Rosie

What is it with me and the unloveables, underdogs and undesirables? As far back as I can remember, I've always sought out, nursed and loved those things others have given up on. By no means am I touting any kind of horn. This trait isn't necessarily a favorable one, and more often than not it's left me heartbroken or disappointed. It could be an injured mourning dove, baby chicks, wayward friends, stranded turtles, brooding boyfriends, or the Red Sox. And so it continues with Rosie.

Last Saturday, Larry and I were invited to a wine-tasting event. Linda and the girls were going to order pizza and play at the park. All was going well until the main course and my phone rang. I answered and I hear "Please, please, please don't get mad. We found a kitten in the middle of the road and we had to save it." Of course they did, they wouldn't be my daughters if they didn't. "Can we keep it? Please, please, please?!" I thought I'd have a better chance of fighting this battle when we got home, so I told them to put the thing in the "dog room", which is a strange outdoor room in the middle of our house. It's where we keep our grill. When we got home, there was no kitten in the dogroom. I went upstairs and curled up in a towel on Sydney's pillow was the smallest kitten I've ever seen and I've seen a lot of kittens. Larry and I at one point had around 50 cats living outside, inside, under and on top of our little mill house. We nicknamed it Ernest Hemingway's second home, all because we just had to feed that one stray FEMALE cat. We also discovered that the kitten was actually hanging out in the big trash area in the neighborhood and they "saved" it. Sarah has become quite adapt at dump-picking, a trait no doubt passed down from her great grandfather. Our basement is slowly filling up with discarded China "treasures".

This little thing was pitiful-looking, scrawny, stinky and undeniably destined to be a part of the family. The next day we took her to the local vet. The girls had named it Rosie, not knowing whether it was a girl or a boy. She was, in fact, aptly named. The vet didn't give us much hope as to her survival. He said she had internal "problems" and would require bottle feedings and "fluid discharge assistance" until she was old enough to fend for herself. Anyone ever assist with fluid discharge? Me neither or at least not beyond an enema. Well, now I can say I have...lucky me.

Honestly, I thought these days were behind me when I had my tubes tied. For the past week I've been bottle feeding Rosie, massaging her abdomen to make her pee, bathing her, getting peed on, and letting her sleep on my neck. Did I mention the assistance with bodily fluid? Kitty poo is not fun, even when it's washing down the shower drain as we're showering together. We did have a scarey moment when she started choking. For a brief second I wondered if I was going to have to administer mouth to kitty mouth CPR. The first couple of days were pretty touch and go as she wasn't drinking much, but by mid week, we'd kind of gotten into a little routine. She'd let me know if I deviated from it by tapping me on the cheek with her paw around 2:00am. When I deviated too much she peed on me. I think I've learned her pee cues, still trying to gauge the others. She's way too small to get in and out of a litter box, so this week my goal is to find some kind of temporary alternative to my shoulder.

Rosie is a fighter, which isn't really a suprise considering her mother is one of the neighborhood's feral cats. She's chewed the nipple off the end of the bottle to make the milk come out faster. My hands are quite scratched up as I try to teach her to "play nice". This morning she ate some food, high dollar solid-white albacore tuna. She took her medicine with very little resistance, but then left me a nice present on the floor as a thank you. I got her back by giving her a nice jacuzzi bath in the sink. I'll make a princess out of this pauper if it kills me.

We have to go back to the vet in a couple of weeks, and we'll find out then hopefull, the extent of her internal issues. I will never claim to be a cat-lover, but I must say, Rosie is definitely one of my greatest underdog challenges yet, and everyone knows how much I love those underdogs.

Trip to the Market

Having issues with computer, and not able to manipulate pictures...

One of my preconceived expectations of China was that I would be going to the local vendors and buying everything fresh and homemade, every day at a really good price. This could be food or clothing or furniture or whatever. However, being an expat places me in a wealthy neighborhood, surrounded by stores and locals who assume I too, am wealthy. All expats have money to burn or so they think. Ok, many of them do, but going to the stores hasn't been much of a treat for me. I'm a tightwad, probably even more so than before moving because I know the local people are buying the same things for a fraction of the cost. Nine months into this and I'm finally starting to learn where to go and with whom to go.

Mr. Liu has been a huge help and now with Linda, there is a whole new Suzhou for me to explore. My friendly neighborhood center with its fresh fruit and vegetables is "tai gui le" according to her. So, I was kind of in a dilemma. Auchen is cheaper, but the produce doesn't always look so great. Enter the world of the locals.

The Expat group recently visited a fresh market and it was great. However, when a group of about twenty "western" women go anywhere very little occurs besides talking and picture taking. All I really wanted to do was to go from vendor to vendor, ask a ton of questions and buy, buy, BUY. The only thing I did buy was some strawberries, gorgeous berries. I had been paying 20RMB/kg at the neighborhood center and 4RMB for about 8 berries at Auchen. Well, today I bought 2 kg for 1o RMB. That was just the beginning. Farmers from all over the area come to this market to sell. Some have large stands, others sit on a little stool and sell only a couple of vegetables laid out in front of them. Cage after cage of all things feathered, bucket after bucket of all things slimy. A couple of larger fish must have sensed my presence because right in front of me they leapt from the bucket onto the walkway.Yes, I screamed, which the locals thoroughly enjoyed.

Everything looked gorgeous and fresh and at times totally scary, but dirt cheap. I mean DIRT cheap. Yes, there was plenty of dirt and one should never wear sandals or beige pants (both of which I had on). The people were gracious and patient and a bit amused by me and my incessant picture-taking, but there were too many moments I didn't want to miss. After I took one little old lady's picture I asked her if she wanted to see it. As she was looking at her picture she laughed the best laugh, I just had to take another picture, which made her laugh even louder.

This is this China I've waited to see.

Getting Out and About

I thought once I got settled here I'd have lots of time to write. Boy, was I wrong. There are still things unsettled, but we've decided not to live life waiting for the other shoe to drop. Also, with the weather finally taking a turn for the better, I've been getting out more. Larry and I even broke down and bought bicycles so we can take family jaunts around the city. As terrifying as that initially sounded to me, Suzhou is pretty bike-friendly. We can ride around the lake on the sidewalk, hardly ever riding on the actual road. We haven't made that trek yet, but we've gone out several times to Times Square and to a neighboring compound. The city suddenly became a little less daunting and new freedoms have been opened up. I don't have to wait for Mr. Liu to bring me to the store, I can just peddle down the road. Larry's bike is like Katie's and they can really fly. My bike looks like Miss Gulch's bike in Wizard of Oz. Larry likes to hum that tune every time I ride. All I need is the wicker basket.

I've also come out of my proverbial shell and decided be to social. The Expat group went to Pearl City and a giant garden center last week. The amount of pearls this city outputs is bewildering. I learn something new each time I go. No, I don't go a lot, or I'd have to put the girls to work. This past trip taught me about lasered pearls and all shops invaribly have a back room. Some of the women, who have been here for several years, are no longer overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of cheap pearls, but are going for the size and quality. I'm still in the honeymoon stage, in awe of everything. The garden center was busy with locals stocking up on blooming plants and shrubs. I bought a rosemary plant and four little cacti. I told the girls if they could keep the plants alive, we'd get a furry pet after the summer break.

The reason I bought four plants is we have an addition to our family. Linda, our favorite waitress from Casa Zoe, is staying with us. She is teaching us Chinese and we are teaching her English. It's like being immersed in the language and I'm actually starting to really understand. She's so sweet and is great with girls. She's from the Hunan provence, a fifteen hour bus ride. Her English is fair, but limited to restaurant-speak. When she first came to the house and I showed her which bedroom and bathroom was hers, she asked if it was ok if she took a shower. I told her it was her bathroom, she then asked if she had to wear a bathing suit because at her current apartment, the bathroom was co-ed. She showed me some pictures. Not completely awful, but seeing her bundled up with earmuffs and mittens to go to bed was pretty tough. She had tears in her eyes when she arrived with her one little bag, so thankful and so ready to help.

The whole tribe went back to Shang Tang Street last weekend. Last August we went there, but I was still in a daze and didn't really take a close look in any of the stores. This time, with Mr. Liu and Linda helping keep track of the girls, I was really able to explore. Paper cutting, silk, painted combs, more pearls, embroidery...so beautiful. The local artists/craftsmen still try to jip the lao weis, but I'm getting much better at my negotiating skills. Knowing just a little of the language helps a lot, too. Larry and I think we are getting such great deals, but when we tell Linda about our bargains, she tells us we got ripped off. We've been instructed by her not to buy anything without her or Mr. Liu. The girls love the pretty fans and umbrellas. We get a price of 10RMB (@ $1.30). Nope, too expensive, those two can get three fans for 10RMB. At all the shops we encountered this. Haggling, though, is half the fun now. After eight months the fear is gone. My mantra "I don't need any of this stuff...just walk away". Now the shop keepers cuss at me for being so cheap or at least it sounds like they are. Linda hasn't taught me any of the really colorful words...yet. We also tempted fate and sampled some street vendor food. So many of these little shops sell some kind of food, whether it be dumplings, fresh veggies, fish, noodles, nuts...and unknown delicacies. We tried a kind of roasted flat bread with yummy, spicy seasoning. So good!

Larry had to go to Shanghai Friday, so Linda and I tagged along. Larry and I met with our accountant, dropped him off afterwards and Mr. Liu took us to Yu Yuen. She'd never been and was clicking off pictures faster than I was. We ate some famous Shanghai crab dumplings. First, you suck the juice out with a straw that has been stuck done in the middle, then you carefully (or not so carefully) eat the dumpling out of the bamboo wrap. I'm pretty sure I had dumpling goo all over my face. After going in several shops, we came to the conclusion we could get everything they were selling much cheaper back in Suzhou. All in all though, we had fun. She was so excited to be able to come with me, but she was even more excited when we were watching Amazing Race the following day, and the contestants were running through the same place. Don't think I didn't give a little squeal when I saw the contestants turing over the stamps we turned over in the same shop.

That night, Bantoo and his wife invited us for dinner with some other friends. A new Indian restaurant opened up and it was packed. We tried some interesting dishes, but I was more impressed with the diversity of our table. An Indonesian, Phillipino, Indian, Canadian, Brit, German, Korean, Pakistani, and us. It was all I could do to keep myself from asking everyone to gather for a group photo. What a nerd! All of my cultural training and classes whizzed through my mind...for a brief second. I finally stopped trying to analyze everyone in my head and stopped anticipating, and just relished in the experience. Quite a ride...so far.