red light district

what i say is, the dutch have got this open-society-full-disclosure-maximum-tolerance thing down to a fine art, the acme of which must be the red-lighted display windows. 

what i also say is, you've got to admit their system is neat, and removes all ambiguity. other women, however dodgy looking and hanging around the vicinity, will not be mistaken for the real articles in the windows. this is an improvement over the situation in geylang, for example.

that said, there is something indescribably sad about the stony faces and perfect bodies all trussed up in their little strings behind the glass panels. 

waterlooplein flea market

or, chatuchak, the dutch version. equal parts seedy garbage and cheap indian imports. but what the hey, i love flea markets. thrift stores work too, and i find one off a street off de clerqs.

city of bicycles

pretty. smokey. liberal.

dinner plans

the good thing about traveling in your middle age is that you can afford a more expansive budget for food. we remember the shared portions, HOM and i, and we rejoice in lavishness too.

camden market

what i say is, this is the british chatuchak.

we discover a used book stall and an afghan rugs place, complete with some old fragments. not bad.

all souls'

because, as i tell HOM, this is where all good VCFers go when they visit london.

and thankful i am to attend too, because it is a service that is delightfully short on the histrionics and rambling verbiage that is always my secret fear. i don't even mind the meeting and greeting bit, because my neighbor turns to me and says, you are new, aren't you? instead of pumping my hand and telling me God loves you! i do too! 

worship ought to come from my mind and heart. today it does.

st. martin-in-the-fields

sir neville mariner gets his spot in my memory banks next to agatha christie and sherlock holmes. which is why HOM and i decide to augment the evita with mozart and handel. it's jolly good too, in a totally different way. the common point to both concerts is the fact that i spend half of this one asleep again. as i remind myself, however, i consistently sleep thru most concerts.

evita

jolly good musical romp, HOM and i both agree. even if i spend half of it asleep, on account of the overnight flight. in any case, i remind him, i slept thru les miz as well, and THAT is my all time favorite musical.

london day 1

fly in. heathrow express to paddington. walk. hotel. walk. soho. leicester square. trafalgar. lunch. the river. big ben. westminster. walk. walk. evita. walk. dinner. st. martin-in-the-fields. walk. supper. 

day 2. recovery.

my fair lady

the cars drive on the left side. there is a predominance of english. also, i can actually understand the english that they speak. mostly. the women's hair is not so perfect. to top it off, thanks to a lifetime diet of agatha christie and sherlock holmes i pretty much feel as if this is my own backyard. i'm glad to finally visit.

tuesdays with morrie - albom (1995)

i finally get around to reading this.

nice touchy feely mushy booky. i would like to live as wisely as morrie did, and to touch lives as he did.

however, there is a caveat to morrie's continuing courtliness in the face of his awful physical decay, and that must be his access to tremendous resources in addition to the love of his friends and family. i would like to die with as much graciousness, and may God grant me the means to such dignity.

it's a little bit oprah, but no harm to that i guess.

chance photograph on somebody's facebook page

in a most bewildering way, i smell the cinnamon coffee and bagel i feel the crisp bite in the air i am again driving through cabin john on a fall afternoon and the little bookshop is a-beckoning my hair's in a hat my legs are booted and i'm huddled in a scarf and it is as magical as it ever was.

it's almost two years since we left. sometimes it could have been just last month.

epiphany

the difficulty in principle remains: one should give milk, but one doesn't know what that means and wonders whether one isn't giving sugared water by mistake, bonhoeffer writes from his church in barcelona.

sugared water might just explain a lot of things.

repair

he walks slowly, step by laborious step, and always afraid of a stumble. the fingers of his left hand stubbornly curl up with a life of their own. his left shoulder sags heavily in its socket. his mind remains sharp. he is always aware of what he is and what he was. i remember his tears.

today, he tells me quietly, i am blessed. i was down there, but i know now that i am blessed. i have learned that life can go on.

the glass castle - jeannette walls (2005)

straightforward unsentimental prose spins a tale which is equal parts fascinating and horrifying. can any parent be so self centered? can any child forgive so much? can love really overlook overlook and overlook again? is this what resilience looks like, this glorious ability to bounce up from the depths without carrying too many residual marks?

the best part about it is that this is a memoir, so at the end i can go online to find out what happens after the book.

next change

J and J are coming home for christmas. in a most unsophisticated non-cool-parents shivers-down-the-spine sort of way, HOM and i find ourselves looking forward to the year's end. even if we have to navigate another few business trips assignments datelines and projects before then. 

how are you doing? someone asks me. not bad, really, i say. it's october. i am always best in december.

the haze

this year the unseasonal pollution is making the october sky look decidedly autumnish although the air continues to be muggy warm and to smell of burning wood and soil. what i say is, if you don't feel, it looks pretty.

what i also say is, the smokers could stop for a bit. it would save them money, and the air is free.