Today I realized that the upside of having to move out is that I won't have to deal with ants any more. Ugh. Can't believe there were some in the room again. Need to find something to clean carpet stains--I didn't make them, but I didn't notice them until after the "room inspection" (there really wasn't one when I moved in--my fault, I should have remembered).

In other news... niece #2 knows how to say 'po po' and 'kau kau' now, but I haven't heard her actually say it. She said it to my mom, after my sister put her on the phone.

Last night my friend JY called from Australia--she was trying to find out about whether she could take custody of her children from her husband's parents. Apparently they are on the road to getting a divorce, but the problem is that the children along with the husband are now in the U.S.. If they had stayed in Taiwan, perhaps this would be an easier problem to solve, but the husband and the children usually visit his parents every Summer. Not a good situation--I don't know how much power she has under U.S. law.

Their marriage has been rocky from the beginning, though I blame the husband more than JY, and not just because she's a friend. He's a bit immature, and in the middle of a career change--he no longer wants to teach English, but wants to become a nurse. His parents had wanted them all to move to the US, and thought that she could find a good-paying job to support the family, while he goes to nursing school. She thinks that when they first met, he was running away from his mom (who is apparently rather domineering), but either has caved into her pressure to have the grandchildren close to her, or actually wants to live close to them. Well, he should have thought about where he was going to settle down before having sex with someone half-way around the world. What a mess.

The HS friend with the mental illness apparently will not be coming to the U.S., not this week at any rate. Her father decided that she should get better before she flies. Hrm... seems to me that her condition while she is in Taiwan is worse, but I don't know if that is really the case, and if it can be attributed to someone's actions (or lack of action).