To lack a Redeemer

"Without the Redeemer, the inherent hope and joy evaporate, and repentance becomes simply miserable behavior modification."   Dale G. Renlund.  

To lack a Redeemer would mean
we never could be really clean;
each modification
would be like castration -- 
and hope would turn into hygiene. 

En Streng av Perler: Joom makes Pla Ra.

I spent a total of 7 years living in Thailand.

In 1973 I was sent to Thailand for two years as an LDS missionary. After my marriage ended in 1991 I went back to Thailand to work as an English teacher for five years. It was then I met Joom, a native Thai woman my own age who had spent most of her life since the age of fifteen as a maid in Bangkok hotels. We became affectionate lovers, our passion for each other supplemented and finally supplanted by our sense of the ridiculous. She thought all 'farangs' (foreigners) were rich crazies, and I thought all Thais were just plain crazy. Turns out we were both pretty much right.

I had a perfectly good air-conditioned bedroom at the school where I taught. Joom lived down the street in what is called a 'duk' -- a narrow storefront with three stories above it. At various times she intended to turn her storefront into a Mexican restaurant, a pearl jewelry store, or a beer garden with lots of jolly bar girls to fleece the sodden farangs.

Want of capital, MY capital, kept her from accomplishing any of these dreams. Since she couldn't inveigle enough money out of me to start a business, she changed tactics to lure me into home ownership. This was a lead pipe cinch, since I wanted a nice place to live near the beach. Lo and behold, Joom just happened to know a lady with an empty 3-bedroom bungalow down by Ban Phe Beach. It was on an acre of land with a fish pond and dozens of fruit trees infested with orchids. I took one look at the place and signed a mortgage for half a million baht the same day.

Joom immediately took over, as I knew and expected she would. She hocked her first husband's wedding ring to buy a washing machine ("What happened to your first husband?" I asked her at the beginning of our relationship; she replied "I stabbed him when he came home drunk and tried to beat me!")

Before signing the papers I had told her in no uncertain terms that while her family was always welcome to come visit I would absolutely not have them living with us. This was initially a bitter blow for Joom, since the Thai family dynamic demands that the richest person take care of everybody down to second cousins twice removed. Seeing the steely glint in my bloodshot eyes, she acquiesced, but insisted on having a 'phu chooey' to help out around the place. That I could agree to, and so the very next day her daughter-in-law Geh-Teh showed up on a motor cycle with all her belongings wrapped up in a pink plastic shower curtain. Her husband, Joom's son by her first marriage, was working as an electrician on a kibbutz in Israel -- he had a ten year contract to fulfill.

Geh-teh, by the way, means squirrel; so I called her Squirrelly.

I initially strutted around the bungalow, helpfully pointing out cobwebs that needed removing and kitchen tiles that could be scrubbed a tad whiter, and otherwise demonstrating I was the cock of the walk. Joom and Squirrelly glanced slyly at each other, like those Siamese cats in Disney's Lady and the Tramp, and smiled their big smiles at me and then went on with the housework the way they saw fit -- never mind what the idiot farang man says.

I requested only Thai meals be served. Which fit in exactly with what Joom wanted. She hated farang food anyways. Most Thais do. They can't stand butter, cheese, french fries, breakfast cereal, and are only slowly coming to terms with bread and milk.

Joom's skills as a cook were superb, but she also harbored an imp of the perverse that wanted to see how high she could make my gorge rise. One of the first meals she served in our bungalow consisted of pale white palm grubs -- obscenely fat and wriggling creatures that lived in the heart of palm trees and were considered a toothsome delicacy eaten raw. I saw through her game, and politely declined the grubs on the grounds that there were so few of them that she ought to eat them all and I would be content to fill up on sticky rice along with the fruits and veggies from the garden. She sucked them all down, smacking her lips, and then went back into the kitchen to make me some fried fish.

Round one was mine.

Round two had her sieve tiny crayfish from our pond, mix them with sugar, salt, and red chili powder, and then offer them to me for an evening repast. How her eyes glittered with mischief just this side of malice in the tropical moonlight as she pushed the bowl of still pulsating crustaceans towards me! I couldn't believe this was actually a Thai dish, so I called her bluff. Without batting an eye she downed half the bowl before my astonished eyes. I ran out of the kitchen before I lost more than just my manly dignity.

Round two to Joom.


Round three was a draw.

Joom and Squirrelly constantly netted minnow-sized fish from the pond, chopped them up coarsely, and packed them in a five gallon plastic tub with roasted rice bran and lots of salt. They called this obscenity pla ra, or 'fermented fish'. At first they kept this tub of rotting fish guts out on the porch, but one day, when it was about full, they moved it into the kitchen, where the odor, even with the lid tightly on, played hob with my delicate nostrils. I commanded Joom in no uncertain terms to remove that Hazmat in the making, but she stood her ground, arms akimbo, telling me the tub of pla ra was the most necessary condiment in the Thai cooking arsenal. It had to stay in the kitchen, where she could get at it to season all future meals.

So be it. I coldly told her that I would be moving back to my air-conditioned bedroom at the school until such time as the odoriferous pla ra was banished back out onto the porch. She flung a few unladylike wishes about my physical well-being at the back of my head as I slammed the door on her.

We remained incommunicado with each other for five days, until I got really tired of eating soggy rice and canned curry in the school kitchen. That night I walked back to the bungalow, braving the feral dogs that lived in the scrub by the side of the road, and went up on the porch to knock on the door and apologize to Joom.

And there sitting on the porch was the plastic tub of pla ra.

Did I gloat or even grin? I ain't that stupid, friend. I merely came inside, swept Joom up in my arms, and asked what was for dinner. I don't remember what we ate, but it was delicious, and at the end of the meal I asked Squirrelly to bring the tub of pla ra into the kitchen so Joom wouldn't have to walk out to the porch every time she wanted to use it.

Peace was restored to Casa Torkildson, and my waistline flourished like the green bay tree.

Restaurant Review: CHOM Burger. Provo, Utah.

My daughter Sarah can be a mite importunate at times. For instance, the other day she mentioned a burger joint she was interested in knowing more about; CHOM Burgers at 45 West 300 North. In an off-hand manner I told her I might scope it out someday when I felt like it.

Her cutting glance told me at once I had made a huge tactical blunder.

"Well, er, I'm sure I'll get to it pretty darn soon -- don't worry" I said meekly. She continued to glare at me.

"Wretch!" she finally replied. "Do as I bid you within forty-eight hours or I'll have your flabby paunch sliced up and dried for beef jerky!"

I groveled at her feet in abject terror.

"Yes, mistress" I moaned. "It shall be done!"

"See that it is, worm" she hissed at me, then turned to mount her fire-spitting griffin to fly back to her enchanted castle in the Black Forest.

She gets touchy like that sometimes . . .

I ordered the CHOM Burger, sweet potato fries, and a medium chocolate shake on this beautiful Saturday in November. This is real Trump weather (I call it that because it's so unexpectedly mild, and because it annoys a lot of people).
You don't speak your order to anybody; you have to fill out a form to hand to the person behind the counter:

I can't imagine why they do it that way. The menu is sparse and uncomplicated. When I filled mine out I felt like I was being sent to the principal's office with a note from my teacher. But on the other hand, they do have a cool Star Wars mural done with white chalk:

My meal cost $13.48. The burger was excellent. It had a deeply meaty and satisfying taste, and it held together remarkably well -- not falling apart into soggy pieces as so many hamburgers like to do.

My chocolate shake was also superb. Thick, but not too thick to suck up slowly, savoring every mouthful. Now the sweet potato fries were a problem. They tasted fine, but whoever prepares them for frying is a bit lax about getting the skin off. Fried regular potato skin is fine; but fried sweet potato skin takes on a gritty unchewableness similar to tin foil that made my fries unpalatable. I still ate some; they were that good.

So I'm giving the place Four Burps. But do yourself a favor and order the regular fries instead of the sweet potato fries. That's what I'll do when I take my daughter Sarah, She Who Must Be Obeyed, there in the near future.

Enduring pain with faith, or . . .

 ". . . we all must learn that suffering in and of itself does not teach or grant to us anything of lasting value unless we deliberately become involved in the process of learning from our afflictions through the exercise of faith."
Evan A. Schmutz.

The pains that I have to endure
shape my faith's unseen contour.
But I'd be content
could I circumvent
suffering's vexing Grand Tour.  

Restaurant Review: Guru Cafe. Provo, Utah.

Across from the Utah County Government building on Center Street is the Guru Cafe. This is the 'in' spot for downtown Provo-ites to graze. We got there right when they opened at 11:30, and the place was full up by 11: 50.

I took my daughter Sarah and two of her kids, Lance and Brooke. We had a half order of sweet potato fries, with a fry sauce that was deep and smoky; a kid's cheese quesadilla; a juice box; a salmon rice bowl; and 3 cheese tortellini, for a total of $34.18.

The sweet potato fries were good. The salmon rice bowl was a bit on the bland side. I needed to give it the old Tabasco once-over to feel like I was really eating something. But the 3 cheese tortellini was an outstanding dish. To quote my daughter Sarah:  "It tastes Italian and creamy." It had a good texture and a rich complex sauce that was not overwhelmed by the cheese. Lance and Brooke pretty much ignored the kid's quesadilla in favor of looking out the window at the passersby. I was not sorry to see them ignore the sweet potato fries; after a few bites of the tortellini my appetite came roaring back for the first time in over a week, and I began snarfing down the fries like nobody's business.

As I have mentioned before, I am on a quest for meals that don't just fill me with stodge but that bring a touch of happiness. This meal today did that.

I give this place Four Burps. The service is fast and friendly and the food will not even give an ulcer cause to complain. Twas a beautiful eating experience -- with my beautiful daughter and frisky grand kids. Life doesn't get much better than this, unless there's anchovies involved.

Trump’s lawyers seek to delay fraud case — until after he is sworn into office

SAN DIEGO — Attorneys for President-elect Donald Trump went to court Thursday to ask that a civil fraud suit against Trump scheduled to begin in less than three weeks be delayed, a reminder of the unusual complications facing Trump as he shifts from businessman to commander in chief.    WaPo 

Commander in Chief is not God;

so if he's on trial for a fraud,

it's best to proceed

at maximum speed;

in jail he'll still have powers broad. 

Never left alone

 "We are never left alone as we work in His vineyard."    David A. Bednar.


I toiled my best in sun and rain, in wind and bitter cold;
my fingers knotted with the strain, I finally grew old.
My usefulness was over, as my legs and arms gave way;
to illness and to poverty I now would be a prey.
But then a mood stole over me, twas almost a caress;
it seemed to say "My friend, I have much more for you -- not less!"
And then I understood at last the Savior's great delight
in helping me through all my days and ev'ry chilly night,
and that He had prepared for me rare comforts not a few;
even now they fall on me as kindly as the dew.
The vineyard's not a dreary place; the work there not in vain. 
The rivers flow so kindly there, and swallow up my pain. 

Restaurant Review: Two Jacks Pizza. Provo, Utah

Two Jacks Pizza on Center Street is a blue collar, utilitarian noshery. It's narrow and noisy and comfortable.

I ordered their homemade lasagna, with a fountain drink. That set me back exactly $10.43. The meal came with a green salad, fresh out of the bag:

I ate it not because it tasted delicious, but because it's good for me. Dammit.
The lasagna is chewy and bland; I had to add a lot of red pepper flakes to give it some 'oomph'. It's hard to tell what's in it, besides lots of melted cheese.
The staff is prompt and cheerful:

I give this place Three Burps.

And now I'd like to step back to reconsider why I'm eating out so much, and blogging about it. I've come to the conclusion that most eating establishments in Provo serve strictly provender -- 'stodge', as travel writer Paul Theroux calls it. It's to fill up your gut, not comfort your soul. That being the case, I might just as well make myself a sandwich at home as to continue going out to places that only cater to my belly, and do that not very well.
After nearly 30 years of always eating out when on the road with the circus, I think I deserve something better when I go out to dinner nowadays.
So I'm reevaluating my restaurant review criteria. Can eating be anything more than a dull shoveling of fodder into my mouth? Especially when I eat by myself?

Well, at least my dessert was a satisfying success. I stopped by the grocery store for an Owyhee Idaho Spud -- "The Candy Bar That Makes Idaho Famous".  They're pretty good, so I bought a couple extra to put in my goody jar for the when the grand kids come over.

Timericks

Stocks and the dollar leapt higher Thursday while bonds remained under pressure as investors bet that a Donald Trump presidency could mean more fiscal stimulus, lower corporate taxes and higher inflation.   WSJ. 

The Donald is good for a rise

in ev'ry legit enterprise;

the stock market soars

and shoppers in stores

economy now do despise. 

OPEC’s oil production rose to record highs in October and is expected to remain elevated this month, a top industry watchdog reported Thursday, highlighting the challenge the cartel will face hammering out a plan to cut output at its meeting later this month.   WSJ.

The sheikhs that are sitting on oil

give their accountants hard toil

to come up with ways

to make the stuff blaze

so they can keep dressing in voile. 

For one group, the post election reaction has been electrifying. Yes California, a grass-roots organization with 3,000 or so supporters, has for years been trying to persuade Californians to take up the cause of secession.   NYT

If Californuts want to leave

I do not see cause to bereave. 

The state's full of smog

and Hollywood grog;

deport 'em all on the qui vive. 

White evangelicals, Catholics and Mormons carried Trump

Mormons nationally, according to exit polls, preferred Trump to Clinton by 61 to 25 percent.  Lauren Markoe, in Religious News Service.

The exit polls know LDS

maintain certain kinds of weird dress;

that's how they do know

to count Mormon flow

(as well as the horns they possess)