good seat

hot out

smoothie in

new year's eve's eve

people watchin'

niceeee

the year in perspective 2

i read a whopping number of non-trade books this year thanks to the e-library and my trusty smartphone app. HOM drags me to the gym every few weeks which is a damn sight better than two years back. the DSLR continues to supply the dust bunnies despite a brief attempt to take it out from the cabinet.

on the work front i get paid to do stuff that is not a chore and is even mostly enjoyable which of course excites vague feelings of unworthiness and guilt. my pleasure to engage young people, i always think. i walk with some patients to the end of their journeys. it is my utmost privilege.

O has a health scare which jolts me into considering an alternative life with no live-in help and perhaps shortened hours at work. against the odds stacked against her by age and imaging she emerges unscathed and HOM and i breathe a collective sigh of gratitude and relief.

HOM and i steal short trips which actually add up to quite an almost embarrassing number. heh.

new synapses

how to reformat the blog layout:

• go to design
• scroll thru every option
• take the plunge and change the formatting
• chicken out and leave
• repeat
• dislike how the new format looks
• ask google how to get the look i want
• follow steps 
• discover they were steps for wrong look
• discover new command to tweak
• ask google how to get the look i want on mac
• follow steps 
• voila!

in the new economy:

• google sure knows a whole lot
• what's not to learn

year-end visit

we visit with J1 Y and J2.

they make time to go around with us. as it should be, my friends tell me. really? it always amazes me that people would take their time to match mine. thank you!

how are your children? people ask me. alive, i say. they appear busy and happy. i am thankful enough. 

J1 and Y are in the heart of the city. J2 is in the heart of farm country. so different and so strong in different ways. our children but their own persons. 

my hope is unchanged. be clear-eyed and brave, my children! remember who you are and where you come from. walk with honor and courage. rejoice in the journey. and my God, who has supplied my needs, is He who will supply yours.

taipei impressions

• it's a city to walk and subway in, if only because the traffic snarls are unending
• the smokers are ubiquitous and the most innocent looking pedestrian will light a ciggie at the drop of a hat
• they have pedestrian crossings across the widest streets and they tell you how much time you have to get across and they give you plenty of time!
• its messy gangly solidly mid-century and nothing-beyond-the-eighties architecture brings back  memories of the taiwanese tearjerkers of yesteryears
• their people are beautifully courteous in a way that refreshes your spirit after a year in the trenches of work peppered with news of protests and marauding scooters
• for reasons HOM and i cannot fathom, we expect taipei to be cheap so needless to say we are disappointed
• it was a lovely visit to rival the best year-end vacations in memory

the year in perspective

"i have satiated the weary soul, and i have replenished every sorrowful soul."

- jer. 31:25

weary sorrowful satiated replete

beleaguered broken redeemed restored

impoverished provisioned

broken. grateful

TA-DAH! product of the century-to-date

presenting the social water bottle, which has come out from the obscurity of non-existence to current omnipresence in the best company, as an expensive accessory doing what the mug used to do. and really, i don't see why you need to take gulps of water as we converse.

madame fourcade's secret war - lynne olson (2019)

exciting spy stuff.

forgettable writing.

with an ending that could imaginably be more satisfying. (for e.g., what happened to her son? and her other children? and her eventual husband?) 

only in my list because it gives a different view of the world war efforts against the germans and the japs than the other book code girls (liza mundy, 2017) which was equally smashing stuff and with a more gratifying ending too.

how not to be a doctor and other essays - john launer (2007)

sometimes you read a book and tell yourself you wish you could write with such wisdom (not, of course, c.s. lewis' books, or bonhoeffer's, which you read and then simply surrender to superior wisdom and poetry.)

this is such a book. he writes with wisdom and poetry on a swathe of topics but especially on topics close to my experience and frustration - the limitations of our self-important constructs as doctors the effectiveness (and otherwise) of our hallowed ways of doing things in healthcare and the song we sing in human to human discourse. 

this be a book practicing doctors ought to read, if only to get us more in touch with other people's painful reality.

(much belated) ruili impressions

small city off of kunming at the china-myanmar border built upon the gem-trade, to which HOM persuades me to go back in august:

• there is a bewildering selection of cuisines, none of which is my tried-and-tested beloved cantonese. picky eater that i am, this will be weight-reducing if i have a prolonged stay
• the loos work! and they are clean! in fact, they rival the best functional loos in other parts of asia. (you can imagine loos have been a reason i have long resisted a visit to china)
• we are amazed by the sheer hospitality of the people we meet. that is to say, i am amazed and humbled. HOM says he has always known this and that i need to jettison my pre-conceived ideas and prejudices. (you can imagine people have been another reason i have resisted a visit to china)

• the night markets are rip-roaring deafening fun. especially the ones from which the live-broadcasters ply their ware
• it is fascinating to see the jade roughs up close and personal at the rough markets, where people walk around with powerful handheld LED torches and comment on random pieces of rock. despite the close contact i remain ignorant and illiterate
• and anyway plebeian me is most excited over the completed jade pieces at the prettier stores at the peripheries of the action

• here they don't appear to have any traffic rules whatsoever particularly if you are a scooter, in which case you may share road and pavement with car and pedestrian, only at their respective speeds. which, surprisingly enough, works
• the corollary is that crossing the road as a pedestrian becomes an act of steel-hearted faith even when the light is in your favor, but hey, we survived!
• and the seat belts in their cars appear to be optionally functional

• they have traffic cameras everywhere. that is to say, all along the roads. so that you can pretty much get tracked relentlessly. uncle Sam has nuthin' on this
• they even have a camera at the hotel check-in! i find this unnerving and an assault upon my (un)developed sense of privacy, coming as i do from the premier nanny state in south-east asia

• what i say is, you can't beat chinese airlines for efficiency. they board you on the dot take off on the dot and tend to arrive ahead of time. a girl's gotta love this