Dictionaries and Doodads

It's been almost a week since I wrote anything.
Shame on me.
But life has settled into a cozy winter normalcy that doesn't really inspire my creative genius.
Or, more truthfully... It's bloody cold outside, and I have opted to stay inside my heated flat as much as possible in order to avoid frostbite.
Well, I guess it isn't thaaaaat cold, really. But we all must remember that I have spent the entirety of my life in cities whose temperatures are generally closer to 100 than 32. Or, for those of you inclined to Celsius: closer to 38 than 0.
There is still snow on the ground, and icy patches on the roads.

On Friday, because we had the day off, my coworkers, Super Husband and I all ventured to one of the Western bookstores in the city. The english selection was a little disappointing, being heavily populated by high school reading list material, teen lit, and Aesop's fables.
What I found interesting was the organizational system of these books. The dewey decimal system was far from their minds. As was alphabetical order by author. No, they chose to order these books by publisher.
Alphabetical order, by book title, group together by publisher. It was very, very strange.
Despite this strange organizational technique, Super Husband managed to find not one, but two worthwhile dictionaries to purchase.
The first is a Spanish to Mandarin dictionary, with both the characters and the pinyin.
The second is a Spanish and English and Mandarin dictionary. That one is, however, sadly devoid of pinyin. But never fear. We've devised a system. Whenever Super Husband doesn't immediately know the characters for something in the trilingual dictionary, well, that's where the other one comes in.
I, on the other hand, will never grasp the characters. Pinyin, maybe. Spoken word. Possibly. But I have little to no faith in my ability to read (and even less in my ability to recreate) Chinese characters. There's just something there that I can't seem to recognize.
All stereotypes and politically incorrect jokes aside, I can't make heads or tails of it. Sometimes it annoys me, but mostly I have accepted it as one of the very few failings of my brain, to be cataloged away with all mathematics after ninth grade, and the hand eye coordination needed to be truly good at video games.
As a side note to any visitors who are joining us here in China -- I can't even read the menus at restaurants. I either eat the same five dishes that I can say the names of from two different restaurants, or I go to a restaurant that has a picture menu. Thankfully, many of the "nicer" restaurants have picture menus.
No wonder I'm getting tired of Chinese food.

On Saturday Super Husband and I debated over the necessity of going to a market.
I am in need of new boots, and he has heard a rumor that there is a market here that is sure to have some... action figures (?) that he wants desperately.
We ended up walking through the park and looking at the ice, and puppy prints, instead. It was a nice way to spend a Saturday afternoon... But I still need boots. And those action figures won't buy themselves.

And now it's Tuesday evening, and Super Husband is toiling away at school, diligently cramming large bits of a language I find incomprehensible into his brain. He doesn't get a day off for Christmas, and neither do I. It will be my first December 25th spent working, in any capacity. It's going to be pretty weird. It'll definitely be his first Christmas spent in a classroom.
Which reminds me: We need to buy a stupid amount of small Christmas presents to give to people.
Well, it looks like we'll be spending this weekend at the markets.
Hopefully we can pick up some boots and zodiac saints while we're buying nicknacks and doodads.