Funnies wisdom...

 

Asian Food Stalls

      At dinner the other evening with my Niece, to hear her stories of her recent trip to Cambodia, food stalls and Angkor Wat came up. Those two entities are intertwined in my memory. Thereby hangs a tale.

     On my first trip to Cambodia in early January, 1994, I visited Angkor Wat. Tourists had yet to discover it so we had this famed temple to ourselves. Siem Reap, the town next to Angor, was little more than a sleepy village. In 1997 Joanne and I were in Cambodia, to visit Lisa. We planned to visit Angkor Wat together. You know how plans are!

   Lisa made friends with a Cambodian family while she was working there. On a day's outing to an historical site near Phnom Penh with this family, fate intervened. While Joanne and Lisa left to use the facilities, a nice euphemism for a walk in the woods, I was left with grandma. She bought food from a nearby food cart. Too polite to refuse of proffered food I ate and soon came down with raging food poisoning. With tickets to Siem Reap Joanne and Lisa left as I recuperated in Lisa's house. However, I did return to Angkor Wat on a subsequent trip.

   So now the scene shifts to Bangkok. Some of the best food in Thailand is street food in Bangkok. The two times I got food poisoning in Bangkok it was from food in restaurants. Never did I get sick from Thai street food. In 1994 Phnom Penh was in the early stages of recovery from the Khmer Rouge and sanitation was iffy at the best.

Takk for alt,

Al

PS  She said almost no one listens to her travel stories!

                    Thai food stall in Bangkok where I often ate.

Poetry speaks!

    Writing about Marilyn Robinson's Reading Genesis, some days ago, Peter commented on grace. He said he was in a class where the instructor struggled to define grace. Finding that unhelpful he exited the class. In response I offered this definition of grace. "Grace is the undeserved (or unmerited) love and mercy of God." He responded by sharing this poem he wrote about grace, and, as you can see it, was published.  Good isn't it? Each time I read it I see more, poetry is like that.

GRACE

 

Grace is a side

wise place

shimmed into

this square world,

a humbling reminder

hawks do not

catch all squirrels

chased, nor even most.

An else is in it.

Grace is

God's retainer,

ensuring clients

come back

after the crash

hat squashed

firmly in hand.

We don't get it

by wisdom

by hard work

nor luck, surely not

by deserving.

It's provender

in the desert,

unexplained,

tender.

P M F Johnson (first published in Iconoclast)

Takk for alt,

Al

2024 Nobel Prize Winner

     That prize winner would be Han ( that's not a mistype of Hans, for you Norwegians) Kang, who is Korean. She's the first Korean to win the prize. It was awarded in 2024, for her work prior to Greek Lessons, which I just finished. My friend, Peter, who is reading many of the books awarded the Nobel, claims that some are not as good as the previous works of the award winner. Not having read her previous works I can't judge, but this one is superb.

    This is a book for lovers of language. It's set in both Germany and Korea. One protagonist teaches and the other studies Greek. Their interest in Greek and their maladies bring them together. Some have described the book as poetry and that certainly is fair. In many ways it's a sad book but throughout there is a current of hope. Letters are written to unknown person that reveal the innermost character of the writer. Kang has the ability of acute observation. NPR quotes this passage as an example of her power of observation, "The man standing by the blackboard looks to be in his mid to late thirties. He is slight, with eyebrows like bold accents over his eyes and a deep groove at the base of his nose. A faint smile of restrained emotion plays around his mouth...The woman gazes up at the scar that runs in a slender pale curve from the edge of his left eyelid to the edge of his mouth. When she'd seen it in their first lesson, she'd thought of it as marking where tears had once flowed."

    It's a short book, quickly read and some reviewers quickly reread it. Personally I found it engaging, compelling and profound. It did show me much how much of my own Greek lessons has been forgotten as I struggled to read the simple Greek in the book.

Takk for alt,

Al

Could be said about this blog!

 

Happy Candlemas!

 

Takk for alt,

Al

A skiff of snow fell...

      "If wishes were fishes we'd all have a few." Winter sports are in my past. Winter camping? No thank you, cold weather training in the Marines more than met that need. Never having owned a snowmobile I've ridden enough to know that neither the cold nor the bouncing are attractive.  Cross country skiing was fun, the little that I did, but the risk of falling, at my age! Ice fishing was once fun but now I can hardly stay warm in my apartment. You get the drift?

     All this leads back to wishes. My wish would be for snow in late March or early April, Better yet would be gentle spring rains of substance. Moisture is certainly needed but in the realm of wishing might as well wish for rain..

Takk for alt,

Al

                               I love grass!