I got good news from the doctor yesterday: no surgery! The bone chip is still floating around at the end of the ulna bone but as long as it's not bothering me there's no reason to reattach it. The break in the radius was all the way across the bone and while most of it's filled in with new bone, there's a split along one side that hasn't quite healed. The upshot is, use my arm, be careful, expect it to continue to hurt and go see him again if it hurts too much.

So that means I'm getting on my bike today. I have a staff development workshop all day today (and tomorrow) so I won't be able to ride until this evening but that's okay. It's been nine (!) weeks, what's another day?  I'm a little nervous about finally getting back in the saddle but I'm excited too. My plan today is to bike around the park a few times. The longer term goal is to bike to work on Tuesday. We'll see.

I went back to yoga today for the first time since my accident, which was exactly two months ago today. My teacher was great in giving me permission to go at my own pace and my classmates were very kind in welcoming me back and telling me I was missed.

I can't put any weight on my arm or wrist yet so no regular down dogs but I did okay. I was surprised how many poses were problematic because of the rib, though. Things like child's pose, where my arms are stretched out over my head, was painful. I sometimes forget that I also broke a bone there, since most of the time I don't have any trouble with it, but it's still not quite done healing. Almost...

Yippee! We got some rain today! It was pouring this morning when I got up and I can pretend that was the reason I took a taxi instead of walking, but that would be a lie. I'd already decided the night before to be lazy so the rain was just an added excuse. We got more than an inch of rain over the course of the day and it was such a relief. My guilty hope is that we get enough rain so that the apartment's swimming pool gets filled up soon.

Lee and I have faced the dilemma of finding a good fruit store close enough to walk to and today we found one that just opened. It's conveniently right on the way home from work so we stopped today and stocked up. For US$10 we got apples, kiwi, mangoes, guava and a whole pineapple. We skipped the durian...

 but I did have this nice young man cut up my pineapple...

We went out for dinner with some KAS and some Taiwanese friends to a seafood restaurant we've walked by many times. We've never eaten there before because it's a bit daunting trying to figure it out. It's the kind of place where you point to what you want, suggest a cooking style - steamed, deep fried, sauteed - and the chef cooks it up for you. That's hard to do when you speak as little Chinese as I do. Here were some of our choices:

There were little anchovy-like fish and the red meat is eel.

Lots of different fish, fresh from the local fishermen.

Whole frogs and frog legs.

We had lots of variety, including deep fried oysters, roasted oysters, pumpkin vermicelli, steamed fish, clams steamed in soy sauce, sushi, braised cabbage. It all looked great and tasted even better.

While Lee was with his basketball team for a tournament in Taipei I went with a friend to the former British Consulate for afternoon tea. I'd been there before but wanted Dawn to go before she heads back to Maine after school is over. It was a beautiful day. Hot but breezy and not too humid with a very low pollution index. I opted for iced coffee instead of tea and neither of us was very hungry but the presentation was lovely.

When you start at the bottom with the sandwiches and take your time getting to the top the sun has a way of making it a little less appetizing.

The pretty little pyramid of chocolate turned into a soupy puddle with the rose cookie sunk deep into the mess. From my previous experience I know that the cookie was no great loss. Rose flavoring should be saved for soaps, not food, because who wants to eat soap-flavored cookies?

Because the sky was so clear the view of the city from up on the hill overlooking the harbor was spectacular. I may frame this shot and hang it on my wall.

This Saturday morning I was listening to your Friday evening's "All Things Considered" broadcast from Amherst. The weather report called for lows down to 40 degrees Friday night with possible showers on Saturday and a high of 70. At 6:00 this morning in Kaohsiung it's already 78 degrees but it's not going to get any hotter than about 86. I'm jealous of your temperature range. It won't getting awfully hot but it also doesn't cool down much at night. It's that relentless sameness that still surprises me.

Unfortunately our forecast also calls for no rain in the city, once again. The good news is that there was heavy rain in the mountains yesterday so the planned water restrictions for next week have been suspended for another week. The city government had planned on shutting off tap water to all businesses and households on Tuesday and Wednesday. No one here drinks tap water so it was a matter of figuring out how to take showers and wash your dishes once your apartment building's reserve tank ran out. KAS apparently has a fairly large tank that could last as long as a week if necessary so there are no plans to close the school if the water restrictions ever happen. The government is reevaluating every Friday and deciding at that point if the following Tue/Wed shut-offs will happen. There were rolling shut-offs in Taipei earlier this spring with good results in water conservation so Kaohsiung is giving it a try.

The wet season usually starts in May. The sooner the better!

Today was parent-teacher conference day. No classes, just eight hours of sitting at a table in the exhibition hall with parents traveling around the room to find their child's teachers. Lee talked to 36 families. I think I may have set a record for lowest attendance with a mere seven. There was no line of people waiting for their turn with me.

Elementary specialists like me, art, music, language, IT, we just don't get as many parents interested in talking to us. Their main interest is the regular classroom teacher so it's not surprising I had so few, but I was disappointed that only three of my eleven sixth grade parents came. It certainly made for a pretty dull day.

What to do after eight hours of grueling work? Head to the local bar, of course.

Lychee martini and beer, chicken wings, sunset over the lake and a nice cooling breeze. Not a bad combination for some good unwinding.