Posted on 11 November 2008 @ 01:19 in Family, Personal
When I was a kid, I remember attending 21st birthday parties given (or “thrown” was the word) by my cousin sisters. It was THE birthday, and one of the main presents would be a little “21″ to be worn on a chain around the neck.
Much later, one of the uncles commented that while the girls celebrated their 21st birthdays in a grand manner, nothing much was heard of the birthdays after that.
For my 21st birthday, I didn’t have a grand party. Instead, I took my parents and my nanny out to dinner at a vegetarian restaurant. Mother had put that idea in my head, saying we should treat our parents to a meal because they were the ones who gave us life. Looking back, I think she said that because she never had a chance to treat her parents to a meal - she was given away as a baby, and had buried both her adopted parents during WWII, before she turned 21.
Instead of a “21″ on a chain, my sister had given me a little diamond cross on a chain, her acknowledgement of my Christian faith.
Other memorable birthdays through the years included my 31st celebrated in San Diego. My housemates had planned a surprise party for me and started to worry when I didn’t come home that evening, and when I finally did, they were not ready and one of them had to take me out to the stores cuz she needed “to get something”.
Then, there was the birthday I visited the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial in Washington, DC on Veterans’ Day, which happened to fall on my birthday.
More recently, there was the birthday I visited my beloved giant panda family at the San Diego Zoo. Three of them were on display that day - mummy Bai Yun, son Mei Sheng and baby Su Lin - and all three of them ignored me! That evening, I’d gone to see Janis Ian in concert. What a grand way to celebrate my 48th birthday.
And now two years later, I am half a century old. I spent the hour before the stroke of midnight reading through my previous birthday journal entries, and crying at some of them.
I have to admit I am a little nervous of turning 50, of being 50. But I have something wonderful to look forward to later today. I am spending the day with mother. She may not remember it’s my birthday, and people have asked if she still recognises me. I tell them I think she does.
She greets me with a wonderful smile whenever she sees me before her. She gives me her hand when I reach out for it, and she’s not even looking at me or my hand; somehow, she senses my hand nearby. And when I put her hand to my cheek, she pats it gently, and sometimes, more than a little “gently”.
I can’t ask for anything more than to spend time with my mother, especially on the day she gave me life.
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Posted on 20 October 2008 @ 01:34 in Personal
I’ve been lazy about updating my blog. It’s not that I haven’t found anything of interest or intrigue to write about. Actually, there’ve been lots, maybe too much going on in my head, that I can’t begin to sort myself out. Also, I still have a nasty habit of thinking and not doing (or writing).
It’s an exciting week ahead, especially next Saturday, when Preeta Samarasan will be appearing in two events - the MPH Breakfast Club in the morning, and Readings @ Seksan’s in the afternoon. It will be exactly a year since she last read at Seksan’s. I’m looking forward to seeing her, and asking her to sign my copy of her book.
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Posted on 4 October 2008 @ 10:40 in Personal
Lemon scented tea from Twinings of London.
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Posted on 2 October 2008 @ 12:01 in Personal
17 was 33 years ago, but it was a significant year, not just because that was the year Janis Ian released what was to become the anthem for 17s all over the world, but because that was the year I promised myself I would never marry.
I don’t remember the actual event (if any) that caused me to make that promise, but I remember a later event that got me to re-affirm the promise.
It was 6 years later, and I was visiting my aunt and family. Her eldest son, his wife and their infant son lived with her (or was it the other way round?). I remember the baby cried and my cousin yelling at his wife cuz the baby was crying. And a while later, they found the baby playing with some AA batteries, and he yelled at his wife again for leaving the batteries where the baby could get hold of them, and maybe put them in his mouth and choke himself.
I looked at this domestic scene and told myself I’d never have it happen to me. And the only way not to have it happen was to remain single.
Which is what I am till this day.
Wow … this is the first time I’m writing about it, and reading it, that sounds like such a silly reason. But I had, and still have, other more valid (to me) reasons for remaining single.
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Posted on 8 September 2008 @ 16:55 in Personal, Writing
I keep remembering something Robert Raymer said at the July 2008 MPH Breakfast Club event. He said we should write for ourselves before anything else (not his exact words but what I remember of it). He said a lot of the time we are posting comments on other people’s blogs when we should be writing for ourselves. The time spent reading and posting on other people’s blogs should be spent writing for ourselves.
During my recent excellent panda adventure trip, I wrote most nights into my AlphaSmart Neo, which would be my personal offline journal. I also posted on the Pandas Unlimited group on Flickr. I’ve been home almost three weeks, and I’m not doing very well with posts I mean to write about the trip. Why is that? Is it because I have already written about the trip, altho not here, but elsewhere? In which case, maybe I should just repost what I have written elsewhere? I could do that for a start, as a way to jumpstart the posts I have in my mind that’s exclusively for here, and not elsewhere.
No, it’s not going to work. Different time, different place, different frame of mind …
*goes to bang head against wall*
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