here is E when he does not want to walk.
clearly a dog who knows what he does not want.
1. stop work order
2. main con sprains his back
3. a/c con punctures the water pipe
4. main con's grandma dies
5. super typhoon ragasa
and counting.
unless the LORD build the house, those who build it labor in vain.
Ps. 127:1
after a week of categorically slower internet speeds HOM contacts M1 and then runs through a complex series of fruitless trouble-shooting over the next couple hours before the young man at the other end says, you need to upgrade your router firm-ware. at which HOM climbs to where we stash the router digs out the 8-year-old credentials and presses on the update button and voila! we are back in action!
all of this to say, always know where you squirrel away your device passwords and know what to do when the young man says you need to upgrade your firm-ware. either that, or you marry the local IT support guy.
plodding and ponderous and also page-turningly tense.
the characters are truly unlikeable: the victim wholly deserves his desserts three out of four siblings are hypomanic or personality disordered and the hangers-on are unprepossessing and unreal.
the overarching theme appears to be the old wuxia revenge worked out in a western clime. if i were an asian immigrant to the u.s. this book would totally depress me.
HOM scratches thru the nite.
he: i must be catching your chronic urticaria.
me: huh? <smashes a fat mosquito.>
recently abandoned books:
the trust - m.c. eccleston (2022). i pick this up because the blurb says for fans of richard osman but she in no way writes with osman's flair.
the way of all flesh - ambrose perry (2018). wordy, like alphabet pea-soup.
the killer across the table - douglas & olshaker (2019). not sure what the writer is trying to achieve with a most uncharismatic subject.
people from my neighborhood - kawakami (2016). bizarre without kawaii. that's all.
the woman who wanted more - vicky zimmerman (2016). depressingly middle-class american. for recipes and food, stick to ruth reichl, i say.
in my seventh decade i no longer feel obligated to finish a book once i begin it.
i discover a pretty hair clip in the deep recesses of the car.
me: nice! i must have dropped this some time back.
HOM: is that yours? i don't recall you having something like this.
me: is it not better that i should have lost something like this?
fascinating and quirky ode to that lifelong dream of mine, to do nothing.
morimoto is unapologetically vegetative in his approach to exertion and involvement. the fascinating bit is how he strikes a chord in so many souls who take pleasure in helping him do nothing. the quirky bit is the unexpected nature of his many endeavors: providing a warm body to file divorce papers with or being the recipient of rambling monologues or simply being a human alarm clock. for someone so against the tide of industry he is insightful and warm in his observations of human nature.
what i don't understand is how he ever exerted himself enough to marry his wife.
another couple strings snap in the piano. this is happening with painful regularity.
and yet it is greatly beloved well treasured and lovingly played, this stately beauty of ours.
even if the piano tuner knows us better than most other people.
God and God alone created all these things we call our own
from the mighty to the small the glory in them all is God's and God's alone
God and God alone is fit to take the universe's throne
let everything that lives reserve its truest praise for God and God alone
God and God alone reveals the truth of all we call unknown
and the best and worst of men won't change the Master's plan
it's God's and God's alone
- phil mchugh
flipping thru my old song sheets and found this. painfully and comfortingly apt in the face of turmoil and mindless oppression.
after the rain and along the canal.
it occurs to me that the sides of the canal are well irrigated by canal water these days and sprout sporadic tufts of exuberant vegetation. faintly resembling some body parts.
a linguistic guide to communications.
kbt - kaya butter toast
fkt - fried kway teow (although my friends prefer ckt for char kway teow)
ytf - yong tau foo
pb - peanut butter
xlb - xiao long bao
dtf - din tai fung
all food related, as best as i can recall.
the body aches the head hurts the arm wants to drop off.
ouchhhhh (gingerly)
i am seriously considering abandoning dose 2.
i miss my usual bus stop this morning and tumble out at the next stop all groggy-like to begin my speed walk back to civilization. everything looks unfamiliar and new and different until i realize i am looking at the dear old building from the opposite direction to how i normally look at it. (duh!) maybe one should miss one's stop from time to time, if only to acquire a new prospect.
in other news, i miss the bus in the rain this evening owing to texting on the phone. that sinking feeling is so déjà vu.
in a ditty, what i do for work today:
on the way in, i miss my stop
on the way out, i miss my bus
because he is too swarthy to be called newspaper boy.
time was when he showed up in the early hours on his bicycle with precarious towers of daily news and held up one elevator car going floor to floor flinging them out. you walked the dog around his timing to avoid becoming hostage to the never-coming elevator.
these days he shows up a wee bit later on his shiny red motorcycle a shorter tower and is done in under the time it takes me and E to dawdle up the slope.
the times they are a'changin'. what surprises me is that the papers they are still a'comin'.
we meet a posse of young-ish runners this morning.
here are two thoughts they inspire:
i receive greetings for a non-existent birthday from a professional organization i no longer belong to.
failure of information management, if you ask me.
