amazing grace

the baubles come off the tree. when i muster sufficient energy the tree comes off too. time flees. lives change. but this one thing i know. through many dangers toils and snares we have already come; 'tis grace hath brought us safe thus far, and grace will lead us home.

i dwell in the shelter of the Almighty.

home improvement

Dog's sleeping quarters now include artwork.

cornucopia

HOM is on annual vacation this week. he spends most of his time recording and editing J1's music videos and the rest of it chauffeuring J2 to the shops and researching his next laptop. Dog is a little bit under the weather these couple of days but appears to be improving. our house guest stays on but is largely out of our way due to her widely fluctuating circadian rhythm. we have a new year countdown to go to tomorrow that promises conversation and repast. all in all this is our most sedentary most peaceful and most enjoyable winter break in years. keep your airplane flights your hotel stays and your itineraries, i say. give me hearth table book and family, and i am richly kept.

getting older

the thing about looking sweetly youthful is you lose out on credibility. so, oftentimes i say when the question arises, with a twinge of conscience but a straight face nevertheless, i'm 45. after a half decade of subterfuge i am finally ready to move on to, and with perfect truthfulness this time, i'm in my late forties.

word of experience

the line between freeloading presumptuousness and genuine need is blurred by affection prejudice judgment bias and guilt. toxic encounters aside, it is humbling to realize one often shuttles blithely between one and the other.

taking stock

my lesson for this year is this: a chattering fool comes to ruin. (prov 10:8). the amazing thing is that one can wholeheartedly agree with this statement at all times and still happily and obliviously chatter away when push comes to shove. my tongue, i say, is the final frontier.

precious mem'ries 2010

making friends with little M
re-connecting with old friends online
letting J2 drive me around
d.c. museum visits with J1
girls' lunch with J2 at the panera bread
J2 and HOM commandeering my kitchen
baltimore with HOM
singing choir with J2 and J1
morimoto!
J1 and HOM making their music videos together

treasure box

there are two beloved gifts in mine:

one prayer denied. J1 and the military.
one prayer answered. J2 and me.

whew!

walmart closes for christmas, which of course is as it should be, because if you open for business on christmas day it rather smacks of crass commercialism and shameless opportunism. fortunately for me my local safeway tilts towards barefaced greed and i am able to do an emergency grocery run in the quiet of christmas morn.

magnificat

near the cross, a trembling soul, love and mercy found me;

Christ... regarded my helpless estate and... shed his own blood for my soul;

... blessings all mine, with ten thousand besides!

the hope and wonder of the birth of Christ make sense to my crippled trembling soul only when i look at the ugliness and rejection of his death, and realize that he shed his blood because i am helpless to yield mine. when i remember this, i want to burst out and say, my soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.

requiescat

today i decide to stop trying to jump the fact-value gap between baby jesus' birthday party and the meaning of christmas. st augustine says it for me: thou hast formed us for thyself, o Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee. i am grateful i found christmas, and easter, when late i came to know him.

precious mem'ries

HOM helps J1 record his songs into what will become HOM's christmas cd. this is a father's attempt to capture some final images before his son leaves for military service. there are some gifts that you just cannot find words to describe. seeing the two of them like this is one such gift.

multi-tasking

there's this discussion on the radio about bringing magazines into the loo, J1 says. it appears some people turn their bathroom into a reading spot. should such magazines emerge from the bowels, as it were? i say we are past old economy considerations. what we need to discuss is the new surfing center. 

morimoto

we spend a lovely evening together, the four of us. great food convivial company flowing conversation and as a bonus, beautiful weather for the 150 mile drive to philly and back. sometimes everything comes together to make one sublime memory for the years. every good and perfect gift is from God above.

spring chicken

my tires are rather visibly in need of more air. according to wikihow, HOM can manually inflate them using our bicycle pump. there's a service station down the road, i hiss. with a perfectly good coin-operated electricity-run pump. what i say is, wikihow advice needs to come with a classification. not for males over 45, for example. unless their wives are on standby with bcls algorithms.

weather matters

school starts two hours later today. J2 is bitterly disappointed. for her the beauty of snowfall is encapsulated in the concept of school cancellation.

les amis

i receive an e-christmas card from an old friend. we go back twenty years, to our postgraduate days, when bonds are woven from comradeship common foes and incomprehensible reasons. a card reaches me every year in each of the scattered places i spend my christmases, although i have not laid eyes on him for many of them.

some people reach out and consider you their friends in the face of odds. these people pay their friends an immeasurable compliment of kindly regard. i am honored by these friendships, and by this one.

weather forecast

these are strategically poised at the entrance to our neighborhood today. it looks like it's time to hunt out our shovels too.

priorities

Dog has an intimate relationship with the fire hydrants mailboxes and several bushes in our neighborhood that endures despite howling winds and subfreezing temperatures. hurry up, handsome, i tell him. not all of us have fur.

james 3:5

wikileaks' unauthorized release of confidential diplomatic documents leaves politicians globally scrambling to repair fences and salvage some national dignity. the way i see it, there are two separate issues here.

there is the issue of freedom of speech and the legality of leaking classified documents and the morality of julian assange. 

the more immediate issue, i say, is why we the world over pay our diplomats and politicians so handsomely to be indiscreet embarrassing gossips. someone needs to tell the über-politician, watch your tongue, it is a consuming fire.

adeste fideles

a strange thing happens when i sing this with the umpteenth radio replay today. the words briefly pass through my mind on their way out and cause tears to spring to my eyes. how does a word become an act? how does a fact become a value? how do i begin to adore this babe who is born the king of angels? 

cyberbusiness

we post some items on ebay. this is very exciting. will anyone view them? watch them? bid on them? reject them? calm down, we tell HOM. five of the nine views are by you. this will skew the statistics.

christmas fatigue

we are ambushed by carols at every grocer's department store on every radio station and along every sidewalk. it's cold so that everybody is picturesquely bundled up. the stores are alive with purposefully striding humanity. my mailbox overflows with gift catalogs and mystery cash rewards. everyone i meet asks about my holiday dinner and other plans. today i realize that i have forgotten to remember the shame and wonder of christmas amid all this noisome chatter.

tetany

i get neck cramp and finger panic practicing the closing hymn for tomorrow. there's nothing like the protracted final line in rejoice the lord is king to afflict an accompanist who gets by mainly with a bit of improvisation on nicely spaced out chords. do re mi fa soh la ti do re do ti doooo, with a different chord per note. it hurts.

billet doux

J1 gets a speeding ticket for going 48 in a 35 zone. what i say is, a soft answer turneth away wrath. what i would like to say otherwise is plenty more.

precious mem'ries

HOM building the r.c. boat with J1 and J2
r.c. 'plane crashing on maiden flight
formula one sundays with R at our table
escaping the heat at the big c a/c
jesters' bike ride with J1 and J2

rug foraging trips to bangkok

friday dinner dates around pattaya

fuji, m.k., thom had, chae chut, tai tai

deep fried corn fritters at banglamung farm

all american fun

J1 and i treat ourselves to the norman rockwell exhibition. it is delightful. his paintings are lovingly meticulous playfully mundane and quite simply enchanting. you look at his works and grin from ear to ear. the gallery is crowded with cheerful faces. i want to write like he paints.

my two favorites are:

the window washer

the flirts

size matters

every winter, the question i face with my jeans is this, do i need to upsize for the season? it becomes progressively more arduous to coax the denim up over uncooperative topography from thanksgiving dinner onwards each year.

scrooge

what i say is, at this time of year, the only thing they should be allowed to repeat on radio is handel's messiah. these days when the d.j. announces his holiday selection or season's offerings my blood curdles at another rehash of traditional songs in brass or voice or harp. there's just so much goodwill a body can handle. that's what i say.

i ♥ my dog groomer

Dog returns from the groomer's sporting a jaunty bandanna and accompanied by a complimentary bag of treats. Dog and his environs smell especially wholesome today.

to have and to hold

...for years of love and laughter and of service together...

give us many years, we pray, and suddenly it's been twenty. that's more than when we start, but i would have more yet. 

faux pas

the winter parade visits us. jolly santa on the fire truck gamely sits in the freezing wind as we happily snap away. very community esprit de corps and all that, except now a question plagues me. was santa here for a donation that we misunderstood for a photo opp?

counting down

we'll be hitting our twentieth year of coziness, we tell our children. that's cool, J2 says. that's even longer than J1 has been around! well now, isn't that neat?

cold weather days

things travel brochures don't tell you about that winter wonderland:

• the electric shocks,
• the nosebleeds, and
• the continuous hunger.

the hunger is a wonder to behold. i almost swear each of us harbors a resident tapeworm. mine is called Ingrid. HOM's is the hungriest.

systems review

a girl's best-kept-secret cold weather accessories:

• the dinky de-static-izer on my keychain ♥ ♥ ♥,
• off-street parking, and
• a portable heater.

grocery run

24 DOUBLE rolls = 48 REGULAR rolls! screams the loo paper packaging. this is how i end up piling 96 REGULAR rolls on the cashier's counter. there is a little lady ahead of me in the line. i see her eyes turn to the tower of rolls and take its measure before she turns to me. are these on sale? she asks me. what i say is, sometimes dignity has to take a backseat to economy.

toxic driver

an adult

on a cellphone

at a four-way stop sign

and unaware of it

!@#%!

is

blazing

irresponsibility

dawn of a new age

read this. china cracks down on software piracy, it screams. the chinese government is starting to crack down on  illegal software! ethical behavior is coming to business in china!

i say, give them some time yet. perhaps five years. a communist capitalist economy underpinned by centuries of hard-headed pragmatism will bow to principles only when the wallet or the heart is touched, and right now neither has occurred.

ablutions

i call the groomer's to get an appointment for Dog. i'm afraid we have a three-and-a-half-page long waiting list to christmas, the nice lady says apologetically. 

wait. it's three-and-a-half-weeks to christmas. it's winter outside and smelly inside. even J1 and J2, who have high tolerance levels, are badgering for Dog to get laundered.

hey, i want to whine, my dog's a walking septic tank! could you not just do him out of kindness?

reflection 2

the ideal house guest would be a bald anti-social dog loving naturist on a hunger strike.

reflection

we have a young friend staying for a spell. 

time was when i grumbled about J2's shopping pattern (too voracious) bathroom habits (too hairy) and conversation (too much). all i say now is, things could be worse.

scatology

today, whilst grooming Dog, i discover the source of the unseasonably strong smell emanating from him over the entire weekend. what i say is, don't ask, don't tell.

prostatism

in the time it takes Dog to empty his bladder into the bush by our front path these days, a body could freeze into an icicle.

agitato

there's an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew... yet. it will be cold and bitter, watson, and a good many of us may wither before its blast. but it's God's own wind none the less, and a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared.  - sir arthur conan doyle (his last bow, 1917)

as two koreas teeter today on the brink of engagement, what we learn from the history we live is this, that a new east wind succeeds every last one. 

in thanksgiving

thanks for prayers that thou hast answered

thanks for what thou dost deny

thanks for tears by now forgotten

thanks for peace within my soul

thanks for pain, and thanks for pleasure

thanks to God for my redeemer!

- august ludwig storm (adap.)

for the bounties of hearth and table, for the solace of family and friends, for fellowship and partnership, for a meeting of like minds, and for physical enjoyment, for providence and protection, for bread and for flowers, thank you.

thanksgiving 2010

HOM and J2 commandeer my kitchen for thanksgiving dinner productions. i am only permitted furtive glances at the war zone. i'll tell you this, it smells wonderful. indeed the entire neighborhood smells deliciously like roasting turkey and baking pies this afternoon.

i can hardly wait for dinner, but i don't even want to think about the washing up after.

brave new world

stuff i've watched on youtube lately:

tetris played at super speed

world's fastest hand clapper

4 corgi's barking happy birthday to you

the folding of an origami cuckoo clock

abdominal surgery

everything has an alter e-go these days.

snail

a grown man

on his annual vacation

origami paper

youtube

we're becoming a zoo.

caveat emptor

i fall in love with this delicious trinket at the thrift shop only to discover an irredeemable crack at the side when i get home. this makes a strong case for sticking to ugly utilitarian pieces that plod on and on and never fail.

stinky bug

a grown man

on his annual vacation

origami paper

youtube

why??

remembrance

we put up christmas decorations tonight. our ancient tree our battered advent calendar and our plump pretty candle. we remember that christmas is really none of these things but we are grateful for the gift of time for some beloved family rituals.

make special traditions, i want to tell young families. don't sweat the small stuff. the time comes swiftly when baby jesus goes on the nativity scene a final time. 

lunch date

HOM and i spend a morning on the baltimore waterfront. we are accosted by the obligatory parking ticket hustler. we dutifully do the tourist circuit at fell's point and broadway market. after that we head to the highlight of our trip, which are the decadently divine crab cakes from g&m restaurant at linthicum heights. as rachael would say, yumm-o!

historic sperryville

the trouble with quaint main street america is that it is a picturesque shell existing largely to entice tourist dollars.

is vair purty sair. but are zere real people here?

passage

J1 turns eighteen. i feel outrun, like every mother must on such a day. the years cunningly outpace me and i am caught unready. today i needs must greet the young man who replaces the little boy. a strapping young man he, with his sly wit and crooked smile, and with his hungry hopes in life.

young man, i want to say, remember the hope to which you have been called! remember that you have a goodly inheritance. remember to act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God, and remember that in return he is faithful and loving and merciful.

remember that there is One who writes your song, and gives you the words for your songs. and today, as you turn adult, i raise a toast to you. you've given us laughter and tears. you've given us joy. you've made us proud. cheers.

skyline drive

here is one really tired camper back from his trip, having overdosed on sounds smells and sights and having successfully reupholstered the toyota with his fur. 

new toy 3

quieter. swifter. more solid. thirty nine (thirty nine!) focus points. raw data capability. a banquet of editing options. more features than i can comprehend. 

i need to admit that technology has unquestionably outstripped competence.

new toy 2

i bury myself in this today. all i can say is, there's non-fiction, and there's greek. also there's flawed short term memory, and there's cognitive deficit. added to which there are raw data files, which at once promise great possibilities and more greek. 

baggage

we pack for a weekend trip. 

half the trunk is taken up by Dog. the other half holds Dog's kibbles Dog's dishes Dog's treats the laptop the dvd player the dvd a bag of all our clothes my storybooks and breakfast food. if you ask me, it might be easier to have a weekend trip to our backyard.

psalm 136

not what i planned

not where i thought

not what i trained for 

not where dreams pointed

not hardship

nor sacrifice

less doing

much waiting

tender joys
unearned blessings
incomprehensible peace
undeserved love

God writes my song.

new toy

it's here!

tactical error

i make the mistake of reading up tiramisu on wikipedia as i single-handedly polish off the slab in the 'fridge. now i am torn between a slightly sick feeling intense regret and a strange wonder. the sick feeling is due to the size of the slab. the regret is from knowing what makes up the stuff. the wonder is because i don't even like cheese.

wet day

there are two faces to fall, one lavishly flamboyant and the other aloof and spent. i suspect we will have more of the latter shortly. brrrrrr.

momma hubbard

what my refrigerator currently holds :

a slab of tiramisu

half a ginormous cheesecake

over a gallon of almond jelly in multiple containers, all HOM's fault

one frozen turkey awaiting thanksgiving

a can of reddi wip

leftover diet coke

if you look carefully, you will realize, as i reluctantly do, that none of the above will do too well as tonight's dinner.

the perfect storm

what do you get when your husband returns from a week long business trip and your kid has a sleepover that involves loaning out of bedclothes and sleepwear and the family goes to church the next day as well as to dinner in a non-fast food establishment with an action-packed basketball game in between? a washer and a dryer gasping away for dear life, that's what you get.

holy grail

august: rumors swirl

sep 15: the official unveiling

sep 15: pre-orders begin

oct 15: delivery starts

late oct: rave reviews appear

end oct: demand overwhelms supply

end oct: item temporarily withdrawn
nov 14: item available again

nov 14: we place our order!

nov 14: demand overwhelms supply
nov 14: item temporarily withdrawn

delivery date: your best guess, darlin'

acquiring ourselves a new nikon d7000 is getting to require much vigilance and nimbleness with the credit card in addition to considerable patience and a lot of hope. we are part of an eccentric movement of acolytes deliriously on the trail of the latest prize.  fraternité!

hush

why do people say pun intended when they intend a pun?
why do people end ironic statements with a J icon?

taking stock 2

what four odd years stateside have done to me:

• i am able to quite randomly strike up conversations with total strangers when i stand in line or when we pass on the street. very friendly of me.
• i only barely shudder when bare acquaintances hug me in greeting and i am sometimes able to stop myself from reflexly patting their back as if in comfort.
• i realize that the word partner refers more often to life partners usually of the same gender, than to a business associate or an accomplice.

requiem

this article is written by two scientists from the genome institute of singapore and addresses public misgivings about chimeric research and the possibility of creating human-animal hybrids in the future. briefly, their argument is that distant hybrids are biological impossibilities and therefore moral reservations are extraneous.

they miss the points:

• misgivings need not address a current technology.
• misgivings should be addressed. they can be useful. we tell teenagers that.
• biological impossibilities today are little lambs called Dolly tomorrow.

when two clearly clever people can miss such points the intellectual rigor of their ethical development is tragically suspect.

parenthood perk

J1 drives HOM's car home for me from the auto workshop. this must be the most palatable side effect of financing a teenager's driver's licence.

autumn spell

there are few sights more stunning, i think, than that of a japanese maple in its brazen glory.

mah pwecious

here is an indignant letter to the editor of a singapore broadsheet. briefly, the mother of a six year old is shocked that her child's preschool graduation will not involve little tykes crossing a stage in gown to collect their scroll and having their photographs taken. it will instead feature a concert. in her words, this is a painful omission.

perhaps this is kindliness. lest junior fail to make it to a real tertiary commencement, let's give him the works now! he knows his numbers! his colors! his alphabet! he's earned his mortarboard! egalité! ignorez raison!

perhaps for his primary school graduation, when he knows his fractions, he can wear the bonnet!

spanakopita

my share of the 120 that J2 makes, mostly for her friends.

potluck strategy for the non-cook:

1. have a daughter,

2. have a husband, or

3. know where to shop.

marching orders

the word is out. J1 enlists into the military in february. in three short months, before the snow melts and before the leaves return.

i know a little of how a very ill patient feels now, who gets a reprieve. this half year is our reprieve from the farewells we should have said in july. this way we get another autumn another birthday another thanksgiving another christmas. so in truth it is not three short months but an unexpected and undeserved gift. 

the LORD watches over all who love him,  -  psalm 14:20.

truth in advertising

this comes in the mail today:

just this emerges from it:

and it contains only these:

you could say that the doctrine of proportionality is satisfied.

xanthippe

here is what socrates says about his choosing a famously difficult woman to wife: i wish to deal with human beings, to associate with man in general; hence my choice of wife. i know full well, if i can tolerate her spirit, i can with ease attach myself to every human being else. (xenophon's symposium)

if you ask me, socrates' enormous intellect overshadows his common sense.

indescribable gift

pardon for sin and a peace that endureth/ thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide/ strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow/ blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!  -  thomas chisolm

we sing this in church today, the reprise of my wedding hymn. it is as difficult to sing today as it was twenty years ago. i want at once to proclaim the words, and also to tremble at my presumptuousness. would my God give me so much, with more besides? can there truly be no shadow of turning with him? and then i remember that Christ did not hold back his life but laid it down freely for me. i need to say with the centurion, my God, i believe. help my unbelief!

o give me grace to follow my master and my friend.  -  j e bode

taking stock

what four odd years stateside have done to my english:

• i spell american, exclusively. there are rules about -or and -our that i no longer seek to impose on the spell check function.
• i tend to shamelessly split my infinitives these days.
• peeps of heartiness push out through my native style. i say pop of color and sometimes i even say i'm good when strangers ask me how i am.
• i remain unable to say 'erb, as in 'erbal soup and 'erbert 'oover. i say wa-ter instead of WAH-der. but i do say an-tie-bodies and mul-tie-national.

change of seasons

J2 gets ill in the night. which if you ask me, is rather clever of her. if one must succumb, the best time would be the night that daylight saving ends. that way you get a additional hour to sleep off the ravages.

now i feel that fall has administratively begun.

for the record 2

what i want to learn to photograph better:

1. people,
2. food, and
3. in black & white.

book of the year (non-fiction)

2007  the elephant and the dragon - robin meredith (2007)

2008  parkinson's law: the pursuit of progress - c northcote parkinson (1958)

2009  watching the english - kate fox (2005)

2010  the problem of pain - c s lewis (1962)

book of the year (fiction)

2007  daniel isn't talking - marti leimbach (2006)

2008  a free life - ha jin (2007)

2009  cold comfort farm - stella gibbons (1932)

2010  memoirs of a geisha - arthur golden (1997)

dinner tonight

from an internet recipe, with liberal licence. but i'll say this. i may not be good with instructions, but i improvise confidently enough.

unsure of dates

in cases of doubt cover all bases.

other people's stuff 3

here are the blogs i read for sheer enjoyment: this¹, this², this³, and this⁴.

¹ grammatical chick lit.
² an engaging interpretation of the diary-of-my-life genre; brit.
³ ditto, american style.
⁴ irreverent brit in hk. i'm sure he's brit.

a series of unfortunate names

some things i cannot imagine myself purchasing, on account of their haplessly unprepossessing monikers:

sunbeam heaters

lenovo computers

young chang pianos
iwc watches

qq autos

one has to admit that these names sound at once vapid and vacuous which reflects rather badly on my shallowness but they nevertheless do not exactly inspire great confidence that the heater will not short circuit within an hour, for example. what's in a name, we like to say. plenty, that's what. if you ask me, a toyoda's brakes are more likely to fail than a toyota's.

other people's stuff 2

here are my friends' chinese blogs which i want to be able to access again even if i am dependent on google's mangled translation to read them: this and this, although it appears one of them has migrated to this.

which leaves only picture blogs and blogs i actually read on the main screen now.

other people's stuff

in between good reads now because my latest spoils are en route from amazon.com and the e-book failed to download, so i have been surfing through some blogs from home: this¹ , this² , this³  and this⁴ . for that matter let's put this⁵  and this⁶  here too, for a complete archive.

¹ this is where i start.
² this guy is currently relocating his family to the u.s., which naturally rings some nostalgic bells for me, so i'll follow his fortunes for a bit.
³ this lady appears to be selling singapore themed meals from out of her home kitchen, which will work quite well for me if she lives near me. i hope she replies my question. 
⁴ i like this best. it's unerringly grammatical chick lit.
⁵ young sgp trailing spouse in china.
⁶ for old loyalties and a fondness for things malaysian.

housekeeping

the young pup thinks the low frequency at which bed linen is laundered contributes to acne vulgaris. this is an unfair slur. think about it. i don't get acne, even if some people do. if you ask me, young pups should stop getting their medical education from web perpetuated lore and just drink more water and avoid chocolate.

new best friend ♥ ♥ ♥

the new heater arrives. i don't handle technical english too well but i would say i quite successfully put this together. more importantly it is unquestionably emanating heat the initial blasts of which totally make my day. we need to get three more to pre-empt the custodial tussles i foresee erupting when everybody comes home later.

the agony & the ecstacy

J2 and i go shopping for a new pair of jeans. the experience leaves me drained.

shopping, like cold weather and little children, is best enjoyed in the remote abstract.

november

it's time soon to take stock to remember and to be thankful.

skyline drive

come for a drive, we tell our teenagers. there is beauty that one should behold once. 's ok, J2 says, i get nice scenery from the window of my physics lab.

there is beauty that one sees better with beloved company, with good friends, and with awareness of life's restraints.

another day trip again

today i bring J2 and her partner to the museum of american art and fortuitously discover the martin luther king library in the next street. besides used book stores, my favorite hangout has to be a well-stocked library. this is my third trip downtown in three weeks. wow.

wordcraft

come, heart, where hill is heaped upon hill

- yeats, fr. into the twilight (1899)

夕   陽     山      外    山

on the hill behind the hill the sun sets

- 李叔同 li shutong, fr. the farewell song (1910's)

bewitching words however you look at them. the imagery is at once as extravagantly lyrical as the irishman gets (go read his entire poem) and as beautifully spare as the rest of the chinese monk's verse.

monochrome

i've got it. the trouble is that the carotenoids have a monopoly on the pigments in our backyard. what we need is a dash of thiocyanins, so that we can look more like this. also, a lakeside location wouldn't hurt.

the wisdom of repugnance

revulsion is not an argument... in crucial cases, however, repugnance is the emotional expression of deep wisdom, beyond reason’s power fully to articulate it... shallow are the souls that have forgotten how to shudder. 
-  leon kass (2000, writing about human cloning)

there is a place, then, for a tiny garret tucked under the eaves of my house within which reposes the forgotten spinning wheel with its inconvenient needle. it is good that voices that are popular acceptable and established may sometimes come up against an awkward unremembered qualm. i hope then that i will shudder, and question.

droolworthy

i spend my morning enjoying the view around my friend's home. now J1 wants us to move there too.

new word

dirigisme  [diːriːˈʒiːzəm] n. (government, politics & diplomacy) control by the state of economic and social matters [fr. french]. dirigiste adj.

i don't know about you, but this strikes me as a rather efficient and elegant word for all the stuff back east. the odd thing is that i cannot recall ever coming across this word in all my years living in two dirigiste societies. i have to move to a bastion of free-market capitalism to learn it. hey people, we ought to say, we own the whole concept.

at the pet shop

a basket of colorful tennis balls sits at checkout. donate a tennis ball to a homeless dog today! urges the sign.

i envision a troop of earnest volunteers swarming onto street corners and into back alleys to disburse donated balls to homeless bored wandering canines. 

would you like to donate a ball to a homeless dog, the cashier asks with an utterly straight face. not today, thanks.

wow

this is one gorgeous fall day with the sun and the wind out in equal measure so that you just want to take a deep deep breath and do a pirouette or two.

想起難捨 lord jesus, when i think of thee

no voice can tell no song describe the fullness of your grace 

no sin can bind no guilt remind, that your love cannot erase

this is an old hymn of unknown provenance and age translated from another language. the childlike words hit me unawares. it is good for the soul to remember the simple argument of the cross which confounds my most jaded sophistication. wash me, and i shall be whiter than snow. - ps 51:7  at the heart of it all my need is so modest and God's provision is so fitting.

thou art the lily of the valley, the bright and morning star

where's george?

J2 finds this marked bill.

in this case it appears that george has traveled 18 miles eastward in 22 days, making that 0.76 miles a day. a tad tardy, wouldn't you say?

mmmmmm oishi

*
tonight
i dine on
the salmon sashimi

@ the miyagi

itssogood
i
want
some more

hot nite

everyone is very excited. J1 and C have a gig at the epicure cafe tonight. HOM has a date on broadway. J2 and i shall have a twosome dinner somewhere nice in revenge.

renaissance

the thing about having some of the best museums in the nation at our doorstep, with free admission to boot, means that of course we hardly ever go. BUT today, for the second time in two weeks, i drive myself and J1 downtown for a dose of enlightenment*. this could become habitual. twenty minute drive kerbside parking comfortable company photo opportunities intellectual augmentation and that nice veggie wrap for lunch.

in time to come i shall look back at this cultural interlude with much wistfulness and wonder.

*andrea palladio exhibition, national building museum

bon appetit

my lunch, made for me by J2. 

this bears reiteration. my daughter is the apparent possessor of lots of bewilderingly impressive skills that did not originate from snuggling at her baffled mother's lap. 

affliction infliction

J2's galloping nose has taken over our household. it is blusteringly aggressive extravagantly productive and decidedly indefatigable.

i begin to empathize with parents who march up to pediatricians and demand antibiotics for little johnny's viral urti. it gives them something more participatory to do, i reckon. here johnny, they can urge. take this cefalexin / imipenem / vancomycin. i got it just for you!

i guess i could walk the dog, i tell J2. if you really don't feel up to it. just for you!

trappings

today, at the office where J1 interns as the resident peon, he finally lays claim to his own cubicle and telephone extension. this is very exciting. he now has a spot to officially leave his bag at and a chair to casually sling his jacket over. and, when people call the main line, they can request to speak with him!

i remember my first white coat. we walked taller wearing them. also my first pager. in those pre-cellphone days pagers were the ultimate yuppie accessories. we hooked those bulky little boxes over parts of our apparel and felt splendidly functional.

a pity it is, perhaps, that we forget novelty so quickly.

major !@#$%!

the sequence goes like this:

credit card expires in two years

bank unilaterally decides to upgrade us

now! to a new metal!

old card is frozen

awaiting our grateful acknowledgment

of the new card

but we don't know this!

so

credit card is declined

grrrrrr

prosperity gap

HOM has gone off to attend a course held at a converted seminary built at the turn of the last century. in my time the courses were held in poorly ventilated meeting rooms tucked deep in utilitarian monstrosities. i hear the food is superb too. we were lucky to get coffee and hot water dispensers.

i say there is a conspiracy.

elections 101

read this. briefly, it reports that one california gubernatorial candidate has spent $139 million for her campaign, dwarfing her rival's outlay 10 to 1, which calculation would therefore peg at $13 or 14 million. these are mind bogglingly vulgar numbers. 

what i mean is, we all know politics is a dirty cat fight. but the cat fights are getting more tacky. it's gilded fur that flies these days. 

rodin

the thing about being a much loved pet is that the humans are always trying to personify you. what do you think he's thinking, J1 asks me, when Dog lies down like this, which is what he does for the larger part of the day?

in truth, i cannot imagine that concrete thoughts pass with any regularity through his mind.

tea time

here is HOM's latest fascination, and therefore what we get to consume in a continuous supply as he experiments with different proportions and times. la biscotti mandorla ad nauseum ad astra. unfortunately i must say the texture is still rather doughy.

awe

what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?

-ps 8:4

when i see this, with its effortless ineffable glory, i wonder how anyone can dare to question if the artist exists.

project gutenberg

this wins the award for my discovery of the year.

very briefly, it makes freely available online the text of as many public domain books as volunteers care to upload and proofread. and at 33,000 items and growing, i am pretty much set for a long time to come, as long as i stick to public domain books and i can overlook the irksome plain text format on a laptop screen. it is one little step towards my emancipation from the corporeal library.

the first two documents i read are anne of the island and thoreau's essay on civil disobedience. chick lit and discourse. a girl can be happy.

on the duty of civil disobedience - thoreau (1849)

he hath shewed thee, o man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?  - micah 6:8

i came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place... but to live in it, be it good or bad. a man has not everything to do, but something; and because he cannot do everything, it is not necessary that he should be doing something wrong... what i have to do is to see, at any rate, that i do not lend myself to the wrong which i condemn.  - thoreau

these are harrowing passages to read. micah and thoreau both preach not rebellion or revolution so much as an unwavering fealty to a right conscience. not what is expedient or popular or non-confrontational or culturally sanctioned but that which is worthy. for this we answer not to a human authority who judges our actions but to an inner voice and a higher presence who sees our heart, and for this we may pay with loss of advantage honor goods and fellowship. a wise man thinks twice before doing as bid, but a wise man it is who does as bid.

another day trip

J1 and i visit the art gallery. from today's exertions i realize two things about myself:

1. i like french painters, and

2. i love french food, which i knew before, actually.

i also learn how to correctly parallel park from the young pup.

yacht basin at trouville-deauville (boudin)

international nite

i attend a concert at the high school.

what i discover is this. it can be rather painful to endure a rookie attempting to ad lib a script and aiming for stand-up comedy. somebody needs to tell the sweet young things that good humor is hard work.

wet and cold

things to be grateful for today:

the car

my enormous raincoat

the rain, which washes away Dog's latest bathroom contribution to the deck

the anne books - l m montgomery (1908-1939)

here's the thing. i am mostly a pragmatic utilitarian who doesn't exactly hold with starry eyed flights of fancy and squirms at open shows of romantic affection.

and yet, every few years, i revisit that sparklingly irrepressibly irresistible girl who grew up in green gables, primarily to read again about her and gilbert blythe. perhaps this is because anne's stories bring back the best of my girlhood and young womanhood, and looking back time tarries longer and colors are brighter.

anne shirley belongs to my youth but continues to inspire me to be a more charitable person every time i drop in on her.

halloween ghosties

my neighbor has about six football trophy-like structures arranged in a circle on his front yard all covered loosely by diaphanous white material. after much thought i conclude that they represent a ring of hand-holding ghosts.

my neighbor is indian, of the east asian variety rather than the native american. which makes his yard decoration all the more amazing. when you consider the pantheon of benign and malignant spirits he already has access to, you have to wonder why he would adopt yet another posse of them.