these are some of the usual things

This past Monday, Daniel and I spent the whole day tying up loose ends, packing up the apartment we are vacating forever, and sweeping/cleaning before the original tenants return. I was looking at pictures just two days later (yesterday) of our time this past year in Israel, and already feeling nostalgia for that ugly orangish-yellow couch that was the dominant furniture in our living room. I slept on that couch with Petra on my chest for the night through the newborn days. That kind of time logged with postnatal hormone inevitably creates a nostalgic bond.

Now we're back in the land of warm sauna-like humidity and delicious dumplings. Jet lag means that the kids and the parents all go to bed around 1am and wake around noon. Except I went to bed "last night" around 3am because of a running book by Scott Jurek. Petra's fever, which developed on the flight between Israel and Hong Kong, finally seems to have broken last night... She was required by quarantine guidelines to visit a doctor before 24 hours upon arrival to make sure that we didn't carry the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome into the country. They gave her a suppository to bring down her fever. Now she's at the apartment complex swimming pool.

It's been kind of a crazy two or three days. I should go join them at the pool now. I hear Petra crying.