Yearly Archives: 2009

Praise The Night

Oh, and lis­ten to this.

Sometimes you wish your friends lived far away so you could dri­ve home for­ev­er, and sing off-key into the dark­ness.

But at some point you have to come home and undress, you have to stop the pres­sure of the water run­ning down your back and step out of the show­er, you have to go to bed for the sake of your colon, you have to put aside your thoughts for anoth­er day.

There was some­thing about his expres­sion that made you believe that you’re bet­ter now. You’re safer. Maybe the real­iza­tion that your mis­takes are your own to make. That you’re stronger now than you ever were, and that peo­ple care about you, enough to tell you the truth when it’s the last thing you want to hear.

Praise the night, for this would­n’t be pos­si­ble any oth­er time.

Little Hong Kong Differences

I’ve been back from my trip to Hong Kong for a lit­tle over a month now. Here are some lit­tle dif­fer­ences I’ve noticed between there and here.

Parking

Space is at a pre­mi­um in Hong Kong, so park­ing spots are tiny. Most cars have fold­ing side-mir­rors, and prox­im­i­ty sen­sors that beep faster the clos­er you are to some­thing when back­ing up. Vans and SUVs have mir­rors on the back win­dows that lets a dri­ver see the back bumper through the rear-view mir­ror. That way, you can squeeze into a space with­out any guess work, although it takes about three or four turns, Austin Powers style.

Parking sensors

Some park­ing lots also have these lights above the spots that let peo­ple know if a car is parked in the space — green means it’s avail­able. That way, you can see what spots are free with a quick glance, instead of dri­ving around and hunt­ing.

Taking care of the elderly

Workout area

In the parks, there are work­out areas for the elder­ly. They include things like Gazelles, bench step­pers, and wheels you can rotate for flex­i­bil­i­ty. This is so awe­some. Canada should have some­thing like this. My grand­ma used come to this park to work out before she had colon can­cer.

Bench stepper station

Fitness guide

How cool is it that the sym­bol they use is the sil­hou­ette of some­one doing sin­gle whip. I found this sym­bol in many parks actu­al­ly, and I think it means that it’s a pub­lic park.

There are also speak­ers that beep at the traf­fic lights to let blind peo­ple know when to cross, and sub­way esca­la­tors that click con­stant­ly, so they know where to get on.

Continue read­ing “Little Hong Kong Differences”…

Amnesiac Weekends

My throat has devel­oped some­thing of a raspy tinge from talk­ing all week­end. I’ve nev­er had par­tic­u­lar­ly strong vocal chords. I told myself I’d speak as lit­tle as pos­si­ble today; we’ll see how long that lasts. Maybe I can drink some hon­ey tea instead.

It was­n’t so much that I over­booked myself as plans going on for much longer than expect­ed. Which pret­ty much means I did­n’t get any work done, so I won’t be going to Toronto next week­end so I can catch up. Not that I real­ly want to any­more, as the last two days have left me feel­ing over­stim­u­lat­ed and sat­is­fied. Anyway, Dan took a quick look at my chart for this month (on his own ini­tia­tive) and told me not to do any­thing big on the 15th and 16th because it’s “risky”. I nev­er let my horo­scope deter­mine what I do, but maybe this is the way the uni­verse tells me to stay home.

I did­n’t even have time to do my week­ly gro­cery shop­ping. I’m eat­ing stale bread and canned soups today.

The best part of the week­end was hav­ing an excuse to use the Numi Dancing Leaves teabuds and teapot that Louise bought me last Christmas, some­thing I’d been sav­ing for spe­cial occa­sions. Amazingly, I got three full steeps — which trans­lates into six cups — out of one Golden Jasmine bud.

Those things I had been try­ing to for­get got lost some­where in the before I even real­ized it. Isn’t that what for­get­ting is about?

Sometimes I need these week­ends. They recharge me, they give me hope, when hope is so fleet­ing.

I’m try­ing to ride that feel­ing, and let it car­ry me for­ward.

Photographing Wildlife

Chipmunk

Snail

Bird

I gen­er­al­ly don’t take pho­tos of wildlife, because I don’t have the right equip­ment; the most tele­pho­to lens I have is a 100mm macro, where I’d say at least 200mm is need­ed. Wildlife also tends to be dif­fi­cult to cap­ture, since the vari­ables are so hard to con­trol (espe­cial­ly with mod­els that don’t under­stand ver­bal com­mands), and the chances fleet­ing. Every now and then, an oppor­tu­ni­ty presents itself though.