Trying out this collage as a blog graphic (just to see how it fits kind of) , perhaps this might be how I'd weblog an entry for every month, seemingly I can't (and somehow sort of lost any bit of motivation to do so) be back to regular weblogging somehow, with the mounting excuses it certainly defied the whole intention of blogging.
October has and perhaps always had been a mix-bag of bittersweet month, evidently more so from last year onward. In short, I wouldn't really pin it as a bad month (for me); it's just synonymous with so many other things that if I were to simply put it as a "Them Feels" Month is too general in nature.
I struggled (and
procrastinated reasoned successfully) to not do/write about 5 posts that was pretty high-up on my list to do prior to October, and hence I found myself unprepared when it (the month) rolled over and I asked myself; and justified that there will always be a tomorrow. Of course, it does and it
doesn't and perhaps all in all this is me 'reporting' and justifying my spent month, in chronological order:
Heidi's birth-date was on the 10th, and we finally got together and managed to move her urn to the niche, sort of a moving-in of the final physical items, after like 17 months.
I suppose I am half-happy with the final plaque bearing an absolute 90-odd percent semblance to my design (She always did encourage and love my designs and etc) but alas, it was a shame there was an annoying bit of spelling mistake on the engravings of a certain word, (engravers fault, not mine) that it had to be it. Now, I promised myself to 'fix' it, by figuring out the possible material for a stick-on for the word the next time we make our way to the memorial; since we certainly are not making the trip north this week for All Souls' Day (yeah, we don't really celebrate that, but we might, someday?)
Our trip was an extremely short one; reach the island by 9am-ish, pick up the urn and towards the ever-green and ever tranquil Penang Christian Cemetery, a quick lunch (yay Penang food), and a short stop in Sg Dua; and then it was back home for lunch.
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| Wasn't prepared, as I think about it now, could've just brought along that 1 snow-cap of hers I have as keepsake , oh well. |
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| Bucket List #1 : One day, when I could afford and find a master sculptor, man. (this has been around 80+ years!) |
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| certainly not my favorite Dhoby Ghaut's; but that will do in the mean time, that day. |
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| truth be typed, I was mad at the engraver; it wasn't just that 1 spelling mistake, there were irregularities with the capitals here and there...but then again, I don't think this was made digitally with auto-correct |
On another note, Angél was sick a week prior, the vet said he was down with flu (of course, for a newbie with cats aka
mois , I was dumbfounded-ly shocked, since I saw the sign of him having a bruised 1 eye and all I thought was he got scratched near his eyelids) and I suppose I must've muttered an idiotic line something like "Cats can get fever?" in Malay. Of course I was lucky enough with my 1 canine boy to not being sick when he was older, but then again, caring for a sick cat is way much harder! It isn't so easy to sneak or feed pills, certainly. But he was alright in under a week.
But on the morning of our trip to Penang, I found Angél's Wife #1 lying in the garden, which was pretty odd, since she was such a nimble ninja (actually both of his waifus are such cats. came for the food, and vanish as soon as you move an inch)
Black Face as what we unofficially call her, had gone to the other meadow by the rainbow bridge that morning. That was the first and final time I got to touch that cat that we know and don't know. Poor kid must've got poisoned somehow from her last scavenging hunt the night before, as I walked over to her owner and told her that my brother has dealt with the carcass. Days later, heard from her that her kitten had also joined his mum a day after. Oh well, poor kitties.
Angél is fine now; but I could still remember the
whimper (do cats whimper?) cry from Angél when both of us found Black Face. damn
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| Mama Cat & Junior, happier times, September. R.I.P |
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| Junior - could've fooled people as Angél. Similar markings, even with the shortened tail; though slightly smaller and without collar., eyes could've been a different shade |
The other big one was on the 7th.
Well, I wish I could avoid that.
The 7th actually has a deeper connection to that, as it was tied to a person of years' past. Yet it now shared an ambiguous date with the day I last see Chance.
1 year. 7 eff-ing doggie years.
I miss the boy.
I miss his fur on everything.
I miss waking up to see that jovial spirit with his hetero-chromia eyes
This is harder than I imagined.
How do you somehow explain this to a canine companion?
Yet I don't seem to do anything about it huh?
Well, I wish I could avoid that.
Choices, man. But. Soon.
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the final last 2 pics of him before the pick-up. He must've felt something, |
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| I remember goading him to come up and take a pic with Angél, I can't brace myself to watch the video, not yet. |
So what exactly have I been up to this sad ol' October?
Apart from the fortnight visits to Sunshine (and subsequent visit/prospecting to the other 2 prospective Christian Old Folk's last Wednesday) and attending a few activities by the Chinese Methodist & Chinese Gospel Hall, I did not commit to the 3-day combined camp by FGA though.
Did images for 2 sermon presentations, well, actually stayed up the night to fully start & finish Mom's first ever slides; pretty last minute since she wasn't sure whether to proceed with presentation anyway, but yeah I was proud and happy for her to get the courage to try that something new for herself. I mean, yeah, Dad has grown into this 'new and spank-ly original custom-made images' (not much on the latter, yet, I suspect) presentation slides. Although for Mom's maiden try it somehow wasn't to be, we forgot all about informing the need for a projection; so we made do with the few Gospel-Hallites squinting their eyes to see this RedYacer's screen whenever wherever.
Made a couple of other images as well, though not all were of usage as yet (even the Diwali ones, oh the shame)
Oh yeah, I've finally reconnected with my guitar-ing old self. Well, got the guitar loaned in by Ps. Cheah late September when he couldn't made a trip to Sunshine then, though I only did practiced once then; I've put in a teeny effort to touch the acoustic for a few practice sesh. So yeah, it was pretty alright. It is practically like riding a bike/ or swimming I suppose. You just don't forget how-to.
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| Taiping Chinese Methodist's 111th Anniversary service. Wow. Chaperoned Mom & Dad as VIPs |
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| Kau Kee Choy Stir-Fry; one of many variations I started doing as these shoots were going on sale, found out it translates to Go Ji Choy as in the Goji berry's Goji. A bit of lazy to research then, but I suppose it is from similar cultivae? These leaves does have some berries, albeit different and so much smaller than gojiberries somehow. |
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| Lady's Fingers Red & Pale variants: Taman Kaya home-grown! Pretty productive month indeed to have quite a good harvest of our Red Okras (and even abundant Potato Leaves!) and Friendly-Black Chillies but alas; it grew to about the usual length of those locally found okras; however our neighbor's pale colored okras were freakin' huge! Our pale variant plant died off some time ago according to Mum; but both were 'smuggled' in from 4th Aunt's visit to Korea perhaps. |
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| Dad's sermon at TCM Seniors service. That's a lot of senior citizens! |
October is also a month of reconnecting with the bulk of tv series returning for their new seasons too.
I was raving madferrit for Marvel's Luke Cage late September, though I only binged it much later when the rest of the other shows were about to start again, well I haven't actually been as up-to-date on most series anyway. A lot more compared to the last didn't make the same-day watch-list; the only exception is
that much-awaited episode of The Walking Dead, and most of The Flash. Almost every other show made the new pull-list for a later date. So far I've only caught a single episode (or 2) of each Gotham, Lucifer, Supergirl, Ash Vs The Evil Dead, Quantico, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, (okay this one was 2 episodes, since I think I like the 'new' Ghost Rider) like 4 episodes in I think of Blindspot, the new McGyver maybe 3rd episode. Both Arrow & Legends of Tomorrow were up to the week, though not as frequent.
And it's not just that, I've been cutting it slower too with them comics; week in week out I'd only do the current Civil War II's and actual tie-ins, and the occasional The Walking Dead & Archie (and their line-up) whenever they do appear. But with the way things ended September (Ulysses' vision of Miles Morales killing Capt') we got the inevitable surprise (hey, since it launched so early on) of Doom in Infamous Iron Man, yeah we know it's coming (Doom & Riri) and perhaps sensed a certain somebody's demise months ago but that certainly is a curveball, much too soon!
Pretty miffed to see the end of my much loved Vision & A-Force, but, fingers crossed for more gems to come and discover.
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| "...back to it! " yikes! |
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| Come on, crossover already |
So, what actually was my escape this month?
I hid myself in conquering China. Well, to be precise,
shagging my way across making 'friends' & fighting/debating banditos & shady merchants across China in KOEI's (ok, KOEI TECMO) RoTK XIII
Introduced to this series when I was a wee boyo of , err 10 I think, by my brother during my school break it became a major influence on me growing up. I suppose that was in line about the time after my dear sis got me to read too; so when I got back home after the holidays I'd immersed myself in this classical Chinese literature. Gorged into it really like 2-3 times on the decades-old tomes from the school library smelly as f*#k; getting myself on the illustrated simpler bilingual copies like I suppose more than 10 times before finishing puberty mayhap. That was the gist of it. Of course, together with my Dickens',Twains', Dumas' & the other classic chaps; since I could only read English, and if you wanna know more about the Romance of the Three Kingdoms in the early 90's.... that's what you are left with. (since you are hopeless with Chinese symbols)
Anyway, before my connection gets sluggy in half an hour, better post this up, before I justify not to.
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| Not My ScreenShot |
