The pale light of the house on the end of the street against a sky melting to black. The taste and smell of smoke, the last of the Chinese New Year barbecues. My dog's claws clicking on asphalt as we blunder through the dark. The pinpoint of a rising planet. Tepid wind drawing itself along the street, up my legs, over my nape. Here, still warm macadam. Here, a fleeting touch from earlier today, the accident of a warm hand on mine.
There, voices calling out wishes. The dying embers of February, the lamplight like a swollen star.
This is my dog, Chip. I've probably mentioned at some point that he'll be sixteen years old in a month. Sixteen. That's like Okinawan islanders in dog years.
This dog has always marched to the beat of his own drum. As a pup he was willful and boisterous. As a full grown adult he grew territorial and opinionated and he actually bit passersby twice. He's never been a lap dog and he's not the kind of dog you can take on a day out at the beach, who lies shaggily content in the sun at your feet.
I love him all the same. In some ways, Chip is a lot like me - anxious, jittery and curious about everything he sees. As he grew older he mellowed and eventually, cataracts milked the light from his eyes. He started sleeping a lot and though he was still snuffly and alert, he had become a demure shadow of his former self. I imagined he was going to be like that the rest of his years.
For some reason, in the recent weeks he's become an absolute handful, as if he's found a second wind. He still sleeps in large chunks but at night, he sits up as if possessed and proceeds into ungodly caterwauling till the wee hours.
For fear of waking the neighbours or my (not very even-tempered) father, I jackknife out of bed, thunder down the stairs and entertain him in midnight sessions that sometimes last until 4am. You may have guessed, my friends, that I'm not getting very much sleep.
I've tried everything from feeding to timing his resting hours to chasing him up and down the driveway. I'm at the end of my tether, but dammit, I can't help but love that stinking mutt.
Yesterday, I decided to try a new tack. I took him for a walk.
Chip hasn't been on a proper walk for a long time. First he had a weak back and the vet said that we should abstain from long strolls for a while. Then the blindness set in.
I wasn't sure if he would be able to negotiate the pavements outside the house, but I figured some exercise would do him good anyway.
I found a good harness and his old leash and we set off to make a couple of loops on our old route, and I couldn't believe how much he had changed.
When we used to take walks, he was so aggressive that would attempt to attack dogs four times his size. He once got into a bad scrap with a cat and came away growling, blood dripping off his knotted muzzle.
Now, I have the most docile dog in the neighbourhood. I watched in wonder as he passed huge retrievers and shaggy black mutts, merely turning his head then trotting on. I let him go right up to a house gate with a yapping brown puppy behind it. He had a few cursory sniffs and made to leave. For once, I'm the one smiling and relaxed as other dog owners shout and yank their snarling charges aside.
Walking a dog is as much about communicating through touch as it is about obedience and with homeboy, touch has become that much more important. I let him make as many mistakes (in relative safety, of course) as possible, and soon he was scaling nose-high sidewalks and avoiding drain grates like he used to. We kept a good pace up and I saw his legs start to churn in that high-stepping trotting motion I used to love so much.
Chip naturally floundered and lost his orientation a little but he was still sensitive to the tautness of the leash, he still knew how to step around it when he had entangled his legs and best of all, he now trots to heel.
I don't know if it's helping him release any of that new energy he seems to have found, but it felt good to hear the confident rat-a-tat of his claws on the asphalt and walk in the darkness to the crystal clinking of a neighbour's windchimes.
It's late and it's been a busy (and slightly poorly) week. I'm still at the computer doing work right now, so I thought that as an interlude, I'd show anyone who's listening how my silly dog runs in his sleep.
Even in the midst of being sick, I've realised that comfort comes in many ways.
Yesterday, at work, I searched for a nearby physician to get some serious medication for a throat infection. Unable to sleep for the pain, I found myself standing in front of the mirror at 4:30 in the morning, snapping horrifically ugly pictures of my throat with my iPhone and trying to diagnose streptococcal pharyngitis with the help of Google and the presence of lesions on my palate.
I was still going have to work through the day, but damned if I wasn't going to get some artificial help to do it.
I found a clinic in my building, went in to see the doctor, and got the shock of my life.
He looked a lot like my late grandfather.
I hesitated in the doorway.
My grandfather had died after being bedridden for several years, but the man I knew passed a long time before that, when illness robbed him of all memory and eventually, speech.
But this elderly doctor recalled my grandfather when he was still cheeky and twinkling. He had the same dewlapped eyes (my mother always proudly pointed out the family's epicanthic folds), the same soft fluff of hair, wore his pants in the same loose, hunched high-waisted way. He even had a similar slow, spreading smile.
I went in, sat down.
He flashed it on, asked what he could do for me as if it would be his greatest pleasure to help. I watched, slightly hazy, as he took my temperature and turned the device to show me the figure and nodded "yes" as he looked down my throat. He wrote his notes in a trembling but precise hand in the kind of cursive people were taught in the fifties.
Then, he looked up at me, the slow smile spread again and he gently told me to stay away from citrus fruit, cold drinks and deep fried snacks. As I stood to leave, he added beatifically, "Happy New Year."
I left feeling strangely soothed and hopeful that my grandparents had found each other and were at a similar peace.
(Also, it might have had something to do with the fact that he gave me some amazeballs antibiotics that are making me light-headed, but better.)
Equally comforting are the "sick breakfasts" I'm enjoying. Here, is the last Pandoro of the season, star-shaped and cloaked in softly melting butter. (My mom's friend bought her this delicious smelling candle and I'm gleefully waiting in the sidelines with my lighter and wick trimmer.)
This morning, to line my stomach before my medication, I had some of my favourite smoked cheese, walnut toast (the Sunshine brand is cheap and good) with a chive and garlic spread and hot black tea with honey and lemon.
And my father just brought me a lovely hot congee with soft meatballs.
Apart from just being a good sick lunch? Congee and meatballs are so neutral and nutritious that my best friend enjoyed some too.
PS Every now and then I prick a little cod liver oil capsule from my supply and squeeze the contents over hot food for Chip. His coat shines a treat and at nigh-on sixteen, it can't be doing him much harm!
The house is slowly winding down as the last geese leave for Winter.
My two brothers have gone to Canada and Melbourne and it'll be some time before we meet again. HS has been in Melbourne for several years anyway, so I'm kind of used to him not being around, but this is the first time HW is leaving home for so long.
On the one hand, the peace can be nice. I can spend the evenings doing work or reading with a very sleepy dog who constantly scratches himself.
One of my favourite ways to spend an evening, when I get the chance to stay in, is with a cup of hot tea, a biscuit and the time to while away the hours. My mother recently bought this amazing snack from Isetan - we'd had these biscuits once before and afterwards I went searching high and low but was unable to track them down till now.
The milky, white biscuit has a mild, sweet subtlety that goes beautifully with the darker, slightly salty headiness of the almonds and I love the crispness of the edges. I'm a crunchy cookie kind of person - I much prefer these to their softer, more doughy cousins.
The garden is also currently in full bloom. My father planted these Bauhinia about two years ago and they're finally flowering in balls of incredible colour.
On the other hand, I miss my brothers. Loads. The house is too quiet and while I used to rush into the room next door with news and giggles and youtube videos, it's now completely empty.
When we were children, my brothers and I loathed each other. Nothing delighted them more than stepping on me at bedtime (I slept on the floor) and dancing wildly round the phone and shouting "Pansy! Pansy!" when I was talking with my first boyfriend (the poor soul's name was Andy).
Because I grew up with boys, I was a lot more rough and tumble than many girls my age and frequently got into trouble at their behest. Instead of playing with dolls and plastic fruit, we played war games (I was the field nurse) and constructed makeshift gymnastics apparatus by flipping the couches upside down. It was always a frantic race to right them before my parents came home.
Once, we discovered that talcum powder on a parquet floor made the wood slippery and dumped an entire bottle of Carrie's Medicated onto the bedroom slats. My mother came home into a fog of white, only to see scarved skaters whizzing by in socks on the powdered parquet. Needless to say, the scolding was massive.
I'll never forget the time they thought it would be prudent to teach me to ride the family bicycle down the exceedingly steep ramp to the common carpark. "Don't be a chicken. Just don't brake," HS instructed with typical boy blitheness, "and you can zoom right up the ramp on the other side without any effort." I had never seen a wall come at me so fast. Horrified, the boys ran behind me screaming, "Brake! Brake!" and "Turn! Tuuuurn!" as I slammed full speed into the concrete and lay on the floor, seeing stars for a full five minutes afterwards.
Another time, we were playing at being war journalists and climbing up and down a high wall edged with razor sharp stucco. As HS tried to help me down, HW held on to my arms at the top of the wall, and I got stuck between them. Annoyed, I snapped, "Let go," which both of them promptly did. The sight of the blood streaming from a gash my leg alarmed HS so much that he tore his t-shirt off like Jacob Black, screaming, "Wipe it!" as he ran to get a first aid kit. I still have that scar today.
The violence wasn't limited to play time. We also got into raging fights involving punching and clawing. Once, HS had to disguise HW's black eye with my mother's concealer before our parents got home. As we got older, the stakes got higher, from hiding a black eye to the theft of the family car.
Somehow, as children are wont to do, we grew up and became best friends. Discovering that we have the same sense of humour and are united by our pasts didn't hurt. We told and kept secrets, gave advice and continued tossing around good-natured jibes. We spent hours and hours talking about everything - our parents, the future, our worries and dreams. Sometimes, we would even read each others' minds. Some people tell me they wish they had relationships like that with their siblings.
After HS left, HW and I went on long walks round the neighbourhood just so we could talk and each time we passed the gate of our house, he would look at me and say, "Come on, Che, just one more round."
I will miss that. I will also miss coming home and sitting with him watching youtube videos for ages and laughing our heads off at every silly thing. Just before he left, we formed a Nicholas Cage hate-club of sorts. I've never been a Nic Cage fan and when I was in the UK, a friend showed me just how bad his acting was from numerous clips on youtube. I shared them with HW and we were hooked.
One night, we discovered a particularly choice scene from a horrendous-looking movie, Deadfall. If you've never heard of it, I strongly advise you to check it out. I mean, this is a movie so heinous that people rate Nic Cage's hammy supporting turn as the most unintentionally hilarious performance in the world. HW laughed so much he started to cry.
For my birthday this year, he printed and laminated the funniest still from the movie. I've tacked it in front of my bed so that it is the first thing I see every morning.
We watched the clip one last time, all three of us, before they left. I've been overseas to study and I can only imagine how excited they must feel, starting something new. HS is going to look for work and start building a life and HW has years of learning ahead of him. I'm thrilled for them.
But it remains that I will miss them because home isn't the same without them. And that I already can't wait for them to come home.
In the meantime, I leave you with this. I hope it brings some laughter to your day too.
I was woken far too early this morning by the guys who had come to replace the curtains. My annoyance disappeared quickly the moment I saw the curtains I had picked hanging up - they're the perfect mix of provencal and crisp botanical drawings and match the rest of my room very nicely.
Sometimes I forget that we've been living in this house for over four years now; it still feels like such a new experience. But things are falling apart. My old earth toned, striped curtains were starting to rip to shreds.
This weekend was spent doing other lazy things amid frenzied bouts of work. I was so exhausted yesterday that I crawled into bed without touching my Nanowrimo word count and had to make up for it by blowing through 3,000 words today. Never again. On the bright side, I found a little video on YouTube about how cockroaches groom themselves. I'll spare you the visual, but when I saw it lifting its leg like a puppy to paw at its feelers, I actually went "Awww". Yikes.
Hanwei snapped some photos of me taking a casual nap on the floor with Chip. He's not the kind of dog who enjoys cuddling up in general but sometimes, when he's tired, he likes company.
I spent last night chilling with this little guy while his parents took a much needed break and caught themselves a movie. My friends haven't been out together since their kid was born and I thought it would be nice babysitting practise for me since I have lots of other friends who are likely to procreate soon.
I've never looked after such a young baby before, but Little T was a breeze. He stared at me in puzzlement for the first two hours but I eventually discovered that if I tickled him behind the knee and told him emphatically to "kick! kick! kick! kick!" he went crazy giggling. We played in the baby gym, read two books on bath time and took several
tours of the house as he sucked on my shirt on my shoulder. I think I'm in love.
And finally, my first What's in My Purse on this blog. I love looking at pictures of what people carry about on their daily business because they're both visually appealing and revealing. I especially love all the cute stationery women carry in their bags and looking at what people read when they're out and about. In my bag this weekend (From L to R):
1) iPhone 4
2) Coin purse with band aids and hairpins
3) A stack of flash cards that I've been using for work
4) Rilakkuma stickers that we hand out for good assignments
5) Red toiletries case
6) Lavender wet wipes, because I spill like crazy
7) Spotted Tesco mini umbrella
8) iPod with fluorescent orange earphones that match my...
9) Fluorescent orange rubber pouch that contains extra earphones and pens
10) My wallet, a special gift from a friend a long time ago
11) A packet of tissues
12) A one-use poncho leftover from the National Day Parade. Just in case
13) Extra sugar free gum
14) My very exciting Totoro keychain with a Starbucks thumbdrive I got for putting a top up on my card
The bright yellow bag is from Nine West, a present from my mom several months ago when she saw it and told me she thought she had to buy it because I love to wear yellow.
So it's back to work now, Sunday blues and finishing up marking and reading about hydraulic fracturing. It promises to be a long week ahead, but I just keep marking writing milestones and making gratitude lists in my head and one day, I'll be there.
Just a quick one before I rush out the door for the day - today is the midpoint of Nanowrimo. As of last night, I had 23,000something words and if all goes according to plan tonight, I should have something in the region of 25,000 before bed.
Wow. The halfway mark. I never imagined successfully getting there. I thought I would struggle with work and then give up in haste, but I guess things are working out better than I imagined so far.
In the meantime, here are a couple of snaps of my best buddy and one of my favourite pairs of PJs. The sad, short pencil totally cracks me up.
Sometimes, I playfully strangle Chip because he lets me. He sits there gently blinking with trust as I wrap my hand around his throat and gently throttle him. It really makes me laugh. It says so much about our relationship that such an alpha dog allows me to grab him by the neck or even bite him.
Then again, my father says that every day, the moment I come home and Chip smells me (he can't see), he starts barking madly. No matter whether I run upstairs to put my bag down and change my clothes or whether I cuddle him before having a quick shower, he barks his head off until I have spent a sufficient amount of time reassuring him that I am present for good.
My father said that it really annoyed him and that he didn't know why the blasted dog had to go so crazy from just catching a whiff of me every night.
