Saturday Rambler

I visited Edinburgh ten years ago, but I don’t remember seeing so many redheads.  I saw more redheads in my first twenty-four hours here than I had seen in the previous ten years combined.  Although to be honest, I’ve lived in China for seven of those years and the variety of hair colors is pretty slim. 

When I take a vacation, I always find a few odd things to focus on so when someone asks me about Edinburgh, I can answer, “You would not believe all the redheads,” and the other person will ask, “What about the rest of the city?” and I’ll say, “Um…there were some old buildings, too.  I think you could see the ocean from one of the buildings, although I might be thinking of my trip to Thailand.”

My family returns to Shanghai today.  I put our cat, Megatron, in charge while we were gone so I’m anxious for my wife to return and confirm whether she cleaned up after herself or had any friends over.

Back stage with Barbara, who plays my love interest. She's found it remarkably easy to pretend to be in love with me. I've found it remarkably easy to kill her at the end of the play. I guess I should have written Spoiler Alert before that last part.

Do you remember Michael Winslow who played Sgt. Motor Mouth Jones in the Police Academy movies? He’s performing at my same venue, Underbelly, and his posters say: “Renowned for playing Sgt. Motor Mouth Jones in Police Academy”. Can you be “renowned” for being in Police Academy and making fart noises? I think you can only be “renowned” for negotiating a peace treaty or discovering a cure for cancer; I think assigning any renown to anything connected to the Police Academy movies is a bit of a stretch.

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Leaving a dinner with friends a few months ago, I realized that 75% of our conversation had been about health: new exercise programs; drinking more water; cleanses; allergies; injuries; etc.  We’re all in our early thirties but our accumulated aches, pains, and weight issues have become a dominant topic of conversation.  A few years ago, I think we talked about books.  A few years before that, maybe politics.  Now we discuss the newest study suggesting everything is bad for you except for the many instances when everything is good for you. 

This week, my wife made The Fonz a sandwich and he turned to his cousin and said, “I try never to eat whole grain.”  I’m not sure where this came from because I don’t know that he’s ever had any bread other than whole grain.  I hope this isn’t the beginning of him paying closer attention to his health because he’s already a fickle eater.  Plus, I don’t think I could stand living with a seven-year-old giving me advice on juice fasts and colonics.

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All pictures taken by my friend Natasha.