relatively insulated from christmas ho-ho-hos this year from doing fewer mall and grocery runs although the storefronts are all gaily bedecked and the weather is suitably cold. looking back on a full year:
you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over.
surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life
grateful humbled glad
against the odds the food is delicious.
these days you go to the site and just instagram your visit from the correct spot with appropriate props.
but oh! that rich baritone and the wailing sax! belting out nostalgic life-and-loyalty-affirming pentatonic melodies! 'twas the highlight of our morning walk today.
the only things i intensely do not like about china, i think, are the immanent tobacco smoke and ubiquitous awful hocking.
it ranks right up there next to shanghai smoked fish.
my problem with chinese punctuality, i tell HOM, is that i have an entire childhood's long-suffering worth of enduring chinese wedding dinners which as we all know start hours after the stated time and last long after the cows go home.
but the china i've met so far...! no, sirree! they are on time to appointments! they adhere to schedule and often beat their own estimates! and they do it all without talking too much about it! all very welcome most functional and a great relief indeed.
HOM and i find ourselves in a tour to the temple complex in fengdu ghost city. and a challenge it turns out to be, in terms of tobacco smoke group size and noise. i do feel vaguely virtuous though, on account of climbing the 400 steps to the main complex.
note to self: try to avoid such tours in the future. far more effort-effective to read about them, or to watch the video.
3 types of people in tour groups: those who are fierce those who do not listen to instructions and those who smoke regardless.
we visit the zhazidong and baigongguan concentration camps.
there is an exhibit of a father's letter to his sons and his letter to his wife. i am happy to hear about your school results, he tells his sons. i have hardly seen you and already you have grown. the times are difficult but they shall improve. the letter is brief and his words are large-ish, the better for young eyes to read. to his wife he writes, i have received your letter, and the money you sent. his words are cramped and the letter is long and urgent.
i think to myself that the men who die for a cause have women who needs must live so their men may die.
we sign on for a quickie tour of the city. up hills down dales thru tunnels on trains across river and along paths we go.
chongqing is amazing. gritty proud mistily beautiful and a bundle of communist-nationalistic contradictions. they have roads and passageways on multiple levels that make you feel you enter a different world with each new level.
here's a travel pro-tip: pay for a guide. a good guide is worth his weight in many good things.
by God's mercy and generous provision.
lovely hotpot dinner in a little spot at the bottom of a steep set of steps. the only problem being the small matter of re-ascending the same steps after dinner.
chongqing is two things if nothing else: stairs and hotpots.
i feel like the lining of my stomach has been seared off, i tell him.
stuff we belatedly discover as our visit ends:
in any case, the chocolate mousse cake from sunflour cafe is decadently good.
we hole up at an airbnb, thanks to Y's research, us two middle-agers more attuned to hotel breakfasts and turn-down service than to self-servicing on vacation.
here's the conclusion:
here's the dryer contraption at the airbnb. no-frills luddite-compatible totally effective warm air delivery set-up.
the washer takes a lot of guess work coupled with google translate, as usual. but the dryer inspires me to do another load soon!
excellent food lovely view great company. one of those evenings where you feel the cup runneth over.
am thankful.
soul-sister to chatuchak mongkok and various other haggle-centrals in the world.
we discover there are 3 levels of prices for the goods:
three long-desired catch-up-with-people thanksgiving-with-turkey-and-the-works dinners in a row and finally now the long-awaited aftermath of disengagement and silence.
note to self: do not agree to host three dinners in succession ever again. the body the mind the oven the kitchen sink and pipes and the 'fridge groan in unison. also, the meat thermometer died in service of the last turkey. thank God for O for her calm dependability.
in thanksgiving:
recent errors abandoned halfway:
slice-of-life meets bildungsroman meets time travel meets spare japanese esthetic in a series of interconnected entangled threads. refreshing and enchanting.
feeling just a tad weepy thinking about the stalled renovation up-ended schedules and tussles with the unhappy management committee and then remembering that:
i babysit A for a couple hours all by my own self.
here is what we do on a loop:
totter up the steps and come down the slide
look for the turtles who are stubbornly hiding in the crevice
roll the ball to each other
fling the wine glass tokens and gather them back
all in 15 minutes.
the rest of the hours pass by verrrrry slowly.
i begin to realize that baby A is the impish tornado of thermodynamic energy that God sends to keep me from becoming fossilized in neatness and order.
the prevailing philosophy, it appears, is let-the-child-feed-herself.
unfortunately HOM and i subscribe to the keep-the-food-off-the-floor-and-the-grease-off-the-furniture school. our nerves forbearance and fortitude are tested.
fortunately the perpetrator is charming.
communion service today, and i look around the sanctuary at the dear faces of the people. we were young lithe and strong together, as we are thickened and heavier and slower together now. our children were babies together, and they have babies of their own now. how deep is the father's love for us.
and so the christmas music begins.
today we hear the strains of a jazzed up jingle bells adorning our grocery run at cold storage. it's enough to make you think of snow covered sidewalks and skaters on the pond. if this is not clockwork scheduling i don't know what is.
as of tomorrow, family medicine becomes a recognized specialty.
thirty years in the making. i feel simultaneously glad grateful and deeply satisfied. after they grandmother me in, i tell my old friend, i am going to retire in peace. like the old wuxia guy who finally retreats to his deepest mountain lair.
stop work order.
3 little words to chill the intrepid home owner's heart.
'nuff said.
the volvo is back from the workshop and the damage comes in under 3 figures. we all have different ideas about blessings and mercy but this certainly jibes with ours.
also, HOM and i realize that although we want to go green and take the bus more often we are more like yellow just yet.
pressing on with the count:
11. the main con continues to be elusive
12. HOM to the rescue as de facto project manager troubleshooting guy and part-time electrician. his earlier education coming in useful, i say
13. another permit appears to be missing
14. and the cabinet measurements need rescuing
in other news, and in the fine tradition of murphy's law as applied to home renovations, the car breaks down today in the course of duty.
i meet him after work.
me in a dress, he in longs.
we pay the peak-hour toll into town.
we dine on sake and sashimi.
and head home for coffee.
niceeee.
