"Show 'em you're a tiger..."

Think of a place that overwhelms you with a profound sense of your own existence and being. Yes, it's that dramatic, today. Think of a place that is monumental, breathtaking, powerful, historically rich and rare. 

Now, describe that same place in one word. 

That's it?! Great. That's the word you have chosen to represent thousands of years of history, of legendary fortification, of vast man-made military grandeur with no equal?! 

How is it that "great" has come to describe a nation's most famous symbol of unbroken will and strength AND Tony the Tiger's breakfast cereal? 

I will choose to say instead, that yesterday, I climbed the Amazing-Vibrant-National Treasure-Revelation Inducing-Wonder of the World-Eternal-Healthier Awareness of Myself-Wall of China. "And how was it?" you ask...

It was unbelievable, beautiful, boundless and astounding. To be touching and climbing a structure of such historical significance was for me to realize a moment I have always dreamed of experiencing. To be there the first time amid the fall foliage was perfection. With a Chinese historian husband, no less! Oh, the perks of marrying a nerd. 

So, friends, family, complete strangers who happen upon this blog because I label my entries to direct more google traffic my way:

I hope you experience something Great today. I really mean it.

Just a Drop in the Bucket

How to purchase utilities in Beijing. Today's lesson is Water.

Sounds vaguely familiar, right? Good. That means you've been following along, and you already know how to go about purchasing electricity for your Beijing apartment. So, let's get to it.

1) First, spend your entire Friday cleaning the entire apartment from top to bottom. I mean, really give it a good scrub. Make it shine. Let's divide this step into sub-categories, shall we?

a) Wash three loads of laundry in one day. You've been avoiding laundry altogether for a week and it's about time your neighbors got another glimpse at your skivvies hanging out to dry in the windows.

b) Wash the sinks, the bathroom mirrors, the shower, behind the toilets in that spot you can't see but know it's collecting dust and worse. Do this using a combination of what's left of your cleaning supplies mixed with the faucet water and elbow grease.

c) Wash alllll the dishes. They have been collecting dust, not because you don't use them daily, but because Beijing apartments get exceedingly dusty every minute of the day. You have realized that ignoring the dust does not make it go away on its own. Because the water never gets hot, you let the kitchen faucet run longer than you normally would like to admit in a country with a water crisis.

d) Clean, clean clean. Behind the kitchen sink. The top of the fridge. The floors. Underneath the fridge. Under the cabinet. On top of the cabinet. The light fixtures. Under the couch. Under the bed. On top of the table. The windows. The flat screen TV that's never on because you get only one English speaking channel that plays the same program every two hours. Anything you see or touch. Clean it.

2) Spend the rest of your afternoon busying yourself by making lunch, wasting time online, and watching the third Twilight series movie. It's true. Beijing has broken you and you are now watching DVDs you bought from the corner shop for a dollar. You just wanted to see what the big deal is about this Twilight business. It's a dollar!

3) Somehow, it's already 8:00 PM, and you've exerted your cooking energy for the day at lunchtime. Go out for Peking roast duck.

4) Come home from dinner and plop yourself on the couch. Glance over at that plant you purchased three weeks ago; it needs watering.

5) Turn on the tap in the kitchen. There is a faint gurgling sound, but not a drop of water. Go to the half-bath to test that sink, too. psssssssstttttttttttthhhhhh. Check the other bathroom sink, the shower, flush the toilet. On second thought, don't flush the toilet. Save that water.

6) Check your bottled water situation.

7) You can check the faucets again in an hour or so, but don't get your hopes up.

8) Distract yourself by watching Don Draper destroy his life.

9) Before you go to bed, don't forget to brush your teeth and wash your face.

10) Damnit! girgle, girgle, hissss, phhhhhtttt.

11) Repeat step #9 using bottled water. In fact, repeat step #8, too.

12) The next day, if you can't shower in the morning because you lack water, don't worry. You planned to hike the Great Wall.  And, anyhow, you're going to hide your unwashed self under a cool baseball cap embroidered with the Chinese character "tiger" that your friends gave you before you left for Beijing.

13) You return from your amazing day at the Great Wall. You're still on a high from having touched one of the Seven Wonders of the World. You forget that your water stopped flowing freely from its spouts 18 hours ago. You could really use a hot shower right about now.

What would Martha do?

Moving from one state to another (and back again), or even from the third floor of an apartment building to the first, forces you to consider the meaning of all of your personal belongings...from the "can't-live-without-its" to the the "it-was-good-while-it-lasted's."

Take for example, a three-foot, not-to-scale, metal, antique washed replica of la Tour Eiffel that was once used for the centerpiece of a fabulously planned (eh-hem) French themed bridal shower, that has since been sitting in my closet for five years. Surely I could use this piece de resistance again. How could I, in good consciousness, rid myself of such a gem? A gem that although it has been a sticking point of my marriage, had at one memorable point in time served as a great conversation piece.

Z: Upon inspection of said object, "What exactly are we going to do with this Eiffel Tower?" This thing doesn't belong in the living room. We should get rid of it...and this, and this," also pointing to various objects in the apartment.

A: "I'll use it again. Er, I like it. It's mine. Uh, I'm not getting rid of it," quickly recognizing the trend of the familiar conversation. Hides it in another, less frequently visited closet behind dozens of Christmas ornaments neatly* tucked away in plastic bins. Running out of closets and under the bed spaces in which to hide it after Z finds it for the third time in three months.

And then moving to a foreign country forces you to consider the absurdity of it all -- well maybe not all of it, but at least some of the it. So, while I am now willing, in my own time, and at my own prompting, to give away my Eiffel Tower (a grand symbolic gesture, might I add), today I begin to neatly* and patiently tuck away my, correction, our, personal belongings into plastic bin after plastic bin in preparation for their year hiatus. When we return, I probably will have forgotten about a few objects here and there; a pair of pants that no longer fit, a shirt that just doesn't quite make the cut, great aunt Claire's chipped vase that seemed oh so retro-chic prominently atop the shelf before it was hidden by that new frame from Pottery Barn (or was that last season's favorite?). I learn to rid myself of some clutter, to part with bits and pieces of bits and pieces, and I pack up the rest for its short slumber.

Just so it's clear, we do not plan to bring with us the objects, the dozens of books, the spices, the everyday trimmings that fill our shelves, closets and cupboards. We do plan to bring with us a few suitcases of clothes (of course, not to exceed 50 pounds each), our favorite deodorants and shoes, and our intangible and keen sense of what makes a home our home. It will be fun to determine exactly what that means, not only because we will be living together for the first time in our new space, but we will be living together for the first time in a foreign space. Double whammy!

To start anew is refreshing and terrifying to me. It's also not forever, so let's not get too dramatic. But part of the adventure will be in collecting new objects over which to muse, to debate their existence in our shared space together, to haggle over the "can't-live-without-its" and the "it-was-good-while-it-lasted's." Certainly, with my perseverance, I will learn how to transport a not-to-scale replica of the Great Wall by the time we leave Beijing.

*The term neatly is used relatively