May 27, 2013

Less than two weeks away from hitting the road for the summer.  Next week, our friend Bob is coming to town for 5 days, so I will get to put my tour guide skills and knowledge of Things To Do in Taipei to the test.  The whole family and Bob then head to Seoul, Korea for 4 days, where we will be visiting the DMZ and basically kicking it Gangnam style, and then to SF, Seattle and LA through August 8th.  I hope to meet up with everyone a lot, please feel free to invite us over for dinner any night of the week (seriously, look at your calendars and book us cause we are going to get really busy), but please don't expect us to bring trinkets.  For the life of us, we cannot think of anything to bring that would be universally enjoyed that we probably couldn't buy cheaper in the States.  They do have some nice tea here, but don't know anyone that does proper tea...if you do, shoot me a note and will bring along some of the famous Taiwan stuff for you.

Heard a new term used to describe me three times over the last week...Trailer Spouse.  The definition is pretty obvious, but I looked it up anyway and Wikipedia seems to nail it in this case.  Other than lack of support by the company (Costco has been great to us), things like professional sacrifices, work challenges, even down to the extra issues seen by male gender trailing spouses are identified.  I am not complaining cause as Tommy Lasorda would say, 98% of people don't care about your problems, and the other 2% are glad you have them.  I really hadn't even thought much about it until I heard the term, and it was the moniker itself that bumped me a little.  Synonyms for trail include; bedog, drag, hang and trudge.  Could not find one that sounded positive although I will say that if I am a trailer spouse, then I am definitely a Doublewide.   

Seems about the same time I was hearing this Trailing spouse thing that I was asked the question "what do you do all day?" by just about everyone I know, even the kids.  I remember an old work acquaintance of ours who stopped working to stay home with her kids getting so bent about that very question that she would end friendships over just being asked it.  While I thought (and still do) that she went over the top with her anger, I must say that I do feel a bit insulted as the question often comes out  sounding condescending or accusatory.  When I see you this summer, try inquiring a different way, but if you can't, here is the standard reply...my year has been busy getting the kids settled and thriving.  I mostly keep busy with them, take some language classes and keep the house running.  Next year is when I get to start replenishing my soul.  Am looking to start working and have applied at the school to do some temp substituting/teacher aid/support staff, and if that doesn't happen, I might just write that book that's been kicking around in my head for years.  Moving on...

Winding down the school year, the kids have been so amazingly adaptive and know that they will feel proud of themselves one day for making such a big life change so successfully.  I'm certainly proud of whatever I did to get them to this point this year.  Carolyn is in 4th grade and is not really given letter grades, but her teacher's all give great reviews of her efforts and her social calendar is always full having made a bunch of new and delightful friends. 

Paul keeps his social life pretty close to the vest, but whenever I spy him at school, he has a bunch of kids around him and is always laughing.  Fingers crossed that it continues, but he kicked some serious ass academically, getting straight A's all year, winning the 8th grade outstanding achievement award in math (not a small accomplishment in a school which is over 90% Chinese even though he is only 50%) and earning the President's Education Award for keeping a 3.7 or higher GPA  throughout his 3 years of Middle School (complete with a signed letter from Barak himself).  And he just won his baseball teams home run derby.