So where did we leave off? I believe last I checked in, I was covered in hives and still hobbling on a sprained ankle. Since then, I have mostly recovered from the hives, started to somewhat recover from the ankle, then just when I thought I was recovered, I woke up itching and covered with a new round of hives and misery. Sweet. So now I am on recovery round two, determined NEVER to take ibuprofen again (apparently, that is the latest theory for what triggered my allergic reaction). And still sort of hobbling (it was a bad sprain!). I have missed more work due to illness in the last month than I ever have before--a whopping 6.5 days (I am usually more a 1-3 sick days per year kind of person).
This has involved a lot of lying in bed and moaning (or passing out due to Benadryl) and not a lot of unpacking of the HHE. So we are still living amidst boxes and piles. Someday, someday I will feel up to putting our lives in order.
All this not-feeling-up-to-things involves some uncharacteristic lifestyle moments; for instance, today I couldn't handle cooking or going out (and we've had every delivery options about a million times since this all started), so dinner tonight was... toast and scrambled eggs (extremely runny, of course). A shining moment in the kitchen, clearly. (Sometime in the quasi-recovery stage, I made this banana bread, and it was amazingly yummy.)
Updated sickbed entertainment round-up: finished He Knew He Was Right and also watched the BBC miniseries of it (pretty good but not perfect); started Vikram Seth's 1400-page behemoth, A Suitable Boy; finally conquered my aversion to turning on the TV and found the Filipino channel that airs all the American reality shows (clearly, America's Next Top Model was just what the doctor ordered).
So we only realized today that next weekend is a three-day weekend, so we are torn between staying in Beijing and finally catching up on life, or trying to take advantage of it and take a short trip, maybe to Pingyao, a walled city. Plus, we are still busily making plans for our holiday in January over Chinese New Year. Decisions, decisions...
Monday, October 31, 2011
Friday, October 14, 2011
The HHE is here
Every time this day comes around, I vow to give away all my possessions and live the ascetic life. Then when the day to repack it all comes around, I painfully come to terms with my utter failure to do so.
Catching up - Xi'an
Before I fell into the pit of despair and stopped leaving the house, we did a couple of out of town trips. First, over Labor Day weekend, we went to Xi'an.
Xi'an is an interesting place and home to the Terracotta Warriors, one of the most famous sites in China. Perhaps more importantly to us, it is also known for its food, which is heavily influenced by the city's Muslim community. This was the trip when we discovered we are really not cut out for group travel--it felt tiring and not nearly enough focus was placed on eating everything in sight.
However, Xi'an is well worth seeing. I loved seeing some of the warriors up close--they all have unique and expressive faces:
Plus, there are other cool places to walk around--the mosque was really cool, and we also enjoyed walking around the old city walls (though sadly in the rain) and the evocatively named Small Wild Goose Pagoda:
Taking the overnight train was also an experience--overall, not bad, but the Western Station in Beijing is kind of its own circle of hell (I have heard the one that the trains to Shanghai leave from is much better). The bathrooms on the train do get a bit gross by morning, but in the soft sleeper car, it's manageable (I have zero interest in downgrading to other classes of travel in the future).
Xi'an is an interesting place and home to the Terracotta Warriors, one of the most famous sites in China. Perhaps more importantly to us, it is also known for its food, which is heavily influenced by the city's Muslim community. This was the trip when we discovered we are really not cut out for group travel--it felt tiring and not nearly enough focus was placed on eating everything in sight.
However, Xi'an is well worth seeing. I loved seeing some of the warriors up close--they all have unique and expressive faces:
Plus, there are other cool places to walk around--the mosque was really cool, and we also enjoyed walking around the old city walls (though sadly in the rain) and the evocatively named Small Wild Goose Pagoda:
Taking the overnight train was also an experience--overall, not bad, but the Western Station in Beijing is kind of its own circle of hell (I have heard the one that the trains to Shanghai leave from is much better). The bathrooms on the train do get a bit gross by morning, but in the soft sleeper car, it's manageable (I have zero interest in downgrading to other classes of travel in the future).
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Notes from the hermit
So, while there was talk of medevacing me to Singapore, today I am somewhat on the mend and so that likely won't be necessary. If it was, I would probably be setting the record for number of government-funded trips to nice places for crappy reasons in one month.
Can I just say it? This sucks. I have never been one of those people with tons of allergies and I'd never had hives before. The issue is, many people DO get hives quite frequently, the normal kind that go away quickly after they stop being exposed to the allergen. I, on the other hand, have been covered in hives for FIVE DAYS. I itch everywhere. I look like a plague victim. The only times I go out into public are for my daily doctor's visit, and people give me looks. I don't blame them, they lived through SARS here, the last thing they need is the plague. But still.
They have me on really high doses of steroids to calm down my immune system. I was worried that this would mean I would sprout chest hair and start talking like a dude. But apparently, that is the other kind of steroid--the one I am on is the opposite, which apparently over the long term actually degrades your muscles. Sweet. My muscles really didn't need any help degrading.
Not that nothing good has come of this week. I have read three books in full and started two more, plus countless magazines and New York Times articles. I finally had time to learn how to use my new iPad. Showing what an oddball I am, since this misery started, I have not turned on the TV once (I did watch one True Blood episode on my computer, if you count that). Instead, I have started a 700-page Trollope novel (if anyone is curious, it's He Knew He Was Right, the last of Trollope's major novels I haven't read. Is it sad that that makes me sad? Where do I go next??), reread Pride and Prejudice, started rereading 18th-century novelist Fanny Burney's Evelina (not as good as I thought the first time around), read a (pretty interesting) biography of Pearl S. Buck... point is, I don't think this is normal.
I can do pop culture! One of the three books read in full was Tina Fey's Bossypants! (It had some laugh-out-loud moments, but I am going to admit I found it a tad overrated.) I also continue to listen to Adele's "Someone Like You" on loop.
So that is where we are right about now. Not in a good place, in short, but perhaps more culturally enlightened.
In pre-misery reading news, I finished Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore. I am going to put forth an unpopular opinion and say it may be my favorite of his books. I know everyone is obsessed with The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, but let's just say I'm not. I could get behind Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, but this one was better. My two cents.
Can I just say it? This sucks. I have never been one of those people with tons of allergies and I'd never had hives before. The issue is, many people DO get hives quite frequently, the normal kind that go away quickly after they stop being exposed to the allergen. I, on the other hand, have been covered in hives for FIVE DAYS. I itch everywhere. I look like a plague victim. The only times I go out into public are for my daily doctor's visit, and people give me looks. I don't blame them, they lived through SARS here, the last thing they need is the plague. But still.
They have me on really high doses of steroids to calm down my immune system. I was worried that this would mean I would sprout chest hair and start talking like a dude. But apparently, that is the other kind of steroid--the one I am on is the opposite, which apparently over the long term actually degrades your muscles. Sweet. My muscles really didn't need any help degrading.
Not that nothing good has come of this week. I have read three books in full and started two more, plus countless magazines and New York Times articles. I finally had time to learn how to use my new iPad. Showing what an oddball I am, since this misery started, I have not turned on the TV once (I did watch one True Blood episode on my computer, if you count that). Instead, I have started a 700-page Trollope novel (if anyone is curious, it's He Knew He Was Right, the last of Trollope's major novels I haven't read. Is it sad that that makes me sad? Where do I go next??), reread Pride and Prejudice, started rereading 18th-century novelist Fanny Burney's Evelina (not as good as I thought the first time around), read a (pretty interesting) biography of Pearl S. Buck... point is, I don't think this is normal.
I can do pop culture! One of the three books read in full was Tina Fey's Bossypants! (It had some laugh-out-loud moments, but I am going to admit I found it a tad overrated.) I also continue to listen to Adele's "Someone Like You" on loop.
So that is where we are right about now. Not in a good place, in short, but perhaps more culturally enlightened.
In pre-misery reading news, I finished Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore. I am going to put forth an unpopular opinion and say it may be my favorite of his books. I know everyone is obsessed with The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, but let's just say I'm not. I could get behind Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, but this one was better. My two cents.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Blargh
Great post from my friend over at Meandering Memos on the difficulties that come in maintaining a blog, especially a Foreign Service blog (not that I exactly set out to write A Foreign Service Blog, exactly, but I suppose that is what it has become). I too am not sure what direction to head next.
And my fund of great stories is pretty depleted this week, given that since the great sprained ankle incident of Tuesday, I haven't been very mobile. Contributing to my overall (let's just say it) misery this week was the fact that I woke up this morning covered head to toe in hives. I have no idea why, and this has never happened to me before.
The situation hasn't changed since then. I am still itchy and miserable and unwilling to participate in human society. The plus side of this is lots of at-home pastimes have been caught up on. Watching four-hour miniseries of Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South? Check. (SO GOOD, by the way.) Working my way through the new biography of Pearl S. Buck, whose books I have never read and never want to read but whose life in China was quite interesting? Check. Starting to re-read Pride and Prejudice on my iPad since my physical copy is still en route? Check.
I have no idea when I will cease to be covered in hives, but I hope soon. I still dream of going to Ikea on Monday, and that is supposed to be an experience. And I guess I should remember that overall I am very lucky and not covered in hives and having great experiences and China is cool:
At the Mutianyu Great Wall, where I thankfully DID NOT fall and sprain my ankle.
And my fund of great stories is pretty depleted this week, given that since the great sprained ankle incident of Tuesday, I haven't been very mobile. Contributing to my overall (let's just say it) misery this week was the fact that I woke up this morning covered head to toe in hives. I have no idea why, and this has never happened to me before.
The situation hasn't changed since then. I am still itchy and miserable and unwilling to participate in human society. The plus side of this is lots of at-home pastimes have been caught up on. Watching four-hour miniseries of Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South? Check. (SO GOOD, by the way.) Working my way through the new biography of Pearl S. Buck, whose books I have never read and never want to read but whose life in China was quite interesting? Check. Starting to re-read Pride and Prejudice on my iPad since my physical copy is still en route? Check.
I have no idea when I will cease to be covered in hives, but I hope soon. I still dream of going to Ikea on Monday, and that is supposed to be an experience. And I guess I should remember that overall I am very lucky and not covered in hives and having great experiences and China is cool:
At the Mutianyu Great Wall, where I thankfully DID NOT fall and sprain my ankle.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
After the fall
Yesterday James went on a hike on the Great Wall, in the Gubeikou section. It was insanely beautiful--the unrenovated portions of the Wall, great light, hills and guard towers stretching out to the horizon:
Idyllic, right? Soon after, however, disaster struck, in the form of a few loose stones that caused me to lose my balance and twist my ankle. No big deal, happens to people all the time. But as soon as I realized I couldn't walk, reality set in. Once you are on the Great Wall, pretty high up, you quickly realize that, if you are deprived of your ability to walk, it will be really, really hard to get down again.
The tour guide (who was great and very level-headed, in contrast to my being uneven-headed) had me support myself with a person on each side and hop on one foot. Considering I had probably a kilometer to go back to the bus, I felt like this was not going to work. I was able to hop about ten feet each time I tried before resting. So when she was all like, keep hopping!, I was feeling like our visions of reality were not matching up or something.
Finally, they called the park staff, who sent up a stretcher. This seemed like a more feasible solution. But I quickly realized that being carried on super narrow paths with nothing below but a long fall down a rocky hill was going to be terrifying, especially since the local stretcher had nothing to strap me in with. (James also helpfully later informed me that the stretcher "looked like ten people had died of bubonic plague on it spewing bodily fluids"--I had been too out of it to notice but told him it would have been better had he kept those details to himself.)
Here is some photo documentation of me on the stretcher as we get ready to move:
Do not be fooled by the person with the tough-looking hiking backpack--that is the American guide. The locals appeared to be pulled off an area construction site for this misadventure, something that made me a bit less confident in their depth of experience in carrying people down the sides of mountains.
I was pretty sure I was going to die, but I didn't, so now I can tell you all the story! At the end, I asked them for a receipt for the stretcher-carrying to give my insurance company and then got screamed at for a long period of time about what a crazy request this was. Oh well, it was $90 well spent.
After a long ride back to Beijing, I also had the adventure of checking out a hospital here, and it was really nice, actually. Happy ending to the story, I guess, though today was spent in bed, occasionally hobbling to the bathroom on my crutches. Clearly, work tomorrow will be a picnic.
Idyllic, right? Soon after, however, disaster struck, in the form of a few loose stones that caused me to lose my balance and twist my ankle. No big deal, happens to people all the time. But as soon as I realized I couldn't walk, reality set in. Once you are on the Great Wall, pretty high up, you quickly realize that, if you are deprived of your ability to walk, it will be really, really hard to get down again.
The tour guide (who was great and very level-headed, in contrast to my being uneven-headed) had me support myself with a person on each side and hop on one foot. Considering I had probably a kilometer to go back to the bus, I felt like this was not going to work. I was able to hop about ten feet each time I tried before resting. So when she was all like, keep hopping!, I was feeling like our visions of reality were not matching up or something.
Finally, they called the park staff, who sent up a stretcher. This seemed like a more feasible solution. But I quickly realized that being carried on super narrow paths with nothing below but a long fall down a rocky hill was going to be terrifying, especially since the local stretcher had nothing to strap me in with. (James also helpfully later informed me that the stretcher "looked like ten people had died of bubonic plague on it spewing bodily fluids"--I had been too out of it to notice but told him it would have been better had he kept those details to himself.)
Here is some photo documentation of me on the stretcher as we get ready to move:
Do not be fooled by the person with the tough-looking hiking backpack--that is the American guide. The locals appeared to be pulled off an area construction site for this misadventure, something that made me a bit less confident in their depth of experience in carrying people down the sides of mountains.
I was pretty sure I was going to die, but I didn't, so now I can tell you all the story! At the end, I asked them for a receipt for the stretcher-carrying to give my insurance company and then got screamed at for a long period of time about what a crazy request this was. Oh well, it was $90 well spent.
After a long ride back to Beijing, I also had the adventure of checking out a hospital here, and it was really nice, actually. Happy ending to the story, I guess, though today was spent in bed, occasionally hobbling to the bathroom on my crutches. Clearly, work tomorrow will be a picnic.
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