sleeping beauty

around town in kuching, sarawak. stumbled upon camera film rolls on sale today. add to that the sheet metal workers shaping their pans the goldsmiths hawking their vintage jewelry and the occasional abandoned building. antediluvian kitsch.

high school reunion

where one meets up with ghosts past and perhaps gets to bury them where one catches up with those present and is sometimes pleasantly delighted and where one determines to attend more such events to come. 

my thanks to HOM for the moral support.

curiouser and curiouser

HOM and i make a half-day trip across the causeway into a peculiar series of encounters:

• the waiter who has such limited short term memory that he repeats our order thrice before showing us his (incorrect) order 
• but that's ok because we learn how to place an order in their system for him!
• although the wrong food still manages to arrive 
• the older gentleman at the next table who stares with unabashed curiosity at our fish before asking, are those dumplings?
• my temporary incarceration when the loo lock gets stuck the old-fashioned way i.e. mechanically and the cleaning lady her colleague her supervisor and HOM try (successfully!) to get me out, and
• this, which is a poodle masquerading as a duck, whaddayathunk

ordinary disasters - anne anlin chang (2024)

fascinating premise.

perspicacious.

erudite.

not gonna finish it.

too awfully self-centered.

pity. considering i hunt high and low for a copy of this book.

old faithful

like a beloved old blanket. i have weaned myself off the paper books, i tell HOM. so we can declutter the library if we need to. but the piano i hold on to yet, this splendid instrument with the buttery notes that holds memories dreams succor and solace. even if the strings snap regularly the touch requires much tender care and the dog thinks the piano tuner lives right next door.

chilli hot

auntie, you shouldn't do that, i murmur to the sweet old lady who has just flung a piece of soiled tissue onto the ground beside me. ohh! my hand slipped! and she smiles conspiratorially. then you should pick it up and throw it in the bin, i say, in my best (and totally accurate) chinese dialect. her smile fades very quickly but she retrieves her trash.

it helps that i am now almost as old as the people i tell off, and i look my age too. 

my hot buttons, as previously confessed:

• spitting on public property
• smoking in public
• littering

new broom

the old bus has wooden sliding windows you quickly push up when it rains and cracked pvc-covered seats with the yellow foam peeping thru and the bus driver slots in the metal bus number before he starts off. the new bus is air-conditioned has (almost) plush (near-)maroon seats and electronic signage. you can keep the vintage. i love the mod con. i'm kinda shallow that way.

chap goh meh

15 days

10 niangao

6 parties

4 houseguests

2 test cakes

1 birthday cake

full moon

lovely memories

but kinda exhausted

the housekeeper and the professor - yoko ogawa (translation, 2010)

tender unpretentious and unexpected account of the friendship and love that grow between a terribly impaired older gentleman the young woman who is randomly rostered to clean his home and her young son who awakens a vein of rich humanity in the desolation of his condition.

the language is simple, quite the eighth grade reader level. the ideas are weighty to balance that: dementia caregiving loss and spiritual pain!

that the book is full of nuggets of mathematical trivia is a bonus.

i am doing quite well for books this year.

2 tough 'uns

the first book is a little too dulcet-y self help-y salt-of-the-earth-y for a diet balanced out by murder stories on other days and is swiftly abandoned. although the illustrations are très charmant and utterly adorable.

the second book is laugh-out-loud funny with sharply incisive observations liberally sprinkled with expletives and i am enervated after the first few chapters. not abandoned yet, actually. i just need to intercalate the (mercifully short) chapters with another more demure read.

chemistry - weike wang (2017)

her debut novel written in a stream-of-consciousness style that is at once disorienting and unexpectedly compelling.

the narrator she is funny caustic and bitter dark indeed, as i descend with her into the morasses of her quietly disintegrating life. i mostly blame her truly stereotypical asian parents who somehow manage to bring my most painful memories to the surface.

am currently two thirds through the book unsure if i can continue to tolerate a protagonist who so consistently rejects the offer of joy but am nevertheless unable to put down the randomly charming writing.

chinese family culture can both suffocate and redeem. weike wang is right up there when it comes to depicting it.

the piano shop on the left bank - t.e. carhart (2001)

paris. (city of romance and dreams!)

le piano. (arguably still my favorite instrument)

the craftsmen and their networks. with history and other interesting nuggets.

intricate yet simple and deeply evocative. i remember flavia and my childhood and adolescent years of lessons.

this is a delightful bijou of a book. 

light at the end of the tunnel

having myself a quiet little day today as we transition out of the full-house situation slowly but surely fulfill the festive social obligations and (we hope) chalk up sufficient brownie points to qualify to bury ourselves in some solitude after this.

busy busy

one of our most jam-packed lunar new years in memory, HOM and i gasp to each other as we surface for air. multiple house guests multiple events endless meditation upon the next meal gah. fortunately the company is convivial the events are (half) over and the food has been decent. having A, of course, is delightful.