my life

my past:
1. asian reserve
2. chinese mianzi
3. mmob (minding my own business)

my present:
1. youtube
2. facebook
3. reality tv

in between:
the redemption of unconditional love, that allows me to accept one and live with the other.

goodbyes are hard

a smile
a welcome
and a farewell

isn't it strange
that love can grow
from so few meetings?

thank you
your kindness
helped us to belong

thank you
for sharing your life
we learnt to open ours

we'll miss you
we've been blessed
God go with you

occupational competence

fresh from a frustrating encounter with the bank. on reflection, these are qualities a competent person should have:

1. the ability to act in a reasonable manner. to send an email at close to 11 pm and expect a response by 5 am the next day is so not reasonable. to not appreciate a difference in time zones is (to put it nicely) just stupid.

2. the presence of mind to know when to stop defending oneself to death, although this requires common sense, and if #1 is lacking, #2 may be too.

3. the ability to abjectly grovel in apology would help and only requires a healthy sense of self preservation quite unrelated to the prerequisite for #1 and #2.

4. a familiarity with basic grammar and spelling would be an added bonus.

what has happened to the young people with whom we are forced to interact? how did lack of sense get packaged with inarticulate lack of courtesy in a point man beyond whom we have no access?

or perhaps this is a ploy of the institution - to put up such an impenetrable wall of ineptitude that one's unhappiness simply does not register.

chicken soup

for the cockles of me 'eart:

1. sight of a glorious patch of wildflowers in the middle of the road median.

2. the lovely man at our local italian place who puts pizza hut to shame with his welcome and his conviction.

3. a walk with HOM and Dog on a crisp spring morning.

perspectives

HOM stands in the office supply section of staples and goes, cool.

i say to him, you poor thing, let me show you an upgrade - a real bookstore.

i continue to be delighted that i am not automatically flagged by the blog infrastructure whenever i take liberties with grammar. after years of microsoft word and outlook, this is refreshing liberty.

my new resolution

is to stop reading so many third rate mindless quasi novels just because i wish to avoid mental stress. life is short and there are many deserving writers.

for a start, i have ditched: straight talking by jane green (entertaining but mindless) and first person plural by cameron west (okay/interesting but awful writing). J1 says i should give FPP another chance.

ni de shuang shou

"my ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you."

just jammed this song with HOM who has returned from his business trip. i love:

1. jamming with him

2. the words of the song

3. the music we share.

it is amazing to realize that it was this experience that put all of job's sufferings into context and nullified whatever need he had for justification or vengeance.

my housework survival kit

MUST include:
1. a washer
2. a dryer
3. a steam iron with easy dials
4. a dishwasher (not the human kind)
5. an electric oven and stove
6. a microwave (basic is fine)
7. my bissell we-mean-clean old faithful
8. and my orange glo stick

9. plus the kitchenaid (for HOM, not for me)

my kitchen survival kit

would have to include:
1. napa cabbage and tomatoes
2. lots of boneless skinless chicken breasts frozen in ziploc bags
3. slabs of salmon frozen in ziplog bags
3. rice & potatoes & mantou
4. garlic salt & pepper & olive oil & sesame oil
5. sriracha sauce (my secret ingredient)
6. cookies & chocolate & safeway select ice cream

there! we should do pretty well.

cello concerto - dvorak - du pre

dug out the du pre recording on a whim today and found it as magical as ever. the part where the melody swells in the 1st movement still gives me goosebumps after twenty years. it makes you want to sing with it, or cry.

i should try to get a version of schubert's serenade too - standchen #4 - brings tears every time. i love it best in the quiet of the night.

things about my new home

what i like about va:

1.very pretty. fall, winter, spring now. today the sunlight on the far leaves in my backyard; last week the unbelievable riot of azaleas. the turn from old dominion onto kirby... like a fairytale road the first time we stumble onto it.

2. i have conquered the highways here! now i hardly remember why i held myself land- and time-locked by the small roads in tx. 495 is like 1709 used to be. relatively unthreatening.

3. church is good. bigger than bcbc, so problems get diluted. God has replaced what he made us say goodbye to.

what i dislike about va:

1. roadhogs. plenty to go around.

2. rude people. or at the very least unfriendly. including the elderly, who you might expect would know better.

3. the diversity, beacuse i secretly suspect that (3) contributes to (2) and (1).

grace

today
i am so tired that
i am just trying to put
one foot in front of
the other

fragile innocence - james reston, jr. (2006)

historian reston describes his daughter's life from babyhood to debilitating seizures to profound disability, to end-stage renal failure and eventual transplant, and how her life inspires a selfless love that parents of normal children are not called to learn.

i am reminded to be less brusque, less impatient... there is a human being holding the s/s together.

i am humbled that love is so unreserved, so inclusive.

i am amazed that there is no attempt to justify hillary's worth; she is loved not in spite of, but with, and because.

and reston tells his tale well. much better than ST journalists.

content: 4/5
style: 4/5

mommy wars - leslie morgan steiner (2006)

irritating anthology by a group of highly educated mothers about working or staying home.

practically every contributor is/has been a published writer or editor; upper middle class bunch with intact marriages and plenty of angst. the moms i know who work or stay home without the luxury of choice are not so conflicted.

the epiphany - that neither working nor staying home defines the good mother - negates the premise for the book.

content: 1/5
style: 4/5

what i would like to do

1. play jazz piano. doesn't that sound glamorous?
2. take more, and better photos. conquer that dratted horizon.
3. be more, and systematically, trained in medical ethics.

why i blog

1. intermittent desire to see my opinions in print.
2. occasional blossoming of the creative me.
3. actually, why not. (which sounds rather pretentious)

intermittent indeed

i have decided to reclaim my blog. deserted it because i mentally cringed every time i thought over the first post, but was never able to delete it. i agree too much with it...

so two years on... different place, different time. relocated from tx plains to the hilly terrain of va last year, broke J1 and J2's hearts saying their goodbyes, and slowly rebuilding ties of friendship and fellowship yet again.

let's try again.