Heaven's Got A Brand New Angel

If you've been a long time reader, you will join me in my pain as I tell you that my little girl, Tracy, has passed on yesterday.

She had been flailing for a while. She had cancer, arthritis, pneumonia, failing liver and kidneys, the likes. She was 13 years old.

I had actually made the decision to let her go when I was at the vet's the day before.

But when I woke up yesterday morning, I thought to myself - I shouldn't be the one to decide when she goes. She should be the one deciding.

She wasn't eating or drinking anymore, so we had to put her on a drip to get some nutrients into her body. We were at the vets yesterday for the drip. We waited outside while they attended to the myriad of sick animals brought in.

Right before our turn, I was cradling Tracy like a baby, and she peed on me. I put her down and the boyfriend helped me to clean up. Then I let her sleep on the floor on the blanket.

There were people walking around, so I carried her up to the bench to let her sleep. I had my hand on her. Then I realised that her breathing was laboured and that she wasn't breathing as much. Just then, our name was called and we carried her gingerly into the surgery room.

I told the attendant that she wasn't breathing and he checked her heart rate. When he couldn't find one, another vet came in to check. She then asked if we wanted to resuscitate her.

I looked at Tracy, terrified that I would make the wrong decision. With a heavy heart, I shook my head.

I watched her slowly and peacefully slip away, right in front of my very eyes.

Sobs wrecked my body, but still I tried to hold it in. It was hard. Too hard.

I kissed her repeatedly and said goodbye. I said I loved her very, very much. And I said I'm sorry.

She looked just like she was sleeping. She turned cold. Then she left.

There goes the most beautiful soul on Earth I have ever known. She was brave to the end, even wageed her tail when we picked her up to go to the vet.

There goes my little girl, my baby.

In a sense I was relieved. She wouldn't be suffering any more. But as any grief-stricken dog owner who has lost a beloved friend would tell you, sorrow overtakes everything else.

She has been my very best friend throughout my life, and all I could give her was a normal life. I couldn't give her the best, or an exceptional life, in return for all she's done for me.

Goodbye my baby. Wherever you go, please remember that mummy loves you very, very much. Take care of yourself, have fun playing in the open fields in the sun with all the other dogs who have gone there, don't fall off the rainbow bridge and mummy will come and find you when her time is up too, ok? Remember to make friends and eat many many treats and mess up many many towels and blankets and laze all day in the sun.






























































"You are my sunshine,
My only sunshine
You make me happy
When skies are grey
You'll never know dear,
How much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away."

My Baby

Today I found out that the most beautiful little girl in the world, my little CKCS Tracy, has cancer.

I'd known for a while that she had cancer. What with the diminishing weight, the loss of appetite and the fast growing tumor on her neck. It was inevitable. It was just that my colleague today had a scare with her dog, and I decided to rush my own to visit the vet.

The vet confirmed that the lump on her neck was cancer. It was the dirtiest word anyone could ever mutter. It sounded like a death sentence more than anything else. With his confirmation, it felt like a boulder had just crashed into my chest and broke all my ribs.

I was bleeding inside.

I stood outside the clinic and stifled my whimpers while waiting for her medication. I cried in the car all the way back, bawling uncontrollably at the traffic lights. Tears marred my vision and I couldn't stop shaking. It's a wonder how I got home in one piece.

She was already on heart and liver medication. I was already having to spoon feed her wet food every night in an attempt to get her weight up. Nothing is working.

She's slowly slipping out of my grasp.

My Tracy is now 13 years old. She has been with me for 11 wonderful years. She stuck by my darkest hours through my adolescence. She laid on my stomach to give me warmth when I was having the worst gastric episodes. We sat side by side on quiet evenings. She slept with her head on my pillow, or under the covers with me on cold nights. She followed me wherever I went, even if it was to the toilet.

And I've cried countless tears into her fur.

She is the best and most loyal dog I have ever had the pleasure of caring for and loving. I regret that I was not the best of owners to her, because there's so much more that I could've done and so much more I could've given her. I wasn't able to provide the best quality of life for her. She was abused before she came to me and now she still has to suffer.

And for that, I hate myself.

Tracy baby.. Mama loves you very much. So very, very much. And I will do all I can to make sure that you're not feeling uncomfortable for however long we have left. Mama will spend as much time as she possibly can with you.

I know it may be selfish to ask this of you, but stay with Mama, for now. Stay a while longer. Give mama a chance to love you, a little while longer.

I love you.

In A Flash

The school holidays are passing in a blur of children, outings and tuition classes. JCC's been busier than usual, what with the kids here for half the day (literally half of the day - 12 hours) and the preparing for next year's intake and the organizing the outings on top of the cooking daily. There was even a period of 2 weeks where my staff was on leave and I had to run JCC on my own from opening to closing (again, it's 12 hours).

Whoever the hell who is not a business owner trying to run a business by themselves, and who says their job is to bao sua bao hai (cover mountain cover sea) (a hokkien term for having to do everything) can go fuck themselves. 

Weather's been unpredictable, but so far on all our outings it's been good luck so far. Let's hope the skies will clear up later on today and let us maintain our lucky streak. 

We're going to the Kids' Kampong today! Apparently there's longkang fishing (squatting next to a small drain with a small net and a bucket to catch the fishes inside) and animal feeding. My friend Tommy's going too, and his kids are going in at my expense. I'm actually more than happy to pay for them, but apparently I need to pay for the maid's entry too. Bummer. 

Makes one wonder exactly how many families cannot handle their own children and needs the maid to follow them everywhere. 

Aaaaanyway, I watched The Hobbit with the boyfriend yesterday. Movie was supposed to be good, but the Cathay cinema at Causeway Point kind of ruined the show for us. The show kept stopping halfway through, dragging us out of the story with some crappy techno playing to a blank screen while we groaned and cursed, and then forcing us back in a little ways on so that we either forgot what was going on in the show or couldn't catch what was said for that few lost seconds. Also, the colour tone shifted between reddish and blueish while Gandalf was having a meeting with Elrond and Galadriel. I was so turned off with the colour tone changing every few seconds that I didn't catch anything they said at all. Also, no reparations were offered.

Avoid Cathay cinemas at Causeway Point people, it will ruin the experience of a good movie. They are el sucko. 

Christmas Is Coming

Random squawk: Pardon the elementary language, I haven't written for very long and it seems I have lost my touch. Imma try to write as much as possible to get that magic back.


So my staff went on a long leave (11 days, to be exact), and I am stuck with covering for her during the school holidays, on top of my own duties in the morning. Which means I am working from 7am to 7pm daily until she comes back.

I am so sleepy!

Planned all sorts of activities and stuff for the December school holidays. Wonder if it's all worth it. But then again, this month is the first month that JCC's turned a profit since it opened its doors in April this year. Got lots of new sign-ups this month, thanks to my tireless efforts in stalking parents outside the schools when they went for their P1 orientation.

Since JCC opened, I think I've changed very much as a person. Skiving is a thing of the past now. I am laden with so much responsibilities and an endless to-do list, I am permenantly wound up and hardly get any sleep. If you think you have it bad now, with a boss hanging over your head, try being a boss yourself. It's bad when your boss berates you, but it's much worse when you have to berate yourself.

But yeah, felt satisfied when I saw the numbers going up on the monthly report this month. Woohoo~!


So the boyfriend took me out to the beach yesterday, and we brought a red pail and a big net. I was expecting a couple of baby half beak fishes at the most, but what we got was a lot more.

We got a few different species of small crabs from the beach itself, a snail which I thought was a plastic trinket at first because of the bright colours, 3 gobys (one of which is a cannibal and I have to remember to remove it later when I get home), 2 hermit crabs (one of which was supposed to be an empty shell for the first hermit crab to change into, but ended up having another hermit crab inside), and a handful of tiny little scats, which in hokkien is called "kim kor".

The boyfriend picked up and showed me the sand dollar, which I've never noticed before. I didn't even knew they existed! He showed me how to find the sand dollars, and after I learned how to, I couldn't stop seeing them all over the beach. Those little bitches were everywhere!

I indulged in a little childish habit of mine, which was to pick up seashells. The boyfriend was cool enough to join in my silly antics and allowed me to bring the shells I picked home. I brought 2 home, both equally impressive. One was white, conical and enlongated with ridges lining the sides, and the other was smooth, round and sparkly clean.  The boyfriend himself brought back a lower jawbone of a barracuda, and two rocks with seaweed growing out of them.

We put them all into a small marine tank and the end result was nicer than we originally thought it would be. We have a tiny ecosystem going on in there, inclusive of fish, crustaceans, a mollusc, sand, rocks and seaweed. It was so much nicer than if we went to a shop and bought the stuff. Granted, most of the animals in there are not sold in shops (because they're "not nice" enough to have people pay money for them), but what we have was something more special.

What we have is the reminder of a day out in the sun, at the beach, with a pail in one hand and a net in the other, acting like small kids and getting excited over tiny fish. Not to mention a little piece of the beach in my house.

It was a romantic day :)

Updates

So the adorable new guy told me that he wanted our monthly "nice meal" to be on the 18th of this month, and that it should be a really nice dinner.

Was wondering why of all months, he chose this one to set a specific date. Then it hit me - 18th Nov was our half-anniversary! Our first tiny milestone!

For those of you thick in the skull, it's been officially 6 months since we've been together. And it's adorable that he remembered.

Aaaaanyway, work's great, life's great, nothing to complain about.

Since my hiatus, I :

- changed a boyfriend
- opened my own student care centre
- made some new friends, formed a group called 'G6' (long story)
- been thoroughly enjoying life

Work's been stressful as hell, but then again, work always is, but in this case because I'm working for myself, I'm the hard-pressed boss who yells at myself all the time when I make a mistake.

But you get the picture.

G6 is fun, although our Alpha was the first to disappear. Then we have Bravo, and Charlie (that's me), and Delta, and Echo (who is dating Delta), and Foxtrot. 6 people in total, thus, G6. Because, "like a G6, like a G6".

Til next time, au revoir!

We're Going To The Zoo!

.... Tomorrow.

So excited!

Clinton and I. Just us. :)

Memories

Memories are such bittersweet things.

You relish them, and yet when you relive them you get that twisty sniffle in your nasal passage, that sour feeling, almost as if you were going to cry.

And you're perilously close to. You scrunch up your face, hoping that the tears won't come.

They don't. They never come. So you're stuck with that anticlimatic feeling, like an unfulfilled orgasm, for the rest of the night.


I got around to watching old movies from my childhood recently. They're awesome, and they bring back lots of sweet memories. There is a love-hate relationship with sweet memories; you love them because they're sweet, but you hate them because they're gone.

I watched The Secret Garden the other day. It was one of my mother's favourite shows. I get the feeling that it still is. She even made up stories about the main characters, what happened to them after the movies. My mom once told me that when she grows old, she'd like her own little secret garden. I'm working towards that.

Was watching Hook today. It took me back to a time when I still believed in faries and toys that magically wake up to play when you're sleeping. I think I read too many Enid Blyton books then.

Memories took me back to when everything was fun, and innocent, and carefree. But what marrs the sweetness was that it also took me back to a time when mom and dad were young and carefree too. Dad still had a full head of black hair, and mom was carefree enough to always be planning and plotting new adventures for the weekend.

What happened?

Did we all lose focus on what's important, or did we all just grew up?

Will we all get so complacent that we forget that one day, people will leave and worlds will come crashing down?

Cliche as it may sounds, treasure the people around you, the people who love you. Build even more bittersweet memories, take lots of pictures to help.

You never know when they may come in handy.