5 hours including lunch and quite a few Chinese conversations with "counter top" Shemp and we are done. I guess. No idea on how long til I can use it, yes I asked Shemp and he told me, just not in English. He is making a phone call however. I don't know to whom.
3 conversation included the need for me to cover the appliances, including the leaky coffee maker. Finally I caught on and got a towel from the bathroom. Shemp was happy. Then we moved the stuff out and I scattered it about the apartment. This was because the electric sander made quite a mess. Shemp never let go of his sander, he took it to lunch. A man and his tools, he probably had to sign out for it.
Well the kitchen window is wide open, not sure why and I am waiting to see when the ayis show up to clean this mess. Then maybe I can clean the kitchen to white people standards and maybe have lunch. Or dinner as this is already past lunchtime.
Yea!!! I have been waiting for you to get this fixed. There was no way I was coming all the way to Shanghai to visit with your kitchen messed up. (ha ha) Did you see that I am going to have a virtual Christmas dinner with Badger? We are going to time it so that when he has his fancy Christmas dinner in Vienna then I plan to eat at the same time in Texas.
ReplyDeleteYes, I noticed today, that is a fun idea, as long as it is not virtual food. Is Texas on CST? I thought Detroit was a 7 hour difference from when I was there, maybe I am brain dead.
ReplyDeleteNo, it will be real food that I am eating. Let me check for you about Detroit ... OH! I just remembered that I was in Detroit several years ago on a business trip! It was probably about 1987-ish. I was right in the middle of supposedly getting a new job in our specialty fuels section, but I wound up staying in the lab. We had a bit of disagreement about salary, chemist vs engineer pay nonsense. Everyone that reported to me was going to be making considerable more money than me. Okay, back to checking time zone ... it appears to be in Eastern.
ReplyDeleteYes, Texas is CST.
ReplyDeleteI think you need to get esb there to organise your shemps. Of course he will have to do a short course in Mandarin (or Cantonese) but I am sure he is up to it.
ReplyDeleteI worked on Mandarin for awhile. I think I remember how to ask where the bus station is at, something like "Nar yoh gong gong chee cher zahn(?)"
ReplyDeleteesbboston - yes, but then you have to understand what they say back to you. This also does not work in France, as I learned the hard way.
ReplyDeleteI find that I actually have very little talent for actually remembering how to say much of anything, although I am a little better with written languages, but not by much. It has just been a big puzzle learning everything for the last thirty years, eXploring language and cultures. But its actually even more fun now that I know people in far away spots. As far as getting to where I wanted to go, I was able to figure out when taxi driver was trying to take the long route back to the hotel in Brazil. But French, I (n)ever study French any more. I have a philosophy that all French words are spelled wrong. I think I just like saying 'gong gong chee cher' and secretly knowing that the two gongs aren't the same word in Chinese.
ReplyDelete