A Traumatic Day + bonus (non trauma) photo

Some of you may already know that D an I will be returning to the U.S. in July. As you can imagine, my big concern is Jameson, the cat. It was hard getting her here, and it's going to be hard getting her out. There are 10 million bureaucratic hoops to jump through, made all the more difficult because they're all Chinese hoops that are in Chinese.

So, in addition to me tracking down all the paperwork/vets/officials that I need to to get papers to allow the cat to leave the country, I've got to coerce a bi-lingual speaker to go with me to translate. Gah.

Today I had to take Jameson to a vet. In order for China to allow her to leave the country, she needs to be vaccinated against rabies. Never mind that she received a 3-year rabies vaccination in the U.S. before we came -- they don't recognize that here.

Without going into too many of the details, let me say that the lowered standards of cleanliness that apply everywhere else here apply to the vet's, too. Some things were similar, of course -- for example, corporate pet food displays. And just like at vet offices in the U.S., this one had its resident pets. Only here, the pets were kept in a tiny cage with bars for floors without food or water. Nice.

Anyway, Jameson received her shot, we got a certificate for the shot, and the next step is to go to the city quarantine office to try and procure a health certificate for the pet. Oh, to add to the fun, Jameson is reacting badly to her (probably tainted) vaccination. She's been barfing her head off. But, she is hardy, so hopefully she'll be okay.

In other news, the corn here is growing like crazy. The rule "knee high by 4th of July" simply doesn't apply. Photographic evidence (I was talking when D took the photo -- and check out my sweet sun hat that has a neck-protector flap in the back):