3 hours of chattering teeth != jetlag

I've never been more excited to go somewhere than I was to go to China. And I have never been happier to be back in the States. It was a great trip - Beijing is a fascinating place and I'm so glad that I got to have the experience. But when my flight landed, I was so happy to be here for a variety of reasons.

1. I could see the sky. Literally - it was blue and had puffy clouds. In Beijing, you do not see clouds or blue sky. The sky was gray every day from the smog. I shot this picture from the car on the way from the airport to my house. It made me so happy.

2. I can write anything I want on this blog and I can read all kinds of wacky stuff on the internet and it's up to me to decide if that information is valid or not. The government doesn't get to determine what I read (or come after me based on what I write) (although, I think this administration would very much like to have the option. But they don't. Hah.).

3. If I wanted to, I could have 92 children. (btw...I do not want to.) I told a Chinese woman that I have 4 brothers and 1 sister and I thought her head was going to explode with the mere thought of having brothers and/or sisters, let alone that many.

and so on. I totally disagree with our current administration's position on pretty much everything, but I am really proud of what our forefathers did for us. We're incredibly lucky people to have been born here.

So, I got home and ordered a Margarita pizza and I have to tell you, it was the best thing I've ever eaten in my life. I don't think I'll ever eat Chinese food again. Seriously, I am so over it.

Fell asleep at 7:30pm and slept until 11am. Woke up and felt kinda like my brain was leaking out of my ears. I was incredibly thirsty and drank a lot of water. I was shivering for three hours before it occurred to me that maybe I was dehydrated and I remembered my doctor in LA telling me that if you are dehydrated, drinking water won't make you better. Luckily, I keep Gatorade around for just this scenario and I drank some and started to feel better. It then occurred to me that maybe this wasn't the way really bad jetlag feels (hey, I warned you that my brains were trickling out of my ears), so I took my temperature and it was 101.4.

Since I just returned from a part of the world where really icky things come from and since I was having trouble breathing and some intestinal issues, I demanded that my doctor see me right away (which in true Northwest fashion was in two hours). They took some blood and it turns out that I have a bacterial infection. She gave me 974 prescriptions (including an antibiotic) which I have begun taking.

I think that my temp is finally normal-ish cause I'm feeling much better finally. It could also be the rx's as well. This is all good because a person can only stand so much of her brain falling out of her ears before bad things start to happen. I intend to sleep in a lot this weekend and continue with my new obsession -- crossword puzzles. Hopefully, by Monday, I will have overcome the Asian bugger (bugger in the American sense rather than the British sense, of course). Since I'm starting to feel better, I'm pretty confident.

And once again, things work out for our girl. I left a day early cause we finished up a day early, which means that by the time I was incredibly miserable, I was home and not sitting on a plane thinking I was going to die. And so it goes...