au revoir

having used up my quota of allotted space for photos on this blog i am now here instead.

come visit with me. stay for a bit. leave a message. become a friend.

for D and S: philemon 7

every place we go to God gives us some people who bear our burdens with us. we have found joy and consolation in your love, and our hearts have been refreshed.

last thanksgiving

in true chinese fashion, our turkey marathon begins the night before. 

HOM makes his farewell bird. we have old friends over. the talk flows easily, in Christ. the year has not been easy but it has been full. there is plenty to be glad for. it is a good night.

the table misses two places. the house misses one dog.

for a young man

so quickly, and not quickly enough. twenty years ago i did not dare think we would come to this. an impudence it would have been then to peer into now. even now i look in wonder at the child who has become a man. child of triumph and laughter and weight and worry and surprises good and bad my child of ineffable joy. we thank God for you. we thank God He keeps you. 

i bow my knees... eph 3:14-19.

d-day deliberation

i tell myself, only half desperately, this is it. the packers come next week. before i fully recover from jet lag before i truly and adequately de-clutter and right when i still feel thanksgiving-ish. we've been suspended between here and there for so long that this is a final tremendous relief. we've been itching to be doing for so long that i am now frozen in anticipation. aaargh about sums it up.

bling pursuit

one tapestry needle one candle flame a pair of tweezers one new hard cellphone case countless internet how-to's several memories of releasing subungual hematomas much neck-ache and an entire hour of tremendous eye-strain later, my iPhone has its own set of phone charms. yeah!

a tale of two cities

the iPhone battery drops 1% every 4 minutes in singapore.
the same battery was 82% last night and 76% tonight here in the states.
go figure.

in case you were wondering

i meet people from home. how have you been? what did you do in the past six years? the subtext says, have you been bored? how did you tolerate it, not doing anything much? i perfect my sweet non-commital smile-cum-murmur and move on.

for the record, the six odd years have been a gift. i have been well. i can't tell you exactly what i have been doing. nothing economically profitable, i'm afraid. some non-economic activity, with some joy and satisfaction and perhaps profit there. i've been writing living epistles, by God's grace. i've been building a home.

modern day samaria

HOM punctures a tire on the highway. as he waits for the auto recovery people, he meets:

• traffic police cars escorting the trucks into the container park, who do not stop for him.
• irate motorists in speeding vehicles narrowly avoiding him, who do not stop for him.
• a policeman who questions his presence at the roadside, and toddles off at punctured tire.
• a driver who stops and asks if he needs help, whose car has a malaysian plate.

the lesson to learn, he says, is:

• japanese cars shudder when trucks rumble past them.

i tell him the lesson is:

• malaysians make better wives.

breaching the fortress

i visit a friend in hospital.

there is an entire bank of gantries blocking access to the elevators. please register yourself first, the girl manning the gantries says. i am directed to another station, much like the bank tellers', to surrender my identity and my cellphone number. only now do they allow me to swipe my ID and to clear the gantries and summon the elevator.

wow. in the old days life was not so secure perhaps. it was certainly simpler.

excuse me, are you any good?

i tend to fall for rousing endorsements.

is this good? i ask the baker of her desserts. the best, she says unhesitatingly, and i return home with stuff i do not set out to buy. is this good? i ask the lady at the little bakery today. it depends on you, she says. some people like it.

what i say is, political correctness is the new name for lack of enthusiasm is the euphemism for poor business sense is a nice way of saying something else.

watson's

the sign says, buy 2 get 1 free. the cashier is sweetly apologetic. this is already at the reduced price, she explains, so the sign does not apply. you would have to pay the higher, canceled out price, in order to get the buy 2 get 1 free deal, even though the sign is there, and you have no way of knowing any better until you attempt to pay for it.

do you have a membership card? she asks as she rings me up.

the world's local bank

local singapore bank. automated answering system. for this, press that. for that, press some more. don't lose heart. male voice. australian accent. aussie!

what i say is, if you have to be tortured by bad accents, it should at least be your own.

home, ver 2.0

HOM and i check in to the hotel again. this is our third set of rooms in the same place in a little over a month. our rooms increase in altitude with each incarnation. quite clearly, we are moving up the loyalty ladder. do you feel like this is home? HOM asks me. you bet. 

J1 calls this his third home. there's his home home, there's the army barracks, and there's here, where he bunks with his dad every time business brings HOM here.

song of love

i visit with an old couple. 

he is quiet. she is talkative. he is slow. she darts. he is deliberate. she finishes your sentences for you. he butters her bread for her breakfast. she cooks a full meal for just two. he clears the table. she shares her vegetables with him. be careful, they tell each other. the road is slippery. she nurses him without question in sickness. he falls apart when she falls ill.

love learns to be patient and kind after fifty years.

priorities

my mother has learnt, late, to navigate the online world. she keeps in communication with her vast social network via facebook. she has an elago pen that keeps her ipad screen free of fingerprints. she has a bilingual device, which is more than i have. i show her how to upload a photo onto fb.

good, she says. now show me how to make those little circles with the smiling faces inside them. 

mrs. parkinson's law - c. northcote parkinson (1968)

mr parkinson in his element delivering snide digs at the institution of modern courtship marriage the home family life and the aftermath. surprisingly sharp and to the mark too, which one expects not to find in a book written when one was a toddler. the only problem is he takes seven chapters to actually get to mrs p's law, and i get there to find it is a variant of the second law of thermodynamics. his own law was better. but as a study in domestic science this book is a delightful rip.

the years of man are three score and ten, but the psalmist forgot to add that a man may be married for fifty of those years, and even married to the same woman.

modern travel

HOM and i do a count of the electronic devices traveling with us. i have four and he has five. we have ipod ipad iphone and several other alphabets as well, and we do not count the shaver, which technically is electric not electronic. frankly, if the check-in luggage did not turn up we would be fine as long as we could still get connected. 

sands of time

still here. still leaving soon. another magnificent autumn.

He gives me thorns and rocks and rains and strings them together

with joys and pleasures and glimpses of glory.

streams in the desert

i am making a way in the desert

and streams in the wasteland,

- isa 43:19

the wasteland and the desert are not easily recognized, i learn.

i wait for the unmitigated sorrow and undiluted pain

and forget God plants flowers in the arid places

and gives sweet waters with the bitter.

thank God He does.

easing back in 3

today on account of having to look professional i pour myself into my ten-year-old tailored suit. to my great relief it still fits. the first thing i will do when we finally repatriate is to visit my trusty dressmaker and have her make me a suit that will allow me some caloric flexibility. as it is, because i will need to look professional again next week, i have a full half pound to wiggle in this weekend. that's really just two burgers, after which the buttons will pop.

i ♥ my auto mechanic

on time. under budget. 

unpolished and unslick. but kind.

he doesn't make the miracle happen. 

he does what he promised to do.

i ♥ my auto mechanic, much more than i have ever ♥ed my healthcare provider.

comfort food

breakfast. panera bread. cinnamon crunch bagel with cream cheese. hot coffee. cold nip of fall, outside. cozy cafe, inside. intimate chatter.

after three weeks of relentlessly crowded public places sweltering heat outdoors freezing indoors and a vastly more complex cuisine, today's outing feels a little like coming home.

jet lag

is napping the entire afternoon away because you are waiting for your husband's telephone call to get you up and he gets holed up in meetings the whole time.

the thing about the empty nest is you are pretty much a free agent and therefore bereft of higher responsibilities that compel other people to stay present and accounted for.

image makeover

HOM tells me that this icon has to go from my email signature setting now that i am going to rejoin the ranks of the economically active. what shall i put in its place? i ask him innocently. anything but lips, he says. FINE. i guess few things say airhead better to a middle aged male executive than fuchsia lipstick on a middle aged woman.

jet lag

is falling asleep playing letris on my ipodtouch.

homeless at home

what i like about being back in the states:

• my own set of wheels,
• less traffic,
• a kitchen, and
• a washer and dryer.

all said, this protracted period between knowing we are imminently moving and actually doing so is rather unsettling. much like a painfully drawn out break-up. we used to grumble at being given such short notices about our moves. clearly, knowing for half a year isn't much better.

i have an idea

if they set the a/c thermostat at a number related to the outside temperature, say n - 5, or n - 6 C, then perhaps the malls in singapore would not be the freezing caverns they currently are and the energy bill would be smaller and we would not be contributing so much to the greenhouse gas total and most importantly, the hapless public would not need to be subjected to climate extremes simply because they want to go for a real-time shopping trip as opposed to an online one.

taken 2 (2012)

as one rotten tomato puts it, this movie is exactly what i hoped for in light of taken and i got to watch exactly the show i wished - stress free improbable plot james bond-esque action minimal gore-to-body ratio and an ending that winds your adrenaline and pulse down nicely. not too bad for my movie haul this year. although i have to say that outside of high heroism that Liam Neeson character is an unfortunately overbearing and overreactive father who would get my heckles up in half a second. 

i have HOM  and J1 to thank for dragging me to this show.

random thoughts

most regrettable development:

the disappearance of the food hall in the basement of tangs

most welcome development:

the plethora of subway lines. 

you need to be able to remember when it was just red and green

in order to appreciate what it is now.

most amazing development:

the relative scarcity of the singlish accent these days.

it is lost in the ocean-tide of authentic other accents.

saddest truism:

in the natural course of things,

difficult people become more difficult as they grow older.

random transportation observations

thanks to the prohibitive cost of taxicabs and their total absence when you need them anyway, i have had more exercise this past week than in the entire past year cumulatively. also, thanks to letris on my ipodtouch, waiting for the train or bus is now a non-event. except that the little ubiquitous screens have made each of us entirely a kingdom unto himself and oblivious to the humanity crushing into our noses. the subways and buses are peopled with single minded unseeing zombies en route to their busy lives.

best public transport innovation: those electronic boards that tell you when the next bus is arriving at the station. THEY ACTUALLY WORK.

easing back in 2

i sit thru a mock session today. the old thought processes, one is relieved to say, do come haltingly back, summoned by sheer will power and pure need. they say you never forget once you learn to ride a bicycle. it is still a relief, i say, to find your legs know what to do when you face a real bike, never mind what they say.

sign of the times

i notice that these days the shop assistants no longer say miss. instead these days they say m'am.

outing

i meet a friend for lunch at the newest mall* in town. very happening of me. i arrive in plenty of time to be able to browse. the pity of it is that the mall looks and feels the same as all the others. although of course it is not. this mall is newer brighter greener more technologically impressive with more commanding architecture and just as blah. the problem, i think, is that amazon.com has changed the game plan entirely for me.

*star vista mall, freshly opened less than two weeks ago.

easing back in

i have lunch with an old friend today. he is actually vetting me for a job. it's been a long time. i turn up in jeans and my birkenstocks. c'est la vie. what you see, i want to tell him, is what you're gonna get.

new and old

there's ferragamo, and there's earth mother i guess.

on a side note. why are people wearing knee high BOOTS in the sweltering tropics?

another random observation

professional looking young gentlemen who travel on the public transport system should refrain from conducting official business on their cellphones whilst traveling. this is because while their conversations make for fascinating entertainment for their fellow travelers they also raise questions concerning the soundness of their professional judgment.

house hunters 2

i survive the mass of writhing humanity that seethes in the bowels of the subway at rush hour. it is my reminder that our prime pre-requisite for a home is LOCATION. a body could not do this on a regular sustained basis and not slowly go bonkers. especially if the body had a say in it.

utterly random observation

• i am seeing plenty of blue nail polish around. is this the new red?
• in any case, blue nails look pathological*. someone should tell the fashionistas that.
• *even with sparkles.

house hunters international

otherwise known as, motivated buyers, inc. what i say is, we're tired, and it's just been one day. what we are looking for, HOM and i realize, in addition to our wish list, is ONE DESPERATE SELLER. 

what we now know we need to avoid, sgp version:

• bay windows, those devious things by which the square footage of the apartment is amplified without giving you actual real estate.
• creative design, otherwise known as mirrors, those devious things by which the square footage of the apartment is amplified without giving you any real estate.
• new developments, those devious things that do not even pretend to amplify your square footage.

aaaaargh.

movie marathon

six years in the states thinking that my hearing is deteriorating because i can no longer make out what they say on the screens and now after back-to-back trans-continental comparisons i realize it's not me, it's them. it's them americans who have been swallowing up more and more of their syllables over the years so that wa-ter is now WA-dr and bu-tter is BUD-dr. string enough of these together and you get something unintelligible, through no fault of the hearer.

the brits, fortunately, are still considerately articulate. and their humor is still nice and dry. the best exotic marigold hotel takes my prize for successor to mr bean award. 

snow white & the huntsman (2012)

i catch it on the flight movie offerings. here's my rotten tomatoes take on it:

• the mix of accents absolutely defies logic. irish brogue goes poorly with rounded american vowels. ugh.
• the mix of styles is irritating. only modern anne-hathaway types of princesses say i'm sorry. i'm not sure what the others say but i'll betcha they aren't so plebeian.
• i'm not sure what snow white should look like but after a lifetime of disney consumption i'm pretty sure they don't look like the twilight girl.
• hey whose kiss is magic? are you saying it's the older damaged man trumping innocent faithfulness? puh-leeze this is a fairy tale.
• charlize theron is waaaaay more classy looking than kirsten stewart.

addendum: also, any screenwriter who inserts the Lord's prayer into an imprisoned fairy-tale princess' bedtime routine clearly has his genres mixed up, not to mention a (painfully) obviously romanticized understanding of what he is quoting.

my new hobby

is looking at what people remove from their cosmetic bags to desperately insert into the little clear baggies before they go through security at the airport. the manner of tubes bottles and pots that emerge from the depths of anonymous bland-looking pouches staggers the mind.

deep end

the house hunt begins in earnest for our next home. all i say is, it isn't fun to be at the exposed end of an over-heated housing market at the advancing edge of the conflagration. and it doesn't help that the first realtor we call sounds like we woke her from sleep. on the other hand it shouldn't be rocket science. all we need really is one desperate seller.

moving, they say, is a major life event. so is the prelude. it keeps us sane to remember that our Father above knows our need.

change of season

the heater finally kicks in. this vindicates all the shivering we've been doing.

existential question

how many plastic containers does an empty nester couple need?

growing up within the influence of ubiquitous tupperware parties

coming of age amidst the rise of disposable plastic ware

building my home upon the edifice of ziploc boxes

it occurs to me that i actually just use 3 containers on a regular basis.

on any basis in fact.

but i dare not discard them.

in case i need them.

although i have not.

but i might.

it's only with the plastic.

i am able to ruthlessly cull everything else.

even my beloved books.

why?

the expats - chris pavone (2012)

thumping good read, is what i say. sharp competent non-bungling female james bond character in a satisfyingly multi-layered whodunit. no, make that whodunwhat. satisfying to the second last page, and that's only because the last page is simply the concluding paragraph about people merging into the crowd.

final lap

the corolla goes off to its new owner.
i practically have carmax on speed dial.
our pantry enters a state of chronic deprivation.
we have people lined up to inherit the mixer and the ice-cream maker.

the terminal round of de-cluttering begins.

FAQ 2

how are you doing? do you miss them very much? do you have things to occupy you? 

er, i'm fine, thanks. they are doing quite happily, so i am, as well, to my great relief. ah actually, i am quite occupied sometimes. and we miss Dog too.

the house must be so empty now both of them are gone. it's a good thing i like what they left behind, i suppose. oh what did they leave behind? umm. their dad?

malibu melt

egg bacon cheese and avocado on a slice of hearty chewy springy farmer's bread from the local cafe. ambrosial. i am:

• an indifferent cook,
• desperately deprived,
• very hungry, or
• all of the above.

do you want me to mail you and your friends anything while i still can? i ask J2. food, please! we've been hankering after yakun kaya. whoa there! sweetie, i was thinking along the lines of a favorite book or jacket.

seasons

there's a definite nip in the air. yes sirree. i likee. 

cycles

we get to know General and Buddy from next door in the aftermath of Dog. General is fifteen, a totally mellowed out former alpha mutt. Buddy is his obliging nine year old yellow retriever brother. they help heal the breach left by Dog.

General will be put down tomorrow, our neighbor tells us. his eye tumor is bleeding into his sinuses. the enucleation bought him four months but he is in continuous pain now.

dogs have a way of sneaking nto your heart unawares.

disappointment

HOM and i hustle ourselves bright and early to the annual neighborhood flea market. sixty stalls in a basement car park overflowing with potential treasures, matched by the funds we arm ourselves with.

perhaps it is our recent move. perhaps it is our impending move. perhaps our tastes have improved. there is nothing in the car park that compels. it's not us, HOM says. our standards are still way down there. it's just that there's nothing good here today.

how about it?

HOM calls just as i am about to start dinner. it's friday nite, he says. it's a good time for dinner out. which is rather true, i think to myself as i cling wrap everything up. there is no need to check anyone else's schedule or preference. this empty nest thing has its advantages. 

post-modern

i'd like your comments on some of this stuff, my old teacher writes me. do you have band-width? let me know if you have band-width.

i have skype, i reply cautiously.

HOM tells me that is not what he wants to know. something is amiss, i tell myself, when both my university professor and my teenaged children draw from the urban dictionary.

FAQs

what will you do next? will you go back to work? will you be able to find a job? will you miss this life?

• well yes, i guess i have to get back to some sort of economic productivity, what with two college-age offspring to help finance.
• and yeah, i look sixteen, but we're not getting younger. time to build up some resources to retire on.
• yes, i hope to be able to find a job. i don't know yet. i know what i want though - part-time hours at an awesome pay doing something intellectually engaging that i can excel in. hey, life is about compromises.
• are you kidding? of course i will miss this. making a home, choosing my pursuits and settings, refreshing my spirit.

soli Deo gloria

fresh from church retreat, and thankful to have been part of something bigger than myself.

there is something really cool about seeing an answer to prayer materialize before one's eyes.

keeping faith

fear not. be not dismayed.

the waters will not overflow you,

the flames shall not scorch you,

as your days, so shall your strength be.

the waters come, as do the flames.

and then he says,

count it all joy.

thy command is at once awful and awesome,

my Lord and my God.

what i will miss

• the flowers the leaves the colors
• the weather and the snow
• my children's childhood
• the gentlemen who hold doors for me

it's been a great sabbatical.

what i will not miss

• electric shocks most of the year
• enthusiastically feckless telemarketers
• lack of real supper options
• the emptiness behind hihowareyou?
• shoveling snow

impressions of quebec

the one thing that amazes me is the effortless bilingualism. coming from a country where the entity exists proudly on paper and stumbles awkwardly in practice we are at once charmed and grateful and exceedingly impressed that the one is authentically mellifluous and the other completely grammatical. that mangled patois that is m. hercule poirot's brand of english is unheard here, nouvelle francais notwithstanding.

i do wish our mandarin sounds like their french and our english is correct like theirs.

je me souviens

the people here say, i will remember. and they make every effort to. they fiercely guard their colonial heritage with all the linguistic and cultural baggage and they immortalize their former taskmasters with much affection and gratitude. there is gentleness and inefficiency that result when you respect your past.

this is so differemt from back east, i tell HOM. over there, our love affair sputtered to an ignominious disillusionment with the japanese occupation. we have not this engaging fondness for our sir's and mem's, although we retain a lingering obsequiousness. mostly we are brash and new and briskly vigorous. plenty of shine but we cut out the depth with independence and development.

wish list

here's what makes for a nice hotel, in my books, and fresh from three in the past week, from the perspective of the budget-conscious middle-aged mom-and-pop traveler:

• non-smoking provision, with penalties on violators.
• firm high bed with orthopedic pillows. forget the down. please.
• free wi-fi, unlimited devices. i'm cheap.
• one of those coffee makers that use the tiny individual pots.
• real cups and glasses. because disposable is just tacky.
• motion sensor lighting in bathroom. loved this one.
• shower stall, not bath tub. a rain shower head is good.

error

the name says beijing. it proudly guards the entrance to the quartier chinois. the sign on the door says  zagat rated. we are ready to be impressed.

what i say is, the zagat reviewer had no idea what good chinese tastes like. 

lonely planet guide

meandering the gardens. lunching in the house of parliament. wandering the lower city. watching the glass blowers. climbing the battlements. swapping food notes with random strangers. hunting out that crepe shop. working up to agonizing body aches.

good sort of vacation? HOM asks me. the best, i tell him. good company great weather no fixed itinerary an entire city within walking distance and only needing to think of the next meal.

date night

great weather. the old city. evening walk. a little bistro. ze accent. good food. french songs. my friend my lover my partner. memories are made of these.

impressions of montreal

• languages spoken are french english and chinese.
• every other street is named after a saint.
• cars. more cars. and then some more.
• the gps has a french accent to curdle your blood.

rite of passage

we leave J2 at her dorm.

is this it? HOM asks me. is this the end of her childhood and our life as we have known it for two decades? will she not come back now except with her family after this? is this it?

if  it goes well, this is it, i tell him. she becomes an adult now. if it goes well, she grows into a mature beautiful adult. if it goes well, this is the good end to childhood and childish ways.

unsung symphony

nobody ever told me sending a kid to college was this stressful. perhaps i didn't listen. or perhaps parents are so shell-shocked they just want to get on with life after that.

that being that monumentally difficult weekend during which you attempt to prophecy what the dorm requires and prepare as accordingly as possible and find out eventually that you fall short anyway,  for which you make your child pack with as close an eye to economy as possible and still find the sum total far exceeding your financial and volumetric quotas, during which you arrive cross-border to find yourself obliged to impersonate a headless chicken trying to set up bank account cellphone account pay school fees and run up smack against. the. weekend. and, naturally, doing all of this and trying to impart your years of accumulated wisdom and finding your advice competing at a disadvantage against the pull of frosh activities and other more attractive offerings. tempers, not entirely unexpectedly, get awfully frayed.

HOM and i totally need a vacation after this.

ghosts

we bring J2 to her dorm. 

it's a tiny campus. several faculty buildings surround the pre-war relic. the ceilings soar effortlessly. the bathroom has mosaic floor tiles. the stairs are double-width and covered with terrazzo. there is harsh white fluorescent lighting. you walk next door to class. 

it feels surreal, i tell HOM. this is k.e.vii all over again, and back to haunt me.

a song of ascents

L'Eternal est celui qui te garde, L'Eternal est ton ombre a ta main droite, i want to tell J2. the sun will not smite you by day, nor the moon by night, i want to tell HOM.

rites of passage and transitions and major life events have a way of coming together in a seething cauldron of uncertainties and forgottens and uncontrollables. 

the LORD will guard your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forever. L'Eternal gardera ton depart et ton arrivee, des  maintenant et a jamais. i need to tell them, as i need to remind myself. through shining success burning stress the warmth of comfort and heat of battle the cold evils of discouragement and machinations and darkest night he neither slumbers nor sleeps.

regard

the road to a friend's house is never long, the old proverb says.

so our friend drives from timbuktu to siberia to send us to the airport in the early hours. in the gardens that i have, the most glorious blooms are friends.

new things

even to your old age, i am He

and even to gray hairs i will carry you!

i have made, and i will bear;

even i will carry, and will deliver you.

isaiah 46:4

go with God, child.

seasons

they that sow in tears shall reap in joy.

- ps 126:5

that bag of seed, my friend, comes from thy best grain.

the comfort thou wouldst receive the succor thou wouldst have

the labor thou wouldst have expended upon thee.

sow them with tears of hunger and longing and pain.

the Lord of the harvest says,

they that sow in tears shall in time know joy.

precious mem'ries 2

they have a surprise farewell party in church for J2 and us. people come and say they will miss us. we appreciate your contributions and your faithful labor, they say. the tears come because i can't help them. not a labor, i say. it was my privilege. it was our privilege.

go with God, an old lady says. God willing we meet again. but i am old, and perhaps we will not meet in this life. she teaches me much, this old lady, about living and loving and not fearing.

precious mem'ries

HOM and i fly back to texas for a memorial service. we meet up with beloved friends. it is like we never left. 

sometimes we wonder if we should have traveled more done more seen more places ticked off more items in our years here. but then we would not have known so many be known by them shared so much and learnt to laugh and weep so well. i have not seen the grand canyon but i have glimpsed hearts. it suffices.

respite

J2 goes off to college in a couple days. she treats me to frozen yogurt. i lend her the cash. she wants to know how to launder her favorite skirt. we trade tips over lunch at Tachibana. we wander the trinkets store and goggle at the kawaii stuff.

we've come a ways, J2 and i. at one time i did not think we would come to this place of easier conversation and active peace. 

blessings all mine

take some photos to remember, HOM tells me.

i take this to remind me that once, for a really brief period,

we had the inestimable pleasure of living

in the midst of unbridled color.

touching the throne

though it seems that your prayers have been in vain/ though your faith the world would destroy/ though your heart should ache 'til it breaks in two/ they that sow in tears shall reap in joy.

- william gaither

somebody needs to include this in the primer for parenting so that hapless parents know they do not weep alone.

the accidental bride - janice harayda (1999)

all i can say is, wit does not guarantee good writing. like a chain of semi-precious stones held together by raffia. 

recommendation: don't.

spent, again

bearing with one another in love.

- eph 4:2

the thing about having your buttons pushed is that some buttons appear to be reserved for some specific persons. and the thing about bearing with one another is that the mutuality cannot be mandated.

homeward bound

after six years.

nice.

if only it wasn't such an expensive home.

so yes. mixed feelings.

water-shed time

God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy.

- 1 Tim 6:17

the antidote to centuries of sino-asian cultural conditioning.

God gives, and continues to give out of his boundless coffers,

out of his own wish, that i may know present delight.

one bag a day. and some.

four bags today, in fact. of documents going back to the beginning of our marriage, no less.

hoarding, it appears, is a habit that creeps upon the best of us, and very quietly wraps its steely tendrils around us hapless sentimental fools. why else would we still faithfully file the purchase papers for appliances bought five homes ago?

Lord of the stress

for i know the thoughts that i think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. 

- jer 29:11

after the mountain-top, the world. we have had incredible privilege.

muddling through inelegantly

a national framework to guide rationing decisions ... may "result in insensitivity to the complexity of clinical care, to the rapidly changing character of medical knowledge, to the uncertainties of the care process, and to the wide range of situations, needs and preferences of patients".

d.j.hunter, bmj 1995 sep 23; 311(7008): 811

with our strong pragmatic bent and deep fondness for algorithms and model answers we would do well to heed this in the little red dot. in healthcare in education in anything perhaps where our first response to a question is what's the guideline on this?

rationing, hunter says, will always be messy. hey, life too. 

fairies and ghosts

what do you say to a nine year old kid who says she doesn't believe in Santa anymore, someone asks. i would say you're right, honey. my friend says it's important to let them believe so they have hope. i say Santa kinda scrapes the bottom of the hope chest.

an old man said, may the God of hope fill you with all joy  and peace in believing... Santa and fairies don't quite cut it.

empty chairs at empty tables

he comes to us on a tuesday, a cheerfully rolling creamy hairball

who happily implants himself into our hearts and our lives

he completely skips chewing, hurries through toilet training

and then stays adolescent for the rest of ten lovely years

sit, stay by the pool in regent park

heavy breathing in the trunk of the car

heavy drooling over the back seats

long, long family walks to the dog park

bunking in with Clifford

earning frequent flyer miles

swimming, and not liking it

finding cover in a thunderstorm

running into glass doors

presiding over every homecoming

the outlet malls at San Antonio

the many different homes

indiscriminate love

unquestioning forgiveness

playmate comforter companion 

he was perfect

in pace

6.19.2002 - 7.21.2012

with not a mean bone in his body.

we were so privileged.

spent

how quickly a dog goes downhill.

he's slipping away.

idiot canine 2

this is what i want to say to Dog, if he only understood:

do you know what we do to human kids who refuse to eat? we let them go hungry, that's what.

clearly the entire family is being terrorized and held emotionally hostage by an entitled picky brat who would be getting his just desserts if he were human.

idiot canine

here's our latest, wildly successful attempt at enticing Dog to condescend to partake of his repast.

we currently have three different flavors of kibbles in the garage which he actually turns his nose up at. what do i say to the vet? i ask HOM. he's refusing his food. that is to say, he gobbles down his treats and wages a war of attrition with me over his meals. is he ill? is he dying?

inflation

90, 98, 105

first class, international

three incarnations in six years.

fond as i am of vintage as a concept

it becomes more painful to support with time.

miss clare (1962) and emily davis (1971) - miss read

miss read is the english version of laura ingalls, only more complex and substantially more satisfying. smashing good reads, that's all i can say.

manic affliction

wondrous thing, jet-lag in some people. which is why the car gets waxed at pre-dawn in our home today. it's contagious too, the lassitude. but not the productivity.

day dreaming

indulging a little, seeing as this is our twelfth home yet and we have a steady diet of advertisements and hgtv offerings to feast on. so here is my ideal home:

• wood floors including in the kitchen,
• bright yellow energy efficient lights,
• washer dryer dishwasher oven microwave,
• well insulated. i don't do au naturel well,
• the type of quiet that drives city folk mad,
• a nice space for the piano, and
• a kick ass white kitchen with stone countertops.

oh, and 2000 sq. ft. tops in an awesome location which i realize makes me sound terribly entitled and ridiculously privileged, but then this here is the ideal list. 

disclosure: i have known close to ideal in my time, and we are thankful.

canine lobbyist

looking at how Dog gobbles up his new brand of kibbles in contrast to the last month of food refusal lethargy and fears of inflammatory bowels and worse, it dawns on me that he was on a hunger strike all this time.

we exchange notes with our new neighbor. his dogs are nine and fifteen. oh good, i say, Dog's ten and we want him to be around longer. keep'em skinny, is his advice. right. bring on your next strike, Dog, and watch the old Science Diet make a comeback.

by sun and candlelight

you must be exhausted looking after dad, i tell my mother during this last draining week. yes, she says, but luckily he is kind and obedient. 

i begin to understand that after fifty years of marriage this is not a comment lightly made or easily earned.

recovery

dad's biopsy is good

Dog's eating his specially-for-picky-dog food

the dent in the piano is repaired

i'm breathin' better.

spent 2

in the past 4 weeks:

all of this, then

unpacking amidst

a 66 hour power outage

in a record setting heat wave

HOM's extended business trip

my dad's hospitalization

Dog's finicky feeding

to boot.

mea gaspa.

Dog days

Dog's off his kibbles for over a month now. he comes and sniffs and ignores, new flavor entreaties commands and hand-feeding notwithstanding. he drinks and he gobbles up treats. he poops and he pees. he is neither yellow nor white nor is he in obvious discomfort. he is his goofy indiscriminately enthusiastic self. he is sweetly protective when i discover a roach. he sleeps a whole lot.

today, he refuses to walk after a block. his puffs sound more labored. he looks almost miserable. i want to hustle him to the vet.

the problem is, because you understand how limited doctors truly are with their speaking patients, you honestly wonder just how much a vet can do with a canine one.

under the tuscan sun - frances mayes (1996)

she writes with a light lyricism that invites you into her world. i am drawn into her whimsical efforts to restore her old villa in tuscany. i love her kitchen - white, with thick marble countertops, sealed brick floor - so much that i try to find pictures of it on the internet. i get hungry reading her descriptions of the fresh produce and effortless meals. the bourgeoisie in me shows after that, i'm afraid. her recipes read disappointingly. gimme the food, not the labor, i want to say. the travelogue part of the book loses me after the excitement of the hgtv part. 

it's a lovely book for a certain reader. a tad slow after a steady diet of murder stories.

village diary - miss read (1957)

every once in a long while one discovers a new enchanted series that hearkens to a cleaner and gentler style that delivers its punches with sneakily ironic wit. even more charming if the series is set in a village in post-WW2 england, that special time suspended between modern brash britain and miss marple's spidery lace-filled era.

the surprising thing is it doesn't read like a dated magazine article, all italics and delicate innuendo. the child today, used as he is to much praise and encouragement, finds it much more difficult to keep going as his task gets progressively long. ... and the negative attitude, in so many homes, of how-much-money-can-i-get-for-how-little-work? does nothing to help them ... unexpectedly current and forthright, i must say. surely enlightenment comes lately? 

what i've always said

my life-long conviction, vindicated in style:

camping is for idiots.

it's over when it's over

the longest power outage i sweat through yet. not even in thailand, i want to tell HOM. even in that backwater land of candles and smiles the blackouts were always more like brownouts. this one was a sixty-six hour whopper. here, before i forget, my gratitude:

• that this is summer and not winter. summer outages are outrageous and sticky but winter outages are worse.
• that my biggest headaches are how to keep comfortable and connected.
• that family and friends surround me with concern and contact and supply.
• that t-mobile, that finicky company with spotty coverage, chooses to keep its coverage intact at my study window throughout the ordeal.
• that it's over.

a daft smile plasters itself across my face every time i pass a draft of cool air from the vents. i can have another shower anytime i want! i can sleep on cool sheets tonight! i can peer into the freezer at long last! 

60 hours and counting

musings from the midst of a massive power outage athwart a heatwave:

• the simple life is a farce. the simplest life is intricately and ornately bound in a finely interlocking grid of electrical cables that holds it as willing chattel babbling on unthinkingly about mother earth.
• when housework is proscribed because there is no light and no power, life isn't all that bad, really. except for the dreadful mugginess, of course. 
• the best time to have a power outage, all things considered, is when everyone else in the household is away on holiday or business. it makes for more logistic efficiencies and it conserves the hot water. 
• i surprise myself every morning when i awaken from yet another night of refreshing, non-climate controlled sleep.

sweet sorrow

comes a point beyond the milk feeds broken nights alphabets and sums adolescent awkwardness and teenage tempests when a parent realizes her child has become an independent self-determining persona quite unlike herself with differing tastes opinions and priorities. the fledgling seeks out his own tree. it is a natural part of growing up, the old bird tells herself, and a good thing too. she sought her own tree long ago with the same hunger. on the other side of the fierce hunger is pain. she only learns it now, on the other side.

spent

in the past three weeks:

landlord gives us notice

frantic house hunt

mega moving sale

J2's graduation

church retreat

house guests

house removal

J2 flies off

J1comes and goes

HOM's business trip

a body could do with a bit of spacing out.

house removal, cautionary tale

the final thing people don' tell you about moving to a new home:

you will be bruised all over from bumping into things in the day whilst you unpack.

you will be bruised all over from bumping into things in the night where things didn't used to be.

you will be bruised just putting out the trash because you forget the car is in the way.

journeying on

pictures up.

boxes out.

we're good to go.

house removal, epiphany

a garage and a basement are not permanent fixtures in your life. 

kids grow up and leave home. 

plan your life and acquisitions around facts like these.

house removal, insider tip 2

to minimize agony with a move: do NOT collect:

• those sturdy plastic containers that come with take-out soups and make you feel wasteful when you want to discard them. discard them.
• those pretty mugs that are given out at father's day mother's day visit-my-organization-day and end of year parties as souvenirs. say no thank you i have a cabinet full at home. also, do not buy any mug no matter how pretty. you have plenty of free mugs at home.

house removal, insider tip

when you unpack you should at all costs do as much as possible as speedily as at all possible in order not to exceed two days in total.

this is because two days is the window you have before every last muscle in your body will conspire to block all your attempts to open another box. the muscles will win.

panacea

wanted:

satisfying plot not requiring intellectual engagement wrapped in good writing to while away the evening hours of post-house-unpacking fatigue.


it's proving elusive. largely because good writing and mindless plot seldom get together.
also, the library is closed.

blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside

J1 flies over during his block leave. he quickly commandeers the car to embark upon the rabid social scene. the place quickly overruns with his paraphernalia. the music is loud and long. he does his dishes. he pulls his weight. he runs me my errands. he figures things out. he shows concern. 

as much as i hardly dare to imagine it, my son has, i think, become adult.

family reunion 101

what they don't tell you is:

• reunions are nice. we've missed each other.
• reunions are painful. they begin to end as they begin.
• once the euphoria peters off the genteel tug of war for the car keys commences.

house removal 101

• do not in a flight of fancy allow the packers to pack up all your trash bags into a box. Murphy's law prevails.
• when in doubt, toss it.
• otherwise, use the basement or the garage.
• when you have unpacked so much that your body is screaming to quit and you do, the boxes are still there the next morning.

her name is grace

i remember you registering her for first grade, HOM says to me. 

i remember a skinny teenager navigating middle school.

a limp sedated wisp in hospital. a firebrand tomboy.

a child blessed. a blessing.

goodbye lunchbag!

this has packed its final lunch.

J2 graduates high school in two days.

reeeaaally.

heart break, reloaded

seller's remorse n. when you offload too happily at the garage sale and wake up with a sinking feeling the next day. [eng. seller (of commodity) + remorse (over selling)]

specifically, we are short of a desk for the p.c. now.

heart break 2

bone tired
a li'l bit richer
just as cluttered
not understandin' why

thank God for enthusiastic young people.

heart break

we are culling years of memories, putting them up on exhibition

and attaching a price tag to them that underestimates and 

offends their true value.

we are selling our family history

and hoping that somewhere, another family may have

the same fun and joys and laughters and times that we have had.

clutter attack

do you notice that they tell you how to organize the clutter in your home but not what to do with the organized clutter years down the road?

because it may look neat, but that's only until you start to take it apart to deal with the innards. and then the temptation is to stuff them back into their fossilized order and pretend you don't have to deal with them until the kids grow up or move out or you need to downsize drastically or something. i guess after a dozen or so stuffings that something has come.

our home is slowly unraveling at the edges.

house hunted

yeah!

so we're getting compacter nicer newer cheaper, in what is shaping up to be quite a pleasant seamless move. at times like this i begin to understand why Mary broke into her Magnificat.

even to your old age, i am He

and even to gray hairs i will carry you!

i have made, and i will bear;

even i will carry, and will deliver you.

isaiah 46:4

full throttle ahead

our family is on an aggressive drive to de-clutter. my old textbooks finally get to go to the landfill. the games chest is ruthlessly emptied. even the drums find themselves a new home. we plan our yard sale for this week. HOM monitors his babies on ebay. J2 has a roaring sale preview on facebook. we get spray-painted signs from our neighbor after his sale today who got them from the other neighbor who had his do last week. very busy worker bee mode we are all in.

the only thing is, HOM and i spoil it somewhat by visiting our neighbor's moving sale and buying ourselves a new table, which means we now have to sell our old table in addition to everything else. J2 is slightly put off.

surviving a move

sayings to live by:

one bag a day.

when in doubt, throw.

you want? come and get it.

house hunters 3

the bad: no covered parking. long driveway. too much yard. long way away (from where we are). not so pretty. etc.

the good: other people's houses are just as cluttered as my own. some are more.

we continue the hunt with grim determination.

stuff

i give J2 two trash bags one bag for donation items one box for her memories and send her to sort her room out. 

the effort gets derailed by the memories and her closet.

house hunters 2

he wants big. she wants cozy. i want less housework. he wants a fenced yard. i want cheap. she just wants to move. the market's hot. how do you find a good unit? i ask HOM. type desperate into the search box, he says.

it's getting crazy.

house hunters

here's our wish list:

compacter - newer - cheaper - nicer.

as HOM says, it's about time. 3 years and 10 months in one home

is already longer than we've ever been in any home

since we got married.

and, as J2 says, woo hoo!

the sale worth waiting for?

memorial day - outlet shopping appears to be a matched pair in our family. other people have bbq's and parades and go to the beach.

in any case, i tell J2, now that the logistics are about settled for college, the shopping can begin.

missing the point

a robot might be able to apply relevant algorithms to decipher this.

but humans are stuck, you know? how do you decide between

grree gmee and grnee?

grrrr.

saltatory conduction

five years after i capitulate to the u.s. english spellchecker my system no longer recognizes honour or labour as valid. analogue looks medieval. also, this being the land of freedom, i no longer know how to use the hyphen. i am a hair's breadth (hairsbreadth?) from alot, although perhaps this transgression should be laid at another door.

it is amazing how thoroughly one's entire philological ideology can be patiently shaped over forty odd years and then resoundingly upturned in half a decade. 

the size of thoughts - nicholson baker

mr baker is delightful. he writes about the most mundane subjects (fingernail clippings! punctuation!) and, with a few deft descriptions, makes you look at them from an utterly unexpected and yet totally familiar angle, and you think, why didn't i think of this first? his humor is sneaky and dry and catches you when you are looking the other way. his metaphors are funky apt. his problem is his propensity for extremely extended sentences which demand of the reader mental assiduousness of contortionist proportions and to which this sentence does not even begin to approximate. what i say is, only st. paul is allowed to write a sentence that becomes a paragraph.

it's a sparkly little book. the question is, can i finish it? or will long distance fatigue set in first?

growing pain 2

i see a photo of someone's twelve year old son. he's a skinny earnest-looking bespectacled fellow, eating at the table with his elbows propped up and his nose in a paperback. i had a little boy like that once, i think, with a sudden sharp pain that makes me gasp. he's older now. he reads differently. he thinks differently. wit sharpens. innocence darkens. i won't have the gift of that boy again, me with the hopefulness of young motherhood and he with the uncomplicatedness of childhood. 

what i have is older and more damaged. there are depths that you will not know if you do not plumb them in pain, i tell him over the years. i am older and more damaged too. that cheerful sun-drenched path leads unrelentingly to the land of shadows on the way to those depths.

growing pain

here's what J2 will wear for her high school graduation.

in a way that is exciting perturbing and inexorable

my little girl is growing up.

long road to freedom

bathroom remodel, day 2 today.

what you see is day 1, which drove me close to noise-induced madness.

Dog isn't too happy either.

speedy g

HOM upgrades our router to some new standard. not ferrari, he tells me. but it's like you're driving your corolla on country roads and we finally get a pass to use the paved road. zoom zoom. iLike.

date night

HOM drags me to best buy. he wants to browse the modem-routers. i find myself agreeably entertained by the section that sells ipod accessories and ipad smart-covers and i am about to start on the screen protectors when he fortunately comes to whisk me off. he wants to visit the apple store next.

what i say is, a man's got to keep busy but a girl needs her bling.

cause and effect

well, since i cannot tell J2 why she has to turn up at school,

only that she has to, so she does, in shorts. rather shorts ones too.

the answer is no

J2 and i go to another embassy today.

there is a line to get through the bullet proof doors. we sit according to the order we arrive. a strange hush pervades the place. suddenly, a deviously cheerful fellow appears. what are you here for? visitor's visa? we do not accept those applications in the afternoon. 9 am tomorrow please. what about you sir? let me see your application. you need to go and re-do the forms we do not accept a hand-filled form. yes i'm afraid your entire family has to go and re-do the forms too. and you? you came to sak questions? we do not take any questions here. all the questions you may have are answered on our website. 

pouf! half the waiting room is cleared, like chaff swept by the wind. which is how J2 and i escape a parking fine today.

reading comprehension

i'm guessing it says to cook the noodles

in 550 ml of water for 3 to 4 minutes?

adios!

HOM returns his on-trial-period chromebook. what i say is, about time. what he says is, he was persuaded by the panoply of purportedly possible functions offered by cloud computing without the need for software investment and maintenance. what i say is, you've got to be kidding right? what he says is, it doesn't dazzle as promised. what i say is, go get a macbook.

you aint seen nuthin yet

my young friend is deeply discomfited by the physical demands of her advanced pregnancy. i want to tell her, from eighteen plus years away, that i cannot empathize because i remember nothing of the physical  rigors of mine. in fact, what i want to tell her is, twenty years from now, you will realize that the physical pain is nothing compared to the emotional and spiritual pain you will know in time.