Month: June 2004

  • Feminine Products for Sailing

    Last weekend was gorgeously sunny and windy (15-20 mph, as usual!) in the canyon. So I decided to take my sailboat out for a dip. I knew where my sailbag was. (That was one of the first things I unpacked when we moved down here.) I had another bag with all the necessary lines. Rudder, tiller, and daggerboard were already in the boat, as was the oar and the bailer. I hitched her up! I was ready to go!

    I zipped down to the boat ramp, and in my excitement, it took me 10+ tries to back that damn trailer down the ramp. I got out and looked, and realized, I’d forgotten the plugs.

    Thank goodness, I always keep a well-stocked first aid kit in my car, which included a couple of tampons.

    Playtex works pretty well, but I think O.B. would have been easier to put in.

  • Offended by the Truth

    It’s always amazing to me, how people (including myself) are being taught to be offended when someone speaks the truth. Some say, “They are being taught to be critical and speak their minds,” but of what exactly are they being critical? Anything that goes against the norm? Teaching kids in schools to chant “Four legs good. Two legs bad” has the ring of fascism to me.

    These are the same people who would ban books like Animal Farm, Huckleberry Finn, Clockwork Orange, or anything by Kurt Vonnegut. . . because what those authors have to say isn’t pleasant, and doesn’t fit with what American educators want the world to be — a kind of pleasantly silly Dr. Seuss book.

    It’s also amazing to me that my younger relatives seem to be learning more about gay rights in high school than history. And the history that they are learning seems to be from movies made by a white man who doesn’t know much about Asian history at all, if he thinks that America is the most violent country in the world.

    My Hitch in Hell: The Bataan Death March

    When the Rainbow Goddess Wept

    So many countries have long histories of violence — in Asia, Europe, the Middle East. It’s something that humans have and have always had, and always will have. Insane people do insane things. Desperate people do desperate things. That’s the way it always has been, and the way it always will be.

    If you’re depressed and suicidal (as many academics are), you can ignore that there are people who don’t care that you “don’t believe in God because religion causes wars” — people in the world who care nothing for peace and goodwill to all men.

    “If we just listen to them. . . let them know we understand, and that we’re on their side.” You cannot change people’s opinions if they are angry. People can only change their own when they are able to see without the red. Until then, my guns are cocked for the “insane” and the “desperate.”

    Yesterday, Matt and I watched “Kelly’s Heroes,” and I marveled again at the all-wood sailboat that was stolen/rescued from destruction by the next air raid.

  • American “Pacifists”

    American pacifists make me laugh. Most especially if they are from Philippines, Thailand, or China or are Jewish-American.

    Let’s see. Both of my grandmothers in Philippines and Thailand know how to say “Yes, sir” and “Yes, ma’am” and “please” and “thank you” in Japanese because she learned at gunpoint.

    I learned Japanese because I took it in college, where I not only learned to speak but to read Japanese.

    Let’s see. You’re looking for a good coffee table book with great pictures? How about The Rape of Nanjing?

    Let’s see. Would many of my Jewish-American friends even be alive if there hadn’t been war in Europe? I highly doubt it, since to be born, you kind of need grandparents who weren’t gassed, shot, or worked to death.

    Yeah, pacifists make me laugh. War doesn’t solve anything, they say. Yup. Tell that to my grandparents. Or talk to the hand.

    If you disagree with me, feel free to unsubscribe.

    The Ass and the Mule (Aesop)

    A muleteer set forth on a journey, driving before him an Ass and a Mule, both well laden. The Ass, as long as he traveled along the plain, carried his load with ease, but when he began to ascend the steep path of the Mountain, felt his load to be more than he could bear. He entreated his companion to relieve him of a small portion, that he might carry home the rest, but the Mule paid no attention to the request. The Ass shortly afterwards fell down dead under his burden. Not knowing what else to do in so wild a region, the Muleteer placed upon the Mule the load carried by the Ass in addition to his own, and at the top of all placed the hide of the Ass, after he had skinned him. The Mule, groaning beneath his heavy burden, said to himself: “I am treated according to my deserts. If I had only been willing to assist the Ass a little in his need, I should not now be bearing together with his burden, himself as well.”

    I start working next week! I love my colleagues! Some are from India, close to Pakistan, and can attest to the civil war that is going on there. Some are from the Middle East, and some are from China. Many have lived in Texas all their lives. All of us are working together to help people — the common goal that unites us.

    I pity people who don’t have a job that does the same.

  • You Are What You Think You Are

    When I was living in Berkeley, someone said something to me that was really caustic. Actually, that happened a lot as Berkeley seems to be full of people who thrive on doing things like that. My dad called me up that night, to ask how I was doing, and I related what had happened that day.

    He said something to me that I already knew, but of which sometimes I have to be reminded:

    You can never be what other people think you are.

    It’s almost a negative-sounding sentence. But, as my dad’s English is a little awkward, I often have to interpret what he’s trying to say, and I know what he meant.

    All the facades that people show to different people make us different to those who know us at different levels. Even my closest friends don’t see all the facets of me. When I did my psychiatry rotation, there was talk about how “multiple personality” was all the rage in the 1980′s, and 80% of the ward population had it. Well, honestly, we all do.

    And although people try so desperately sometimes to present a face to others that allows them to be treated with respect, in the end, the only respect that matters is your own — for yourself.

    I try not to wax too philosophical on this site. But this is an important thing that I think a lot of people forget. My dad did good to remind me. I figure it may be helpful to “someone” to remind them as well.


    There is a story of a man who found an eagle’s egg and put it into the nest of a barnyard chicken. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them. All his life, the eagle did what the chickens did. It scratched the dirt for seeds and insects to eat. It clucked and cackled. And it flew no more than a few feet off the ground in a chicken-like thrashing of wings and flurry of feathers.

    One day the eagle saw a magnificent bird far above him in the cloudless sky. He watched as the bird soared gracefully on the wind, gliding through the air with scarcely a beat of its powerful wings.

    “What a beautiful bird,” the young eagle said. “What is it called?”

    The chicken next to him said, “Why, that’s an eagle — the king of all birds. But don’t give him any mind. You could never be like him.”

    So the young eagle returned to pecking the dirt for seeds, and it died thinking it was a chicken.

    What you think of your own potential defines who you are today, and what you become tomorrow.

  • How Many Seconds Was That One?

    For several nights now, we’ve had thunderstorms racing through. They always build up just southeast of us, and always give us a good light show. Giant fireworks for the budget-challenged, they are. And yet, in my eyes, the best things here really are free. The wind is plentiful, and I keep envisioning myself going down to the lake and sailing. But the weather is so warm and the sky is so blue, I end up pottering around the house and doing all the things I’ve wanted to do during the last 9 years of graduate school — like finding a terra cotta pot to put flowers in, baking a red velvet cake, and putting up bookshelves for all the books I’ve carted from state to state. (My revised vision of hell is a large, never-empty moving van full of textbooks in boxes, and being forced to carry them all inside the house, forever and ever and ever. . . .)

    One thing I miss about Illinois is the buttercream icing at Sweet Indulgence on the corner of Mattis and Kirby in Champaign, Illinois. To die for. I have yet to find a bakery in town that can match the sublime creamy-ness of their icing on their special Red Velvet cake. So, Matt and I tried to make our own.

    Red Velvet Cake

    Note: Do not substitute any ingredients, for best results.

    1.5 cups sugar
    0.5 cups Crisco shortening
    2.5 cups cake flour (“cake flour”; regular flour won’t do)
    2 tbsp Hershey’s Cocoa (dark, unsweetened)
    1 tsp salt
    2 oz. red food coloring
    1 cup buttermilk (no substitute)
    2 eggs
    1 tsp baking powder
    1 tsp vanilla
    1 tbsp white vinegar
    1 tsp baking soda

    Combine sugar, Crisco, cake flour, cocoa, salt, baking powder, food color, and 2/3 cup of the buttermilk in a bowl. Beat till well blended. Add eggs and the rest of the buttermilk and vanilla. Beat 1 minute. This is the tricky part: Mix the vinegar and baking soda (it will fizz) and stir into the batter. Stir. Don’t beat.

    Pour into 2 9″-round cake pans (greased and floured).

    Bake 30 minutes at 350 degrees F.

    And the icing turned out wonderful!!!! (The Joy of Cooking rocks!) Unfortunately, last night we also had chili dogs, and I stuck a raw cut-up onion in the fridge. . . . And now we have onion-flavored buttercream icing!!!!!

    It’s novel, I say. It’ll probably catch on.

  • OKC


    Each time you look up to the sky or watch a
    fluffy cloud go by, or feel the sunshine
    warm and bright, or watch the dark night
    turn to light, or hear a bluebird gayly sing,
    or see the winter turn to spring, or stop to
    pick a daffodil, or gather violets on some
    hill, or touch a leaf, or see a tree, It’s all
    God whispering, “This is me, and I am
    faith and I am light and in me there shall
    be no night.”

  • Oklahoma!

    I have good and bad memories of our umpteen trips through Oklahoma. When Matt and I first drove out here to look for a house, we passed through Oklahoma during late spring season when flowers were just starting to bloom in the pale green grass.

    I don’t know what these flowers are, but when they fill the valleys they look like a sea of pink! They’re probably some sort of weed, but I love them. These are shots from a rest stop on the Oklahoma tollway, close to Vinita and the largest McDonald’s in the world.

    Bad memories of Oklahoma include getting my baritone ukelele stolen at a Love’s Truck Stop. There was a woman getting yelled at by her husband there, and I kind of hope she was the one who stole it. That ukelele got me through some rough times, and she looked like someone who needed it more than I do anymore.

  • Mesquite

    I am in love with this part of the country. The first night we moved in, we sat out on the back porch and listened to the crickets chirping, and the night was so dark and clear that we could see all the constellations. The moon was full and bright as a streetlight, which was helpful as we were unloading the Ryder truck till about 11 PM when we decided to quit for the day out of respect for our already-sleeping neighbors.

    What I love about this place most is that I can look out of Matt’s office window on the second floor, and there is a huge field of mesquite, as far as I can see.

    Today, the wind was blowing and blowing. The clouds pass by so fast here, that it’s like watching a time-lapse video on fast forward.

    I did a Netsearch about this area, a few months earlier. A woman talked about how much she hated this town, but found a “magical” place just east of here. So, I persuaded Matt to take us out there, and indeed, there are rolling hills and mesquite for miles and miles. It’s just beautiful, and it takes my breath away.

    We were warned that mesquite burns very hot. In fact, it’s so hot, that it’s not a good idea to burn it in an ordinary fireplace, such as the kind that is usually put in houses these days. Another canyon we visited was a real beauty. I cannot imagine how people on horses (or wagons, even) managed to cross it. The canyon walls are so steep that my little 4-cylinder Toyota Corolla had trouble managing it, even with the side-winder roads.

    We visited lots of canyons. This one, in spite of its size and depth, is made by this little “river.” Matt and I kept looking for a River, and kept seeing what looked like a bunch of creeks. It is truly a testament to the power of persistence that these little creeks can carve a beautiful massive canyon.

    I just love these hills of mesquite. It’s like a Monet painting. Splooge on the tawny grassy color. Then splooge a little dot of light green here (that’s the mesquite) and then splooge a little dot of dark green here (I think juniper). Splooge a happy little white cloud onto the blued sky, and Voila! You have a happy little canyon country. You can’t see the canyons when you’re up on the plains. You’d just be running along and then, whammo! Surprise! You’re in the canyon. They make great hideouts, which is basically what our house is. Our house is so well hidden, my mom tried to send us flowers, and the flower delivery people couldn’t find us. Matt was very pleased, and so was I.

    People here tell us that we’ll get sick of the drive into town, but compared to people in Chicago, Cleveland, Houston, and Austin, who bragged to me about their 45-minute commutes (???), I will only need 11 minutes to get to work, as I timed it. And that was during the day when there was traffic. Sure, I’ll be driving to work around 6-7 AM, and so it may even be quicker. No, the drive out here to the canyon is so totally worth it, that I laugh every time someone mentions gas prices to me.

    Unpacking and cleaning, and sorting all the sentimental stuff we brought from Illinois is really amazing. Each thing we unpack and marvel that it survived the rough roads through Oklahoma City is like a gift! It’s like opening Christmas gifts all day, in a big empty house to put it all in. Matt and I are truly blessed, and it is nice to know that we’ll both be working again soon, and the money we make will all go towards paying to live in our little haven. My favorite part isn’t that after a long, hard day’s work, we can sit on our porch swing in the back and sip an ice-cold soda, but that I can roll my little sailboat on its trailer into the canyon and be rigged and sailing within 30 minutes. That, my friends, is the biggest blessing of all.