Gesamtkunstwerk

grandma had a nasty fall, and i went to look in on her - a week late. she took 10 stitches on the crown of the head last saturday, had them removed yesterday, and i show up today. i'll admit it does look suspicious, when she's apparently planned her post-trauma-survival will.

depending on whose account it was, the number of stitches varied, but one fact stayed true. she was unfazed by any pain - after the fall, after seeing the blood, at both sessions with the stitches. i'm proud of the tough old bird. sis said maybe nothing's a big deal anymore after bearing 10 children. and i'm suddenly doing the math now to get NINETY months of HOLYFUCK that's SEVENANDAHALF years of pregnancy HOLYFUCK.

we had a simple dinner and a gambling session, late cny spirit and all. i was on a winning streak when sis pointed to my pile of rm1 blues, complained of her steady decline, and diverted the ladies' screeching banter (with my cousin and 2 aunts, 6 in all) to who had the most money. a look round the table found the 'richest'. mom's gambling dough was stashed in a slim case originally for a discount voucher booklet, nonetheless bearing the name "pavilion", of the high-end shopping mall. more lame jokes followed, the gals were on the roll, when someone asked... "what does pavilion mean ar?"

"it's a... small house kinda thing," sis volunteered.
"small house only ahh?! i thought it meant something like a big mansion!" mom objected.
"actually it's more of a shelter," i butted in.
"what? shelter?" mom's look turned ugly.

"nolah it's that small house thing by the paddy fields," sis argued.
"huh? no it's a shelter... like in the mountains, when people get tired from walking, there's that place to sit, that thing," i invoked a scenic chinese painting: an arbour, travellers and wine, pine and cherry and rock.
"from big house to small house to shelter!" mom lamented her pathetic fortune.

grandma served the punchline, "ahh, but u own a mountain as well."

such wit!

i'm pretty damn sure her head is just fine.

...means what ah?

valuing my colleague more than u value your employee.
one who toughed it out through a clear and cold crisis.

stick it to the man who says farewells shouldn't be celebrated. fuck that!

in this season of small talk and cookie varieties, of excess and insincere smiles, i found i'd suddenly lost my appetite. and realized i'd actually lost it way before. days had become weeks. somewhere along the line eating had become a routine, devoid of meaning or joy. this is a good time to either indulge in some seriously exorbitant gourmet... or turn vegetarian. no kidding.

during the reunion with my folks across the causeway, i'd failed to appreciate any of the food, where some were lauded signature dishes of my late grandma. just kept my eyes glued to the ip man dvd (which i watched aGain last week at sm's), as the old ones waxed lyrical. when the movie ended, to avoid patronising my dear relatives and yet escape boredom, i made some surreal landscape art on my styrofoam cup. it's a meld of intaglio sculpture and chinese brushstrokes, and it's so good it warrants some bragging, really...

speaking of surreal, i read "blind willow, sleeping woman" on the way there and back. classic murakami. when a story takes off, all the fantastical becomes believeable. when a story goes nowhere, and this is the part i love - it's just like your life. u draw parallels, and become the characters. u reflect incessantly, round and round. from this irony of parallels and roundabouts is a trap of deep poignancy, that ultimately came from nothing. murakami is the master of nothing. i wonder if i can be the same.

over the weekend i tallied my angpows, and of aaaaall the ones to lose... i'd misplaced my mother's. i know i know, tsk tsk tsk tsk, but it's sooooomewhere in my room. otherwise, an uneventful start to the cow year. which makes u wonder: how the tandem beginnings of the new year and the chinese new year seem to create an illusory second chance.