This beautiful goddaughter of mine might be getting too close to the age when I can’t call her Baby Shea anymore. But not just yet.
Proud parents Saul and Lissy sent this update: “Shea loves to read and be read to – it is a tiring effort [hence the lack of recent updates]. She can’t wait to meet you guys!”
We can’t wait to meet her, either.
Today is the second anniversary of our wedding!
We made plans to meet at Arch, a trendy cafe on the western side of Huaihai Lu. Xianyi made a reservation, but we arrived early and they asked us to wait. Then they seated us at a table for four, where two German guys were eating hamburgers! We already had our drinks and were wondering what to do. The place doesn’t have many tables, and all of them were full, and by the looks of it no one was leaving soon. I asked the head waitress about our reservation for two and she offered us two seats at the bar. I then asked for the manager, and politely but firmly informed him that we had made a reservation for two and they had not reserved a table for us – so we were leaving. I did not leave a dime for our half-finished drinks.
Now, standing outside in the rain with no plans, we thought about what to do. After a few non-starter ideas, we decided to go to Mesa, as we had never been before. It’s a bit fancy, but not over the top like, say, Jean Georges. And apologies to all our chef buddies, but it wouldn’t be fair to just pick ONE of you for our anniversary at the expense of the others! 
In the end, we had a nice relaxing meal and watched the rain pour down outside. We had planned on playing some miniature golf later at a place I’ve heard about, but in the end we just decided to go home.
And as for anniversary presents? Well, Xianyi sent me a single rose at work, which raised a few eyebrows around my office. And I gave her the kindest gift of all – I shaved my mustache 
For the love of God, I need to take a break from talking about visas. And since it’s long overdue, may I announce that 2007 is officially the Year of the Stache.
Back in December, when a bunch of us were out singing karaoke on a random Tuesday night, we came up with the idea to do something special for the new year. And that something wound up being growing mustaches.
Originally it was to be a contest with a monetary prize. But a lot of folks chickened out and so it became clear that there wasn’t enough mass to create a worthy pot. So instead, it’s just all about the pride. It began with me, Turley, Michael, and Coley. Since Coley dropped out we have added Dan and Imani to our ranks. And there are some great statements of facial flair coming out of this endeavor.
Check out the full Year of the Stache gallery.
