MUI

or, men's underwear index, on the premise that sales of such a private necessity reflects a measure of economic health. it makes sense. when you are poor, your boxers go a longer way.

this is clearly the summary index of our age:

1. in legitimizing public discourse over an intimate subject (we need to discuss the y-fronts, sir),

2. in marrying the clandestine with the fiscal (do you prefer the rhinestone studs, or the egyptian cotton, or just pvc?), and

3. in actually tracking such a subject (how many pairs per quarter, would you say?).

we could also have a WUI, to even things out, although that would need to be corrected for weight, ownership of mirrors, and romantic entanglements. we may have to convert it to the log index to allow meaningful comparison to the MUI.

postscript. HOM suggests an indelicate refinement to the MUI concept. don't just track sales, he says. track the number of days before laundering.

the magic of louis cha

being fed a steady diet of wuxia serials has had several effects:

• the J's have acquired a knowledge of chinese culture and history which is as detailed as it is distorted.
• they have remained functional in their mother tongue, thanks to the prolonged immersion.
• we eat our dinner out of bowls as easily as off plates.
• mr cha has become a social meeting point for the entire family.

my all time favorites: the condor trilogy.

literary leanings

J2 takes exception to my comments about driving habits. which brings me to a sticky question: do i blog for my primary entertainment, or should i be more suitably decorous?

should i give up writing our family newsletters and just direct our far-flung friends to my blog? i see HOM almost wince in response. newsletter, he says. he's never sure what new indiscretion i will commit on this blog, perhaps.

so i write on several levels now:
1. hihowareyou i'mgoodhowareyou level on fb
2. politically correct, genteel, we're-still-alive newsletters
3. i-blog-what-i-wanna-blog on this blog, with
4. occasional tenderer musings on the other blog

i wish i had the energy to write an academic paper.

what not to wear

i drag myself and J1 to his early morning xc training at a lakeside in siberia, and am treated to a view of a phalanx of eager young bodies. which gives rise to reflections about running attire:

• some run clothed
• some run half naked
• some should run clothed

two deaths

edward kennedy has died. his body is now proceeding from hyannis port to boston, and he will be buried in the national cemetery in two days.

michael jackson expired a couple of months back amid a flurry of suspicion, accusations and recriminations. i no longer recall his funeral details, except that they were contentious and bombastic, and the eulogies defied belief.

this is a nation of contradictions, that can conduct itself with such quiet dignity for one and prostitute itself so utterly for another, for this, the most final of all our human rites. surely the outpouring of mourning must come from some of the same people?

for the lion of the senate, i agree with hanna rosin, who writes: There are very few examples of true redemption in public life, and Kennedy may be one of them. We don't know if he woke up and thought about Mary Jo Kopechne every morning ... But he certainly behaved like a man foregoing glory for daily penance.

he was, perhaps, a redeemed man; the past forty years would have been very difficult if not. the other, sadly, appears to have been a tortured soul at the apogee of his agony.

driving les.son.

i remember me at the wheel and HOM beside me. i remember the fumes of spontaneous conjugal combustion as J1 and J2 made encouraging comments from the back seat. it was, after all, their soccer game we were driving to.

all i say today is,

• husband, never teach her how to drive.
• wife, never allow him to teach you how to drive.

diversity 3

one, a speed-demon wannabe who goes whooooooooo down a slope, as i quietly and diaphoretically palpitate.

the other could do with a ticket for going too slow, and has led me down a ditch, which is a first, even for me.

both have, predictably, and in the fulness of time, driven HOM round the bend.

insulation

i know a man who loves his son very much. is he comfortable? is he hungry? is he safe? perhaps he would wrap him in tissue paper if he could. he would, if he could, protect him from all pain and unpleasantness. shades of the modern chinese little emperors, i think, and also of the korean horror flick.

are people like this when they marry, or do do they become this? do their spouses complement them, who have evolved over a marriage? or do they awaken one day, distastefully, years on, to a stranger on their bed?

canis vermicularis

driving back home, J1 and i encounter a big woman walking a little bit of excited white fluff. a puppy! a puppy poodle! (or should it be a poodle puppy!?)

J1 thinks it would be nice to have a mini puppy. we could take it for walks tethered to an enormous collar. it would be like walking a giant worm.

input overload

mackie - shure - monster - peavey - yamaha - XLR - TRS
power amp - 16(!) channels - active speaker - snake - monitor - mic
guitar center - radio shack - s video - ebay - amazon

darling, i want to whisper to HOM, it's sexier to speak in english.

sound system

church has just made the transition from a primitive mic/individual amp set-up to a dandy mixer/power amp/monitor arrangement, complete with snake cable tripping up half the sanctuary. which has given rise to some reflections:

1. a mixer has a come-hither appeal, enticing all manner of persons to want to operate it.

2. good sound, alas, cannot be bought. it must needs be bled out of some poor serf.

3. the more equipment you have, the earlier you had better reach church on sunday.

4. there are as many expectations of a sound system as there are people attending church.

this saturday, there will be an attempt to enlighten several benighted volunteers and transform them into miracle workers.

israel

jeroboam(22), nadab(2); baasha(24), elah(2); zimri(7/7); omri(12), ahab(22), ahaziah(2), joram; jehu(28), jehoahaz(17), jehoash(16), jeroboamII(41), zechariah(6/12); shallum(1/12); menahem(10), pekahiah(2); pekah(20); hoshea-exiled(9)

1. nine dynasties in all.
2. jeroboam son of nebat started a really lasting trend - the golden calves.
3. ahab's family has the widest reach, with their marriage diplomacy.
4. jezebel is wicked and strong, ahab is wicked and weak.
5. the longest line is jehu's.

me pore 'ead. i won't try the prophets yet, i think.

judah

(saul); david(40), solomon(40), rehoboam(17), abijah(3), asa(41), jehoshaphat(25), jehoram(8), ahaziah(1), (athaliah), joash(40), amaziah(29), azariah/uzziah(52), jotham(16), ahaz(16), hezekiah(29), manasseh(55), amon(2), josiah(31), jehoahaz(3/12), eliakim/jehoiakim(11), jehoiachin-exiled(3/12), mattaniah/zedekiah-puppet(11).

good-ish kings
1. athaliah, that wicked woman, is jezebel's daughter, all the way from ahab's family.
2. the longest reigning king is an evil one, and he hangs on for over a half century.
3. and yet the line is unbroken from david to zedekiah.

the american experience

cultural brushstrokes:
1. sleepovers
2. garage sales
3. thrift shops
4. carwash fundraisers
5. coupons in the sunday paper

linguistic brushstrokes:
1. hihowareyou?
2. i'mgoodhowareyou?
3. have a good one. (have a good what??)
4. to memorialize, while others remember

goodbye songs

my top three are: auld lang syne, aloha oe, God be with you till we meet again.

have you noticed that they all share the same V-I progression right where your heartstrings start to get tugged? is this coincidental, or is this a universal farewell interval, or am i just a sucker so that these have become my favorites?

apprenticeship

the driving lessons continue. all i can say is:

• we all have to learn some time, and,
• HOM is not ready to take her yet.

weeds - the final battle

it boils down to filthy lucre.

for this amount, the yard man says, we will weed it, mulch it, trim it, and resurrect it. my heart sings a glad response.

now the yard looks like it did last summer, when we first laid eyes on it. it's never been a handsome yard, but at least it no longer looks mangled.

step 2 cs

i sit the clinical exam with 23 other hopefuls, and quickly notice that we make up two groups. the larger group is the fresh face of youth, with much back slapping, rumpled clothes and u.s. drivers' licences. the smaller group is unmistakeably lined, more nattily dressed, and present multi-colored passports.

the first group talk about the med school they are going to, and type their patient notes with robotic efficiency. the others have kids in school and high school; like me, they scratch out their notes manually, and laboriously.

we are, however, united in our humanity as all twenty-four stand in line for the three restrooms during the breaks.

i meet a sweet young thing who wants to do family medicine. she has stars in her eyes, and an engaging naivete. i give her my blessing. yes, i tell her, do f.m; in fact, do academic f.m., and i share a little of what i have done. no glam, i warn her, but i have no regrets either.

freedom

i wake up today feeling surreptitiously, ineffably, delinquent. for the first time in almost a year, the sword of damocles hangeth not over me, not from a decision to take a break from studying but because i've finished with all the exams for now.

except that in the aftermath, more and more things that i forgot to say/do/consider/write are now coming back to haunt me, so i am also despondently delinquent.

strength for the day

an exhausting week filled with many miles on the taxi duty roads, driving lessons, backache and studying, beginning with a HOM/J2 explosion and ending with a HOM/J1 explosion. i think, on hindsight, God wanted to remind me that i would find my measure equal to my day, because in the end i was not overwhelmed.

stressss

college app time for J1, or time to start thinking about colleges and courses, which of course he would most rather not do. what's a worry-wort mother to do then? because my crystal ball is covered with fingerprints and my eyes are poorly and the mind feels wooly.

the general plan is jeremiah 29; the devil, as always, is in the details.

the overall strategy is philippians 4, and i keep forgetting.

music for my soul

that takes hold deep within and lifts me to a higher place:
ave maria
plaisir d'amour
chopin's 3rd piano etude
beethoven's emperor concerto
dvorak's cello concerto, 1st movement

plaisir d'amour

courtesy of that modern phenomenon, youtube:
#1. catherine mckinnon
#2. nana mouskouri
#3. janet baker

also ran but not there:
charlotte church, mary hopkin

a series of unfortunate books

1. certain girls - j. weiner - aaaaaaagh as per this.

2. short stories - chekhov - a little 2-d characterization for my liking, although they are tiny gems of brevity. also (unfairly) i like hardcovers with classy fonts these days, not recycled paperbacks.

3. the stepford wives - ira levin - i like his style, just not his endings. horror stories should have good-triumphs-over-evil endings, not satirical ones.

4. the interruption to everything - terry mcmillan - black girl (not into black or latino), pregnant at 44 (too close to home), straying husband (the cad), eruptions of profanities (ugh).

5. two totally forgettable harlequin books from the thrift store.

6. and one forgettable debbie macomber.

where's a girl going to get her fix?

pep talk

i have taught a house officer how to set an i.v. line at two in the morning. i can get a butterfly needle into a child's vein. i delivered my first baby twenty-two years ago. i have got the ett's in, in my time. i learnt how to drive at thirty-eight.

i can teach a teenaged girl how to drive.

certain girls - jennifer weiner - spoiler alert*

aaaaaaagh. one of my favorite male characters ever, and i have to read pretty much the entire book before he goes and dies. really, weiner should know better. this is chick lit, not anna karenina.

which makes me want to go and just stick to third-rate harlequin romances, because:

1. the main characters never die, and

2. the happy ending is guaranteed,

except that they are often so unbelievably awful.

atishoo! ahankee!

am battling an aggressively, noisily, determinedly, unhappy nose.

diversity 2

so different, these two!

one earnestly proper socially conscious environmentalist who believes in organ donation

one wittily laid back charmer whose social conscience, i think, has yet to awaken

i would sing with jean valjean: God on high/ hear my prayer/ in my need/ you have always been there/ (he) is young/ let (him) rest/ heaven blessed/ bring (him) peace/ bring (him) joy/ bring (him) home.

gladness

• bringing J2 to get her driving permit, reaching another milestone
• seeing HOM and J1 trying to set up the sound system in church together
• the look on HOM's face when i bake betty crocker brownies
• hearing J1 say, i'll drive us to church today
• having J2 back from her sleepover, and all of us in on a sunday evening
• also, perhaps, a pecan slice from starbucks, mmmmmm

lesson plan

for tomorrow:
1. stay off the grass
2. turn wheel the right way
3. hit 25 mph

adult responsibilities

HOM says his back died after teaching two kids how to cycle.
my hair is more frizzy after teaching two kids how to drive.

my junk snail mail

everything that arrives unsolicited is junk, except:

• pizza company specials.

my junk mail folder

like visa says, these are pre-qualified:
1. nigerian spam from nigeria, hk, europe.
2. organ enlargement/aphrodisiac vendors.
3. hopeful businesses, peddling seminars and the like.
4. unsolicited newsletters. grrrrrrrrrr.
5. the national kidney foundation.

blathering idiots.

weeds, chap. 3

yesss. war declared!

my poor back. ouch.

food rules at our home

or, how i survive teenage angst, a husband, and a dog

#1. five second rule rules, except for liquid spills.

#2. if you don't like what's coming, you may cook an acceptable alternative, provided you do not expect my help.

#3. you can have whatever you want for breakfast on weekends, except you cannot substitute soda for milk/juice/water.

#4. supper is my main meal; so that there food is MINE. find your own.

#5. Dog is allowed to hoover up what escapes the 5 second rule, while i get the vacuum cleaner.