The Blithe Traveler

The Times They Are A Changing

Meet Jeff's scooter.

Photos by the lovely and talented Monica. She's so patient with me.

Notice that Jeff is nowhere in the picture. Hey! Does that thing make my butt look big?? You should see it when Jeff and I ride it together; it's clearly not designed for the western couple.Although it does say on the side, "Sharing the Joy of the Ride!" That really means, "Two appropriate small sized people can Share the Joy of the Ride!"

Anyway, Jeff bought this thing about a year ago, basically over my dead body. I mean, I really didn't think it was a good idea. He bought it to ride to the office; a ride that is a half an hour in a taxi into downtown Nanjing. I mean, really not a good idea. And, get this, he shows up having purchased it without a helmet. Ai.

So he rides it to the office once in a while, but for the most part events conspire against that sort of thing. It threatens to rain a lot around here. And these things are suicidal in the rain, particularly in downtown traffic. Not to mention that from November through February, it gets dark before Jeff comes home. Also not conducive to pushing the envelop on your longevity genes.

So, the scooter sat. And sat. And I kept looking at it. I mean, I'd ride around on the back with Jeff on the occasional weekend. And Jeff takes it out and about whenever the weather is nice on a Sunday. But for the most part, the thing hunkered down, taking up valuable real estate in our garage, sucking electricity out of the wall. I, of course, rode my bike just about everywhere. But I did look at that scooter occasionally and imagine that life might be a little easier if maybe I didn't have to pedal quite so much.

Turns out, that is exactly the case. Much easier. Colder, too, in this weather, but you can always add more layers of clothing. And being a little chilled is kind of nice relative to being all kinds of sweaty. So, slowly, insidiously, the scooter is becoming my primary means of transportation.

It started with a quick trip to Metro. Metro is only about a kilometer away, and most of the way is pretty flat. But, no matter how flat, it is just easier to push a button and let the electric motor do the work, don't you think? Of course! And while I can actually carry more groceries on the back of my bicycle, I have found myself more and more often taking the scooter. And buying fewer groceries.

And then one day, I decided to make the run to school, just to see if the scooter was any faster. Two mornings a week I bike the 8 kilometers or so and start the morning in Tom or Hope's classroom. The tricky thing is I need to be in at 8:30; and I drop the children off at the bus stop at 8:00am. So, I have to make the run in morning traffic lickety split. I can pretty easily make the time on my bike, but on warmer days, one can get a bit of a glow going.

Interestingly enough, I discovered that it takes me exactly the same amount of time on the scooter as it does on the bike. Which you would imagine means that I swapped back to my bike. Because, why bother, if the scooter is not a time saver?

Well, maybe I didn't swap back to my bicycle. On Tuesdays I bike to school for reading from 8:30-9:00. Then Monica picks me up for our weekly badminton game; after badminton I head back to school to work in the library until whatever task I am working on is done; then I head home. We discovered, Monica and I, that my badminton game is exponentially better on days when I don't bike to school. Hello! Great discovery! Half an hour of sweaty exertion prior to badminton has a negative impact on my game!

And, frankly, makes the ride home a bit of a punishment. So, I have taken to riding the scooter in on Tuesdays, the better to wallop that shuttlecock. I did say it was insidious, didn't I?  And, I'm discovering, I'm pretty attached to the blessed thing. I still refer to it out loud as Jeff's scooter. As do all of my friends who see me riding it ("Hey, you have Jeff's scooter today! What's Jeff doing?" Not that any of them have actually ever seen Jeff ride it, but it seems we are all conspiring to maintain the illusion). But I think deep inside, I am not so much thinking of it as Jeff's scooter any more. 

Although, of course, technically, it is. Still. Jeff's scooter. *waves* Hi, Jeff! Come home soon!

Kiss Me, I'm Irish!

No. Really. I mean it. I'm Irish now. Like, a certified Irish citizen.(1) I left on the train for Shanghai yesterday morning an American and I returned last night clutching an Irish passport. It's quite amazing really, but it turns out Ireland has something called Foreign Birth Registration by which if you have a parent or grandparent who was born in Ireland, you qualify for Irish citizenship. The trick of course is that you have to prove the relationship. Quite a business has sprung up in the Old Country of people who for a rather largish sort of fee will track down a birth or baptismal certificate to prove your lineage.

Luckily for me, my mom and dad had saved not only my grandmother's (Irish!) birth certificate, but also my grandfather's (Irish!) passport. Not only saved them, but were willing to hand them over to me to bring to China. This is quite a leap, as I am not the sort of person you should trust with important documents. As it turned out, they not only needed to send me these irreplaceable documents, but they needed to supply me with a complete record of the linkage from Grandma to me; which included their birth certificates and marriage certificate. This would be quite a lot of important stuff to be passing along to someone as blithe as myself. But they did it, and the result is that I can now pass myself off as Irish.

The gentleman at the consulate helping me with the paperwork was right amazed by this. He'd never seen a near-century old passport.

The only sad bit is that I failed to do all of this prior to my marriage. If I had, then Jeff and the wee children could have sailed in on my lineage coat-tails and also claimed to be European. Alas, while Jeff and I vaguely discussed obtaining the citizenship prior to our marriage, at the time, it felt sort of, I don't know, poseur-like. I mean, why on earth would I ever need such a thing, other than to quietly mention it in a smug sort of way at a cocktail party? 

Which, come to think of it, you might actually be wondering about right now. I mean, what in the heck would be the point of spending an entire day in Shanghai not to mention freaking your parents out for months while you hold in your less-than-trustworthy-hands their very precious and original documentation? How about because once you are a citizen of Ireland, you can live and work anywhere in the EU with out a visa? Ah, the lightbulbs all just went off, didn't they?

Yes, I can now live anywhere in the European Union. More importantly, I can now work anywhere in the EU. Funny how important that seems right about now, whereas ten years ago I couldn't have imagined such a thing. Right about now, when Jeff is off exploring Prague, Budapest, and Sofia as possible options for our next posting.

So, sometimes it's a good idea to be a poseur. You never know when you might need it. 

Well, I'm off to raise a glass of Guinness in celebration at Finnegan's Wake. That would be the newest (wait, the only) Irish pub in Our Fair City. It's run by a Scottish guy, though, so he won't mind one bit that I'm a poseur.

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(1) Hey! None of that. I heard Debbie out there whispering "Certifiable's more like it!"