I was a little sluggish after I ate lunch.  My company website said it was 60 degrees so I took a walk.  I took a short cut passing an empty lot I saw a pair of Canadian geese.  The flock hang around the river bank already returned home only this pair stayed behind.

These buds are ready to bloom in a couple days.  The walkway I usually took was taken today by a strike.

These maybe are police officers who work in the building next to the walkway.

I am not sure but I guess these are red spruce cones

Some cherries are blooming

Around NJPAC

I bet the man did not know that I took his picture.

This pine tree is in front of a historic house to be used as shelter for women.

The marble sculpture on the fireman insurance building which has four massise marble corinthian columns. 

This is the picture on my wall calendar.  A wine yard in Ponoma.

Deer visited my back yard.

Today is warm, around 60 degrees.  I took a walk at lunch time opposite to the usual route.  The old clock is on Broad Street opposite to the Federal building.

The dom of Federal Building.

Lampost adorns the Federal Building

I passed by two old churches on Broad Street  

The windows of an abandoned building which was once Central National Bank

I met two kids on the steps of the Federal Building.  They happily posed for me.  However, their dad looked at me disapprovingly. 

Women check each other out.  Why?

I notice other women, because they have something I admire.

Jane works in my company.  She is very pretty.  She looks very young.  Judge from her skin and her shape one may think she is in her thirty.  However if she misses an appointment with her hair stylist some of her gray hair will appear like being highlighted.  She is well dressed, always in business attires: dark color pant suits or skirt suits.  Even when she dresses down for Friday or goes to the field, she still looks very proper.  Simple but elegant, feminine but not frilly.  Her facial features are delicate.  She looks like Meg Ryan in Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve got mail.  She looks like the models in Talbots catalogue.  She works for Planning or Finance I am not sure.  She says hi back when I say hello to her.  I always secretly look for her in company function to see what she wears.  Her appearance is very eye pleasing. 

A woman often checks another woman out, but not always with admiration.  The person to be checked out may resemble to someone the checker does not like or she may bring back an unpleasant memory, or she carries an attitude, or the checker sees what she dislikes about herself.  So many reasons I can only guess.

There is an Asian woman who takes the same train with me.  She is very short, even shorter than I am.  When she sits on the bench in the waiting room her feet do not touch the ground.  She swings her legs like a little girl often does.  She makes up heavily.  Her brows are tattoed two dark brown arches, too prominent on her face the arches make her look mean.  Her skin is medium dark.   Two deep creases like a pair of parentheses cup around her bright red lips.  She likes strong color and loud patterns.  She is not heavy but her limbs are chunky.  Her wedged shoes makes her legs seem thicker and shorter.

She watches me and I watch her.  I can tell she does not like me.  I once attempted to make a small talk but she slighted me.  After that I ignore her the same way she has ignored me.  Once I saw her selling handmade crafts in an art fair with her Caucasian male companion, I browsed the art fair without acknowledging her. I do not know why she dislikes me.  Although I am quiet I do talk to people from time to time, saying hello and talking about weather.  Sometimes looking at her from distance I think she will look nicer if her make up is not too heavy. 

She always leaves the waiting room a few minutes prior the train time to stand on the platform.  Doing that can help her board the train faster although there is no need to fight for a seat because there are plenty of seats for everyone.  I, on the other hand, sleepily wait inside until the train come.  Once I stood next to her.  The train came and the man in front of me hopped on first.  I followed him then she pushed ahead of me.  Perhaps she felt entitled to board ahead of me because she waited there longer.  If you ride the train you will know the train does not always stop at the same place.  So even someone comes to the platform later but stand near the yellow line in different location may get to board the train earlier if she is near the door.

Last week, the train stopped and its door was opened right in front of me.  She was pushed me from behind, got on first and glared at me.  I was about to say excuse me but the hostility in her face made me think she might stretch her claws right into my face.  The imagination of two short Asian women holding each other hair and rolling on the ground was not very civil so I being a gracious loser said nothing and let her win.  I was a little upset and that incident bothered me a whole day.  She glared at me as if she showed her fangs.

This morning was very cold and the wind was burning. The train came into the station much faster than normal.  Perhaps the driver was not familiar with this platform.  By the time the train was able to stop it went farther than normal.  This morning I stood a little farther than the normal crowd.  The door popped open in front of me.  Life has a lot of unexpected moments.  Sometimes a careful plan did not give the planner the expected result.  Sometimes people get lucky like being able to steal a parking lot while other people waited.  As I boarded the train I thought of her being mad at me for being able getting on the train before she.  Silly like a bad kid, I felt as if I was winning a stupid game.  I thought of her glare and fangs.  I wanted to tell her: “Lady, you look like a WOLF!”

Do You Love Me?

(Tevye)
“Golde, I have decided to give Perchik permission to become engaged to our daughter, Hodel.”

(Golde)
“What??? He’s poor! He has nothing, absolutely nothing!”

(Tevye)
“He’s a good man, Golde.
I like him. And what’s more important, Hodel likes him. Hodel loves him.
So what can we do?
It’s a new world… A new world. Love. Golde…”

Do you love me?

(Golde)
Do I what?

(Tevye)
Do you love me?

(Golde)
Do I love you?
With our daughters getting married
And this trouble in the town
You’re upset, you’re worn out
Go inside, go lie down!
Maybe it’s indigestion

(Tevye)
“Golde I’m asking you a question…”

Do you love me?

(Golde)
You’re a fool

(Tevye)
“I know…”

But do you love me?

(Golde)
Do I love you?
For twenty-five years I’ve washed your clothes
Cooked your meals, cleaned your house
Given you children, milked the cow
After twenty-five years, why talk about love right now?

(Tevye)
Golde, The first time I met you
Was on our wedding day
I was scared

(Golde)
I was shy

(Tevye)
I was nervous

(Golde)
So was I

(Tevye)
But my father and my mother
Said we’d learn to love each other
And now I’m asking, Golde
Do you love me?

(Golde)
I’m your wife

(Tevye)
“I know…”
But do you love me?

(Golde)
Do I love him?
For twenty-five years I’ve lived with him
Fought him, starved with him
Twenty-five years my bed is his
If that’s not love, what is?

(Tevye)
Then you love me?

(Golde)
I suppose I do

(Tevye)
And I suppose I love you too

(Both)
It doesn’t change a thing
But even so
After twenty-five years
It’s nice to know

Song from the musical play Fiddler on the Roof

Có một buổi sáng tôi lấy xe lửa Path vào Jersey City đi họp.  Sáng hôm ấy xe lửa rất đông, tôi không có chỗ ngổi nên phải đứng.  Ngay cả đứng cũng không có chỗ.  Mọi người đứng chen chúc vào nhau, trời rất lạnh.  Trước mặt tôi là một thanh niên người da đen chừng hai mươi lăm tuổi.  Hắn có vẻ rough.  Đứng dựa vào cửa khi xe lửa đang chạy là một điều nguy hiểm nhưng hắn có vẻ bất cần.  Phía sau tôi là một đôi tình nhân người ngoại quốc, có lẽ là người Argentina hay một trong các xứ Trung Đông.  Họ ăn mặc theo kiểu Tây Phương nhưng nói chuyện với nhau bằng ngôn ngữ của họ.  Hai người rất đẹp dáng và đẹp đôi.  Cô gái người cao lớn không thua gì người thanh niên.  Anh chàng có vẻ yêu chiều cô gái cẩn thận trông chừng để cô không bị ngã.  Phía trước mặt tôi hơi xéo về tay trái có một đôi trai gái người Mỹ da đen.  Cô gái cao chừng 5ft6.  Người đàn ông cao cở 6ft.  Cả hai có vẻ là dân nghèo thành phố.  Người thanh niên trông mặt hiền lành còn cô gái nét mặt rất hung tợn.  Đầu cô trùm một cái mũ dính liền vào cổ áo, loại sweatshirt có hiệu của một đội banh.  Da cô đen nhưng không đen sậm mà có màu như tro xam xám.  Môi dầy.  Hàm răng hô bị mất một cái gần răng cửa.  Mỗi khi cô cười thấy chỗ trống giữa hàm răng.  Hai người nói chuyện với nhau rất thân mật nhưng người thanh niên đứng đắn hơn không cợt nhã lả lơi.  Cô gái thì trái lại.  Cô đầy vẻ mời mọc khiêu khích nhưng phải thú thật là cô không mấy xinh xắn hay ưa nhìn.  Cô cứ lợi dụng xe lửa lắc lư và dúi mũi mình vào môi của anh chàng như chờ đợi một cái hôn trông rất chướng.  Có lẽ cô đang yêu nên tự thấy mình rất là quyến rũ?  Tình yêu có ma lực của nó.  Nó có thể làm người ta mang nhiều ảo tưởng về chính mình.  Nhưng nếu tình yêu có thể làm người ta cảm thấy mình xinh đẹp hơn thì điều này cũng tốt.

One of the Thursdays when I took the Path to Jersey City for a meeting I saw a man who sat across the aisle.  The man was about mid to late fifty, looked like an Italian with medium dark skin, and some gray hair.  He wore a dark green butt length coat, perhaps Land End winter coat.  Maybe he did not shave couple days and late for a hair cut.  I thought without the stubles on his face and the wiry head, he looked like an actor who played a cop in an old cop show I forgot the name.  On his lap was a Samsonite briefcase.  As the train came near Harrison station he opened his briefcase.  The girls sat next to him stared at the content in the briefcase.  I did too.  There were thousands of rolls of lottery tickets.  He took a few rolls out, unrolled them and studied them for awhile.  I did not know whether these are the copies of the lottery tickets that were sold to customers and how he had them.  Maybe he sold lotteries for a mom and pop store, or maybe he collected the printouts, or maybe they were the lottery tickets he bought but did not win.

There was a slogan, New York lottery, a dollar and a dream.  How many dollars did he spent for how many dreams?  A dream for a house in the suburb or just being able to move out of the slum?  A dream for having enough money to retire?  A dream for a daughter’s wedding?  A car for a son?  Send his children to college?

He shut his briefcase.  Some slips fell out and he did not notice.  The girl sat next to him told him.  He picked them  up and put them back into the briefcase.   He got off at Penn Station and disappeared into the crowd.  I still thought about him, the man carried his dreams in a briefcase.

Tháng Ba, thời tiết bất thường như một cô gái mới lớn bắt đầu yêu khi vui cười như nắng lên khi giận hờn như mưa xuống.  Thứ Sáu ngày đầu xuân tuyết rơi vùn vụt dù không đủ lạnh để đông lại trên mặt đường.  Mưa sùi sụt mấy hôm.  Hôm nay nắng rực rỡ, trời ấm.  Đám croci ở sân nhà ông McCullen đã nở những đóa hoa tim tím.  Đám thủy tiên nhà chị M. đã trổ những đóa hoa vàng rực.  Đàn nai nhăm nhi cỏ sân sau sáng hôm nay có con nai con đi lẩm chẩm.  Sáng nào cũng nghe tiếng chim ca và tiếng ngỗng trời hết đàn này đến đàn khác quay về phía Bắc.  Lúc nãy đi bộ thấy có con quạ đen rất to đậu tuốt trên ngọn cao.  Mãi rồi mùa xuân cũng về trên những cành cây khô.  Những dây leo chùm gửi đã xanh lá.  Cây anh đào la đà hàng xóm đã chớm những nụ xanh như những nụ tình xuân.

Far From the Home I Love

How can I hope to make you understand
Why I do, what I do,
Why I must travel to a distant land
Far from the home I love?

Once I was happily content to be
As I was, where I was
Close to the people who are close to me
Here in the home I love…

Who could see that a man would come
Who would change the  shapes of my dreams?
Helpless, now, I stand with him
Watching older dreams grow dim.
Oh, what a melancholy choice this is,
Wanting home, wanting him,
Closing my heart to every hope but his,
Leaving the home I love.

There were my heart has settled long ago
I must go, I must go.
Who could imagine I’d be wand’ring so
Far from the home I love?

Yet, there with my love, I’m home.

This song is from the musical play Fiddler on the Roof.

Every day, my xanga gets more than 400 footprints.  Some web crawlers drive up the number of views.  Although the increasing number of views may help to bring the post to random readers who search for something related, it may give users a false impression that his/her xanga is viewed or read or becoming popular.  To be read and to be able to share thoughts, emotion, or ideals with people are far more important than the self-deception.

Xanga has been a good service and I do not want to be too demanding.  I just wonder if Xanga team is able to give users the ability to sort songs and photo albums based on alphabetical as well as chronological order?  Oops, sorry! The sorting capability is already implemented.

I wake up later than normal.  Lifting up my head I glance toward my right and see that the alarmed clock glows in red.  It was 7:40 am.  It is clowdy (I see from my window) and cold (the heater is running).  As I get down the stairs, I see a movement in the back yard.  A deer is grazing.  Its color hide blends in with brown color of leaves on the ground perfectly.  I make coffee and sit down at my table.  I want to write something because I have not written anything for a long time.  It seems so.

Yesterday, it was sunny for a short time.  As I was reading, sunlight flooded living room and spread to study room and shone my back.  Sunlight also came from the window in the left corner of my study room.  The morning sun brightened my back yard fully.  I was basking in the sunlight for a little while.  I felt warm and happy as if the sun brought the wellness and happiness to me.  I thought I might be glowing.  Hahah.  Maybe this feeling has been always in me, hibernating through winter.  The sunlight just woke it up.

Today, it is so bleek, as cold and bare as if the winter is just beginning.  My energy saps.  It will be awhile for the spring actually comes although the cherry trees lacing around the local bank already sprout their buds. 

I did not write for more than a week because I was busy with my reading.  I finished more than 600 pages of the book titled Brothers.  It was written by Yu Hua.  The Wall Street Journal says there has been a rumor that this author will be the next Nobel prize winner.  I do not believe in this rumor.  Who knows what the rules the Nobel committee based on to select the winner are? I am curious to see what Yu Hua writes to stir so much excitement that speculates the rumor.  It is a very good book and I am writing its review (in Vietnamese, sorry).  The National Book Critics Circle also announced its award winners.  In the biography category, a Vietnamese American is chosen as one of the finalists although he does not capture the prize.  Andrew Pham is the author of The Eaves of Heaven.  Andrew lends his writing to his father’s voice.  The life of his father, Thong Pham, who survives three wars from the French colonial to the American War to re-education camp covered in 300 pages.  Andrew has another book that was published in 1999. Catfish and Mandala has 350 pages. It is an excellent book that totally captures my attention.  I find myself unwilling to stop reading.  I read through many train rides, lunch periods, and after dinners.  When I was younger, in highschool and college I used to be drawn into a book and forgot the world around me.  It did not matter if I was going to have exams tomorrow, I had to finish the book I was reading before I seriously prepared for the exams.   As I get older, there are so many things need my urgent attention than books.  Recently only a handful of books that it is hard for me to put down.  Catfish and Mandala is one of them.  However, do not let me deceive you.  I have this particular interest in this book just because it talks about Vietnam and its people, about things that are close to my heart, that I wish I can say as well as Andrew Pham does. I  do not have his command of English, sheer will, and devotion of a writer.

Andrew gets bored with his engineering job and frustrated with his boss.  Combined with the guilt and regret that plague him since his sister, Chi, transgendered to become his brother, Minh, committed suicide, Andrew quits the job and starts to travel to Vietnam.  He travels the length of the country on bicycle and reflects his feeling about himself, his large extended family (including grandma, uncle, cousins…), what he sees and the people he meets in Vietnam, and what most important to him is his trying to make sense what brought his sister to kill herself.  Andrew is a talented writer.  He can bring me such a sadness that makes me swallow my tear and the next page amusement that makes me chuckle.  Poignant at times, and philosophical some other times.  In the next few weeks I will try to find some time to tell you more about this book.  If you are a person, born to Vietnamese parents, but raised in American culture, and you want to know more about the place your parents came, why they do what they do, why sometimes (and most of the times) they are silly rigid, harsh and critical, I think you will find Andrew’s experiences helpful.

Ah, I have to go for a hair cut.  Maybe I can write again later.

Return after losing more than 6 inch of hair and edit the post.  I always need a period away from my post in order to see my mistakes.  No wonder one of the mandated rules in writing is re writing.