Smudge, 1998-2015

Even though I knew this day would come, I don’t much like it. I’m sitting in a very quiet house today because yesterday I made the very hard choice to help Smudge leave this world of pain.

She was a good cat.

When I posted something on Facebook, just a sweet picture of her wandering in front of the azaleas this spring, I knew that most would figure out the reason I had changed my profile picture. Condolences came in from just about every continent – Australia, Asia, Europe, South America, Africa.

Smudge had led such a well-traveled and well-documented life that not only did she have fans and followers from everywhere, but a good portion of those people had met her. Or had come face to face with her as she glared at them from under a chair or behind a door.

Because let’s face it, Smudge only liked one person. Me. And even I got on her nerves from time to time. This was a cat who would not deign to sit on my lap for the first ten years of her life. When she finally discovered the joys of lap-sitting, I could not keep her away, even when the temperature hovered in the 90s. In her later years, she would camp out there for as long as I would let her, tucking her head under and having a look of sheer contentment on her face.

When we adopted Smudge from the Humane Society, she got her name because she was just a tiny gray smudge of a thing, small enough to fit in the palm of our hand. I knew I would adopt her when I lifted her out of her cage and she started purring.

Home for most of her life was our house on Burlington Place, where she could sit on the window seat in the family room watching the birds fly by, or sit on the back patio catching a few rays of sun. She was too timid to wander much past our little yard, and that was fine by me.

She was still a young cat when we moved with her to Brussels for a year. There we lived in a four-story townhouse with a walled-in garden, a lovely spot when it wasn’t raining. I thought it kept Smudge from wandering far, but one day I saw her high atop a ten-foot wall and knew that her European adventures were bigger than I realized.

Our favorite story about Smudge in Brussels involved the trauma of the move. We were living in a temporary apartment with a fireplace. As we were in the processing of moving to our townhouse, Daniel called me and said, “I can’t find Smudge. I think she either took the elevator down or jumped off the fourth-floor balcony of the apartment.”

I rushed back to the apartment. Before I could start the search, Smudge appeared from a ledge inside the very dirty fireplace. She was covered in soot, a true smudge. That was, I suppose, one of her nine lives gone.

Getting her back to Washington seemed relatively easy, and I could tell that she knew she was home again the minute she got into our house.

Over the next dozen years, she had the life of a cat, getting chubby and lazy, lolling in the sunshine and rebuffing any attempts by the kids to make friends with her. She was a quiet cat, hardly mewing or making any kind of sound.

I’d look down and there was her dark presence, by my side. If it wasn’t possible to be in my lap, she’d content herself with being near me in a room or begging treats from me in the kitchen.

Then came China. And China took at least 6 of her remaining lives, as we had to smuggle her in to avoid quarantine. Accidentally locking her in the bathroom of our temporary apartment just added insult to http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/homes/smuggling-smudge/injury. 

She never much loved the Chinese brand of cat food so I became a cat food Sherpa, bringing dozens of cans of high end cat food from the U.S. to satisfy her elderly and finicky palate. She even had a food donation from the American ambassador. When Ambassador Max Baucus and his wife were moving to China, they also moved a giant bin of cat food with them. But somehow the cat didn’t make the trip, and so we ended up with a diplomatic delivery of Iams cat food that lasted Smudge many months.

In China, she would sit on a chair by the window of our glassed-in quasi-patio area, while I typed on the computer. As an older girl, she didn’t have much interest in the magpies that landed in the trees outside the windows. Then again, she wasn’t much bothered by the endless hours of fireworks on Chinese new year either, so that was a good thing.

Getting her home again was another challenge, one that included an accidentally packed cat carrier, a long trip in a substitute carrier, and the final delivery home again. Once again, she clearly knew she had made it home. She knew every room, she remembered how to get outside. http://notbyoccident.blogspot.com/2014/11/so-hows-move-going-debbie.html

And even though I knew she was slowly dying of renal failure, she lasted long enough that she was able to enjoy the warm weather of a Washington spring and part of the summer. 

We had an overload of rabbits in DC this year, and one day I looked up to see Smudge bouncing after a bunny who was as big as she was. There was life in the old girl to the end.

By the end, she was ready to end the pain. She didn’t want to be touched, she stopped eating and drinking, and her plaintive cries were wrenching. It was time.

When I brought her to the animal hospital, I never left her side. I held her in her red blanket that she loved, and I talked to her and pet her, my tears dropping down on her head as I spoke. She went peacefully, and then she wasn’t there any more.

Later on Sunday, I went out into my garden, and there, as if it was waiting for me, was the tiniest bunny I had ever seen, with big brown eyes. It was just a smudge of a thing.

Our Ship Has Come In...Sort Of

For those of you who are not following my so-called oversharing on Facebook, I want to announce that the NYK Meteor has docked in Norfolk. I resisted the urge to drive down there and check it out, and maybe even tow the whole thing back to Burlington Place.

Now I wish I had.

This is the response from our relocation agent, who does not seem particularly concerned:

Yes, I have received arrival notice on the vessel but the tracking you may have seen is only related to the vessel arrival.  I have not received information on discharge yet.  The container release is also pending customs clearance so that can be at least another 7 to 10 working days.  Right now, I would not estimate delivery until possibly the week of February 23.  I may have a better idea by the end of the week.


Then she asks if we have any travel plans in the next few weeks.

Great. Our life has been on hold for three months, and we still don't have any real handle on a delivery date. If only I had known it would take this long....

At Anchor

Just when you think that you're making progress in this whole move-back-to-America thing, the whole thing comes to a screeching halt. Literally.

Yesterday, I was excited to see that the NYK Meteor had exited the Panama Canal and was sitting way way off the coast of Panama. When I logged on today, I expected to see it making its way up along the coast of Cuba.

Nope. The NYK Meteor is "at anchor" in the same spot as yesterday, no matter how many times I hit the "refresh" button. (Hey, it beats driving editors crazy, not that it's totally stopped me from doing that either.)

BREAKING NEWS UPDATE: I just went online to double check the "at anchor" posting and saw that the NYK Meteor is now "underway using engine." Be still, my beating heart. Cuba, here we come!!!

I'm going to try to ignore the photos sent to me by some of my oh-so-funny friends of what could go wrong.

CORRECTION: Upon further investigation, I see now that the NYK Meteor is headed back to the Manzanillo International port in Panama. So much for Cuba.

We are in the Panama Canal!

Sea shipment update: I just found the NYK Meteor in the Panama Canal, right next to the Parque Nacionale Camino de Cruces, which just sounds lovely. I'm hoping my deviled egg plate is enjoying the view.

Where is our sea shipment?

It's been quiet lately here in the U.S., not because life has been quiet (see under: hospital visits, Florida, demanding editors, house in chaos), but because it's been just a touch busy.

Meanwhile, we are living in a bit of suspended animation because our sea shipment, which we thought we'd have long before now, has been delayed by some kind of labor work slowdown on the West Coast of the U.S.

I took it upon myself to track the ship, just to get a sense of where it might be. It's amazing how much Google will find for you, especially if you're not in a country where the whole Internet thing is a little threatening. Sorry, China folks.

Anyway, I learned the container ship that holds our container (and that of about a gazillion other people) made multiple stops in the last two months: out of Tianjin, to Busan, South Korea; Kobe, Japan; Nagoya, Tokyo, Vancouver, Seattle, Oakland, LA. Right now, as far as I can tell the NYK Meteor has left the LA port and is heading to the Panama Canal.

How do I know this? I found various trackers. First I got a cute photo of our ship:

(See the container on the very last row, kind of balancing off the back of the ship? Why do I think that's the one that holds our coffee table, cat carrier, vacuum cleaner, coffee maker, and deviled egg plate? Because it's the way my mind works.)

And then I found something even cooler: a map that shows the exact spot where our ship is now, heading down past Mexico to the Panama Canal:

If that's true, progress is being made.
After it sails through the Panama Canal, it's supposed to stop in Manzanillo, Panama, and then up to Savannah, Georgia and Norfolk. After that, it's supposed to be offloaded and trucked to Baltimore, and then will swing back south again and arrive at our doorstep.

Bob and I joke that by the time our sea shipment arrives, we may well be ready to leave again, so we'll just have them reload it to somewhere else. 

What It's Like to be Back

I haven't posted in a while, both because I'm back home and because it's been so incredibly busy.

But I wanted to gather a few thoughts about what it's been like to be home again. The intensity is diminishing over time, and I feel I'm in danger of feeling like three years in China was just an unreal dream, so maybe this will help.

When I first arrived, I kept looking at the sky, every chance I could get. I could even do that when I was crossing the street because cars yield. (Someday I'll write that without italics.)

I cannot shake the sticker shock. I go into a CVS to pick up a cheap notebook. $10? For a kids' school notebook?

I try to buy theater tickets. The price is $90 for good seats.

I have not seen one person spitting.

I go into Whole Foods. There are brochures telling customers how the animals lived. Back at Sanyuanli in Beijing, you could pretty much tell how the animals lived by the expression on their faces as they hung in the meat section.

I keep finding items for sale that I never knew anyone ever needed or wanted. Inside TJ Maxx, for instance, I see a container for traveling with deviled eggs. A colander strictly for washing berries.

And yet, I'm having so much fun buying food for and preparing meals every night. Yes, I'm slightly hindered by the missing food processor, beater, coffee machine, and slow cooker, all sitting quietly in a container ship on the ocean. I don't even know which ocean. But my grandmothers didn't have these things and they were pretty good cooks, so I manage quite well.

I'm enjoying seeing friends and family, driving in my new car, getting on the internet with no problem, jogging on streets that are devoid of people. I'm enjoying a conversation with a very polite plumber who came today, did his work efficiently and well, and then told me to have a "blessed day" when he left. I don't think the plumbers in China did that, but then again they may have said that and I didn't understand them.

I'm enjoying giving away, throwing out, and recycling the piles of junk that sat for three years in storage, stuff we should have disencumbered ourselves us much earlier. Why do we have a tin of Cuban cigars? How many scented candles does any human need? Why did I save every single book I ever reviewed? How many journals did Joanna keep over the years?

It's all subject to purging. And if we can't decide whether to toss something, we box it and put it in the attic, which may come crashing down on our heads someday. But not today.

Giving Thanks

We have a larger-than-usual abundance of people and things to feel thankful for on this, our first Thanksgiving back in the U.S. in three years.

·         Our friends outside the U.S., especially in China, who laughed with us, cried with us, drank with us, and scolded cab drivers with us. We know what it’s like to be an American far from home on this most American of holidays. And we are so lucky to have met friends from nations on every spot of the globe.

·         Our family near and far. As I type, Daniel and Joanna are asleep in their childhood bedrooms. As we sat around the (small, temporary) dinner table last night, we reminisced about China. Add in my larger family, particularly my siblings who made it possible for me to live in China for three years without feeling too much guilt, and I know how lucky I am.

·         My mother’s good health. The fact that she threw together a couple of pies and home-made rolls for my brother’s Thanksgiving table, she goes to church every week, and golfs every summer is a sign of just how vital and lively she is still.

·         The incredible help we got in the last few years from friends and family here – giving us beds to sleep in, picking us up at the airport, taking us back to the airport, feeding us, collecting our mail, making time to see us on our whirlwind visits home, and welcoming us home.

·         Smudge’s safe return home. She understands she’s home, and while she’s not a well cat and I doubt I’ll have many more years with her, today she’s safely under the couch in the living room. The day before she actually sat on the window seat in the family room and chirped at the birds flying by.

·         Our house. It’s small and at the moment jammed packed with almost 30 years of accumulated stuff, all coated with a layer of dust, but it’s home.

·         Washington DC and America in general. The air is clean, the streets peaceful, the internet works like it should, and the press is free.

·         Clean food and water. I’m still getting used to drinking from the tap, buying whatever I want in the grocery store, and cooking it all with no worries.

We miss China and our friends there very much, but being home again is a comfort beyond words.

How Not to Buy a Car

After an eventful moving-in day, we had a very productive Friday. I went to the Department of Motor Vehicles and got my driver's license in 20 minutes, in and out. After that, we got a new toilet installed, and other repairs to the house took place without a hitch.

Then -- get this -- the cable guy came when he said he was coming and installed cable and wifi.

It was almost as if the mafan of the day before paved the way for a day of ease. Other than some mysterious rashes that Bob and I both developed (contact dermatitis? stress?) the day was great.

Too great, it turned out.

In what must be a cosmic recalibration, our Saturday went to hell. It started out in a promising way. Bob went to Enterprise and rented a car, which we drove to the first of three dealerships we were going to visit. After that, we thought we might hit Target and the grocery store and make good use of wheels.

We spent some time test-driving cars at Ourisman Honda in Bethesda. And had a nice long chat with the salesman, and then with his manager, a Chinese guy whose family was originally from Shanghai, after which we popped over to Bethesda Bagel to get some lunch, and then went back to the Honda dealership.

Except our rental car had disappeared. Enterprise came and took the car back. The Honda dealership was also a dropoff point for the rental agency, and some fellow, probably eager to get started on his Saturday night, grabbed our car and returned it to the Bethesda lot, after which he locked up and went home.

Following all this?

The valet at Ourisman informed us that we needed to go to Enterprise and get our car back. The salesman at Ourisman brought in his manager, and the two stormed through the office, trying to help us get a car and get out of the place.

"Wo bu zhi dao sheme shuo," the manager said. (I don't know what to say.)

Someone at Ourisman suggested we check and see if our contract was still in the rental car, so the salesman drove us to the Enterprise lot. There was our car, unlocked, with the contract in the glove compartment. Bob helped himself to his contract, checked unsuccessfully to see if there was a key (and yes, this is starting to feel illicit), took pictures of the car, license plate, and registration number, and left.

We're back home. No car, no groceries, no nothing. Bob is on hold with Enterprise, and "Ventura Highway" is playing on the hold music.

I cannot wait to see what tomorrow brings.

Moving Day Diary

5 a.m. I am awake. The jet lag has improved from the day before, when I was up for the day at 3 a.m., but it’s still so early. My mind races with everything that has to be done today.

7 a.m. At the breakfast buffet I order a giant spinach and cheese omelet, with home fries and an orange. My stomach feels a little full.

9 a.m. I check out of our hotel and walk over to Burlington Place to check on the cat, clear room for the movers, and get ready for what should be a smooth, uneventful process.

10 a.m. The movers drive up in a large white truck. Bob is nowhere to be found. One guy asks to use the bathroom and I direct him to an upstairs one, since Smudge is tucked away in the basement loo.

10:10 a.m. “Um, your toilet is overflowing,” one of the young movers says to me. I rush upstairs and water is pooling on the floor of the master bathroom. This is not the start to the day that I had envisioned. I mop up the wet with one of the few towels in the house and call our management company for thoughts on why the toilet has suddenly developed a mind of its own.

10:15 a.m. Water is flowing through a hanging light onto the kitchen counter. “Do you still want us to put things in the kitchen?” asks one mover. Since we have 300 boxes coming into a house that can probably hold 25 boxes, I tell him yes. The boxes start to pile up. Bob makes an appearance.

11 a.m. I stand in the frigid sunlight on the front porch, checking off boxes as they are unloaded and brought into the house. Since I’m moving furniture around (but already have it figured out in my head) I need the movers not only to call out the number but to describe how the box is marked. “Basement, decorative items” they call out. There’s a suspicious number of “decorative items.”

12 noon. “Are you taking a lunch break?” I ask the movers. They say no. I imagine that they want to work through lunch and finish early.

1 p.m. The boxes seem to come in no clear order, so I play moving-day bingo as the movers call out numbers. 125! 47! 88! they call. This is the moment when several neighbors, God love them, decide to engage me in conversation, which taxes my jet-lagged brain beyond the ability to be moderately civil.

1:30 p.m. My blood sugar is on the floor. I’d sent Bob off to buy sandwiches and he seems to have gotten lost. Finally he arrives and I sit on the curb wolfing down the best tuna on a baguette I’ve ever eaten in my life.

2 p.m. A plumber informs me that the toilet, not having been flushed for two months, has dry rot and that it would make more sense to replace it than to repair it. Okay, I say. We’re now down to two house toilets: the one in the upstairs hallway bathroom, popular with the seven moving fellows, and the one in the basement occupied by Smudge. My stomach decides this is a great time to digest my food quite efficiently. Actually, too efficiently.

3 p.m. Another problem arises. The sleeper sofa (“No, it’s not a sleeper sofa,” one of the movers informs me as if I don’t know the couch I’ve stuck guests on for 15 years. “Yes, it is,” I say) needs to go in the basement. It won’t fit around the tight turn in the center hall down the basement stairs, so it has to go through the back basement door. But the door is locked. The skeleton key doesn’t work. We now have a sleeper sofa standing like a massive terracotta warrior in the middle of the hall, possibly there for perpetuity.

4 p.m. We’ve called a locksmith, and the most handsome locksmith I’ve ever seen arrives. With a two-day beard and Antonio Banderas eyes, he says, “I’ve come to rescue you.” He has no idea.

5 p.m. The door is open, and the couch is squeezed, just barely into the basement. There’s a forest worth of wrapping paper piled up in a giant mountain next to the truck. I break out a Blue Moon beer, part of the care package that Rachel has so kindly delivered to our hotel.

5:30 p.m. I start looking at the items that are scattered, willy nilly, on every surface of the house. There’s a prescription for Claritin that expired in 2007. Cuban cigars. Ripped tee shirts. Wrapping paper. A bag of pine cones. Comic books. A straw hat. The poncho that Aunt Ro knitted for me when I was 13. An Australian outback hat. So. Much. Stuff. How did we accumulate so much?

5:45 p.m. The movers leave, driving off with what seems almost as much in their truck as when they arrived. We’ve convinced them to take some tables, a couch, and a really wrecked picnic table off our hands.

6:30 p.m. We meet friends for pizza. I take a bite of New Haven clam pizza, and I have a moment. It’s not a Handsome Locksmith moment, but it’s a close second. The day is over. And we only have 3,000 random “decorative” items to deal with. Tomorrow is another day.  

A Month of Goodbyes

I've been thinking for a long time about how to write this post. It won't be easy.

We've spent the last month saying goodbye to our good friends here in Beijing, starting with a lovely dinner at Black Sesame Kitchen with our hao pengyoumen. Later when Rachel and Scott left and I watched their ayi say goodbye to Leah, I lost it.

Nora said, "You're going to see them in Washington soon. Why are YOU crying?" But the truth was that I was crying about the fact that the ayi probably wouldn't see Leah again, or not anytime soon.

And when I said goodbye to Sarah and Isabella, I was a mess, mainly because I know Isabella won't remember me. I was so overworked that I left my purse at their house and had to go back to retrieve it. Awkward.

In fact, I've just been bursting into tears randomly -- well, not so randomly -- as I say goodbye to friends, to ayi, to my wonderful teacher, to our neighborhood, to Beijing, to China.

The parties, lunches, dinners, and drinks have been great, too. (Hello, loose-fitting pants!)

My hiking pals threw a lovely, chilly, champagne-infused party in a pagoda park where we snacked on cheese and crackers, apple cake, brownies, and nuts, while a Chinese family came by and stared as if what we were doing was some kind of performance art. I gave a silly little speech.

Then there was the Wall Street Journal party on Friday night. I remember that Bob gave a great speech and that others did too, and that it was all wonderful. But I do regret the series of events that led me at one point to insisting that the entire staff toast Smudge with baijiu and that led to the whole pole dancing scenario. Thankfully there's no photographic evidence of that, but there is this.

Don't ask. I don't know what kind of dance move that was either.

And then last night was our friends' party at Big Smoke. At one point I looked around and realized we had a United Nations of guests -- Brazil, Germany, Holland, Australia, Israel, the Philippines, China, America, Singapore, South Africa -- all eating guacamole and chips, fries, and chorizo.

We'll miss the older friends, like Eleanor, the 95-year-old who took us around the city with the energy of a teenager. We'll miss the infants, especially the ones I saw born here, like Leah, Gianna, Naomi, Dou-Dou, and Julia. I'll miss being Auntie Debbie to all of them.

Pretty mama, pretty boy with face mask.

One more Marco. Fun in a cab!

Sweet Dou-Dou and his sweet parents.

You Know Those Moving Checklists?

They don't work.

I have never read one that advised:
If you are moving a cat, make sure the movers don't pack the cat's regulation cat carrier.

Yes, this is an update in the trials and tribulations of Smudge.

It was Thursday night, and Bob and I were sitting on the couch, which would be taken the next day. The cat was cozy on my lap, but not much furniture or anything else was left in the house.

"Oh no," I said.

"What?" said Bob.

"Oh my God," I said.

"What is it?" said Bob.

"I forgot to set aside the cat carrier. It's been packed," I said.

Luckily, Smudge was oblivious to this trouble, but I felt as if I might be having a heart attack. How could I make such a lame-brained move? I looked into the closet to see if by some miracle the movers had set her carrier aside. No go. They came in like locusts, packed up everything that was not moving, and left in a couple of hours, all while I was going to the animal hospital to get Smudge's final papers.

I sent out an APB to anyone who had a cat or pet connection. And since I had to go back to the animal hospital the next day and since I remembered the hospital had a pet shop, I figured I had a least a start.

Sure enough, the next day I found a cute little Burberry-plaid carrier for Smudge, all for 150 RMB. "Will it meet airline regulations?" I asked.

"You'll need to check with the airlines," they said. Now that's reassuring.

I bought it anyway just to have something and was about to buy a backup one on Taobao, China's online shopping mecca, when another serendipitous thing happened.

A friend came to the apartment to take our orchid. I told her the whole saga. Turns out she just moved to China with a 20-year-old cat. She figures, realistically speaking, that cat is probably going to end her life in China. So she offered to trade with me -- her regulation Sherpa carrier for my Burberry-plaid item. She would still have something to take her old cat to the vet, but it wouldn't need to make airline regulations.

This should work. And how funny that the one person who got my orchid was the one person who just happened to have exactly the right kind of carrier.

And this is a long way of explaining how that night I ended up -- after too many shots of baijiu at our WSJ-sponsored going-away party -- in a Russian nightclub called Chocolate doing some pole dancing.

Sorry -- there is no photographic evidence of this. The Russian oligarchs who were shimmying next to me probably wouldn't care to have photos or video taken, said one of our friends.

I can say this, though. Move over, table dancing. For me there's a new game in town.

Bed on a Bike

I have this sense that China is packing my last few days with only-in-China moments. Today, for instance.

We had sold the bed in the second bedroom, thanks to the wonderful Wendy and Lily, and a couple of guys finally showed up this afternoon to get the bed. It's a single size, but very heavy with a large headboard and a heavy bottom that holds storage, plus a great but heavy mattress.

"Where's the truck?" I ask Lily as one guy starts to dismantle the bed. She points out the window. All I see below is a bike with a platform on the back.

"Zhen de ma?" I say. Really? Yup. She and Mr. Shi the other agent who only seems to go by that name, assured me that they've moved much larger items. Let's review what the bed looked like in its original state.

But within minutes, the worker had dismantled the bed into multiple parts, a dragon slayed. And they all started carrying the parts to the elevator and downstairs. I was so stunned I'm not quite sure just how they got it all in the elevator, but they did.

Downstairs, they proceeded to pile the bed on the back of the bike.

That's the frame that separated the mattress from the storage below it.

The headboard

Okay, got the mattress.

And now we put the headboard on top.

I don't want anyone to think I'm taking credit for this masterpiece of moving.

Negotiating a few stairs and a turn.

And there he goes. Bye bye bed!

I told Bob the story and another colleague of his, Bill Kazer, an old China hand who has lived in Beijing for many years, told him that he was once commenting to a friend about the kinds of items they've seen loaded on the backs of bikes.

"Everything but the kitchen sink," the friend said. Just then a bike carrying -- you guessed it -- a kitchen sink rode by.

Bill says the friend swears he didn't see the approaching sink out of the corner of his eye. I want to believe that because I want to believe that these moments happen in China because, well, because it's China. I will miss it.

So, How's the Move Going, Debbie?

Hey, thanks for asking.

It's been interesting. In both good and bad ways.

The process got off to an ignoble start on Tuesday night when I walked into an unlit bedroom and did a face plant on some suitcases that Bob had packed earlier in the day. I thought maybe I'd broken my nose, but all was okay.

Earlier in the day I had brought long-suffering Smudge to the Guangshan animal hospital where she was examined and blood was drawn. Her little red book was taken, and I was told to come back Thursday. And Friday. Because government offices are mainly closed this week and we'd need those days to get her forms finished. But being told to come back was a good sign, said Mary Peng of the International Center for Veterinary Services, and I believed her.

On Thursday, I parked the cat -- along with a blanket, her new spiffy animal bed, her litter box, her food, and her water fountain -- inside the second bathroom. She meowed plaintively until the movers came, and then she got quiet.

Meanwhile I was rushing around to get back to the animal hospital and see if Smudge passed her exam. Bob had warned me that using a glass in the bathroom was dangerous. Until today he was wrong. And then suddenly he was right. I dropped the glass in the sink, and in trying to catch it gave myself a big gash on my little finger. Now I had to find band-aids before they were packed.

The movers arrived. "So, what do you need packed?" they asked as if this was an unusual concept. I left, with half-dry hair and blood dripping from my finger.

I rushed off to the hospital, trying to explain to the cab driver where it was. I mean, why would they know where anything at all is in this city? After all, they only drive people in cars around the city for a living. Anhuaqiao metro stop? Never heard of it. Line 4? Not ringing a bell.

I got to the hospital but not before fielding 12 phone calls from Bob. Didn't you want your hair brushes? What about those coats? Traffic was at a near-standstill in a post-APEC frenzy of renewed driving.

I got to the hospital. A young man smiled and had me fill out a form. 100 RMB, please, he said. I handed it over, and it was done. Smudge had passed.

Now we have to convince United that she does have a spot reserved on the plane. And then, you know, she has to survive that trip. We're not there yet, but we have gotten past a few big hurdles with only minor injuries and only 17 arguments.

Hey, there's our truck. Asian Tigers on the job.

The kitchen. Too bad -- no more cooking.

Hiker pals gave me (and Smudge) this little kitty bed. So sweet! More on that soon.

Sign on the bathroom door. Ask Lori how she translated my Chinese the drawing of a cat.

This Old Friend

Yesterday was my last (or next-to-last, depending on next week) hike on the Great Wall. It couldn't have been a more spectacular day. Even though the air in the city began with a very unpromising AQI of over 200, it dropped off not long after we arrived at Gubeiko on the Great Wall. By the time we got up to the Wall, the sky had become blue and we were able to shed layers and jackets. I hiked in a tee-shirt for most of the November day. Even the wind, which can be fierce on the Wall, settled down and let us meander for the entire day.

In any event, this was my chance to say goodbye to my old friend, the one who doesn't talk back. I know many people have a sentimental attachment to the Great Wall of China. It's not hard to see why: It's one of the most beautiful sites I've ever seen and unlike anything else on this planet.

And one of the nice things about hiking in November is that as the sun settles behind the hills, the light hits the Wall in a slant that feels like illumination from the heavens, As we finished up the hike at Jinshanling, a round moon rose above the Wall in the distance. A creation of man and a creation of the heavens worked together to make the kind of vision that poets love and that makes you realize that this has been a pretty good gig after all.

For those of you who don't love looking at people's travel photos, spoiler alert. I have a few here.

I can't take credit for this shot. Or for the Wall for that matter.

Hello!

Pensive, with hat.

Yet another selfie photo bomb. Or, as we call it on the Wall, wallfies.

This is what I mean about the angle of the sun.

Haze in the distance: more romantic.

The moon rises.

Look carefully here. It goes on and on.

I've taken so many of these shots, but I can't resist.

Notice some support here for crumbling walls.

The Wall makes me look so....small.

One Last China-versary

Today is November 1. Three years ago today we arrived in Beijing, so this is what we call our China-versary.

It's been a wild ride. I never imagined I'd be racing a dragon boat in Wushi, or scrambling up a cliff in El Nido, or standing amidst the exploding fireworks on Chinese New Year, hoping that my leg wouldn't be blown off. We've had a great time here, exploring this love-hate relationship with China with so many wonderful friends.

I'll ponder more of this later on. But for now, we're still here. Smudge is cozy on the couch (thanks to the space heater). Bob is out jogging because the air went overnight from "very unhealthy" to "good." We're about to say goodbye to more friends today, and I've been randomly crying for weeks now. But you all know that about me.

Apple picking outside Beijing.

Reporting for a story. Really.

Family time inside the hutongs.

Winning yet another bowling trophy.

Freezing in Harbin.

Hanging out on the Great Wall.

Hiking with a special plant in Yunnan.

Playing with fire in Shangrila.

Hiking without falling (mostly).