Frankly my dear...

Where to begin? I am weeks behind in my blogging, and I have so many funny things to describe: the food, the vacuum, my mangling of Mandarin….

My only explanation: I seemed to lose my sense of humor here for awhile. And no one wants to hear a woman with a house slave and a chauffeur bemoan her existence.

Nevertheless my Facebook posting recently read: “Not our best Beijing day...Swim team try-outs were a disaster, the new piano teacher was a dud, and dinner was cold bean jelly. Tomorrow is another day, Scarlett!”

Here are the not-so-humorous highlights.

I was advised that Lucas, who plays piano and guitar, needs fine-motor skill therapy. What? He has been featured as Make Magazine’s wonder-kid of soldering! And that’s a fine motor skill if I ever saw one.

Oh, wait. He doesn’t need fine-motor skill therapy. He just needs to learn how to write with the same system his new school uses.

It’s not print.

It’s not cursive.

It’s PENPAL Penmanship—sort of the Siamese Twin approach to handwriting. Everything is conjoined.

And more importantly, Lucas needs to give a damn. He told me, “I don’t understand why I have to learn how to write like everybody else. They can read my writing how it is.”

I therefore honestly replied to his teacher’s therapy suggestion, “Please do not mistake Lucas’ not giving a damn for lack of skill.”

And then another Gone With the Wind Moment:

Lucas had to unexpectedly audition for his new piano teacher before she would accept him as a student.

The Chinese woman appeared at our house without warning on a Thursday evening. This was less than one week after our piano arrived. Remember, it and all our other belongings were shipped to China in early June. Lucas, who was nursing a wounded psyche after swim try-outs, was having dinner and watching a movie wrapped in a blanket.

He did me proud! He enthusiastically appeared when called and played two songs for her with a positive attitude and bright smile.

She stood at attention beside him, tapping the rhythm with military precision Her final decree: his wrists need to work.

Taking a cue from Rhett Butler (and my son), I responded, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

Liberace he ain’t. His piano teacher, she ain’t.

But Lucas ain’t Michael Phelps either! In summary: Lucas went from being a big fish in a small pond to… plankton.

As noted above, swim team try-outs were a disaster. Like the Titanic!

I knew his school’s swim team was competitive, but really! It was evident we were in hot water from the get-go. Surfer Lucas exited the locker room in tie-dye swim trunks with his goggles perched on his head and his long hair electrified. His competition: lean Asians with shaved heads and Speedos.

Uh, oh.

As someone here in Beijing joked “It was like Jeff Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High tried out for swimteam.”

Duuuuuuuuuuude.

Witnessing our son’s complete and utter ass-kicking, Brad moaned, “I knew it was going to be bad, but not this bad.”

The humorous (if you are twisted) highlight: Lucas swimming against children his own age who have been training with Olympic coaches. He quickly lagged behind in the churning water of the swim lane, occasionally treading water, scoping out the human torpedoes in bewilderment.

My favorite image when I could bear to uncover my eyes: Lucas doing laps one-handed, holding his kickboard high above his head as he swam.

What exactly was he doing? All of the other children were swimming…Lucas, though, supposedly couldn’t understand the Chinese coach’s English instructions. This was also his excuse when he attempted to do the butterfly while floating on his back. The good news: he did not drown.

Yet he continued to flail…

I finally receive Lucas national test scores from the first grade. The boy who read Harry Potter at age 5 scored in the 30^th percentile in certain areas of the test. I’d like to say he is an idiot savant, but I am afraid he just qualified as an idiot.

And now I realize why he couldn’t understand the coach at swim try-outs; Lucas is a moron!

I breathlessly and desperately shot an email off to his teacher from last year, Mr. Knepp. He assured me, “Kimberly, Deeeep breath..... HE is no good at standardized tests and he was in the preparation stages of moving at the time of testing.”

My breath was still ragged. And then the teacher wrote, “As far as handwriting... bunch of BS. He will be fine.”

Well, Scarlett, Mr. Knepp clearly doesn’t give a damn either.

He’s in good company! And I started breathing again.

And laughing!