Dear MIL, The Shriners Want Their Hat Back

I take back what I said about those fucking red shoes. They can stay. MIL has proven that she can find something even more unsightly. On Friday night, we were invited I was forced  to go to my in-laws' house of dust and filth to celebrate FIL's birthday. His birthday is actually on January 1st but they wanted to celebrate it by the lunar calendar. This worked out better for me actually, since the 1st is the start of my vacation and it would really suck to have to spend my first day off with those 2 lamebrains.

When we got home though, there was no baby. They'd already taken her to their shack of shit down the street. I freaked. That old bitch probably dressed up Raelynn in something disgusting and Lord knows what kind of crap Raelynn would be playing with over there in their unhygienic household.

Just as I suspected, when we arrived, she'd put Raelynn in different pants, which I actually didn't mind. They were plain black. I approved. But she put a Snoopy shirt on top of a long sleeve polo I'd dressed her in. I should also mention that inside my in-laws' house, it is so fucking hot it's unbearable. How Raelynn could stand wearing all those clothes I didn't know. I tried to remove the Snoopy shirt but Raelynn got angry with me. God, she's one of them now. This isn't happening. They are totally turning her into a moron like them. I'm not having it.

I open some windows so I can actually breathe and it finally gets to a normal temperature in their hovel. We eat and I have to endure the shrill sounds of MIL singing stupid Chinese songs to Raelynn. No matter how much beer I drink, I can't block out the sound.

Raelynn eventually tires and MIL tries to sneak her off into their other bedroom to put her to sleep. "No," I tell her sternly. It's the only English word MIL knows. She looks at me all confused and I tell her again that there's no way Raelynn is sleeping at their house tonight. We will go soon and she will sleep in our home, where she belongs. She doesn't belong there with them.

Soon after, we start putting on our coats to head out into the cold. That's when my stupid in-laws bust out this busted hat:

Would you look at this raggedy-ass thing?!? It looks a bit like a Shriners hat...one that somehow got thrown into the trash, dragged through dirt and shat upon. Even if it were clean, would you put this on a little girl's head??? Me neither! The kicker is MIL bought us a hat for Raelynn last year that still fits and that I actually thought was cute. It's a pink ski cap. But this thing? It looks like a cheap piece of shit hat I'd see on any of the fat, ugly baby boys around here. It is so fug. I should also point out the tassels are all ratty too. Here's a closer look:

Yuck! I don't want this on my daughter's precious head! I begged my husband. I told him the shoes can stay. Hell, the faux mink scarf she got her can stay (I'm torn about how I feel about it - I mostly hate it but it looks kind of cool). The lame Snoopy shirt can stay. But this thing?!? Dear Lord! It needs to be burned. I'm tempted to accidentally-on-purpose throw it out the window but I fear my husband will get really angry and make us go to the hot springs with his idiot parents. I already told him I wouldn't go but I don't want him to be mad at me over this stupid hat. There has to be a way that we can both be happy and this hat can cease to exist all at once.

Dirty Laundry

This is not our laundry though it is the same style basket that we have. Picture courtesy of Google's Picasa Web Albums.


Of all the household chores, I've always enjoyed laundry best. Perhaps because it's fairly easy. You take the basket of dirty clothes. You dump said dirty clothes into the washing machine. You add laundry detergent. You push the buttons to make the machine go, and voila! A short time later, you have clean clothes. I don't think I would have done well living in a time or place where such an invention didn't exist.

I usually do laundry 3 times a week. I think I've mentioned before that we don't have a dryer. Most people here don't have one, as they cannot afford one. We can, however, we have no room in our home for one. So we must hang our clothes to dry.

On Monday, I'd come home to find MIL had brought Raelynn a new shirt. It wasn't too horrible, especially considering some of the shit she's picked out before. My problem with it was that, for one, she'd put it on top of the ample clothing Raelynn was already wearing, so she looked like some hobo baby. For another, it was stained with whatever she'd fed her for lunch and the bad medicine Raelynn had to take for her cold. And seeing as our radiators make it nice and toasty in here, I had no idea why she'd overdress her inside the house. In any event, I took the new dirty shirt and tossed it into the laundry basket.

Tuesday was Christmas and I had off for the day from school. I was busy spending time with Raelynn and Jeremy all day, making special Christmas memories, so I left the laundry for Wednesday. Except when I arrived to work on Wednesday, my Korean boss, Lesley, the one who likes to change everything, wanted us to all go out to dinner after work that night. Since Lesley is moving back to Korea, I figured going to dinner with her was important. So I left the laundry for Thursday.

I should also add that when I came home on Wednesday, not only did my in-laws leave a huge mess for me to clean up, but they also stunk up my house. I'm totally not trying to be a mega-bitch here, but seriously, it was fucking horrible. When I opened the door, I was greeted with a smell that could only be described as 1,000 farts being bottled up and left for dead, rotting away. I gagged. "What smells?!?" I cry, horrified, to my husband who kindly picked me up from the dinner. His face suggests he's also alarmed by the stench. Do you know what it was? MIL cooked that horrible luo bo thing in some sort of disgusting dish. Ugh! She also left more half-eaten pieces of luo bo around. There was one on our dining table and one on the counter behind the couch. There was also a giant half of a luo bo in our kitchen. As if that wasn't bad enough, when I came within a foot of my FIL, he smelled much like wet dog. Was it his clothes? Was it him? Probably both. They need soap. And I need more air freshener. Because I emptied that shit out after they left that night. Gah!

Anyway, now it is Thursday. We had our kindergarten graduation today and it was lovely. I even got flowers from one of my students' moms. My husband kindly picked me up and brought me home. Today, I was delighted that my home smelled like MY home, and not like it had been overrun with gaseous, eye-burning farts. But what do I see? Raelynn is wearing that shirt MIL got her. The one that was dirty on Monday. The one that was in our laundry basket. I ask Jeremy to ask his mother about this because I do not have the vocabulary to talk to her about this in Chinese. I calmly explain to him that I'd put that shirt in the laundry basket to wash this week and now it was on Raelynn again. She tells us she washed it by hand. So, you DUG through our dirty clothes to just wash THAT shirt? Is she fucking serious? Jeremy was visibly irritated by her answer. He stayed calm and seemed to tell her something to the effect of how unnecessary that was. He may have also told her I didn't approve of her digging through our dirty garments though I can't quite be sure. After she left, he actually admitted to me that his parents have no fucking sense whatsoever. Now I feel like we're on the same page about this. I do not want his troll-faced cow of a mother digging into our dirty laundry. Furthermore, the shirt she claimed to have washed was still FILTHY. It was visibly dirty. To prove my point, I threw it into the wash this evening and guess fucking what? Those spots and spills you could see a mile away are GONE! As I've said before, her definition of clean and mine are vastly different.

We got a package of clothes for Raelynn from my folks today. I went to put them into her closet and put away some clothes from the other day that were now dry and what do I find? A pair of dirty socks! She has put them back on top of the other clean socks! Why the fuck does she do this when we have TONS of socks for Raelynn?!?!? Why does she dig through our dirty clothes to pretend-wash a dirty shirt but yet puts dirty fucking socks back in a closet full of clean clothes? WHY WHY WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?!?!?!? I can't even come up with a theory, other than she's crazy. If you have any ideas as to why she's nuts, or perhaps how we can cope with this dolt, please comment away.

Mission Unpossible

If you read the title of this post and were about to come at me with the whole "unpossible is not a word" thing, just sit down and shut the fuck up. Because Ralph Wiggum of The Simpsons made unpossible possible. It's so fitting for what I'm about to describe to you. It is truly, as Ralph said, unpossible.

For over a month now, I have been preparing my students for their graduation ceremony. Over a month ago, I chose a song for my students to sing and dance to: Frank Sinatra's version of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." I've been working hard on this and so have my kids. Every day, we practice and they have come to really take it seriously. I am honestly really proud of these guys.

When I'd selected my song, I checked with my Korean boss. I told her which song, how long it was and even played it for her. I also sent it to my Western boss. I double checked with my Korean boss that I only had to do one song and dance and she said yes. See, last year, they felt my song choice wasn't long enough. So I taught them an additional song, making for a total of 2 songs. And then, they came to me and told me they wanted a graduation song too. On top of those 2 songs. Three songs for my kids to sing. Somehow, I'd managed to get them to sing all 3 (and perform no less) perfectly. But during the graduation, they cut the graduation song out of the performance at the last minute. So I basically tortured those poor children for nothing.

Last week, my Korean boss tells my Korean teacher to tell me she wants me to teach the kids a graduation song. In one week! I seriously wanted to smack her and for the first time, I was ready to kick up my heels and throw a fucking party that she's moving back to Korea after this semester. On a personal level, I like her very much. As a boss, she totally sucks because she's always doing shit like this. She can speak English well enough to tell me this but she sends my Korean teacher to tell me. It's such bullshit. The song I was forced to teach last year's students was really, quite excessively long and very hard so it was probably for the best that Christina and I couldn't find it on the server. I found a much shorter, easier song which was thankfully the children picked up fast.

I was all proud of everything too. I'd taught them a good song and dance and now, I'd taught them a great graduation song to go out on. It was Christmas Eve day and despite having a long rehearsal for the performance this Thursday, we were having a good day filled with cake and a visit from Santa (one of the other teachers who was happy to dress up for us). Then, while I'm eating cake with my kids and Christina, the other teacher (who will also be taking my Korean boss' place when she leaves which will be super) pops in and tells me this lovely gem:
He says that our principal thinks that because the first grade children are also doing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" (never mind that it is a completely different version than mine) that we should combine them, essentially 1 day before the big performance. Is she fucking nuts? Seriously, I have no words for this that don't begin with "fuck." He went on to say that he told her it was impossible at this stage (or unpossible because of how fucked up this whole thing truly is) and that I shouldn't worry about it. I know they can't make me do that. For starters, my 2 Western bosses will totally shoot that shit down. I'm just venting because I'm super-pissed that they keep pulling this shit on me. I don't mind most requests, I really don't. But why don't you fucking come here and teach these small children IN ENGLISH how to sing a song and then, give them commands IN ENGLISH regarding dance moves. Then, when you're all done with that joy and you've been whipping them into shape for weeks with oodles of practice and hard work, change the whole fucking thing only 1 day before they go on stage. And better yet, go fuck up another class's hard work that they did to prepare for their performance. I'm sure the parents of both classes won't hate you forfuckingever. GOD!

Anyway, we have off for Christmas tomorrow and now that I've ranted via keyboard, I feel lots better. I'll bake my goodies and make a first class Christmas dinner and enjoy my day off. Then, just a few more days to endure before the school year ends. And then I have 2 months of paid vacation. Which I guess was worth signing a new contract for. Though my first official day of vacation happens to be FIL's birthday which means I am stuck going to their smelly house of dirt and boredom with no escape in sight. Oh yeah. Fa la la la la la la la la everyone.

Bad Medicine

Sorry to disappoint, but the in-laws began to slack on their countdown to Christmas. Then again, we've been too sick to notice. Again, my germy students thwarted my attempts at staying healthy and spread some of their sickly goodness on over to me. Joy! The school nurse informed me that I had a fever on Thursday and recommended I go home and rest. I would have been fine just sleeping in the nurse's office except they chose this week to replace all the heaters in the school and her quarters were freezing. I wound up putting my head down on my laptop until my Korean teacher tapped me on the shoulder and told me to go home and get some real rest.

When I got home, MIL watched Raelynn for me while I rested. And then when I awoke, she said she'd make wontons, which she makes rather well. Only this time, she served them to me floating in some very unsavory seaweed, and I'm a gal who likes her seaweed. I didn't have much of an appetite to begin with either. After all, it was 4:55pm that she was forcing me to eat dinner. For once, I didn't want to be a complete bitch because it was nice of her to help me out when I felt so ill, but I couldn't suppress my laughter about how early it was. I even reminded her that I wasn't an old person in Chinese but she just laughed, thinking I was joking. I told her I wanted to wait for my husband to come home but she poo-pooed that and forced me to eat then.

That night, Raelynn fell asleep in less than 5 minutes. I thought it was too good to be true. Until she woke up an hour later and was acting a bit odd. I should have known it then but hindsight is always 20/20, isn't it? Anyway, she kept me up most of the night between wanting breast milk even more than usual and then, getting out of bed to pull things off the dresser and hit her dad with (which, I must admit, was hilarious). Neither Jeremy nor I slept very well that night.

I managed to make it back to school on Friday, but barely. My fever left me alone all day but made a return visit in the afternoon. Just in time for when I arrived home. My in-laws were planning to have dinner with us anyway to celebrate the winter solstice. Chinese people love to celebrate these kind of things and I have to admit, I think that's really cool. They make jiaozi (that's the Chinese word for "dumplings") for the occasion. I was excited about getting a chance to nap until I found out poor Raelynn had a fever, and suddenly her nutty nighttime behavior made perfect sense. My in-laws and my husband assured me that I should just get my rest and they would give her some medicine.

About that:
One thing that I find absurdly idiotic about China is how they administer medicine to infants and small children. In the states, we have those droppers and nicely-flavored liquids that go down with little fuss or objection from the wee one receiving it. I have a few of those for fever only, thanks to my parents and also Phillip and Kimmy. So when Raelynn has just a fever, or is teething, I can drop in some fruity deliciousness and she doesn't scream and run away from me like someone in a Friday the 13th movie.

The medicine for babies and infants here all smells horribly. No matter what you get or where you get it from, starts as a powder that you must mix with a little hot water to dissolve it. Then, you're supposed to take this concoction by way of spoon and pour it into your child's mouth. If I could describe the smell to you, I'd say it was like burnt dried leaves, that horrid star anise thing, rotten tea and death rolled into one. My in-laws have better success feeding it to Raelynn for several reasons:
1) Many things MIL makes are smelly, perhaps even smellier than any medicine we've had to give Raelynn.
2) MIL never lets Raelynn feed herself even though she can totally do it. Jeremy just bitched at her about that the other day, but she shot him down on that. I would have hollered some but I was too sick to make a sound. Way to drop the ball though, Honey. She has until Raelynn's 2nd birthday to knock that shit off before I knock her off. In any event, perhaps this is why Raelynn doesn't run for the hills when MIL shoves a spoonful of shitty medicine in her face.
3) My husband loses his temper at me for not restraining her properly (because if I don't hold her hands out of the way, she whacks the spoon and goodbye medicine!) and begins his bellowing which, if you know me, I'm not having it. So she associates her daddy's bad temper with the bad medicine.

Now I'm feeling better and it seems Raelynn is improving too, though I have to tell you all, I'm beat. At points during the weekend, she wouldn't go to sleep unless I was holding her so I became a makeshift pillow. Any attempt to lay her down onto the bed was shot down with an instant screech of disapproval from her. My neck and back ache, but I'd do it all again just to have her feel all better.

In fact, my husband said he'd ordered me a crock pot and some measuring cups for Christmas. None of those things have arrived yet (but all the toys we ordered for Raelynn have, thankfully) and it's okay with me, as long as Raelynn is healthy again. It's all this mommy wants for Christmas. Here's hoping Santa will make that happen.

And so we can all feel better, here is a picture of Raelynn licking her face after she had her first taste of chocolate pudding. Awwww!

Make Room At The Louvre!

FIL's abstract art project that I wrote about yesterday is finished! Already! 11 days until Christmas and I honestly thought his little collage-thing would take him longer. Then again, that's pretty silly of me since this is a man who uses package tape to secure things to walls (see exhibits A and B).

I must tell you that it's absolutely breathtaking. Yes, that's right. As soon as I saw it, it literally took my breath away!

After my husband and I arrived home today, and after the head troll went off to resume her post under whatever bridge it is she crawled out from under, I was washing my hands in the bathroom before picking up Raelynn. My husband came in to wash his hands too. We were talking about something, which I can't even recall what we were discussing because FIL's art suddenly caught my eye.

"What the..." I say, trailing off.
"What the what?" asks my husband. And then his eyes follow mine and fixate on this with me:

Oh. GOD! Soccer?!?!?!? WHYYYYYYYYY?!?!? Urgh!!!!

My husband looooooooooooooooooooooves soccer. He will set an alarm for 3am on a work night just to catch some dumb game that's happening in Latin America. He played soccer in college and he found some guys his age around here that play soccer for fun on weekends. I am so happy that he loves soccer. But I don't. And to me, this is okay because I know there are plenty of things I like that he can't wrap his head around either, such as my adoration for word games like Words With Friends or my fascination with handbags.

But even Jeremy burst into hysterical laughter with me as we gawked at this eyesore. It's hard to tell from the photo, but this is a collage of soccer moments from a magazine page. He didn't make the collage himself. He did, however, rip a page out of some soccer magazine which he (and MIL) couldn't have been bothered with picking up off our fucking living room floor today. He only taped the edges to the wall, this time using a clear package tape. Oooh! How fancy! It is now completely obvious, to me at least, that FIL has no idea that water destroys paper.

That's not what mystifies me in all this. I live here too. This is MY house. Why are these morons messing up the things Jeremy and I have set up to our liking? Why in the world would FIL even think I would want a piece of paper with soccer players on it in my bathroom?!? It makes me think of when my brother lived in Moscow and he told me how the bathroom in his apartment had been decorated with stickers from the previous tenant in an order like this: car, lady, truck, lady, truck, lady, lady, car, lady, etc.

Now I'm almost afraid to ask what's next. I'll have to go digging through Pinterest to see if there's some sort of craft that can cover this disaster up in a practical (and pretty!) way.

More In-Law Abstract Art

Just yesterday, I was marveling at the bounty of gifts bestowed upon us by my in-laws. Ironically, at the end of that post, I wondered what other surprises we would find in the remaining days before Christmas. Well, I didn't have to wait long! Now FIL seems to fancy himself an abstract artist as well. I guess he wasn't done just taping our towel rack to a piece of wood and then taping it to the wall where it had fallen off. Silly me! I should have KNOWN it was a masterpiece in progress.

Shall we venture into the bathroom for a look? Come along now!

Hey Jenn, what is it we're looking at, you ask? Why, it's a picture from a magazine! It says "Marina City" which is one of the nice malls here, but my flash makes it hard to read. I have absolutely no earthly idea why he did this. It is just paper from a magazine. It is not laminated. It is not fitted onto something sturdier. IT IS JUST PAPER. You should also be aware that, being in Asia, this is a typical Asian-style bathroom. There is no shower stall. You just shower in the middle of the bathroom. Everything gets wet, though when you're cleaning, it is pretty handy. That being said, how he thought this would be a nice touch is beyond me, especially when it would get wet during the next shower.

Perhaps, since their views on hygiene are vastly different than mine, they didn't think about this being a problem. Or perhaps, this is a work in progress. I say this because I also found these sitting on top of the washer:

These 3 pictures were also cut out of a magazine. One has 4 ships; another has some sort of Chinese-style building. My favorite (and yours too) is the thing that looks like the I'm Just a Bill from Schoolhouse Rock after splicing it with a penis. I am not quite sure what he is planning to do with these pictures...a cheap collage of sorts? Your guess is as good as mine.

So you tell me...what do you think FIL was doing with these things? And do you think he'll finish what he started? Let me know in the comments or on Facebook. I'd love to hear what you all think. I'll keep a keen eye out tomorrow to see if we have any more interesting artwork sprout up. Stay tuned!

Christmas Comes Early In The Qu House!

Our tiny little tree, which is actually on top of a table to prevent Raelynn from mutilating it and pillaging all the ornaments.


How I love this time of year! The freezing cold weather (despite the lack of snowfall so far this winter, and I don't count the ever-so-slight dusting of snow that consisted of about 10 flakes falling down on the tops of a few cars that line my street snowing, just so you know). Snow boots (even when there is no snow). Big, fluffy sweaters. Hot chocolate. Holidays. And presents! Who could forget the presents?

Even though they don't celebrate Christmas, my in-laws have kindly gotten into the spirit of gift-giving. And early too. And bitchy ol' me, I just complain about these two nimrods! Shame on me. Today, when I came home from work, I found the following lovely presents waiting for us...

First up, some more handiwork by my FIL. Allow me to first explain that a few days ago, our shitty towel rack came off the bathroom wall. I noticed it when I'd come home and figured MIL gnawed it off with her crackly teeth, but my husband said he was the one to blame (though I honestly think he told me that so I wouldn't scowl at her even more than usual). Well, before Jeremy even had a chance to call the one repair guy who actually does a good job fixing things (the guy who finally fixed the kitchen sink) or allow us to pick out one that didn't look like crap in the first place, FIL took the liberty of "repairing" it himself:

Why, yes! That IS package tape on there! Back in the USA, Tommy Peek is shaking his head back and forth, lamenting over the lack of use of duct tape. But here, oh yes. FIL has taped the bar to some old wood and then taped that old wood to the wall. Isn't it lovely? Here is a closer look:

You can see where the screws were originally drilled into the wall before this hideous bar fell off the wall.  

Here is the other end of the towel rack. That one part stayed in the wall just fine, but FIL wanted to make it match I guess, so he taped it too. I think he has a thing for package tape. Just check out some of his other projects here.

Next up, some gifts from the jolly old troll, MIL!

No joke, this is what my living room looked like when I got home today:

I want you to know that this is not how it looked when I left for work. Maybe she felt it just wasn't festive enough, what with the books actually being on shelves and all and garbage being in the garbage can.

Maybe she felt the chairs looked so much better assembled in this fashion. Books on the floor are the new throw rug, y'all! And dig on the plastic bag on my husband's desk (which I hate that he moved to this location but that's another story), within perfect reach for Raelynn! Wow, she remembered a toy for Raelynn too with a new plastic bag. MIL truly thinks of everything, doesn't she?

More of the mess, which just includes a better look at the table. There are used tissues on there as well as the table top for the high chair, which was dirty. Also, my coffee cup from breakfast is STILL there. Because a sip of cold coffee that has been sitting out all day long is exactly what I want when I come home from work! How did she ever know?!?

I know she went to great lengths to make this detailed of a mess for us, but it just isn't our style. It took me about 10 minutes to pick all this stuff up. I wonder how long it took for her to enact her lazy, room-wide abstract art project. Anyway, here is our living room/dining area just 10 minutes later, once I restored order:

Ah yes. MUCH better! Even Raelynn is impressed with the quickie clean up.

Don't feel too badly that I destroyed MIL's thoughtful gift of redecorating, because she is such a giver. She also gave us the gift of nearly breaking the satellite (not pictured) and tried to pass the blame to Raelynn. Someone unscrewed the cable from the box. I know Raelynn is sneaky and all, believe me, but even she couldn't have been that skilled. If she had, it makes me wonder if anyone is actually watching her, or if they just let her run amok and destroy anything in her path.

So, what's better than almost crippling our connection to quality programming?
GREEN ONIONS!

But it's not the green onions themselves that are special. It is WHERE MIL stored them for us. We shouldn't be surprised, given her history of not putting food items into the refrigerator. They weren't in the cabinets either, which, at this time of year, I wouldn't complain because it is freezing in our kitchen (it's the only room without a radiator). Much thanks to my keen-eyed husband who was kindly making dinner so I could have a break, both for the cooking and for pointing this out:

Hello, green onions, hanging out on the window box outside the kitchen! Still covered in dirt which probably doesn't matter since you're enjoying all the not-so-fresh air fumes of China. Mmmm...pollution-flavored vegetables! 

Here is another shot of the green onions, along with our poor dead plant. You can also see the craptacular courtyard below. Please take note that there is no snow there STILL.

With 13 days left before Christmas, I'm left to wonder what other surprises the in-laws have in store for us. More ugly clothes for the baby? Dear God, please just let her uproot my living room and call it a day instead!