The Fabulous French

Isn't it amazing how one person can change your mind about an entire country? I have seen the light. Not all Frenchies are bad. And there is one or two Aussies and Wankers that seem okay.

Today I had the best hair experience in a long while. I have to say it is better than back home in the land of Wasp Villages AKA Grosse Pointe, which I always pronounced as Grossy Pointee in my mind. First time in Shanghai I did not leave in tears or close to crying.

This miracle of hair care took 4 hours and I tell you I almost lost my mind. That is way too long to have someone fuss over your fucked up hair. But the end results were perfect. Expensive, but perfect. And I am once again the very proud owner of blonde and beautiful tresses.

And I do not have one complaint and regarding hair salons, I am the Queen of Picky.

Le Salon, Yongiia Road 570 near Yueyang Road, Surpass Court Building 3 Telephone (21) 6074 0365

Anna did my hair and she is a dream and her and I think it is her husband?s staff is great. Whole bill for this color fix and blow dry was 2100 quai. Also had a mani and a pedi while I was sitting there for 300 quai and it was good, and very nice nail tech.

Probably should not tell everyone this but really no one reads my Blog and they were great. Just so you know I did the nasty American thing and tipped.

As promised, the pictures

This is the clay pig.

This is the clay dragon

This is what happens when you drink alcoholic beverages

Big Daddy does not ask for much. He is really low maintenance so when he asks for something I take it seriously. Once, years ago, he told me he needed 2 pair of socks. This struck me as odd so I did some follow up; what kind of socks? Regular was the reply.

During one of our forays into the rabbit warren BD espies this store with clocks. He is enchanted but they are just opening and still unpacking so I pull him away and off we go.  A few weeks ago we found ourselves wandering by this store again and BD looked wistfully inside so here we go. I checked it out and asked BD which clock he liked. He showed me one that was okay so I told him deal on this animal thing and the clock and see what happens. Now the rule is if you want a deal you start with the item you don't care about and then add in or transfer to the item you really want. I had to leave as I am notorious, if I want it I will pay any price. Cannot take me to an antiques store or estate sale.

So I am sitting down the street ordering drinks and looking over the menu at the outdoor cafe when here comes BD with both items. Oh shit. He did get a great price on both of them but WTF am I supposed to do with the cat type thing.  As always when we buy something new we must redo the entire decorating scheme and this place does not really have a scheme, it is a furnished apartment. So now I have an undersized cat thing of some sort on an unattractive and large coffee table. This was my solution, cheap purple glass and some flowers to fill in the space.  We have no idea if we will ever get paid to get anything shipped home so we are careful not to spend much money on what may become throw away items.

This however is a keeper because it makes Big Daddy happy.

Staring at the floor committee

As promised someone came to see the fucked up, broken, piece of shit floor.  She was very nice. She did not speak English. We came to a meeting of the minds when she started rubbing her hand on the floor. I showed her the problem. That is when we hit the fork in the road. She was going to call someone, I am thinking Shemp. I wanted a detailed plan prior to Shemp painting the floor again. So per my instructions she had someone who spoke English call me.

The English speaker (who uses my name as her nickname) offered to move us to a different apartment. No way Jose. Then she agreed to come up herself and look. Then she says she will help prove it is not my fault. Then I opened the wine. Then Shemp joins us, now we have the requisite 4 people for a meeting. It will be very hard to fix the floor. My solution, cut another piece of this phony shit to match the section and glue it down right this time, was met with resistance. It might not match. As nothing in this heathen country matches or is square I am not seeing the problem.  My second suggestion of telling the ayis to quit beating the shit out of everything with the cleaning tools was explained away by the statement "all the ayis went back to their home towns". Turnover, who knew. Maybe if you paid these people a decent wage you could keep help.

Solution was to redo the section, but only if Shemp could perform his miracle fix-it job and prove that this time it will be great. As we speak Shemp is gluing down the slivers and covering everything with what appears to some kind of plaster or wood filler. This will take 3 hours as Shemp and has to sit here and watch it dry. Being the bitch I informed them that Big Daddy, or Sir as he is known in China, was the arbitor of "fixed". So here I sit watching Shemp watch the floor waiting for the miracle of floor scuplture.

Okay, I gotta admit 3hours later and if you did not know it was fixed you could not find fault. He even put the faux grain in the faux wood.

Do I think it will hold up to normal wear and tear, No. Will I work around it for my short term sanity, yes.

Just Wanna have fun

It is so good I needed it twice. Not really just suck at posting pictures.

Yesterday afternoon Big Daddy had to go to the coffee shop in the hotel to use the WiFi to make a conference call. This is because the Internet in the apartment was not working, again. As he was leaving I gave him a list of complaints for the hotel manager; 1. Why do the ayis keep shorting us towels? 2. When are you going to fix the floor that is getting worse and becoming a safety hazard? 3. Why is the TV on the fritz all the time? 4. Why is the Internet so unreliable? He did his job well.

1. He asked the Head Housekeeper if the ayis could not count to 4. That is the number of towel sets we are supposed to receive. She said she would investigate and get us a towel. What amazed me is she actually tested her quality system and sent a bogey through. Instead of the one towel we were missing the ayi brought two. So yes we have verified they cannot count. We have also verified that the bogey usually gets to the customer which is why most companies quit using that method.

2. I received a phone call from the hotel manager about the floor. I was amazed. We discussed the disintegrating piece of phony wood that is losing veneer every time the ayi beats the shit out of it with the vacuum cleaner. The first time they tore it up I made them call maintenance. Shemp came up and looked it over, pulled off the cracked and loose veneer and then he went and got a can of brown paint. When he finished painting the floor he looked at me and I said no. So he shrugged his shoulders and painted it again. So someone is supposed to come up this morning and stare at the floor with me.

3. The TV cable company is owned by the same people that run the phones. They are having problems and are supposed to be fixing it as we speak. That is the reason we have no TV sometimes, they are fixing it.

4. The Internet. Now that is an interesting story. It seems most of the complaints, recently over 100, are coming from the ex-pat buildings. Apparently they sort us into groups and keep us segregated. And our 2 buildings are the complainers. Now we knew there was nothing he could do about this one but it was funny to witness the hemming and hawing. While BD was registering his complaints one of our new neighbors walked up complaining about the Internet. There are people here trying to do business and cannot connect to their customers and clients. I just want to do the crossword puzzle.

BD had to leave me in charge as he was needed in BFE today. I think he feels confident in my abilities as I handled the flower lady quite well yesterday. He has this system worked out where he calls her and she says jabba, jabba, jabba. Then later the front desk calls and says jabba, jabba. Then you go downstairs and there she is with her flower bike. Well, he called her on the holiday and she sent him a text message in Chinese. Sure enough yesterday around noon I get a call on the apartment phone with jabba, jabba. Thank God I remembered the text message and trudged down to the lobby to find the flower lady parked outside in the rain. Took care of the flower purchase and arranged the flowers. Now keep in mind we buy a lot of flowers. This takes 2 people just to get them upstairs. And I bought sunflowers as they were so cheery. And I think I ruined my Leatherman tool sawing the stems off.

Later

It stands to reason

Went out yesterday to do some chores; drop off books, get some coffee, get some new DVDs, and yep once again I was foiled by the Lords of the DVDs. I checked with Mr. Woody and he said yes, yes, yes English. Nope, nope, nope Spanish. Although listening to Sean Connery speaking Russian in Spanish did make me laugh. For a second.

They are renovating the wet market and I am supposed to shop in this alley until it is finished. I have felt going into the alleys was rather disrespectful but I am told this is common practice and get over it.

Also the old men on the sidewalks are not playing poker, it is some game that sounds more like pinochle and they won't care if I watch.

This guy gave me a new lead on possible contract work, might be worthwhile as he is in Shanghai and prolly has Internet. I however do not have a China Internet address and don't quite know how to do that.

Well, I need to go find the alley, so later.

The Lincoln Lawyer

Okay, here is the deal. I have never seen a real, legitimate, DVD in China. Never. You can only buy phony ones and they are all over. No seller has better quality than any other seller. Does not matter. So we got the Lincoln Lawyer in one of our recent buys and got around to watching it last night. It started out in Spanish but quickly went to English so we were okay with it. At the end of the movie (Spoiler) the lawyer is in the Lincoln and the two dudes start speaking in Russian. Then the motorcycle guys come up and there is a conversation with the head biker dude and the lawyer. I need to know what they said. Movie stayed in Russian until the credits when it reverted back to Spanish.

If this was not enough the wet market is completely shut down. No place to shop with reliable food that does not cost a fortune. Still don't have the whole story on this one. And there is no place else within walking distance except Tesco and they are pretty dodgy.

And then, the cherry on my cupcake, this guy is trying to get a hold of me about a job and did not realize we are having Internet wars here -- he was not prepared. Then he tried to do something on his cell phone and they shut that off. Said he has never seen it this bad.

Well all I have left for entertainment is the Dragon Boat Festival on Monday. Computer is working well so maybe I can get some new pictures up.  Later.

Momma got her computer back

Yes, I have been without a computer for days. Big Daddy had to travel without me as the IBS took a turn for the worse and my computer was not finished being repaired.

Did you know that Robin Williams made a really bad movie where he was a used car salesman. I have seen it many times. It is kinda funny.

If I go out on the balcony I cannot breathe or see anything. It is like walking in soup. That reminds me of the Campbell's soup doll I have and how horribly disappointed I was to find out she was not worth millions of dollars. The lady told me, "It was free, what do you want?" Sad.

This weekend is a three day as we are having the Dragon boat festival. Not sure if I can take that kind of excitement and mixing with the Chinese commoners and no sit down toilets.

Punkin Head, Please let me know how the Prisoner flowers are doing.