Chinese Vacation Resurgence

Two very funny things have happened in the last two days. 

An email from a friend yesterday saying, "We got your post card from China today."

And on Sunday, a phone call from my mom asking me to guess what they got in the mail on Saturday.

Yes, more than five months after we left China, some postcards we sent are now being delivered.   And these were post cards, so it should have been pretty easy to see that there was no contraband included or anything. Mind-boggling.

Wow!  When we were in Zhujiajiao, we stopped into this postal museum that was showing how the Chinese post started during the Qing dynasty, and going on and on about it.  Way more information than we wanted to soak up toward the end of our trip, about a topic that wasn't particularly intriguing, but my take-away impression from the museum was that the Chinese knew what they were doing when it comes to mail.

Apparently not.  Haha. 

Well, at least my friend and my mom knew that we were thinking of them back in October when we wrote. 

FMM: TV, Movies and Me

My weekend was uneventful and a bit of a bummer in some ways. 

The race I worked so hard to run (a 15k) was a disaster.  I couldn't even tell you what happened.  Pace-wise, I didn't go out too fast, but my heartrate was too high.  The pace was relatively fast for me, but it should have been something I could maintain for 9 miles.  Not easily, but do-able.  But alas, it was not.  I think I must have hit my lactate threshold somewhere in the first few miles, so the last 10k was just ugly.  I had a friend pacing me and he stayed by my side, but when I realized my goal time had become theoretically impossible, I just wanted to quit.  I guess it was good that I kept running, but I slowed down so much.  I ended up finishing, and I managed to place in my age group, but that was small consolation considering my finish time was so poor.

I don't know what's going on with my running lately.  This is now two races in a row with a spectacular crash and burn.  My mileage is steady, nutrition seems to be good, sleep is fine (even with added stress of my grandpa's stroke this past week), legs are actually feeling good, it's just that my lungs/heart/mind seem to be ready to quit much earlier than they should.  I am performing much better on training runs than in races.  Sigh.  I just want a great race where I feel like I perform as best I can and kick some butt!  Is that too much to ask?  Oh well, there will be other races...

Anyway, the rest of the weekend all I wanted to do was wallow in my disappointment, but I met running friends for brunch both days, helped a co-worker move into a super-cool downtown apartment at the W (view from her  new porch is below), and generally got a bit more organized (cooked a real dinner last night, did several loads of laundry, packed my work clothes for the week, etc.). 



Pretty cool view, no?  I think that pool is on about the 9th floor, and the big stadium in the background is where they play basketball and hockey games in Dallas.  She's really excited about the new place.  We mostly moved china and art, things she didn't want the movers to touch. 

If you’ve taken part in FMM then you know the rules. If you’re new, please take a moment to answer this week’s question on your own blog then add your link in the comments section at: www.alltheweigh.com so we can all see your FMM questions and answers. Please invite your blog readers to add their links here too so everyone has to opportunity to be seen. The idea is to connect with other awesome bloggers so take a moment to post your own FMM post and comment on a couple of other posts. Now it’s time for this week’s topic!

TV, Movies and Me

1. If you could be a recurring star on a show that is currently on TV, which show would you choose? Amazing Race. I've never actually watched the show, but I think it would be the best fit for me. If I have to choose a show I've seen, I'd go with Rick Steves, even if it's just Europe, any travel is good. In terms of scripted shows, I'll choose The Americans, which is on FX in its first season and is about Russian spies living in the US in the 80s.

2. Name the movie that you are most embarrassed to admit that you love. Neither is particularly embarassing, but I love Dirty Dancing, and I can quote 95% of Pretty Woman verbatim I think.

3. Name one show that you’ve never seen and would love to watch. Downton (Donton? Dontown? Downtown?) Abbey. So many friends like it, but we just don't have the time or interest in watching another show.

4. Do you ever go to movies alone? I've done it before but it's been more than a decade I'd guess. My husband goes alone sometimes, but if I go, now it's with him or with friends -- both are rare.

5. If you could only watch one TV show for the next year, which show would you choose and why? I guess the practical part of me would choose Today Show so that I'm up on my news. For fun, I guess I'd pick Law & Order. As much as I love watching The Bachelor (and The Bachelorette), I don't think I could stand it if I didn't get to watch anyone else.

6. If you could star in one reality show, which one would it be and why? Again, I'd go with Amazing Race. Travelling around the world, why not?! I wouldn't even be too picky about my partner -- of course my husband would be my first choice, but with a good friend, with one of my brothers, with a sister-in-law, whomever, it could be fun.

7. If someone rented a billboard for you, what would it say? Tough question! Probably something PETA-style to try to get people to realize how horribly cruel it is to eat meat. Either that, or something about running. But really, I wish more people thought about what they ate and the suffering associated with it.

8. Who is the most famous person with whom you have been in the same room? Most famous ever, I'd say Pope John Paul II. For a while, I was thinking maybe he was the most famous person in the world. In 1995, thinking world-wide, I'm still not sure if there was anyone more famous.

9. If you were chosen to be a contestant on a TV game show, which show would you want to be on? Probably Jeopardy, though my performance would probably be mortifying. Or Who Wants to Be a Millionnaire. I might do better at that, but I could see that also being very embarrassing.

10. If there was a movie being made about you, which actor would you choose to play you? I'd definitely go with Gillian Anderson, who was on X-Files, since my husband thinks that's the actress I most resemble. My hair is longer than hers now, and of course it's plain brownish, not red, but at the big firm where I worked right out of law school, my profile picture there bore a scary resemblance to a picture of her -- outfit (suit jacket with a white shirt), collar, angle, haircut, everything. It was funny.

Now it’s your turn to answer this week’s questions! Don’t forget to come back and link up in the comments! Happy Monday!

Short Update

We don't know much, but what we do know is good.  And I'm still in Dallas, per my parents.  My grandpa seems to be doing okay.  They said they won't know much for a few more days because there is some swelling in the brain that usually remains for about 6 days.  Then they'll be able to assess more. 

This is all so new to me, which is good in some ways (bad in others, it means my other grandparents didn't suffer strokes, but it also meant they were gone sooner). 

So apparently there is a lesion on his brain that confirms he had a stroke, but it's in the white matter, which is a good place for it to be.

My grandpa has a temporary feeding tube, but was able to talk, though not very clearly.  Both of his legs are working, but he's been having some trouble with his right arm and hand.

They were considering blood thinners, but he already bruises easily, so now it sounds like he's just going to take aspirin every day. 

His mind is crystal clear -- he is at the VA hospital and at admission, he knew his military ID number from WWII, the date he joined the Navy, his date of discharge, all of it, despite the fact it was about 65 years ago.

His sense of humor is intact and the doctors are very optimistic.  I asked my parents what they thought I should do, and they said to still plan to come home this summer, but that there was no need to do it now.  I'm still kind of thinking about it, maybe just flying up tomorrow afternoon for the weekend -- that way I don't blow any deadlines at work, but I'd still get to spend some time with him now. 

Either way, big sigh of relief. 

Signs

Do you believe in signs?

I found out this morning that my grandpa had a stroke yesterday.  He was apparently in the kitchen (he lives alone in the house where my dad was born and raised).  He passed out.  Woke up about an hour later, spent about 3 hours crawling to the phone, where he called my dad (not 911).  My dad missed the call as he was going to his seat for the Brewers game, but saw the missed call a minute or two later and called my grandpa back.  My grandpa said he wasn't doing real well and my dad could barely understand him.  Unfortunately, my dad and his friend had been dropped off at the game and no one was at home, so my dad started walking toward my grandpa's house (not terribly far actually, a few miles), until my dad's friend reached their other friend who had dropped them off and he picked up my dad and took him to my grandpa's.  My grandpa then didn't want to go to the hospital, but eventually my dad convinced him and drove him himself.  The hospital isn't far away, only a mile or so to the VA (my grandpa was in WWII).  He's been there ever since.  He's apparently alert, but still hard to understand and is very weak on one side of his body.  

 

I'm trying to decide if I should go home.

After I talked to my dad, I had to head to work. I considered driving, but I figured running a few miles might actually help me clear my head.

I think I had to be close to a morning commute PR -- running sad apparently makes me speedier.

As I was running on the Katy Trail, just before I hit mile marker 1 of my commute, just ahead of me, I heard something in a tree and something bright and blue seemed to fall down to the ground as I was running past. I actually turned and looked because it was so weird. I was thinking it was a piece of clothing or a shoe or a stuffed animal (why on earth a stuffed animal would be in a tree, I don't know). I looked, and it was a blue jay. It was on the ground for a second and kind of looked back at me, then it flew away.

Is that a sign? My grandpa LOVES birds and bird-watching, but he actually hates blue jays. I remember him yelling at them when they were on the bird feeder. He thinks they are mean birds and they scare away the chickadees and the other little ones he likes.

Then I got to work and was pulling together my shower bag and my outfit for the day, booting up my computer and checking email in my sweaty running clothes before I went downstairs to the gym to get ready.

On Thursday morning of last week, I got to work (on foot) and my dress watch was not in the drawer where I usually keep it. My watch was a gift from my dad for Christmas a couple years ago. I love the watch because it is silver and gold, so it matches most all jewelry, and our wedding bands are white gold, rose gold and yellow gold. I looked everywhere for it, and couldn't find it, so the only conclusion I could reach was that I'd perhaps left it on my desk (I had indeed by mistake left it sitting out before instead of putting it in a drawer), and perhaps someone had taken it.

Since I'd been at work fairly late Wed. night (my accounting buddy was walking toward home with me, and we didn't leave the office until after 7), it was fairly deserted when I left.

And since I ran to work Thursday morning, I got there at about 8:20, when there weren't many people here yet. I thought the odds of anyone in our company taking it were very, very small -- the only people I could think were either building security (though I didn't know why they'd be in my office), or the cleaning crew (and I knew they'd been all over near my desk, since my shredding basket had also been emptied, besides my regular trash). So the cleaning crew was pretty much the only explanation I could find.

I reported the missing watch to our office administrator, who told me to report it to our lessor's office administrator, who would report it to building management. I did, and everyone else was as surprised as I was that it was gone. I ran into our lessor's office administrator in the restroom yesterday and she said she'd left money on her desk before and it had never been taken. I told her I'd also left my watch out by mistake a couple times, but this time it was gone. I told her I was probably going to file a police report if it didn't turn up, so I asked her to pull together a list of who had accessed our floor.

Well, this morning, pulling out my shower bag, I decided to go through the entire drawer. It's a "miscellaneous stuff" drawer -- I keep in it my shower bag, my gym clothes bag, my blanket (stolen from an airline decades ago, but frequently used since our office is kept insanely cold), a few Halloween decorations. And there was my watch. In/under my blanket. My shower bag must have tipped over when I closed the drawer and my watch must have spilled out.

Is that a sign? A watch that I got as a gift for Christmas while sitting by my grandpa was lost and now it's found?

If these things are signs, what do they mean? That he'll be okay? That he'll be back to his old funny little self before we know it? That we have more years to make memories and to hear stories of the past? I'm not ready for him to be gone. He is my last grandparent. His wife died on New Year's Eve my freshman year of high school, so 1989-1990 New Year's Eve. I want to hear more stories about the war, what it was like for him growing up, and I want to write them down or commit them to memory. But I'm also insanely busy at work and over-committed with other things right now. Do I drop it all and buy an expensive plane ticket? Or hope for the best and plan to see him when I go home over the summer?