con te partirò

J1 falls under the spell of the song, purchases the sheet music online, attempts the italian, and assumes i will accompany him on the piano, which i do, with much more flourish than accuracy. i'm grateful i can sight read passably enough to retain an appearance of competence with which to impress my teenaged son.

bigotry

were you there when they crucified my lord?/ were you there when they crucified my lord?/ sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble;/ were you there when they crucified my lord?

i tremble too, at the reinterpretation of facts deliberate blindness predecided outcome and overwhelming wave of popular opinion. there, but for the grace of God, do i merrily traipse daily, and unsuspectingly.

verdict

 they taste absolutely divine. we are now officially independent of the farmers' market bakers who charge the earth for their ambrosia.

our daily bread

HOM has a new project. he wants to wean us from the wonderful and exorbitantly priced farmers' market bread.

today we hit phase 2 of bread recipe testing, with a fine layer of flour covering the kitchen and four loaves of bread in progress thanks to his energy infecting J2 and aggravated by our collective greed. i foresee a steady diet of bread based meals in the near future, much like the turkey days post thanksgiving.

fastfood

i soak the dry ingredients overnight, spend an hour at the grocer's, stand tending the pot for forty-five minutes and dinner is history in fifteen. our family has to learn to gobble at a more restrained pace.

family outing

i suggest annapolis richmond or mt vernon. HOM suggests shenandoah. we end up at the outlet malls.

a whole bunch of philistines, that's what we are.

grateful

do this in remembrance of me.  - lk 22:19

eucharist f. Gk EU-kharistos offer willingly. my need, the price, and his reparation. the eucharist is, in a nutshell, the descriptor for eden, gethsemane and calvary. not because we are worthy, but because he is merciful.

palm sunday

my chains are gone/ i've been set free/ my God my savior has ransomed me/ and like a flood his mercy rains/ unending love/ amazing grace/ the earth shall soon dissolve like snow/ the sun forbear to shine/ but God, who called me here below/ wilt be forever mine.  - tomlin/newton

to paraphrase the old man in the movie, i know that i am a great sinner, and that Christ is my savior.

the church & you(tube)

the english service worship band has decamped to camp, so today i am their substitute pianist borrowed from the chinese service. to summarize:

1. i don't like contemporary english songs, and

2. i don't know how to play them.

but i survive! thanks to guitar chords downloaded from the net and to multiple replays on youtube, i internalize enough of the new songs to actually be touched by them. this, i tell people, is the first service i've ever done by way of youtube.

oishi 2

white grape gazpacho*

spring greens with baked salmon

crabcake a la godzilla**

pinot noir

fruits

i'm so satisfyingly stuffed that it's an effort to burp. although we may get sick yet from the soaked almond slivers*** i have to rescue from the kitchen sink on account of the leaking blender jug.

*food network recipe
**falls church farmers' market
***for the gazpacho

oishi

much too good to share:
1. xiaolongbao from din tai fung,
2. sashimi platter from tachibana,
3. guacamole from that tourist place in cancun,
4. the raw fish salad from tiong bahru.

weather forecast

snow tomorrow.
don't they know it's spring???

as you like it

shakespeare is over-rated, because i've enough grey hairs to make apocryphal comments. my main quarrel: contrived plots that depend on implausible coincidences and are conveniently resolved by deus ex machina. the closest modern counterpart must be a third rate romance from mills & boons. and he relies a lot on genetic goodness triumphing over circumstances, which is rather stretching it.

on the other hand, his writing is sheer poetry if you just allow the words to bewitch you. forget the iffy plots the improbable remorse and cursory characterizations, and just enjoy the effortless cadences. it does mean we need to read the man himself (or watch him) rather than sparks notes or the lamb siblings.

odyssey

Dog's half hour walk becomes a two hour expedition when J2 wanders off course in the woods and emerges at the farthest shore. next to the cia, in fact. this obviously mandates a parental exploration of every other bylane in these 'ere parts, aided by unhelpful descriptions of unknown landmarks on a rapidly expiring cellphone battery and abetted by a non-current gps map. we finally locate each other after a three way conference involving J1's intimate knowledge of the locale thanks to his cross country days.

all i say is:

1. laundering his mud-splattered clothes has finally paid off, and

2. thank God the days are longer now.

3. thank God. period.

i will desist from uttering the choice adjectives that earlier crossed my mind.

lent 2

the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. - Job 1: 20-21

perhaps the hardest lesson, most oft learnt over and over, and the slowest to find a permanent home within. when i lift my eyes above the waves and the flames to the cross of calvary i find inexplicably, a peace to the turmoil and a hope beyond the pain. it is the Lord, and not what he gives, or takes away.

lent

in their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said... "...remember...". - lk 24:5-6

in the grip of paralysing blinding anxiety, with the dashing of every fond hope, in heartbreak and in sorrow - my Lord bids me remember his past faithfulness, his every precious promise, and to remember that it is the same Lord who walks with me today. my memories are given to supply courage to my present.

gethsemane

our grocery store* is holding an easter celebration:

there has to be a subliminal implication here. why is the passion of christ being defined by a passel of plastic eggs hiding in paper grass at various locations ranging from churches to grocery stores?

*the giant store

heathcare reform 3

in utopia:

1. medicine would not be a highly vested passport to a good future.

2. we would live richly, so that infertility, disability or death is less unwelcome.

3. there would be a sensible balance between public and private funding.

obama has his work cut out for him, is all i can say; healthcare reform in the u.s.a. is not something to wish on your bitterest enemy. i am not sure if what eventually emerges can be better. perhaps the greatest achievement may turn out to be simply the resolve to reform.

healthcare reform 2

my take on reform:
1. accept that we cannot do everything for everyone.
2. fund primary care, and let quartenary care find its own.
3. fund medical education, so that md's can afford to be gp's.
4. understand that tertiary care is not an entitlement. see point #1.
5. accept that the public health perspective will not coincide with the personal.

healthcare reform

random thoughts:

1. we forget the price of having it all is an expensively tattered life.

2. we do too much, but not enough, and hover between costly extraordinary advances and inevitable expiration.

3. we forget that the shared primary objective of popular media and big pharma is profit, not education.

don't be evil

i concede:
1. big corporations like to define their own ethics,
2. business reality is harsh and unforgiving, and
3. spin machines can whitewash anything.

nevertheless, this post is dedicated to google's refusal to politically censor its search results on ol' guge. taken at face value, this smacks of good old fashioned honesty*. comes a point when a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, an' a girl sure hopes men do it more often.

*again, i cede points #1,2,3.

census 2010

my second census, four decades after the first. i remember the census takers that went door to door in pj back in the day. these days we just return the pre-addressed envelope.

so now we have experienced:
1. the winter of the century,
2. the census of the decade, and
3. the reform that defines a presidency,
all within the last quarter.

nothing in the house (the response)

my servant, i have come into the house

i who know Pain’s extremity so well

that there can never be the need to tell

his power to make the flesh and spirit quail

have i not felt the scourge, the thorn, the nail?

and i, his conqueror, am in the house

let not your heart be troubled: do not fear

why shouldst thou, child of mine, if i am here?

my touch will heal thy song-bird’s broken wing

and he shall have a braver song to sing.

- amy carmichael

nothing in the house

thy servant, Lord, hath nothing in the house

not even one small pot of common oil

for he who never cometh but to spoil

hath raided my poor house again, again

that ruthless strongman armed, whom men call Pain.

i thought i had courage in the house

and patience to be quiet and endure

and sometimes happy songs; now i am sure

thy servant truly hath not anything

and see, my songbird hath a broken wing.

-amy carmichael

murder she wrote

i exit the thrift store with three kathy reichs' and two mary higgins clark's. these, on top of the reichs, higgins clark and j.d.robb i'm already feeding on, will be making me decidedly suspicious of things that go bump, not necessarily in the night.

nothing beats an intellectually satisfying murder. to add to the above: laura joh rowland, dorothy sayers. and if there is a female preponderance i'm not apologizing.

harbingers of spring

in order of appeareance:

convertibles

shorts

harleys

exposing, correspondingly:

prime hair

teenaged legs

middle-aged scalp

peanuts & monkeys

i have 3 such boxes, acquired in a misguided moment of cost consciousness. in the trashbag world, it appears, there are wimpily fragile generic knock offs, and there are upmarket and dependable glad bags.

the lesson learnt is this: if one is paying below the usual price, one would do well to remember why.

new word

gerrymander v.t., & n. 1. v.t. manipulate boundaries of (constituency etc.) unfairly so as to secure disproportionate influence at election for some party or class; 2. n. such manipulation.

this is a eureka moment, wherein the passionately eloquent allegations of many an underground political pundit meet one pithy descriptor.

st patrick's day

the obligatory cincinnati pops orchestra danny boy gets trotted out on the radio today. not my preferred version, but it makes me wonder, yet again, what it is about the simple melody that unfailingly and hauntingly tugs at my heartstrings everytime i hear it.

here is my favorite version - friends, unadorned, by the fireside, of a cold winter's night. Sláinte.

daylight saving time

come sunday at 2 a.m. we will lose the hour that we will regain one sunday in november also at 2 a.m.

what i suggest is this:

1. lose our hour on saturday in march, so we have the entire weekend to convalesce, then

2. regain the hour on monday in november, so we have an additional hour before starting the week.

marriage vows

into a year and a half, twenty years later than prescribed, i have compressed the lessons of six years and sat all three steps of the usmle.

i want to celebrate with a spiky hairdo.

HOM is unyielding. no spikes. it's my hair! it's my wife. bugger.

letter to the press

this is what i said: to be fair... (while) oftentimes news headlines are more dramatic than the news, in this case... the newspaper has been blamelessly neutral and factual and the hapless victim of misunderstanding.

what they printed: ... less than fair in (his) criticism... (the) headline was, if anything, factual and accurate.

this is ghastly. they have edited my irony to perdition and left me sounding like an earnest do-gooder. the only thing to say is, the premier english newspaper in sgp has become entrenched in inelegantly literal syntax. we have lost the art of laughing at each other, and at ourselves.

irrational glee

the hydrangea is budding. so is the azalea. there is an inexplicably cheerful jiggle in my heart today. here, by my front door, i see that the long winter is slowly drawing to a close. yesss.

on second thoughts, i'm sitting step 3 tomorrow. rats.

whoooosh

HOM returns from his trip, sputtering. the ritz-carlton, in addition to forgetting to return his credit card, wants him to foot the shipping charge to wing it across the seas.

today the hotel replies his indignant protest with a satisfyingly abject apology, which has rather taken the wind out of his sail.

this goes to show that a little groveling turneth away wrath.

a middle-aged date 2

HOM and i decide to have dinner a deux at the mall. it happens that humanity has chosen tonight in which to crawl out of the mall woodwork, so we end up with takeaway and a quick escape home, where dinner turns out to be delicious convivial and blessedly tranquil.

what a ways we've come, he and i. time was when joining in the hoopla just made for greater enjoyment. these days, give me my home and i might give you a hug.

memorial service

it should not be so bad - a life well lived, an end to pain, certain welcome to a better place, but it is of course. the humors will swirl and spill in despite of our logic.

i recognize, not for the first time, the debt i owe to ritual and liturgy. there is comfort in the form and the words that lend strength, as there is dignity that is unexpectedly acquired in enforced restraint.

in support of the hymn

like liturgy, a good hymn* takes our pain joys fears and hopes and spins them into an intricate whole that guides us to deeper thoughts than we start with.

which i find more helpful than the modern practices of:
1. syncopating the beat out of Everyman's reach,
2. repeating one key phrase ad nauseum, and
3. in a tune only younger ears can follow.

every man to his poison, i suppose. give me amazing grace any day.

*sub-par hymns, of course, should be culled. these would be the simplistically irrelevant curiosities in our retired hymnals.

in support of the traditional service

the primary value of liturgy is that it gathers the multiple threads of our concerns hopes regrets and desires, and presents the distilled heart of our jumbled thoughts in unassuming form shorn of superfluous verbiage.

which, if you pause to think, is a lot more efficient and less self-serving than when we go with the flow and babble.

the lady in the van - alan bennett (1994)

a delightfully frothy biography which is unexpectedly laced with compassionate reality. i am almost sure the lady in question is a schizotypal p.d. who eventually lapses into frank psychosis, all the while maintaining a mystifying fifteen year friendship with the author. his humor is so sly that i almost miss the horror of her audacious toilet, and the pathos of her final decline.

this book could also be called the odd hermit and her sidekick. i love it.

big urban myth

"you need straight A brains to study medicine."

what you need, rather, are:
1. a decent memory,
2. financial backing, and
3. a willingness to work your derriere off.

what you need to enjoy medicine:
1. liking for people, unless you do not intend to practice on them,
2. socio-emotional depth, for the pain and the palaver, and
3. an inexplicable conviction that this is your ordained path.

why?

there's this bright thirteen year old who has aced his A levels and wants to read medicine. here are my thoughts:

1. he's not chinese! i thought chinese had the monopoly on pathological hyperachievement!

2. let him read, mold his mind, inform his opinions, have a crush, discover failure. college can wait.

3. learning a trade can certainly wait. it doesn't take long, although refining the art will take his lifetime.

a teenaged boy needs to be able to:
1. pick up a guitar and sing a serenade or two.
2. ask a girl out for a date without stammering too much.
3. dress like, and be, a gentleman.
such skills being best acquired before college.

uphill climb

all i say is, i should not feel guilty that i can count so many blessings in my life.

this is because every two years or so, our family goes through a tsunami level kind of vicissitude that leaves us gasping and facing an unsuspected new direction in its wake. the summary goes, sgp nj sgp thailand sgp tx va, with additional spanners thrown in from time to time.

today we discover that J1 will have to rehash his college apps two years down, when he finishes his military obligation, because colleges only defer enrolment for one year. i am distressed enough to feel like an additional metaphor, and sisyphus comes to mind.

so it's good thing i can count so many blessings besides.

goodbye

my friend is dying,

who has lived much, served faithfully, and made peace.

who has great pain, is lovingly medicated, and

has friends to keep watch with her.

i have walked thus with others.

why do i weep so?

tomorrows

a man carrying a jar... will meet you... he will show you a large upper room, all furnished. -lk 22:10-12

but i know who holds tomorrow, and i know who holds my hand.

the comfort is that the room is furnished ahead at his behest, quite unbeknownst to those who will use it. so i suppose that although J1 will have to redo his college applications in two years, at the end of his military obligation, His Lord will have gone before, and we will get there eventually.