morning after

all is forgotten.

today is a superbly crisp autumnal sort of day.

note to self: buy windshield de-icer quick.

change of season

so much for autumn.

we're in dark dreary slushy fall all right.

and it's going to be icy too.

in the name of jesus - henri nouwen (1989)

an unexpected contemplation of the three temptations of Jesus - to be relevant, to be spectacular, and to be powerful - and the antidotes - prayer, confession and forgiveness, and theological reflection.

i am blessed by the encounter.

dreams and shadows - robin wright (2008)

here is a fascinating story of dreams and ideals and proud civilizations and priceless heritage and how history tears them apart and feeds them to the dogs. it is a painful account of hope and courage and the corrupting influence of too much power, and is all the more poignant when read in the light of the arab spring of 2011.

what i say is, violence quite clearly is not the answer. not even when the other side is  blacker than black, because innocent people always suffer.

i also say, after reading this, things at home don't seem so bad after all. the grass may be greener but their streams are bloodier.

cas-pah 2

cutest set of ghouls award:

lady macbeth would turn in her grave.

!@#$%!

HOM and i and some friends have an unusually unpleasant encounter with ill-bred discourtesy.

was it a chinese guy? J2 wants to know. she is surprised to find out it was not. i thought for sure it would be, she says. it takes a chinese to know another, you could say.

you live and you learn i guess. i've learnt that ill breeding acknowledges no ethnic or national loyalties. all undifferentiated spawn of ol' man Abraham.

groundhog bonanza

3:30 pm go to airport

5 pm flight delayed

6 pm flight delayed

7 pm flight delayed

8 pm flight delayed

that's just the domestic leg

if you think you've heard this before you would be right on the money.

been there, done that

a young woman i know gets into medical school.

i'm so glad for you, i tell her. but take care, i also want to say, that you do not lose yourself in your dream. God does not call you to doctorhood. he calls you to a life well lived, and along the way he gives you things to do that you may rejoice in, or be strained by, for a short while, or for long, and one of them is your job. take care, i want to say, to store up for yourself treasure that the moths cannot get at, because it is so easy to stack up the other kind.

sigh

i miss trawling the art museums in d.c. on autumn friday mornings with J1. these days i lack:

• someone comfortable 
• to do it with, and
• the energy to go it alone.

HOM, bless him, is a lovely man but not given to art museums and he has to bring home the bacon besides.

fuzzy wuzzy 2

i am no longer on iCloud.

imConfused.

fuzzy wuzzy

in a rash of infectious enthusiasm i am now on iOS5 and iCloud.

but
i instant message on skype
i use the iMac calendar, which means i now have duplicate calendars
i use notes on my iMac, which doesn't go on the cloud
additionally
i only have one iOS5 device, because the ipod touch is 2G and doesn't count.

on reflection it was perhaps a misguided rash of infectious enthusiasm.
i blame HOM.

diaspora

J2 grapples with the common app. under demographic, am i china or southeast asian? she asks me. assuredly southeast asian, i tell her firmly. we are ethnic chinese but with a whole lot more rich murkiness to our psyche than china ever loaded on to it. unlike my parents' generation, my affiliation with china pales beside the nanyang chinese malay indian baba and eurasian layers wrapped around my heart.

visiting hours

i visit my friend in hospital. he is one day post surgery, and looks ready enough to talk, so i stay.

but i think, seriously, if i were in hospital, i would decidedly not be ready to talk, and certainly not at all hours of the day that they allow visitors in these days. 

i would like, i think, not to have any visitors, if i were admitted to hospital, apart from HOM and J1 and J2. and it would be nice not to talk or be talked unto, unless the occasion called for it. i would instead like lots of books to read.

romans 1:20

o lord God, who inhabitest eternity,

the heavens declare thy glory,

the earth thy riches.

the universe is thy temple;

thy presence fills immensity,

yet thou hast of thy pleasure created life, and communicated happiness;

thou hast made me what i am, and given me what i have;

... impress me deeply with a sense of thine omnipresence,

that thou art about my path, my ways, my lying down, my end.

- the valley of vision

guard me from casual unthinking arrogance.

existential question

does the chicken come first or the egg? HOM says the chicken undoubtedly, on account of the egg being unable to self-incubate.

which means the question is no longer about coming first, but this: which is the chicken and which is the egg?

yumm-o

i've said this before but it bears reiteration: I LOVE MY CUISINART FOOD PROCESSOR. although it has taken us three years to figure out we've been using the wrong attachment to get undesired results all this while. but it's nothing we couldn't have avoided with an actual perusal of the instruction manual.

popiah party coming up.

estrogen fest

i scour the outlet malls today in a girls-only outing. it is a refreshing experience to have to pop only into what stores interest me. coach: yes! fossil: yes! brooks brothers: next time!

what i say is, HOM saves a lot of money because i am an odd size.
i have a dinky new beret that i have to figure out how to perch flatteringly on me.

spot dx

frequency 

dysuria

terminal hematuria

ouch

sob
:(

still hangin' in there

our light bulbs are taking turns to blow. in over a dozen years we have not had the novel experience of hanging around a home beyond the lifespan of our light fixtures.

it is a happy problem. sometimes it takes a light bulb to remind us that God answers desperate prayers with gentle mercies.

cooking class

J2 shows me how to mince garlic. there! she says. you should be able to do this yourself the next time. i don't think i can get it quite so minced, i protest. you've got to take pride in your work, mom. you'll be able to do it if you tell yourself you won't settle for less.

mind who you're talking to, young lady. besides, i make a killer instant noodle dish.

cas-pah

the tombstone extravaganza award for this year:

ethics - d bonhoeffer (1962 ed.)

does a man write a book such as this today? what he discusses are not comfortably dealt with in bullet points and abstracts and case studies. they are too radical and intricate and discursive and compelling. does a man conceive of such a work in his mid-thirties?

the sword can never bring about the unity of the church and of the faith. preaching can never govern nations. but the Lord of both kingdoms ... rules the world through the office of the word and the office of the sword. (p.95) we would do well, i think, with our ideologies and our tea parties and talk of fairness and affirmative action, to remember. 

pop!

against medical advice, for the first time since i hit puberty, i pop the little blackhead on my nose. there is an immediate egress of a black pinhead followed by a nice bead of pus. this is a terrible thing to admit doing but an eminently gratifying one.

it will be great to say goodbye to hormonal cycling among other things when i hit that time of life.

song of praise

i stand at my kitchen window and watch the leaden skies the rain beat down and the leaves eddy in the wind. there is a glorious and awful majesty to effortless beauty that one has to see to believe, and in believing, to bow.

he puts eternity into our circumscribed hearts.

prepare ye the way

here's a sample of letters to the editor of the premier english language daily in singapore today:

SGH team (part of a letter)

why he chose public over private hospital

medical students to the rescue

patient's honor roll at hospital

that's out of fourteen letters.

one does not recall another occasion one saw such an exuberant explosion of compliments to such a nicely balanced range of health care personnel. so one naturally wonders, what new policy change is afoot in the ol' republic, that the paths are made straight and swept clean? or does one simply witness the gracious flow of the milk of human kindnesses?

tidiot*

the 'phone rings. that lowest life form, the telemarketer, greets me. she's a machine activated by my hello. this call is for anyone who is interested in affordable dental insurance.

what i say is, it appears they are fast scraping the bottom of the barrel here. machine. wide net. random subject. this is non-targeted marketing at its most non-discriminating.

*telephone idiot, not necessarily human.

the agony & the ecstasy

what i'm reading this week:

is the same as last week. see here. the days are getting shorter.

dyspepsia

body curling awful.

i have a sneaky suspicion this is related to the sudden injection of the large dose of buffalo wild wings into a genteel bland diet. bugger the grease.

aptness

to everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.  

- eccl 3:1

deliberate resolve and action, rest as well as work, purposelessness as well as the fulfillment of purpose, inclination as well as duty, play as well as earnest endeavor; joy as well as renunciation.  

- bonhoeffer, ethics (chap. vii, p. 260)

scrumplicious

buffalo wild wings

mango habanero sauce

beyond spicy

beyond calories
and beyond all good sense

my absolute favorite junk food.

sunday morning

this is turning out to be one over-scheduled weekend.

as of last count, four events down and three to go, not counting the three visits to the optometrist on account of HOM's eyeglasses and not including J2's events, which she brings herself to these days.

fortunately tomorrow is Columbus Day monday and i can go shopping.

the agony & the ecstasy

reading this week:

dreams and shadows - robin wright
insights on romans - charles r swindoll
ethics - dietrich bonhoeffer

there are only so many reading-enabled hours a day, which is why we're a bit short on murders lately.

casual friday

HOM gets to dress down to work today.

now i'm not thinking flowing caftan robes. or graphic tee with ripped cut-offs. or even polo tee with khakis. but i admit i thought plaid shirt with jeans and perhaps a suede jacket.

what he actually wears is: dress shirt dress pants dress jacket and dress shoes. look, he says, no tie! 

i disagree

... you have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. this approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life ... you've got to find what you love. and that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers ... and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. and the only way to do great work is to love what you do.  - steve jobs, 2005 stanford commencement speech

this has got to be the most quoted speech in the world today. it is full of inspiring endings to youthful rebellion and good karma for bad happenings. i suspect people are going to sprout follow your passion with a vengeance now.

what i say is, be very careful what, or who, you trust. if we trust the wrong thing, a man once said, we are to be pitied more than all men. i also say, it is given to some to find and do what they love, but it is given to all to do heartily what they do, and to do it very well. 

disclosure: i use and love apples.

man vs machine

six calls. two call centers. four (rather sweet) representatives. four hours.

i know all about my mail preferences now. as i do incoming servers outgoing servers advanced settings and ports. i know that keying in my password twenty times is not the ideal way of trouble-shooting why my emails do not come in. i know too that keying in my password twenty times is the trouble-shooter's default fallback method of trouble-shooting.

the final representative suggests that i re-start the machine. now that is one brilliant fellow.

fashionista

jeggings are apparently leggings that look like jeans and, according to J2, are typically not worn without paraphernalia.

there you go. i thought i put on pants this morning to go with my stunning teal sweater.

woman's lib

today i register for a gmail account. to my very own name! as i tell HOM, after fifteen years of using his email address i finally feel ready to create my own separate cyber identity. it's a bit of a letdown, because by your late forties you can't very well call yourself hotcandy@gmail.com. on the other hand me@gmail.com is miles more professional than somebodyelse'sname@gmail.com.

righteousness

has the Church merely to gather up those whom the wheel has crushed or has she to prevent the wheel from crushing them?  - dietrich bonhoeffer, ethics

... you who pass judgment ... at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.  - romans 2:1

it is tempting to forget it is the Lord's battle, and to audaciously appropriate it.

one for the books

today, one week officially out of summer, we have a day to do winter proud. yessirree. the scarf the socks the hat the long coat the gloves and the frosty puff of breath come out to replace the shorts and the flip-flops we were sporting yesterday. truly.

what i mean is, i feel cheated of my fall.