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.