AQI, and Kitchen Stuff

I had been waiting for my parents to compose and post their Guest Post before updating again, but they're taking their sweet time with it.
As most of the world was made aware, Beijing's pollution spiked to crazy proportions on Saturday and Sunday, with an AQI of over 800.

This is a screen shot of the app I use to monitor the pollution, 699 isn't the highest recorded,
it's just when I stopped checking.  

Today, Thursday, it had cleared off to a pleasant, moderately healthy 75. The blue skies were a marked difference from the brown-grey fog that swathed the city over the weekend. I've mentioned before on days when the pollution gets bad I have a hard time seeing the apartments across the main road, this weekend I couldn't even see the main road. 

Super Husband, who ventured out into it to procure vitals for us, and to help a friend get to the airport, said that at first he thought his glasses were filthy, but soon realized that no, the air is filthy. 

I didn't leave the apartment at all. 

And while we had been scoffing at the idea of procuring face masks these events did bring to light the necessity to at least own some that we can use on days that it does get truly nasty. I've been researching the different ratings and brands, but have yet to find any one product that stands above the others, and I can't figure out how to get any of the good ones here in Beijing. One website I was looking at said that they can be found on a Beijing home delivery website, when I followed the link that particular service was no more. It's rather disappointing. But we will prevail. 

On a less dingy note, though, today Super Husband met me at WuMart during my lunch hour and we procured two things:  a toaster oven, and a bicycle. And yesterday I bought a rice cooker. 

Yes, mother, I am heeding your advice and we are cooking for ourselves. Two dinners in a row, in fact.  We won't be buying our vegetables at Ito Yokado anymore though, because they're hugely marked up, and the only difference I can see between them and those available from the store where we buy all of our fruit is that the ones in Ito Yokado are washed and wrapped in plastic wrap. Since I re-wash all my vegetables anyway it doesn't make sense to pay for it to be done beforehand.

Yesterday we had more new additions to my apartment. Not only did we carry a new rice cooker up the five flights of stairs, but we also brought a cage, and four sugar gliders. I'll be watching them for a friend of a friend while he's visiting family during the Chinese New Year season. I didn't think to ask for their names, so I'm calling the parents Ella and Fitzgerald, and the babies are Hugh and Laurie. 

During the day their cage is in my room, close to the heater. I had thought that they could stay there until their return to their owner, but as soon as I turned the light out to go to sleep last night they began crawling and climbing all over the cage. After four minutes of thinking "no, I could sleep through this" I moved them into the kitchen, also next to the heater. I then closed the kitchen door. I could still hear them when I woke up in the middle of the night, but I'm hugely glad that I didn't attempt to sleep through them in my room. So, this will be our routine until they're returned to their home. The kitchen isn't big enough to accommodate both their cage and me while I cook, so I'll move them back to my room in the morning as I wait for my coffee water to boil. 

We've used the new rice cooker twice now. Yesterday we boiled frozen dumplings in it, and ate those along side some steamed bok chow, mushrooms, carrots, and cabbage. Today I used the box of black beans and rice that was so thoughtfully brought to us from the America lands, and a huge bunch of broccoli, with some more mushrooms. Overall we're pretty happy with the purchase, and now that I see how lovely it is for making rice we'll probably even get one when we're back in Houston. No more burnt rice, or undercooked rice, or really anything but perfect rice for us!

I'm excited for the toaster, too. Toast, bagels, the occasional cookie, maybe even a pan of brownies. The box of Jiffy cornbread mix my mom brought all the way here will not have to be taken to someone else's house to be cooked. Oh, toaster oven, you make my kitchen complete. 

My new bicycle isn't as nice as my old one, but it's a bike all the same. It has a basket, and it means that I can reset my morning alarms to tell me to leave at 7:45 again, instead of 7:30. And, it is currently chained to the raining in the stairwell. So, knock on wood, this one'll be safe. Maybe I'll actually get around to taking pictures of this one... Maybe. 

The guard (who everyone calls Yeye, or Grandpa) was very surprised when I came through the gate with a different bike, and I had to try to explain that my first bike was stollen. But now I know how to say it, it sounds like the Duola, and it also means "lost". That bothers me slightly, that the word for stollen could also be the word for lost. It wasn't lost. I didn't loose it. Someone took it, and it wasn't theirs. 

Now it's 8pm, and I'm tired for no reason. This has been an emerging pattern this week. I'm tired, I go to sleep early, I wake up at 3, then again at 5, and then when my alarm goes off at 6:30, and I'm tired all day. 

So I'm going to start the winding down process. This involves eliminating the light emitted by computer screens. 

Good Night.