I need to get back into the practice of grateful living. I have been feeling stuck lately, and I don't know why.
-Spent Father's Day in Michigan, and it made my dad truly happy. Went tubing in the St. Joseph River, just like 1983. Took Monday off and took a long walk on the beach (five miles) and later took my mom shopping.
-Went to a block party on my street. Barbecued west Indian chicken, pleasant chatter, volleyball, water balloons, trampoline, and salsa dance lessons on the lawn. Every walk of life present--white, black, Indian, Hispanic, truck drivers, college professors, music producers, dentists, engineers, house wives, preachers.
-Haven't killed my garden yet.
-Still running. Keeping it steady with 3-1/4 miles, no injuries.
-Went to a Cuban restaurant with Larry.
-I still love cooking.
-Went to a company picnic at Victory field and enjoyed some beer, hotdogs, cookies, baseball, fireworks, and the downtown Indy skyline.
-Enjoying a new book on my Kindle: "Where'd you You Go, Bernadette?"
-Enjoying my commute with books on CD--currently "Stealing Buddha's Dinner" by Bich Nguyen.
Beginning with her family’s harrowing migration out of
Saigon in 1975, Stealing Buddha’s Dinner follows Bich Nguyen as she comes of
age in the pre-PC-era Midwest. Filled with a rapacious hunger for American
identity, Nguyen’s desire to belong transmutes into a passion for American food
– Pringles, Kit Kats, and Toll House cookies. More exotic-seeming than her
Buddhist grandmother’s traditional specialties, the campy, preservative-filled
“delicacies” of mainstream America become an ingenious metaphor for her
struggle to become a “real” American. Stealing Buddha’s Dinner is also a
portrayal of a diverse family: Nguyen’s hardworking, hard-partying father;
pretty sister; wise and nurturing grandmother; and Rosa, her Latina stepmother.
And there is the mystery of Nguyen’s birth mother, unveiled movingly over the
course of the book. Nostalgic and candid, Stealing Buddha’s Dinner is a unique
vision of the immigrant experience and a lyrical ode to how identity is often
shaped by the things we long for.
Wondering about my life lately. Do I need to be in Indy? Where would I rather be? Perhaps another era has passed--nieces and nephews have somewhat outgrown me. I am glad to have had them the past five years!
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