M Day

M is for Ming. M is for Massage.

We celebrated the day we meet our daughter by getting massages this morning.

25 yuan bought each person 60 minutes of back, shoulders, neck, lower legs, and feet massage. That, my friends, is a darn good time for $3.02USD. There were six of us lined up in chairs - the thee Szyms, and Keith and Stacy Nelson (also adopting, and also from Spokane), along with Stacy's Mom, Stevie. We had six young Chinese gals working us over. There was a moment when my masseuse was working on my feet and I wondered if it was punishment rather than pleasure. All in all, however, it was very relaxing.

If you've ever seen the movie, Shanghai Noon (in our family the question is not 'have you seen it?' but 'how many times have you seen it?'), then you are familiar with Roy O'Bannon (Owen Wilson) and Chong Wang (Jackie Chan) bantering humorously with each other. There's a great line in the move toward the end that Roy delivers to Chong...After spending most of the movie focusing only on himself and the gold, while Chong was striving selflessly to save Princess Pei Pei, Roy finally meets Pei Pei. In his high pitched, sing-song voice he delivers the line: "Is that the Princess? She's pretty!"

I used that line on Levi about halfway through our feel-good session. He loved it. Both the massage and the line. And he did have the pretty one :-)

Counting down here in China, we are. We're just about 4 hours away from meeting Ming. Yes, finally, it really is M Day.