2 Year Olds

I'm almost finished with my second week of work. After a month of being stuck at home all day, I was starting to get pretty antsy. I was glad to finally (it seemed like finally) get a job. It is in Pasadena, conveniently only 3 miles away. It takes me an hour to get there, though, thanks to taking the bus. Public transportation isn't quite as useful here as in China. Fortunately, Kevin works nearby and can pick me up in the evenings.
I'm working with two year olds. When I told people what I was going to be doing, most of them responded with something like, "that sounds terrible." I never really imagined I could work with kids that young either, but there are advantages and disadvantages to any age. Despite the alleged "terrible twos," there are actually only a few kids that throw tantrums. There is a lot of diaper changing. I am becoming an expert diaper changer. And there is the whole potty training thing. There are a lot of noses to wipe and shoes to tie and jackets to zip. I feel like I'm bending over, squatting down, picking up, sitting on the floor, and jumping back up all the time. I am quite tired at the end of the day. Still, it's a pretty interesting age.
For one thing, they are really cute at that age. That is smart on God's part, if you ask me. Their vocabulary doubles about every week. The early twos may only be saying single words while the later ones might hold a whole conversation with you. They are so eager to observe and experience everything. Their world is still simple enough that you know why they're crying, and two minutes later they're ready to go back and play. Sometimes they just need someone to hold them or to intervene in a fight or to recognize they are a dinosaur.
There are infants through five year olds at the center, and the five year olds already seem incredibly old to me. Old and worldly and rough. Interesting how that is. I used to think I could never teach kindergarten because they are too young. I wouldn't want to stay with two year olds for the rest of my life, but it's okay for now. Meanwhile, the length of time before I could visualize being ready for my own kids gets longer and longer. I like being able to hand them off to their parents. I still need to be able to come home at the end of the day. Yes, that's a very good thing.

Parrots, Peacocks, and Pasadena

Yesterday I looked out our window to see several parrots on the telephone wire. This afternoon when Kevin and I were at a nearby park, we were distracted from our reading of The Giver by a loud flock of birds. I thought they were some kind of blackbirds, but Kevin swore they looked green. Sure enough, when they rose from the trees and flew overhead, we realized they were nothing other than a whole flock of parrots. This hardly seems like a jungle/parrot friendly environment. Local legend says that many of the parrots escaped from a 1959 bird farm fire. Some also probably escaped or were let loose by their owners. Since then, or whenever the parrots went wild, they have formed into 5 flocks –get this—a total of around 1200 birds! (According to the Parrot Project of Los Angeles) So we have parrots in Pasadena.

But then that could be fitting. In Arcadia, the next town over, wild peacocks wander the streets. When I have gone to visit the Brennans, I have seen several wandering through yards in a nearby neighborhood. Apparently they were imported from India by the founder of Arcadia in the early 20^th century and found the town a great place to live. The city of Arcadia even puts out a pamphlet entitled “Peafowl in Arcadia: Living with Arcadia’s Wild Birds.” It includes sections like “What do I do if peacocks keep returning to my yard?” and “In the Garden: Peafowls dislike these plants.”

So yes, it’s an interesting place to live.

Foreigners on a Bus Stop Bench

The midday sun beat down with surprising warmth on the metal bench at the corner bus stop. I tossed a polite half-smile to a middle-aged Hispanic woman as I sat down next to her. She shifted her shopping bags, half-smiling back, then we politely ignored each other in the courteous way of strangers. An older woman wandered over and hesitated over the seat between us. Finally, she spread her newspaper on the seat and sat down, bringing with her a slightly musty scent of unfamiliar spices. It reminded me of how people often sat on newspapers or plastic bags in China, not wanting to touch the dirty ground or public benches. As I thought about this, I wasn’t surprised to see that the woman’s newspaper was covered with Chinese characters. It struck me as funny how her actions seemed so normal to me…but then strange when I remembered we were in America.

Every half a minute the Chinese woman craned forward to see the street. Seeing her made me feel better about doing the same thing, even though I didn’t expect the bus for another 10 minutes. A young Hispanic mother pulled her stroller near the bench and a moment later overflowed into a flood of rapid Spanish, caught up immediately by the middle aged woman. I glanced incomprehensibly at their conversation. They must know each other, yet they hadn’t shown initial recognition.

After a minute, the Chinese woman beside me spoke to the middle aged woman, and it took me a minute to realize they were both speaking English, murmuring about the cost of the items they had purchased and the wondering about the bus.

I sat outside the exchange, distant and confused. Surely these two women did not know each other. They were just strangers waiting at a bus stop. They were separated by culture and language, yet they sat beside each other carrying on a comfortable, if broken, conversation. They knew something I didn’t; they had decided that courtesy to strangers meant conversation, not silence. We were in America, but people were following different rules, and I felt the sudden hesitancy of an outsider.

I pretended to be absorbed in my book, a book conspicuously full of English words. I hoped they did not think I was arrogant or cold. But maybe I was. I had that fleeting, desperate thought that this was my America. This is where I belong. I know how things work here, and they don’t have the right to change the rules.

But this wasn’t my America. I grew up in the part of America where people drive cars and don’t wait for buses. People load their groceries into their cars and drive off alone, wary of strangers. They don’t live life in public. They rush off to their individual homes and important activities and don’t have time for people who don’t speak their language or follow their rules.

When the women finished talking and craned their heads toward the street, I was glad to gather my things and escape to the approaching bus. I hoped they realized I wasn’t trying to be superior or aloof. I was just acting by rules that no longer made sense. The probably thought I belonged here, like I thought of every Chinese person in China. They probably thought of themselves as the foreigners, still adjusting to a country they’ve lived in for a year or ten years or half of a lifetime. I wanted to tell them that sometimes in your own country, you are still the one who doesn’t belong.

The Library

I went to the Pasadena library today. In China, I dreamed of just ordinary libraries. Anything with some English books. But this library...dang. It puts to shame any other library I have been to, excepting the Library of Congress. It was like a museum of books. The library is in this massive California mission-style building with a little courtyard in the front and imposing wooden doors. The library was spread over four levels. I kept wandering into new rooms: the business room, the reference room, the fine arts room, several reading rooms. Almost a whole floor of fiction. Cases and cases of biographies. Two whole shelves of books about trains. A whole children's room big enough to be a full-sized library. I wandered around in awe like you do in a museum, gazing on the books. It was too overwhelming to decide on which one to pick up, so I just looked and breathed in the smell. Coincidentally, it is quite near to two jobs I applied for (honestly, that wasn't the reason I applied for them. not the main reason.) Convenient...

Fires

Several people have asked if the Southern California fires are in our area. There are currently 16 fires going in the LA and San Diego area. Part of the problem has been the strong Santa Ana winds (up to 100mph) which are starting to calm. The fires have destroyed 1,500 homes and half a million people were evacuated (apparently the largest evacuation in state history). The largest fires are close to San Diego. There are a few that are to the east and west of where we are in Pasadena, but they are not very close. The sky has been a bit smoky, that's about all. You can check out this link to see a map of the fires (http://www.usatoday.com/weather/wildfires/2007-10-23-california_fires_N.htm).
When we were driving down across the mountains to move into our apartment on Monday, we passed near the San Bernardino fire. As we came down the mountain pass, clouds of smoke curled upwards and filled the sky. The sight was eerily beautiful. Down the mountain, the sky was brown. Dust flew across the road and trees bent and swayed as we drove past half a dozen overturned trucks and half a dozen firetrucks heading toward the fire. Strangely, we also past several road crews planting trees along the freeway bank. Interesting timing.
Anyway, things are okay where we are. We got moved into our apartment. I put up a few pictures (www.flickr.com/photos/ruthiemarie). At the bottom are a few pictures I took as we were coming down the mountain.

Sadie, Sadie, Married Lady

Wow, I never write anymore. I haven't updated my blog in a month, and my last flickr photos are from China. Oh well, I have good excuses. Getting married is time consuming. It was great. I enjoyed it. I'm glad it's only going to happen once.
The past month has been pretty crazy. We flew back to Georgia about a month ago for two weeks of hurried, harried preparation. I was pretty stressed and exhausted and going crazy before the wedding, but once the actual weekend came, I felt a lot better and really enjoyed things.
It was great to see friends as they started coming into town. I got to introduce Kevin to people: "Kevin, this is one of my best friends. Meet Kevin, he's going to be my husband tomorrow." All of my sisters were home - the whole family in one place, which rarely happens. Kevin and I had three friends fly from China to come to the wedding. We are still amazed and impressed by that. Twenty something people flew in from California. I saw friends I hadn't seen since college.
The rehearsal went well. Several people commented on how organized I was, and that made the tons of planning seem worth it. Things went smoothly, and I was in a good mental frame of mind so I didn't yell at anyone or flip out or anything. In fact, I felt so calm the whole weekend. Almost stable. That was a nice change. At the rehearsal dinner, we got to introduce all the Californians to some good Southern cooking. Authentic stuff - fried green tomatoes, collard greens, chicken livers, biscuits and gravy, chicken and dumplings, cobbler.
I really enjoyed our wedding. I thought it was the best wedding I had been to, though I may be a bit partial. I was wondering if it would seem surreal or fly by, but it didn't. I very rarely feel completely "in the moment," but I did that day. The moments felt so real and full of color, and I was so happy. I enjoyed standing up there and smiling into Kevin's eyes, seeing Patti at the piano, hearing my friends retell our story and read our favorite Scriptures, and listening to Josh play and sing our song. I loved exchanging our vows and feeling the weight of what we promised. We shared communion, lit our unity candle (slightly tricky), and our parents came up to pray blessing over us. I thought it was a great wedding.
The reception is a little bit fuzzier. I'll have to ask other people who were there. We were pretty tired (and a bit dehydrated and hungry) by that point. I felt like I looked tired, although I enjoyed going around and seeing people. We got to scarf down a few bites of food (some excellent spinach dip). We didn't trip over my dress when we danced. We figured out how to cut the cake (is that supposed to be confusing?). We even sat down for a few minutes. I think we did a few other things too, before leaving in a cloud of bubbles.
The honeymoon was great. I wasn't stressed or worried about anything for a whole week. I felt like a different person. A nicer, saner person. We headed up to the Smoky Mountains where the leaves were starting to change for fall. We stayed outside of the touristy area in a little country town. It was a great southern experience even for me, and I'm from the South. Everyone was super friendly and called me "honey" and said "you'nses" and asked if we were just visiting, which should have been obvious. We ate a lot of down-home, southern food. We did a little bit of hiking and picture taking, and when we drove back through the park on our way home, the leaves were bursting with color. I think of orange and yellow and red, but I also saw magenta, lemon, peach, and some that looked just like pumpkin pie.
After a couple of days in Georgia, seeing my family, opening gifts, visiting social security, and repacking...we are back in California. And tomorrow, we are moving into our new home. We will live somewhere! We won't even fly anywhere for two whole months. We will unpack our suitcases and hide them away. Such geographic stability! After we get moved in, I will tell you all about our new apartment and show pictures. I am pretty excited about it.
So this is my life update. Quite a lot has happened since last month. I am getting worn down by all of this moving and changing and stressfulness. I am a little confused about my identity (although I guess if SS now considers me Mrs. Felt, I'm ok.). I still have to get a drivers license (after studying a 90 page driving manual!), find a job, write a bazillion thank you notes, and figure out this cooking thing. But I like being married. I like it a lot. I'm so glad that Kevin and I get to be together wherever we go. It reminds me of the words to a song Kevin sent me back in China that says, "You feel like home to me/You're where I want to be/These windows and doors just don't do it no more/You feel like home to me." I'm glad to feel at home.

A Taste of China

Last night Kevin and I went over to babysit Logan. [Side note: he is definitely one of the most amiable kids I've ever dealt with.] We decided to take Logan on a little walk before dinner [Little walk turned into 1 and 1/2 hours. Big blocks, small steps, and stopping to examine fire hydrants, flags, berries, leaves, and dozens of cars] The Brennans live in a town that is mostly Chinese. Katrina said they went to a park nearby and it was full of Chinese old people doing exercises. :)
As we were walking with Logan, we saw an old Chinese woman with a cane walking down the street alone. That was sad, her being all alone. That wouldn't happen in China. Later we passed a couple pushing their mother down the street in a wheelchair. That was more like it. A cute old Chinese man passed us twice. The first time, he greeted Logan in slightly broken English and said, "You are very handsome." The second time, he couldn't resist stopping to talk to Logan again, asking us questions about him. Then he gave Logan some kind of Chinese vegetable. "Take this home, ok? Take this home." It felt just like China again.
We need to find a place to eat some good Chinese food. I miss dofu.