omnibus of crime fiction by female writers from 1850 to 1917. when one is reduced to this you can tell one is a little bit stir crazy and desperate.
the short stories themselves are surprisingly palatable although they lack the plot lines and build-up of bodies and clues i am used to after half a life-time's diet of actual agatha christie garnished with j.d. robb. the convoluted sentences are correctly fashionable unexpectedly comprehensible and a welcome change from the short fragments favored by ai-generated prose. the editing's a bit shoddy though which is a pity.
excuse me while i return to actual agatha christie.
... the car mechanic's!
as of last count we must qualify for preferred customer status of the revolving door variety. the old volvo has a new engine mount new radiator belt new fan yada yada and will soon have an overhauled gear box.
we've come a long way, this car and us. and it is practically a new car again too.
dystopian premise rendered in child-friendly prose and just vaguely reminiscent of enid blyton's magic faraway tree which nevertheless succeeds in warming the cockles of the reader's heart. i suspect it is the kitten motif.
today HOM and i are haunted by an old chinese melody that we both recognize and that we both cannot identify and that shazam gives up at as well. but the google app allows me to hum the melody and ta-dah! the song is 母亲你在何方. how we ever did things before the modern age i do not know.
red sky at night, shepherd's delight
looks like the portents are for another hottt day tomorrow.
at least it's pretty.
starting my most ambitious project yet and breaking new ground with silk thread on a ginormous piece of aida. for which pre-printed and pre-gridded are pretty much non-negotiables these days.
nine months later the case is finally settled and the stop work order is lifted and we are looking to renewed efforts in the new week.
HOM and i are amazed humbled and grateful for the manifold mercies that lead to this. at the same time unfortunately the old stresses of hustling the various players also self-resurrect.
but if God can lead us thru the one surely he can lead us thru the other. exodus 14:14, isaiah 43:2, psalm 31:15. all OT verses. there is a pattern here.
faith of our fathers, living still
in spite of dungeon, fire and sword
the speaker chooses this for the response today following a sermon on the fifth commandment. with all respect and even though i am fond of its soaring melodies it is a rather odd choice. a congregation of first and second generation believers mixes poorly with a song of catholic martyrs indeed.
yikes.
woman kills her third husband marries her fourth who kills his second wife and his adopted sons then woman and man live happily for almost 40 years after that. oh oh maybe woman kills second husband too.
most ghoulishly unpleasant story of the couple that got away.
yikes.
this time by a human, for ten times what i pay the machine.
and what a massage! she hits the pain points unerringly drives me to the edge of tears and pulls me back into a looser more limber state. we cut to the chase when i tell her just neck shoulders and back; you can forget the arms and the legs, and i don't want oil. the bonus is she doesn't make small talk either.
i feel almost ready to return to civilization and to work.
ramblingly wide-ranging history of modern society as it develops from the medieval to the modern and my one take-home point is that europe (and especially england) of the years up to the present were dark indeed. of especial horror (and most difficult to read) is the chapter on toilet practices. you can practically smell and feel the stuff.
vintage bryson, pretty much.
J2 sends us a recording of little A describing the world cup game.
他提ball ; 他跌倒； 他头痛；他坐下来。with entirely unrecognizable prosody almost unrecognizable tonality but (you gotta admit) much sharp observation.
we are torn between grandparent-ly delight and much generational horror.
fantastic location with an impressive history complete with cast iron corinthian columns unfortunately tucked away on levels that no one usually visits. decent room decent breakfast decent gym temporarily unavailable spa but with two dinky public massage chairs. and ultimately marred by poor choices of interior decor which rob it of real polish and make the front entrance look a bit secondary. it's also too bad our expectations are contaminated by memories of that other impressively historic place.
we take a break from group activities* and scuttle off for a non-aromatic tea break
starting with an early morning visit to the air-side passenger lounge, all shiny and freshly renovated. we serendipitously meet an old friend and catch up over coffee. after that we circle the place a few times looking for the exit, on account of unhelpfully discreetly placed signs, together with (we notice surreptitiously) a few other passengers also trailing their suitcases behind them.
my next seat neighbor today is adolescent-sized and most pleasantly self-contained. he kindly spends the flight engrossed in his soccer movie and does not seep into my seat at all except during a particularly exciting bit o' footwork, when he grips my armrest and raises it in his excitement. nothing a friendly tap on the shoulder does not solve.
as for me, i watch food porn. which the japanese do really well, with lots of macro shots in saturated colors of glistening munchies in osaka and kyushu today. my only grouse is that they really need to ditch the close-ups of people eating. most de-appetizing.
also, we catch a glimpse of a former government minister boarding late, without fanfare, into cattle class (with us hoi polloi!) most democratic of him, i think. i also think that he must like the color pink, because he wears it and so does his carry on bag.
and finally, in the grab ride to the hotel, in the middle of a rather comfortable journey, i put my hand to the aircon vent to adjust the airflow and discover that malaysian grab vehicles may not come equipped with a/c vents.
my aunt died peacefully. thank you for looking after her.
more than many others N saved me from chop chop self-righteous institutionalized efficiency. her trust was full her faith grounded and her acceptance complete. she expected my time and i learnt to give her my presence. she expected my prayers and i learnt to plead for her. thank you for telling me, i say. it was my privilege to know her.
slowly crawling out into the sunshine of life
after a long week of work
after vacation
that's payback for you
HOM leaves his phone in the ride. this leaves us with a cold feeling in the heart.
by God's grace and thanks to the driver's kindness he has it back again.
what i say is, you are not losing a phone you are losing a wallet.
what i also say is, that cold feeling in the heart, it can get quite cold.
rainy day out. hotel room a/c fixated on 19 degrees C. nursing a cough.
the best place to camp out in the room is on the heated toilet seat.
back in guangzhou!
cosmopolitan noisy brash in turn sophisticated and rude the city of great food! and modern hotel i.d. with heated toilet seats!
very glad to be back for another quickie weekend before we decamp home.
necessary to a smooth queue-free research-minimum trip, yes.
nightmare versions this trip:
we've had a week-and-a-half of sweeping soul-enhancing vistas mushrooms to overflowing and enough lectures about silver and tribal culture and tibetan buddhism to make us psuedo-experts.
i am ready for bland canto cuisine cleaner bathrooms and all round cosmopolitan amenities now.
on the way to shangri-la we take a loo break at a heavy vehicle check-in stop. the complex is vast and the loos are right in the back and quite ammoniacal from before you get to them.
i approach the bank of doors and push one open to find a woman crouched over the loo and back away in embarrassment. she is however most kind and tells me, go down this way. you'll find plenty of loos without doors there!
i do love visiting china but i confess i am not intrepid at all. also, i need doors.
unreservedly sweepingly beautiful with rolling meadows (complete with yak turds) mirror lakes and ranges of mountains beyond mountains.
yet i find myself quite unable to warm up to the place. the architecture is too ethnic the cuisine is too hearty meaty and the culture is too foreign.
i am given many tips to deal with the elevation of shangri-la. take prophylactic whiffs from the oxygen canister! 2 whiffs before sleep! walk slowly! drink more water! do not on any account bathe on your first day!!
some advice is perhaps more evidence-driven than others although it is all intensely generously and unsolicitedly well-meaning. the writers of the yellow book would have apoplexy if they knew what stuff is floating out there.
in full disclosure, i take a cold-ish 3-minute shower. because.
you'll know a woman is spoken for by the jade bangle she wears on her left wrist, the guide says. she will only take it off after in separation. i look at mine and smile at HOM. some of us will not take it off because the hand has grown coarser than the bangle!
palatial set-up. breakfast delivered to the room. we lose our way looking for the elevators.
memoir of a 42-year-old man who suffers a stroke. the account is thoughtful philosophical and surprisingly upbeat. he writes quite beautifully, which restores my confidence in publishers and makes me want to specially read faber & faber books.
the main beef i have with him is that he is sometimes medically inaccurate, although of course that gives an insight to his perspective. and he is a little medically quaint too, because he writes from a time when people had strokes and left the hospital with just aspirin.
the one thing i learn from him is how fatiguing it can be.
40 years almost to the day from when we had the first sunday service at the current location. really? that sounds so long ago! i feel young yet. have 40 years passed?
the new building is where HOM and i meet and where we wed and bring up J1 and J2, at least for part of their fragmented childhood. it is the home to which we return from foreign assignments and, these days, from our travel adventures. it is where we are held to the most account, of all the churches and amongst all the small groups.
my heart and my soul swell as we sing, praise God from whom all blessings flow... praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!
HOM changes the bathroom tap.
as in, tap leaks and mildew grows. (real) plumber quotes for new tap. HOM decides he can do better and besides it's not rocket science. HOM buys new tap and installs it. voilà!
one could start a second career soon.
lovely young man on the helpline trying to get me thru with my face verification function who says ah! in a most reassuringly knowing tone and then cheerfully walks me thru the steps to successfully set it up.
what i appreciate the most, i tell HOM, is that he is so clearly present with me in my agony and is so openly thinking aloud as we work through the steps that i gladly submit to his instructions and forget to don my usual crabby luddite persona for when i am flummoxed by tech.
thank you sir!
of which there are 3: the story of arthur truluv (2017), night of miracles (2018), and the confession club (2019).
arthur truluv catches me and holds me tight in his gentle otherworldly kindly embrace and i enjoy his story and lucille's (and iris's and monica and tiny's). but the magic peters out after one-and-three-quarter books and i find myself reading from the final chapter forwards for the last book.
she writes better than debbie macomber but not as well as maeve binchy or marian keyes.
and it's true. in a way i mostly hardly notice and certainly do not pay enough attention to, there are lovely things to look at if only i bother to.
in other news, those gorgeous heavy-laden almost-violet promising-rain clouds in the background never delivered.
last nite's leftovers, is wot it is.
now let's not get all hoity-toity about serving leftovers. when you are tired of thinking and prepping there's an absolute magic to popping the containers into the oven and plating up the stuff when the time is ripe.
viva la food containers and their contents!
found me a new writer i like, yes siree! chatty streams of consciousness flow mellifluously along home and friendship themes. not quite the incisive sophistication of james thurber whose essay on dogs i read just before i embark on this, but with a woozy floozy cozy cottage charm.
my favorites are the two letters from flo to her ex-neighbor ruthie. here the charm transcends cottage to enter minimalist modern territory.
moving on to her other books next.
