Oh, Self, I am so proud of you today...

You know, sometimes you are in the shower. You get the heebie-tibba-jeebies because you think you feel something on your foot. Or, you don't have your contacts in, and you mistake a hair clog for a huge scary bug. Usually, it's nothing. Well, I've had a silver fish slide right on into my bath water before, and I've freaked out substantially. Today, as I was finishing my shower, thank goodness, I felt something in the arch of my foot. And it was THIS:This is the actual photo of the actual gecko, so I'm not crazy. I felt sorry for the guy. He was just sitting in the tub after I got...um, jumped...out. He was looking around like, "(in gecko accent) Where am I? How did I get into this nutshell?" Isn't he cute? Ok, I've gotten pretty good at kicking bugs' a$$es, but I couldn't do that to this little gecko. I got him, on his own accord, to walk into a glass. Then I put a piece of paper on the open end, and I took him outside. I let him out on the pebbles in the landscaping, in the shade, and the sprinklers were going. A gecko never had it so good.

And I'm proud of myself for only freaking out initially, and then being able to carry a glass full of gecko out the door, down the steps, and down the sidewalk a little way, without getting all jumpy.

-MsLin

Punky Brewster, Family, & Flowers

If I sat down and thought about how many things there are that I know will work out, but I'm not sure quite how yet, I would go crazy. It's like an abyss, where I know they must have the things that I need, but I'm not sure how I will get them or when after I arrive.

I've really be focusing on saying goodbye to people and to things that I know won't be readily or cheaply available in China, like brownies. Maybe as an effect, I've been more interested in revisiting my childhood favorites. One favorite was Punky Brewster. I watched every minute of it, including the credits to make sure that I didn't miss any of the show. It was probably this show about which my parents first said, "Don't plan your life around TV." I was 7-8.

I've also been thinking a lot about my family and esp. my uncles. There are a couple little flickers of memories of my uncles. One time I was making chocolate chip cookies with my Grama K, and ML was coming home. She said, "We need to add extra chocolate chips, or else ML will ask where all the chocolate chips are!" I remember being 3, and my uncle MX taking a picture of me in my white dress on the lawn. I remember sitting between them while eating spaghettiI was a flower girl twice, but it feels like it was more than that. The first time, I wanted to wear purple, but my mom said that the bride gets to pick out the color. It was quite disappointing because the bride chose this ugly peach color, which was all the rage for weddings in the mid-80's. I don't remember which time, but one of my uncles took me into the entry way at The Farm to personally ask me to be the flower girl in his wedding. I don't remember how old I was, but I was totally impressed that he wanted to ask me personally. When I was that age, people didn't ask my opinion on too many things, and I was a "go with the flow" kind of kid. Obviously, I agreed because I was in the wedding. I don't remember how things went down. I just remember that feeling of respect that I felt, and I still appreciate my uncles for letting me feel like I was making my own important choice at such a young age.

-MsLin

Everything is Illuminated

Dwindling supplies of solutions and enzymes for Rigid Gas Permeable contacts has led me down many paths. I've called the companies, who say they discontinued these products because of low demand and low numbers of people with RGP lenses. I love my RGPs and I love that they don't soak up anything, so in a pinch, any solutions will do. (I got stranded in Atlanta, and ended up storing them in eye drops, which kept them dirty, but wet.)

That is why when AMO stopped making ProFree/GP, which is a bubbly, fizzy overnight enzyme tab, I was able to start using another enzyme Alcon's Opti-Free, which is intended for soft contacts, but serves the purpose. Well, what's a girl to do when Alcon stops making Opti-Free?

This is where being a pack-rat comes in handy. I still have the ProFree box, so I called the number today. AMO said they sold the product to another company and here's their number. So I called the company, and they are setting up production and should be ready with supplies in 6 mo. That's awesome! I didn't know there could be good news like that.

Honestly, I had been getting a little stressed about everything. My contact prescription is way expired, but my new ophthalmologist said he would rewrite my prescription, since it hasn't changed. I called and got the expired prescription, despite the optometrist office's suspicions.

I called about my car because the registration is almost up, but my car is in another state, and I'm trying to sell it. It's up for an emissions test, and I thought it would be a mess, but I can get a 30-day general use permit, which doesn't require emissions.

I'm getting things done. It's just that I've been pleasantly surprised at the easy answers to my hard questions.

-MsLin

Tou-xie

My shoes were considered "tou-xie" in Chinese, which is usually translated "slippers," but literally means "drag shoes." In other words, my shoes didn't have a heel strap. "Tou-xie" are usually considered "too casual" for work or school, even though my shoes were beautiful and far from flip-flops. I decided to get some sandals, which won't be questionable for work attire in China.

It's been three years since my last Dansko purchase, and I find their footwear to be the most comfortable and durable.

They came this week, "Lillian." Danskos are the kind of shoes that make you moan when you try them on because they are so comfortable. They are also very pretty, and come in classic and modern styles.

I bought a big suitcase yesterday, which makes the whole thing that much more real. I'm in the middle of packing to clean up the apartment too. It's so sad that I can't really think about it.

-MsLin

Language Acquisition

I found some old pictures, still in frames, inside my hassock, from every time DN and I visited each other. I found a wedding invitation, samples of perfume, notes written on scraps of paper. Notes that are no longer important, written on old checkbooks, "4:30 Monday, visit NH." Notes for html codes, "cornflower blue #6495ED." Notes on linguistic examples:

1a. Paint the red barn.
1b. Paint the barn red.
2a. See the red barn.
2b. *See the barn red.

I remember why I wrote this. It's about language acquisition. If children simply follow a pattern, how would they know that 2b is ill-formed? They don't follow a pattern, because there are tons of examples like this. Children are hard-wired to identify the adjective-noun order of English, and they will recognize 1b as having a special meaning, independent of 1a. The proper write-up involves elaborate phrase-structure tree drawings, and I'd love to impress you by drawing a likely-incorrect tree and BS-ing my way through, but I'm kind of preparing to go to China. I think you get it.

-MsLin

Degrassi

I was at work the other day, and I overheard one of my coworkers say, "blah, blah Degrassi blah, blah..." The word "Degrassi" means one thing to me, a show that was on public TV when I was younger. I watched it about 3 times, but one of those times was when my mom was home. Although, it was on public TV, Degrassi High was kind of racy. The episode I remember was about a girl who thought she was pregnant and went to an abortion clinic. My mom deemed it inappropriate.

The Degrassi concept has moved on, following through the Degrassi High character Spike, whose daughter is now in middle school-high school. In what's now called Degrassi The Next Generation, junior high students tackle issues such as meeting strangers on the internet, taking someone else's Ritalin, first dates, out-of-control rumors, and menarche.

I'm kind of excited about finding Degrassi again, but it's a Canadian show, which is pretty amateur-looking. The acting is not so realistic. But the thing that bugs me the most is how they say "SOrry" instead of "Sah-rry." And "What are you talking aBOAT?" It's the pure "o" that makes it difficult for me to take this show seriously.

-MsLin

Fires and Moving

My parents are cleaning out their basement. My mom's theory is that if she wouldn't run downstairs in a fire to rescue it, she's throwing it out. My theory for packing for China is a little different. If I would rescue it in a fire, I'm not taking it to China. That includes a lot of my favorite books and my Turkish coffee grinder.

My theory on books is, if the book is good enough, you should have a "home copy" and a "traveling copy," because I'm a little obsessive like that. For example, my "home copy" of Mists of Avalon is the hard cover reissue that came out a few years ago. My "traveling copy" is my first copy, which is a paperback, but pretty flimsy, since it's a book of over 1,000 pages. I have four copies of The Peacock Spring by Rumer Godden, most of which I found at thrift stores. With The Peacock Spring I waited so long to find my own copy, and then whenever I saw it, I had to buy it. Don't worry, I've probably only put down $4 on this title. The thing is it's not popular and it's out-of-print, so if something happens to my copy, then I have a back-up, and if something happens to that copy, I have another back-up, and so-on and so-on. I need to really be picky about the books I carry to China, just because books are kind of a pain to move, esp. over an ocean.

I won't have an oven. That means I won't need a lot of the cooking stuff I have, all of my gadgets, a pastry mixer, a mixer-mixer. It's going to be like being in college again, except one step higher because I'll have a microwave AND and stove. I probably won't need measuring cups, because I can't think of a time when I used measuring cups to cook on the stove; I use a liquid measurer for that. It will be fine--just like in the summer, when it's too hot to bake.

-MsLin