idiots in the night

we are dragged from the depths of slumber at half past two in the morning by poundingly, exuberantly, rhythmically, sinuously agonizing music emanating from the wall against which the bed lies. in other words, to my disbelief, our neighbors are having a bollywood music bash.

the nightmare finally recedes an hour and four pleas to the front desk later. i dream that i see hotel staff rolling out gurney sacks of bodies on a large cart this morning. i wish.

japan notes - tokyo

unlike kyoto kyoto and hakone , i don't enjoy tokyo so much. HOM has had to turn himself in for meetings because, as he puts it, someone has to finance our holiday. i lose my partner in crime and, with him, half my energy. the J's oscillate between angelic cooperativeness and horridness.

we make our way to tokyo disneyland to find that previous talk of expensive tickets is fully justified. also, it is pouring rain. the consolation, of course, is that the crowd is considerably manageable and we get to do the inside rides quite comfortably, so we are much more cheerful by the time the sun peeks through to allow us our outside rides.

i drag the J's with me to the tokyo national museum and am forced to conclude that in the matter of museums, it is best to shed both husband and offspring. it is a good thing they were not charged admission on account of their tender age.

the last night, we unintentionally happen upon a yakitori-ya and have happily settled in before we realize their main sell is liquor. but 's'k. we finally get our taste of grilled stingray fin which unfortunately just tastes like overhyped cartilage. there is an australian couple squeezed in next to us who rave about the delicious japanese food they had last night. we wait breathlessly to know the what and the where... why, they had sweet and sour chicken!

on to singapore.

japan notes - idiosyncrasies

1. ear picks. stained wood, lacquered wood, ivory, metal, decorated with all manner of bling and one for each day of the week.

2. tiny plastic sumo wrestler key-chains. rolling loaves of flesh that actually make the real thing look trim.

3. vending machines. even for my hot noodle dinner.

japan notes - hakone

we arrive in hakone in the pouring rain and arrive at the ryokan in style, i.e. in a taxi (having previously negotiated the streets of kyoto on foot and in vain for our hostel two days before).

the highlight of our hakone leg must be the food. we spend the afternoon wondering about dinner, and when the multitude of diminutive plates are laid on the low table we are not disappointed. the J's are in fact so impressed that they submit to photography. mmmmmm oishi. this is turning out to be a food trip, you can keep your shrines and museums, thank you.

japan notes - kyoto

HOM and i relive our youth by checking all of us into a backpackers' hostel, complete with common toilet. J1 and J2 are unconvinced when we try to sell them the charms of f n ez.

we embark upon our exploration of kyoto by foot, armed with our thrift store 2000 edition of frommer's. a challenge this, considering we are hampered by middle-aged enthusiasm and teenage ennui. along the way we are charmed by impeccable japanese service which even gets J1's eyeglasses repaired gratis (thank you, paris miki!), and we learn 2 things about 7-11. one is that the only atm that accepts our card resides in 7-11, and the other is that 7-11 is a treasure trove of snacks for hungry travelers.

towards the end of our walking tour, after we finally locate the heian temple, we stumble onto a tiny, super (never thought i'd ever use this adj.) japanese restaurant for a late lunch. we are led into an alternate reality in tatami and zen minimalism overlooking a tiny, perfect japanese garden, and served a beautiful lunch we did not know we ordered, the restaurant not having any menu in english. oishi. and something to remember for when the traveling years are over.

halfway thru the multi-mile walk i think to myself that i am so grateful to be able to travel with the one man i would like to do it with - HOM. i thank God that my boundary lines have fallen on pleasant places.

mj

michael jackson has just died. in fact for the whole day he has just collapsed, has just been air-lifted, has just had the coroner confirm his death, and has just attained immortality on CNN and the BBC, these being the only two english channels available at the hotel.

why must the expiration of an aging pop star be endlessly stuffed down my throat?

japan notes

lovely week traipsing thru the land of the rising sun...
things that have charmed me most:
1. it's so clean! same exotic magic that paris has but sans the dog poop.
2. it functions! the trains move on time! the water exits the auto taps!
3. it is delicious! mmmmmm oishi. especially tsukiji.
4. they are so helpful! even when they have no idea what you are asking!
5. and my rusty half-baked mandarin actually helps me get around!

not so charming though:
1. it's the land of the original male chauvinist, perhaps.
2. also the land of the ambulant cigarette. thank God for symbicort.
3. i've walked meself into some chronic compartment syndrome, i think. miss the car.
4. disgruntled teenagers.

how distressing

that the one country that needs must welcome us with open arms is so dizzyingly frenzied that one must be terribly, gainfully, employed, out of all leisure in order to survive there.

paradigm shift

sitting for the boards in two days and finding myself much different from when i sat the mbbs finals twenty-one years ago... for one thing, gone is the energy for the single-minded focus and frenetic review. gone too the diaphoretic palpitations. in their stead, imperatives that will not be put off: organizing our trip next week, getting the Js their summer reading books, getting Dog his bordetella jab, warring the weeds in the front yard, creating a menu for tonight. perhaps because i have finally started to grasp the fact that life is not all about me.

now the Js would like me to grasp that life is also not all about them, and hound them less about their own exams.

miss marple

i pass the sweetest little old lady at the carpark outside safeway today. she is an all pink-and-white confection who passes in a cloud of fluff who suddenly says, with great conviction, shit!

my eyes widen and she says, oh i'm sorry, i left my change in there.

bruised reed

isa 41:10 i will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

isa 43:2 when you pass through the waters, i will be with you; ...the rivers... will not sweep over you. when you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.

1. he is righteous
2. and will help us walk righteously
3. when we pass thru the waters and the flames
4. as we assuredly will.

my God, i believe. help my unbelief!

clever words

that explain themselves:

• gargantuan
• shrew - sour she
• feckless - i think of clueless claude tripping along his unfortunate way.
• alacrity - hoppity hop
• nincompoop - but this is a holdover from the days when people knew more vocab than just the f- word.

words

that make me feel stupid:

• formication - i'm seeing some hot-blooded coupling, not the cocaine addict with his hallucinations.
• pulchritude - don't you just think of gagging rolls of fat, or rotting flesh?
• disingenuous - this sounds so guileless...
• synesthesia - sounds as erudite as what it describes, so it is clever, but i don't feel so.

service standards - a dedication to the young financial officers populating our portfolio

continuing my encounter with the bank, here are my conclusions:

1. service-with-a-smile campaigns miss the mark. before we talk service, we've got to talk baseline competence. a smiling ass, methinks, is still an ass. he sleeps well after a full day of smiling, fecklessly unaware of our dissatisfaction.

2. and alas i seem to be dealing with an ass...

deliver the goods you are paid to do, i think, and i will take a pass on the smile. i will even take a pass on the apology, because you have apologized for the wrong thing anyway.

waiting

for HOM to get home so we can go to worship practice, but he's still stuck at work. in the meantime, i have spent my hour posting to the blog, fiddling with its color scheme, and posting to the blog.

i like the new color scheme.

quaintisms

things that have struck me and won me over about the u.s.:

1. that stuff is so uniform for the most part. one goes to home depot and buys a replacement toilet without blinking (or one could) because the measurements are all standardized. or one goes and buys an entire new kitchen. or new windows. no need for custom building unless one is extremely rich, or extremely unfortunate.

2. the stop sign. which a majority of drivers (more or less, depending on locale) actually obey. having driven in malaysia, thailand and singapore, i am enchanted at this widespread show of civility. if we had a 4-way stop sign in sgp, only chaos could ensue. the biggest cars would have right of way, followed by the other men. little women in tiny cars would be left paralyzed with fear and quite unable to accelerate to their destination.

3. the courtesy of many men. i love having doors held open for me and being given way to. i love being treated as weaker and therefore in need of physical assistance. i wish sgp men would stop deriding courtesy as manipulative behavior and just be gentlemanly! fortunately HOM, who doesn't read my blog, is quite the gentleman. as an aside, the most neanderthal man i ever met was not my geographic, but my ethnic, countryman.

4. the ham radio community, of whom i am a nominal member. despite my awfully shallow acquaintance with them, i am impressed by their sense of civic responsibility and charmed by their childlike enthusiasm. if i were a more active member, i would go get myself a number plate with my call sign.

steinweg

the new piano has arrived. i love its solid bulk. i love the understated finish so that it does not look new. i love that the name is quietly printed below the shelf. i love the evenness of the touch (the yamaha was 31 years old). but most of all i love the buttery richness of its tone that effortlessly floats to the far reaches of the room.

is this how a good piano should sound, J1 asks. he misses the tinny tone of the yamaha.

i have met my dream piano, i think. HOM slyly asks if i will dream of a grand in a few years, but i think not. my dream (my hope, really) is to have many years of jamming on my beloved piano with HOM on his beloved taylor. we have become polygamous, me with my second husband and he with his second wife.

but for now, i need to:
1. get it seasoned.
2. figure out how to fix up the dammp-chaser.

observations

i pull up behind an infiniti with a number plate that goes, oommmmm. hmmmmm. it would be nice to have a wittily personalized number plate, i sometimes think, except that it would also be so typically and effusively american.

then i see a chunky pink gentleman arrayed in full suit outside the supermarket. rather like what a middle-aged bertie wooster might have looked, perhaps. in the summer! of course i feel much more appropriately dressed in my barely there stuff and proceed to sneeze my way through grocery shopping.

J2 comes home from family life ed having sat through the screening of a labor video and pronounces it disturbing. what do you mean, i ask. did you find it frightening, or ugly, or vicariously painful, or what? disturbing is so typically and euphemistically american.

to set things straight. i love that we are in the u.s. and that we have the opportunities that we do. certainly school agrees with the J's a lot better and is a lot more forgiving than in sgp. i love that the pace is gentler and smiles are a lot more ready and it's easier to switch lanes. i spell american these days. sometimes i am amused at the flip side of american enthusiasm, that's all.

irritants

linguistic irritants
1. starting a sentence with As well,
2. different than
3. ppl who hv no idea how 2 write in full
4. and salesmen who say, i will double confirm this.
my blood would boil over.

behavioral irritants
1. gum chewing adults. awful.
2. touchey feeley acquaintances. excuse me, that's my body.
3. people who freely use my first name. did i say you could?
4. right handed men who wear their watches on the right.
crabby day.

the day i thought the gps died

faithful old emily crashes from her holder onto the floor of the car, sputters her next directions, and collapses. in a blink, we lose:

1. the direction!

2. the shape of the road ahead!

3. the distance we have traveled!

4. the time to our destination!

oh no!

i've forgotten how to navigate by the printed map, or driving directions, or human help.

postscript.

fortunately HOM manages to resuscitate her. he is a man of many talents.

waiting

for the new piano
with a deliciously shivery sense of anticipation...