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?