back from the tea thing

You may remember that, in April of 2024, I went to a Buddhist-themed tea festival/exhibition at the SETEC building down the street from where I live. That day, I had severe shortness of breath and angina, and no idea what was coming down the line. My ex-boss wondered whether I'd like to meet him for this year's exhibition, and against my better judgment, I said yes. The ex-boss's wife was there today, and my Korean ex-coworker showed up, having come all the way from Gimpo.

I could take only about an hour of walking aimlessly up and down the various aisles flanked by booths before I finally called it quits. The ex-boss, though, loves this kind of thing, which is why I got invited (if the ex-boss loves it, then of course everyone must love it). I imagine he's still there, chatting up the tea sellers, many of whom are monks. I saw one particularly fat monk lumbering around the aisles and had to wonder how one gets fat in Korean Buddhism, which can be fairly austere. In the refectory at Haein-sa, there used to be a laminated, blown-up photocopy of a news article featuring Haein-sa's abbot, and in the article's headline, he was saying, "We did not come into this world to eat"—a harsh reminder to any potential gluttons (like me) in the refectory. Anyway, I often broke away from the ex-boss and his wife to go wandering on my own while the ex-boss sat and drank tea and chatted endlessly. I gave him and my ex-coworker copies of my new book, then a few minutes later, I headed for the exit.

Plenty of coding (ahem, "coding") to do today. I'm going to try to do a lot of it on my own. I don't expect to be done by this evening. I'll still have to rely on Grok for a few things, but we'll see how much I can do myself. Fingers and tentacles crossed.