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Varia
1. Ahh, soup of Galicia! How I love you! How nutritious and delicious and irresistible you are, and all because of a $1.39 prosciutto end and one cube from a 99 cent pack of chicken bouillon. Alas, that there can never be a kosher/ halal/ vegetarian Caldo Gallego that tastes the same.
2. Not that I ever hung out much on Geocities, but the comments there take me back a decade and more. "56k??? In MY day we had 9600 baud AND WE WERE GRATEFUL FOR IT LET ME TELL YOU." I think it was '99 that I went to 144. Oh, and I remember the little dialup sounds too. And the failures to connect and the time outs and the slowness that meant I read lj comments before seeing the user pics. Good times, good times.
On the down side, no more Hamster Dance.
3. Shall be in NY in a week. Therefore must read those China-set Sumeragi Natsuki manga
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paleaswater lent me err four years ago was it? I am reading those Sumeragi Natsuki manga with no discernible pain. What a difference a very little Chinese study makes. Shall reread Kou Josei next and see how that goes.4. My other cheapo food discovery (well, 'ganked from the replacement cook who fortuitously came back early from a stint in LRD just in time to take over when the regular cook went on a fortnight's medical leave') is Iranian lentils and rice. Made it with lamb and without. Without is better. (I don't use saffron- loathe the stuff. And little turmeric for the same reason. Nonetheless this site is very useful.) The other Iranian staff told me not to put the raisins etc in to cook but to sprinkle it on after. She was right.
There's also a Persian lima beans and dill recipe I must try.
5. And the downside to that, said the Red Queen, is OMG dishes. Never have I wanted a dishwasher more.
6. Another blast from the past. Indeed, indeed- 'I was a little appalled when I realized just how many years ago 1993 was.' Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive but dear God a child born when I was first getting into Papuwa fandom is now in high school; and a child born when I was first getting into Saiyuuki is now prepubescent.
"I sit alone sad at my whitening hair
Waiting for ten o'clock in my empty house"
When I have leisure I shall find the exact text of that poem of Wang Wei's, because I do wonder what ten o'clock is in Tang hanzi.
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But you're not alone my dear! *hugs*
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Hee, yes - I have a teenager - born in 1992 - who is working on college applications!
(And I remember, on my first editorial job, transmitting articles to the typesetter via modem at ... 300 baud. And doing a manual handshake: the modems were too primitive to manage starting the data feed themselves, so the receiving operator would transmit a letter A to me to signal ready-to-receive mode, and then I would press several keys to start the data flow to him.)
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Wang Wei poem
独坐悲双鬓 (Sitting alone, sad at my whitened temples)
空堂欲二更 (An empty hall in the second watch [二更 = er geng = 9-11 p.m.]of the night)
雨中山果落 (In the rain, mountain fruits fall)
灯下草虫鸣 (Under the lamp, grass insects call)
白发终难变 (White hairs ultimately difficult to alter)
黄金不可成 (Gold cannot be made <-- the futility of alchemy and the like to create elixirs of life)
欲知除老病 (Wishing to be rid of age and sickness)
唯有学无生 (Only way is to learn not to live) <-- i.e. to cleanse one's heart of desires and emotions
apologies for appalling lack of grammar, but with poems like his sometimes the sense comes through better with a literal translation. Most of his poems have a sense of resignation at time's passage.
Re: Wang Wei poem
oh and goodnight and and are you still in OZ or was it somewhere in Scandinavia ... obviously the brain is not working anymore and has obviously mixed up your whereabouts with someone else's.
But gah! Take care!
Re: Wang Wei poem
I returned from Australia to SG about a month ago. (Wouldn't mind going to Scandinavia, but not in this season :p)
Re: Wang Wei poem
Scandinavia might be a touch cold this time of the year! ^_^ From what I recall, this little Asian girl found it cold even in high summer! *shivers* Brr! I'm pathetic! I know.
Sorry J for cluttering your space with being nosy!
Re: Wang Wei poem
truthsK's universally acknowledged of S'poreans: 3K: kia-su, kia-si andkia-borkaypo. though apologies tocold even in high summer
Oo-er. Not exactly my type of place then (was cold even at mild Aussie winters of 5-10 degrees C)
Re: Wang Wei poem
Re: Wang Wei poem
Literal translation and comments always appreciated. Otherwise I'd have wondered what 黄金不可成 was on about. The Robinson is poetic and close to the original but, as always, not quite.
As in- he makes it grasshoppers calling, which isn't at all the image I get from 草虫. Accurate or not, I think of the faint creaky-noise making insects. Suzumushi (bell crickets) and the like.
Re: Wang Wei poem
Suzumushi (bell crickets) and the like.
Mm, that's my impression too. Grasshoppers seem less evocative of the vaguely melancholy marking of time.
Re: Wang Wei poem
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