Swamp Butt

Hi friends and family,

I know.  It's been forever since I've typed anything down.  I have a friend who has taken 2 weeks off from work and she has become a blogging monster.  Usually, when she's working, she blogs more than me, but now that she has a break from work she is a blogging animal.  Every time I see her she tells me how many blogs she's done.  So the pressure is on.  (check her blog out.  It's Five for Chinese)

So anyway.  About swamp butt.  I have been trying to think of a gentle way of talking about this.  You know, so I won't be embarrassed when you read this.  But the current distance between you all and me hopefully will curtail my embarrassment.  Which is why it's taken me so long to sit at the computer.   But this is a topic that plagues most westerners in Shanghai.  

I know it was a hot summer in the US.  Louisville was hot.  Oregon was hot.   Minnesota even.  I also know that when the kids and I were still in the states and Scott was back in the Middle Kingdom, I would complain to him about this. And, surprise surprise, he had very little sympathy.  He would tell me how hot it was in Shanghai always in celsius.  Like that would impress me.  I was in the States.  34 C sounded downright frigid.  He would go on and on about "what it really feels like".  Man up dude!  I mean really.  He grew up in Florida.  How much more humid could it be?  When it was time for all of us to be back the kids and I started to actually convert the temperatures in numbers we could understand.  Still, that was only 93 F.  It was hotter in Minnesota.  So really, big whoop dee doo.

I will never doubt him again.  

Now, I should've taken into account that if someone from Florida is complaining about the humidity, it's pretty serious.  I spent summers in DC.  Taught many a marching band camp on the coast of NC in August.   Visited the southwest in the middle of July (not that it's humid there, but it does get hot).  And nothing,  NOTHING, prepared me for the onslaught of moisture being consumed by my lungs.  I don't know if it's the proximity to the China Sea, the pollution, or the fact that there are so many of everything (people, buildings, cars, people, bikes, motor scooters, people), but the humidity is ruthless.  And it seems never ending.  It was 85 F today, but the real feel was 92 F.  Its almost f#&^ing November.  Sorry about that, must be the moisture.  I'm still wearing shorts.

So around the beginning of September, I noticed that right where my legs meet my fanny, it was damp.  Always.  I know that this has happened on occasion in my life.  But every day for months?  I was leaving a butt print of moisture on every seat.  It is hard to be a confident 6ft tall hispanic woman in Shanghai when you are constantly worrying if your booty has sweat marks.  And you do wonder, because you have walked behind someone who does have this problem at least once a week.  I was looking at my fanny in mirrors constantly.  People were thinking I was checking out my tush.  Nope, just looking for moisture creases.  It is so humid that even at 75 F my face is dripping when just strolling for a coffee.   

And none of the locals even seem to sweat.  It's all us foreigners.  They are wearing long sleeves and long pants.  Now that I think of it, I don't think I've ever seen a Chinese adult wear shorts.  And women wear hose with skirts.  Yuck!!!!!  I cannot imagine the swamp butt that causes.  My Ayi even turns off the air when she is alone in my house, no matter what time of the year it is.  And as soon as we come home, we turn it right back on.  

I can't wait for my panties to dry out.  

Talk to you soon.

Sue