Shameful

A young kangaroo drowned in the old man's garden next door
it was killed and dragged to the little pond by two bull dogs
its mother was chased away by the sudden appearance of the dogs
leave it vulnerable, frightened and defenseless

It happened so fast right in front of my eyes
i chased the dogs away but was too late to save it
it disappeared from the surface of the pond
my heart aches for it and its mother

I don't blame the dogs, i never do
they were how they were trained
it's the trainers who should feel the shame
for creating such beasts so thrill of blood

I understand that the world is a relatively cruel place
the unfairness, the poverty, the disease, the violence, the war
what I can never get is, why make it even crueler
by training a friendly animal to kill purely for killing

Hey...

hey beautiful...it's me...sensing you aren't feeling well...c'mere darling...hows bout sitting with me under the sun for a bit huh...you will feel much better...i promise...

A Prayer

I want to say a little prayer

to my beloved in the stars
to the souls of the eternity
to the skies past the galaxy
to the worlds beyond space

hear me please the ones with magic power
for I am praying with my heart
shield my baby from sickness and harm
and i will forever be grateful to you

The Little Girl

“No, she is going to be with me, definitely!” He yelled with anger and worry.
“Who do you think you are? Who gives you the right to do so after these years?” She yelled back to him.
“Wwa Wwa..” the two year old girl was crying between their hands. She was so confused over these two adults who fought over her.

Why are they fighting? Over me? No, I do not want to be with any one of them! Leave me alone, can’t you hear? Wwa

“I don’t understand why we have to be this way. Isn’t there a better way? Can’t we solve this problem peacefully?” His voice was trembling.
“I wish there is. But... I am sorry.” She avoided his eyes.

“Did your father come to see you at school today?”
“Yes, he did.”
“What did he say to you? You know you shouldn’t believe him that much! In fact you better stop seeing him!”

How can I stop him? I am just a six year old little girl!

“Come over here little friend, your father is here to pick you up.”
“Why? The school isn’t over yet.”
“It doesn’t matter, just go with him.”

Why does he always come right in the middle of the class?

“How do you feel today my baby girl?”
“... “
“I bought some cake for you, your favourite!”
“...“
“Why aren’t you talking today? You don’t feel well? What is it?”
“....“
“Give me a hug, ok? You know that I love you and care for you very much, don’t you? You love me too, right?”
“...“

What do you want me to say Dad? I can‘t go thru this again. I am just a six year old little girl. I am not strong enough to take all this! Why are you crying? I cannot help you. I am just a little girl.

“Where did your mother take you today? You went to see that guy again, didn’t you?”
“No!”
“How about a cake, your favourite!”

Why do they always buy these cakes, I really don’t like them. I hate them!

“Come on, you can tell me, can’t you? You are a very good little girl, right?”

What does he want to know anyway? I can’t tell you anything. I am not allowed to! What’s the matter with these adults?!

“Oh sure you didn’t. What about your daughter eh? Can you say she neither eh?”
“Would you shut up?! What‘s wrong with you? If you don’t believe what I say, why ask? Who gives you the right anyway?!”
“Well, I am your husband for one. But sure, she is your kid not mine!”

How long are they going to fight this time?

“Why didn’t you listen to me? I told you not to see him. Are you deaf!”

I wish I am!

Ultimately Idiotic

Poundering headache, endless obligations, be still my heart.

"What am I going to do if you die?"
"How should I know? How about continuing live your life?"
"But what about the joy and happiness with you?"
"There will be plenty around. You will find someone else."
"But..."
"No buts. How about just let me die peacefully without having to worry about the living - you? Or perhaps, you would like to die with me?!"

Love or ultimate selfishness? Plain absurd and I should not care!

Bad Mood

I am in a real bad mood...
my stomach hurts...
my eyes are red...
my head is killing me...
I am super pissed...
I want to strangle someone...
damn this shit...
why do I even care???!!!

Piano Lesson

At the age of a grandma, my Greek wife picked up her piano lesson again. Once a week she would sit in front of a piano, learn how to play a little song or two.

"What brought that up?" I asked her. "Got lots of spare time and I want to play the little songs for my grand kids." she replied.

Two grand children she has now, and a third is on the way, from the youngest of her children. The fact that the baby's parents are not legally married is not important. For what is important is that they love each other, they are happy together and they love their baby.

I spent more than two hours helping her practice. It wasn't easy for her as her fingers weren't as flexible as they used to be when she was young. But she was determined and persistent. She wanted to get it right so she can play for her grand children.

So, other than helping her with computer stuff, I am also in demand for piano practicing. Good thing I don't have to teach her or I have to give up my sleeping time I bet!

7th night of the 7th moon

beautiful night pale blue moon
a star bridge across the heavnly river
lovers that were forced apart
transpired again into the burning stars of love

A Newborn Baby

Another Friday morning, like most of the other ones, I was woken up by the ringing of the telephone. My Greek wife is having her children coming over for the weekend and she got them fishes for dinner. Whenever she has fishes on her menu, she would buy some for me. Lucky for me, she only buys the freshest fishes on the market.

As I was walking passing her garden to get the fish, I heard Whity White (the white goat) crying in an unusual way. It's as if she was calling for her little kids to come over and she has three of them. I then detoured to where they were gathering to see what was going on.

I found Whity White and two of the other adult goats were gathering in a very strange way, especially the big male goat. He was standing on top of a big cage which is used for stopping the door of the goat shed from closing by the wind.

Normally, when I went to see them, they would gather towards me but this time they all stayed put except the three kids. I was thinking to myself that since it was not the kids, what was she crying for? I then realized that there was one adult goat missing. She was the smallest one among them and was the one who always had her head stuck to the fence. I then calling out for her thinking maybe she was stuck again to the fence. I heard nothing after a few calls and decided to go into the shed to see if she was inside.

What I saw in the shed gave me a very happy surprise. Not only that I saw the missing goat, I also saw a tiny newborn baby by her feet. She must have just given birth to the little baby goat. Like all the newborn baby goats, this little one was already trying to stand up and walk on its own feet, how cute and brave.

So, that's why Whity White was crying. It must be the cry of joy I bet! Perhaps we should all shout out for the joy of a new life!

Beautiful Baby Boy

I went to see my baby boy yesterday. I haven't seen him for over 4 months due to my partner's illness.

He is really a very beautiful boy. He has grown so much in the past 4 months and weights 8 kilos now. He already has two tiny little teeth. I was quite surprised to see that.

His eyes are just gorgeous. Their colours have changed to some shades of light brown from navy blue and are still changing. They sparkle under the sunlight at times that makes you unable to determine their true colours.

Although he is not even one year old yet, I can already feel that he is a very happy boy with a big heart. The minute he laid his big round eyes on me, I knew we are going to be great buddies on planet Earth.

He got this cutest smile I've ever seen. When I smiled back at him, he extended his arms towards me, wanting me to hold him and play with him until he could hardly open his big round eyes.

Mommy told me later that he usually was quite restless in front of strangers but he had no such problem with me.

Yep...I think he definitely loves me...and I already couldn't wait to see him next time!

Killing Field

The 80 years old man lives next door to me is a very kind and lovely old man. Although he has retired a long time ago, he still goes to his company almost everyday for a few hours or so. He said it helped him to work his brain better.

There are a couple of things he enjoys very much when he is not at work. One is to play Backgammon and the other is to work in his garden. He has a very beautiful garden where he not only plants flowers but also fruit trees and vegetables. He is very proud of his garden with all the fruits and vegetables which supplies for their daily food consumption. The flowers are planted for his beautiful wife he told me, what a sweet old man.

On the other side of the garden, he also raises chickens and goats. Over the years, he had raised quite a few beautiful roosters and goats. They are his pride, just like those giant pumpkins and rock melons he harvested from his garden time after time. The chickens are also a source for his family's supply of eggs. They lay so many eggs each day that he has to give them away every couple of days, and I, am the one who benefits most!

From time to time, he would let his chickens come out of the big cage and running around the grass field. He said it would make them grow stronger muscles. What he didn't realize was that, a couple of wild foxes living around the area were also very keen on his chickens.

Last Sunday, a terrible thing happened, while the chickens were roaming around outside the cage, the foxes turned his garden into a killing field. He lost 30 of his good chickens including the two beautiful roosters. He was devastated. He took out his shooting gun but it was all too late.

Those foxes were very strange also, they just killed all the chickens, dragging the dead bodies all over the garden without eating them, as if they were playing a hunting game. It is the only animal that I have known so far that just kill for the sake of killing. Ooops, I shouldn't have said that, there is another animal that also does that to its worst extreme - human!

windy day

白白的云儿满天荡
粗壮的树儿狂飞舞
轻盈的心儿随风起
紧抱着云儿天上游

No Regrets

I was invited to a movie last night. Other than a superb housewife, my Greek wife next door is also a very competent charity fund raiser. This is one of the charity functions she was involved with and for extra contribution to the function, she also bought two charity movie tickets. She was going to go see it with her daughter-in-law at first but due to her tight working schedule, she couldn't make it, thus I became the lucky one.

It was a French movie, La Vie en Rose. It was a movie about the life of the very famous and excellent singer of the century Edith Piaf. She had such a beautiful and powerful voice that no singer in her time or even now could compare with. It wasn't a very happy movie as her life was full of sad events since her childhood. Despite all her fame and glory, she die of cancer at the age of 47.

Over all, it was quite a good movie, mainly because of the excellent performance of the actress Marion Cotillard, who played the role of Edith Piaf. It was also a very long movie, two and a half hour. But even though, it was not enough time to portrait a person with such diversity.

My Greek wife's comment at the end of the movie was: "What an artist, what a voice and what a waste." But in my opinion, there is no such thing as a "waste of an artist's life", for the true artist of course. It was such life of hers that made her who she was, just like the last song she ever sang on stage - Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien (No Regrets):

No, I regret nothing at all
Neither the good done to me or bad
That's just the same to me....

With my memories, I lit the fire
My sorrows, my pleasures, I don't need them anymore...

For my life, for my joys, today they begin with you

And love, is the key to all happiness.

Good News

Of all the places I had been living around the world, be it for a long or short time, Hong Kong is the most efficient place of them all. Although it is such a tiny place (less than a dot on the world map) with such a high density of population, it is surprisingly very well organized and managed. If I have to choose to live a city life in anywhere in the world, I would for sure have chosen Hong Kong.

I was trying to arrange for an elderly from Hong Kong to come to visit me on the other side of the world. Because of her age, the procedure for getting a tourist visa was a little bit more complicated that normal. It required her to have a medical insurance while she was abroad.

After just a few telephone calls with the person in charge in the Consulate represents the country in Hong Kong and the faxing of the insurance documents to them, I got the approval of the visa for the elderly within the same day. That, is what efficiency is! If this Consulate is in another place other than in Hong Kong, it would take weeks or even months I gaurantee you!

So baby...you don't have to worry about her until next year! LOL

Stupid Printer

I got a small Canon photo printer from my baby. She bought it a few years ago but never used it. The packaging was not even opened. Silly girl!

Before I left her this time, I opened the printer and printed a few photos of our trips to the mountains and some other places. The quality of the photos was pretty good even though it had not been used for such a long time. She told me that she would not use it again afterwards and that I could take it with me if I want and I took it. I wanted to print some of the photos of the stuff that I want to sell when I get back and I thought that the portable printer is very handy.

What was that saying again? "People never get what they wished for easily", yep, especially people like me! Just when I was all set up to print, the printer refused to work. I had checked all the settings, even downloaded and updated the driver and everything, it just won't print. It kept giving me the message that there was paper jam but it was not true. I even dismantel the whole covering case and found no jamming paper or whatsoever! I end up wasting all the ink that came with it and achieved nothing!

Darn bloody stupid printer!!! Ughhhhhhhh......

Nagging my head off

First couple days I got back from China, I had a pretty good time schedule-wise. I got the things I needed to take care of for this trip all sorted out. Although I still had a terrible time adjusting the departing with my baby like every such time, I am getting better in recent years by thinking of the time we spent and will spend together.

Everything was going all quite smoothly until someone started to nagging my head off by talking about all these mind torturing things from before I was born until 3 o'clock in the morning. It was all triggered by jealousy over a little 9 years old girl - my baby girl.

It was my baby girl's birthday the next day so I had a little telephone conversation with her asking her what kind of presents she would like for her birthday and so on. It was all innocent kids talk, funny and happy. What I didn't realize was that someone in the next room was eavesdropping and started this tantrum of accusations towards me from late night all the way to the early morning, even with me already laying down in bed.

I was truly surprised that how someone at such age could say something so silly, stupid and even hostiled over the jealosy of an innocent little girl who's like her grand daughter. I was also amazed that someone could torture their own child with such extensive hatred and claimed that it was love.

It drives me nuts, feeling depressed and wanted to kill someone, seriously! And missing my baby doesn't help a tiny bit!

Traveling Companion

I saw a little short film today. It was called "Traveling Companion". It was about this woman whose partner had passed away recently because of cancer. Through the years, they had been traveling very happily together to many places around the world.

It was time again for her to travel, but since her partner had died, she needed to find another traveling companion because she did not want to travel alone. She then put an advertisement on the newspaper looking for a traveling companion. It says:

Writer seeks traveling companion for month long working vacation to Italy.
Walk with me as I explore the cobblestone streets of Genoa, dine with me as I experience the finest restaurants of Florence. My gift of flight and lodging seeks the gift of your company.

Think about it now, perhaps it was such a companion that I have been waiting for all these years that prevents me from fulfilling my dreams of traveling the world.

Would such a companion ever be coming into my life? I wonder....

your presence

it doesn’t matter what you are doing
nor does it matter what you are thinking
all i need is to be near you
see your smile feel your closeness
you may not believe this
but it is true
your mere presence
is all it takes to make me happy