Grumblina

Today was my allotted day to be sulky and crabby. Grrrr.

My phone is still not working properly, even after adding the exorbitant international package we compromised with, adding it to our existing US plan until our immigration cards are finalized and I can get a local phone. I have full access to texting and internet as long as I'm in the hotel room, where I don't need my phone. Grrrrr.

I went to pay for Claire's activities at school and AmEx not accepted at TAS and my debit card didn't work. I'm forced to walk around paying for things with a pile of colorful paper (aka Taiwanese currency), sorting through it at cash registers like a half wit. Grrrr.

Go to pick Claire up at school and it's hot. Hot enough to make me flop sweat. Everywhere. And it's January. I'll be fully liquid by April. That'd be less awful if every single other person waiting in the lobby at TAS wasn't a willowy, gorgeous, smoothly cool-looking fashion plate of a human being. Except the truly foreign looking nannies. I'll hang with them, not speaking Mandarin either, but also sweating. Grrrr.

I did one load of laundry and I'm dumbfounded by these machines. It's not just the buttons in Mandarin- the hotel staff helps with that- but I've had a load drying for literally four hours and it's still damp. I always air dry with no heat at home. Trying to do that here (remember the Great Laundry Horror of earlier this month?) but to no avail. Now I have damp clothes spread out over two hotel rooms. Grrrrr.

And missing the national championship with no local watching resource available. But who really wants to watch the game alone on a Tuesday morning anyway... Grrrr.

And husband exasperated with my technological problems and having to actually work hours away in his office... Grrrr.

In the interest of better mental health I will now force myself to think of something good. Or try.

Claire had her first Mandarin lesson at school, taught me a couple words and we practiced on the hotel staff. They didn't laugh at us (at least before we left the room).

My hair looks great in all this humidity.

Thank goodness for a kindle, loaded with distraction from all the hassles of life right now.

That's all I got today. Promise to try harder tomorrow when my grumpy wallow day has passed. But one more for good measure - Grrrrrrr!