by gentle powers

unworthy and deeply grateful

mummy's day out

the tribe are vay excited about visiting KL. batu caves! strawberry farm! genting highlands! durians!

me, i am a simple gal. gimme air-conditioned comfort in a nice cafe with a good book.

booking nightmare

agoda.com

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incommunicado

finally! instructions to the key box!

but the box is empty!

and finally! we get in! 2 hours late!

but the wifi doesn't work

and the towels are damp

then the neighbors move in

past midnight

with a toddler

with

cabin fever

gal power

there's zuris, and there's anothersoles.

women's apparel with what women want. (although sometimes we still want heels) 

ten thousand rivers and a thousand mountains*

two middle aged gentlemen buskers 

gustily singin' their hearts out

(quite melodiously too!)

fierce guitar riff

and a sharp rhythm on the box

i'm back to my salad days

and i'm not the only one, i tell you!

*万水千山 at Ghim Moh market

40th christmas on orchard road

blobs of cloud suspended with little balls. 

distinctly unappetizing, i'm afraid.

this charming man - marian keyes (2008)

there is chick lit that's painfully ill-written fluff (better not mention who) and there is solidly entertaining chick lit (debbie macomber and katie ffordes). then there is really clever treatment of quite serious topics pretending to be chick lit (that's marian keyes). 

if you enjoy Rachel's Holiday for her writing from the inside of drug addiction (as i did) you will enjoy This Charming book for her writing from the inside of dark relationships and alcohol addiction. in addition to her really effortless unexpected wit.

festive looks... not

the season has been rather muted this year, owing to HOM and my preferring home to the crowds and therefore having limited opportunities to hear carols on loop and my not being able to summon the energy to climb to the top cabinets where our (highly curated) christmas decorations are stored and to the fact that we got rid of the (dilapidated) tree anyway years back and have no wish to acquire a replcaement.

but if J1 and J2 and partners are coming home for christmas i find myself wondering if i should do the maternal thing and prepare the home to look more festive. decisions. gah.

delicioso

my proud new acquisition from the saturday market. and if you think it bears some philosophical resemblance to this i would agree with you although i wish it was less symmetrical.

33

in the bring-your-own-tote age, what impresses a girl after thirty-three years is a man who can whip a shopping bag out of his gym bag when she decides on a whim to grocery shop. that, and various other things, still makes her heart go pitty-pat-pitty-pat. 

she is thankful for years she hardly believed she would get.

giving thanks

for

family i do not deserve

friends who gladden and cheer

fellowship around the table

and work that steadies me

the year has been full.

you crown the year with your goodness

to J1, on his birthday

as usual, i marvel at how far you have come. independent and able and making your way with your own and there in spite of all that we were not! how i give thanks for this kind considerate and likable young fellow with hopes and dreams and still some stars in his eyes!

may you dream God's dreams. may you desire His will. may God grant you the desires of your heart. 

may you walk wisdom's path. may you know great joy. may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

the good doctor - barron h. lerner (2014)

the life and practice of an old school physician as told by his modern day physician son. it is as if the changes he describes in the united states anticipate and mirror those i see today in singapore. humbling and inspiring and provocative. he writes quite well too, on something as potentially explosive as differing norms of practice.

bleecker street

visited zuri. niceeeee.

i love nyc in the fall

 

bite in the air

everything bagel

bacon 'n' eggs

hot coffee

it's good to be back

sunday thoughts

and after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. - 1 Peter 5:7

in other words, after i tremble and falter and stumble and see the extent of my want, He will himself repair the faulty broken ashamed me to make me sound will make me stable and render me constant make strong my weak fickle core and hew a strong foundation for me.

Peter says this, who surely saw himself crumble and fail and was himself restored confirmed strengthened and established for his ministry. thanks be to God for his wonderful gift.

resistance work

one elevator under maintenance. the remaining elevator breaks down.

it gives a new meaning to walk-up apartment when you need to get to the 14th level. with an almost 20-kg dog. who is in worse shape than you. but HOM and i manage it. gasping of course.

HOM is worse off than i. seeing as how he is the one who carries E up the steps.

upgrade

HOM's latest. quieter and at a good (used) price, he tells me. which is all very true, and good for him. but me, i luuurve the color.

recent refreshments

with much gratitude:

• unoffendable by brant hansen (2023). his premise of not getting upset with others simply because God isn't upset with me. how true! how often forgotten in my righteous indignation!
• recent sunday preachers who do not aurally assault neither do they bounce here and there on the pulpit. instead they make their quiet points and provoke me to new thoughts. most appreciated!
• and this lovely hymn with simple-yet-sneakily-profound words by bonhoeffer / siegfried fietz, by gentle powers:

by gentle powers lovingly surrounded

with patience we'll endure, let come what may

God is with us at night and in the morning

and certainly on every future day

journey's end

two weeks with

travel companions who are not family

open our eyes

to

different dynamics and ways of doing things

and

introduce us to new ideas

but

also make us like ours too

urban escapade

it doesn't take much to make a good interlude, HOM and i say. a good cappuccino a fluffy croissant agreeable music and refuge from the sun. we realize we are not going to make your intrepid travelers who hike and trek and tick many boxes. this is at dede caffe in florence on our way to the open air market in cascine. after that we nap.

cinque terre

as pretty as all the postcards say. but they don't say how terribly terribly crowded it gets.

independence

i point at the cannoli.

due. to go.

he packs them up.

con carte. i pay.

grazie, he says.

my first italian transaction beyond bon giorno!

a visit to the vatican (again)

as crazy crowded and as mindlessly over-photographed as before. the same historically inaccurate sublimely magnificent art as before. my privilege to visit again.

the inescapable conclusion, i tell HOM, is that the Catholic church is tremendously prosperous.

la dolce vita 2

molto dolce

 

fontana di trevi

if you look very hard past the sea of human bodies you will make out a little patch of lovely clear blue water just there in the corner. 

domus

b&b's can be hit or miss, as opposed to the holiday inn-hilton-hyatt chains HOM favors. but this one hits it with pre-war charm (with elevator!) multiple gates (electronic-ated!) uneven floors (because why not) and the key important things (firm bed hot water double-glazed windows). vintage charm with mod cons.

a little night magic

quadrangle

cobblestones

glowing lights 

inky sky

puppet show

we stumble upon this at the top of gianicolo hill and notice it largely because the children watching look spellbound and have their jaws hanging and one does not often see this these days with young children who have been exposed to e-toys since babyhood.

ouchhhh

yesterday gianicolo hill. today colosseum and palatine hill and the spanish steps and trevi fountain. tomorrow vatican city.

my feet weep. as does my right knee.

kitenge (i think)

my new african hat.

to go with the zuris.

italy impressions

• they love their smoke. il tabacchi!
• sparkling water! makes up for the tobacco
• the pasta. al dente! the oil! the butter! 
• the pizza. wood-fired! the crust! the cheese! 
• cobblestone streets
• and history on every corner

but

• the w.c. lacks a seat. yikes

la dolce vita

 
live band. jazz. conversation. reading. decent wine. decent food.

it doesn't get any better.

impressions of pompeii

• vaster than i expected
• grander
• similar to the other greco-roman ruins
• and just as amazing

every once in a while, i tell HOM, it does the soul good to look at magnificence and feel for a little while just how small we are.

impressions of napoli

• it's crowded. and beyond
• and hot
• everyone speaks functional english
• there are lots of smokers
• and crazy traffic. but it's surprisingly gentle
• the pizza. the cheese. the salads

afternoon treat

somehow on vacation the coffee is stronger the cake is fudgier and the chillin' is more chill. something to do with deciding not to bother with responsibilities and obligations i suppose. the company is the usual convivial comfortable and preferred.

old wine

a visit without an address, just muscle memory

and without a call, just hopeful hopes

yet he remembers us, as we him

as if the years have not come in between

it's a friendship across cultures and across borders

without expectation and without baggage

just shared memories

it's just special!

sawadee kah!

in twenty years, what has not changed:

• the crowds
• the stalls under the bridge!
• the squalor
• the gentleness
• the crazy road traffic, even past midnight

across the fields of yesterday

the faces of little J1 and little J2 flash before me and i think again how differently things may have been if i had not a merciful and almighty Help who always had the situation in hand even when i did not and could not. the pain is sharp as is the relief.

any advice for bringing up the child? a young man asks me. not from me, i tell him honestly. i have made more mistakes than i care to recall. but i can give you one piece of encouragement: that God is bigger than your mistakes will be.

in my poverty and my need the LORD takes thought of me and the richer gladder and fuller i am indeed. psalm 40:17. 

public holiday

a walk with HOM - spell at the gym - tea and talk at yakun - naps (several) - finishing the book - embroidery - watching the parade - making snarky comments. 

as we grow older, we do less with more pleasure.

calling bullshit - bergstrom & west (2020)

delightfully informative. i come away with a newly upgraded BS-meter. here are some useful nuggets:

• much of our communication is self-regarding, even when it is ostensibly other-regarding. how intuitively true, and so much for appearing self-deprecating!
• clickbait is real and thriving. i am not misguided in my sense of betrayal by the lists of 10 best places to eat at 20 best new cafes and 25 surefire ways to lustrous hair
• observation selection effect explains why we may be misguided in surveying learners about their learning, yes?
• bar charts tell stories about magnitude and should start at zero and line graphs tell stories about changes and need not. thirty years in a profession and i finally learn this.

in addition i learn about reverse image search and i get to read the dead salmon paper*.

*https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Neural-correlates-of-interspecies-perspective-in-an-Bennett-Miller/9b0305530d5b1d85c210f518615480ecf6e4ab19

sunday grievance

people who lead in the congregational prayer should be made to write down their prayers beforehand. just so as to avoid inelegant unedifying and unfocused rambling. 

it amazes me that we tolerate bombast and inaccuracy in church that we never would in a secular context.

no thanks!

some are art installations some are misguided attempts. is all i'm sayin'.

thanks!

nice chalk art on the back lane today.

we ought to do this more often. random bits of exuberances prettying up the neighborhood.

li'l plebe

have your bouquet and your oaken notes and your complexity and just gimme a nice arty label.

noise pollution

today's sermon delivery is predicated on two assumptions: 

• the congregation is hard of hearing
• the congregation is sleepy and tired

the second assumption is reasonable and perhaps justifies the preacher's rhythmic bouncing on the pulpit. but really, i tell HOM, there ought to be a decibel beyond which the public address system will not go. the sound detracts from the message, which is actually pretty good.

wham bang (gulp)

and before you know it half the year's gone and it's practically time to count down to christmas.

how many children do you have? someone asks me. two, i reply, and i've just married the second one off. wow, she says. because she is looking forward to meeting her first in november, much like i did thirty-odd years ago.

the days are long but the years are short. the months get shorter too. but glad i am to have them.

things HOM and i hate

in the theme of stuff-that-has-become-irritating:

• li'l tykes running around the place, monkey like
• li'l tykes emitting high-pitched sounds, intermittent like
• cyclists on the road, car like
• cyclists on the pavement, human like
• people who show up late for <your event choice here>
• inaccuracies, because you are my compass is not the same as you are my true north. duh

as you can tell, i'm feeling a little crabby.

father's day a deux

where are you bringing HOM for dinner? my friend asks.

we're staying home, i say. eating out will be too crowded and noisy.

we are getting to become crabby hermits in our adage, HOM and i.

father's day

i have a heavenly father

and HOM has been a faithful father 

i had an earthly father who is now with my heavenly father

all beloved and treasured

but it somehow feels

like 

father's day

is

a whole

big

commercial

profit-generating

f&b

scam

it was good to reflect on abraham as a dad vs. aaron as a dad though

church camp

back from church camp with new life lessons:
1. how to take a wefie using 0.5 zoom, thanks to young people

2. new seafood place in kulai...yumms, thanks to foodie campers

3. talent nite is best savored in absentia; best not to acknowledge who

it is nice to take a weekend off and just catch up with random friends over meals.

how great thou art

we sing this grand hymn in church today. that's great!

but i wish they wouldn't keep trying to modernize the old songs with new rhythms and other adjustments. it sounds like when someone starts speaking with an unfamiliar prosody. you spend half your time listening to his words and the other half asking yourself why???

remember - lisa genova (2021)

neuroanatomy made sexy.

that's wot this is.

readable and impressive.

the way to my heart

that's a pretty dress, the old man says to me.

why, thank you sir!

he makes my day. even if he be ninety-one and his memory be not what it was. a compliment is a compliment and gallantry is gallantry. 

game changers

when you've been stitching for thirty-odd years and have learnt the following in the last half year:

• loop stitch
• pin stitch
• gridding
• floss organizers
• needle minders
• fabric markers

thanks to youtube and facebook.

a series of unfortunate reads

in chronological order of disappointment:

a death in the lucky holiday hotel - pin ho, wenguang huang (2013). too much gossip and too many points of view for a girl schooled in the agatha christie one-clear-villain-gets-clearly-trounced tradition

einstein's god - krista tippett (2010). so much promise and too many words 

the fraud squad - kyla zhao (2023). much excitement but much let down. lots of glittery material preoccupation, at least in the chapters i managed to internalize. possibly my preference and  fault?

die trying - lee child (1998). i start this seeing as i enjoy the first book. i stop it when i remember what i dislike about killing floor: lots of great action lost in much rumination

losers - michael lewis (1996). i forget why i gave up on this book. if i did. or did not

four thousand weeks - oliver burkeman (2021). this comes to me with superlative words of recommendation but he really has a pedantic way to say what he wants to say although he does have good things to say. but it's just too much hard work plowing through verbiage to get to the ideas

the wind in the willows - kenneth grahame (1908). childhood favorite that it is not time to revisit just yet. owing to rather too accurate portrayals of real life characters that one can recognize too easily in adulthood

zuri ❤️

gorgeous bold sharp saturated prints.

like a tent but with a good shape.

and side pockets!!!

you could call it my new delectable preoccupation.

empty nest

we'd like two children, God willing, our young selves say. and God was willing.

we'll bring them up, God willing, our young selves say. and God was kind and merciful.

they'll grow and leave and it'll be just us one day, we tell each other. and God has made them fly.

and suddenly it's the two of us again. thanks be to God for indescribable grace.

gift

the hand-cranked sewing machine makes it from malaysia to singapore to J2 lovingly encased in a styrofoam fortress and heroically transported in a car a taxi a plane an air train and another car. my mother's, as part of her trousseau, my mother tells me. to my grand-daughter now, as she weds.

new family (again!)

Ji and his family join ours. welcome!

long may we rejoice in growing friendship and fellowship.

strongly and richly may you and J2 build your home.

gladly may we worship and love.

what God has brought together, may we gently tend.

it's a good day

i've become an old man, someone says. the final verse speaks to me.

i've become an old woman too, then. 'tis been these two verses for me. my voice is poor the melody does not hold and my poor tongue lisps. one day it shall be a nobler and sweeter song but it shall tell yet of the fountain that washed my sins away.

busy day (all before 2 PM)

• buy HOM a shirt and a pair of slacks for an unexpected rehearsal dinner with Ji's parents
• buy me shoes for an unexpected rehearsal dinner with Ji's parents
• top up salad supplies from trader joe's
• endure traffic jams because of non-functioning lights
• discover the power outage extends to the hotel 
• climb to hotel room and have lunch
• discover the wifi is out too

busy busy

when a place is famed for the busyness of its pedestrian crossings it stands to reason the cafes in the area will be overflowing onto the street. and the line for the loo will double back on itself in the anteroom to the loo. we ought to have remembered that.

companions

glad we did it together: going astray and hustling back and getting hungry and finding food and coffee and skipping the same options and sharing the same priorities including onsen dips. thank you, friends.

proverbs 17:17.

small town japan*

it is surprising how much superficial resemblance there is to small town 'murrica.

*at karuizawa

nakasendo wayfarer thoughts

• a stout stick helps
• as do goretex-lined shoes

• it's important to have nothing to prove to anyone and to skip whatever you are not keen to do
• it is also important to supplement the day's hike with onsen dips ❤

• too many walking companions can confuse the issues. the old adage is true
• eating companions who share the same ideas about food and food sharing are particularly important

• japanese efficiency is inconspicuous and awesome
• walk japan is also inconspicuous and awesome

• it has been a lovely interlude but i would probably not do it again. the hike up to Torii Pass has given me PTSD

japan luuurve

in one word. onsen. 

wonderfully softly revitalizing cocoons of near-orgasmic comfort for me ol' achin' body.

a warm bath doesn't begin to get near this.

nakasendo way

day 4 of our walk and these dinky cafes are becoming my favorite places to be at. these, and rest-stop loos.

 

zen magic

as the shinkansen pulls away from tokyo

and the skyscrapers fall behind

the little boxy houses appear

in their fields of green

and 

you just get calm

what i don't love about japan

 they allow people to smoke in eating places.

the horror. and the smell.

next leg soon!

waiting for the shinkansen. what i say is, the pandemic has spoilt the ekiben market. i am reduced to a starbucks wrap. indeed starbucks is getting on my most-visited list this trip. for coffee and seats and warmth and nice jazz and stuff.