Girl in Bionic Suit 2005: February 2005
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Monday, February 28
The silent years

Today I looked into the mirror and realized that, I had grown much older than I thought.
posted by redshot on 28.2.05 2 comments

Wednesday, February 23
The distance

Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.

- Victor Borge
US (Danish-born) comedian & pianist (1909 - 2000)


Today is 元宵节 (Yuan Xiao Jie), the last of fifteen days of Chinese New Year. It is also the Chinese version of the Valentine's Day. I don't think the two are related, but don't trust me. I can be quite ignorant when it comes to tradition stuff like that.

I used to tease Turner, whose name sounds and spells almost the same as the Festival itself, saying that he'd got his own day in his name. We were best of friends, and lovers for a brief period, before we drifted apart.

Strange how his contact is on my chat programs, and his numbers in my cell phone list, but we no longer contact each other. Even as we stay less than 20 mins' ride from each other, his is the longest distance I am away from a friend.

*

In other news,

Happy 24th, jerseyiv ! I love you ! :P
posted by redshot on 23.2.05 2 comments

Thursday, February 17
Caught !

It's one thing to know that your boy's entering puberty; it's quite another to actually witness it. Last night, the first sight that greeted me when I looked over my bed, was Lecter in mid-act of that-thing-males-do.

He froze. I was groggy and lost for actions. We stared at each other for a good 1½ mins. Then in slow motion, he backed away from the scene of the crime and sat down half a meter away from it.

His embarrassment made me more embarrassed. I looked away, hummed a little tune like I didn't see what just occurred, and slowly lie back on the bed.
posted by redshot on 17.2.05 2 comments

Wednesday, February 16
The one that breaks the camel's back

There is a sign in every HDB lift that states the maximum load that it can hold. 540 kg, it says on most of those signs. The HDB engineers also explicitly decided that 8 people would fit that weight bill just right. That puts the average weight of each person at 67.5 kg.

Now, my friend Library Boy is 80 kg. In the worst-case scenario, 8 Library Boys in the lift would destroy it with an excess of 100 kg. Alternatively, assuming that I am 55 kg, 4 Library Boys and 4 of me would match the stated load perfectly. And the lift will rise up to the fifth floor where a little black shih tzu trots in, and with his mighty 10 kg, sends us all to our deaths.
posted by redshot on 16.2.05 3 comments

Tuesday, February 15
V-day posts which speak my mind

It was like a pre-Valentine's Day present, except that I don't believe in Valentine's Day. I don't hate it as much as I just ignore its very existence.
via No Two People Are Not On Fire

*
But (a relationship) is not a Valentine's Day commercial. It don't smell like roses or honeysuckles or scented candles all the time.
via No Milk Please

*
Random Thoughts, for Valentines day, 2004. The day's a holiday invented by greeting card companies, to make people feel like crap.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
via TooMuchSexy.blog
posted by redshot on 15.2.05 2 comments

Friday, February 11
He ain't no Brian

Dee and I sometimes have spirited debates about Lecter's ability to understand us when we speak to him in English. One of us is convinced that he does so perfectly; he just doesn't feel like obeying us sometimes.

A while ago, I was about to take a shower, but Lecter kept whining for my company. So I told him, "Mommy's going to take a bath, larh." He immediately dove for cover upon hearing that.

Apparently, it doesn't matter what nouns comes before or after the phrase "take a bath". Lecter the ang moh gao does not follow the structure of the English language. I can say "I'm not going to let you take a bath forever” and he would still have done a Copperfield all the same.
posted by redshot on 11.2.05 1 comments

Thursday, February 10
A short account

I tweaked the blog template tonight, notably taking down that adsense code by the side bar which refused to work. Apparently Google canceled my account coz of some violations. I highly suspect that it was the side title that did it, or some shit like that. Google never did tell me the real reason.

That was all I could manage. I had a tiring day, and another long-winded one tomorrow. As you know, I am not fond of CNY house visits. But today at Gran’s I was greatly amused by my baby cousin Roy. We hit it off almost immediately, and he shall be my little beacon of light at the Grand Monotonous Gathering, Part II tomorrow. I hope he remembers me though; the Sister was saying that kids that age have memory pockets like goldfishes.
posted by redshot on 10.2.05 1 comments

Wednesday, February 9
That thing we do

They have a term for it. It is called 守岁, literally meaning guarding the age(s). It is a traditional practice for kids to stay up the night on Lunar New Year's eve, so that their parents would live to ripe old ages. Rule of thumb: the later you stay up, the longer your parents live.

Even as a kid, I've always thought that it is the most badly disguised excuse ever. But what with all-nighter of games and back-to-back TV shows legally, who is any kid to complain ? Like drinking, us kids would only experience the hangovers of our binges the following day, when we had to wake up early for those darn house visits.

But that was all more than a decade ago. Now, all-nighters (though not of games and shows) for me are as firmly in place as death and taxes. But tonight, tonight was a disappointment. It could be me getting old, or that cursed sleep debt; I thought I was watching the TV with the Family, but the next thing I knew, I was waking up on the couch, forty minutes late into the Lunar New Year.

I don't care much for the countdown, but I felt funny that I missed it, unintentionally. I took a long bath, and felt more sober. Then I sit down here and pen about how I am still feeling weird about missing that midnight chime of the Lunar New Year.

I am certain I would feel much better after writing it. My psychiatrist says so.

Happy Lunar New Year, people.
posted by redshot on 9.2.05 3 comments

Tuesday, February 8
Double-do

It was five degrees celsius in the morning.

If I had a choice, I would be curled up in a ball, wrapped under blankets of clothes and refusing to budge more than a meter away from the heater. Mornings were not my preferred waking times, neither was five degrees celsius my favorite temperature.

But R-J was none like me. She loved it cold, real cold. Like jogging in a thin sweater over a flimsy tee in the biting winds (and snow) down at Riverside Park.

This morning after her snowy jog, R-J was deliberating if she should go for a shower before her dance class in two hours' time. She didn't want to double-bathe.

Halfway round the globe by the power of the MSN Messenger, I shooed her to the bathroom. What was so bad about a little double-wash up ? I did that shit all the time, even if they were not actually by choice. Those nights when I absent-mindedly ate those darn cookies after I had brushed my teeth. Or had milk spilled onto my PJ pants just before I climbed into bed.

Woe was me.
posted by redshot on 8.2.05 0 comments

Monday, February 7
One year later

I trying to street skate (again) was like a high school student attempting a college Physics Paper.

Last night after doing a couple of straight skates, we boldly ventured where we had not skated before: the dessert place seven minutes' walk away.

Fifteen minutes later, I stopped short of a street from the finishing line; the last stretch was too hazardous for the high school kid to tackle.

There was zero point satisfaction. Not coz I didn't reach the predetermined destination, but that I cheated.

My skate nanny had to hold my hands up and over the slopes, across the rough patches, and around the obstacles. He might as well have pulled me along on a sledge.

Shame on me.
posted by redshot on 7.2.05 2 comments

Friday, February 4
The big black dog

Everyone meets his big black dog (BBD) at least once in his lifetime. For Lecter, today was the day.

He trotted up to the (stray) BBD in the Park, sniffing at his tail. That was the canine version of our handshake, said Marty Becker, DVM, a veterinarian in Bonner's Ferry, Idaho, and coauthor of Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul and Chicken Soup for the Cat and Dog Lover's Soul.

But I didn't think the BBD read Chicken Soup. Ignoring all laws of canine psychology he jumped around and repeatedly snapped at Lecter with his wolverine teeth.

With incredible dexterity, Lecter evaded every bite of death, even if only by the breath of a hair. However, by the third or fourth snap, Lecter's morale had been completely routed.

Giving a final bark of defiance, he retreated into the hillsides and onto the green little circle. There, he was rescued by the bai zhan jee knight who escorted him to the BBD-free sanctuaries of the Green Mordor.

It turns out that all those times of trying to hunt Lecter down either to leash him, bathe him or simply just to tease him, has turned Lecter into the dodge master. Nothing can touch him, not even the fearsome BBD. Winston Churchill would have been proud of him.
posted by redshot on 4.2.05 1 comments

Thursday, February 3
This is not like what you think

The dreaded days are less than a week away. Dee says that I have an irrational dislike of the CNY (Chinese New Year), which I assure you, is not true at all.

I do not have an irrational dislike of the Festival of red packets, generous trays of snacks and bowls of sweet desserts.

In fact, it is like an un-birthday party at the Mad Hatter's; you get to eat as much as you want for a good legal reason, and the food never runs out. Even though they do add a ton of weight to my body mass, and give me that killer sore throat which would totally waste any amount that I collect from the red packets, to the GPs.

I am just not that chummy with the unavoidable house visits. Such boisterous greetings and irrelevant gossiping conversations, awkward questioning of the elders, blaring of the TVs, and those rowdy bullying / crying of the kids, all eight hundred decibels too harmful for my ears.

Though the decisive reason might be that, with less than five days to go, I still have not the fitting clothes (and shoes) to wear, which would make me look less like the fat ass that I am.

I hate dislike CNY.
posted by redshot on 3.2.05 3 comments

Wednesday, February 2
Knowing is not the beginning of healing

This is a little embarrassing, and may come across as a surprise, but despite penning about it more than a couple of times, really, the only expert thing I can do on my skates is to stand. I run better than I skate, and I don't run enough to be good at it either. I walk bus-stop distances though. But always stop before I perspire. Perspiration is for real exercisers.

Now that I see myself type these things out loud, I am beginning understand the reasons for the size of my calves, the bulge of my belly, and that number on the waist measuring tape that I've always refused to acknowledge.





I think I've just been crushed under the weight of the truth. I shall go stuff my face in the CNY goodies now.
posted by redshot on 2.2.05 3 comments

Tuesday, February 1
The finale

Lecter had since been dubbed the Cat, with ears of a baby Jack and eyes like a Chihuahua. He'd also, for the first time since last Winter, felt cooling enough to sleep in my arms again while I worked on the Mac. I had to type with one hand that night.

Here, sneaking up on the shaven one, in the boys' room,





The little one, now without his whiskers.
posted by redshot on 1.2.05 4 comments


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