"Yet when the day of the dinner with David rolled around he was unexpectedly cheerful. He spent the day shopping and making risotto in the time-honored male way, removing all the utensils from the drawers and laying them out like surgical instruments, then decanting all the ingredients into small bowls to maximize the washing up."
--- from A Spot of Bother, by Mark Haddon
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quote and unquote
From today's Apple Daily.
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小貓困軚盤隙縫獲救
2010年03月15日
【本報訊】昨下午 2時許， 31歲姓張客貨車司機駕車途經鯉魚門道時，發現一隻初生小貓瑟縮坑渠邊，擔心小貓受車聲驚嚇跑出馬路被輾斃，於是報警求救。可是他仍不放心，駕車折返撿走小貓，驅車到附近觀塘法院外的有信街。稍後警員到場不見貓蹤致電給他，當時在車廂內的頑皮貓竟鑽進客貨車軚盤底匿藏而被困，警員趕至無計可施召消防員協助。消防員稍後拆開軚盤救出全身沾滿油污的小貓，交愛協人員取走。獲救污糟貓約兩星期大，雄性，愛護動物協會人員稍後到場取走小貓交獸醫檢驗，初步發現小貓並無受傷。
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What a kind hearted man :)
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Fluffy friends
Whenever I read the news, the first thing that I do is to scroll down the headlines, and upon seeing no upsetting news, I'd tell myself "hmm, this is a good day after all".
Today is not one of those days.
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Fluffy friends,
Pics
"Too often we think of prayer as a serious chore, something that must be scheduled around other appointments, shoe-horned in among other pressing activities. We miss the point[...] God is inviting us to take a break, to play truant. We can stop doing all those important things we have to do in our capacity as God, and leave it to him to be God."
--- Prayer by Philip Yancey
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31:8
Happy Year of the Tiger, my loved ones.
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I love children's drawing. They always make my day :). This one is from my friend M-Y's lovely kids, Evelyn and Oliver.
Watching Escape to River Cottage one night, BB made a comment about Lulu looking like a pike. They both have the same silly eyes.
This is based on a WFI recipe. BB has been giving me less-than-subtle hints the past three years that maybe I should try making meringues, as they are "super easy". So, here it is, my Valentine's Day dessert. Instead of the plums and pears that the recipe called for, I substituted them with starfruit(!) (homegrown by my dad) and frozen berries. I also skipped the Greek yoghurt, and used brown, not white, caster sugar. It turned out perfectly yummy*. So, it is official - contrary to popular (i.e. BB's) belief, I DO KNOW HOW TO COOK.
*Though, if you want to give this recipe a try, I would suggest you stick to the traditional berry ingredients, unless you also have a father who has given you three humongous star fruit and you need to find a creative way to use them up before they perish.
My Valentine's Day present - chocolate coated almonds from La Maison du Chocolat (BB bought himself a box along the way). Probably the most expensive chocolate I have, and would like to have, tasted. These two little boxes cost a whopping four-digit figure.
When Pepper first joined our family, she was all-out neurotic. I couldn't blame her - shortly after we adopted her, we whisked her to the vet for double surgery. Now, after 15 months, she is totally at ease. One of my daily pleasures is waking up in the morning to find her sleeping by my thigh.
1. 50 books.
2. pouvez lire des magazines français.
3. more love.
4. more exercise.
5. make an important decision.
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happy new year, DBJ.
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random thoughts
＊滿腦子壞思想。“不要讓我們陷於誘惑” 是我近期常禱的告。
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random thoughts
How many Hollywood actresses does it take to write something like this?
Answer: One, if you are Natalie Portman.
By the way, Jonathan Safran Foer is one of my favourite young writers too.
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Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals Turned Me Vegan
Jonathan Safran Foer's book Eating Animals changed me from a twenty-year vegetarian to a vegan activist. I've always been shy about being critical of others' choices because I hate when people do that to me. I'm often interrogated about being vegetarian (e.g., "What if you find out that carrots feel pain, too? Then what'll you eat?").
I've also been afraid to feel as if I know better than someone else -- a historically dangerous stance (I'm often reminded that "Hitler was a vegetarian, too, you know"). But this book reminded me that some things are just wrong. Perhaps others disagree with me that animals have personalities, but the highly documented torture of animals is unacceptable, and the human cost Foer describes in his book, of which I was previously unaware, is universally compelling.
The human cost of factory farming -- both the compromised welfare of slaughterhouse workers and, even more, the environmental effects of the mass production of animals -- is staggering. Foer details the copious amounts of pig shit sprayed into the air that result in great spikes in human respiratory ailments, the development of new bacterial strains due to overuse of antibiotics on farmed animals, and the origins of the swine flu epidemic, whose story has gripped the nation, in factory farms.
I read the chapter on animal shit aloud to two friends -- one is from Iowa and has asthma and the other is a North Carolinian who couldn't eat fish from her local river because animal waste had been dumped in it as described in the book. They had never truly thought about the connection between their environmental conditions and their food. The story of the mass farming of animals had more impact on them when they realized it had ruined their own backyards.
But what Foer most bravely details is how eating animal pollutes not only our backyards, but also our beliefs. He reminds us that our food is symbolic of what we believe in, and that eating is how we demonstrate to ourselves and to others our beliefs: Catholics take communion -- in which food and drink represent body and blood. Jews use salty water on Passover to remind them of the slaves' bitter tears. And on Thanksgiving, Americans use succotash and slaughter to tell our own creation myth -- how the Pilgrims learned from Native Americans to harvest this land and make it their own.
And as we use food to impart our beliefs to our children, the point from which Foer lifts off, what stories do we want to tell our children through their food?
I remember in college, a professor asked our class to consider what our grandchildren would look back on as being backward behavior or thinking in our generation, the way we are shocked by the kind of misogyny, racism, and sexism we know was commonplace in our grandparents' world. He urged us to use this principle to examine the behaviors in our lives and our societies that we should be a part of changing. Factory farming of animals will be one of the things we look back on as a relic of a less-evolved age.
I say that Foer's ethical charge against animal eating is brave because not only is it unpopular, it has also been characterized as unmanly, inconsiderate, and juvenile. But he reminds us that being a man, and a human, takes more thought than just "This is tasty, and that's why I do it." He posits that consideration, as promoted by Michael Pollan in The Omnivore's Dilemma, which has more to do with being polite to your tablemates than sticking to your own ideals, would be absurd if applied to any other belief (e.g., I don't believe in rape, but if it's what it takes to please my dinner hosts, then so be it).
But Foer makes his most impactful gesture as a peacemaker, when he unites the two sides of the animal eating debate in their reasoning. Both sides argue: We are not them. Those who refrain from eating animals argue: We don't have to go through what they go through -- we are not them. We are capable of making distinctions between what to eat and what not to eat (Americans eat cow but not dog, Hindus eat chicken but not cow, etc.). We are capable of considering others' minds and others' pain. We are not them. Whereas those who justify eating animals say the same thing: We are not them. They do not merit the same value of being as us. They are not us.
And so Foer shows us, through Eating Animals, that we are all thinking along the same lines: We are not them. But, he urges, how will we define who we are?
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quote and unquote
"If they were from another country, I could understand, but they're not even from this planet."
--- a human resident on why human cannot tolerate the aliens
The movie is disturbing on so many levels, and that's why I like it so much.
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play hard,
quote and unquote
Jane: Oh, come on. You are not telling me you believe she's an actual witch.
Cho: No, of course not. But I mean if dark force did exist, it stands to reason there could be people who control them for their own ends.
Jane: They're called investment bankers.
--- The Mentalist, episode 12 (US air date: 13 January 2009)
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quote and unquote
BB and I went on a boat trip yesterday with some friends in Sai Kung, and I came back with a not-so-nice tan, a floating feeling which lasted for the rest of the evening and a silly sense of accomplishment.
While lounging on the top deck of the junk, I, who have always been a bit intimidated by the vast and bottomless water and never a good swimmer, was encouraged by my friend A to jump off the top deck into the sea. After hesitating for 5 minutes - mentally calculating the height of the deck and the depth of the sea, wondering how much my butt would hurt if I hit the water the wrong way, and struggling if I should squeeze my nose to prevent water from rushing into the nostrils - I summoned enough courage and just let myself go, and it felt great (and no, it didn't hurt at all; and yes, I squeezed my nose but still water managed to rush into the nostrils).
It's the good 5-minute hesitation that got me thinking.
Since when did we get so scared of everything? I had bungee jumped in my younger years, I was a fan of all kinds of roller coaster rides (my favourite was the free falls), and I used to love those dodgy street foods. But now I cannot walk a block of street without looking up to check if anything is falling from above (like acid bottles, or even worse, air-conditioners) and aiming at my head.
My bravery is diminished by age - and the wisdom and experience that comes with it.
But sometimes, taking the plunge is fun, which is what life should be, most of the time anyway.
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play hard,
random thoughts,
video
I am obviously running out of things to post. So cats it has to be.
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Fluffy friends,
Pics
