a few things

• These two need prayers:  Christopher Hitchens and Mel Gibson. They have different demons.
• Saint Francis de Sale, pray for me.
• Everything I've done, I only did it without thinking. I mean it.
• Chatted with my little sister over MSN this morning, who informed me that my dad fell into a coma a couple of days ago at the nursing home where he'd spent his past year. They gave him medication. He recovered. My older brother and two sisters are angels. My brother's wife and my sister's husband, are my angels-in-law.
• I also have relatives who, while struggling to be on their own feet, assist in taking care my infirm parents with utter simplicity and fortitude. My feelings toward them are beyond gratitude, I look up to, even envy, them. And I must say, it's the Chinese way.
• My dogs understand "Let's go for a walk!" They get comically agitated and expressive upon hearing these words.
• Nabokov is a lovely heretic. Reading him is like reading a piece of imperial brocade.
• I am sweating like the Deepwater Horizon oil well, as it was till a few days ago. I need a shower.
• My brother's wife, one of my angels-in-law, just informed me, via MSN, that an oil pipe exploded about five miles from her home. All of my sibblings and my parents live in a seaport city where a major oil field is in operation.