Merry Christmas

Was this how it felt like when I left?

Merry Christmas. Have a wine, some carols and light a candle for me. 

Lacuna..

Where do memories go and die? Do you bring them to the graveyard, bury it six feet under, and place a bunch of flowers over it?

What about memories that you prefer not to revisit? Is that why people scatter the remains of someone into the sea or send it over the sky with a literal bang? That there is no point sitting by the headstone wiping tears and recounting the pain year after year.

Why do people visit graveyards? Is it to heighten those memories? Is it to console the dead that they are still remembered and loved? Is it to avoid feeling guilty lest we forget?

What if there is no point remembering all that anymore, however great those memories were? Or perhaps we  will never lose those memories, we simply forgot why they cease to be important with time.

Goodbye love

Love ends when the only thing you can think about is no longer the other person, but you.

That New Kitty Cat

Dear Kitty,

It's been 6 years since you have passed on. Memories of you still remained, and there were some days I wished you were here silently supporting me through the milestones of my life.

Since you left, I have no courage to get myself another cat. I wasn't sure if I could handle another cat leaving me, and I did not want to shortchange the new cat by letting it substitute who you were.

I finally adopted a kitten this year. The neighbour came by with a little tabby kitten. Her name is Gracie and she's about 9 months old now. She reminded me of the days when I played with you when I was 9 years old. I almost forgot the days you pounced at my feet, climbed the windows, played with lizards, and greeted me at the door. Gracie is a active mixed breed Bengal, and has a longer body than you. She sleeps in a most ungraceful manner (all stretched out) and she is not very vocal when it comes to asking for things. I can see that her nose and chin are bigger than yours, and she doesn't know that kisses meant affection (yet).

I remembered those trips away where I did not see you and the first thing I look for is you when I return. I was away from Gracie for a while, and I missed her terribly. I guess I have allowed myself to fall in love with another cat. It feels different from the last 6 years of patting other people's cats.

You had to deal with me as a kid when you were growing up, and now I am Gracie's mummy. I scold her when she misbehaves and gets into catfights. I read up on cat nutrition, check out the labels on cat food, and even started brushing Gracie's teeth. I can tell Gracie's a lot more spoilt. I've got the fan blowing at her now because she was rejecting all her usual sleeping spots because it has been a warm summer day.

I have a lot to thank my own mother for, for modelling for me since young that pets are there for life. There is no 'give away' option. I am glad I kept you for 20 years, from watching you as a kitten into an elderly cat who was losing his once acute hearing. I had a horrible realisation that if Gracie lived as long as you, there'll be 2 old women in the house in years to come!

Many things about Gracie has invoked some of the things I've forgotten about you. I pray that she will be well loved and live a long life, just like you.

Miss you lots.

When you really want to throw it away!

Today is one of those days kitty cat drove me nuts till I want to do the proverbial "Why did I even adopt you!"

She woke up with me, and immediately asked for food before I can brush my teeth. I made her food, and she walked away immediately. Later I did coax her to have some food but she totally rejected. Worried, I gave her some milk, and after 3 sips, she nervously eyed the window. I wondered if she was ill.

After going out for 3 hours, I heard a loud hissing and yowling at the front of the house. There was a cat fight going on. I rushed out to try to join in break up the fight, but there were no cats in sight. I waited and peered over the neighbours, looking under bushes, but no sign of kitty cat. It took me a while to see that the fight has moved to the back of the house. Kitty watching from inside, Monkey the calico cat teasing her from under the garden bench. This was Day 2 of fighting. It pretty much explained for the big blood curdling YOWL I heard one night followed by strange noises that followed.

I felt like an embarrassed mom whose child has gone out for a street fight. I scolded Hoolikitty, and locked her in. No doubt kitty finally ate her food finally when the fun was gone.

Cleared 2 live baby blue tongue lizards from my room and chased after one in the storage cupboard. KITTY! Stop bringing the lizards in. Now I am absolutely paranoid that one will crawl into my clothes in the wardrobe without me knowing and I will have the time of my life when I put them on. Same for shoes. Same for the 2 tails that detached on the floor... arghh!

Kitty decided she hasn't had enough and scratched the sofa. I scolded her, smacked her and she thought it was fun to start a game of catch. I think she's quite a prideful cat because when I am scolding her, she pretends to paw a nearby ball and looked horribly distracted with it until I walked away.

So she really kept me busy today. Kitty got scolded through and through, and for once, I really had that angry thought to 'throw kitty away'.

 After part 1 of catfight. Monkey is outside under the bench teasing Kitty.

 That's Monkey under the bench.

 Kitty getting upset Monkey is leaving, and quickly jumps to the kitchen window to follow Monkey from inside the house.

Trying to annoy me with her antics. Drinking water from the toilet bowl. (Mummy, can you please keep MY water fountain running? Especially on hot days?)

Words

The next time you are wondering about trusting someone's words, go for the actions. There is nothing as telling as someone's actions.

Temperature Rising...

The temperature is soaring to 37 degrees today. Gracie has already sensed it, and she insisted on sitting in the cool bathroom. I have since invited her to my 4 storey wardrobe apartment where she is now nestled among my clothes on level 1.

So the killer kitty is taking a break today. Thank goodness, or the heat will definitely bring a few more baby blue tongue lizards out into the open for killer kitty to break her boredom.

(As I speak, killer kitty decided to head out.. arghhh!!) It's already quite warm outside at the moment.

I really love these pictures on Misao the Big Mama and Fukumaru the Cat. Really lovely and well taken. I will keep it on my wishlist for Christmas.

http://www.lifewithcats.tv/2012/11/09/misao-the-big-mama-and-fukumaru-the-cat/

Dead things everywhere

It's summertime and Gracie cat is out prowling the gardens.

She's still a kitten and often wants someone to play with her. I made her toys, but I think she wants something interactive.

Lately, she sniffs out baby blue tongue lizards from the backyard. On a good sunny day, she can bring in as many as 5 lizards. I know the cues. The house suddenly turns quiet except for the pitter pattering of little feets, the little bell on her collar ringing, she is totally engrossed with something.

Yikes, it is a lizard in various stages of 'still alive-ness'. I will chase kitty away, and then scoop up the baby lizard, hoping it is still alive and intact, and bring it out into the yard again. I know Kitty will bring a new one because the new ones have their tails intact. I found a dead one in my room the other day.

Today, she brought in a butterfly. But as delicate as butterflies go, poor little thing was almost dead. I left it out hoping that it will miraculously recover.

Quite mad with that little murderer now. I know she is a in-born hunter, she's bored, and if only she likes walks instead of hunting. I tried putting her on her leash but the moment she steps out of somewhere unfamiliar, she is so scared it is impossible to walk her.

Really wish to make her a little cat tree so she can climb around and play on her own. I saw the Stolmen cat tree under Ikea Hacks but the other chap here doesn't like to see kitty furniture inside the house.

Blue tongue lizard baby.. this one is thankfully alive

Goodbye little butterfly. Rest in Peace.

Mummy I didn't do it!

Seasonal or Evergreen

I saw an ex boyfriend as I was driving today. There was a girl next to him, and she was laughing, talking to him rather animatedly.

I was amused. For once upon a time, I was that laughing girl. We were walking to all our favourite haunts, and I was the bubbly one chattering along.

What I never really thought of in the past was that before me there were other happy girls standing next to him. One by one we replaced each other, and truth to be told, we were only put there for a season.

There were some friends and people we meet in life that is only there for a season. They are either there to help us, cheer us on, tide us through or simply to teach us a lesson in life. When the purpose is done, you both move on and have nothing more to do with each other.

Yet there are the people who are there for the long and short of your life. I had a high school friend whom I used to hang out before university. He went to NS and I went to uni. Then we both stopped hanging out when he left for overseas studies. Yet he'll call me from the airport before he flies back, and I will pick him at the airport even at the wee hours. I flew over once and we parted with this crazy misunderstanding. When he returned from working in the US, I went to Melbourne. Recently we finally returned to Singapore, and still did the same airport hangout. He'll still sent me to my doorstep, and chat on till late before leaving. All the same routine for over a decade now.

I never thought much about the friendship but now find it quite a gem to be able to keep in touch for so long. These are the sort of friendships you know you can't replace. The joys of growing old is that you finally get to see what time reveals. What goes like the fads of yesteryears, and what stays like an evergreen classic.

When it is not about the distance...

I know most people run long distance as easy as they stir sugar into coffee.

I recently completed a 16.8km run with my friend. It was the longest distance I have ever ran. We vowed to 'train' every weekend, running along the beach and various location. There were some weeks I did not feel like running, but we egged each other on. We moved from running during the cool evenings to trying to beat the full sunrise on weekend mornings.

Mysteriously, I completed the race. The furthest I ran before the race was about 8km, and I asked my friend if I was able to complete it. A two-time sundown marathon runner, she laughed and said 'just walk and run.. you'll get there'.

I worried about the distance. I worried about lagging behind, or even being the last of the crowd. In the end, the distance didn't faze me at all, the heat did. It was a cloudless day, and the sun was beating down on us at 8am. Soon I felt so hot I was drizzling water all over my face and limbs. After uncountable water stations, I arrived at the sight of the big marquee, more happy that there is shade more than anything else.

Many times in life, there is the obvious problem, the bugbear, the thorn in the flesh. We mull over it before it happens, and we do not want to be the 'loser'. I had GPS timings for all my practice runs, I extrapolate distances, I studied the route, but I never anticipate that the thing that will bug me most is the heat and sun. After 10km, I realised the distance no longer bothered me, and if I had a choice to continue to a half marathon, I would be able to do it. I learnt how to improvise along the way, changing my run strategy to 'run when there is no shade, slow down when there is'. Watch me on at the F1 pit stop, I was running like a Ferrari (no, probably a Toyota) along the grandstand where there was no reprieve.

But there were also quite a satisfaction in the end. It did not come with just completing the race and posting that 'achievement' to boast on facebook, but it was the silent comfort to know that somewhere inside me, I harboured the commitment to train for the weekly runs, the discipline to run the distance, weathered the heat without complaining and very privileged  to deepen a friendship along the way.

It's strange how completing 2.4km fitness test during secondary felt so much like a drag. Good things come with age.

Random things I want to do...

I was thinking about my retirement plans and suddenly there were some things I am hoping to do after 60.

1) Enrol in a Christian counselling course and take up counselling after retirement. If I can afford three square meals by then, I will help give free counselling in church.
2) Illustrate a children's book, preferably with a cat character in it. I was looking at Alice in Wonderland but some of the pictures looked a little scary.
3) Learn how to draw those really pretty botanical drawings or flowers, leaves and birds.
4) Open a cattery. Decided I can't do animal rescue because I am too soft to put down kitty cats.
5) Plant my own veggie patch- that will be my form of exercise

To listen, to draw, to nurture...

One man's actions, another's pain

What happens if a drunken person drives and knock a cyclist down, and the cyclist got seriously injured and as a result, fell into depression, lost his job, his friends and his income? The drunken man is slapped with a fine and gets a jail term of 6 months. After 6 months, one man has paid for his consequences and one man is still reeling.

What if a husband with a highly paid job divorces his wife and takes the children and house along with him after paying his wife her rightful share. She does not have the ability to feed the kids as a single mom and so relinquishes her children. What if the wife has devoted the last 10 years of her life to the family and had no large savings nor career to speak of? The man later remarries someone else.

What I want to know is, how do the cyclist and the divorced wife live the first 3 months in their new state?

Do they get mad at the perpetrator, even if he had made the necessary compensation? Is compensation enough?

Do they blame themselves for not being 'careful', 'smart', and to see it coming?

Do they just 'get over it' because what's past is past, so let's get the party started!

Do they ask God 'why me????'

Do they just decide that life is not fair and get bitter?

Do they look outside their 5th floor window one quiet night and with their tear streaked face, wondered if life is really that worth living after this.

I really don't know how to offer answers to life changes as a direct or indirect consequence of someone's actions. These scenarios are a little different from sad stories involving sickness and poverty. I know of real people in the two situations above and they are doing well now. What I do wonder is, what were the initial months like? How do they get over the pain that someone's decision can plunge them into such darkness, even if the harm wasn't deliberate. Did people tell them to get over it, or forget the past?

Elijah goes into the cave

You are not in the position to evaluate your own effectiveness.

Let God render the final verdict.

That still small voice

Were there days where all you wanted was to hide inside a cave, shut the world out, and tell God 'I had enough!'... I did, and before I felt too ashamed of myself, Elijah did too.

I'm very touched to read that while Elijah was in the cave feeling so depressed, God did not tell him to 'toughen up', 'grow up', or get his act together. He simply cajoled him to go out of the cave and watch what happens. Then just when he thought God will appear in an earthquake or strong winds, there was nothing.

Yes.. nothing after one last desperate hopeless prayer. Nothing after you curl up and die. Nothing even when you finally convinced yourself to feed on some food and watch some tv, and nothing when the thoughts in your brain start to churn. Then one day, it comes in that still small voice to tell you what to do.

There are some spirits which must go through a discipline analogous to that sustained by Elijah. The storm-struggle must precede the still small voice. There are minds which must be convulsed with doubt before they can repose in faith. There are hearts which must be broken with disappointment before they can rise into hope. There are dispositions which, like Job, must have all things taken from them before they can find all things again in God. Blessed is the man who, when the tempest has spent its fury, recognizes his Father’s voice in its under-tone, and bares his head and bows his knee, as Elijah did. (F. W. Robertson)

Be afraid...

Be not afraid of challenges that seem unending
Or groundhog days
Be not afraid of steep faced hills
Or blizzards swirling around you

Be not afraid when your vision blurs
Or when you have made a wrong move
That you wasted time, efforts and hope
Or people deriding you

But be afraid that you
Quit when things are mending
Fail to see goodness in things
Lose faith in what you believe
Run, flee and never use your courage

Will God leave you in the cold?
Is God good?
Does He disappoints?
Can He be trusted?
Will He test you beyond what you can bear?

The next time you feel afraid, be even more afraid of forgetting who He is.

We need the eggs...

Just finished watching Annie Hall. Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) said this wistfully as he parted with his ex- girlfriend Diane Keaton- the ditzy girl meets neurotic with their craziest silly moments. Yet there are relationships that do not survive even if there is love, unreplicable memories and wistful reunions.

“It reminds me of that old joke- you know, a guy walks into a psychiatrist's office and says, hey doc, my brother's crazy! He thinks he's a chicken. Then the doc says, why don't you turn him in? Then the guy says, I would but I need the eggs. I guess that's how I feel about relationships. They're totally crazy, irrational, and absurd, but we keep going through it because we need the eggs.”

Those Durian and Tau Huey People

I am learning how to be thoughtful like a lot of people around me.

On Thursday, I got a message asking if I was home. I was out celebrating a friend's birthday. I said "No, what's up?".. and it was my friend asking if I wanted a bowl of tau huey that I was craving for some nights back.

On Saturday, I received a phone call while I was grocery shopping. There was an excited voice on the other line. "Hey, I was at Cold Storage and they were selling durians. I bought a few and do you want to have some with me?"

There are some truly nice people around. Some time ago, I thought one of the nicest thing is to make someone feel significant about themselves, because God made them significant in His eyes. I bounced around the concept of how to add value into other people's life?

I guess "Hey, it was just an ordinary day, and I was doing something really banal, and even though so, I thought about you" is pretty nice for a start.

Thoughts like these really motivate me. Try it! 

About measuring love...

As one reflects on love, do they wonder about its quantity?

Is it measured by an average of the amounts of love over a lifetime? Consistently average is the same as highs and lows.

Is it measured by how it starts? Falling in love, butterflies in the stomach, that wonderful first impression?

Is it measured by how it ends? A breakup, an affair, a divorce nullifies everything good before that?

Is it measured by how much one can appreciate? Do I think you love me more because you speak my love language? 

I thought about how much God loves me. 

Yet the biggest element of love is still that "God sent his only son to die for us, while we were still sinners'

Take something you value a lot, sacrifice it all for an unworthy person, possibly someone who annoys you, irritates you, and waste your precious time. Do it even before knowing if the love can be reciprocated, or if he takes you for granted. Do it even if it risk looking foolish in the eyes of the world, that you might cross your fingers that no one tags 'omg' on your facebook.

Do it so that love is not about some inconsistent expression fed by a spur of a moment. Do it so that a lover has no excuse to say he loved enough. Do it so that love is a challenge than a hindrance. Do it so that we can love in disappointment, in tears, in anger, in pain, in disdain, in courage and in humility. 

Do it so that for some crazy reason, there are people with godly decency to talk about for centuries to come. For you cannot erase a love like this.

That is a pretty good measure of love. Past, present, future.

Night Festival

Went to the Night Festival last weekend. We went to the National Museum at 11pm, and who could have predicted that we walked out at 2am?!

It's been a few years since I went the the National Museum, and there was not too much of a change. There was a light display on the facade of the building, very much like the Singapore Art Museum that we visited earlier.

I was initially reluctant to walk into the final exhibition room of Singapore History Gallery, thinking it might be too much of a propaganda. It turned out to be quite entertaining since they provide you with an audio guide, and that was the room I did not visit the last time. A little wordy in the information part, but good if you like to listen to stories.

By 3am we were having a round of supper at the airport. I have to enjoy the craziness before it ends!

When I find the right person...

Had been watching Andy Stanley quite a bit lately. I really love his sermons!

In the series on "The New Rules for Love, Sex and Dating", he talked about a very common myth of 'Finding the right person'- that some people believe that when they find the right person, there will be little effort needed to be patient, kind, to not envy... and conversely, when we find ourselves in marriages and relationships that are not kind, nor patient, it is because he/she 'is not the right person!'.

I once went out with a person who loves to fill up survey forms when we dined in restaurants. I was far from patient in those days, but I blamed it on his simple-mindedness, that 'it looked so silly' that I felt irritated. If only he was a little more like this or that and I'll be admiring him. Fast forward years later, I think what Andy said was right. I was more likely irritated because I was full of pride more than he was the 'wrong person'. Being a prideful person was probably more detrimental to a marriage than a person who fills out survey forms! Will meeting a less simple minded person help because I will like him better and hence it will take less effort to be kind? Possibly so in the short run, but we all know that the definition of a 'right person' changes throughout one's life. Soon enough, we are left with the 'wrong person' again. Worse still, we meet a more 'right person' and we realised our spouse cannot be any more wrong. One point I found humorously true, was that Andy pointed out that while we can naturally and effortlessly feel passionate and 'in love', we do not naturally and effortlessly become more patient and kind (chuckles with guilt).

So it is more important not to buy the myth of 'the right person' than to make sure that we become the right person ourselves. More importantly, Andy mentioned if we are becoming the kind of person who we are looking for, is looking for? Take it simply, am I that kind of person my future husband/wife is looking for? I thought that was very inspiring to start practising patience, kindness, showing my 'wow' for the other person, tame my tongue, say sorry, and the whole 1 Cor 13 list.

He also talked about determining the 'stories' we want to tell others. What we do in the present will become our past, which will eventually surface in the future with your future partner. While it is not about spewing details like who-did-what, you still cannot get away with the behavior and decisions you made. It's interesting that Andy said that even if you choose not to tell your story, you might not even like your own story, and you can't run away from that. So choose your actions well today, it'll become your story of tomorrow.

The sermon can be found here.