thelittleyu.
January 21
9:12am
Just finished reading “The Help” in one sitting.
It’s time for bed.
And yes, fabulous read.
January 21
Lunar NY Vacation: stuffing chicken and purple dirt devils
First official day of vacation: sleep in. Chat with sister. Cook pumpkin pancakes and scrambled eggs for lover and myself.
Fail to wash face/brush teeth all day, and still looked fabulous. (=well-rested. and no eye snots.)
Cleaned ! Spring clean, in the tradition of Lunar New Year. For about 4 hours. But we broke in our new vacuum cleaner, purple little dirt devil, and it’s the sweetest thing - just follows you around like a little puppy, so obedient and pliant, and powerful too. Yum.
But the best part of the night was when we shopped for dinner at the market, and Stephen single-handed fed 7 people making a whole roasted chicken from scratch. With stuffings. And gravy. And this weird grated potato pie with melted cheese and chopped onions thing. It was amazing.
It was a surreal experience ordering this from the local market. The owner and his family knows us from our numerous trips buying slabs of chicken breast as the “American Taiwan.” He looks like somebody that runs the Triad. Sweet man.
Originally, when I asked for a whole chicken, they grabbed one off the rack, weighed it, and handed the whole thing to me. I had to ask them to chop off the head, take away the legs, and thank them for the doggy bag of entrails. Hehe.
The roasted onions/carrots/garlic <3
Green bean and the potato thing !
My family came over, and since uncle just got back from Turkey we snacked on amazing apple tea and walnut-stuffed dates that turn into magic after being consumed.
It made my heart swell and melt at the same time when they all left, and I sat there looking at Sacross from our Settlers game. All I could think about was: “Always put him first, Julia, because this is a man that will always put others before him. And so you must be the one that always puts him first.”
I felt such a rush of protectiveness, gratitude, pride, and love. He makes me so happy, and he gave great joy to my family with such wholehearted service and not a single word of complaint even after such a long day.
He is a true gentleman, and the only man for me.
I love you S C Mats.
<3
OH P.S - THE NEW KINDLE IS HERE !! I love it. Small, compact, responsive, and gorgeous. Yayyy (:
January 20
Francis Drake, A Prayer (1577)
Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too well pleased with ourselves
When our dreams have come true
Because we dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the Waters of Life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.
Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land
We shall find the stars.
We ask you to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push us in the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.
Francis Drake, 1577
January 19
7. The Zen Mistress
This incredibly flexible, vegan, Zen koan-quoting quasi-Buddhist is concentrating on her body instead of some man’s. From her incredibly complex yoga schedule, to her weekly early morning power-walk with her Peace Corps buddy, to the food scale on her counter, she is in control of her life. Her therapist and her acupuncturist agree that she has made huge strides since she hit rock-bottom after her last long-term relationship died over her ex’s refusal to put a ring on it if he liked it so much. He went to Spain and opened a cafe with some shiny 25-year-old who looks nothing like her, and she wishes them well. As far as you know. The Zen Mistress works for a nonprofit and thinks deeply about whether shaving her legs sets feminism back. She has a tiny secret crush on the barista who makes her soy latte every morning. This is the only erotic charge in her entire cruelty-free life.
January 16"Another way that you love your enemy is this: When the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy, that is the time which you must not do it. There will come a time, in many instances, when the person who hates you most, the person who has misused you most, the person who has gossiped about you most, the person who has spread false rumors about you most, there will come a time when you will have an opportunity to defeat that person. It might be in terms of a recommendation for a job; it might be in terms of helping that person to make some move in life. That’s the time you must do it. That is the meaning of love. In the final analysis, love is not this sentimental something that we talk about. It’s not merely an emotional something. Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all men. It is the refusal to defeat any individual. When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system." —
Martin Luther King Jr. (via firstbreath90)
January 13
(14)
A girl in isolation for radiation screening looks at her dog through a window in Nihonmatsu, Japan on March 14.
(30)
Mihag Gedi Farah, a seven-month-old child, is held by his mother in a field hospital of the International Rescue Committee in the town of Dadaab, Kenya. The baby has since made a full recovery.
(42)
US gay service members march in a gay pride parade for the first time ever.
