shokufeh is…home

Ahhh, the joys of PMS….
I vacillate amongst a range of emotions. That’s generally the case, but the intensity of those emotions is presently cubed. Like I want to kick several people in the office really hard, not with just a tap of foot.

And I got a little teary-eyed this morning reading about the death this weekend of Dr. Carlo Urbani. He was the first WHO officer to realize that something unusual was happening, and to recognize what has now been named SARS. Yes, that was the cause of his death.

There are so many things going on in the world at this moment, that are full of death and sadness. But then I get excited when I realize how much of the world is banding together against such things.

And I get excited when I think about how yesterday, my cousin ran into Lacey and Cinnamon in Vogue Fabrics. Very cool – she’d never met Cinnamon, but she was shopping for fabric after being inspired by Cinnamon’s blog. The smallness of the world.

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I forgot to wish you a happy Prince Kuhio Day. March 26 is a state holiday here, in honor of the birthday of Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole. (Try saying that three times fast.) Prince Kuhio (1871 – 1922) served as the Territory of Hawaii’s delegate to the U.S. Congress from 1903 to 1922 and was a big proponent of land rights for native Hawaiians.

I don’t think people really wish each other a happy Prince Kuhio day, but I really enjoy saying, Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole. I also enjoyed my day off on Wednesday.

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I hate it when I do this – wait so long between entries that I feel this pressure to say something profound. But I’ve got to write something, or the pressure will build to unmanagable proportions. So I will say this….

Sometimes I scare myself. I’ll be walking down the street and see someone with toenails extending a good half-inch or more past their nail bed, and I’ll think, I wish I had my nail clippers with me. Even if we’re talking about the ten-foot-long variety of clippers, there is something a bit too compulsive about wanting to groom the dirty feet of strangers. Even if I am more focused on the end product of tidy nails rather than the process of getting them that way.

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Last night, I discovered something I find interesting. Why such experimentation came to mind at 2 am on a brief foray into awakeness, I don’t know.

Normally, my husband is quite ticklish – the gentlest touch to most anywhere on his body will send him squirming. But last night, while he was sleeping, I was able to rub his underarm, tummy, chest without a flinch on his part. He finally flinched when I rubbed his chin, but I think that was due to my having touched his facial hair. I never knew that people aren’t ticklish in their sleep.

Try it on your bedmates, your roommates, the person sleeping next to you on the train. Let me know your results.

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Happy Naw Ruz everyone! And happy vernal equinox!

Hope spring is in the air wherever you are!

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Sam: So, I guess we’re going to war at 3pm today….
Me: Guess so….

Strangeness. This is probably the first potentially catastrophic world-impacting event that can be scheduled in my PDA.

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Tomorrow is the last day of the Fast, and ho tian is Nawruz, the Baha’i New Year. It’s around this time every year that I wish the Fast would go on for longer. Sure, my mouth and tummy would love to eat chips and salsa at whim, but I want the specialness to continue. What happened to my plans to pray like five hours a day during the Fast?!

We always had traditions associated with the Fast – the special plates we used in the mornings, the food we ate for breakfast (“fast food” – the things that keep you chugging through the day). Just the fact that we ate breakfast together was something different from the rest of the year when we ran in different directions carrying various foods in our hands. Even when I lived alone, and now that I’m married, I carry on some of those traditions.

I was thinking the other day that this has been a good Fast for me. I’ve been able to fast without getting sickly, a problem of the past two years. I’ve bonded with Sam at the breakfast table. More importantly, I’ve generally walked around with a happy shiny feeling. Let it continue past sunset tomorrow.

…Thou hast endowed every hour of these days with a special virtue, inscrutable to all except Thee, Whose knowledge embraceth all created things…..

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Being in the world of public health means lots of focus on the respiratory illness that has popped in Asia. One of the things I like about it is that one of the areas with lots of cases is
Hong Kong, which is a SAR – Special Administrative Region
and the illness is SARS – Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
I just read that there are 95 SARS cases in the SAR.

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This morning on my way to work, I saw a motorcyclist with his helmet – strapped to his bike instead of under his chin.
Yeah, buddy. If I wiped out, I too would want to make sure that the left back corner of my seat stayed intact.

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I am excited to have found this word! The scatological child within giggles.

crap·u·lence n.
Sickness caused by excessive eating or drinking.
Excessive indulgence; intemperance.

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