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.