priorities

i meet with the pest control man. we'll need to spray under the cooker hood to flush them out, he says. and we'll be attaching the poison pellets here here and here. our company uses the organic spray, he adds. there's a pepperminty smell that's nothing like the pungent odor of other products.

i don't really care if it's organic or inorganic or if it smells minty or pungent. just tell me you WILL GET THOSE COCKROACHES KILLED. BEFORE i move in. please?

productivity (loss)

what i miss so much:

• smoothly flowing traffic
• freely available free parking
• coupons & price matching
• returns, no questions asked
• amazon.com, prime shipping

i don't quite get it

so, we're gunning for 6.9 million people and a GDP growth of 2 to 3% a year. what the past decade of growth has brought, as far as i can see, has been great congestion superimposed upon a groaning infrastructure upon a scaffolding of sky-rocketing inflation with an increasingly short-fused populace struggling to find the life in the work-life equation whilst navigating safety-hazardous subway systems or, if they are luckier, bangkok-style roadways. if GDP growth brings a slew of painful changes and little significant benefit, why are we so afraid of GDP contraction if it could mean a little more space a little less time on the roads and a little more time to breathe?

keeping the faith

you matter because you are, and you matter to the end of your life. we will do all we can not only to help you die peacefully, but also to live until you die.

- dame cecily saunders

bcls

i drag myself to the cpr recertification course on saturday morning. good luck to you, people warn me darkly. may you succeed in compressing the mannikin's chest without collapsing yourself. the trouble, i explain to HOM, is that my entire body weight may not supply the minimum mass required to activate the sensor in the mannikin's chest.

the compressions turn out great. beautifully timed and just the right depth, which in any case is just the only depth my weight can achieve. where i falter is in the breathing. specifically, in the head-tilt-chin-lift-pinch-nose-blow-hard-without-getting-light-headed part of the test. you practically have to break his neck hyperextending it, and he's got a nose the consistency of hard plastic. and also, it doesn't help when his left ear gets dislodged halfway through resuscitation.

score board

six wakes and one baby shower since repatriating a month and a half ago. it might be nice to attend a wedding or two, i begin to think.

my Lord and my God

why did Christ have to suffer for our redemption? a young friend asks me. if God loves us so much why did he not love his son as much? it is a rehash of the good old question, why does a good God allow so much pain? because, i tell him, it is in Christ that you see the fullness of God in one. when you see the purity of a life gloriously unstained by sin and shame, and as you see the depth of a love that will not let you go, then you begin to see the cross. Bonhoeffer says, if you want to see what God is, in his wrath and in his love, look at his Son.