saturday lunch

what i feel like: beef ragout

what i actually have: toast

i could start analyzing my virtual meals.

yeah!!

roadside assistance rocks.
just in time for HOM to return from his trip to a non-event.

EBM workshop - bayesian idea

how my impression of a person is irreversibly altered after we spend some days working on the same project. talk about a changing body of evidence.

EBM workshop - paradigms in tension

so now we look at pre-test probability and LR and post-test probability and try not to go by cut-off values and a one-size-fits-all approach to things. which all sound very legitimate and absolutely appropriate.

the problem is our entire current armory of deeply and universally beloved cut-off points and one-size-fits-all protocols. let's be honest. when you deal with masses and a time crunch, nothing beats protocol.

EBM workshop

lifetime achievement award:

to Ronald Fisher

for singlehandedly manufacturing the concept that haunted my undergraduate years and continues to drive my nightmares today, the p-value.

evolution

paper - cassette - camera

i'm not sure i can relate

sunday rant

my pet sermon peeve, born of long varied experience:

preachers who make me turn to my neighbor in the next seat to tell them God loves you! so do i! or whatever the affirmation du jour may be. 

there ought to be a place of quiet rest. 

high school reunion

what i say is, time is a great leveler. the cool dudes and dames of thirty years ago are less intimidating today. some quiet people grow up to be genuinely nice quiet people. the snarky humor fazes me less. the pockets of cynicism and idealism are somewhat differently distributed. some of the shiny brittleness actually mellows. 

we are not comfortable yet i think. some of us are still too busy doing. but i am glad to be happier with my own skin than i was. 

saturday

eight in the morning and i have no task lined up for the day and no one to do it with on account of HOM's business trip. i am torn between a delicious freedom and an interminable stretch.

a sense of great lethargy threatens to send me back to bed.

blessed

it's a crowded mall and i see her at the escalator as i approach. there she is, middle aged simply dressed slight and deformed and hovering just proximal to the first step of the escalator down, moving back and forth and never onto that step - one stationary body amidst the other busy ones. 

she looks up just i get to that step myself, and suddenly holds out her hand and says, help me. i take her hand and we step onto the escalator together, me in the full assurance of a lifetime of able-ness, and she with her spastic movements coaxed into a forward rhythm by holding my hand. she has a small dry hand, this bird-like woman beside me, which i take again as we reach the bottom and get off together.

thank you, she says. thank you, i say in my heart. you are an angel God sends to remind me that there is beauty in the broken things, and that it is a privilege to see it.

the old place

HOM is back in our old home and sends me this photo of the outside this morning. 

there is a loveliness to that misty dawn with twinkling lights and the blanket of untrodden snow that never fails to draw me anew.

the pragmatic part of me shudders to remember the bone-chilling cold the frozen frosted windshield and the backbreaking shoveling. but the other part is enchanted all over again just like at the beginning.

dinner plans

what i would really like for dinner is the napa almond chicken farmer's bread sandwich from panera bread, together with a cup of rich tomato bisque. what i will end up with is looking to be either a ham in raisin bread sandwich or another bowl of instant noodles.

 

when HOM travels my diet regresses to levels i cannot admit to in public.

after the colic

what i manage to read today, because i feel better and manage to stay up past 9 for a change:

• a commentary on clean and unclean, as per Leviticus. i still don't get why a man with sub-total skin disease is unclean but a man with globally involved skin becomes clean.
• a couple of essays on euthanasia and suicide. what i say is, such essays should not be read on the bed. they have a soporific effect on the unsuspecting.
• robert frost.

i also get to talk to J2 and start a new blog. additionally, dinner was a fabulous tom yam instant noodle, liberally cilantroed. it feels good not to be sick anymore.

in other news and in another place, HOM is awaiting the next big winter storm to hit the nova region. that is to stay, i am  anxiously monitoring the capital weather gang while he drievs with impunity to work and (i hope) back.

illness experience

today i gingerly emerge from the clutches of two days of the most perfectly horrigible stomach clenching peristaltic paralysis i can remember for some time. that is to say, i awaken this morning to the cautious realization that that lump of bile that was lodged behind my xiphisternum had finally taken its leave, together with its companion that niggling stretchy epigastric sensation that pretty much floored me yesterday, and i was free to move and eat. it is amazing what a bit of colic can do to a grown woman. 

you bet i'm grateful

reading Leviticus, with the multiplicity of offerings and profusion of laws and requirements, trying hard to imagine the processes but always getting distracted, and cognizant of the gulf between my understanding and the truth, it occurs to me to be grateful that Christ holds within himself the full sum of the sacrifices and their import, and that his death satisfies the entire demands of the laws on my behalf. 

... that you ... distinguish between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean, - Lev 10:10

my Lord, my sin offering my burnt offering my fellowship offering my peace offering and my grain offering, in whom i am found holy! 

a letter to J2

i remember that imp who was born with a fully formed opinion on every thing. i remember the long plaits the early morning waits for the bus the school canteen and the fishball treats. i remember the latin words the first prom that tumblr blog and the driving lessons. i remember fights and tears and shared jokes and hopes.

i see an imp with a spirit that loves and a heart that is unafraid to dream. i see faith and faithfulness,  grace and generosity. i could not be more proud of her.

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

stuff i am heartily sick of

• lunar new year songs
• yu sheng
• fishballs

today

my new happy shoes.

in other news, i re-bite that ulcer on my lower lip, thereby drawing blood and generously extending its dominion. i spill coffee on my favorite pair of tailored grey pants. J2 loses her entire wallet. the credit company very efficiently couriers a replacement card over. except it couriers it over HERE, and J2 is in need over THERE.

wilted cabbage

the last guest leaves from the extended family reunion. you could say that our weekend begins finally. except that the new workweek draweth nigh.

if you ask me, it was dashed inconvenient for the first day of the new year to fall on a friday. as a result the crazy busy begins on thursday through the weekend without a real weekend to recuperate in.

moon blues

another year, another lunar new year. another round of hearty wishes for good health and prosperity. another contrived exchange of greetings and red packets. another offering of yet one more special homemade sweet. another cycle of hopeful horoscopes and lucky colors. 

after a half century, the season gets tired. i begin the holiday weekend wondering what it will take to get through it, with no break to look forward to for the next half year.

if you take away the family part, this festival can pretty much be retired. i hope i feel more congenially tribal next year.

你的雙手

springs into summers, autumns into frosts

how many meetings and partings

pass like shooting stars in the night sky

who can catch eternity and hold her still?

laughter and tears, loves and rancors

how many sunrises into days

when passion's flower becomes the faded bud

who can find true love and keep it still?

teach me to number my days, that i may gain wisdom

give me peace by your hands - in your embrace i count no regrets

the wind brought me whispers of you, now my eyes have seen you

give me peace by your hand; in your embrace i find my home

it's been a long time, but i thought i would try to render gist of the original into english.