Delicious Breeze

Hong Kong smelled like dried seafood. San Diego smells like burritos. Oh, its heavenly.

Bumbling Idiot

What's left of my sunglasses

It would be quite fair to say that I didn't wake up on the clever side of bed yesterday. I successfully shrunk some of my husband's t-shirts (guess I'm still re-learning how to use a dryer), nearly mooned a batch of shirtless boys in the car next to mine at the car wash when I accidentally vacuumed up my skirt with the industrial-powered hose (twice), felt hood-winked when I put a $20 in the change machine and got a pile of fake-looking $1 gold coins with Mr. Washington's face on them in return (how was I supposed to know they came out with new money while I was out of the country?), sat on my new sunglasses (there's a reason I refuse to buy expensive eyewear), and perhaps my most glowing achievement of the day, got stung by a bee.

$1 George Washington coins

Can any of you, my lovely readers, even remember the last time you got stung by a bee? I feel old admitting it, but it's been easily 15 years since I last experienced the excruciating pain brought on by a feisty, angry bee. This bee nearly became my lunch. It stung me less than an inch below my lip, after successfully dive-bombing Matt and I as we stood near our car during his lunch break. Maybe it was one of those sad little bees that can't make its way back to the mother hive and it took out its fury on me. Regardless, it was one angry little bee.

Honestly, once I got over the pain (which was surprisingly intense), it didn't seem like such a big deal. There wasn't much swelling and the pain eventually subsided. It kind of just felt like I'd been to the dentist and was recovering from a shot of numbing Novocain.

I woke up 4am this morning (I think because my husband was giggling in his sleep) to discover that my face had swollen considerably during the night and, except for the part near the sting that was itching like mad, I could no longer feel the lower half of the right side of my face. I (groggily) panicked, went straight to the kitchen pantry and mixed up a hearty slop of baking soda and water, and turned on the computer to consult Dr Google. Was this normal? Would I have to rush to a Mexican hospital in the middle of the night to go to the emergency room? (It's a long story, but in a funny turn of events, Matt and I have full health insurance coverage for every country in the world except for the USA--we think it might be a blessing in disguise that we just moved to a city within 20 minutes from the Mexican border.) Would my face stay like this forever?!?

No, of course not. I'm sure I'll be fine in a few days. Apparently bee stings swell the most around the eye and mouth area, and when stung, the stingee should immediately brush the stinger off the skin to ensure minimal swelling. Had I known this I would've done so, but I just stared crazily at the stinger protruding from my chin for about 45 seconds or so before making Matt pull it out. So I'm stuck like this for a few days (or until, according to Dr Google, my body develops the antigens to fight the bee venom). Hopefully I won't get called in for a job interview in the next few days.

I feel quite justified knowing my feisty little friend is dead now.

Pie

The first pie I've made since returning to the world of full-sized ovens.

Lengthy Travels: Part One

United Airline's Coach Class Breakfast

I'm officially back-online with no more excuses to keep me from blogging. Sorry for the long delay. What a whirlwind few weeks we’ve had since landing on American soil. I find it ironic that (it feels as though) I’ve seen more of the USA in the last three weeks upon our return to the homeland than I have in my whole life.

We arrived in San Francisco on July 22 at 9:30am, (which I only mention because we left Hong Kong at 11:30 am on that same day, two hours before we landed—gotta love that sneaky time difference), bleary-eyed and full of anticipation and excitement. We’d spent that last 12 hours on the plane with our 4 eyeballs glued to a shared copy of the seventh installment of Harry Potter, devouring it page by page. Every 4-5 aisles of the plane there was someone reading the book. One of the flight attendants begged us not to reveal anything about it, as he had yet to make it to a bookstore to pick up his own copy. Every time we stopped reading to take a bathroom break or eat a meal, we considered letting slip ridiculously false tidbits as we made our way down the aisle past eager readers. “Can you believe Hermione’s pregnant with Grawp’s baby?!” or “What was JK thinking letting them BBQ a house elf at the Quidditch Championship after party?!”, etc. were just a few of the options we considered. We'd pondered waiting to read the book until we started our cross-country drive from Kansas to San Diego, but the thought of putting ourselves on a complete media black-out until we’d had a chance to read the book seemed too daunting a prospect. Overall the plane ride was completely uneventful. It's such a short (relatively) trip when you land in California instead of Chicago or Detroit.

Quincy and his adoring fans at the HK Airport

After retrieving our beloved Quincy cat from the bowels of the airplane, and getting him through customs (which was so astonishingly low-key I think an elephant could pirouette past the customs officials and they’d barely bat an eye), we re-checked Quincy for the next flight and sat down at our gate to take in the American-ness of everything around us.

To be continued...

Home Again

Matt and I made it to San Diego...finally! We moved in to our new apartment a couple of days ago and I have lots to tell about our trip, but as we don't have internet access yet, I'm at the mercy of my web-designing husband (who happens to be SO excited about being self-employed, he's all into his new gig and VERY reluctant to cede the computer to his eager wife). So, folks, SOON I will fill you in on the adventures of the last few weeks. I promise.