Today was a chaotic day. But receiving some good news in the afternoon left me with a story about babies, wine, and our cat princess Kara.

Yesterday was Tuesday, which was Ben’s school day, Ben is my first grandson and my daughter’s first born baby. Because there was no car at home for me to drive to pick Ben up in the afternoon, I asked my son to pick me up and then for us to go to school together to pick Ben up. I told my son who was driving: “Ben is very cute now. He started to make sounds, clap his hands, cover his eyes to play peekaboo, and sometimes bow and wave good bye. You come to play with him tomorrow, as he will stay home.” My son asked: “What time is good?” I said: “Ben usually takes a nap at 10:30 in the morning and gets up around 1 in the afternoon. You can come at 12 o’clock, have lunch with me, and then play with Ben for two hours after his nap.”

Ben usually wakes up at 8 o’clock in the morning and starts talking to himself or crying and making all kinds of noises to ask us to get up and serve him. But this morning at 8:30, Ben’s room was still very quiet. Although I was awake, I didn’t get up. Alex overslept and was late for his 8:30 online meeting, as he was hoping that alarm clock Ben would ring at 8 o’clock.

Today, Ben didn’t wake up until 9 o’clock, and his nap time was postponed from 10:30 to 11:40, so the regular schedule was disrupted. After Ben took a nap, as I was under intermittent fasting, I didn’t take a meal and went to lie down for more than half an hour. I didn’t get up until my son came over.

Then I experienced a familiar reaction to hunger: easily getting sad or angry.

While looking at my son who was playing with his phone at the dining table. I felt that he was very tired and suddenly felt very sad… I knew that this was a loss of composure due to hunger, so I quickly ate an apple to calm myself down, but I still didn’t feel calmed down. I took out the wild rose liqueur from the refrigerator and drank a sip before I felt better. I sighed silently in my heart: “Wine is really a good thing!”

It was almost two o’clock when Ben woke up. My son who was now an uncle said he felt sick, so he just fed Ben 7 ounces of milk, took some home-cooked dishes, and went home earlier. Seeing his back as he left, although I can no longer be around to take care of him now, he and his wife can care about each other and love each other more closely, I felt happy that this round of my life relay was smoothly.

My mood improved significantly in the afternoon also, because of news from New England.

Marta, the new owner/slave of our Cat Princess Kara in Rhode Island, sent my daughter a photo of Kara along with news about Kara. Kara is a cat babied by my daughter and myself. My daughter and I were worried that Kara who was born and lived in the East Coast would not be comfortable during the long-distance migration to the West Coast. Because of this, before we moved from Waltham, Massachusetts to San Jose, California, my daughter interviewed several cat lovers and ended up giving Kara to Marta to be taken care of.

The details of giving Kara to Marta in August are still vivid in my mind. Today, the news from Marta that Kara is doing well in Rhode Island, far away from us, brought a happy ending to my chaotic day, because I felt the sweetness of the successful relay of love.

Good news really makes people happy. Thanks for my daughter who adopted Kara and found Kara a good care giver.

Today, our happy Kara in Marta’s home:

(Kara in 2020)

（Kara is babysitting my grandson Ben。2022-05-13）

A story of Wine is really a good thing in 2021 in Waltham Massachusetts.

She said: “At 7:30 PM tonight. I need to pick Shirah up from school, because she is having a singing performance in school this afternoon.”

I asked: “Can I go to listen to her singing this afternoon?”

“Restrictions on the campus are still high, due to the Covid. It is not easy to attend, but I can ask her.”

I thought a bit and said: “Shirah is so sweet, asking her probably will distract her attention. I better not go, as I don’t want to disturb her.”

In the afternoon, baby Ben went outside for a walk with his parents, I heard he slept the entire time while being outdoors.

After baby Ben came home and after I helped to put him to sleep, I went out to sit on a wooden chair on campus to watch the spring sights and to write my story. Though it was sunny, I felt cold because of the strong wind.

Close to 6:00 PM, I saw my daughter’s message: “Shirah’s performance got cancelled (probably because of Covid). I invited her to come over to sing for us tonight. Can you pick her up before 6:30 PM?”

I texted back: “We were planning to have pork wonton for dinner, should I buy ground beef to make dinner tonight?”

“You pick her up, I can prepare something.”

Due to the singing performance, Shirah, who always dresses up beautifully, was even more graceful today. Her long light brown hair was rolled into an elegant bun matched with a pair of white pearl earrings, and her pink dress matched with a white cardigan sweater. When we came back home, my daughter was chopping carrots and leek to be baked with rice and Alex was cutting chives to fry with eggs. Shirah put her white sweater and bright red handbag on top of my daughter’s scarf and sweater on a chair in the hallway. Looking at this, I felt I was observing a young couple’s little chaotic and very simple home full of vitality and warmth, and I tasted a sweetness.

While playing with baby Ben, I overheard the young ladies’ conversation. My daughter said: “Last time we heard your singing was last year around this time at the garden recital in Rachel’s backyard.”

Shirah replied: “At that time, baby Ben was already conceived, but nobody knew it.”

“My period is always irregular, missing a week or sort is normal. I didn’t know either.” Then my daughter asked Shirah: “Do you want to have dinner first or singing first?”

“It is better not eating before singing.”

After I fed baby Ben 5-oz of breast milk, we all sat down in the dinning room to listen to Shirah sing. Shirah sang an Italian opera song, her voice was smooth, sweet, clean, and with full volume. Baby Ben sat on my lap quietly enjoying his godmother’s beautiful opera performance. After her singing, we applauded for Shirah. I felt our dinner room was filled with a joyful artistic atmosphere.

Due to the time constraint, after Shirah’s singing, our dinner was further simplified: a plate of plain noodles, a plate of chive fried with eggs, and a plate of baked carrot and leek was our dinner. We all enjoyed them.

It was a very happy Friday evening, thankful for the homey little family and for the passionate and talented Shirah’s mini opera concert.

Listening to Concert
Baby Ben’s godmother originally was having a singing performance on Friday afternoon. Because of Covid, the performance was cancelled, and my daughter invited her to sing for us in our home. Baby Ben was engaged and enjoyed the 6-minute beautiful opera voice of his godmother. We all applauded for his godmother.

shirah is singing:

During one of our Wednesday night gatherings, Shirah brought her Japanese high school Chinese literature text book to share.

After the dinner and the dessert, Shirah took out her book from her bag and placed it on the dinner table. We all turned our heads to peek into the Chinese articles in the book with curiosity.

Majored in literature since college, Grace enjoyed reading many familiar old poems and articles. While explaining to us in details, she discussed some of the works with Shirah.

Grace said: “Some articles in this textbook have a few different characters from the same articles in our textbook.”

After hearing Grace’s comment, Shirah thought a bit and replied: “Maybe they came from different versions.”

Shirah recited a few famous Chinese pomes for us, we noticed the sounds in Japanese lacked the rhythm carried by Chinese.

Curious Lou studied the title of the Japanese textbook: a single Chinese character in Xiaozhuan style.

I took a peek and said: “It seems like the dragon character in Xiaozhuan.”

Everyone took a close look at the title on the book cover and said that character is different from dragon character. Then Lou found “capable” in Xiaozhuan, which has the same left part as the title. However, the right part is different from the title.

Someone thought out loud: “‘Capable’ or ‘able to’ is not noun.”

Someone found: “Capable is adjective. how could an adjective be title?”

Lou seems addictive to doing research now. He focused his attention on his cell phone for a while and announced : “I found the completed sentence in the same XiaoZhuan style on a Japanese museum web site: ‘to be capable one needs to learn, to be wise one needs to ask.’”

After reading the completed sentence on Lou’s phone, we all understood the meaning of “capable” as the title on the Japanese textbook of Chinese literature: “want to gain ability, one must learn.”

Six highly skilled readers, including three PhDs in science and there PhD candidates in liberal arts, worked together to learn about the character of capable in XiaoZhuan and to solve the puzzle of using a single character as the title. Learning how to do research while playing is fun.

I remembered a story of Grace’s “to be capable needs to learn”: recently she told us: “I just learnt how to hold a cat on Youtube: one hand hold the butt, another hand hold the chest.” She immediately picked up Kara for a demo. Seeing Kara quietly curved in front for Grace, we all cheered for Grace.

Little Episodes

1. Grace held Kara (by Lou)

2. Our Wednesday Dinner.

3. The cover of Japanese high school Chinese literature textbook

“to be capable one needs to learn, to be wise one needs to ask” come from Confucius’ family language: disciple’s journey.

4. I was surprised to see BaiJuYi’s famous poem of “Man Sells Charcoal” in the textbook.

When I was in middle school we were all required to recite “Man Sells Charcoal”. Rereading this poem again, I remember my literal teacher’s comment of this pome deeply exposed the ruler’s cruelty to ordinary people. In addition, I was also touched by “Even with a thin layer of clothes, the man still wished for an even colder weather”, because he wanted a good price for his coal，which expressed his strong desire for survival.

Rereading the poem of “Man Sells Charcoal”, I had a chance to recall more than 40 years’ memory and see the change in my perspective now: I understand more about the desire to survive, as a primeval force in a ordinary life which could bring great fulfillment and satisfaction. I was happy for this understanding.

BaiJuYi’s “Man Sells Charcoal”
（摘自：廊桥梦者）
卖炭翁，mài tàn wēng
伐薪烧炭南山中。fá xīn shāo tàn nán shān zhōng
满面尘灰烟火色，mǎn miàn chén huī yān huǒ sè ，
两鬓苍苍十指黑。liǎng bìn cāng cāng shí zhǐ hēi 。
卖炭得钱何所营？mài tàn dé qián hé suǒ yíng ？
身上衣裳口中食。shēn shàng yī shang kǒu zhōng shí
可怜身上衣正单，kě lián shēn shàng yī zhèng dān ，
心忧炭贱愿天寒。xīn yōu tàn jiàn yuàn tiān hán 。
夜来城外一尺雪，yè lái chéng wài yī chǐ xuě ，
晓驾炭车辗冰辙。xiǎo jià tàn chē niǎn bīng zhé 。
牛困人饥日已高，niú kùn rén jī rì yǐ gāo ，
市南门外泥中歇。shì nán mén wài ní zhōng xiē 。
翩翩两骑来是谁？piān piān liǎng qí lái shì shuí ？
黄衣使者白衫儿。huáng yī shǐ zhě bái shān ér 。
手把文书口称敕，shǒu bǎ wén shū kǒu chēng chì ，
回车叱牛牵向北。huí chē chì niú qiān xiàng běi 。
一车炭，千余斤，yī chē tàn ，qiān yú jīn ，
宫使驱将惜不得。gōng shǐ qū jiāng xī bú dé 。
半匹红绡一丈绫，bàn pǐ hóng xiāo yī zhàng líng ，
系向牛头充炭直。xì xiàng niú tóu chōng tàn zhí 。

Grace and Lou were middle school sweethearts when they were in Shandong province. They were both born in the 1990′s.

The 2020 quarantine created opportunities for me to know they more and to have joyful conversations with them.

The difference between my Sichuan accents and dialects and their Shandong accents and dialects often bring laughter into our conversations. Like when we say “corn”, which has a very different name between Sichuan (BaoGu) and Shandong (YuMi, Bangzi, BangZhuiZi). Lou, who majored in STEM (abbreviation for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics as subjects of study), possesses broad knowledge and a good sense of humor. His jokes about accents and dialects often make us laugh. The differences between accents and dialects are accepted and acknowledged by our laughters.

From our casual conversation, I learnt the name Lou originates from his last name (吕, lǚ) and is made to be easy to pronounce by English speakers. Lou told us about the troubles around his last name in Chinese PinYin. There are three possible ways to write 吕 in PinYin: LU, LYU, or LV, those three possibilities had bothered Chinese for a few years. Teachers would teach student lǚ in the class, but electronic users will type lv on keyboard to get 吕. Lou’s story about his last name helped me see the important relationship between Chinese characters and PinYin and the tangled complexities between them. For instance, in 2005, a student who with the same last name of Lou was very depressed by how to present his last name in PinYin…

“On the passport, 吕is represented as LV or LU? Now my last name on grade report, TOFEL, and GRE are LV. This morning, my boss signed his recommendation letter using LV too. However, one teacher said on passport LU is usually used for 吕. I am very depressed now…”

In 2021, we went to Grace and Lou’s place for Chinese New Year celebration. We made dumpling, ate a big dinner, and chatted. While chatting about the heavy difficulties Grace encountered in her studies as a first semester PhD student. I encouraged Grace: “Pursuing PhD is a challenging journey. You watched Lou studying and receiving his PhD, he probably worked harder than you.”

I was surprised to hear from Lou: “Studying ancient languages sometimes is more challenging than studying STEM.”

Alex curiously asked: “How difficult was it?”

Lou paused a moment and said: “Like we go through another GaoKao in China.”

Grace said: “The grammar of ancient language, without being practiced daily, is very hard to use correctly during classroom discussions. I had to learn three ancient languages, one foreign language, and my subject in my first semester. I really feel like the time is not enough for me.”

I seemed to understand the challenge and said using computer terminology: “Studying multiple languages at the same time without a computer compiler to help, I can imagine the difficulties.”

Lou said: “My father used to think that studying ancient languages is very easy.”

I laughed: “I always thought the same as your father. Thank you! I started to admire Grace and Eileen’s courage and ability in pursuing their degree on ancient languages”.

Little Episodes

1. The depressed 吕student’s post:

2. 2021, Chinese New Year celebration dinner table filled with delicious food.

02-09-2021, Tuesday

Recently, I chatted with a very smart person about the relationship between the society and an individual.

He said: “Modern society has been constructed like a giant machine, and every part of the machine has lots of replacements who are waiting to be used.”

I replied: “This is very good. It ensures the giant machine of the society runs smoothly without worrying about missing any parts.”

“But society has made every individual to be replaced easily. Don’t you feel that you are nothing to the society?”

I laughed: “Oh, I thought smart people are irreplaceable and thus very important to the society.”

“Why do you laugh at it?”

I did not mean to put him down, so I expanded and shared my thought:

“I knew that big companies are designed this way, such as every employee is easily replaceable.

In the early growing stages of eBay in 2001, software developers were always extremely overworked, we worked 7 days a week in office at regular working hours and at home in the evening. One day while chatting with Grace, my colleague, about how over work made our life as working mothers much tougher, and about if we suddenly passed away, Grace commented: ‘We are replaceable workers to the company, but we are irreplaceable mothers to our kids.’ I still remember her insightful comments now.

However, society is too big for me to feel what you said.”

He replied: “The society is a big company.”

Then I thought a while. “Questioning a phenomenon makes you thinking more frequently.”

Comparing being a member of a company to being a member of a family: the first is always being replaceable, but the latter has more opportunities to be irreplaceable and essential. This is probably one of the reasons people wish to have a family, because we will have indispensable responsibility more in a family.

In this fast-changing modern society, I felt that family is still the cornerstone of a stable society and family is a good place for ordinary people to pursue their values in their life.

While moving the things from the counter into the refrigerator, I noticed she bought her favorite green vegetables and sweets, my favorite sweets, and a luffa that was longer than 2 feet.

I curiously asked: “Why you decide to buy a luffa?”

“No, this is a okra, not luffa.”

I explained: “Okra is just a finger length and can’t grow to 2 feet.”

My daughter insisted: “This is a giant okra, I can eat it for a few days.”

Then I asked her: “How did you know this was a okra?”

“I picked it from the shelf under the label ‘okra’, so I am sure this is an okra!”

I found pictures of luffa online and showed her, but she believed what she bought was an okra, because the store named it okra and the shape of a luffa is very similar to the shape of an okra in her opinion.

I dared her: “Let’s bet, if this is an okra, I will give you $100 iTunes card.”

My daughter confidently said: “Sure, if this is a luffa, I will give you $100.”

I thought a bit and said: “Let me break this into pieces, you’ll see if the inside is the same as the inside of okra.”

I broke the giant thing into 5 pieces and let my daughter see the inside. She admitted that what she bought was really not a okra.

I bantered with her: “A dummy born in 1990′s.”

After I sorted out all things on the counter. I started to help my daughter to finish her sourdough bread. I spread jelly onto a piece of bread, then I spread peanut butter on top of the jelly, but I had a hard time spreading the peanut butter over the jelly.

My daughter saw my struggling and commented: “Even a five year old knows how to make a peanut butter jelly sandwich, you don’t know?”

I replied: “I am helping you finish the sourdough bread. First time making sandwich, no experience.”

Then she said: “First spread peanut butter on a piece of bread, then spread jelly on top of peanut butter.”

I laughed at myself: “A dummy born in 1960′s.”

Lack of practice experience could lead to being a dummy, blindly following the herd, or at worst losing money.

Luffa vs. Okra

My daughter bought a luffa with eight sharp-edges which is also called Guangdong luffa, it’s very different from Sichuan luffa that is round without any sharp-edge.

Later, my friend Zhenzhen said luffa is also called Chinese okra.

Grace is my daughter’s friend, they are both pursuing their PhD’s with a focus on ancient languages.

During the early quarantine period in April 2020, hair salons were closed, so I cut my hair by myself which made the end of my hair uneven. When I heard my daughter saying Grace will cut Shirah’s hair, I asked my daughter to check with Grace if she could cut my hair too.

Grace cut my hair, then she painted my nails very prettily. I said: “Grace’s hands are very skillful.”

My daughter said: “Grace’s class notes were so neat and beautiful, So of course she has skillful hands.”

I smiled: “Good hands, good heart.”

As the pandemic in 2020 isolated and distanced people a lots, it also created various opportunities for friends to become closer and know each other more. After Grace cut my hair and painted my nails, we became friends.

During the 2020 quarantine, Grace and her husband, Lou, started shopping for an old couple who both are professors and who are very close to us. Almost a year has passed since then.

One day in August 2020, Grace mentioned that Martha’s birthday was coming soon, Martha is one of the professors. I was curious and asked her how did she know Martha’s birthday. Grace said she remembered when we went their house in 2019 to celebrate Martha’s birthday in August last year.

I also remembered in August 2019, Grace, Lou, Shirah, my daughter, my son, and I went to their house to celebrate Martha’s birthday. However, I could not remember that Martha’s birthday is coming again at the same time this year. I thought that Grace is very attentive.

Because of Grace’s reminder, Grace, Shirah, Lou, and I brought flowers, homemade birthday cake, and Chinese style gifts to the professors’ front door. While keeping 6-feet social distance and wearing masks, we sang “Happy Birthday” to Martha and gave her the gifts.

That day, Martha was dressed in a sky-blue blouse paired with snow-white pants. It was a very modern outfit.

Martha happily said she did not get a chance to wear her new summer outfit yet and she was very happy to be able to wear her new summer outfit today.

In the autumn 2020 on Grace’s birthday, while wearing masks, we gathered outside of the professors’ house again. Martha prepared desserts, champaign, and a birthday card, we celebrated Grace’s birthday together.

During the 2020 pandemic, the same people at the same place had two unique sweet small birthday celebrations kept a sweet story about Grace.

Little Episodes

1. In June 2020, Grace painted our nails.
Good time, retiree, enjoying spending time with younger people.
Painting nails, my age made me self-conscious about the color of my nails.
Tasting delicious food, Lou is a good chef.

2. In August 2020, Grace, Shirah, Lou, and I went together to celebrate Martha’s birthday.

Happy Birthday. Wishing the professor happy birthday.
Birthday cake, Shirah made it.
Summer flowers, I picked it.
6-feet social distance, we kept it.
Birthday girl said: “I haven’t had a chance to wear my new summer outfit, summer is almost gone. Today I finally got a chance to wear it.”

3. In autumn 2020, Grace, Shirah, Lou, and I gathered outside of the professors’ house again. Martha prepared desserts, champaign, and a birthday card for Grace.

03-01-2020, Monday, raining

Shirah is my daughter’s friend and she is pursuing her Ph.D. with a focus on comparative literature.

The 2020′s quarantine not only reduced the social interaction between ordinary people, but also dramatically changed the full-time college students’s lifestyle, from going to school to attend class, to staying home watching the computer screen to attend class. Because an active social life is a very important part of college life, these sudden changes caused college students who were faraway from home much discomfort. Full-time graduate student Shirah who was faraway from her parents also experienced such discomfort.

My daughter had studied abroad for many years, and she said she had experienced homesickness even during normal social lifetime (such as going to class, meeting teachers and classmates in person, dinning with friends…). So she often walked with Shirah on campus in 2020.

Because Shirah had no car, my daughter and her went shopping together once a week. If my daughter was busy, I would go shopping with Shirah. Gradually, I got to know Shirah as a young girl with a delicate heart. She was always wearing high heels paired with various pretty skirts, I asked her once and knew she never wore pants.

In my mind Shirah was an elegant girl who majored in liberal arts. I never thought that Shirah would become my heroine in 2021.

In the big snowstorm on February 2nd, 2021, my daughter and I were rushing to downtown Boston. After we arrived in Boston, I suddenly remembered that I had not turned off the stove before I left the house.

Considering that driving back home in the big snowstorm would take around an hour, my daughter calmly called our neighbors for help, but some neighbors were already at work and some didn’t answer the phone. My daughter immediately called Shirah and begged her to go to our house to turn off the fire.

Shirah, in her normal outfit, with high heels and a skirt, rushed about a mile in a big snowstorm to our house.

Once she arrived to our front door, my daughter was on the phone with Shirah.

Shirah had difficulty opening our door and I heard her almost crying over the phone.

After Shirah got into the house, my daughter anxiously asked whether our kitchen was on fire?

Shirah replied: “Kara (our darling cat princess) is at the doorway, the kitchen seems fine.”

My daughter anxiously asked: “Did you turn off the fire?”

Shirah said: “Not yet, I am taking my shoes off in the hallway.”

After caming back home, we thanked Shirah. Looking at the dried-up ceramic pot and the shrunken marinated pork belly, I realized that driving back to turn off the fire probably would be too late.

February is already gone and a few days ago, I was talking to my daughter: “Shirah wore high heels and a skirt in a big snowstorm and walked a mile to rescue our house, she is my heroine!”

My daughter replied: “Oh, when I told Shirah that I would save this story for her children later, she joked: ‘Yes, I will need that to boost my image.’”

Little Episodes

The outfits that Shirah wore to rescue our house in the big snowstorm on February 2nd, 2021.
The note that my daughter asked me to put on the door is a constant reminder each time I get out of the house.

February 1st, 2021, weather was the dominant topic on the radio news, because there would be 7 to 15 inches of snow today and tomorrow. The first day of February’s night sight of deep and fluffy snow on the ground and big snow flakes in the air:

01-27-2021 a Wednesday with 3 inches of snow.

A few weeks ago, my daughter asked me what kind of songs I sang when I was little. I quickly recalled “A Screw on the Side of the Road”. I was surprised to hear I could sing the entire song without missing a beat.

When adults sing childhood songs, it is like turning back time and enjoying the pure innocence of childhood after a very long journey. This was what I felt when I sang “A Screw on the Side of the Road” to my daughter. I guess such feeling belong to the generation who were born in 1960′s.

A screw on the sideway is lovely is a childish expression. A screw in the oven is wretched, this is a reality of life, because the screw in the oven tortured my daughter and I for two days.

On Sunday, I was planning to roast lamb and found out our oven didn’t work. As I don’t use the oven often, I didn’t think the oven not working was a big problem. However, my daughter used the oven a lots. She said: “We must fix the oven on Monday!”

So on Monday morning, my daughter told me: “I searched online and found that when oven doesn’t work, 60% the problem is caused by malfunction igniter. Replacing the igniter will likely fix the problem. I already ordered the igniter, which will arrive tomorrow. So today we should do all the preparation.”

I wondered: “Do you know how to replace the igniter?”

“There are online videos which give step-by-step details on how to replace the igniter.”

After she took off the oven door, she told me: “Unscrew the screws on bottom cover and remove the bottom cover, then we can replace the igniter.”

We thought unscrewing the screws would be easy! but …

There are two screws on the bottom cover, one screw was easily removed, but another screw was too tight to be unscrewed. We thought the screw was tightened by oil, so my daughter used hair blower to blow on the screw for a long time, but we still could not unscrew it.

After doing more searching on the computer, my daughter said: “Our arms are too weak, let’s buy an electric screwdriver.”

We bought back an electric screwdriver, but instead of unscrewing the stuck screw, it stripped out the cross on the cap of the screw. Now no screwdriver can hold the screw to make a turn, which was very frustrating.

My daughter did more research on the computer and got a sound suggestion: buying a wrench, steel glue, and a hex nut. Glue the hex nut to the screw cap, wait for 6 hours, then use the wrench to turn the hex nut to unscrew the stuck screw.

But after the first 6 hours, the hex nut was not glued to the cap, so the wrench took the hex nut away from the cap. On the second try, we waited overnight until Tuesday morning.

Monday is the last day of Groudon and Kyogre hatching in Gyms for Pokémon Go, so during our scheduled oven maintenance, we dashed out to catch Groudon and Kyogre. Well balanced working stress and playing joy made our Monday fun.

But on Tuesday morning, the wrench still could not turn the stuck screw, and the igniter arrived.

Tuesday’s reality created much tension for us. Both my daughter and I made many phone calls seeking help…

Luckily, Entei, a different legendary Pokemon, started to hatch in Gyms on Tuesday. My daughter said: “Shiny Entei is very similar to our princess Kara. I want to catch a shiny Entei.” Her enthusiasm for shiny Entei diluted the tension created by the stuck screw.

On Wednesday, handyman Lin came over, unscrewing the screw and replacing the igniter with ease.

Little Episodes

My daughter thought the shiny Entei resembles our princess Kara. On Tuesday, I caught a shiny Entei and renamed it Kara. Our princess Kara sits on one of my biggest projects.

The stuck screw in the oven, the hateful screw

Torture on Monday

Torture on Tuesday

Lyric of “A screw on the side of the road” (a very popular Chinese children’s song in 1970′s)
A screw on the side of the road
A boy saw it on the way to school
Though the screw is very small
It is needed to build up our country
Pick up it and look at it
Wipe the dust off it,
So good is it
Give it to the worker
Who puts it on a machine
Hay! The machine sings and we clap and smile

Oct, 2020

When rumors about banning WeChat in the USA came out, my daughter setup this web site, http://puddleofgold.org, which is hosted in USA for me. She suggested that I move the Chinese stories I posted on WeChat to the website, in order to prevent my stories from being lost.

After I retired in 2016, when I met my previous coworkers, some asked me: “Jean, what are you doing after you retired?”

I often replied: “I write little stories in Chinese. Sorry, you’re not able to read them.”

Now, I am planning to translate some of my favorite Chinese stories into English, with the hopes of sharing these snippets of life’s joy that I have experienced with others.

While translating my own Chinese stories into English, I experienced the ease of using Chinese, my mother tongue language, and the clumsiness of using English.

Though I didn’t write in Chinese for more than 20 years because I had no chance to while studying and working in USA since 1989, I didn’t feel like my Chinese was rusty when I started writing Chinese stories in 2016. Even unused for more than 20 years my Chinese is still not rusty, this made me realize that youth is the best time to absorb knowledge and expand one’s language spectrum, as I learnt and used Chinese before 1989.

Because English is their mother tongue language, my daughter and my son are reviewing and revising my English stories now.

Reading the English stories that were revised by my children, I thoroughly saw how my English had poor vocabulary and silly expressions. I also found the happiness of seeing that my children are smarter than me now.

I have translated more than 30 Chinese stories into English now.

Comparing my poor English writing to my son’s revised version shows the challenges I faced, as a untrained foreigner, trying to use a foreign language accurately and beautifully.

Mine:
“Sharing remedies across culture boundary may bring sparkle spots often. ”

My son revised version:
“Sharing remedies across culture boundary may bring pleasant surprises often. ”

Snippets of Life’s Joy