On Tuesday, we rented a trailer and picked up our terra cotta warriors in the warehouse
in Oakland. There was the usual frustrating back and forth and discussions with middlemen.
We ended up paying $270 cash in addition to the trailer rental in addition to the purchase
and shipping price. $160 for the customs middlemen and $110 for the warehouse middlemen. The total cost was still much less than buying them here in the US. The warehouse had a funny sign
on the cashier window, something like: “If you are grouchy, irritable, or just plain mean,
there will be an additional $25 charge.” I told the lady I wanted one of those signs.
We picked up our son Paul at summer school in Palo Alto, drove an hour north and picked up my mother’s helper Sean in San Francisco, drove for another hour and picked up two terra cotta archers in three hundred thirty pound
wooden crates in Oakland. We left one archer in San Francisco with my mother (after John and
Sean and I pushed and pulled the crate up two flights of front steps and through the house and down the deck steps to the back garden). My mother and Sean unpacked her archer and she
seems very happy. The black finished archer is now kneeling in the dirt under a
rhododendron bush. It took about 6 hours round trip.
Our own archer is in our back yard in San Jose. He is currently kneeling on 50 pounds of
white sand surrounded by red bark chips in a corner between our river wall and the side
back fence. He will eventually have a wooden shed built over him. Like the ancient terra
cotta warriors, his head is separate from his body
and there is space for water to get in. He was packed in the crate with his head
wrapped in shredded paper under his butt. I don’t want him to fill up with water and leaves,
so we will build a shed over him before the rain starts in autumn. I am looking at Chinese garden building designs now. We are discussing what our archer should be named. I am
reading the Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian and will probably find
the name in there.
Jessica is at Westminster Choir College for
two weeks. She seems very happy from her emails and phone calls. She wrote “we had a
brief rainstorm today, and i swear that i could chew on the air! the
humidity is still fun, and the bugs here are waaaaaaay more
interesting than at home. fireflies rock!”
Her brother Paul is very lonely without her so we are taking him on a trip to the
Monterey Bay Aquarium on
Sunday. He will take a SCUBA lesson on Monday in the tide pool. John and I are both
enthusiastic divers and we are looking forward to a family dive vacation.
It is very hot in the Bay Area this week and all the new plants need lots of water.
Paul and I planted the dirt strip along the front of the garage with 5
nandina (heavenly bamboo) and a large garishly colorful
Amazon Queen hibuscus which is already blooming and seems very happy.
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