don’t you just love it when someone makes an observation about your character that:

a) you didn’t know

b) isn’t hurtful

c) makes you think "i wonder why i am that way?"

its a great excuse to look at yourself and even discuss yourself without coming across as a complete egomaniac.

our friend scott stayed with us last night. scott is a former teacher turned friend. v. cool fellow even if he does have a capacity for winding kids up just as they should be going to bed. but on the bright side, when the aforementioned kids woke up at 5am because jasper couldn’t breathe (or someother lame excuse) he claimed to have slept right through it.

scott and i both love hiking and so we went for a bit of a ramble around pokfulam, to the reservoir, to the family path, up to the peak, up to a lookout temple, down the morning trail, then to the hospital walk. good times. talking most of the time. about red ants (like them from a distance because you can see their eyes), why some bugs have curly antennae (scott’s advice: if ever in doubt, say it is for mating purposes), why spiders walk away from their webs, family’s, books (told him i had helped edit tertia’s and really enjoyed it…he is writing two, both sound like something i would read…and he has a publisher!) kids, hopes, plans…the stuff friends who haven’t seen each other for four years can talk about. good times.

as we were walking i commented on how during spider season you don’t want to be the first jogger out in the morning, because your head looks like cotton candy by the time you finish your run. from then we started talking about where we want to live, and scott said,

"tess, you have mentioned seasons four times in the 90 minutes we have been walking. what does that mean to you?"

i thought about it…i thought about ME ME ME. he asked if i was missing the seasons, since hong kong has rainy and not rainy seasons, warm and hot. i said no not really.

so what with my emphasis on seasons? we examined options, if seasons were part of my fitness, my plans with the kids, my holidays (not really, i take holidays in summer months, same as always..oops, there i go again..)

ah HAH! if ever in doubt, look to your past (and try to blame it on someone…possibly parents?)

i burst out.."scott, i lived for 10 years in a place that had basically one season for nine months of the year! snow and darkness for eight months of the year!" 

there you go. blame yellowknife.

in hong kong you don’t know people generally for 10 years. we are lucky, many of our friends are not the transient types and have made hong kong their home and plan to stay here for a long while. but  it is always good to catch up with people from your past. to see how aging is good, they have changed…not that they were appalling before, but how aging has given them perspective, experiences and new stories.

it was a good time.