wet, wet , wet

June 10, 2006

“Forgive me Father; it’s been 2 weeks since my last post.”
The school year draws to a close–a busy time for teachers. I am particularly crunched for time as our American pilgrimage is in less than 10 days: 2 weeks in Nashville, 7 weeks in Canada and a week in New York. I am getting excited and the kids are starting to get the night-time jitters. Both of them were wide awake last night at 11:30, uninterested in sleep.
There have been a few interesting events since I last wrote:
Daniel from Suitcasing(sorry Daniel, couldn’t resist name-dropping) came to visit last tuesday.
I picked him up from the train station around 4 pm. Ever brave and willing to navigate the uncharted territory of his personal limits, Daniel agreed to ride pillion on the back of my scooter. By the time we had dinner, the nail marks on my shoulders were barely visible. We went to People’s park for a drink and then quickly headed back to my house to avoid the big downpour ominously looming over our heads. My wife drove him back to town the following day, much to his relief I imagine. I had a wonderful time meeting Daniel and I know my kids took to him as well. A few minutes ago, I showed my wife a video snippet of her trying to negotiate the kids during our dinner together. Isha and Maya watched as well. Isha kept asking, “Where’s Daniel?” and Maya kept saying “Aniel, Aniel!”

On the weekend, we went for a bike ride on the trail that links Dong Shr with Feng Yuan. It used to be a railroad track: I’ve heard it is unbearably crowded on the weekend. Lucky for us it was pouring rain. We cycled about 4 kilometres before it became unmanageable and had to turn back. Maya chose to deal with the discomfort by falling asleep. Her head plopped onto my back, sliding every time I turned while water seeped through her neckline, soaking her to the bone. She never woke up.
It is a very pretty trail in the rain. At one point, the road wound through a tunnel and steep embankments made of moss-covered stones, water trickling down making water-trickling sounds, releasing water-trickling smells.

I have to cut this post short; we just discovered another leak, this one in the living room. One of our tatami mats is soaked through and black on the backside. The point of this post was eventually going to be about rain being the theme streaming through my life’s events these past 2 weeks. Ok, point made.
A wet market…

Posted in family, personal, taiwan