Oh dear
The past 12 hours have been challenging to say the least. I suppose I'll jump into the explanation of the photo first.
I had my first botox injection! It went terribly, terribly wrong! No, actually, the swelling of my lip was caused by something that went "ouch!" in the night. I finally fell asleep in my new home around 2am and was awakened around 5am by a terrible pain in my lip. I thought maybe I had bitten it in my sleep but there was no blood and to the touch it was perfectly smooth but SEVENTEEN times bigger than its normal size. (I no longer envy such lippy beauties as Angelina Jolie...) It was horrible. As you can see, the swelling was lopsided and most of that area of my lip was numb. My first thought was that a spider had tried to crawl into my mouth and when I didn't let him in, he stung or bit or injected botox into me. Then I thought maybe I had touched the giant hunk of mold in the refrigerator when I was cleaning it and then touched my lip and this was some form of botchilism (sp?) growing inside of my lip. Now that the swelling is somewhat reduced (it is still bigger than normal and I can barely feel it), I have less grandiose visions of what caused the swelling. Moving on.
I left all of my belongings in Annaick's old apartment thinking it would be my new home when I returned to Wuhan. Not so. While I was gone, some of my belongings made it to my new home which is on the fourth floor of a building that is still being BUILT! At 7am this morning, men with various machines that make amazingly loud noises started unlocking my door and walking in to do their singular tasks. One installed two magnetic wall protectors onto the doors in my apt. Another drilled a hole in the center of the kitchen floor and left. Another came and banged on some pipes under the sink and left a leak and lots of wet foot prints, and yet another came to inspect the hole in the kitchen floor. He seemed disappointed.
The internet wasn't working last night and so the housekeeper called someone to come figure out what the problem was. The phone wasn't working either and although it now has a dial tone, I cannot dial out. A few more of my belongings showed up after I showed the housekeeper a photo of some of the missing bags. (I took the photo before leaving Wuhan for Shanghai because I was impressed with how little I was taking to SH. It proved helpful in finding some of my missing belongings.) A young man followed by an older gentleman came to look at the computer. First, that's what the younger one did, he looked AT my computer. Then he left. The older man stood outside of the apartment peering in at me and talking on a cellphone. He had two phones and at one point both were up to his ears and he was having two conversations at once, all the while looking in at me, as if afraid I was going to try and escape. It has been an eventful return. I can't say that I'm not a little disappointed and a little freaked out right now. Luckily, I've got books, water (someone bought me five small bottles), and a bathroom (someone fixed the non-working toilet around noon today) so I can hide out here for a day to try and recouperate. I hope the lip gets better. And anyone out there who thinks they might try botox, take it from me, DON'T DO IT!
PS - You'll also notice some heinous mosquito bites in the photo. I was awake all night trying to hide under my blanket and not get eaten. Maybe a mosquito did this to my lip, but then, where's the white bump?
