a few late new years eve afternoon random notes

1. To whoever found their way here via a google search for “best part of Beijing”: The answer is very simple: Yanqing County.
2. Ma washed some clothes in a tub in the kitchen next to the stove with a huge pot full of hot water. Wise move. Then not long after she hangs the clothes on the line outside, they sprout icicles. That was in the early afternoon.
3. Sounds like all our neighbours have done a mad dash to the shops along the highway for more fireworks. Somehow it’s gotten quieter the last couple of hours. A few random bangs here and there, but nothing like the barrage around midday, even less than what I was hearing at 8 am.
4. lzh and Ma have been hard at work preparing tonight’s banquet for at least an hour now. Something- past experience, perhaps- tells me to expect a work of culinary magic.
5. Carrying two large buckets of water is easier than carrying one. Balance, you see.
6. The air is a little hazier than it was this morning. I’m guessing that if the environmental protection boys test the air quality tomorrow, they’ll find the major pollutant to be cordite, and the same would be true of the rest of the Chinese cultural world (how does one describe the entire worldwide Chinese community? Oh, just did it… twice…)
7. The inside of the fridge feels warm to me. Still, this time of year stuff is only put in there to keep it safe from the dogs and cat.
8. Seems the wind is finally dying down. The sun has left all but one tiny corner of this room. I’m eyeing up firework detonating possibilities in the courtyard before it gets too dark. That fence Ba built around the centre complicates matters slightly, although it will make hanging strings of crackers more convenient. I’m thinking of those mortars, though, which need a flat patch- and which I’m a little more nervous with thanks to one three years ago that failed to shoot up in the air and instead exploded right next to my hand. Only minor injuries, though. That time.

I’ll have said this a thousand by the end of the week, and I’ve probably already racked up a few hundred of those, but:

Happy New Year, everybody! Hope the Year of the Ox/Bull/Cow/Bovine goes well for you all.