Birthday season

Hello! Hope this finds you all well! So today is Norman's birthday! I made him his favorite bran muffins this morning (miraculously good! I had to do them in the microwave because we have no oven!), stuck a candle in them and sang Happy Birthday! I got him this devilish Peach Amaretto Pecan Honey Butter which is amazing! And lots of second hand books by his favorite author, the R. Crumb's Heros of Jazz, Blues, and Country, and my folks got him a Mother's of Invention CD and a game called Quidler, a scrabble-like card game, that is right up our alley! I celebrated my birthday earlier in the month, got some great books that I had asked for from my family and some beautiful jewelry from Norman, we had a great dinner at one of the best restaurants in town! Tonight we are going for burgers and then having drinks with friends at our favorite CI-5 bar, the teeny tiny whole-in the-wall Japanese Whiskey bar we like!

I was fortunate enough to take off some time to go visit my parents for a week last week. I went to PA to see my grandparents, and even made a wedding of one of my oldest friends! It was really lovely to spend some quality time with my family, it was just what I needed! Next time I promise I will call people, but this time was so short I really wanted to focus on hanging with my family, which I'm very glad I did, so please don't be offended or take it personally that I didn't get in touch with anyone, I wouldn't have had time to see anyone anyways. Next time I will come back with Norman and we will do the east-coast tour, maybe having some wedding reception-type parties, hopefully making it up to NY to see everyone there too. I wasn't sure when the next time I would have this time off, so I was very happy to be able to make it back! Poor Norman stayed here and had to work. My parents gave us the most amazing, sensational wedding gift! It is a blanket made from one of our wedding pictures! Truly incredible and we love it!

The business is going great! The money is coming in, we are getting talent, the demolition is done and the space looks gorgeous stripped back to the walls! Construction begins this week! The thing holding us up the most is the unbelievable paper trail that needs to be completed! All our papers go to the government on Wed. for approval, we think we are in good shape though! One disappointment was we hired a secretary girl who we thought would be great, but she decided to study abroad instead, which is fine, but she did this important test for the tax department for us, and basically wasted our time and money...

At The Glamour Bar a few weeks ago a burlesque troupe from the states came and performed. Every night they were there it was packed, which is very encouraging! We had a front row table and had a personal crowd of about 30 people, all very enthusiastic! As Norm would say though about the girls, "They are Seattle. We are F$#%'n NEW YORK!" It was a great night out though!

Just added pics and a few movie clips to http://www.flickr.com/ameliakallman so check those out if you get a chance! Some funny Chinese pics there too! The Olympics was a big pain in the ass for the expats here, a lot of people had to leave the country, but hopefully they will loosen up a bit now.

Funny story from the other day... So you have to register with the police every time you get a new chop on your passport, so I go and, this is very exciting: they have finally got a computer! So no more filling out forms and filing them, I can go right into the computer! Except... it relies on the internet, and the internet here has just been the worse!! So they couldn't get it up to put me in! Oh dear! Finally, they restarted the computer and figured it out! The police station is funny though... from the front it looks kind of official, with a cop standing behind a desk with a crest above it, but then you step back and it is about as charming as a gas station bathroom! Ashtrays full of cigarettes, junk yard chairs recycled, and then a computer! Kind of funny! Other funny China stories... Well we bought someone a Ridiculously expensive Mont Blanc wallet the other day (The real thing!) as a bribe... seemed to work, but geez!! A wallet?! We keep saying we are going to put our pajamas on one night and go out and join the locals around the small television set on the street one night here... last time we went by it was Chinese midgets doing Opera!! Hmm... I'm sure I'll think of a bunch more as soon as I sign off!

Lots of love! xxx