I bought a couple of coy fish to fill my need for a soul mate. I am quite happy to have fish to come home too. Much easier than a man, they require very little upkeep, don’t talk back or steal the covers. This was a major decision in my life after my 30 day experiment of trying to attract a soulmate. I got a note from Sarah, my son’s girlfriend saying maybe I an attacking them instead of attracting them. Amused, I think I will agree. No longer will I search I have the best mates now!

The beautiful solid red one I named “President Hu” (pronounced who) after my Chinese leader in Beijing. The half black and white with a touch of red is called “Oba-mao.” Yes, that is a socialist party joke in China, the name of my American leader in Washington DC, with the Chinese red ‘Mao’ attached to the end.

With in three hours Hu was not happy with Obamao and was floating on his back. Not a good sign for my Chinese leader. With much sadness I scoped his lifeless body from the lovely fishbowl with the airplane plant flopped on top. A salute to a short life well lived, and flush there he goes down the toilet. Easy come, easy go, Hu! Obamao, the socialist fish seems quite content to blow bubbles and swim in his private spa overlooking this great city. He seems happy to see me when I walk in the door. A wink from his big black eyes and I know who my soul mate really is!

We have a three day holiday, not your typical long weekend with Monday off. This holiday the Chinese all work on Saturday to have Tuesday off. So here it is Tuesday morning and I don’t have to work. A tomb sweeping holiday is exactly that, the family go to the tombs to care for them. They take gold paper, representing money, pictures of a nice home, car and computer with a bottle of wine. The papers are burned and the wine poured around the tomb. The ancestors would receive these gifts in the guise of smoke to create a nice place to live, money and a new car in their heavenly space. Now days people are cremated, so these tombs are their grandparents and even further back. It reminds me of my mother going to Restland to polish my dads tombstone. It is very sweet and gives you a feeling of caring for our dead relatives. Honestly, I like the idea of cremation, it doesn’t take up space in the ground and with our every growing population, maybe the logical answer.

Therefore do you believe in life after death? Do you think we reincarnate? Has your soul been on earth before? Do you ever think what is it you are doing on earth? For me, I wonder why people die young like my son Andy. It brings home the sadness of being alone or without this wonderful man in my life. Whether you are Christian, Buddhist or just a spiritual person, we all care about our family, whether dead or alive. Tomb sweeping is a nice traditional to carry on, taking a day off and remembering.

My philosophy is we are old souls, coming and going through the school of life, here on earth. We try different combinations of family experiences when we incarnate. We have family groupings and may be a mom one time and a son the next. We experience being poor and struggling or being wealthy and having it all. We learn about different skills like painting, or fixing a car to teaching and being a doctor. We learn compassion, caring for another or we can learn to hate, fight and kill. I think we are given choices before we incarnate and get to experience what we chose. Since we are living on a planet of matter with yin and yang or positive and negative, I believe to experience a specific positive outcome we are given a negative lesson. You might join the army and kill to understand the compassion for children left homeless and wives without husbands. You might be the homeless child and grow up without a family to experience lack and compassion in a different way. There are so many scenarios and possible learning lessons. Think about your life, what is your learning lesson? Figuratively, where are you in life? What are you ignoring, and what lesson continues to repeat itself to you countless times, to get your attention? Are you learning your lessons or avoiding them?

I walked for two hours yesterday along and on top of the great city wall of Nanjing, it was made during the Ming Dynasty. It is old and tall containing bricks with calligraphy signatures of who built it. Up high you can see the city and along the footpath below were thousands of Chinese enjoying a beautiful spring day with their families. I miss my family. I watched children building sand castles, couples kissing, old ladies singing, old men hobbling along with canes and spiting. Young couples were photographing their children in the backdrop of flowering trees, some children had colorful animated balloons. The most surprising thing, I saw an old man leaning on the wall sunning himself, with his pants unzipped exposing himself. What was this about? I noticed people would ignore him and walk on, so did I. What is his lesson?

All of these people have a reason to be here, each with their own lesson. Think about your life, what your station in life is, where you are and what you are doing. Then ask yourself, what is my lesson?

If you would like to share it, please reply, I am curious.

Traditions! It is 6 pm on March 24th in the United States, and all my children, family and all Andy’s friends are eating at Red Lobster in memory of him on his 31st birthday. I had my dinner out 13 hours ago, at 6 pm here in China at a German pub called “Golden Hans.”

The dinner tradition started when Andy was 12. It was his wish to always go to Red Lobster and order shrimp, crabs and a lobster. He would order the most expensive dish and proceed to eat it all! Ever year since then I would take him out on his birthday. Randy reminded me of the last time we shared Andy’s birthday was in Plano at the Red Lobster on Central Expressway. Grand-maw had a diabetic attack and Kyle had a hypoglycemic attack. It was hilarious, a day all of us remember and still laugh about. Andy just wanted his lobster!

I spent last evening with my colleagues Jonathan, his wife Liwei, Alice, her husband Sawyer and Peter. The six of us enjoyed a wonderful long evening chatting about antics I remembered about Andy. Peter and Jonathan ordered a tower of dark beer in memory! Skewers of meat arrived at the table, from pork, chicken, wings, tongue, beef, shrimp, sausage, and assorted other things I did not know. I laughed thinking how Andy would have a fork in one hand and a knife in the other saying “Bring it on!” and complaining the beer glasses were too small, the size of a shot glass! He has a big smile on his face.

It was a lovely evening, first time in a long time, I felt at home in a far away place. I love my family and I love my friends here and there. I am now waiting to see photos on Facebook of all the dinners in America.

Cheers to Andy, the crazy glue that holds us together!