Sunday

April 22, 2007 Sunday

We had a tremendous rain storm in the predawn hours. Since yesterday was almost unbearably muggy, the rain really helps to bring the temperature down again. Unfortunately, the smell of drains in the bathroom has intensified.

We watched the sports channel on TV. Today it was synchronized swimming and the NBA playoff between Houston & Utah. Everyone here roots for Houston because of Yao Ming. The other popular sports channel offerings have been the world snooker tournament, synchronized diving, soccer, and golf. They do show the other NBA games if Houston isn’t playing.

Fireworks were going off like World War III. Hongfang said later that there was a wedding in the building across from her.

Between the raindrops, I took Chuck to the supermarket across the street from the campus. He likes to choose things to try and it is nice to have someone else to help carry. You may notice that I am going to the store A LOT! That’s because I am limited to what I can carry up 4 flights. Now, I am training Chuck to ask if I need anything, when he calls to say that he is coming home. (4flights)

We have been invited to dinner by Prof. Zhang and his wife. The original plan was to take a walk in the Arboretum near his apartment, but the rain has squelched that plan. Instead we met Hongfang at the East Gate (that’s the one nearest our abode) to take a taxi to his new apartment. (He also has a place on campus that he lives in during the week. It took us a big 20 minutes to get to his new place.)

This is how some real people live in China. (I think that they think that I’m a little strange asking if I can take pictures of everything. But, they happily give me tours and let me snap away.) (1 flight)

The living room area with Hongfang Chen. Behind her you can see the drying porch. We were having fruit and tea before leaving for the restaurant.

A 180 degree turn to the dining room.

Through a door across from the table to the kitchen. It is quite spacious and has a two burner cook top and a lot of drawers and cabinets.

Bathroom with washing machine. The sink is open to the hall.

Guest bedroom.

Built in closet. The picture is of Prof. Zhang’s daughters when they were little. They both live in the USA now and are in their early thirties. We saw the wedding photos of one daughter. She looked exquisite. She wore several very formal dresses and a wedding dress in the photos. They explained that everything is rented for the photos. The groom gets to dress up in fancy costumes (Louis XIV for example) also.

During the picture showing I brought out my photos of Calder & Branwen. They are very intrigued by Branwen’s looks. She is more Asian looking, but has grey-blue eyes.

The master bath.

The third bedroom is a lovely office.

The outside of their building. Mrs. Zhang is looking back at their balcony. It is on the 2^nd floor and you can see the clothes.

This is in a gated apartment community with walkways and fountains etc. Each of these communities has a guard at the gate.

We walked out of the gate and down the road apiece to the restaurant.

The fake flowers and leaping fish lit up after dark.

Here we are with Hongfang and Prof. Zhang.

The ladies went down to choose the fish. (They don’t seem to know any more about it than I do. We seemed to be picking based on which ones had fewest bones.) (2 flights)

We had the skin of a green radish (pickled), snails with green onions, beef, peanuts, wood ears (black mushrooms), dried tofu, green beans (they looked like limas, but didn’t taste quite the same), stone frogs (in the black caldron), fish soup (1 fish in each bowl), sticky rice soup with little colored balls of sticky rice and for “main food” a pancake. And of course WATERMELON. The “main food” thing is really funny. When you have had lots of different dishes and you are stuffed to the gills, they come and ask what you would like for “main food”. The choices seem to be: rice, pancake, noodles, dumplings and bread. This is why we never get rice when we are alone – we don’t understand what they are asking and just signal for the check.

We had tea and beer to drink. Zhang asked if we wanted White wine. I said that I had not seen white wine in China and it would be good to try. Hongfang then said – that white wine is their name for the white lightning liquor. I changed my order to beer.

During dinner, they told us about the time when USTC moved out of Bejing. It was decided that it would be safer to have it away from a big city, so they moved everyone to a very very small town. It was horrible. There was no place for anyone to live. Faculty families were sharing the stage of the auditorium with blankets hung up to separate their areas. Zhang said that he had just received his degree, so he just got off the train and went home instead of going to this place. This was in 1970, so it was during the “disturbances”. Since this place was impossible, the government emptied the Normal University in Hefei and moved the Science & Technology University there. I think that however bad it was, the other possibilities were worse during this time.

A fine time was had by all. We flagged down a taxi and went home. (4 flights)

11 flights today

Chuck teaches & we go to the zoo

April 21, 2007 Saturday

Today is our first day in our new home and we have a problem. No hot water! Hongfang and I had checked to see that it was working when we did our walk through, but now nothing. We took sponge baths so didn’t have to worry that the shower curtain won’t stay up. Every once in awhile, I would turn on the hot water to see if it would come on, tap the water heater, swear, you know the drill.

We had tea and a sweet roll for breakfast. Chuck went off to teach his first class. He has 10 students. I put on a load of laundry and type a bibliography for him. When the laundry was done, I managed to hang it up (the poles are near the ceiling and there is a lifting pole to get hangers there.)

We had lunch with Jian at another restaurant near the gate by the physics building. (1 flight) This is another good one for us. It has a display of the food. Now, the reality is that we don’t always recognize what the food is – but at least we have some clue. We had spicy frogs legs, shrimp wrapped in cabbage and beef with the green tops of scallions. We had enough of the beef and the frogs legs to take some home. (4 flights)

We went to the zoo in the afternoon. I had been there with the ladies, but it is a nice way of spending an afternoon, and Chuck hadn’t been there. (1 flight and lots of walking)

This sign as you start walking through the zoo gives one pause:

TO TOURSIT: BEWARE WILD ANIMAL ATTACK

The poor elephant was in a tiny cage.

There was the sweetest baby camel. We always decide if a zoo has a particularly good animal and this zoo has great camels.

Mama was a bit concerned. And no, I wasn’t using a zoom.

We walked on to the panda, which really moves around a lot. He went inside his house, and then came out again. Ate a snack. Dragged his bamboo up the hill and then sat and very systematically ate it.

On the way out we stopped by the camels again. The baby was galloping around and trying to climb on his mother’s back. (She was on the ground.)

We had leftovers for dinner. The beef mixed with the bok choy and the lotus root. For dessert we had popsicles. (4 flights)

This was a Mung Bean popsicle and surprisingly tasty.

Good News!!! We have water. By accident I turned on the cold water and heard the heater turn on. It turns out that both the bathroom and kitchen sinks are reversed. The tub is normal. Life is good, because today was very hot and muggy and it was nice to be able to take a shower and wash my hair.

A word of explanation about the water heater. It heats the water as you use it, so there is an unlimited supply. Turning on the hot water at the tap (in our case, the cold) causes the gas to turn on and heat the water running through it. We had this system in Japan, but because of their fear of fire, I had to ignite the pilot with a match whenever we wanted to use the hot water.

10 flights today

Moving day

April 20, 2007 Friday

We received an email from Calder. He has his own email address now. He got it because he is looking at a web site about the leatherback turtle migration between Costa Rica and the Galapagos Islands. You can choose a turtle to root for and they send you emails everyday about your turtle’s progress. Alec says that he clicks on the duck icon to go to his area of the computer, then on the email icon to open it, and Calder says that tomorrow he will be able to look at the turtles by himself. So he dictated a note and typed his name at the end.

Breakfast (1 flight there and 2 back) and then I went to take pictures of the apartment before we moved in. (It is much neater before our stuff is all over. 4 flights)

We have a small entrance with hooks to hang jackets and a built in shoe cupboard. To the left is the “Master bedroom”.

The previous tenants left some weird things. The blue and yellow thing is really a mattress pad. The beds here range from marble slab to really firm. This pad makes a firm bed out of a slab. This is the bedroom we sleep in because it is the only one that has enough room to get out of both sides of the bed.

To the right of the entrance is the dining room:
And through it to the kitchen:

This is the hot water heater. It is on a small balcony which also has the stove.

The stove has 2 burners – but a lovely view while cooking. I have windows on three sides. This area is just big enough for one person.

Standing with my back to the outside and looking back into the inside part of the kitchen. There is a refrigerator, washing machine, sink and even has granite countertops. Lots of cupboards to store things but we don’t have much and I can’t reach most of them anyway. The thing with the red seal on it is a 5 liter water boiler. I boil all of the water for washing vegetables and dishes. We drink and brush our teeth with bottled water.

Going straight from the entrance is the living room.
We have the two large chairs, coffee table, fake plant and desk.

This is the “media center”. The shiny gray thing on the far left is the steel door. This is a very secure apartment. There is the steel door, a security metal screen door beyond it, and a locked security door to the building.

There is a lot of detailing – notice the moldings, cove ceiling and archway for the door. The ceiling of the entrance is dropped with glass panels with grape vines on them. The door to the drying balcony is etched with leaf forms. And the living room has a paneled chair rail.

This is the drying balcony. There is also an outside rack accessible from the windows here. I will probably never use mine, because it involves balancing a long pole with wet clothes on it. Here is a picture of my neighbor’s:

On the right of the living room is the bathroom:

An outer area with a sink and shelves and then an inner area with a bathtub (with shower) and toilet. There is a tension rod for the shower curtain that doesn’t have any tension. I have propped it between a cabinet and the rack at the bottom of the tub. It keeps the water in. I mentioned to Hongfang that I would look for another tension rod and she said that I shouldn’t bother – none of them work.

Beyond the living room to the left is another bedroom.

We keep our clothes in the closets in this room. Since the bed is moved closer to the far wall, it is easier to open the closet doors in this room. There are drawers built in under the closet for underwear etc.

On the other side of the hall is the 3^rd bedroom. We are using this one for an office and suitcase storage. The bed in this room is the marble slab type.

I had been making notes of the things that we needed, so went to the store for some needed supplies and dropped them off. (4 flights)

I met Chuck and we went for lunch to the Jinke restaurant right outside the gate near the physics building. (1 flight)

We had dumplings and a soup with ham, eggs and noodles. At the Jinke restaurant there is a display of all of the possible foods. You point out what you want to the order taker. Much easier than clucking and making a fool of yourself.

After lunch, I picked up some sodas for the students who were going to help us move and put them in the refrigerator. (4 flights). Then went back to the room to pack up everything so I would be ready when they came. (1 flight)

I had visions of them carrying all of the suitcases across campus, but it was much better. They had a bike with a cart on the back. Everything fit on. There were 4 students so we had an easy move. (4 flights)

For dinner we went back to Jinke since it had been tasty and oh so easy. The order taker pointed out the duck menu on wall. It looked like Peking duck – 3 courses. What a good idea. An easy choice. Up 1 flight to the restaurant. After a bit, a young man came to our table and said, “ The Duck left, sorry”. We interpreted this to mean that there was no more duck. Down we went to make another choice and then up again (1 flight)

We had baby bok choy, warm lotus root and onions sort of pickled and pumpkin stuffed with a beef and rice mixture. Now that we have a refrigerator, we can take leftovers home – so we did.

Back to our new home (4 flights) and fell into bed. I was so tired I ached.

27 flights today.

Day 3 Hefei

April 19, 2007 Thursday

Up with the chickens again. I normally get up about 6:30 in Los Angeles, when my friend Marie calls me to exercise, but if she doesn’t call, I have no trouble sleeping till 7:30 or 8. Here, I have been waking up when it is still dark. I’ve been very careful not to take naps, not to go to bed really really early, and I still wake up!

Breakfast at the GH restaurant: (1 flight)

Yes, that really is a fried egg in the middle. Have you ever tried to eat one with chopsticks? It was even a little runny. There were also 3 dumplings, ½ sweet potato, cake with sprinkles and a red bean and rice soup. The red beans here are sort of sweet – so quiet different from red beans and rice in Louisiana. Back to the room (2 flights)

Walked Chuck to work. He planned to have a meeting with Jian to discuss the class. But first we were offered a tour of our apartment. Our apartment is on the 4^th floor in the Faculty Housing area of campus. None of these buildings have elevators. (4 flights)

All of the buildings look alike. I’m not sure if all of the apartments are the same size. Everyone here lives on campus and they have a kindergarten, elementary school and high school for the children of the faculty. Hongfang’s daughter went from Kindergarten to Doctorate without leaving. (She now lives permanently in the USA – do we think maybe she wanted to get away from home?)

This is the foyer of the building. At night there are more bikes parked.

More of the apartment tomorrow.

Chuck went back to work and I went exploring. I planned to follow the main road outside of USTC toward the center of town. The road had been torn up when we were here in Nov. Now it is worse. They are building a double decker road, so there is a huge scaffold down the middle of the street. They are pouring concrete for the pylons. They also have huge ditches along the edge that have very murky water in them. It is an obstacle course to leave the campus. The roads on 3 of the 4 sides are torn up like this.

I only got about 1 block when I came to a department store. Since I need some towels and other supplies, I went in. It looked familiar – it was the same one that the ladies had gone to when Lois bought her husband a shirt. Who knew that it was 1 block from campus? I bought a lot so didn’t venture further. I took another route home through a street market with a lot of live chickens. Do I have to worry about Avian Flu? (1 flight)

There is a gate to the outside world next to the guest house with a restaurant right across the street, so that was our dinner choice. (1 flight) It turns out that this was a true adventure. No one spoke English and the menu didn’t have pictures. What to do?? First, I tried to oink. Pigs must sound different here – no one understood. Then I tucked my hands in my armpits waved them up and down and clucked like a chicken. A HA a moment of recognition. We had all 3 waitresses at our table by this time and they all did the chicken thing, too. Then, I tried a fish face and wiggled my hands. But I was laughing too hard to suck in my cheeks for the fish face. The brightest of the girls went running off and returned with a bucket with fish. Yes! Then just to make sure that we were on the same page, she came back with a whole raw chicken! Yes, again. Back she came again with an eggplant in one hand and some green shoots in the other. We had said (really held up 3 fingers) that we wanted 3 things. But we changed to 4 and got both vegetables.

The eggplant came back as a spicy dish, the shoots were the pea tendril things from last night, the fish were delicious and the chicken was prepared by chopping the whole thing into tiny pieces, bones, and all. It was tasty, but a little disconcerting to pick up a piece and discover that it was the chicken’s head. They brought rice after they kept asking us something and we finally answered yes. Watermelon and orange pieces for dessert. This whole thing came to 65¥. Back home across the little bridge. (1 flight to room)

10 flights of stairs again today.

Day 2 Shanghai to Hefei

April 18, 2007 Wednesday

For our half day in Shanghai, we just walked around the neighborhood of the hotel. Today is lovely. Chuck really doesn’t have any luck. It rained on one of his only days to explore Shanghai and then it is beautiful when we have to leave.

We walked over to the Carrefour that we could see from our window. Carrefour is a French supermarket chain. They usually have one floor of grocery items and one floor of household, clothes, etc. As you ride up the escalator they have every kind of chip or snack food you can think of. (Same ploy as putting the candy at the check out in our stores.)

This one also had some other shops on the 1^st floor and outside of the checkout area. Chuck hasn’t been in a supermarket here, so he needed to see all of the things that were available. To see the pictures that I took in the Carrefour in Hefei go to Nov. 10 Hefei Old and New. (2 flights of stairs to cross the bridge back and forth on our walk.)

We wandered around for awhile and then back to the hotel to leave for the airport. We were there really early, of course, so we had a light lunch and read while waiting for the plane. (1 flight up to the plane) Our ticket said that there would be a snack, but since the flight takes less than an hour, the snack is really a bottle of water. Everyone kept their clothes on, so this was an uneventful flight.

Jian Wu met us with a car to take us to the Guest House of the University of Science & Technology of China. (USTC) The class that Chuck is teaching started already and Jian has been teaching from Chuck’s notes but in Chinese.

The Guest house is on the edge of the campus and has a lovely lotus pond with a little island and a bridge across.

Our room is spare but very pleasant and large enough that we aren’t tripping over our suitcases all of the time. (1 flight up) It pretty much looks like a normal hotel room, but they have very cool switch plates. I think that photos of the university buildings were laminated onto foam core, and then cut out. Each one is different.

Hongfang Chen (Chuck’s mentor here) and Xiaolian Wang (her assistant) came to welcome us. Jian explained that the guest house dining room was in another building and took us over to see it. When we were there, he realized that we wouldn’t be able to order because the menu only had Chinese writing – no pictures. Much worry until the girl in charge told him that they had a set menu each night. He checked that this would be OK with us and “preordered” 2 20¥ dinners. We would just have to write our name and room number on the bill.

Back to our room (2 flights – 1 from the restaurant building level and one to our room in the guest house.) We decided to take a walk around the campus, so that Chuck could make sure that he knew how to get to the Physics building. The guest house is on the north side of the campus and the physics building is all the way over on the south side. It was a lovely day so the stroll was nice. I showed Chuck the market area. This really is a very self contained little world. The market area has about 10 small shops selling everything from ice cream and snacks, to DVD’s. There is a little supermarket, stationery shop, and a laundry. There also is a little restaurant – but it looks iffy on the cleanliness level.

Back to our room (1 flight) and then to dinner (1 flight). Our set menu was really pretty good.

It came in what looked like a Japanese “bento box.” Going clockwise starting with with rice was a green vegetable that reminded me of pea tendrils with tiny shrimp. One half of a hard boiled egg (still in its shell), spicy pork with a vegetable that looked like little corkscrews, (they were crunchy) and beef with beans. There was a chicken bone soup and fruit for dessert. We had a hard time ordering beer, but the guys at the next table helped us. I went and pointed to their beer and then they told the waitress. They assured us that Tsingtao was good beer. We said that we knew that, we just didn’t know how to get the girl to get it for us.

Back to our room (2 flights) and a little relaxing before bed.

A total of 10 flights of stairs for the day. The bridge may have really been 2 flights each way but I’m only counting it as one.

Day 1 Shanghai

April 17, 2003 Tuesday

Today are just going to rest and wander around Shanghai. We move on to Hefei tomorrow afternoon.

Chuck was very interested when I ordered a custom made cashmere sweater the last time that we were in Shanghai. He had decided that he wanted a striped one in UCLA colors. (He had seen a red and black one at the shop, so knew that it was possible.) We decided that this would be our first stop.

Since we were awake before the birds, we had to fritter away some time at the hotel. This was the view from our window. I am always struck by the juxtaposition of big new expensive buildings right next to hovels.

The hovel on the left definitely has people living in at least 2 sections.

The breakfast here is much better than the last time we visited. Now, they have a real buffet and a guy making eggs. Unfortunately, they removed the coffee machine and now seemed to be putting out instant already in a pot. Really vile stuff. We switched to tea.

Our first big adventure was using the metro. We walked several blocks (in the pouring rain) to the stop. Bought our ticket without a problem and then looked at the map to see which direction we want to take. One of the many many helpers in the station came right over to help us. We showed him where we wanted to go and he showed us which side of the platform we wanted to stand on. It was the wrong side – but I’ve been helped before – I always check the information.

At the sweater shop Chuck was measured in all directions. The lady and I had much discussion about the sweater. Since I don’t speak any Chinese and she didn’t speak any English, this was quite a feat. We determined the neckline (v-neck), the color (from the sample chart) and the pattern (from the red & black one – a 5 x 2 rib – I counted the stitches.) Then we had to show that we would not be in Shanghai again until June 6. With the help of the calendar, I showed us flying away the next day and then flying back on the 6^th. We paid our deposit, received a receipt and waved goodbye.

Our next stop was the Yu Yuan Garden. (Yuan might mean garden. I’m not sure.) Chuck wanted to go to the famous dumpling restaurant for lunch and I wanted to price the flower teas at the tea house. We flagged down a taxi (it was still raining) and showed him on our map where we wanted to go.

When we arrived, a bunch of people raced up to the cab, all shouting at once. I thought that they were fighting for the taxi, but really they all wanted to guide us through the area and sell us stuff. We pushed by and escaped into the large (and more expensive) store right at the edge of the complex. They even had a bathroom that we could use.

We went to the teahouse and did the tea ceremony. (When I had been there before, I didn’t do the ceremony, just tea and nibbles.) We tasted several kinds of tea served in different ways. Two flower teas in large cups, and a jasmine tea in tiny cups.

For those who want to place an order for the flower tea: at the teahouse, the box with 8 different types in individual compartments is 100 ¥. A box of 8 all the same is 80¥. I might be able to get it cheaper at one of the little stores in the area.

When we were all tea’ed out, we went to the dumpling restaurant. We had been there before with our friend Douglas Wang, so we sort of knew the ropes. We ended up in area on the top floor where they have a menu in English. We chose the tasting menu for 50¥ each. It had soup, shumai, sticky rice (in the cutest little one bite bundle), 2 bao type (one with vegetables and one with a green paste), 2 baked (curry & bean paste), 6 of the crab dumplings that the restaurant is famous for and then the ubiquitous watermelon for dessert.

Next, we went to the Flower, Bird, Insect & Fish Market. This was covered and quite loud and smelly. There were about a zillion little birds in cages, tons of fish, some kittens & puppies, many kinds of turtles and lots of crickets.

Since it was still raining, we decided to catch a taxi and go back to the hotel for a nap before dinner.

We met Douglas, his father and his step-son at a restaurant near their apartment. Douglas had called our hotel and told them what to write on a card for us, so that we could show it to the taxi driver. This restaurant is on the top floor of a large department store, much like the Japanese stores. Douglas met us at the door of the store and took us upstairs. Mr. Wang and Oliver were already at the table. They had moved to a better table because Mr. Wang said that the first one had been surrounded with large groups that were smoking and very loud.

We had Cabbage with sea blubber, sweet & sour pork ribs, bean curd, pumpkin, spicy beef with mung bean sprouts, bamboo shoots and lotus root noodles, bok choy mushrooms lettuce corn and dumplings, and stir fried rice. Oliver is 6 and during the meal sang the English songs that he knew – If you’re happy and you know it, clap you hands, and Doe, a deer, both with hand movements, both many many times.

We went back to their apartment after dinner. We had a package for them and they had kept a bag of stuff for me. We also had to see (and experience) Mr. Wang’s new massage chair. It had been a present from Douglas. It does everything but undress you.

Thanks to Douglas, I now have a Chinese sim card for my phone. It is a prepaid one, so I gave him some money to put more minutes on it. When we go back through Shanghai, I will return it.

Fading fast, we flagged a taxi (in the rain) and went back to the hotel.

The plane trip from hell

April 15, 2007

Hell is not a fiery inferno. Hell is not demons and imps with pitchforks and scourges. Hell is being locked for 14 hours, thousands of feet in the air with CRAZY PEOPLE!!

I had asked for 2 aisle seats. No problem said the guy checking us in. Unfortunately, Chuck had an aisle seat and I had a window – but not next to each other. The man sitting next to me was very pleasant at the start of the flight. I said that if he wanted to curl up and sleep, we should change because I would need to get up every once in awhile. “No problem, I never sleep on planes. I wish I could.”

It turned out that he had smuggled a bottle of bourbon on the plane. I don’t know how. He also had 3 beers from the stewardess. So, the man was pretty drunk. The man in front of him kept putting his seat back. My seat partner started off by pushing it slowly back into the upright position. Then he started getting annoyed and started smacking the back of the seat every time the guy started moving it. The woman in front of me moved her seat back every time the man tried. So, my seat partner gave hers a few whacks, too.

Finally, he fell asleep (passed out?) The guy in front stopped moving his seat and when the woman tried to move hers my knee was in the way, so she stopped trying also. I decided that I wasn’t going to wake him unless it was an absolute emergency.

After a few hours, just when I thought that all was well and it really couldn’t get any weirder, the plane started getting a little warm – so my guy roused just enough to take his shirt off. Luckily, he stopped there.

The rest of the trip was uneventful. We didn’t even have to wait at the taxi stand. The Hotel is a little off the beaten path, so we did have to point out a turn and make go on go on motions, but we arrived checked in and fell into bed.

Branwen's Birthday

April 14, 2007

Branwen is going to be 1. Today was her first birthday party. She had a new party dress and spiffy white sandals.

She is choosing to walk almost all the time now. She had gone through what I called her meercat phase. She would stand up in the middle of the room, look around and then go back down and crawl where she wanted to go. Now she walks. It’s a good thing – crawling in a party dress is very hard.

The theme of her party was “Under the sea.” There were two colors of blue balloons with long blue streamers, blue table cloths, little fish hung around and of course the cake.

Jef had baked a delicious 4 layer chocolate mint cake with blue frosting and then Alec decorated it. (Who knew that all those years of painting tiny figures and building models would be put to this use?) The island in the center formed the one; there was a shark with jagged teeth coming out of the side (his fin came out of the top), a whale’s tail, the treasure chest, a scroll, and a ship. The candle was the mast of the ship.

Branwen and I had a good time looking at everything.

When it came time to blow out the candle, Calder was glad to help. Notice his sea themed shirt and next to his hand was the craft for his friends. They made aquariums.

A change of clothes was necessary before diving into the cake and inspecting the turtle.

The classic 1^st birthday face. She was very excited to have her own home made ice cream. She knows that she likes ice cream and had never had her very own portion before.She collapsed and had a little nap on Pop-Pop. This was nice for both of them, since we won’t be seeing her for a long time.