Unremitting

Was it only three weeks ago that Jenny twisted her ankle? Because today she went for her second run since the accident.

My wife could kick your wife’s ass.

Meanwhile: Ellen took off for Shanghai on Saturday. She spent ten days with us, not counting their trip to Wuyishan last weekend. Normally I’m fond of saying things like “guests, like fish, start to smell after three days,” but this is definitely not the case lately. First, Ellen (OK, all our families) are pretty easy to live with. Second, we are crazy for any contact with our lives back home.

The weather is now finally “cool.” Low to mid 60s (F), and gray gray gray always gray. This gray is only about 30% moisture, by the way. The rest is pollution. Dust, soot, smog...God knows what. Think on that, my First World friends: the sun never breaks the constant veil of pollution over Xiamen, China. You can smell it. Your eyes water, you have a persistent hacking cough, sneezing wakes you in the middle of the night. Picture that feeling when you marvel at how cheap all that stuff at Target is. It’s cheap because, in part, we don’t have to pay the cleanup costs.

Xiamen is pretty unanimously regarded as the cleanest city in China.