Copper is becoming more and more like a ninja cat. He is always so calm and stealthy (except for some crazy moments), watching and observing the on-goings from wherever he is perched. If you catch him staring and stare back, sometimes he will give a "mmm?" or a "yeowk!" as if to say "le kuah simi?"
Hubby and I have fun trying to catch him unaware and provoking this reaction ;) After being pregnant I've caught him a few times staring at my tummy. I think he must be wondering what illness Mummy is down with.
I would like to think of him as my guardian angel :) Sometimes when I'm napping on the sofa, Copper would come around and sniff at me, then put a paw on me as if to check "你没事吧？" If I react to him, he then goes away satisfied. Sometimes he would also insist on squeezing in and sleeping with me.
Nowadays Copper has also become rather sticky, preferring to follow and sit in the same room as me. As I'm typing this, he is sleeping at my feet. Not sure if it's because he can sense a baby coming i.e. insecurity... but I don't think the cats know I'm pregnant.
When Hubby goes to work in the mornings, Copper would also meow unceasingly outside my bedroom door, sometimes scratching at it vigorously. Hubby told me that one afternoon when I was napping in the bedroom, Copper sat at attention outside it for a whole 10 minutes before giving up!
Since becoming pregnant, I've been reading up on motherhood forums and chatting with friends who have been through pregnancy. Many of them talk about having really bad backaches and not being able to bend over to pick things up from the ground, or having difficulty getting up after sitting on the floor.
Indeed I've been getting backaches these few weeks as Boy Boy grows heavier --- I gained 2 kg in the last 2 weeks! He's so heavy that I cannot sleep on my back anymore, as he squashes all my organs and makes it hard for me to breathe.
Sleeping on my sides helps me breathe better, but it squashes a bit of Boy Boy's hands/legs on each side, and he retaliates by giving huge punches/kicks that keep me up all night!
Strangely for me, bending over and getting up from the floor is still okay. Every day I sit on a huge cushion on the floor to use my laptop, and often have to get up to pick up the home phone or just to respond to the cats.
Maybe that is why. Having to constantly 'entertain' the two pesky cats is forcing me to 'exercise' my muscles, although I don't know if that's good or bad for my pregnancy.
My main exercise nowadays is playing 'Bean Bean' with Copper. By coincidence one day, I realised that he enjoys chasing soyabeans. I think it is because the size is just right and similar to bugs, which the cats like to chase around the house.
They will slam their paws down on the unlucky bug, who then gets stuck in between their paw pads. It's actually quite funny when the cats can't figure out where the bug went.
Most importantly, soyabeans are so much cheaper than cat toys sold in pet shops, which sometimes the cats don't even touch after we bring the toys home.
Here's a video of Copper playing Bean Bean.
Unfortunately the beans often roll under the sofa and into nooks and crannies and disappear. One day Hubby found out where all the beans go to die:
So I have to keep climbing up from the floor to throw the bean for Copper. Sometimes I got to crawl on all fours, or look under the sofa to get his bean out too.
Nowdays Copper is clever and will meow and hang around the area, waiting for me to pick the bean out for him. Sometimes when he comes to me dejected after losing his beans (haha!), I will ask him to show me, and he'll bring me to where the bean is stuck.
Hubby is skeptical when I tell him this ;) I'm sure you're rolling your eyes too. But it's true!
Being pregnant is supposed to make one clumsy. I hadn't really felt the effects until today, and Copper suffered because of it :(
I was playing 'stick the sticker on Copper' when his sticker went underneath our boxy woofer speaker. Copper stuck his right paw underneath it, trying to peel it out. I was sitting near him, and tried to help by lifting the speaker a little.
Unfortunately it tilted too much and started to fall over. I lurched forward to stop it from falling onto him but my tummy got in the way and I was not in time. The speaker fell with a thud, and Copper zipped away.
He looked very startled and held his right arm above the ground. When we tried to comfort him he ran away from us. We observed him to see if his arm was ok, and later Hubby grabbed and felt his arms to see if they were fractured.
Copper started to behave normally and jumped around as usual, using his right arm. This gave us a sense of relief until I noticed blood on the floor. Quickly checked if it came from his nose or ears. Turns out his paw was bleeding a little, but we ultimately couldn't find the wound because his fur is dark brown.
The bleeding stopped by itself and Copper is now back to normal, sleeping on the window ledge beside me as I'm typing on my PC. But I think we shall watch him closely, in case there are any after-effects of the accident. Feel so guilty!!!
One afternoon last year, Hubby was walking home from the carpark when a little ball of fur ran towards him and started rolling around his feet. It was a tiny kitten! It must have been new, for we had never seen it around before.
A few days later, I heard meowing outside my front door and opened it to find the same kitten. We had no idea how it managed to take the lift up to our floor. Could it be fate? Were we meant to take it in as our 3rd cat?
I went out and cuddled it, bringing it close to my main gate where Copper and Marvel were watching, excited at meeting a new friend. Unexpectedly, it was the kitten who hissed and snarled upon meeting. Alas then, we could not bring it home. So I took it back downstairs to the void deck, where it persisted to enter the lift lobby.
After that, we saw it a few times. I named it 小麦 because of its oat colour. In March 08, it grew into a tween and we sort of identified which mother cat it belonged to. It also got into a habit of sleeping in a particular bicycle basket in the void deck, and I got into the habit of visiting him whenever I walked there.
Then 小麦 disappeared for some time. And when he resurfaced, he looked like this:
Big and fat! I guess he had been off picking fights and sowing his wild oats (pun not intended), and kena caught to be neutered (see the clipped ear). Now he looks like a mafia cat! But still meows very un-mafia-ly in his high pitched voice when I call to him.
I seldom see him now though. Hubby has more chance meetings with him :)
Sigh, they grow up so fast... I am apprehensive of the day when Copper and Marvel grow old and become unable to enjoy their daily activities like fighting, chasing each other and leaping onto high places. Or when one of them goes before the other :(
With my bigger tummy now, it's become difficult and unsafe for me to climb into the bathtub during bath time. So since last week, I've been taking showers at the common toilet instead of using the master bathroom.
Now, the common toilet can be said to be the cats' territory. Ever since they came to live with us, that has been their area for shitting and eating. The kitty litter tray sits in the glass-surrounded shower area, while their water bowl sits near the door.
Because of my new bathing arrangement, their litter tray has been exiled to a squeezy area beside the toilet bowl, and Hubby set up a barricade to guide their path and prevent them from tracking the litter all over the house. Poor cats!
Usually I take my baths at night before bed. So every night these few days, the cats have been 'treated' to a performance by yours truly. Because they need to use the litter tray, I don't close the toilet door completely during the shower.
Both cats have been loyal fans, coming into the toilet and sitting in front of the glass door, watching me shower. Tsk tsk, boys are all the same, regardless of species ;)
That's actually good training for me, cos I got to get used to feeling 'exposed'. After all, going into labour means lying with my naked bottom exposed to all the nurses and doctors for many hours, as they monitor my situation. Occasionally they'll also stick their fingers into my hole to check if my cervix is opening enough to start pushing the baby.
No wonder people get so much more 'open' after they become mothers! Got to be mentally prepared eeps!!!
Ok back to the cats. Copper usually gets the $168 seat, coming right up to the glass or hopping onto the covered toilet bowl. Marvel just slumps near the door, looking traumatised haha!
Copper is fixated with the water ripples on the floor and tries to catch them through the glass. He's also bewildered when I aim the shower-head at him and the water halts instead of touching him. Strange that he doesn't express the same kind of curiosity when I bathe them in that same shower area.
But it was interesting when they first arrived at our home, as we kept them in the shower area for the first week to get them accustomed to their territory. They had no notion of 'glass', and were actually banging into it and looking extremely perplexed.
Now though, they've become experts, even knowing how to look at the reflections in glass around the house to decide when to swipe at each other or at one of us. Clever boys!
Another doggone problem! There is a pug living in one of my neighbouring flats. It's a cute little black thing; we saw it once when during our renovations, it charged out of its unit and into ours, freaking the painter out. We have nothing against it. In fact, when we met its owners in the lift lobby, we smile at and refer to each other as "the couple with the dog" and "the couple with the cats". It was peaceful co-existence.
But things changed this week. We usually keep our main door slightly ajar for fresh air, so the cats can have some action to look at and won't die of boredom. One night the cats were chilling by the gate as usual, when suddenly we heard Marvel hissing and puffing up like a pufferfish.
My husband went to pull open the door, only to see our neighbours hugging their pug, with a visiting niece and grandma in tow, all standing outside our gate. When exposed, they quickly turned without a word and walked briskly back to their unit on the opposite end of the corridor.
Obviously the couple wanted to show their niece what happens when cute little pug meets the cats. There was no reason for them to be standing outside our gate otherwise; they will reach the rubbish chute before our unit.
It was not the first time pug met cats; it had previously escaped from its unit and freaked Marvel out. So dear neighbour was aware that it was not a pleasant experience for our cats. And they still performed the 'experiment' for the kid to see.
And it happened again the next night. Our main door was closed and Copper was sniffing around it, looking at me and meowing. This is usually his signal that he wants the door to be opened so he can check things out. I had turned the knob and opened the door by barely 2 cm when I saw Copper jump and heard him hiss. Copper has never, ever, hissed before.
Looking down I noticed a black thingy outside the gate and quickly slammed it shut, yelling to my hubby that "THE DOG IS OUTSIDE OUR DOOR AGAIN!!!!" Because as I closed the door I heard dear neighbours talking outside in the corridor. I wanted them to hear our displeasure. Which they should expect, unless they are retards.
Hubby spent a long time soothing Copper. I told hubby I wanted to go over and tell them to stop it. But he pointed out that it could backfire as they could report us to HDB for keeping cats illegally (which btw is an incredibly stupid and illogical rule). So I came up with a more devious plan of asking nicely what time they let the pug out for his walk, so we can keep the door shut. But again, they have no obligation to keep to a schedule.
As for now, we're keeping the door shut once it's over 8pm. Just to be safe. Hopefully the message becomes clearer to dear neighbours and they'll stop letting the dog out cos there's nothing to see anymore. BOOOO. Inconsiderate dog owners!
I used to have a dog, and thought of myself as a dog-lover. That was until I got into my cat phase and now I'm sure I'm more of a cat-person than a dog-person. Nonetheless, I still like and are not averse to them. Until recently.
My younger sis came home from Melbourne to stay with my parents. Her dog there died while she was here, and she didn't manage to get closure from it. One day she brought home a mongrel puppy who reminded her of her previous dog. This was although my parents had denied her permission to do so. Now the puppy is a full-grown mongrel, and my parents have fallen in love with her. But as you know, a full-grown dog in a HDB flat makes for cramped living.
Not to mention that I am 6-months pregnant now and it is no good to have a dog jumping at my tummy all the time. Which is what happens when I go over to my parents' place once a week for dinner. My sis is resistant to the idea of even leashing the dog up during the 3 hours that hubby and I are over there. We have tolerated doggy for months, trying to be patient with her as my sis scolds her when she jumps on me.
But as my tummy grows bigger and I can feel the baby more, the doggy is also growing bigger, and her paws hit directly at the baby. Mongrel paws are not like toy dog paws; they have real hard claws. And excitable doggy just keeps pouncing as she thinks we're playing with her when we push her away when she jumps. My sis complains that we should just ignore the dog and she'll go away --- how to, when she is hitting at my baby?
This problem is becoming a wet blanket to my pregnancy. Of course when one is pregnant, family support is very important. I would love to be able to go to my Mum's place in the afternoon and chat and chill out. But no can do, when the dog is there. In fact, sometimes I don't even feel like going over, because each visit is risking my baby's safety.
I am seriously thinking that if the situation does not improve, I will cut out the weekly visits altogether. It's silly to risk my baby's life, just so the dog can stay unleashed for 3 hours. But what to do, when parents give in to my sis. Anyway, dinner time is spent talking more about the dog than my baby. My parents-in-law show more interest in our well-being than my parents.
After baby is born, I will not bring him over to my parents' new place just across the road from mine, because of the dog. She pounces and barks very loudly. Not something a newborn should be exposed to. Perhaps then, I need to learn to survive this pregnancy with minimal support from my family :(
I recently borrowed a book from NLB called "The Cat Bible", and learnt a horrifying fact: a dry food diet kills cats! Apparently dry food sellers advertise misleadingly that dry food fights plaque etc, when it is actually just an easy way out for pet owners.
Do you know that cats in fact do not naturally seek water to drink as they get it in their diet in the wild. A cat needs a diet with 70% water, which is usually the case when they hunt and eat meat. Born carnivores, they are only able to get 10% water when they take dry pet food, which in turn gives them a whole range of illnesses such as urinary tract infections and kidney failures.
So horrible! So I'm now in the process of switching my cats from dry to wet food. Being the greedy one, Copper is having no problems with that. He eats almost anything; cat treats, papayas, grapes, yogurt and even ice-cream.
Marvel is the picky one. He only licks his lips when we tempt him with yummy food, but shows no further interest. So this transition to wet food has been a real headache. For the first day or two he didn't even touch anything. I've finally found a really smelly fish and shrimp type that he is starting to get used to, eating more now, but I feel still not enough.
The change to wet food though, seems to have made Marvel healthier. Previously he would just sleep the whole day and be disinterested in most things. Now he's much more active, playing catching all day long. More vocal too, and interacts more with us. Of course, to the annoyance of Copper who would much prefer peace and quiet in the house.
坏蛋猫！
One night I had real trouble sleeping because Marvel was 'singing' all night long outside the bedroom door. He sometimes does that, and from the kind of meowing, it seemed like he was trying to get Copper to play with him. So I ignored him, although it went on longer than usual.
In the morning I was awakened at 7am by Copper whining and scratching my door. Which was not usual at all. I thought he must be hungry, and so woke up to feed him. As I turned to leave the kitchen after feeding to go back to bed, I noticed the floor was wet. The water jug had toppled! Water had seeped all the way under the stove into the appliances stored below it.
I spent 45 minutes cleaning up, wiping and airing dry the appliances. The stove is a bit haywire now.
All this time Marvel was sitting in a corner giving a guilty look, while Copper kept coming to check things out. Marvel must have tried, as he always does, to bite and pull the rubber stopper covering the water jug. 坏蛋猫！
Seeing that the company of my tour mates was horrible, I made new non-human friends instead.
Feeding the dairy cows at Chulu Ranch.
Pet pig in Taitung near our hot spring hotel.
The pet mynahs in Fo Guang Monastery. They said "Amituofo" to me :)
Stray cat. I also sayang-ed two stray dogs haha.
There were also sad animals :(((
These pigs were stamped and on their way to the slaughterhouse. They were covered in their own excrement and fighting to have a place to stand properly, calling loudly.
One girl in our group said that the pigs were so poor thing, and her mum actually laughed and said that nevermind the ones we'll be eating won't be this batch. Hello~
Disgusting stuffed fawn and preserved deer foetus at the lingzhi shop that tried to ke-tok us. The children jostled to sayang the stuffed fawn. So ironic! Do they understand that it's dead and cruelly killed?
I don't know if it's because of the year-end, but I'm feeling a bit wistful and especially poignant. It's the end of the year, when the past wraps up and new beginnings are to come. People celebrate the Christmas spirit of loving and sharing, and catch up with their family and friends.
But for some people unexpected things happen to change their plans.
The Mumbai terrorist attack took away Lo Hwei Yen, at the prime of her life at 28 when she's starting a new journey with her husband of one year. I did a google search and chanced upon her Friendster page, still functioning. Her photos are accessible to the public, as well as her writeup on herself:
Who I Want to Meet: Someone who'll save me from myself... Oh wait, I already found him. :P
Newspapers print letters pouring in from politicians and public alike who say they empathise with and share her family's loss. To the logical skeptic these people are unnecessarily emotional. But somehow I can identify, because like her, I have just started a new phase of my life. There's so much to do, too early to die.
Today I was watching a documentary on Animal Planet, showing a zookeeper in Tobe Zoo, Japan, who raised a baby polar bear who was rejected by her mum. Atsuhito Takaichi took Peace home, fed her with milk from a bottle, let her sleep on the bed with his two toddlers and took walks with her. But at 2 years old, he had to return Peace to the zoo because she had grown too big.
The documentary showed all the challenges he had to prepare her for, such as forcing her to learn swimming so she can stay cool in the summer. Tough love.
As Peace grew to an enormous bear, she would still run to the edge of her cage when she spies him walking past. She would also stick her paws out hoping to touch him. But it's time for him to let go. So sad!
Every year as Peace celebrates her birthday in the zoo, Atsuhito, his wife, teenage daughter and son make a home-made cake and sing a birthday song for her at their home, because they can't get near to her anymore.
Even after just 1 year with my cats, I can't imagine having to 割爱 like that.
It was a bright and sunny day. Suaku Ping decided to go to the Lim Chu Kang farms with her husband and parents-in-law.
First they went to the Hay Dairy goat farm. There was a demonstration on how the goats are milked. Suaku Ping was sad.
Some of the mummy goats were so old. Many mummy goats also had teats that were so bloated and heavy they almost dragged on the floor.
Suaku Ping was also sad because the little goats were kept in a separate area from their mummies. They were bleating loudly, crying out for their mummies.
The little goats had no milk to drink, because all the milk was taken away to fed the humans. The humans were asked to buy grass from the farm counter to feed the little goats instead. Little goats do not like to eat grass but they had no choice.
Suaku Ping was glad to get out of the farm. They drove to a fruit farm next.
Suaku Ping discovered that the dragonfruit belongs to the cactus family! The long flower wilts to leave behind its fruit.
Suaku Ping recognised some familiar fruits:
Figs 无花果...
Ong lai...
Starfruit 杨桃...
Papaya! The fruits grow out from each segment sticking out from the stem of the tree.
Suaku Ping never realised that each ear of corn grows out from each leaf of the maize plant.
This is a banana tree with a flower.
This is what happens if the fruits are not harvested in time.
This is a special species of banana called 指天蕉 that grows upwards!
These cute wintermelons made Suaku Ping laugh.
A strange kind of cucumber called 胡瓜 that has thorns.
The cashew nut in its shell.
Ribena plant :) With sickly-sweet-smelling red flowers.
Suaku Ping had learnt many things from her trip to the farms. She went home with new knowledge and a big headache because the sun was too strong!
Suaku Ping is now suffering from flu from sunstroke :(
The past Sunday I was on duty at the SPCA World Animal Day event at East Coast Park. I had volunteered for the face-painting stall as the email asked for volunteers to share any skills they have. I arrived bright and early and was told there would be another 5 volunteers sharing the booth with me.
As I waited, nobody turned up. Ok I thought, I would get their equipment ready for them in the meantime. So I trekked all the way to the ulu smelly dirty toilet to fill up 3 water containers. I also equally allocated the face-paints SPCA prepared, as I had my own and wouldn't need them.
The event started at 1030am, no sign of my teammates.
At 11am, they swaggered in, thick makeup, lip piercings and all. OKAAAAAAAY... I thought. Let's not be judgemental and stereotype based on their appearance. My resolution dissipated as they took over my seat, even though my 'formation' was already set. They also started to grab my paints and tools, even though I had made clear that everything in my toolbox was mine, and the SPCA stuff was for their usage. They even took my reference pictures and used it for themselves, so that I had no references. I could just barely be polite to them and grabbed my stuff back when I had the chance. Smartly, they let the children choose from my reference pics, then directed them to me.
Of the 5 people who turned up, only 2 worked. The other 3 just hung around, made noise and messed up the booth, even putting rock event flyers on the table for distribution. How unapt! And those 2 who were working spent more time patching up their makeup then doing face-painting for the kids.
Turns out they were also doing the skit on stage later. Then why bother to do both if you can't do it properly? And the thing is, the organisers did not need me there if there were already 5 of them signed up for this booth. I had looked forward to working with other SPCA volunteers, not be crowded out by 闲杂人等. It made the short 3.5 hours very tortuous.
It was also a very bad 'business' practice, as a volunteer will not help out again if he/she has a bad experience with the organisation. Very sad...
On a good note, my exhibition panels and poster were finally launched at the event!
My first poster on Facebook! What a nice surprise.
I'll be doing free face-painting for SPCA's annual fund-raiser, so come on down to join in the fun. I know it's early on Sunday morning, but there'll be lots of SPCA animals to play with... not to mention the other animals that pet owners will bring down to join in the fun. If you're an animal lover you'll enjoy it :)
I'll be there in the morning shift til 230pm. Let me know if you're popping by!
A few days ago my sister bought a Sharkwater DVD from Mustafa (it has everything!) and our whole family watched it after dinner. I went home feeling pained, sad, angry and grumpy.
It's a documentary about the beautiful sea creatures, the people who protect them, the conspiracies they expose, and the risk they put their lives under.
No rose-tinted glasses, just the harsh reality of what really takes place out there. I strongly recommend watching it, just so that we don't remain ignorantly happy in our sheltered world.
There are horrible scenes such as harpooning of cute pup seals, slashing of sharks, gorging of sea turtles... but sometimes we need to see such things in order to feel what we need to feel.
There are scenes from a hilarious interview with the boss of Rabbit Brand sharks fin. Hilarious because his arguments for persecuting sharks are filmsy excuses using e.g the movie Jaws as 'evidence'. I wonder if he has since been replaced as the face of his company.
Here's the trailer:
In the movie, the team uncovers a conspirary where the Taiwanese mafia controls a fin harvesting industry all the way in a poor Costa Rican village. The fishermen are paid only 80 cents (and so have to kill more to make a living) but the fins are sold to diners at US$200.
If you are planning your wedding dinner, PLEASE do not serve sharksfin soup. It can always be replaced by another equally 'high-class' dish; your hotel just needs to use its brains a bit. My husband and I got around this by having a lunch reception instead of a dinner banquet. You just need to make an effort. Can?
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