{"id":3337,"date":"2015-06-04T08:42:20","date_gmt":"2015-06-04T01:42:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/?p=3337"},"modified":"2015-06-04T08:42:20","modified_gmt":"2015-06-04T01:42:20","slug":"some-excitement-and-some-boredom-6315","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/?p=3337","title":{"rendered":"Some excitement, and some boredom, 6\/3\/15"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are a few different things on my plate today.\u00a0 <\/span>I waited around a little for our ayi to come in, but she wasn\u2019t in by 9:00?\u00a0 <\/span>Wednesdays she usually comes in around 8:00 am.\u00a0 <\/span>Finally around 9:30, Lilly calls and says she had a fight with her husband, and her mother had to go to the police station this morning, and would come in when she finished.<\/p>\n

When we first arrived in Beijing, Lilly was not married.\u00a0 <\/span>As the year progressed, she mentioned she felt pressure to find a husband and start a family.\u00a0 <\/span>Suddenly, in November 2013, she announced she was getting married to a guy here in Beijing who was from her hometown.\u00a0 <\/span>She went home in January 2014, and married him, returning to work at the end of the Chinese New Year in February.\u00a0 <\/span>Later in the spring she began to talk about issues she was having with her husband and his family (his mother, specifically).\u00a0 <\/span>Next thing, in May, she announces she\u2019s pregnant.\u00a0 <\/span>In the fall, she continued to have issues with her mother-in-law.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Lilly left Beijing to return to her hometown and have the baby the 2nd<\/sup> week of December.\u00a0 <\/span>The baby was born Dec. 18.\u00a0 <\/span>Lilly\u2019s mom became our ayi, and has done a great job.\u00a0 <\/span>I would occasionally talk to Lilly or text her with instructions or information for her mother since she doesn\u2019t speak English.\u00a0 <\/span>In January and February, Lilly indicated she was again arguing with her husband.\u00a0 <\/span>Lilly\u2019s mom also indicated Lilly was having trouble.\u00a0 <\/span>At some point, Lilly moved out, the husband took the baby away, then Lilly moved back after a few weeks \u2013 lots of drama.\u00a0 <\/span>When Lilly moved back here a few weeks ago, she told me she wasn\u2019t living with her husband, and he didn\u2019t have a job.<\/p>\n

As I could best piece together the events from Lilly and her mom, there was a fight between Lilly and her mom, against her husband\u2019s family.\u00a0 <\/span>I think her mom was telling me it 4 against 2.\u00a0 <\/span>Lilly\u2019s mom had a finger bandaged where she said she was bitten.\u00a0 <\/span>She had scratches all along her neck and arms, and she said Lilly had the same.\u00a0 <\/span>She even pointed at a knife in our kitchen, and indicated someone swinging a big stick.\u00a0 <\/span>It must have been wild.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019m surprised Lilly\u2019s mom is even here today.\u00a0 <\/span>With some very emphatic hand motions, I got the picture that Lilly and her husband were done, and that Lilly had possession of the baby.\u00a0 <\/span>We\u2019ll see how that plays out over the next few weeks.<\/p>\n

Back to more mundane activities, I went over and made the final payment on our electricity account.\u00a0 <\/span>There should be enough in our account now to get us to the end of our stay in Beijing, and get the new tenants going for a few days.\u00a0 <\/span>This task used to take me several hours to complete.\u00a0 <\/span>Now, I was finished in 15 minutes.\u00a0 <\/span>I made a run to the wet market from some fresh green beans and peppers for our daily soup, and then did a swim session.\u00a0 <\/span>After swimming, I mixed up the soup, and cooked it.\u00a0 <\/span>Lilly\u2019s mom showed up around 3:00 pm and began working, after trying to give me some of the details of the big fight.<\/p>\n

I left around 5:00, headed to the Rosewood Hotel, where I met our Wednesday foodie group at Bistro, a highly rated French restaurant.\u00a0 <\/span>As always, it\u2019s fun to catch up with all the activities at my school, even if I\u2019m not there these days.\u00a0 <\/span>I had a really good Chicken Cordon Bleu.\u00a0 <\/span>We didn\u2019t leave until after 9:00 pm.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2741\"<\/a>

L-R: Me, Josie, Dr. Prettyman, Jordan (Josie’s son), Rhena, and Steve.<\/p><\/div>\n

Back home I caught up on Judy\u2019s day at school, and the graduation activities for the grade 5 students.\u00a0 <\/span>It sounded like it went really well.\u00a0 <\/span>A teachers\u2019 choir that Judy had been organizing sang, as well as the grade 5 students.\u00a0 <\/span>She\u2019s been enjoying working with the grade 5 students all year, and today\u2019s program was a huge success.\u00a0 <\/span>Lots of smiles and tears!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are a few different things on my plate today.\u00a0 I waited around a little for our ayi to come in, but she wasn\u2019t in by 9:00?\u00a0 Wednesdays she usually comes in around 8:00 am.\u00a0 Finally around 9:30, Lilly calls … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3337"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3337"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3338,"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3337\/revisions\/3338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gordonandjudy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}