I don't often report on the personal side of our life here in Beijing; mostly it's because I don't think folks much care to read about other folk's lives unless something perhaps political, socially experimental, maybe criminal--or otherwise scandalous--occurs in one's life. I am going to do exactly that now, however.
While almost nothing Ellen and I did last night at Jeremy's incredible new apartment smack dab in the middle of the CBD, over-looking the most famous avenue in all of China, fell too heavily into any of those categories, it was flat-out the best time I've had in quite a spell.
Also, almost nothing about the evening was Chinese--not meant pejoratively, just that its very unusual for us--the apartment was large and while sparklingly "modern" it had all of the design features of a Russian flat. We drank good, but inexpensive Scotch. We ate excellent salami with pate and Italian bread, a marvelous vegetable soup Italiano, a bottle or two of Australian merlot, pasta with a fresh tomato and meat sauce worth killing for, and a real salad. Jeremy prepared all of this; there was nothing take-out at this feast.
Then the three of us solved and also started not a small amount of the world's problems in "spirited" chatter until after 2 in the AM! The time is only significant because it put Ellen and I three hours past the "curfew" at our housing complex on campus at BFSU--the staff goes to sleep at 11:00 PM, locks all the doors, and then must be awakened to gain entry, making us feel like students.
I had visited with Jeremy before at his place of business, Ellen met him for the first time. One of the greatest joys of the combination of ex-pat living and blogging is getting to know someone special (with whom you can use your native language!) after you already know something about them from cyberspace.
I shan't go into much more detail other than to assure one and all that "Danwei" Jeremy is one of the coolest dudes I've met in years! How cool? He's so cool that he isn't a fan of John Kerry and we still didn't have a cross moment.
