Assorted news and events from the weekend

The most important thing is that Rudder and I now have our first niece! It’s his younger brother’s baby girl G, born this past Thursday. I’m not sure how I feel about that. It would be unalloyed happiness, except … I’m OK with the fact that we won’t get to see her for a while, since that’s our own fault. There are young cousins and friends’ children I have a fondness for despite never having met them in person. What worries me is whether G’s paternal grandparents will be allowed to see her anytime soon; her mother is one of those unfortunate people who likes to create unnecesary family Drama and feuds. (It’s not that I’m hard to offend, but the concept of anyone getting offended by my in-laws is sort of mind-boggling. They’re very easy people to like.) There’s some urgency to this as well; had she been born a year and a half earlier, this baby would have had four living great-grandparents on her father’s side. (Unfotunately, she’s also recently missed the chance to meet her grandmother on her mother’s side.) She still has two paternal great-grandfathers. I married into a wonderful family and so did G’s mother; I hope G will be allowed to know them well.

Other good news is that my own brother appears to be on the very brink of getting engaged. I’ve only spoken to her once, but as far as I know his almost-fiancee is *not* prone to faux drama or trying to separate him from his family. (On the other hand, trying to discourage the parents from dropping in without calling first, as he and a previous gf once did, seems eminently reasonable.) Anyway, I will just have to trust him on this. So far, the main thing I know about her is that she has an obsession with Betty Boop and that she and my brother appear to make each other deliriously happy. So long as that continues and she has the good sense not to try to keep him apart from the other people he loves (not only family but his considerable coterie of close friends) I will be very happy to have a new sister-in-law. As a way of welcoming her, once the engagement is official I will send her a note asking if she’d like to wear the pearls I inherited from my grandmother for her wedding. (I have three strands of pearls, two from my grandmother and one from Rudder. After the wedding I’ll probably just give them to her – I don’t have many tangible things from my grandparents so I need to persuade myself first.)

Last Saturday, we had an employee outing to a sort of spa place – up in the mountains with hiking trails and hot springs. The hiking wasn’t bad – still sweaty, but high eough to be a little cooler than in Taipei. The trails weren’t long but were very steep, though the “60-minute” trail took us nothing like that long. Since we were back early, I decided to use the spa, which consisted of a series of pool at varied temperatures, from 12 to 41C. For some odd reason, a couple of the pools were colored, one red and one green. It turned out my new Speeod was pretty close to what everyone else was wearing – one-piece suits, often skirted or with shorts, seem most common here. It was nice and relaxing for a little while, but a little boring since Rudder didn’t feel like going – I was ready to leave when it was lunchtime. Lunch was the typical Taiwanese buffet, though with only 5-8 disches instead of the 20+ you often see. Plenty of food, as the dishes were bigger than usual.

Then they had the karaoke, where I had my most embarassing moment of the weekend. Some of the Taiwanese people seemed happy to get up and sing, but none of the Dutch or other Westerners did. The organizer had made sure to assure me there was plenty of English-language music. I chose “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” on the theory that since it was popularlized by a woman it was likely to be in an octave I could reach…. and then the words came up in Chinese. The organizer couldn’t get the system to disgorge English words; since I know the words I decided to give it a shot anyway, only to realize the thing was being played at about half-tempo. “Theeee fiiiiiiirst tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimmmmmmmmmeee…..” I gave up after the second verse.so then of course everyone was embarassed and I was urged to try again – they wanted to make it up to me. Of course I’d rather have slunk off the stage bythen but I had to give them a chance to save face, so I picked “Sweet Baby James”. The words were still in Chinese, but at least the tempo was right, so it was slightly less of a charlie-fox. Slightly.

Anyway, I got props from a bunch of the Asians, for bravery I think, and thanks from all the Dutch for giving them an excuse not to get up, so at least my colleagues appear not to think I made a total jackass of myself.

Sunday we rowed, but even with the new! boat! as motivation I managed only one lap – it was just too, too hot and humid. Since there’s still no dock and we had to launch from a cement ramp, the boat acquired some new scratches. Also, it had been moved and my oars were missing (we think the local rowers might have taken them along to another training location by mistake). so all in all, I just need to learn to regard this as a beater boat. As long as it’s structurally sound when I get it back to the States, I’ll be OK with that. That’s actually a bit harder for Rudder, since his boat is an Empacher. (The way to think of this is that his boat is the Jaguar of the rowing world, whereas mine’s more of a Jeep Wrangler. I think my choice was more sensible.)