, but still, skies were blue, clouds were white and the warmth of the sun on my skin was a much needed mood booster after the long, gray Chengdu winter.

4) Fridays are mail day, which makes them great on thier own, but then when your best friend gets a giant package filled with boxes of Girl Scout cookies from her mom, the day is pretty much made. She busted into the box while we were still in the mailroom, handing me a box of Thin Mints and one of Samoas. I sure did open up those Thin Mints, step outside into a patch of sunshine and enjoy what was possibly the best meal of the week!

5) Finally, when I got home from work, I opened the sliding glass door in my living room and the window that sits in front of treadmill and enjoyed a bit of fresh air. (And by fresh, it was pretty close to fresh! I think our AQI dipped down into the 60s on Friday afternoon.) It was nice to have a literal breath of fresh air coming in the window as I ran on the treadmill, rather than the status quo where I just pretend that the air being displaced by the air purifier is a breeze! And, after a winter of total lockdown, just a bit of new air circulating through the apartment put a smile on my face. (Granted, my face was red and my lungs were burning from the treadmill, but I’ll take that pain with the windows open any day!)
Any one of these things would have made my Friday magnificent, but when you add all of them together, it was one of the best “regular” days that I’ve had in Chengdu and it makes me glad that spring is finally showing her face. We’ve only got about ten weeks left in western China and if each of them has even one day half as good as last Friday, it is going to be an extraordinary end to our two year tour.

Now, enough of this jabber- back to FLOTUS planning!

Among the Joyful by Erin Eastham

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Among the Joyful by Erin Eastham

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Erin Eastham’s recently released young adult novel, Among the Joyful, was a quick read. I was drawn into the narrative from the very first line and then stayed up way too late on a work night to get through the final line.

Alaire, the main character, is a young lady who lacks the angst normal to the formative teen years, mostly because she doesn’t know what it is.  She lives in Golden State, where happiness (or at least the appearance of it) is of foremost importance. In this “idyllic” planned society, it is each person’s responsibility to never infringe on the happiness of others, which not only means avoiding harsh or argumentative comments/conversations, but also never going out without a smile, as one person’s lack of smile could impact and ruin the day of another. Yes, everyone smiles, all of the time. (As I read, I actually tried to smile for an extended period of time. It is no easy task when it isn’t based on an actual emotion. It doesn’t take long for cheek muscles to tire and lips to dry out. No fun when it isn’t for real.)  As a member of the coveted Joyful Court at her high school, Alaire is a role model to the other students. Until, her world comes crashing down and she discovers empathy- that the world is not all smiles and Joyful Court meetings- there is sadness, heartbreak, disappointment and a whole range of emotions that she has never been allowed to experience.

There are many things to like about this novel, but probably my favorite is all of the references to other young adult books. I love that Alaire’s emotional awakening comes from within the pages of books. I always contend that reading fiction is a great way to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes and experience parts of the world that the reader has never encountered. It builds empathy and understanding.  This is exactly where Alaire starts to fall apart- the empathy and understanding piece.

Within the first few pages, I was thinking to myself how much this novel reminded me of Lois Lowry’s writing in The Giver, so I was thrilled when just a chapter or two later, Alaire stumbles upon this staple of young adult literature. It only gets better and she then comes across another classic, The Bridge to Terabithia and what is bound to be a new bedrock of the genre, The Fault in our Stars.  And of course, the title of the novel, Among the Joyful, is a nod to Margaret Peterson-Haddix’s fantastic YA series, Among the Hidden. All of these references, both outright and subtle, made me love this book from the very beginning.

My only confusion comes with the ending. As I read the book, I liked that it was a single, stand-alone novel. So many YA books these days are written as a part of a series (which are supremely beneficial for reluctant readers), but I do enjoy a good novel that can tell its story in a single sitting. I was very onboard with that idea throughout the book, but then when I hit the end, I wondered if it was meant to be a set-up for a sequel. Without providing any spoilers, but in all honestly, I liked the rather abrupt ending, as it left the reader to imagine where the tale’s characters would end up, but I worry that instead there will be a “book 2” and I am not sure the material is there to stretch for another couple hundred pages. This isn’t a criticism of the book, as I have no knowledge of an impending sequel, but I would like to imagine Eastham is done and will write another engaging novel with a different set of characters, so I can spend another sleepless night following their tales.

There were a few random spelling/grammar errors in the book, but nothing that detracted from the story or meaning, and overall, I really did enjoy Erin Eastham’s Among the Joyful  happily giving it the full score:

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Letting Go of February is as Easy as Sunday (okay, Saturday) Morning

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Hooray for March 1st!

February has never been my favorite month; whether as a student, a teacher or living in China, I’ve always been grateful it falls in the “knuckle valley” when I count out “January, February, March” to see how many days April has.

When I was in school, 3rd quarter was always the biggest struggle and the report card that I dreaded bringing home. Take middle school for example.  First quarter is the start to a new school year. I would show up bright and eager, with a new school bag (not the Esprit bag that I dreamed of, but a ShopKo navy blue duffle that squeaked constantly as I met up with my best friend, Lesley and walked from Jefferson Junior High were my dad worked to Wilson Middle School where we were 7th graders, navigating the perils of first boyfriends-Isaac asked me out with a roll of Smarties folded up in the requisite “yes, no, maybe” note. I stealthily crunched through the candy gift in math class before marking “yes” and sending it back through my friend, through his friend to him-, multiple class periods and the necessary Tetris of sharing a locker, and the devastation of a girl in the locker room telling me my mascara -first tube ever!- made me look like a raccoon. Oh the drama.) and ready to tackle all the projects and tests thrown my way.  Second quarter is all about the holidays- Thanksgiving and Christmas doing a great job to break up the weeks of world history and study of photosynthesis, and of course fourth quarter was all about the end of the year and summer the approaching summer break.  But that dreaded third quarter. Ugh. The festivities are behind us (although I survive January with a mid-month birthday) and spring break is eons away. 7th grade- that was the year that during the third quarter midterms, I brought home a report card with a B- in science and a C is math. (Look, I was never destined for the STEM world.) This did not go over well at home. Needless to say, I was grounded until the end of the quarter, having to do math homework each night, even if there wasn’t assigned pages to do. (That’s the downfall to having a father who taught high school math for many years. No homework? No problem! He would take my book, look at the chapter we were working on and make a page of problems for me to solve.) February, you were no good to me as a middle schooler.

Jump ahead a decade to when I was on the other side of the desk. February was no better standing with my back to the white board rather than facing it. It is hard to motivate 8th graders to begin with, but add in days stuck inside because the temperature is in the single digits, the trepidation of the upcoming statewide exams and the endless weeks of sameness and it is long for everyone.

One might think that life abroad is always an adventure, and much of the time there are hilarious stories to be told, but day-to-day is actually not that different from life in the States. I get up, go to work Monday through Friday (and sometime Saturday), come home after work, make dinner, stream some Netflix if my internet is fast enough and then read and go to bed.  Chengdu life just plods along in February. The skies are constantly gray, pollution hits its highest levels of the year and we go weeks without the sun making an appearance. It is a long month.

But, it is all behind us now! March has arrived (not so much like a growling lion as a hulking gray elephant) and I’m ready to get back to real life. Back to going out with friends after work, back to the gym in my free time and back to wanting to participate in the world outside the walls of my apartment. Even without sunshine yet, I just feel lighter and happier, knowing that the eternal weeks of February are gone for another year. (Maybe next year it won’t even feel like February since Kuala Lumpur is a humid 90 degrees most of the month.)

Beware, the Ides is only a fortnight away, but I’ll take my chances with traitorous best friends rather than suffer through another miserable day of February.

You Make Me Happy, When Skies are Gray

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I got up this morning with high hopes. (I may not have been bright-eyed and bushy tailed, but wrapped in a fluffy pink robe and shuffling through to the kitchen to get Cheerios still counts as being “up,” even if not fully functional.) Why high hopes on this random day in February? Because I could see across the river, and seeing across the river means that the air pollution is down, which means, hope against all hope, we might see a ray or two of sunshine at some point today.

It may sound a bit ridiculous to be cheered by the sight of a river that is less than 100 yards from my apartment, but we’ve been weeks with a steady haze in Chengdu. For those of you who follow air quality indexes (two years ago I would have asked who in their right mind does that, but after a couple of years working for the State Department as a community liaison office coordinator, I am more well-versed in the science of air junk than I ever imagined I would be), we’ve been running a steady 160-180 for a couple of weeks now. With a bit of overnight rain though, we broke through that depressing gray miasma and when I checked the monitor first thing this morning, we were at an AQI of 80. I can’t remember the last time we were in double digits. This is exciting news in Chengdu-the soup has parted!

Having lived most of my life in Idaho, I’m used to cold winters, but for the most part they were sunny winters. Yes, the Treasure Valley has its annual inversion and I know it is no fun at all for that week or two in January when Bogus Basin is invisible, but Boise at its worst is Chengdu at its best.  So, yes, I can do cold winters (I don’t like them and prefer to avoid them, which is why Malaysia is going to be fantastic for the next two winters), but they are survivable as long as that brilliant orb in the sky makes a daily appearance.

Every summer, I convince myself that Chengdu winters aren’t really that bad, while at the same time counseling all of the new officers that they should really plan a vacation to Thailand or Indonesia during January or February. Nothing heads of a bout of seasonal-affective disorder like a few days in Bangkok or Bali. Heeding my own advice would have been a good thing this year. (We did go to Hawaii in January, but I definitely could have used a February-Phuket boost as well.)

It really is that bad.

Luckily, Pope Gregory had the wonderful foresight to make February the shortest month of the year, shortening the amount of time I grumble about winter weather. (Like it or not, when March rolls around, I consider it spring. In my mind, the air is going to get magically better, I’ll be able to put my winter coat away for the last time and say goodbye to my tights for a few years.)

In elementary school, we learned that March “comes in like a lion and out like a lamb,” which I am totally fine with. A lion’s head is surrounded by a giant orange and yellow sphere, which is exactly what I am looking for! (Apparently, I need Thad’s post-Malaysia posting to be in Africa, as my lion-anatomy is heavily reliant on cartoons.)

Elusive Mr. Sunshine has yet to make an appearance yet today, but it is still early. I will keep my fingers and toes crossed that some much needed vitamin D breaks through the smog soon. As for now though, I will content myself with the clear(er) view of the building across the alley and knowing that my lungs will get a bit of respite when I head out to get noodles for  lunch this afternoon.

(I must admit to a bit of growing trepidation though, as I just checked the AQI and rather than holding steady in the 80s and I had hoped, we are climbing back up, having passed the triple-digit mark and now sitting at 112. Nevertheless, I’ll keep all ten toes and all ten fingers crossed. Sunshine might still happen.)

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The Martian by Andy Weir

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The Martian by Andy Weir

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Lately, I’ve been intrigued with this movie, Gravity that came out last fall in the States. As I wasn’t home at all during the time it was in theaters and I don’t want to pay $20 to watch it on Amazon, I’m still mostly in the dark about it. But, the reviews I read when it was out caught my attention and I am secretly hoping it will be a viewing choice on the airline when I head home in late May. With that spark of interest in outer space ignited, I was excited when I saw The Martian listed on the best books of the week on Huffington Post. (That weekly article costs me *way* too much money!) I figured this novel could tide me over until I have a chance to watch Ms. Bullock and Mr. Clooney do their thing on the eight-inch seat back screen provided by United.

Andy Weir does not disappoint! I was drawn in from the very start, sliding through pages quickly. Mark Watney, a NASA-trained astronaut, was a part of a group of scientists who were going to explore Mars for 31 sols (a bit longer than an Earth day) and then head back to our little third rock from the sun. But, through a series of unfortunate and unlucky events, he gets left behind when his colleagues are forced to call their mission, 25 sols short of their intended stay.  What Watney does have going for him is those first six sols, when the team had time to establish their camp, giving him at least a bare minimal chance at survival; although what he has to survive for is quickly called into question. Is it really just prolonging the inevitable?

While I’ve read reviews that said they didn’t like the sometimes chatty tone of Watney’s diary, I thought it created a nice balance to the heavy science jargon and mathematical equations that permeate much of the tale of attempted survival. Watney is a likeable character, stuck in a horrible situation. Throughout the narrative though, it felt realistic. He doesn’t give into the overwhelming pressure put upon him and become a crumpled mass of helplessness, but his humanity shows as he does crack at times. His humor is what keeps him sane throughout the ordeal.

As would be expected of a book based on NASA and space flight, science and math play a heavy roll in the narrative. There were times I felt exhausted by the technicalities of space travel, feeling like an 11th grader stuck back in Mr. Tilsey’s chemistry class, desperately trying to balance equations, but not really understanding what I was doing. The technical parts of The Martian had that same feel for me. I would read them and get through them, but I couldn’t have summarized them with any accuracy. But, luckily for the less than scientifically-minded readers like myself, it doesn’t distractingly take away from the narrative. (Although, I am sure for those who can follow these details, the book has a whole different level of interest that I just couldn’t tap into.)

On a personal level, I love that the earth-side of this book partially takes place in northern Gansu province, in the town of Jianquan, where China’s space program is located. I’ve had a couple of chances to visit there, spending two weeks with my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers doing a summer outreach program. It was incredible to see this off-the-map town featured so heavily in an American novel.

When I get through a book, cover to cover, in just two days (work days at that!), it must be a good read! Even with just a few pages left, I wasn’t ready to bet money on the outcome and still feel like it could easily have ended differently, depending on the whims of the author when he wrote those final stages. The only thing holding Andy Weir’s book from a full five shells is the incredibly scientific passages that had me skimming in search of more action. The Martian earns a very solid:

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99 Adventures in Chengdu on the Calendar (sung to the tune of 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall)

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As I was riding home in the cab today, after I got over my slight fuming at the jerk who tried to steal the cab I had hailed (That’s a whole different story involving some angry Tarzan-like Chinese and some much more elaborate, but not eloquent, English, resulting in me sitting in the cab, while jerk-dude and his girlfriend were left in my pollution-filled dust.), I realized that we are well under four months left in Chengdu, which then got me thinking about that kindergarten stand-by where they celebrate the 100th day of the school year, which led me to pondering exactly how many days we did have left in Chengdu. (I know, it was a bit of mental rattling around, especially considering I never even went to kindergarten, but that’s what happens to many folks on a Friday afternoon of a very busy week and to those of us with blonde hair a little more often than that.)

With my curiosity now peaked to the point of cat-killing, I hurriedly changed out of my dress (I opted for a cute red and blue dress covered in hearts, thinking it would be appropriate for the 14th, which it was, but I quickly realized what it was not appropriate for was February! Let’s just say that dress won’t be making an appearance again until summer rolls around!) and pulled up a 2014 calendar. Fourteen days left in February, thirty one in March, thirty in April and then twenty-four in May. 14+31+30+24=99. I missed the epic 100 day countdown by less than twenty-four hours!

Now knowing that I have broken into the double digits of Chengdu days, I already feel a little homesick for this quirky southwest China city. I have only ninety-nine days to perfect my nearly Olympic-level loogie pirouette, where my foot slips in an unknown highly-viscous substance, I flail slightly and grimace greatly, but stay upright and continue along my way, pushing down my gag reflex and trying to convince myself that it was just water, or possibly dog urine, which is a much better alternative than the probable reality. I have only ninety-nine days left to risk my life, skittering across roads without crosswalks or understandable traffic patterns, but with uncovered manholes and scooters headed in all directions. And, I have only ninety-nine days left to join vacation photos in TianFu Square, People’s Park and JinLi Lu, becoming the random pasty girl in the family photo that I still am not sure how they explain to their friends back home. (Do they claim I am a new friend or do they admit that they just took a picture with a totally random stranger because she was tall, with blonde hair, blue eyes and fair skin? Oh, to be a fly on the wall…)

Ninety-nine days!

It is going to fly by. Soon, we’ll have to cull the winter weather herd, sending boot and heavy coats to storage, granting a pardon only to a few hoodies and layers for future travels. Then, it will be series of lasts: last hotpot dinner, last trip to the ridiculous IKEA, last CLO outing and last days at work.

I can’t believe we’re down to ninety-nine days, but I am excited to have ninety-nine more days to explore the city and enjoy all the strange and quirky bits that make Chengdu such a great place to live. Rather than countdown (I thought about making a paper chain like we did in elementary school for the weeks leading up to Christmas- red, green, red, green, red, green), since it seems so negative, as if I am dying to get out of here, I am going to count up. I’ve got ninety-nine days of adventure ahead of me, kicking off tomorrow afternoon with #1- ice skating at the world’s largest building- the Global Center.

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The Answer to the Riddle Is Me: A Memoir of Amnesia by David Stuart MacLean

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The Answer to the Riddle Is Me: A Memoir of Amnesia by David Stuart MacLean

the answer to the riddle is me

The Answer to the Riddle is Me recently popped up on a friend’s Facebook page and I was instantly drawn to the dark humor of the subtitle A Memoir of Amnesia. The contradiction between a book written to record memories and a brain that has no recollection of those memories made me curious to see what direction David MacLean’s writing would take. Would it be filled with a dark, self-depreciating humor at the situation or bitter and angry or just plain lost and hopeless? Whichever way the story played out, it was this snappy little play on words that prompted me to download the newly released book.

When MacLean wakes up on a train platform in India with no idea who he is, where he is or how he got there, his life begins to unravel. Luckily for him, a tourist policeman realizes there is something wrong with this young man and goes out of his way to offer is assistance and get him to a safe home. Throughout their time together, the officer assumes MacLean is just another foreign tourist who came to the country to use drugs and party and his lack of awareness is really just a terrible high that has yet to wear off. The cop places him in the home of a local woman who helps drug addicts get cleaned up, where both remind him that that his choices are causing great pain for his parents. Soon though, MacLean is admitted to a hospital, as he begins to have seizures and requires medical help for his condition.

As the tale continues, it soon becomes apparent that MacLean is not just a recent college graduate on a multi-continental bender, but rather a Fulbright scholar in India working on a novel, through a grant from the US State Department. It was with a huge amount of relief that I read the first discussion of Lariam. Suddenly, the narrator isn’t an unreliable recreational drug user, but rather (though no fault of his own) an unreliable fellow world traveler. While I was a bit horrified to realize how much I had been judging MacLean for his predicament when I could just think of him as a dumb college graduate traveling the world in search of a party, I definitely fell much deeper into the book when I could make a connection with him as someone seeing the world in hopes of understanding it better, rather than just looking for the next street deal.

Once the doctors realize that MacLean is having horrific side effects from the anti-malarial drug he had been prescribed, they begin to try to push it out of his system, but none of that brings back his memory. His parents take him back to the States, where he spends the next few years trying to piece back together who he was before his psychotic break and who he is in its wake. Friends and passed girlfriends, none of which he can remember, begin to create a tale of who he was, but it is like reading about a different person. All stories of someone else. This book is a fascinating look at what it means to be “you.” With no memories of your past, what do you base your future upon?

This book is also a powerful reminder that even “approved” medications can have serious side effects and for people who often travel to malarial regions of the world, difficult decisions have to be made about prevention vs. possible infection.

The only thing that holds me back from giving this book a full five shells is that I would have liked a deeper look into how MacLean actually rebuilt his life. With little memory, I was surprised at how quickly he jumped back into graduate school. Delving deeper into what memories remained intact while others were lost would have been helpful, as at times I didn’t understand his loss in certain areas and his full comprehension of others. (Academic learning vs. social habits.)

David MacLean’s newly released memoir The Answer to the Riddle is Me is highly readable and for those considering taking Lariam, it is a “must read,” easily earning it:

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Arena One: Slaverunners by Morgan Rice

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When I realized it had been awhile since I posted a book review, I went back to the blog to check just how long it had been and was horrified to see my last book review went up on November 15- nearly two and half months ago. It isn’t that I haven’t read anything since November, but somehow I’ve been lazy and not written up any of them, good or bad. (And boy, there have been some doozies on either end of that spectrum.)  It is probably not a good idea to go back and try to cover all of those missed reviews, so I’ll just promise to be better about them from here on out and pick up where I am now.

Arena One: Slaverunners (Book #1 of the Survival Trilogy) by Morgan Rice

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I initially picked up Morgan Rice’s Arena One because it was billed as a book for people who loved Hunger Games, which I did. (Although my love in the series diminished with each subsequent novel.) I figured this might be the next great YA trilogy and I was excited to start a new series. I’ll be brutally honest here- don’t bother.  I’ve never read a book that seemed to be written solely with the thought of making millions in Hollywood. The whole thing seems ready to translate directly into a screenplay that will be attempt to be the next big summer blockbuster.

Arena One starts out in the not-so-distant future when the US has been destroyed by a second Civil War- this one brought on by the fractious nature of the American political system, where each side takes more and more extreme positions, until actual war breaks out, trapping the citizens in the middle of the politicians deadly hubris.  After the government fails, large gangs take over the big cities and scour the countryside for any holdouts, hoping to make them slaves or pit them against each other, to the death, as a form of entertainment and a show of power. Hence, the existence of Arena One.

The premise of the book is by no means unique or horribly intriguing, but with a great writer at its helm, it could make a great story. Instead, Rice spends most of it writing car chase scenes and increasingly violent hand-to-hand combat battles. I think the initial chase scene is where I began to lose interest. I get the desire for action and the seemingly endless car chase may definitely draw in young male readers, but it felt like it went on for an eternity. How a car, no matter how plated and outfitted, would ever be able to submit to the abuse in the early chapters of this book is beyond me. And yet, it does and keeps on rolling! This whole section of the book felt like it was being written for the big screen, rather than meant for the realm of words on a page.

While another series with a strong female lead character is always a positive thing (especially when it is one that draws in both male and female readers), but I hate that yet again, that lead character has to get caught up in a romantic relationship, or worse yet, a love triangle. Brooke is a caring young woman who has spent the last handful of years protecting her little sister on her own, but the instant a boy walks into her life, she suddenly gets all oozy/woozy about him. (To be fair, she is still the physically and mentally stronger character, so she doesn’t totally wimp out, but it would have been awesome if this new compatriot had also been female.)

As the action (and I do mean action!) continues, there are more car chases, lots more blood and gore and a bit of suspense to lead into the second book in the trilogy. I can definitely see where middle school boys would love this book and if I were still teaching, I would definitely buy it (and it’s sequels) for my classroom, but on a personal level, I just hated how much it felt made-for-Hollywood. Knowing that popular YA books translate into massive bucks when they are released in theaters, it felt like Rice was pandering too much to the exes who might buy his stories. With that in mind, I give Arena One by Morgan Rice only:

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From Zaijian to Aloha and Back Again

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I love the idea of having an R&R. It’s brilliant. I work in a stressful job (okay, my job is minimally stressful, on the average day, but my location definitely can bring on the headaches) and as a “reward” for that, I get a plane ticket to either Sydney, Australia or anywhere in the US. Fantastic! (Side note from my previous life: teachers should all get a once-a-year R&R!)

Originally, I thought we’d opt for the koala bear option, but once I discovered how incredibly hard it is to get to hold one of these cuddly little creatures, I was less enamored with the idea.  (Plus, out of KL, we’ll be even closer to the land of the Vegemite sandwich, so we’ll probably make that trek in 2015.And I *will* find a way to hold one. I will.) So, with no need to exclaim, “Crikey, mate!” we set our sights on another land of blue skies and sunshine- the Sandwich islands.

The sunshine I had been dreaming of met us at the airport when we touched down at 8AM, nearly an hour before we took off from Chengdu that morning. (Oh, the magic of international dateline time travel!) I couldn’t wait to see everything the islands had to offer, but within hours my lungs rebelled against the clean air. After flying all night, we checked into the hotel, filled up on a giant plate of IHOP pancakes and then decided to take a nap for a few hours, rejuvenating our batteries after seventeen hours in airports and airplanes. In the space of that two hour nap, I went from healthy and full of energy to having a throat that felt like my pancakes had been made of porcupine. Not a good sign. By the end of the day, I had a full blown cold. I swear it is because my body is so used to a certain level of pollutants that it can no longer function correctly without at least triple PM2.5 digits.

While my cold was bad enough that had I been home, I probably would have called in sick to work for two days in a row, there is no calling in sick on vacation! I had sites to see, stores to hit up and a hair appointment that was not to be broken.

Luckily, we were able to wander around Honolulu for a few days before boarding our cruise ship, so I nursed the worst of the cold on solid ground. (Buying out the clearance rack at Old Navy was some great retail therapy that I am sure boosted the powers of my Target OTC cold medicine.)

Next up: cruise time!

With my purple flower lei draped haphazardly around my shoulders, Thad and I posed for what would be the first in a lovely series of cruise-forced photos. (Each time we got off the ship, there would be someone in a random costume, lining up guests for photos. One day it was a dolphin in a coconut bra, while another day it was a giant, squishy pineapple. These pictures were then developed and for sale on the ship for a mere $12 each. It’s too bad they were so pricey, as Thad and I made ridiculous faces in each and every one. It would have made a fantastic photo album.)

For the next seven days, we cruised the Hawaiian Islands. From snorkeling at Molokini, where I spent an hour following my favorite fish, trading “favorites” each time I found one that was more awesome to watching whales breech and tail slap their way across the bay, our first outing was fantastic.  I have the swimming skills of a house cat, which means I wasn’t able to dive several feet below the surface of the ocean, but Thad said he could hear the songs of the humpback whales that we shared the area with that day.  I did learn that snorkeling with a clinging cold can be a bit, well, gross. Put your entire nasal system inside a tight-fitting plastic mask and then float face down for an hour. Things drain. It just happens. But, I wasn’t going to pass up a chance to float with the fish because of a bit of congestion.  Ick. I know.

The cruise was filled with four-course meals (I had dessert every night!) and nightly shows heavy on the choreography and hits from a handful of decades ago. (Side note: there was a group of deaf vacationers on our cruise who attended these shows each night. I was mesmerized by their interrupter. She rocked out to musical hits through the decades and Polynesian war chants alike.)

Wandering through lava beds at Volcanoes National Park. Kayaking up a river to swim in the pool below a waterfall. Hopping through tide pools to visit sea turtles on Kona. Quietly walking the memorial at Pearl Harbor.

R&R is definitely full of rest and relaxation, but it wouldn’t be a fantastic vacation without days full of activities and adventures. Really, I’m up for just about anything as long it is warm and there is sunshine involved. Blue skies, golden sunshine and a touch of color on my skin- that’s what I needed after an already long winter in Chengdu. (As I write this, our AQI has been over 400 for more than twelve hours. And this is why my lungs didn’t know what to do with fresh air.)

I do have to wonder though, will I want to R&R in Alaska once we move to Malaysia?

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My Chengdu BFF…Blue Air

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Gross air goes by many different names. If you are lucky enough to live in a rural area, your gray days are merely filled with fog. It’s not necessarily pretty or convenient, but aside from those who have to commute in its thickness, it’s pretty neutral in terms of health effects.  In big cities, the combination of haze and smoke is smog. And when I was in Hawaii last week, the weird mixture of volcanic smoke and fog created what they have christened “vlog.” In Chengdu, we do get a bit of fog and smog, but definitely no vlog. What we get in spades though is “plog.” (Pollution + fog= plog. I just made it up, but hopefully it will catch on!)

The last few days have been particularly ploggy in Chengdu, with this morning’s AQI hitting 375, just as I was contemplating a lunchtime run to Noodle Alley for fried rice. (Needless to say, said outing was called off by my lungs and I dined on a noodle bowl at my desk instead.) Yesterday, after going to brunch and then visiting a couple of local tourist sites and a new import grocery store (always full of exciting possibilities!), I ended up taking a nap to try to ward off the encroaching headache brought on by hours outside in the haze.

All of this is just part of the gig, and we knew it coming in, so I’ve got no complaints about Foreign Service-living in Chengdu because of it, but, the plog has created a deep and abiding love between myself and my air purifiers. Without my trusty machines, whirling on medium twenty-four hours a day,(high creates a bit of a cyclone, which requires me to weigh everything in the house down with books, so we stick with a more manageable setting) I’d be a hacking, coughing mess for several months out of each year. And, since I’d really like both of my lungs to join me in Kuala Lumpur this summer, hugging my air purifier is not an uncommon occurrence. Because my apartment air purifiers give so much to me, I thought it would only be right if I returned the favor, as they are my Chengdu-BFFs.

After pondering the best way to show my love to these wonderful, whirling machines, I opted to go with the world I knew so intimately for a decade- middle school affection. (Okay, that sentence could be interrupted in a super creepy way. It’s not. I promise!) With this in mind, ol’ Blue Air and I spent some quality time together this weekend, enjoying an array of bonding activities, including:

-playing MASH together

-playing dress-up

-mani/pedi-time

-dreaming of clean air vacations

-predicting our futures together with the help of simple origami

 

While polar vortexes aren’t making their way through western China, bringing the same freezing air that seems to be plaguing much of the US this winter, we’ve got our own winter maladies to grumble about- mainly the air pollution that hits so hard in January and February. But, I’ve got my handy-dandy BFFs to keep me company through the long, cold (okay, not so cold), gray days of winter.

If only I could get one of those BFF heart-shaped bracelets to forever cement our one-ness…

 

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