Dona nobis no bird flu

Latin scholars may kill me, if they so will.

Yeah, you might've heard of the bird flu before. I had, too, being in Asia and all. But other than being at Holli's farm and not being able to touch chickens, just in case, was all. Then, all of a sudden, we heard it's in our prefecture, and we had to get evacuated. So we spent the weekend in Kunming, making my minority doll collection complete with Wa, Dai and Tibetan dolls of various styles. Whew! At the airport, after getting the long-wished-for Wa doll, I told Mom I had all the minority dolls I wanted. Her answer? "Good!" But she was happy I got what I wanted.

But it was kind of sad. I mean, if you read someone else's blog you might read, "But of course we're glad to be well-taken-care-of" or "Well, we took the necessary steps and were content to do so," Sure there's that, but since it's probably already taken care of by other people, I have no need to do so. The long and short of it was, It was a drag!!! We had good times, of course, but these were tempered by the fact that we're stuck in the provincial capital when we want to be home. Home! Last year, this time, I loved it here, but home was somewhere else, even then. When I started this blog, home was impossibly far away and I hated it. Now I have two homes, and if ambitions carry far I may end up with three before my life is over. But Kunming is not home and will not be unless we settle in an apartment there and live our life with all of our stuff and all that. But that won't happen unless I get a job there when I grow up (and even then if I have extra money I might hop down to this prefecture if I can :))

I hope none of you are offended by the fact that I've written the worst of how I felt. Sometimes, when you're blue, thinking on the sunny side gets fakey and stupid. Sometimes, I need to say what I'm feeling, at that makes me feel better. Then, I can think of it. I guess the only time I can be Pollyanna is on Thanksgiving. We'll probably be in Kunming then, too, for an ordinary break. I overheard something about "canned pumpkin" and "the proper spices"...(and I wasn't eavesdropping. If I ever do do that I don't go and post it online...)

And that's about it. I guess there's nothing much else to tell. I guess I want to say again that the stuff you might get from other people about how it was good that we had to do this because we're safer that way or whatever is true. But they can take care of it for me. I'll tell the long and short of it.
Saro