My aspirationally weekly, realistically more like monthly email of books and enthusiasms will keep your #tbr full and make sure you know what's next.
Good Morning Snaily Originally uploaded by kjda It is very cool here in the morning. The fountain isn’t on, which the fish seem to prefer. They are swimming around. You can see the dead ones floating around in the water clearly. There are two. There is a couple playing badmitten. They seem to be having fun. I like to imagine them reconnecting, now that they have to spend a week together in quarantine. Maybe the last time they played badmitten […]
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It’s a very scenic hotel Originally uploaded by kjda If you like signs in Chinese, and dejected looking people in masks. I asked my friend Julia to put up an update, but I can’t see the site now–I should have a connector cord later today. I just belatedly realized I could blog this way. As I said, we are all fine. Feeling a little too lively. Fortunately, the hotel has all the amenities…ping pong, badmitten, holes in the walls, 3 […]
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Where are we now? Originally uploaded by kjda The guo men hotel. If we walk to the end of the fence and stand by the guard shack, we can see Rob’s hospital, where he is in a 10×10 pen with a metal cot and a specific daily water allotment (for showering, not drinking, it isn’t that bad). It’s a dump. More later. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone
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The Chinese Hospital Diet Plan Originally uploaded by kjda I have a feeling it’s going to be very effective. We are all here and, except for Rob, still together. Until someone else gets sick. At this point nothing would surprise me. I have the feeling that anything could happen. And I can’t even guess what will. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone
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It’s 6:00 on what’s the Chinese friday–they don’t take Saturday off. They do have Sunday off. There’s been no word on our swabs. We hope they’ve decided not to tell us they were negative, because they think we’re going to start fussing about leaving, and we were very difficult about the hotel thing. They don’t, we suspect, want to come to back to us–although I’ve no doubt that if one of us is positive, we’re going down. But I think […]
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Duplicates, I know–I had some trouble uploading. Ok, if all those swabs come back negative, I’ll be the best quarantine mother ever. I will make paper dolls, I will build card houses, I will teach sam to play chess. I will be 100% present, I swear. We will know in an hour. If anyone is positive, it’s more quarantine for everyone, and the hospital for the positive person. The embassy has said they will intervene to make sure an adult […]
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It’s a lovely day here for staying in and not going to the Great Wall. Really, we’re all feeling quite festive about it. After that first phone call yesterday, we were quietly encouraged to get the kids down to the pool while Rob met with officials. When they called us back up, they swabbed our throats (just about the only thing that could have made Wyatt less thrilled in general about the Chinese people as a whole was one of […]
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It all started with a phone call. Just a little phone call. A situation had arisen that the authorities needed to discuss with us. It ends with us as the Hyatt’s most loyal customers ever. To make a long story short, mostly because tomorrow I’ll have acres of time to tell you more than you want to know about it, we’re quarantined in China. The people seated behind us on the plane have the flu. As in, really have it, […]
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Here’s a phrase you may want to learn if you’re going to bring a lot of small, blonde children to China: Ta-men pu yao. That’s “They don’t want it.” Ta pu yao is “He doesn’t want it.” The smog today was palpable, settling down in the Forbidden City to the point where you felt like you needed to clean your glasses, even though you weren’t wearing any. It was muggy, cloudy and oppressive. While we walked to the Forbidden City […]
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We’re here, at the Grand Hyatt in Beijing. The pool, I’m told, looks “just like Ariel’s castle” and was a huge hit. We only managed a few hours of sleep on the plane, and tried to do a little too much when we got here (even though it wasn’t much at all). We thought a swim would tire them out, and it did–so much so that they all fell asleep at dinner, which we tried to do right around the […]
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9 hours into the flight, and Wyatt has slept a little. We tried out the CARES/Kids Fly Safe seat belts. They are vastly easier to transport than a carseat but somewhat less comfy. Bug successes while the kids were awake, but when it came time to curl up in the seat and sleep, the chest strap gets in the way—being little, they don’t really have to stay upright. Overall, I’d call it a good purchase, though. Good for turbulance (we […]
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Fun times online Originally uploaded by kjda We are trying to guess whose luggage will be so overweight that they will have to repack. One set of girls just had to go buy a new bag. KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone
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We are ready. Ready, as in, weighed suitcases sitting in the hallway. My mom asleep already. Me, popping one last movie onto my iPhone and gathering a few last cords and ends. Three excited kids asleep in their room (miraculously, no reappearances!) knowing that the next time they sleep in there, there will be four. (Gulp.) I do plan to blog while we travel–there should be plenty of pictures and lots to tell. We’ll be in Beijing until Sunday 6/21. […]
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RIght now Rory, Lily, Wyatt and Sam are jumping off the Great Wall on their way to tennis lessons. Or something. It’s a little unclear… No, Rory didn’t make a surprise appearance. She’s represented by a cardboard paper doll wearing magnetic clothing and played by Lily’s friend Kate. We’ve gone through a lot of ramifications with China travel lately. Wyatt took a bad fall off a swing and came up sobbing “I don’t want to go to China, I want […]
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Post coming Originally uploaded by kjda KJ Dell’Antonia I am mourning spring today. It’s June 5, so technically, I’m a little early, but this is the last Friday of the regular school year and after today, in effect, everything changes. Little changes, building up to the big one. Last week, when we were in Seattle, I acquired a reuseable Starbuck’s iced coffee cup. I’ve been looking for one. I’m an iced addict—coffee, latte, mocha—and obviously there are lots of cups […]
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First Farmer’s Market on the Green Originally uploaded by kjda KJ Dell’Antonia sent from my iPhone
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We leave 6/16. We come back a family of 6 7/2. I’m not panicking. Really.
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I’m up early and emailing, and a BIG black bear just loped by our dining room window. He was about 20 feet from the house. The dogs went nuts (good dogs!) and he headed for the woods. Guess it’s time for the annual bear safety lecture!
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This afternoon and evening I: Cleaned, badly and frantically, 49 drops plus one pile of dog poop in the ten minute interval between when I discovered the poop, and when I had to leave the house with the kids in order to deliver Sam and Lily to their ballet recital rehearsal. (Expect pics tomorrow!) Just fyi, in case you were thinking of getting a dog (and ours are house trained, this is unusual, but still) each and every drop had […]
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