Oh no!

Took Anjoli (my 9 year old ) to the doctor today. Turns out she has Acute (Achilles) Tendonitis. Poor babe. She's in a lot of pain. The doc told me to borrow crutches from her school, so we did. She may need them for two weeks! (I hope not). Bummer because she wants to sign up for a girl's soccer team - it starts next week. I will be a "soccer mom" of course and ask nicely if she can maybe attend practice but watch from the sidelines until she's good and ready to play. I am SO tired of her being indoors so much. It's hard - it's so hot, but more than that - there's nothing to DO here in our neighborhood. She really needs to be part of some athletic team. Fingers crossed it will work out.

So I didn't get to have my lunch with my new friend today... I've haven't met her yet (she's a friend of a friend). See- I'm an optimist (most of the time). So we are meeting for coffee Monday morning. She's a physical therapist and she sweetly offered her services (stretching/massaging) to help Anjoli. That was very kind of her.

I am getting used to Taipei (again! We lived here for 6 months last year as many of you know). The scooters really annoy me, as they did last year. The "scooterists" somehow feel they are above traffic laws. I have stopped caring about whether I am going to get hit by one while crossing the street though. My attitude is, "you want to hit me, go ahead." So they just swerve around me. I would love to see an aerial view of traffic here. Cars (especially TAXIS- cabbies are truly insane), pedestrians, scooters - they all just snake around each other. I have spent a lot of time traveling in India where you honestly see your life flash by every 30 seconds if you are traveling by car, so I guess my ticker is used to it. People (for the most part) do obey traffic lights on main drags here though. This is a very un PC thing to say, but one of our friends said he's going to print up a bumper sticker that says: "Fuck you, I'm Chinese!" I know that sounds unlike me to write, but it's SO true! Ok you should never call a Taiwanese person Chinese, but you get my drift.

Speaking of the "F" word. People here are very into wearing t-shirts with silly sayings that often make no sense. Last night at the gym I saw this very demure looking woman - she was maybe 30- with a t-shirt which had Dunkin' Donuts colors and lettering - it had a picture of a glass (maybe it's supposed to be a styrofoam cup) with liquid spilling out of it - and it said "Go fuckin' nuts."
I wanted SO badly to ask her: "Um, do you know what your shirt says?" Of course I DIDN'T, but I am 99% sure she had no idea what it said. I could be wrong! [Anjoli thinks she most likely doesn't know what it says].

One OTHER thing that bugs me is, well, the sidewalks here are very narrow, and sometimes you're forced to walk in the street. I have noticed that in general, people DO NOT scoot aside for you. I am ALWAYS the one to make way! I don't care, but I wonder why that is? Tonight I stepped aside for a woman and her two kids (well, no problem there) and I smiled at her little boy who was probably 4. He looked up at me and kept looking behind, smiling at me, as if to say, "hey thanks!"

The other WEIRD thing (it doesn't bug me) is that, whenever a cop is driving his cop car, he MUST keep his flashing lights on, and that goes for the cops on scooters too. (I saw a cop on a scooter for the first time today). I can't remember if he obeyed the traffic light or not. I'm guessing NOT. :)