I have visited True Eyecare three times in the past six years. Although I can’t recall my first experience, my first impression of Dr. Mỹ-Hạnh Triệu was friendly and professional. My second visit was in 2014. She and her staff helped me pick out a pair of Polo (made in Italy) I still wear today. In my twenty years of experience of wearing glasses, I found that only glasses that are made in Italy last the longest. My previous pair, also made-in-Italy Polo, lasted over ten years. I had a handful of pairs made in China broke within a year.

A few days ago, my sons played with my glasses and misplaced it. I thought it was lost so I made an appointment to visit Dr. Triệu. Luckily I found it underneath the couch a day before my appointment, but I kept it anyway since it has already been three years. Yesterday I went in for an exam and browsed the collection to find a new pair with the help of her technician Hiếu, who is also nice and helpful. While trying out the glasses, a teenage girl walked in with some issues in her eye. Although the girl has insurance, her deductible would be extremely high. As a result, Dr. Triệu only charged her for a small fee—even less than my deductible. I found that to be very generous of her.

After I decided on a new pair of Versace with anti-scratch, anti-reflection, and transition lenses, the bill came quite high. She gave me some discounts, but I decided to take out the transition. Today I changed my mind and would like to switch to the transition lenses. Even though I thought it was too late, I gave her a call anyway. It didn’t hurt to ask. Fortunately she is willing to do it for me. I just have to pay the difference for the transitional feature.

True to its brand True Eyecare truly cares. I highly recommend Dr. Mỹ-Hạnh Triệu if you live in Falls Church and Arlington.

Ellen McCarthy:

Every morning, Kevin Federici pulls on a head lamp, sterilizes a sewing needle and prepares to prick his baby girl all over her tiny body. She fights him with everything she has, kicking, screaming, writhing as Kevin’s mother-in-law tries to hold her granddaughter still. This process can take three hours, sometimes four or five.

The video is also heartbreaking.

Toni Morrison:

I have worked for all sorts of people since then, geniuses and morons, quick-witted and dull, bighearted and narrow. I’ve had many kinds of jobs, but since that conversation with my father I have never considered the level of labor to be the measure of myself, and I have never placed the security of a job above the value of home.

Great advice.

I added a JSON feed using a WordPress plugin developed by Brent Simmons and Manton Reece. I deactivated dlvr.it. No more social sharing. If you want to read this blog, you have to subscribe to a feed or simply visit this site. I hope you go here because I am playing with big typography on the homepage quite often. That’s all.

One less powerful sex offender in the world.

Cái hook của bài này bị in vô não mấy hôm nay: “mấy thằng em của tao nó hip-hop.” Lời bài cũng buồn cười. Jombie:

Và 5 giờ khuya rồi vào buổi sáng
Uống ly café xẽ thịt ra chợ bán
Công chuyện nó làm lai rai theo ngày tháng
Kiếm tiền cho nhiều cuộc đời nó đỡ chán.

Fred Kaplan’s excellent profile of the outstanding Cécile McLorin Salvant in The New Yorker:

In its sixty years as a jazz club, the Vanguard has headlined few women and fewer singers of either gender. But Salvant, virtually unknown two years earlier, had built an avid following, winning a Grammy and several awards from critics, who praised her singing as “singularly arresting” and “artistry of the highest class.”

A chilling song about slavery by Rhiannon Giddens:

I’ve got a baby. Shall I keep him?
Twill (ph) come the day when I’ll be weeping.
But how can I love him any less,
this little babe upon my breast?

You can take my body.
You can dig my bones.
You can take my blood
but not my soul.

I’ve got a body dark and strong.
I was young but not for long.
You took me to bed a little girl,
left me in a woman’s world.

Listen to Giddens’s remarkable performance and interview with Terry Gross on “Fresh Air.”

In her fascinating essay on open marriage, Susan Dominus writes:

It took decades for sex researchers to consider the possibility that women’s fabled low libido might be a symptom of monogamy. An entire scientific field, well chronicled by Daniel Bergner (a contributing writer for the magazine) in his book “What Women Want,” has evolved to try to understand the near-total diminishment of lust for their partners that so many women in long-term monogamous relationships feel. One 2002 study found that men and women in committed relationships shared equal desire at the onset of their relationships, although for women, that desire dropped precipitously between one and four years into the relationship; for men, the desire remained high throughout that period. In his book, Bergner cites research suggesting that women desire novelty as much as men. The recent attempts to formulate medication to address waning sexual interest has been predicated on the assumption that one possible response — indulging an interest in newer partners — would never be practical and could be destabilizing.

That explains it. Call me old school but I don’t see open marriage is an option.

Một câu chuyện thú vị và cảm tình giữa người láy xe 71 tuổi và một trong ba phạm nhân (hai người Việt) trốn tù do Paul Kix kể lại. Bài này viết bằng tiếng Anh rất hay. Nên đọc.