... and there's more!

What could be better than a handsome (although a bit gruff-looking) Texan with a view of Hong Kong behind him? Even MORE pictures of Hong Kong, that's what! Click here.

diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma

Our friend Hannah isn't doing very well. After a very nice respite from symptoms (5 months or so with radiation), her tumor is growing again. Her mom, a dear friend, gave birth to a sweet baby girl on July 1. Their family is under a mountain of stress. My friend, believe it or not, is taking things in stride and focusing on the blessings already received.
Please pray for our friend, Hannah. I won't put her last name here, but just include her in your prayers. Flash and Super Q are having a hard time with this. Today Flash asked me, "Is this the kind of cancer you can die from?" For the first time, I answered the questions instead of deflecting them. I told him yes. He said, "How many times does this kind of cancer come back before the person dies? 13? 14?" I shook my head. "2?" I nodded. He started to cry. "I don't want to talk about this Mom. It's going to give me nightmares." We hugged for awhile.
It's giving me nightmares, too.

back from the mystical Orient

I wish this was a photo that I took; it's pretty cool. My photos are all on our other computer, so I'll have to put them up when I have, oh, 6 HOURS of disposable time. China was amazing and not a little overwhelming. My favorite part, except for Hong Kong OF COURSE, was Guilin (pictured above) and wonderful, cheap food.
Least favorite was the near-crash landing in Chicago on the way home. When a flight attendant makes a tiny, one-line announcement along the lines of "Please remember to leave your carry-on items on the plane in the event of an emergency", you know to brace yourself, I guess. Suffice it to say it was the scariest freaking landing in my life. I really do have many deep and insightful comments to share, with accompanying photos. Promise. Just not tonight.

4 more days!

Yes, there are lots and lots of McDonald's restaurants in China. Kind of surreal, ordering a Big Mac in chinese. And the omnipresence of borscht on fast food menus there is also weird. I'm looking forward to roasted sweet potatoes, shrimp dumplings, and fresh watermelon juice drinks, all available from street vendors. I'm dreaming in chinese again, something that hasn't happened for a long time. Evan asked me what I wanted to do first, and I was overcome with images and feelings; I almost couldn't answer. The thought of being there again is pretty overwhelming.


This place is one of my favorites. It's called Sai Kung, and it's gorgeous at sunset. I watched a man once on P-day as the sun went down. There was a diving platform there and as I watched his silhouette enter the water over and over again I felt such peace. Being a missionary can be exceedingly challenging, even depressing sometimes. I was so grateful for peaceful moments like those; they buoyed me up and gave me the courage to keep trying.

... and we'll set that particular insecurity aside

Thanks for the feedback on the sad-face thing. Sorry it was so self-absorbed. Now that I'm 35 (as of Saturday) I'm WAAAAY beyond stuff like that.

Thanks to all of you who sent/emailed birthday cheer my way. I had a great time buying stuff for myself without the inner mom guilt kicking in ("Flash really needs new church pants and you already have 6 pairs of black shoes; what are you thinking?"). We also dropped the kids off at a friend's house and headed to the beach for Italian food and walking in the moonlight (don't get any romantic ideas there, we were joined by about 29 Mississippians armed with bright flashlights and buckets on the search for sandcrabs). It was a nice day.


We're almost set for the great trek across the ocean to the mystical Orient. I say it in jest, but I must add that there is truly something in the air in China (besides smog); incense and mothballs mingled with a definite shrimpy smell and mango undertones. I can't wait!

sad, sad girl

An informal, unofficial, and certainly not mandatory poll. I've had more than a few people tell me lately that I look sad all the time. These kind of comments come my way from time to time, and I just have to ask, all of you, friends and family... do I really look sad all/most of the time? I think it's just the natural cast of my face (unfortunately)-- what do you think?

this is so much fun

After an arduous 1-hour session of setting up some new software, I looked around for some virtual mind-candy and found this sign generator. You can add text to all kinds of stuff, from pictures of cakes to the Vegas sign to the London Underground sign. There are lots of fun tools for kids and grownups alike on the site. Check it out! (The link there is to the Big Boy marquee sign, but scroll down for more.)

my kind of cooking

I found an article at nyt.com (click here) which I love. Here's why: I have a friend who is an excellent cook, who grew up eating food prepared by excellent cooks (her parents), and she once imparted a bit of wisdom to me, which was, basically, you don't need a lot of crazy geegaws to make wonderful stuff. As a person who has collected a number of crazy kitchen geegaws over the years, I'm gearing up for a major kitchen cleanout. (The remnants of the late 90s candle craze were dumped over the weekend; the kitchen's next). This article gives me the freedom to not feel like a loser cook if I use a plate as a pot lid or a splatter screen as a colander.

Super Q ROCKS!

I'm happy to report that at the ripe old age of 4, Super Q has a theme song... a rockin' theme song. You can hear it here; the link's on a site devoted to an actor who was on the old Scholastic Animorphs series, a series I knew nothing about until I found some ancient VHS copy of it at the library. It's now considered way awesome at our house. But here's the best part: remember taping your favorite song off the radio using a tape recorder and having to be super quiet while you did it? I didn't think it would be anywhere online, so Super Q and I sat down and taped it off the TV. Then Q had a great time listening to it over and over again for (no joke) about 2 hours. It's now part of the musical canon of "boy songs" suitable for soundtracks to superhero and secret agent living room battles. Yeah!

what the?

In preparation for the big TRIP I got a Hepatitis A shot today. And my arm is so very, very sore. Anyway, I sat down to write/whine about it and desired a picture of Hepatitis A cells or something when I came across this oddity: it's the Hepatitis virus in stuffed animal form! It can be purchased from giantmicrobes.com, where you will also find cute n' cuddly versions of black death, ebola, algae, dust mites, mange, rabies, and more! I've been trying to think of an occasion for which a soft stuffed syphilis doll is appropriate. Is it meant to soothe the pain of a diagnosis? Some kind of gag gift you bring to a pathology conference? Man, the internet is bizarre sometimes.

heavy, heavy boots

Sometimes it's great to revisit books you liked, but only when you remember enough about the book to STOP yourself before you get to the super-depressing parts. Say you've decided to read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close again, and all you remember is that the protagonist is a 9-year-old boy whose father died on 9/11. He finds a mysterious key among his dad's things and embarks on a search through New York to discover what the key will unlock. The boy's name is Oskar and he's so precocious and creative--the child we all think we want to have but probably would be annoyed with. When he's feeling sad, he calls it having "heavy boots." He's been hiding the family answering maching since 9/11 because it has 5 terribly sad messages on it: his dad calling from the Windows on the World, reporting on the situation there. The last message consists of, "Is anyone there?" repeated 15 times. Don't forget this next time! Don't pick up this book unless you are on the beach in Jamaica or something, surrounded by enough beauty and vacuousness to cushion the impact. Remember this.

the show must go on!

Is there anything better than an impromptu performance by your kids? When I was little, it ranged from Debbie Boone/Xanadu/Barbra Streisand lip-sync concerts to roller derbies to pageants (the "Miss Ugmo Pageant," to be precise, wherein the ugliest contestant won).

In my house, it's feats of strength and bravery, involving running, jumping off the ottoman, and sliding in the kitchen in stocking-feet. The best part is the accompaniment, provided by the very crappy songs on our 80s Casio keyboard. Current favorites include "Superstition" (Stevie Wonder), some Pet Shop Boys song, and a song called "Crocodile Rock." These are "boy songs," appropriate for superhero fighting and feats of strength and bravery. The "girl songs" like the theme from Aladdin and a folk song called "Santa Lucia" are only to be played for visiting girls. Even then, they are roundly scorned. Then there are "church songs" (anything with a ponderous organ sound) during which one must solemnly march around, eyes fixed on an imaginary hymnal held in front of one's chest. That keyboard has provided hours and hours of quality entertainment. Definitely worth the $50.00 gift certificate and free night of babysitting I paid for it. (Flashback to that night of babysitting: one pee-soaked mattress, one hyper 10-year old demanding strawberries and whipped cream, one 3-year old who stayed awake until 11:30 pm, one tired and humorless Rebecca taking it all in...Yeah, I guess it was worth it.)

Paris to the Moon

First, I do like Adam Gopnik! Just finished his other small-family-in-a-big-city memoir, called Paris to the Moon. So nice. It's good to get a little reality check about Europe sometimes, don't you think? I read in another favorite book, American Cultural Patterns*, that Asia looks up to America, America looks up to Europe, and Europe looks up to Asia. I think there is a fair amount of Euro-worship here (minus that whole "Boycott France" movement of a few years ago), and we sure could learn from European lifestyles (walking to the market, sidewalk cafes, super yummy fresh bread, and real chocolate, to name a few), but we don't often know the country/culture well enough to make a real assessment of it. Anyway, that was a long way of getting to my point, which is that Gopnik reveals Paris as city with which one easily falls in love and just as easily feels frustrated with. I won't write out any anecdotes here, but suffice it to say that Gopnik hates Barney as much as you do, knows heaps about French cooking, and can draw some lovely conclusions about cultural differences from fax error messages.


*A textbook from some linguistics class ages ago...VERY enlightening! If you want to understand more about American culture and the (for us, totally obscured) motivations behind American friendships, social structure, and ambition, read this book. I also learned quite a lot about Japan, Germany, and, of course, Micronesia in the pages of this book.

Chairman Mao, here we come!

Well, it's official. We're taking a long-anticipated trip to China this summer. I'm hoping for some idyllic photo ops with Chinese children like Mao Zedong here. I don't think I'll have much luck with Mao himself, as his body has been lying in state at Tiananmen Square for something like 30 years (ick). Makes you wonder what they preserved him with. My bet is Diet Caffeine Free Coke. Ahhh, better living through chemicals.

the children's gate

Ooh, I'm afraid the image there isn't looking very clear; sorry. I just have to recommend this book. I've enjoyed Adam Gopnik's work from time to time in the New Yorker (including a great essay about Lewis Carroll about 12 years ago).
This book chronicles his family's move to New York after living in Paris for several years. I've never been to New York but still managed to adore nearly every page of this book. It explores many themes, but my favorite is Gopnik's beautiful way of capturing the way kids think. There are several chapters that chronicle the appearance and evolution of the author's daughter's imaginary friend, who goes by Charlie Ravioli. Charlie, like most people in New York I imagine, is too busy to play, and Gopnik's daughter reports that she is only able to "grab coffee with him" or catch him on his cell. Eventually she creates an imaginary assistant through which she tries to schedule play dates. The whole story is unbelievably funny, and the book is a happy read.

beanbag extravaganza!

I promised the boys a beanbag toss game if they played nicely together while I cooked...little did I know what a festival of dishes awaited me! We had about 30 bowls lined up throughout the living room and "library" (2 chairs and a bookshelf), and--look closely--we even had a bonus round.

faux black and white cookies

Remember that Seinfeld episode that featured the black and white cookie? Like the Chinese restaurant and parking lot episodes, it takes place mostly in one setting on one evening. I actually hate those episodes (so frustrating to watch). So it wasn't really in honor of that episode that I made these cookies; they just sounded good. The recipe is completely "cheater cheater Pumpkin eater" as my boys would say, but it works, especially in a time crunch.

You'll need:
1 box white or yellow cake mix
1 box chocolate cake mix
To each box (in separate bowls) add:
1/2 cup oil
2 eggs

Mix well. Take 1 tsp of each kind of dough and make a half-moon shape. Press together. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes on ungreased baking sheets. Makes about 36.
p.s. Don't use "butter recipe" mixes; they are too greasy.

sewing FRENZY!

I'm a bit dismayed as I look at these photos of my little breakfast nook (nook--is that a real word?) window seat cushions. They look so unassuming and kind of bland, masking the 8 HOURS of sewing that their construction required, including all 4 disks of Season One of Frasier and an entire can of honey roasted peanuts. This picture does not show the corner where the two cushions meet like puzzle pieces, nor does it show the many inches of hand sewing that had to happen once I forced the foam pad into each casing. (Did I mention the handmade piping?) Anyway, they're done, hallelujah! I wanted color in the kitchen, and I got it. I had to put the picture up here after putting in so much time on this project.

18 more days

Happy, happy day! I just checked the Innocence Mission's website and their new album is due out in March (13th to be exact). And if you love beauty, gentleness, and music with a moral (but not preachy), or if you love pretty voices and folksy guitar, then you will adore this band. You can see their very nice site here and listen to clips of the album here .

Workin for the Weekend

Here's something funny... you know that Loverboy song, "Everybody's Workin' for the Weekend"? Believe it or not, stay at home drones are also workin' for the weekend. There's something about Saturday that is just a relief to me. No one has to be fed and out the door at 8:00; we can wear pajamas until noon if we want.


That said, tomorrow is Buy the Materials to Make Bunkbeds Day. We have a grand plan to save tons of money by building bunkbeds for the boys. They will look nothing like the image above. I really hope they work out... If not, we might be having a Sell Random Pieces of Wood Day.