some writers

like ruth reichl

and lucy foley

must be rationed

because they come limited

and one must not

read faster than they can publish

taking stock

there! after years of waffling i finally am taking steps to taper down and to switch off:

• it feels unreal still. possibly because i still wake up and show up and will have to do so for another ten days yet
• i feel excited. lots of projects vying for attention in my head. shall i learn the violin? calligraphy? pilates? whither shall i travel next? no doubt my thoughts will settle into a more sedate jumble soon 
• i feel just a little bit apprehensive. what if i need care? who may i even ask? what if i lose my edge? what if i vegetate into oblivion? 
• i feel thankful. for life as a working woman and a trailing spouse and as a practitioner-educator with full agency and supportive colleagues and colleagues who have become friends
• i feel supremely grateful. i have met and influenced and taught and been taught by and i have been enriched stretched and fulfilled beyond every thought i had when i started 

now to be done with one kind of doing and to be starting on another kind. 

inspector lynley books - elizabeth george (1988-present)

like peter wimsey but without the toddling and tootling linguistic whimsy and longer and more convoluted plots hence more satisfying but ohhhhhh the side developments of the recurring characters are really detracting from the core business of murderrrrr and may well be the reason i abandon this series soon.

error of enthusiasm

i find myself part of a group of middle-aged short term mission trippers who are friendly well-meaning convivial and inclusive. the hotel is clean centrally-located and pleasant and the bed is enormous firm and comfortable. but i am crusty and set in my ways and have much struggle with:

• the communal meals (picky eater that i am)
• their love for durian (and my life-long revulsion)
• the packed activities (including after dinner!!)
• the energy levels (the absence of mine, i mean)

note to self: leave such trips to betters. church camp is probably the most i can do. gah.

the paris novel - ruth reichl (2024)

delicious and whimsical and delightfully written. if it were a food this would be the perfect soufflé: uniquely lop-sided light deceptively simple with just a soupçon of seriousness. 

wait. there is a nod to mrs harris goes to paris too. and by the end of the book i wish to go to paris myself.

KL commercial book company

HOM and i wander into the bookshop and i am transported back decades to when dad and us used to spend many hours at similar stores (and maybe even this one). row upon row of titles i can barely read interspersed with roman-alphabet titles translated into chinese with writing paraphernalia scattered among them. occasionally even a music sheet or two. almost always paperbacks, never hardcovers, the front cover usually longer and folded in. there is a special magic to chinese language bookshops.

covid-19

as HOM and i stumble our groggy way thru our maiden infections, what i want to say is, what they say about man-flu is true. the guy wants to die. but what they don't say is just as true. the gal wants to die too. li'l virus is an equal opportunity bugger.

fantastico

one floor upstairs someone has put a little wooden table with two chairs next to the balcony railings and lovingly decorated it with plants, just nicely for a (public-ish) tête-à-tête and a glass of good red in the evening.

i think it's a lovely idea.

thoughts from BCLS recert

• every two years my heart beats faster my palms get sweaty my head gets giddy when they go thru the steps for the scenarios
• and yet it's not rocket science
• been there done that for thirty-odd years now.
• still.

i am convinced that BCLS recertification was invented to keep senior practitioners humble.

the cat who... - lilian j. braun (1968- )

old school-style courtesy with nary a swear word and the tension in the right places starring a likable middle-aged bloke and his two brilliant siamese cats in whodunits with a satisfying number of bodies appearing obligingly at the right intervals.

delightfully and deliciously addictive.

my only gripe is that the book covers show a black cat and we know that siamese are not black. this is inaccurate and manifestly unfair to S and A who are the true blacks.

notes from fresno

• lovely spring weather
• although pollen abounds
• not so many smokers, surprisingly
• suburbia is suburbia, even after a decade: trader joe's walmart sprouts savemart smart & final
• but in-N-out burger is 'murricanly awesome 

it's been a lovely time with Ji and J2 and A. HOM and i are grateful for this season.

kuppa joy

and this place for their panini. 

the mug coffee company

for lazy coffee dates. we need to remember this place for the next trip.

yosemite

c'est magnifique.

my first rodeo*

dusty. kinda smelly. noisssssy.

but what a fierce poetry in the horsemanship! i understand a bit of the wild west allure now, i think.

*clovis rodeo 2024

confessions of a domestic un-goddess

helping Ji and J2 with the housework because baby A.

• my core hurts from vacuuming
• as does my neck
• the limits of my culinary abilities loom
• i ❤️ swiffer and dyson 
• and insta pot. mustn't forget that

i spy with my little eye...

a hummmmmingbird!

this is the first time i see one in real life. it is perfection in miniature and a magical sight. a bit like seeing a newborn in the flesh for the first time and marveling at the hair and eyes and nose and fingers and toes.

gratitude

when you married me, HOM asks me rhetorically, did you think you would have a grandchild in the future?

when i married you i did not even think ahead to having children, i tell him honestly. i was lost in the newness of our love and the stresses of setting up home together. 

look at us now. J1 J2 plus Y Ji and now baby A with an assortment of dogs and cats strewn over continents. and yet when i look, i tell HOM, i see the young man i married. my heart skips pitty-pat pitty-pat.

2 cats

there is the holiday dog.

and to my pleasant befuddlement and wonder, these are the holiday cats!

dinner date in tanjong pagar

a dinky booth

at the izakaya

low voices

snippets of other conversations

great food

washed down with sake

HOM and me

at the end of a long day

it doesn't get much better 

sunday after friday

thank you for easter, i pray. then it occurs to me i cannot say thank you, like easter is a nice little gift that is wrapped in beribboned shine and presented to me with a flourish.

i can say, in a fashion i think, thank you for good friday. because after all, my lord died for all and that includes me. 

thank God for the resurrection, i gasp to my relief. it is far wider grander and more consequential than i can imagine. i profit from bystander advantage before i realize i am in deficit. 

great love can choose to die. but only power can bring life after death. thank God for both.

baby A

we welcome baby A into the fold. in gratitude and in wonder.

i pray my first prayer for baby A. in humility and in sheer amazement.

may you grow and thrive, child. may you drink deeply of the well of rich joy in your heavenly Father's garden. may you be blessed and a blessing.

frustrated thought

the problem with sermons is that sometimes you get a jumbled mishmash of religious tropes strung together haphazardly into half an hour of mixed metaphors presented to a captive congregation and because we are church we are supposed to be forgiving loving all-inclusive and accepting of all manner of pretentious rubbish. 

HOM tells me to accept that my poison is someone else's meat.

it's a good friday

 flawed

 unworthy

sullied

 undeserving

ransomed

loved

redeemed

restored

the dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day;
and there may I, though vile as he, wash all my sins away

this is what it sounds like - s.r. and o.o. (2022)

fascinating stuff at the intersection of neuroanatomy and art. what's not to be enthralled by?

i am ashamed to realize that much magic comes from a growing awareness that the world is far bigger than i have hitherto presumed. other fields have scientific method too! other people do research too! other topics are worthy of exploration too!

i discover music labs and the study of amusia and i find a name for my lifelong struggle with rhythm (which is to say, my difficulty in appreciating rhythm, which i may now describe as sub-threshold beat deafness).

and to my great delight i discover free jazz and alice coltrane.

food notes from ipoh

• the fishballs are ubiquitous but so-so
• the tauge are ubiquitous plump and juicy. very guifei
• silky smooth horfun. just inhale the stuff
• chicken any way you like. flavorful and scrumptious. i just wish they would bone it
• the kaya puff from sin eng heong is good
• the butter kaya puff from lam fong is better
• try the chicken floss-lotus paste-salted egg yolk pastry too
• the tauhway with ginger syrup is really nice
• coffee at the new cafes can rival coffee anywhere!

the freezer situation

wuz a sale.

m boutique, ipoh

newish hotel with a pretty sharply executed grunge aesthetic in the middle of a sea of used car lots. i hope the immediate area gentrifies quickly and gives this place a run for its cool.

very happily, the hotel delivers in most key requirements: cold a/c hot shower adequate water pressure firm-ish bed good coffee downstairs and walking distance to the old town. my only gripe is the etiolated wifi signal. most distressing in this modern day.

notes from a weekend in ipoh

• it's gentrifying. purists hate but plebeian i rejoice
• their core business appears to be the used car trade
• outside of the tourist areas, it's not for pedestrians
• it's mighty dangerous to be a chicken here
• the kaya puff is all they say, and more 😋

this is my song (finlandia)

this is my song, o God of all the nations: a song of peace for lands afar and mine. 

this is my home, the country where my heart is. here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine. but other hearts in other lands are beating with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine. 

my country's skies are bluer than the ocean, and sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine. but other lands have sunlight too and clover, and skies are everywhere as blue as mine! 

oh, hear my song, o God of all the nations: a song of peace for their land and for mine.

- lloyd stone

a fit song for our times.

leap year leapt

and just like that we've leaped over the first two months and the weather is getting hot and muggy now the monsoons are coming to an end and 2024 is well and truly established.

questions for the year:

• does one continue doing stuff that somehow one enjoys doing and does reasonably well or does one embark on a new adventure and bid farewell to independence some autonomy and possibly much agency?
• what needlepoint project next?
• shall i get me a new zuri?

one summer in paris - sarah morgan (2019)

coming of age women's friendship love lost and found and across the oceans and years betrayal and redemption plus addiction to boot.

rollickin' good story, is what i say.

transportation challeges

 i'm

in a cab

with no suspension

and with chinese radio

at full volume.

help.

in other news, the trusty volvo in the workshop for an unexpectedly prolonged stay. i recall i may have dallied with the idea of going carless to reduce our carbon footprint. i see now that it was a misguided thought.

tech facepalm

in addition to constant battery siphoning, my beloved phone:

• fails to auto-switch off
• butt calls my friend (again)
• blocks my other friend on WA, and
• changes my WA profile photo

this has to be its most frightful performance yet.

rainy cocoon

 when it drizzles then it pours

through the day

and the skies are leaden

and i have warm food

and a good book

and all are home

and the dog has peed and pooped

why it's my kinda day

still life - louise penny (2005)

courteous restrained cerebral and able protagonist. courteous restrained and able team-mates. likable and decent supporting cast of suspects. satisfyingly meaty plot lines that march along and get nicely and unhurriedly wrapped up. unfurling in my favorite murder story setting, the laid back (almost english) village. 

jolly smashing good discovery for the start of the year, if you ask me.

and if i cannot get more of her books from the e-library this might be the year i explore downloading my own books again.

s'patisserie, tràng tiền

one of the best food memories of hanoi must be this one. where the chocolate is real and dark and the liqueur is generously sloshed. looking onto the lake too.

la place

non-smoking floor (yesss). "great view of the cathedral" (true). fried chicken the way i like it: breast, boned, unbattered, fried to within an inch of its life (drool). beats the street food romance any time.

notes from old hanoi in winter

6 years after we our visit to saigon, hanoi is:

• like europe's shabby chic, but the lingo is incomprehensible
• and like bangkok, without the extreme squalor 
• peds mopeds cars and vans share the roads democratically
• so the air is thick with gasoline fumes and cigarette smoke
• they like their dogs little and in clothes
• and they really like to sit on low stools at roadsides to eat

when we get back home we will need to re-train ourselves to cross the roads with more respect again.

pane e vino, hanoi

we accidentally wander to the french quarter and have a scrumptious italian dinner.

the trouble with being on holiday, HOM and i tell each other, is that we both do not pack our brains and we just flow with google maps.

bucket list

ladies of a certain age oughtta have one, so here's a starting stab at mine:

• camino de santiago
• playing jazz piano
• playing the chinese flute
• the lake districts

list to be added to!

thought for the day

memories are bittersweet because they were sweet.

vita mutator

thanks for prayers that Thou hast answered... for what Thou dost deny... for storms that i have weathered... for all Thou dost supply!... for pain... for pleasure... for comfort... for grace... for love - august l. storm

sudden flashes of a tender young man who would play music to accompany me

thoughtful self-controlled and gentle, creative enquiring and restless

he grew up honorable and determined and kind

sudden memory of a little girl, saving her school snack to share with me

feisty and fearless and able, chatty and cheerful (and loud!)

she grew up generous and strong and loving

they both have partners now

matched to their strengths and weaknesses

better partners than their parents would have known to choose!

may you fly swift, my children! and soar high! may God grant that we make more memories yet

père et fils

a goodly heritage, by God's grace.

new year's day

 J2 and Ji fly home today.

mum goes off today too.

J1 and Y fly home tomorrow.

the past week has been gloriously full, like a hurricane.