Managing Expectations

remember when you were a kid and you went back to school the first day after summer with your crisp shirt still with the fold marks in and you had to report on your vacation? you would sit there and hope your summer wasnt totally lame in comparison and wait for the teacher to call on you. you would proudly recant tales about summer camp and learning to jump off the high diving board or of a trip to the cape where you went deep sea fishing and on a whale watch or maybe you even somewhere exciting like florida to go see your gram (that is if youre jewish) and you learned to drive her around in a golf cart! well, i am that lame kid in class that did nothing on my summer vacation and to top it off i probably have an egg salad sandwich for lunch that has been warming up since 8:30 this morning in the coat closest.

it all began with flying middle seat cattle car for 16 hours back to newark from hong kong. i then got ripped off by a gypsy cab to get into the city - spent 3 days in the new york office "working" (because my living heart donor of a sad excuse for a boss would not consider this trip back to see my mother sick from cancer compassionate leave) and then took a 4 hour train up to boston. at my parent's house i drove back and forth to brigham and women's every day to see my mother who unexpectedly ended up back in the hospital with a ripe infection. in between driving 2 hours each day, i would eat lots of au bon pain, take away, watch tv and sleep. yes folks. that is what i did for a full week. i am that loser with the unicorn pencil box and nobody told me unicorns werent cool anymore – this year is the year of the barbie pencil box…damn it! however, the highlights are that my mother is better and back home, i went to a football game with one of my brothers (and saw beckham play-yes, he actually played the full game) and i cooked some rockin' mexican food. i barely drank which was a nice change of pace and i caught up on sleep.

and after that stressful week thus begins my journey again. yesterday, i took a train to a subway to a train to a cab to the office for more "work" and then over night in manhattan (no more karaoke...last week did me in! "maui maui maui!") and a car to the airport for another flight back to hong kong. i dont really mind traveling and doing all this stuff. alone, it is actually fairly easy. however, DIRECTLY in front of me is a screaming child (no, i have not switched seats-who says i am not maternal?!) and i think, "god, if i had to do this with a kid, i would go insane!" and honestly, who am i fooling, i would probably end up leaving the child somewhere by the side of the road...but i digress.

for now, i am back to the mayhem of hk of work and booking b-trips (i think i am off to indonesia next!!!) and of course hk social life of juggling my time between junks and happy hours and trying to keep everyone happy...

so sorry if i missed you this trip, but i hope to see you when i am back for christmas!

xo,

e