appraisal (32)

never think she loves him wholly; never believe her love is blind.

all his faults are locked securely in a closet of her mind.

all his indecisions folded like old flags that time has faded

limp and streaked with rain. and his cautiousness like garments

frayed and thin, with many a stain - let them be, oh! let them be!

there is treasure to outweigh them!

his proud will that sharply stirred climbs as surely as the tide,

senses strained too taut to sleep, gentleness to beast and bird,

humor flickering hushed and wide as the moon on moving water,

and a tenderness too deep to be gathered in a word.

- sara teasdale

last month of the year

 what i've been doing:

• binge-reading the in death series
• because i finished the forensic instincts series
• with the namesake thrown in for intellectual heft

• and cross-stitching J2 and Ji's gift
• but the prognosis for completing it in time is grim

• taking lots of walks with HOM
• we crossed thirty-two years this month
• that's more than half one's life 

thoughts from the pandemic

 three years on one has thoughts. the macro thoughts being:

• some people are self-serving. so are some nations
• and some people are just less capable. sometimes they have influence. more's the pity
• knowledge can change quickly. woe betide you if you miss the inflection point
• governance discipline and trust count. some societies just don't get it

the key micro thought:

• the mask is a wonderful invention

and a sneaky little quiet thought:

• is it alright if i still don't shake your hands? i don't want to fist bump either

seasonal sentiments

have had enough of crowds and festive songs on loop and hearty good cheer

but very thankful for the God who looked for me.

simeon and anna recognize the Lord in Jesus (rembrandt, c. 1629)

two oft-neglected very much below-the-radar almost certainly frail and elderly characters. think sarcopenia osteoporosis and stooping gait. one at least fourscore and four and one near the end of what sounds like a long life spent just waiting. so it is with a small rather pleasant shock that one realizes:

• it is possible to grow old and infirm without becoming spiteful silly and petty
• it is possible in fact to grow old graciously gracefully and with confidence

if i grow to be as old as anna and simeon i want to do so with the same purpose and hope. if you grow old with me, remind me not to grumble. 

winding down

time to put aside thoughtful thought-provoking and provocative reads and snuggle down with the book versions of the hallmark channel.

i should make this an annual tradition. yeehah december!

the namesake - jhumpa lahiri (2003)

elegant restrained compelling prose.

on the face of it, the story of a bengali immigrant family as they adapt to life in the united states.

on a deeper level, a masterly exploration of the intergenerational tensions that arise from spoken and unspoken expectations which transcend culture and age. read this if you have ever felt smothered by love. read this if you feel your love is rejected.

1 December

having waited an entire year for the end of the year

suddenly it's cooler

and thanksgiving has come and gone

and the streets are lighted up

arrgggghhhhhh

i'm not ready for the new year

supper

how generous you have been

how open and hospitable;

our hearts have been gladdened

and our spirits refreshed.

thank you!

to J1 and J2

how you have both grown! into adulthood and responsibilities and strategizing! and homes and pets and possessions! and into dreams and hopes and plans!

i thank God for the partners you have chosen. Y is outwardly gentle with a core of strength that matches your soft-heartedness, J1, with sharpness of thought that will make her your able partner. Ji has an eager and curious mind that is like yours, J2, and yet so unlike yours that he will be your strength and your foil. 

i thank God for the paths you have chosen. they are so different from our paths and yet not so different. thirty-odd years ago we trod divergent paths from friends and family and went courageously and recklessly into uncertainties and adventures. as you are doing today. may the tapestries you weave be richly intricate and festooned with all manner of gems.

i thank God for your faith. may you each be strengthened and built up and filled with His fulness. may you have hearts that reach out and hands that gladly share. may you be blessings, and may you be deeply blessed.

in thanksgiving and in joy

for being kept and lavishly loved 

for being refreshed and repeatedly renewed

with family and friends and work-mates who become friends

with challenges that stretch and strength to endure

for the new mercies that appear each morn

thank you God 

big apple

city lights - busy sidewalks - bagel mornings - drip coffee - quick pace - smelly subway - macy's - bryant park - sketchy bits o' town. all parts of one of my favorite cities to visit.

with an improvement. applepay works on the subway. yessss.

princess B

what makes a vacation complete is a holiday dog, is what i say.

a letter to my daughter and my new son

our hearts are glad! glad that you have come to this time. very glad that you have begun to share hopes and plans with each other. and gladdest that you seek to build those plans upon eternal foundations. 

remember that God has brought you together. if you allow, God will keep you together. in God there is no wasted opportunity or lost time and your small steps become part of a beautiful whole. our prayer as you walk your path together is that the path be broad beneath your feet and that your feet be sure. it is easy to lose sight of the path when there are many thrills at the side!

there is a garden full of seeds that you must tend. the blooms are messy but gorgeous and striking but delicate and the beds are planned but contrary. you must tend them in the growing seasons when the sun is gentle and the rains fall kindly and you must protect them when the sun scorches and the showers become thundery. remember to tend to them in the dry seasons when you mostly have the memory of the blooms!

remember how you met and were met. remember the kindness of regard the consideration for others the gentleness of expectation that each of you has. build upon it patience and faithfulness and self-control. may yours be a garden where love and joy and peace bloom.

may your garden be glorious and magnificent!

steppin' down

HOM forgets his driver's license. this makes transportation an insurmountable obstacle.

J2 and Ji bail us out.

a parent's great gift, i tell J2, is to realize their baby has grown up.

conditional love

catchy music - good voice - unmangled tune - good weather

san francisco ❤️

autumn visit

 i love:

• the nip in the air
• the sharply oblique play of sunlight
• the deep breath that you can inhale, and
• the warm coffee as you walk

hotel stay

the business-friendly hotels have a got their act very much improved, i must say:

their wifi no longer kicks you out every two hours

neither do they limit the number of connected devices

the water pressure is strong

the drain drains freely

there are plenty of electrical sockets

and (am i imagining it) 

the switches are easier to navigate

YEE HAH!

kek lok si

so much for the walk up kek lok si that fills my memories with so much charm and delight. today the stalls are shuttered and the way is barred. another pandemic victim apparently.

 

air itam

lovely street-side breakfast.

but you need to cognitively shut down to enjoy the food here. because raw and cooked and safe temperatures and public health are middle-class western imports.

 

pearl of the orient

been twenty-five years since our last visit, we think. plus ca change etc.

• penang hill, in the distance, looks the same. benignantly maternal and immanent
• the old zinc roofs and shophouses continue uncensored and firmly in the last two centuries
• although the mid-century-style chinese schools now sport LED welcome billboards
• georgetown gentrification looks shabby chic by now. they need a new wave soon
• our palate is no longer as intrepid as it was. or perhaps our eyes miss less

but penang remains a magical place to visit, i tell HOM:

• the people are friendly and unassuming and speak the dialect of my childhood
• the place is messy the traffic is 'orrible but it all works anyway
• there are surprisingly few smokers out loose
• the food is good and the exchange rate is favorable
• the peranakan museum was gorgeous. with english-speaking guides! yesss

look who showed up

so today at the gym as i do my shoulder presses i am pleasantly surprised to see the outlines of my biceps peeking through the outline of my upper arm. not that i'm aiming to look like mr. universe mind you, but that gently luscious shape peeping out shyly was most welcome after three months of determined self-immolation. 

blessed and grateful

for a girl who loves her desserts as much as i do, having to swear off the sweets that spike the sugars has been easier to bear than otherwise because HOM has very kindly and creatively produced stuff that is low GI and sugar-constrained and that is absolutely diabetes-compatible. and delicious.

balli kaur jaswal

erotic stories for punjabi widows (2017)

inheritance (2013)

i discover a new author. she writes smoothly and addresses diversely gritty topics with grace. she is entirely grammatical while conveying a nice sense of multi-ethnic multi-racial authenticity. i gain some insight into a culture i have not hitherto known much of. i am delighted.

used books warehouse

my favorite kind of laid back recycled goods store. and HOM is very kind and long-suffering to let me meander through the shelves.

 

jacob's ladder

you sure you want to climb it? HOM asks me doubtfully. i'm guessing he harbors memories of pulling me up half of xiangshan in taipei. yes, i say. i do.

it's the new me that's a little less avoidant of challenges. hey, if a girl can cobble together a mini resistance workout to improve her blood sugars, she can jolly well climb up that interminable lot of steps.

anyway, i do it. to my own surprise too.

more thoughts about travel

 specifically about the accommodation:

• the electricals need to work. effortlessly
• the hot water should be instant. or as near as
• the shower has to be powerful. doesn't need to be rain
• the charging points should be abundant. especially bedside
• the place should be clean. at least appear to be!
• and bright. nice yellow bright is good

bonus if:

• the plates and cutlery match, and
• the stemware is elegant

we've struck gold this trip, i tell HOM. with laundry on-site too. we are golden and clean.

prevelly

a happy recommendation from a random stranger brings us to the beach today. out of sheer practicality, i remove my shoes and walk the stretch of gnabarup beach, sand between my toes be damned. 

that's one item off my hitherto non-existent bucket list, i tell HOM. the wind in my hair as i walk the beach and listen to the sound of the breakers and an occasional dog to wave to.

 

happy mistake and thoughts about travel

we miss a turn and pop down a little lane trying to get back on track and chance upon the sea! i love the beach, i tell HOM. at least i do until i get to the sand. 

middle aged travel has its advantages. you don't have to plan if you don't want to and no child is going to starve if you didn't read up ahead of time. there is data and google and tripadvisor and strangers to accost and opinions to cadge. i call it just-in-time travel for the lazy.

morning shot

hot cuppa. cold morning. is it cold there, someone asks. for us, yesssbrrrrrrr. but that's why we came!

roll call

 wordle

malay wordle

wordhurdle

quordle

waffle

anti-wordle

nice little quotidian dopamine hits. or not, depending on the day.

Easter

incarnation

death

resurrection

incomprehensibly glorious plan that purchases my hope of joy. thank God for his indescribable gift.

tech update

iphone facial recognition with mask on must be the best tech thing since the pandemic started. yesssss.

other best things since the pandemic started include face masks, mandatory physical distancing, and virtuous reasons for decreased social interaction.

new fashion

funeral wreaths with LED lights and artificial flowers.

redefining tacky bawdry and grotesque. 

good friday morning musings

• thank God i get to tap so freely on a God who came and died for me
• and that i live in a time that makes it easy to tap so freely on him

liturgy of the ordinary - tish harrison warren (2016)

the blurb says this book explores daily life through the lens of liturgy, small practices, and habits that form us. and so it does.

she writes with a gently rambling style that is just the teeniest bit self-conscious and she meanders into side topics as you slide off to a snooze. 

and yet she suggests ideas that are unexpected and lovely and that you instinctively feel are not too far off the mark. our bodies are not made to worship or be worshipped; our bodies are part of our worship. sleep, she suggests, is God's reminder that we are creatures in need of respite and will ultimately die. beyond a personal encounter with our Lord, it is within the eternal body of Christ that our faith is made whole.

she reminds me that God knows that my daily bread is plain and that there is dignity and holy toil in unexciting tasks in a day that works out in repetitively tedious strains.  

it's like a nice omelet. unassumingly bourgeoisie easy and tasty and just a tad fancy and really quite nutritious.

things i remember about my father (13.11.1937-24.2.2022)

he was faithful in the quiet everyday things like being there when he said he would be and telling the truth even if it was difficult and diligently preparing for his classes and work and presentations. he was faithful in seeking excellence.

he loved languages - mandarin chinese and hokkien and english and malay and japanese and was it bangladeshi that he learnt from the security guards at his condo? he loved the spoken word with its unending melodies and he loved the written word in its rich intricacies.

he was a kind and generous man who shared freely considerably consistently and quietly out of his supplies. he declined promotions in order to keep his friendships. he was contented with his lot and he rejoiced in it.

he loved his wife my mother with gentle understanding and unwavering regard. my parents' love gives me hope that it is possible to grow old and infirm and helpless and yet love. it is possible that affection is redeemed into charity without losing itself.

i have a father a girl can be so proud of. i am glad we will meet again.

to the lady on the bus

dear middle-aged lady on the bus who was sitting on one of a pair of seats when HOM and i boarded and saw that all the other seat pairs were occupied by at least one passenger each and  who stood up to move to another single seat whilst gesturing to us to take her vacated pair of seats, THANK YOU! it was an unsolicited unexpected and very heart-warming little act of sheer kindness that gives me an idea of how i can do the same for others next time.

a history of the present illness - louise aronson (2013)

vignettes in the most versatile use of the term.

compelling tales of everyday events patients challenges and stuff that every physician can relate to starring a diverse array of players that is as far removed from male white 'murrica as you wish and linked together tenuously and unexpectedly by the most tangential neighborly connections.

the delightful sub-plot of an entire smorgasbord of writing styles is the cream on the icing on the cake. 

maybe you should talk to someone - lori gottlieb (2019)

fascinating and compelling and eye-opening and gorgeous.

read this to get a digestibly sweeping overview of what psychotherapy is entails encompasses utilizes and is underpinned by. that's the fascinating part.

read this to follow five story threads as they weave their differently complicated patterns to satisfyingly rich cadences, mixed metaphors be damned. and as Gottlieb explores themes as a practitioner that practitioners do not often mention in public. what do you do when you are just so irritated by the patient? are you ever attracted to a patient? what happens after you google your patient? that's the compelling bit.

read this for eye-opening pearls:

• between stimulus and response there is a space. in that space is our power to choose our response... as she quotes Frankl 
• being liked, and loved, for my neshama, which is my spirit or my soul 
• what not to do say to a dying person: be strong, you can beat this! have you asked for a second opinion? what to say: i'm so sorry 
• there is no hierarchy to pain. suffering is not a competition

this is absolutely gorgeous.

3 books to begin the year with (sort of)

leaders eat last - the soloist - gratitude

in chronological order of consumption and in increasing degree of enjoyment. gratitude is Oliver Sacks' swan song, and an ode to the value of living richly and busily. ...my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. i have loved and been loved; i have been given much and i have given something in return;... i have had an intercourse with the world... if i live to be eighty-two, i would like that to be my predominant feeling too.

new syndrome

vGBS, vocabular Guillain-Barré Syndrome

a syndrome characterized by progressive cognitive paralysis with each incorrect guess on wordle, culminating in complete shut-down and a choking sensation at line 6.

in contrast to GBS, which is a rare condition, vGBS is relatively common.

2022

 crept up and sneaked in, that's what the year has done. the year-to-date tally:

• circulars and circulars. delta omicron and now BA.2. isolation deisolation non-isolation. protocols 1-2-2PC-3. PPM MMP SSM SSS. i hope one day i will look back and it will still make a modicum of sense
• cybersecurity and internet separation. very good for governance and rather non-intuitive and punitive to the rest of us who now have to read our excel tables on a cellphone. halp
• wordle! the box of yellow-and-green squares that binds work-mates family old friends and more. may the day come when i hit the green bar on my first line!
• and gently easing back to going to church on sundays. to clarify, i mean the actual building, as opposed to the couch. which means getting dressed and leaving the home and venturing to travel to-and-fro. no longer the brainless task it was