Joshua Tree

Despite this blog being about Hong Kong, I'm still not ready to face my commute and the bustle of the city. So I'm taking a moment to reminisce about one of my favourite parts of my summer - camping in Joshua Tree.

Joshua Tree has always been one of my favourite places on earth. It's much more than an album, though I do like that, too. From the time I was little, I went camping and rock climbing there, so I was appalled to realize that my kids hadn't experienced the same thing.

Granite, Kestrel and I went out in July for a few days. It's usually way too hot in the high desert that time of year, but it's still fun. I expected to spend the days lolling in the shade panting and then venturing out in the late evenings and early mornings just like the coyotes.

But we had the strangest weather and even got rained on. It made for a perfect, comfortable, relaxing trip. The kids got the idea perfectly: Granite lay about reading on the tops of rocks and Kestrel found little holes to hide and play in.

It was the first time I'd taken the kids camping by myself, and it turned out to be a triumph. We didn't have a very deluxe camp set-up, but I didn't expect any sort of weather. We saw lizards and ground squirrels, hawks, coyotes and lizards. We even saw big horn sheep, which I'd never seen before in all my years of visiting the park.

I took dozens of pictures of the world reflected in Granite's cool sunglasses, but only a few of the world in the side mirror while I was driving. It's always important to be safe.

Vietnam

The first two weeks of the summer, I traveled in Northern Vietnam. I've just recently started reading about what happened 40 years ago this summer in the war, but it is almost inconceivable that the terrors could have happened in the delightful country I visited. I wrote lots (way too much) about my trip and posted pictures on my trip blog. The link is in the side bar. I really recommend Vietnam for the great food and nice people, for the exotic and the picturesque.

The last days of school

New teachers who made it through and now are oldies.
Celebrating after the after party in a ice vodka bar.The morning of the last commute to school.I have loved this commute. Every day is so beautiful in its own way.The sun was so bright on the way home. I wished I could ride home in this.

The End of the Year

Usually I love the cycle of my job. I love the new beginnings and fresh starts. I love sending the kids on prepared for the next year. But I hate the endings.

I am one who has a hard time at New Years and at my birthday every year when I deal with the question of what I've accomplished in the past year. I agonize over new resolutions and over whether I accomplished the ones from before. So the end of the school year is also rough.

This year I'm not moving to a different school, so I'm not leaving everyone I know. But it's also hard not having the end of year ceremony of saying good-bye. There are people leaving this school, but I'm not friends with any of them. Here am I at the end of a whole year without any close friends at all.

So it's reflection and resolution time. I have at least one more year commuting to Hong Kong. I haven't done so very well this year, though I have survived. I wonder what I can do to make it work next year. I have a summer to think about it - another reason I love my job.

"Birthday Parties" or "Slow Descent into Hell"

While I was typing this blog's description for the seventh time yesterday trying to deal with Blogger's changing of the template, I realized that I haven't talked about life in the suburbs for a while. What's more quintessentially the role of a suburban mom than having a birthday party?

These are the birthday parties Kestrel has been to this year:
Science Magic (with entertainer and experiments)
Bowling (at an exclusive club)
Beads Galore (jewelry making at an Italian restaurant)
Adventure Zone (indoor play area with pizza)
Great Adventure Race (four hours all over the mountains ending at a Mexican restaurant)

So when Kestrel's birthday was coming up and she wanted to invite the whole class, I approached it with a bit of trepidation. It didn't help that she's been talking about it for six months. First we decided on something manageable - a beach party. Then I persuaded her that ten kids would be a lot more fun. But there are only two tables at the beach - if they're full we'd be serving food with kids kicking sand all over it. And more worryingly, it had rained for eight days straight - ten kids in our tiny apartment was, frankly, unimaginable.

But we had luck. It didn't rain in spite of the forecast. No one else was crazy enough to have a beach party, so we had the tables to ourselves. Kestrel and I picked up the kids and more adults at the ferry and then off to the beach where Granite was guarding the table and being eaten alive by little black gnats. Only two of the accompanying adults didn't come to the party. We had helpers or parents, or helpers and parents for almost every kid. The crowds stood around taking pictures and videos while the kids decorated wooden paddle boats with felt sails (our answer to a clown and pony show) and while they ate and fooled around. It was weird and awkward not knowing who was who and feeling like I needed to entertain them as well as the kids.

But the kids had fun. They ran around and played ball tag on the play equipment. Then they made boats and went swimming since the boats didn't sail too well. We had to drag them out for the Subway sandwiches, fruit and cake. Well, except for one kid who wouldn't stop digging in the sand for anything. And another kid who came an hour late, who hadn't RSVP'ed, who wouldn't speak to anyone for the first hour she was there, and who stayed an hour after the party was supposed to be over. Actually having the entire school class at our house in Turkey was a lot easier than this Hong Kong party. The kids in Turkey got along so much better and were much better at social interaction - unless Kestrel just invited some odd kids this year.

It turned out to be a pretty successful party. Glitter got all over the known world. One boy squirted mango juice all over another while they were at the table, but I didn't yell and it didn't get on anything but the other kid. And it didn't rain until Kestrel and I were walking home after that funny little girl and her mom finally left. After fifteen kids' birthday parties, you'd think it'd get easier and more fun. I wonder how many more I have to go?This picture is from the next day when the birthday girl got to learn to ride her first two-wheeler. That was the best part of the birthday, I thought.