Obscenities

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DMV in Bostonland

Don't get the reference? That's okay. I was thinking of Alice in Wonderland, and especially about these quotes:

“Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

“It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,' says the White Queen to Alice.”

“No, no! The adventures first, explanations take such a dreadful time.”

Well, now that we have seen each other," said the unicorn, "if you'll believe in me, I'll believe in you.”

“Everything is funny, if you can laugh at it.”

“Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.' 'I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.'"

“Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop.”

Right now, I feel like I'm living in a fairytale. It's not perfect. Far from it. But it is surreal in it's blessing, it's beauty, and the odd sense that everything is as it should be, for now, for me.

 

Last weekend I did something practically impossible, easily. This holiday weekend (tomorrow), I get to do it pretty much again.

Except not. There will be fewer Disney characters, and a far greater number of exquisite flowers to gaze at in Boston's Public Garden and water to adore across the Charles River in Cambridge.

I get to run with a healthy body past those landmarks I dreamed about running by as a child. All with this sense of deja vu which calls it all practical.

It's really not practical. It's extraordinary. That I would find myself here, and be, after all, doing fine.

Amazing Race in Pictures

 

Give thanks to God - he is good and his love never quits.

Back in July, Sadak Hassan Abdi, aged 18 months, was acutely malnourished and his mother was afraid he would die. But a combination of hospital treatment and special food from WFP has restored him to health and provided a striking illustration of how the right action can be critical in the Horn of Africa.

Coffee beans, snow fungus, and Sponge Bob

First, for good measure, let's throw this up here from a prior post:

Now, as a disclaimer, I fully admit to being a gringo (i.e. – Foreign White Person) and I also do not have any experience in critiquing food other than what my tongue and stomach end up thinking about something. I am not trying to be culturally insensitive.

Okay, that said, whoever thinks that going to a Panasian market is like going to a grocery store, it. is. not. It is like going to a travel agent who also happens to be a clothing designer who also can read your fortune and who is going to tell you that buying a variety of pickled vegetable products is in your immediate future. At least that's how it was for us this Sunday when we went.

We entered said Panasian market with high hopes to buy one particular item.

No, not that item.

We wanted to purchase "shredded vegetable" in a can. As far as I've been able to figure out in the 5 years and 5 months I've been with S, shredded vegetable in a can is a mustard plant, pickled in pepper spices, and cut into little slivers. The result is a tasty, extremely salty treat that is best eaten with rice:

Soy sauce:

Does the regular mushroom soy sauce feel inferior to the "superior" sauce? Perhaps so.

and tofu (of which I bought three cases, but of which did not take any pictures, because there was just so much else going on).

Instead, we bought flour cakes, moon cakes, shredded radish, rice (we had two unopened bags at home already), mochi, seasoned bamboo shoots, and ramen.

We were delighted that mi gente were somehow represented among the other cultures:

 And we delighted in the presence, if not creepy the presence, of our favorite cartoon characters:

Most importantly, undoubtedly, is that we found an ear picker. This is the tool S uses for stratching the insides of his ear. This is the tool he lost over a year ago. This is the tool he, since that point, has substituted with all of my bobby pins. For $0.99, though, problem solved.

There's no question that will be back to this Mecca of Panasia. and soon.

September pond run

A week before the amazing race, I finally had the foresight to remember my camera on one of my last trail runs before October. Can you believe we're headlong into fall? I knew the quickly changing seasons would freak me out.

The run is approximately 20-30 minutes, and it covers the distance right outside my front door, a quarter mile down the street, out of our community and into a group of horse trails, across the street from a lovely horse farm close by.

The horse trails run parallel to one of the largest ponds on the reservation by our place. Yes, there are bugs there, and it's humid, and there may be a puddle or some horse poop to look out for but...

I know - it's straight out of Dawson's Creek. I love it. I can't wait to run here in a month or so when it is truly autumn (i.e. the humidity and bugs are gone), to look out at the clear, chilled water and feel at peace.

I'm so thankful for this race up ahead. It's brought me so much already - an appreciation of the cause at the heart of the race, the ability to bond with my long-distance buddy across months and hundreds of miles, and the self-discipline to put one foot in front of the other.

With the 14-miler out of the way as this Wednesday, it's home stretch time. I'll run for 30 minutes or so a time or two this week, and on Friday, I travel to Orlando to git 'er done.

I'm telling you to love your enemies.

I don't know much of anything sometimes, but I do know that the greatest, most powerful, most just man who ever lived (and who ever will live) gave his life for the weak and the sinful, while countless men before and after him kill, claiming that they somehow are great enough to have the authority of life, somehow powerful enough to execute the end of life, and somehow just enough to challenge the mercy, grace, sacrifice and wisdom of the only judge who matters.

http://www.ncadp.org/