We sent a long "wish list" with Tim when he left on Friday. The wish list contains items that we are missing from home and/or can not find here. He usually travels for a week with a very small carry on bag and his brief case. I can never understand this because it usually take a small suit case just to hold my shoes and make up. Anyway.....This time he went with one of my sewing machines in his carry on bag, two extra large suitcases, and his brief case. The extra suit cases were pretty much empty so he will have room to bring home "the goods". He called to say that he has been shopping for us and said he felt like he was stocking up for the winter before going back into the wilderness. In some ways this is a true statement.

I bet you are wondering why he is taking one of my sewing machines to Texas. Well....we had a little power issue that resulted in a sizzling noise and a strange burning electrical smell. Of course being an American sewing machine it is 110v and the power here is 220. We knew this would be a problem and took every precaution to avoid frying the machine....we even had a special transformer overnighted to our house the day before we left America. The transformer has a 110 and a 220 outlet and somehow after all our preparation and attention to the power issue we still got the power plugged into the wrong outlet. Oops!!!!! We found a place in Houston that could fix the machine so it is now recovering in a Texas sewing center. It will be staying in Houston however because the required part is on backorder......we must not be the only ones having power issues.

It has been three months since any of us have driven a car and Tim is really enjoying the freedom and Independence of driving his own car. I think there is going to be a few extra miles on the rental car this week.

Abi was sick this morning so she stayed home from school until lunch time and then went to school so she could take a math test this afternoon. I only left the house for a few minutes today and that was to walk to the corner bakery to get bread. The rest of the day I spent caring for Abi, reading and writing email, looking for another Ayi, and .......making some new quilt squares from my stash of fabric that I brought from home. The good news is that I actually took a shower and got dressed today. I only say this because on Sunday I spent the whole day in my pajamas. Speaking of Ayi's...I am really missing Delia as I am doing laundry and cooking. Our washing machine is really tiny and only holds about one pair of jeans and a pair of socks. And....it takes our dryer forrrrrrever to dry the smallest item. On the flip side it has been nice to have the house to myself....I forgot what it was like to privacy all day. Now that I think about it.....I can live without privacy if I don't have to wash dishes.....ha ha.

On occasion our apartment has a maintenance issue. Today was one of those days. Abi took a shower this morning and flooded her bathroom. There is an extra drain in the floor for this very reason...but....the water ran everywhere except to the drain???? So....after doing a little mopping and investigating the water issue I concluded there were two different problems. One...the drain was clogged and the water was not draining in the shower and Two...the water was leaking out of the shower because the silicone was old. The process to have this fixed....call the front desk, they call the management office who sends a repair person. The great news is the repair person will be at your door within minutes...."Only in Shanghai". The bad news is the repair person does not speak English and with my fluent grasp of the Chinese language we pretty much did not understand a word the other said. So.....more Charades, several calls to the front desk person (who has limited English skills) three trips to "get parts" by the repair person, the appearance of a second repair person....eventually there are different repair people for drains and silicone....I guess everyone has their specialty. After the new part was installed the drain was still backing up....and silly me thought it should work better after the new part was installed. Some days I have such unreasonable expectations. More conversations with the front desk person...did I mention that the "special" phone that calls the front desk automatically hangs up after about one minute?.....it is true so if you want to have a conversation you have to call....and then call again....and then call again....until you have finished your conversation....and our conversations as not short because the phone has to be passed from me to the repair person and back again. I finally remembered that we have an online translation program on our office computer and I was successful in communicating. The repair person was also pleased about this. So....the shower is repaired and I paid the bill which was Y75. That is just under $10. That is also an "only in Shanghai" event.