amazing grace adams - fran littlewood (2023)

not, as i mistakenly expect, frothy escapade material but marian keyes-esque for the serious issues it covers but at a rather painfully dragged out pace.

i give up at the 61% mark and skip to the ending to read backwards.

10/10 for courage in tackling tough topics.

6/10 for writing in the du jour back-and-forth-in-time style which i first enjoy in lucy foley's the guest list but which is now borderline passé.

overuse syndrome

since july last year, i believe. today the piano plays beautifully! 

the tightness remains on forced extension. it feels wonderful to be (almost) free again.

- ps. 103:2-3

my kinda shape

off-center asymmetrical unbalanced restrained chaos.

my new salad bowl.

by sun and candlelight

 

or by wine and scallop, as the case may be.

sudden light

 sitting in the food court

HOM and i look at the next table

clearly retirees, with grey hair practical clothes and safe sneakers

talking about health challenges neighbors' kids and the chicken and fish curry

and it occurs to me they look at us and see 

two of the same.

gratus

the man's birthday cake, admittedly a tad late. it occurs to me that for some time now we have spent more birthdays with each other than without and we are at the age when the youngsters look at us as the grizzlies. even though we feel as young as we did back in the day only wiser (even though we felt wise back then). even to your old age i am he, and to gray hairs i will carry you. and so he has.

lovely chocolate cake, incidentally. i am telling HOM his project is to better it.

from third world to first - lee kuan yew (2000)

WHOA.

insider account of the early years of the nation and our neighbors followed by a sweeping geopolitical analysis of the key nations we have contact with delivered with unapologetic confidence. not to mention delicious tidbits about nations and politicians delivered without care for political correctness.

refreshing (finally a non-US-centric account of history!) and satisfying (the man has memories and he doesn't censor them) and most enlightening. also, it gives you a (curated) glimpse of the man behind the bulldog.

i just wish someone would write a similar account of 2000 to 2025.

...we knew little about... how to solve our many economic and social problems. all we had was a burning desire to change an unfair and unjust society for the better. thank you, gentlemen.

shared lane

spotted in the 'hood, and not a part of some high falutin' park connector network either! here's hoping for more of the same, and for the non-peds to stick to their lane!

state of the soul

1. my sin—oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!—my sin, not in part but the whole!
2. is nailed to the cross, and i bear it no more,
   praise the Lord, praise the Lord, o my soul!
3. spafford's old words. timeless truth. that Christ hath regarded my helpless estate and hath shed his blood for my soul. how utterly undeserved. how completely liberating.