Organic tomatoes!

I have been away for the last week. I left Sunday for the US and arrived back into Hong Kong today, Saturday morning. Today is my dad's birthday, so I called him and the kids sang him "Happy Birthday." After fiddling around on computers to get web cams working, the girls gave Granddad Doug a remote tour and complete tour of the flat via web cam. Sebastian and Jasper demonstrated their prowess with Speed Stacks.

Towards the end of our conversation the girls proudly appeared in front of me with a basket of small tomatoes! Turns out they have been growing them on the balcony. Wow, I was very impressed!

From the dock of Penny Caldwell – Another reason to love wild blueberries…

via pennysblog.cottagelife.com

I love wild blueberries because they bring back fond memories. The summer I turned 9 my family sailed through Georgian Bay on an HR 28. One day we went ashore and my sisters Penny & Carolyn helped me pick blueberries. That night while at anchor on the boat, we had blueberries for dessert. The next morning we put the blueberries in our pancakes. Now, almost 40 years later, every time I have blueberries I still think of that day.

Who knew that the cottages watching us back then, during the day and at night while the water lapped at our hull, were some of the same cottages Penny would write about years later in Cottage Life magazine. Who knows, maybe the above patch of blueberries, pictured at Penny's cottage, were carried over by a bee from where we once sailed.

Block of flats collapse in Hung Hom

Collapsed building in Hung Hom. Photo: Simon Lee. An old five-storey residential building has collapsed in Hung Hom. There are reports that at least one person has been injured and three people are trapped. The building at 45 Ma Tau Wai Road suddenly collapsed shortly after 1.30pm. Firemen are digging through the rubble to try to find anyone trapped inside. The collapse also ripped a hole on the wall of the next door building. Ma Tau Wai Road has been closed in both directions between Bailey Street and Pak Kung Street, and motorists have been advised to use alternative route. via www.rthk.org.hk

Everyone is quite stunned regarding this news that just came in about an old building that collapsed in Hong Kong (Kowloon side.) The pictures are quite extraordinary. The government will probably use this as a means to crack down on "illegal structures" attached to buildings. At this point there is no news as to the cause of the collapse except. There are reports the building was actually abandoned.

Grateful I’m Not Blind

One of the problems we have with rugby is kids randomly kicking rugby balls. Usually during a water break a kid will kick a ball way in the air and who knows where it will land. With 30 – 40 players and four to five age groups attending the Sunday morning group, it's hard to control 200+ kids. Our Saturday night group is small, and as much as possible we hand out discipline such as sit-ups or push-ups. Needless to say, we still have our share of shenanigans. Constant acting out means a young player will get a time out/sidelined. On Sunday mornings I am only an observer.

This morning I was sitting 5 – 8 meters back from the edge of the pitch. We were 30 minutes into Sebastian's practise and the players were having a water break. JJ was sitting next to me while I was trying to fix his Nintendo DS. SMACK… I was disoriented. It was one of those quick incidents where after the fact one tries to figure out what happened. I had been hit in the face with a rugby ball. As I picked up my glasses I discovered one of the lens broken in half. I was lucky the broken glass didn't enter my eye. I have a small scratch under one eye.

Several kids and adults gathered around me, mostly remarking that the situation could have been much worse. I asked if anyone knew who kicked the ball and some of the kids said "YES!" I contemplated going down the tunnel of talking to the suspect but decided against it. The coaches were discussing their next exercises so I went over to talk to them. Basically I said, as calmly as I could, that we should discourage the kids from kicking balls because eventually someone was going to get seriously hurt. I showed them the broken glasses. A visiting coach, who is a professional, immediately rallied the kids together to talk to them about the situation.

As I tried to force my world back to normal I noticed out of the corner of my eye a father with his boy. The boy was crying pretty hard… so hard that the father had to remove him from the practise and they left. One of the parents looked at me and said, "Well, you certainly told him." I momentarily thought about running after the two of them to calm the situation. I didn't and wish I had and of course now I feel horrible that some poor kid might be out there suffering. However, who am I to say how a parent should discipline their child?

The Pro coach came to talk to me, saying that the kids needed to be more disciplined. I appreciated his initiative – he was making an effort to make sure everything was okay. He offered insights that "lack of discipline on the rugby field is a lack of discipline at home." My tail was between my legs at this point because my kids are not a stellar example of discipline.

Having no glasses meant not driving at night. So the boys and I skipped church to dash off to Pacific Place where I ordered an emergency pair of glasses. The new lens will cost HK$ 880 and the new glasses cost HK$ 3800. (About US/CDN $500)

While waiting we had lunch at Dan Ryans. Our friend Charles Schmitt was released from prison this week and missing church meant not seeing him. I thought to myself, "Well when God is ready to have the two of us meet He'll put us together."

Sebastian and I talked about kicking balls. I told him I knew something like this was eventually going to happen. In fact, I have had several dreams in the last six months of being hit in the face with a rugby ball except in the dream the broken lens goes into my eye. "So you can predict the future," Sebastian said. "Not exactly," I replied, knowing that his statement was a slippery slope for me.

There we sat in Dan Ryans when suddenly Charles Schmitt appeared in front of me: his family was having lunch with friends. Remarkable.

In the end I don't feel good about the whole situation. I'm questioning if I did the right thing talking to the coaches and wish I'd talked to the kid. On the other hand, I am well aware that had the rugby ball hit me on a different angle I could be typing with several stitches in my face. Or even worse – from the hospital after having glass surgically removed from my eyeball. Thank God that's not the case.

What do you think?

Charming Jasper

Here's a gorgeous photo of Jasper snapped by Tara, a friend of ours from our building. Jasper is a regular little charmer these days. Amazing to think that in less than a month the triplets will be six years old. How far they have come!

Back & gone again

I landed from the US on Saturday morning. It is now Tuesday evening and I am back on a plane for Bangalore. I was a bit of a write-off on Saturday morning, badly needing several hours sleep. Around 1 pm Tess and Sebastian headed out to a birthday party, which was when the gorgeous picture below was snapped. Sebastian wants to grow his hair long… I didn't think that would start for a few more years.

I had to do a few things at the office so off I went with the triplets where they were treated to Haagen Daz ice cream. The kids love the office whiteboards and enjoyed flexing their creative muscles. Then it was back home where we picked up Sebastian for rugby practise. The practise was quite good and the U9s were worn out by the end of the 90 minutes.

Sunday morning the triplets had a rugby tournament. During the three games Sela scored one try and Jasper scored two tries. Jasper was upset that he "always scores the tries last" not realising he had saved the day with his last minute scoring!

Sebastian's games were in the afternoon. The Saturday practise paid off – the team played very well the next day winning our first game 6-0. The other two games resulted in one loss and one draw.

I have now arrived in Bangalore, reaching my hotel at 3:00 AM to discover I have no reservation! I was supposed to be at the Taj Residency but there has been "one of those" annoying and frustrating misunderstandings. I am now in an el cheapo hotel. There are dogs barking outside and a howling cat nearby. In the hotel hallway the fire alarm battery is running low, sending off a pinging sonar sound every minute. Fortunately I'm so tired I'm sure I'll sleep over top of it.