Author: charlestess

HEAD: MAGIC OF THE AUTUMN MOON

here is an article i wrote several years ago on one of my favourite hong kong holidays. it was this weekend. today was a holiday in hong kong ~ we all celebrated by going to lunch with stephanie and jane and all our children (4 adults, 11 children, five under 18 months!) and then to the american club for a busy swim and play in the playground.

Tess Lyons explores the historical traditions surrounding one of Hong Kong’s most celebrated holidays – the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival.

Head out to the wet market for permissons and baby yams – for these are the preferred offerings of the gods during the approaching Mid Autumn Moon Festival.

The Moon Festival, which operates according to the lunar calendar, falls on the 15th day of the 18th moon, when legend claims the moon is at its brightest and biggest.  Normally, the festival is celebrated in September, however as this year’s lunar calendar has two fifth months, this year the holiday falls on 5 October. (in 2005 the holiday was 17 september).

In past decades, the Moon Festival was a three-day celebration often marked by family reunions.  On the first day, worshippers welcomed the moon.  The next day was the actual celebratory feast day.  The third day was supposed to be devoted to bidding the moon goodbye.  While the festival is now a one day celebration, it is still known as a traditional time to spend with family and friends.

LANTERNS

The use of lanterns to symbolise joy dates back to the beginning of the Tang Dynastry when lanterns were used a source of light during the Chinese New Year.

In the days leading up to and throughout the Moon Festival, brightly coloured lanterns adorn doorways, hawkers stalls and shops.  The lanterns are held by lovers, children, adults and parade participants. Even high end retail shops have exquisitely created lanterns, often proferring their store’s logo.

Lanterns in Hong Kong can either be mass-produced or painstakingly handmade by those who have the talent and spare time to indulge in this ancient art form.

Lantern-making calls for an age old-division of labour.  Men wind bamboo sticks together to form a frame, securing it with tiny pieces of white paper and glue.  The lantern "skeleton" is then passed on to a female who carefully glues coloured, crepe paper to the frame.  In recent years, shiny, transparent paper has replaced the more expensive, easily ripped crepe paper.  The lanterns are usually shaped as rabbits, fish and fruit.

While all of the hand-crafted lanterns are delicately made, perhaps the most exquisite is the revolving lantern.  Covered with hand-painted flowers and maidens gazing moon, these are the most expensive because of the intricate handiwork involved in creating them.

Modern lanterns, preferred by the majority of youngsters, are shaped like cartoon characters, spaceships, planes and tanks.  Instead of candles, battery operated light bulbs with automatic switches illuminate the lanterns. As well, most kid oriented lanterns also shriek out "It’s a small world after all". The cultural significance of that particular song has yet to be unearthed by this reporter. Possibly it was voted the most annoying?

But why does the Mid Autumn Moon Festival mean so much, to so many? Is it a North American Thanksgiving, minus the turkey?

TRADITION

CHANG O

The Moon Festival was origally held to mark the end of a successful harvest season.  Tradition and legend worked to create a colourful and exciting celebration. For example:

Some 3,500 years ago, the Divine Archer Hou Yih shot down nine of the 10 suns that were scorching the crops of the earth.  As a reward, the Queen Mother of the Western Heaven gave Hou Yih a magic tablet that would make him immortal.  After a number of years, Hou Yih’s  wife, Chang O, noticed that her husband was slowly turning into a tyrant. She swallowed the pill herself in order to prevent a Hou Yih from forever ruling the world. (have illustration of Chang O alongside above para., possibly top right hand page?

Hou Yih caught Chang O in the act of swallowing the pill and in his anger, pulled the last arrow out of his quiver.  In an attempt to escape certain death, Chang O ran to the moon.  When she arrived, she was so out of breath that she spat out the tablet, which promptly turned into a jade rabbit.  To this day, valiant Chang O and her faithful Jade Rabbit sit on the moon. (same instructions as above, middle page surround text.)

YEUH LEO-YEH

Yeuh Leo-yeh, better known as the Old Man of the Moon, presides over all earthly marriages.  Therefore, he is extremely popular with unwed females.  As all marriages are made in heaven and prepared on the moon, the old man’s decisions are irreversible.  Each year, he occupies himself by making potential matches.  He does this by tying couples together with invisible pieces of red string.

When midnight strikes on the night of the Moon Festival, young women seeking husbands approachje the temples, pray for a partner and then leave the temple.  As they do so, they throw an oracle bone into the night.  The way the bone points after it falls reveals the direction the woman needs to walk in order to find her future husband.

(although not a sidebar, could we have a red piece of string surrounding this? tied in a knot at the bottom?)

DONG YUNG

One day during the eighth month, Dong Yung was scorned by a group of boys he was wanting to play with.  The sound of his tears falling attracted the attention of the god Wu Gang, who lifted Dong Yung to heaven.  Once there, he was reunited with his mother who had died some years earlier.  She made him some round cakes to celebrate and for a short time, they were happy together until the Jade Emperor demanded the boy’s return to earth.  Dong Yung grew to be a powerful and strong government official.  Every year during the Moon Festival he ordered his subjects to bake him cakes resembling those his mother had made for him the day he visited heaven.

(johanna: i will check again with library to see if they have managed to dig up pic of Dong Yung. if not, shall we run the pic from last year’s feature story?)

ZHU YUANZHANG

Mooncakes were first made during the Yuan Dynasty (AD 1271-1368).  The Chinese were revolting against the Mongols, who were billeted in the Chinese villages.  In order to contact the villagers and enlist their support, Chinese warrior Zhu Yuanzhang slipped messages into round cakes that read, "Revolt on the night of the full moon." The round cakes were delivered to each household.

Families hung brightly lit lanterns from their windows to acknowledge they had received the message and that they had agreed to the plan.  The strategy was successful, the Mongols were overthrown and Chinese emperors were returned to the throne at the start of the Ming Dynasty.

With four legends to remember during Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, people will worship the brave Chang O, pray for answered prayers from the man on the moon, remember Dong Yung and acknowledge the ingenuity of Chinese ancestors.

I lift my head to see the bright moon

And hang my head in my nostalgia for home

-Li Bai

(AS A SIDEBAR)

CREATING MOONCAKES

Mooncakes are symbolic of the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival and are traditionally given as gifts to friends and family.

Mooncakes are usually made between four days and a month before the festival and their round shape is meant to honour the moon.

Before the festival, hotel and street bakeries stock up with moon cakes.  Plain mooncakes are either stuffed with mashed red beans or lotus seeds, while the fanier cakes bulge with ingredients such as salted egg yolks, melon seeds, lumps of pork fat, strips of candied melon, roast chicken and ham.

The act of making mooncakes is a time consuming and delicate process.

Large quantities of lotus seeds and red beans are boiled and then peeled.  They are then ground to a fine powder.  The powder is cooked with sugar and peanut oil or lard until it forms a thick paste.  The paste is left for a full 24 hours.  The following day the chef pours the paste on to a table and kneads it in order to remove the lumps. There are also the extremely fattening, not so traditional double yolk mooncakes.

The dough is divided for various types of mooncakes.  A pinch of dough is wrapped around the filling and then placed in a mould.  The baker stacks the mould against the side of the table and places the mooncake on a baking tray.

Baking is done in three stages. The first stage is with a very hot oven which will set the cakes.  They are then taken out and glazed with egg yolk to give them a brown sheen.  They are returned to the oven and left to cook for several minutes before being given a second yolk glaze.  A further couple of minutes in the oven completes the process.

The trick of moon-cake making is getting the pastry the right texture–delicate but resilient enough to last the heat of the oven.

(AS A SIDEBAR)

DIFFERENT COUNTRIES, DIFFERENT TRADITIONS (will come up with something better)

South Koreans celebrate the holiday with a four-day celebration called Chusok.  During Chusok, relatives father to honour their dead ancestors by pracitising family rituals and visiting grave-sites.

In Singapore, much emphasis is placed on mooncakes.  Optional fillings include durian, pineapple and green peas.  Lanterns are specially flown in from China and are proudly displayed at Singapore’s Chinese Garden.

In Japan, the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival falls on the same day every year – 18 August.  Traditions are especially closely observed in northern Japan.  Rice dumplings called tsukimidango, are served with fruit and dedicated to the full moon.

China has a variety of special customs to commemmorate the Mid-Autumn Moon festival.  In Nanjin, barren women go to the temples and pray for children while burning paper money and incense.  They then cross a bridge in the hopes the magic water underneath will assist them in conceiving.

choo choo….

we DID make it to the beach on saturday, and so did the typhoon! thankfully, we arrived at different times.

with ONLY four bags (that would average one per child), we made it to the beach close to our hoped for arrival time of 9.30am. we settled about 20 metres from the vehicle and i spread a blanket out on the sand.

by this time, we had a crowd of interested watchers. originally, it was jasper that pulled them in, waving and dancing in my arms. but then, the magic of the concept of TRIPLETS struck, and we had the beach cleaners approaching us, one by one, to touch the babies, gesture about their genders and confirm their triplet-ness. no one tried to pick them up, for which we were grateful. there was a bit of a wind, so the admirers helped us pick up rocks to secure the edges of the blanket.

some hong kong sand tends to resemble kitty litter…so the babies showed no interest in leaving the peripheries of the blanket. they liked the spade, bucket and digging equipment, though.

after the fans dispersed, i sebastian ran the 10 metres or so to the water’s edge and popped his boat into the sea. the sea was quite choppy, and sebastian wailed in distress when he tried to reach for the boat and found it out of his grasp. i saw what was going on and pulled my linen pants as far up as they would go, and then ran into the water. retrieved the boat and felt like a wet pink panted hero as my son applauded me.

after a bit of racing up and down the beach, sebastian decided he wanted to go for a swim. it was my turn to look after jasper, carys and sela, so i traded off with magnificent. sebastian was pretty much body surfing, and liking it. he DIDNt like the taste of the sea. i think he was expecting the water to taste like lake okanagan, which if we go by the amounts of lake that he consumed this summer, he enjoyed very much.

the wind started to pick up, and the smaller bits of sand began flying swirling about. you can always tell a pre-typhoon state..and this was it. charles and i quickly fed the babies some raisins, cheese and apple, (jasper didn’t eat the apple), noted it was 11.45, and packed up. we were away by 11.50, and home by noon. we quickly fed the crew, then they went for their 12.30pm naptime.

no rest for the weary, magnificent and i needed to buy a washing machine so we headed off into the grey skies to do so. we only checked out two stores, sheung wan wing on and fortress world. we like the one we bought, and hope it will fit into our space. by the time we finished buying the washing machine and arranging terms of delivery, it was pouring outside. we had no umbrellas, but we had no cares either. we skipped, dodged and jogged to the nearby GATEWAY, a shop that specialises in selling american items you can’t easily procure in hong kong.  i wanted to buy a huge box of cheerios and some applesauce.

i found the selection really poor, and shockingly overpriced. GATEWAY used to be fairly reliable and reasonable, but maybe like the rest of hong kong, their rent has gone up and as a result their prices have too???

no cheerios, but lots of applesauce later, we headed back to the car, and noted the next item on our TO DO LIST was groceries.

we decided this would be another team caldwell event (we even have a team cheer), and called lita to see if the four feet and under crowd were still asleep. indeed they were, she replied. by the time we got home, jasper was awake, sela was grousing in her crib and carys slumbered on. sebastian was also awake, trying to convince lita to let him watch THE FAMILY GUY. (!!!)

we loaded team caldwell into the van and were off again on our second outing. charles chose to push the grocery cart while i pushed the kid cart. its a tough business, because the kids like standing in the cart and if i stop, when i start again, someone usually tumbles over. met a couple people i knew, the babies were very smily.  then sebastian requested that i sing a train song.

problem is, i don’t know a train song.

he is very specific. he will give me instructions.

sing the train song where sebastian is driving the train and we are going to fintry and phuket and antigua and we pick up my triplets, anjali, hubie, adam and annie and we drive and i wear a seatbelt and we eat apple juice and choclit bears and we come to the station and then people get off after the train slows down and you also make the train sound mummy.

so not only do i have to find a tune to fit this song, but i also get to remember the instructions. i tell you, i forgot to pick up the triplets and put them on the train and we were all clicking in our seatbelts when rasputin in the cart bellows out…

no mummy, you also must pick up my triplets!

righty-oh. and apparently i don’t have enough train sounds as well.

but forget about picking up triplets because just as i turn around to pick up some sausages that mc has asked to collect, a woman comes flying over faster than a speeding bullet/train and catches, gracious me, sela, who has fallen out of the cart.

she was like a super hero.

sela was fine.

charles was in line.

we bought our groceries, plotted the cookware we’re going to buy once we get enough stamps with the new promotion park and shop is offering, loaded up and went home.

EVERYONE slept well last night.

then this morning, team caldwell headed off to church. magnificent charles was baptised today and a lot of his friends showed up, which was fantastic. his blog will tell more, i won’t steal his thunder.

then, we went out for lunch at dan ryan’s. we had mila with us, and the minute we were seated ordered three plates of chicken fingers and one fish and chips. a few minutes later we ordered, and soon the kids food arrived. it was too hot, of course, so charles and i cut it up.

heres a tip to parents: when you are ordering a meal that comes with chips, ask that the chips come afterwards. only when sebastian is close to finishing the deep fried (healthy) protein on his plate, do the chips come out.

i had half a reuben, charles a clubhouse and mila chose eggs and ham. we wanted food that could be easily packed up if things started to go pearshaped. but they didn’t! the kids were really very good. no crying, sebbie only had to do one wee, sela only chewed one crayon and then spit it out right afterwards…but they were QUIET! and ate more food than i would have thought. and we had been smart enough to select food they could feed themselves with.

home again home again. and here we are…me trying to finish an article due in two days, the babies still sleeping, and sebastian preparing to take his daddy and me in his "suprewi". which i think is a boat that also sports doors like a car, and front and back seats. any guesses where sebastian sits? today the suprewi is apparently the lower bunk of sebastian’s bed.

as long as its not a train, i’m okay.

the simple life.

yesterday sebastian had an appointment with his speech therapist. we could have taken a taxi, but frugal blake’s blood flows through my veins, and so we took the bus.

although hong kong’s public transportation system is excellent, and FAR SURPASSES that of any canadian city i have ever lived in, this time of year, even waiting two minutes for the bus is tough. the sun is nailing down on your forehead. it is a wet, close, heavy heat.

on monday, when sebastian and i went to drama, we also took the bus. drama class is held in repulse bay, which is in a different direction to central, where sebastian’s speech therapist’s office is located. so pass time, while glancing desperately down the road to see if the number 22 mini bus was coming, i said to sebastian,

look across the street! that’s where we waited on monday to go to drama!

yes! why did we wait there?

i explained about different directions and mentioned that if we were taking a bus to church, school or ben’s house, we would be on this side of the street, but if we were going to ocean park, we would be on the other side of the street. fortunately, this discussion lasted long enough to allow the number 22 to zoom along.

catching a mini bus can be a tricky business. mini buses, which seat 16, dodge around double decker buses like nobody’s business, and often the driver is so engrossed in a tricky maneouver that he misses your frantic handwaving. so, holding on to sebastian’s hand i waved furiously and the driver screetched to a halt.

we climbed on and i asked sebastian to put the money into the collection area. and we were off, weaving in and out of traffic, speeding up if ever we were near an amber light.

after the appointment, we took the number 55 home. the number 55, although slower than the 22, has a distinct advantage: it takes you halfway up the hill where we live. you see, the 55 departs from the hospital, which is located on the hill. the 22 chugs along the main road, and comes no closer than the beginning of the hospital’s driveway. the nice thing about the 22 is that it takes you along hollywood road, and the rest of upper central and lower midlevels.

while on the number 55, i gave sebastian the rest of my tea to drink. he loves lukewarm tea, and i let him finish off the tea on those rare occasions when the bus was foiled and fuming at a red light.

i watched sebastian tilting the cup at a 90 degree angle tapping the top of the cup in hopes of catching an extra drip, and i was struck afresh and how the little things are really all it takes for kids. they give it their all. i won’t draw parallels to my life, where things like embarrassment prevent you from trying to get the last drip (why does no one take the last chip on the plate anyway?), but it made me think.

sebastian said,

mummy, i would like you and me to take the tram.

this is a town where disney has invaded, and my kid wants to take a tram ride. it takes so little to make their worlds wonderful and exciting. i told him i would take him next week. and i will.

then after he had told the bus driver to stop (yow lok m goy!) we were walking along and sebastian said,

mummy, i want to go to the beach with my daddy and you and my triplets.

not a huge request. so tomorrow, wish us luck, we are heading to the beach. weather will be very hot, about 30 above, but we are going. a family outing. and then in the afternoon, we’re off to buy groceries together. another simple outing for our family. but we’re together and we’ve seen it makes sebastian, and im betting jasper, sela and carys, happy.

kids never talk about money as something they want. money, or even that super blaster lego airplane that sebastian loves, isn’t something he lists when he talks about things that would make him happy. having his daddy come home from a business trip, eating dinner together, spending time together, that’s what makes him happy. sure, no doubt about it, if we were poverty stricken, the lack of money would infringe on our happiness, but right now, as long as we have money for food and housing, sebastian doesn’t need money for happiness.

speaking in tongues

the time has come to talk about education.

as you know, sebastian is enrolled at the ESF kindergarten and loves it. every day he happily gets on the school bus, and his diary (and backpack) spills over with artwork (he made me a purse out of a bran flakes box and a ribbon!) and reports of what he is enjoying.

but english speaking schools in hong kong are, surprise!, expensive! and even though my measly salary could cover the school fees if the babies went to the same school, magnificent and i are considering another route quite seriously….sending them to a chinese speaking school.

some bilingual schools are very chi chi la la, and we aren’t considering those. if we had the money, we might. but for these early years, no, we’re not.

complications arise though. chinese schools are known to be VERY homework happy. two hours a night by grade one. i cannot imagine. and it is NOT easy to get a child into an english speaking school, unless you have recently moved here. if we did want to transfer our kids into an english speaking school once they had mastered the basics of mandarin or cantonese, there is no guarantee they would get a place. and then i would be home schooling and we KNOW how tough that would be.

but i want my children to speak either cantonese or mandarin, preferably the latter. my french is passable, but in today’s world, french is not a particularly beneficial language in the business world. in canada, knowing french is a HUGE boost, and i am glad Canadians learn in. but internationally, it is not that important. believe me, i learned that when i moved here.

cantonese and mandarin are all about tones. the best time to get an "ear" for tongues is while they are very young. now. the schools are pretty definite that english speaking children with NO exposure to chinese language would have a good ear for tongues and a basic understanding of the language after one year of schooling.

it is a huge gift, and a huge acknowledgement to the culture here. i have tried to learn mandarin but my ear is PITIFUL. maybe i am wanting to live through my children, but i would love it if they learned one of the two Chinese languages, preferably mandarin.

but it is also a huge risk. if it doesn’t work out, sliding into the english speaking schools won’t be easy. and what if one of the kids is left handed, and they tie their left hand behind their back and train them to write with their right? don’t laugh, it happens.

in case you are asking why sebastian didn’t go to a chinese speaking school…by the time he was ready to enter the chinese system, his grasp of english wasn’t strong enough. we suspected he had a hearing problem, and we knew he would find tones overwhelming. i don’t regret the decision NOT to send him to a chinese speaking school at all. i think he agrees.

meet the candidates

a few months ago, magnificent and i, the offspring and various cycling instruments headed off to bowen road.

on the way back we stopped at the playground. we sat down, brought out the beverages and watched sebastian racing around, and the toddlers, well, toddling.

another couple sat down beside us. they had two daughters, one who immediately started running with sebastian while their one year old eyed jasper as they both contemplated how the dirt would taste.

the inevitable triplet question started off the conversation, but we didn’t dwell there. they had been in hong kong five years, they loved bowen road as well. magcharles and i nodded. they nodded when we shared that we went to union church, they attended another church. we nodded when we watched them discipline their daughter for spitting. we nodded again when the mother got up and walked over to the daughter to make her sit down on the thinking chair. our educational backgrounds were the same and what’s this…they loved 80’s music as well. the British Invasion lover that is my husband was ecstatic. politics, best hong kong restaurants and cheap currie joints, ideas on finding and keeping a good helper, reminiscing over the days when we actually flew business class and visited countries you needed visas and vaccinations for…it was a great conversation.

but it wasn’t really. it was more a job interview. we had friends who were moving, and magnificent and i were shamelessly auditioning for new potential friends. these candidates were so strong we didn’t even feel the need to ask for references. their location wasn’t of importance. even if they didn’t relocate to pokfulam (it would be TOO perfect if they were already there!), they were worth getting in the renault and driving to. definitely. or we could meet up here, since both families liked it so much.

choosing friends to match with your family is a complicated business.

as a singleton, you accept your partner’s friends and by large, when you’re introduced to your partner’s friends who are couples, you accept them both. when your friend takes a partner, you accept them as well. you’re relieved when a friend becomes a couple, you can spend more time together. unless their new partner is too bland or repulsive.

it is not unusual to become closer friends with someone you knew as a singleton when your partner gets along fantastically with their partner. i’m talking with my girlfriend elizabeth today and she says, "so what’s this thing charles invited my man to on thursday?" we only got the men together a few months ago and they have had at least one boys night since then. and another one coming up! i have only had breakfast with e. since that night the four of us dined out, but there you go.

when your friend takes a family, and you’ve got a family, you’ve still got the friendship. even if your kids are different ages, you have the pre existing relationship and can meet and go out for dinner every once and a while. or play at a location, as long as you both know the kids won’t be playing TOGETHER.

to digress…it is wonderful when the news hits that your "old world" friends are expecting.  magnificent and i went to a fantastic couple’s home the other night for dinner and admired their sweet new baby. as scintilliating the conversation, as tasty the wine, there was a marked difference that declared these two as recent inductees into the hall of parenthood…the dinner party started at 7pm. and we stayed until midnight. it was a great evening.

but rarely are you going to pick up new friends with no children. maybe 2/10 of the new friends collection will fall into that category. you’re going to be spending time with people whose kids are the same ages as yours, and who can be doing the same things that enthrall your kids when they’re not napping. quality is good, but you can get quality through quantity.

at the end of our conversation with family a, they casually let it drop they were moving at the end of june. they were taking a break packing in order to enjoy one of their last sundays in hong kong. as we got up (at the same time), the men shook hands, still talking about the dot com crash, and the mother looked at me and said, "i wish we had met earlier".

no kidding.

iv – all creatures great and small

the months passed. almost one year old sebastian was crawling and trying to catch olivia and cee cee, who were incredibly patient with him. we were never sure how old olivia was, but the years were being kind to this grand old dame. she is like the peninsula hotel or old man river, she just keeps rolling along.

one day i came home from a trip, and noticed cee cee was looking much thinner. it was very disconcerting, because she was considerably lighter than she had been two weeks ago when we had left.

i went to the kitchen, and opened a tin of tuna and strained the juice for the girls, and then went and unpacked.  afterwards, i lay on the bed, and ceecee came strolling in. she sat at the base of the bed, and looked at me for a long time. this was unusual, normally she wasted no time jumping up on our bed. we had a new duvet and the cats loved its feel.

you could almost see her mustering up strength, and eventually she jumped up. we nuzzled and she fell asleep almost immediately. but after 30 minutes or so, she suddenly got up and jumped down again, and promptly threw up. it was a clear vomit. i cleaned it up, picked her up and placed her on the bed again. she curled up into that shrimp like position she had that she used whenever i wasn’t on the bed with her, and fell asleep again.

over the next few days, i came across more clear puddles of vomit. cee just didn’t have the strength she normally did, and i was concerned enough to take her to the vet.

you have to understand, often going to the vet was more traumatising for cee cee than staying home and toughing it out. she would cling to the sides of her cage, often having to be pulled out. one time she had to be tranquillised before the vet would touch her, given how badly she had scratched him up the time he tried to pull her out by the scruff of her neck.

but, i pulled her into the cat cage, and we headed off to THE ARK, a great veteranary place in midlevels. cee didn’t even have the energy to fight much, she just got the very dilated pupils. i held her for most of the exam, and wasn’t surprised when they told me she was a very sick cat.

liver failure, they figured.

liver failure? that was for overweight cats! my girls ate science diet light or iams light. wet food was for Christmas and celebrations only. olivia was heavier than cee, and liver failure is most common in older cats. cee was only four years old!

did we want to do an operation? it might help. of course, i said. i usually have a book with me, and i sat in the waiting room, reading f scott fitzgerald and worrying about my little girl.

the operation was a success, the vet said, a few hours later. (an expensive success can i add?). they were going to feed cee cee through a tube, it wasn’t as invasive as a gastro tube, but would make sure she got the nourishment. i saw my groggly little girl, pet her, and put her in a cage for the night. they had shaved her side, and she was embarrassed of it. i had been there for eight hours, and couldn’t remember a thing i had read.

the next day i cancelled my appointments for the week and headed back the vet. cee cee was status quo they said. not gaining weight, but not throwing up either. this was good. her spirit was maybe? a bit better, and it did my heart good to see how she lifted her head and meowed when she saw me. i dragged a stool toward her and sat by her cage, and read again, one hand holding the book and turning the occasional page, the other on her neck. so that was wednesday.

the saturday was sebastian’s first birthday party, and i had already delegated the cake making and organising to charles, because i knew i was going to be at the vets.

the friday i went in, with wild swans, a big thick novel. i knew i would stay the morning, take the number 40m home and have lunch with sebastian then come back and spent the afternoon at the vets. charles was coming home early, and would put sebastian to bed, letting me be at the vets until they closed.

the feeding tube was now directly going into cee cee’s tummy, and she was definitely doing better. even i could see her coat was looking a little better. that afternoon, i returned from lunch, opened my book, and cee cee’s cage. she opened one eye and gave a mew, and i resumed stroking (my hand was so sore after four days of this!) and reading.

about 20 minutes into the reading, cee stood up and slowly walked two steps forward to the edge of the cage. the cage was level to my knees. she then very slowly stepped on to my knees, and did her usual routine, two and one half circles, then lie her bottom half down, then pull herself another half circle, before finally lying down. she gave a huge sigh of contentment, and put down my book and rubbed my little cee cee, so thankful to have her on my lap again. we stayed like that the whole afternoon, i only read occasionally, the rest of the time i was just happy with kitten. when the vet told me they were closing up for the night, i gently lifted cee cee off me, kissed her, and shut the cage. she gave me her usual mew, and closed her eyes.

the next morning she died. apparently it was painless, but do you ever hear anyone say that it was a PAINFUL death? i paid the bill with a credit card over the phone, told them to dispose of the body as they wished. i still have WILD SWANS and a jumper there, which i haven’t ever retrieved and never will.

it has been three years since xia xia (next to olivia on the right), my grateful little cat, died. but i am still in tears as i write this post, remembering our last day together. i am so glad we spent it together, doing what we both loved, just showing our love.

friends were so good when cee cee died. richard made me sit shiva for two days, and sent food over. shayna completely understood. charles held me and held me. even now, years later, even though olivia’s constant meowing is driving us crazy, he understands that i just can’t get another cat. i can’t imagine loving and losing like that again.

i believe i will see cee cee in heaven. amen.

III – all creatures great and small

after a few days, it was time to name kitten. she still wasn’t coming to us, but we heard her prowling around at night. i was concerned…she was feral…would she, could she ever love us? the morning i woke up and found a dead cockroach and its entrails on the sofa (which is definitely off the beaten track for a cockroach), i knew she was fond of us. she was a quick learner, the litter pan was being used by both cats.

had we used up our genius naming abilities with dark and mysterious olivia? we hoped not. kitten would do for now.

what wouldn’t do, was the ROI we were getting. charles was at work each day and i was still unemployed. everyone else i knew was employed. i wandered around exploring the city each morning, dropping off resumes, but then would come home. i was hearing the same thing, "no one is hiring right before the handover. wait and see." i couldn’t do temp work because i didn’t have a work visa. at home, after washing the dishes and making the bed, there wasn’t much to do.

the televisions two english speaking channels were laughable, i had read every thing i wanted to from charles’ book shelf, the flat was spotless….i wanted entertainment. and company. cats hiding under the bed and computer were not going to cut the mustard.

olivia, from her spot under the bed was tough to grab, but kitten wasn’t, if you approached her from behind. but i could sit on the floor and talk with kitten. and so i did. hour after hour, day after day. or i would read the paper (1.50canadian, a daily luxury i afforded myself) sitting on the chair looking up at her. and after three days or so, kitten responded to my dialogue with a mew. two days later, olivia emerged from under the bed DURING DAYLIGHT HOURS. she and kitten had a detente, there was never any fighting between them. slowly slowly it was all coming together.

our families, began getting letters from us. my mum recalls being so excited to see photos…and then disappointed that they were only of a cat and a kitten. ONLY? what on earth did she mean? charles and i forked over precious dollars to call home, and spent the entire conversation trying to coax olivia out from under the bed so she would meow, and coaxing a little mew out of kitten. they tried telling us nicely WE DON"T CARE ABOUT THE ANIMALS … WE CARE ABOUT YOU…but we couldn’t believe they possibly meant it. not care about the cats!!!

kitten was being tamed with a rapidity that stunned me. olivia never became a mother figure to her, but they got along very well, and soon were both sleeping on our bed. she was just so grateful for every single thing we did for her.

in chinese, thank you is translated into xia xia. (shia shia). charles and i had met over capilano college’s intranet system. (cc). xia xia, CC. cee-cee she became.

we lived through fleas, conjucitivitis, nail clipping, all those fun things. and olivia was charles’ girl. she would jump on the bed, knead his chest, and collapse on top of him, or the paper he was trying to read. she loved his lap. she didn’t ignore me, but it is as if she knew he had given her that second chance. olivia loved the taste of ben gay or other muscle rubs, of garlic, salad dressings and would lick the stuff off charles’ back when his old injury started to bother him.

and xia xia was my cat. i held her tail when she was washing herself so ensure that she got a good grip, i would follow her down the hallway so she could get a drink of water from the tap, we had a spoon sleeping arrangement that worked for us. i slept on my side and she would curl behind my knees, or by my tummy. she didn’t drink using her tongue, she would get her paw wet and then lick off her paw. she spent a lot of time drinking. she would run to the door when she heard my voice outside it, she would respond to my monologues about when we would ever get pregnant with a series of small meows.

but she always retained a slightly wild side. she climbed up curtains, at times she had a shrill throaty meow, and she hated visitors. hated them. when the doorbell rang or a knock would sound, she would race to the bedroom and burrow under the duvet, eyes wild until the bad people had gone. if our bedroom door was shut, she would slide into closets, and i would see sharp scared eyes glinting back at me hours later, when i went to find her. she could be lured out of hiding with tuna juice, most of the time.

if it was a delivery man at the door, or a repair worker, she would get petrified. during those times, i would lie on the bed, stroking the lump on the duvet, telling her how much she was loved, how safe she was.

after four years (and roughly $50,000US in drs fees and medicines), we got pregnant with sebastian. no change in our relationship with the cats, we didn’t flinch when we found olivia asleep in the crib charles had so lovingly prepared, she thought it was a cat sized bed placed tantalisingly in the sunshine for her benefit, i’m sure. of course we’re going to keep them when people asked if the cats would stay or go. it wasn’t even an issue.

the night i went into labour, cee cee stayed with me all night long. i didn’t even know i was in labour, but cee cee did. i went into the bathroom, let cee drink from the tap, and after she drank, she jumped out of the tub and came and sat at my foot. she followed me from room to room, sat beside me as i tried to finish the story i had due that day, sat beside the computer monitor as i msn’ed with my sister, who declared, WHAT ARE YOU DOING UP? ARE YOU IN LABOUR? YOU ARE IN LABOUR!

it was cee cee that my brother and i tried to get to smell my underpants. i didn’t know if my water had broken or if i had weed myself. i asked my brother to smell my underpants and he refused. but he suggested that cee cee smell them, since cats hate the smell of urine. she gave them one sniff then walked back over to me.

it was cee cee who stayed in the kitchen with me while i made sandwiches, and who trotted from room to room while i tried to wake up charles and pack the last minute items. after i informed charles that there was NOT time to go to the office to get his camera and that we were going to the hospital NOW, it was cee cee i picked up and cuddled one last time.

and then everything changed with the arrival of sebastian.

but my love for cee cee didn’t. if anything, it was enhanced. this little cat didn’t want anything from me except for love. she wasn’t making my breasts sore and cracked and painful. no, she was purring with her mouth slightly open in that way she had, luring me to bed to get some rest. she was chewing my hair as she slept at the nape of my neck, or by my tummy. i would give her tummy, gently stroking the spotted stomach, until my tired hands fell still.

she taught me a lesson. all she wanted was to love me. and while i hadn’t a clue if i could do this mothering gig, i knew i could love my cat. i knew that what i would always remember about this cat is how much she loved me. and i realised, that is what i wanted my child to remember about me. i could do this mothering bit…i did love my bald delightful baby, and for now, in those early days, that was enough.

tomorrow i promise will be the last cat dedicated post for a while.

part 2

the day after we brought the kitten home, we trudged back to the rspca on hong kong side for "olive’s" second interview. we left kitten where we left her, and put a litter box and sand on our shopping list.

this wasn’t an ordinary day, this was the day that TWO incidents occurred that made me realise not only that i was going to marry the man they call magnificent, but that i really really wanted to.

olive was sitting in her cage pretty much looking the same as we had left her. dark and mysterious all right. her age, unknown, but the kid who worked there figured that she was in between 3-5 years old.

beau charles dropped down to chat with her, and olive gave a mew. we had been very careful to look not only at the cats featured at eye level, but at the lower rows of cages. who knows where our cat would be?

remember a few weeks ago i posted about crack goes my heart? and a few paragraphs above i posted about the two incidents that made me realise i would marry charles? here’s the first.

beau charles turned to me, his face all passionate and earnest and said, "tess, i know we wanted to adopt two kittens, but you know what? everyone wants to adopt a kitten. i want to give this cat a second chance, a chance for a great life."  crack.

he asked the kid to let olive out of her cage, and once he picked her up, she lay her head on his shoulder and made, as my love decribed it, "a little goat sound". done deal.

we shelled out more money that we didn’t have for olive’s various ailments and processing fees, made a donation to the rspca, and then left. while the kitten had been quiet, this cat shrieked the entire way home. she shrieked in the lobby, in the lift, and in particular, when we opened the cat door and introduced her to her new home. she took one look at our 480 square foot flat of paradise, and zoomed underneath the bed, where she remained for the next four days.

beau charles and i went out to get the litter and box. it was heavy to carry back. i remember that. i remember it was a hot july day, and our arms were heavy and we were so happy with our babies. except one thing was niggling me about this olive….what was it….ah yes.

"charles, about your cat."

"our cat. yes?"

"there is a problem with her name."

"you understand that i’m not following you."

"i can’t call her olive."

"i know. she isn’t an olive, is she. dark and mysterious isn’t olive. olive is something you eat on your pizza and i can barely tolerate. i’m glad i didn’t let my distaste of olives stand in the way of choosing what is, you will agree, the perfect cat."

hard to say, what with her being under the bed and all, but whatever.

we decided it was too confusing for olive to have a new house and a new name. yet olive did not do this cat justice. what to do, what to do….bingo.

"charles, i know what we will do."

"one of the reasons i love you!"

"her name is olivia."

"olivia. regal, gracious, perfect."

and it did suit her. still does, actually.

back home in our flat, charles set up the litter pan and i took the cat toys we hadn’t been able NOT to buy out of their cellophane packaging. the newly christened olivia had no interest in the litter pan, and we weren’t too worried about her having accidents, but this little terror, who last night had rustled around the flat and had weed on the floor.

and then the second incident occured. my sweet charles took the little trembling kitten from her perch atop the hard drive, and carried her to the litter pan. he gently reached for her paw and stroked it through the litter, repeating the process several times.

crack went my heart. if he was so gentle and compassionate with animals, what would he be like with our children? and suddenly for the first time in my life, i wanted to know.

olivia had a new name and a new lease on life, and i knew i one day wanted the name mummy, and to bring life into this world.

all things bright and beautiful

let’s go to yellowknife.

first, put on your mittens, second pair of WARM socks, sorel boots, parkas, and scarves. for yellowknife is usually COLD.

don’t worry, i’ll wait.

okay, so here we are, in yellowknife. but 2005 doesn’t suit our needs, we need to go back to 1980. sebastian made a spaceship the other day in the playroom that can double nicely as a timetravelling machine, in you go.

so here we are in 1980. we’re in the basement of our church, although you are wise to keep your coats on. see over there in the corner? the girl with the dorothy hamill haircut and the pinstripe jeans? teeth suggesting a retainer will be worn in a few years? what else is noteworthy about this girl? oh, she’s yelling in church!

i don’t believe you! she’s red faced, yes, angry indeed. but why?

hang on, i’m sure we’ll find out.

animals DO go to heaven! they have to! i don’t care if they don’t have souls…they DO go to heaven!

your teeth are chattering, let’s leave yellowknife and the cold.

i remember that sunday very well. i was eventually asked to leave the sunday school class and wait for my mother by the stairs because i wouldn’t drop the topic of animals whereabouts in heaven.

i still believe, that animals will be in heaven.

not a lot of Biblical backup on this one, and quite a few naysayers. animals don’t have souls, it has only been in the last 200 years that animals were loved. previously, they were food or workers. or they were being worshipped, and God wouldn’t want any of that going on in heaven anyway. of course, does that mean every animal is in heaven, or just loved pets? is that fair to the fruit fly? who knows, definitely not me.

and truly, i do believe that when we get to heaven IT WONT MATTER if the animals are there.i know this, but i still believe they will be there. i do i do i do.

why?

1. God knows our love for our pets

2. a pet can love with a purity that God encourages

3. we often love our pets in an unconditional way, a better way, than we love our friends

there are lots of other reasons, but they are mainly emotional. these are my reasons. i suppose a theologian could come and bash me to pieces, but at the end of the day, they either will be in heaven, or they won’t.

and i think they will.

i have always been a bit of a cat whisperer, and when charles and i moved to hong kong, we adopted two cats. there were two rscpas in the city, and charles and i visited both of them, in order to make sure that we didn’t miss out on the cats we were meant to have. we would have loved to have a dog, but didn’t feel we had the space. dogs need space and we had 480 square feet of living space.

we visited the first spca, conveniently located on hong kong island, not too far from us. we looked at some, but only one caught our eye. charles’ really. she was a dark tabby (i do like tabbies) named olive. i didn’t like the name, but charles was really impressed with the cat. she’s dark and mysterious, he pronounced. we had seen ourselves adopting feral kittens, so the concept of adopting at least three year old olive was a stretch. we didn’t commit ourselves, instead the next day we headed over to the kowloon island rspca. a ferry ride and bus ride and taxi ride away.

we walked into the rspca, and passed through the area where the dogs were, and shuddered at the smells and the dogs obvious despair. i hate visiting animal shelters because of the despair and the knowledge that these animals don’t have long in this world. the smell is tough too, antiseptic not covering up the smell of waste and food.

into the cattery we walked. and there were several cats there who grabbed our attentions, but we were drawn to a cage filled with kittens. one kitten in particular. also a tabby, with a spotted stomach, which is a prerequisite for me. the wee thing was batting at sibling’s tails until it got tired, and then went and laid down. when we leaned down to look at the cage, it backed up and hid in the corner.

all kittens are adorable, but i had no interest in any of the kittens except for this one. i asked to hold it (the second interview, as my hr inclined beau called it).  it was a girl. placed in my hands the kitten stayed there for half a beat, and just as i was bringing her in for a cuddle, jumped five feet to the floor and tried to squirm between cages.

that’s the kitten i want. i informed beau charles.

offer her the job right now, then, he responded, because we don’t want to come back here. and i want to go back and have a follow up interview with the other cat.

we paid for the cat and the flea shampoo (we weren’t sure if the employees were saying this kitten had fleas or not) and a few toys. then we placed the kitten in a box and took it into the sunshine. even though we were poor, we decided the kitten had had enough excitement…we would take a taxi all the way home.

the kitten had an interesting background, she and her siblings were found in a box at one of hong kong’s neatest temples. she had personality, this cat.

as we approached pu nam do (bonham road) we remembered that cats were not allowed in our building, and before smuggling the kitten into the lobby and lift, we cautioned it, shhhh…be quiet! she didn’t say a word.

and upon arriving at our flat, she ran under the desk and stayed there for three days, perched on top of the hard drive, which was nice and warm.

more tomorrow.

how sweet the sound

i have occasionally referred to my almost 91 year old gran…who came to visit us in the okanagan valley this past summer, who is using crest whitening strips, who loves jasper and his bright blue eyes.

but there was another gran..my dad’s mum. florence. grandma. who also lived a long life.

when i lived in vancouver in 1996/97, i maybe visited grandma, who was in a long term care residence there four times. i was working like a dog, didn’t have a car, all sorts of excuses. but i did see her after the spring semester had started, and confessed that i had met someone different. she was sleeping, but it felt good to tell someone about this overwhelming, wonderful new love, yes, that wasn’t too strong a word for it. i thought i loved someone i had never met. was that possible. even worse, he was married.

by the time i was getting married, grandma was blind in both eyes, and the one time i visited her in 1998, she didn’t have much memory of who i was. but for the few minutes she was awake, she was so pleasant to me, even though she didn’t know me. as with so many older people, her memory of her childhood was precise and crisp, so she started to tell me a story about her days in rossland.

i made a final trip back to vancouver in the spring before my wedding, and went to visit grandma with pam and mum. she seemed to be asleep.

we were holding her hands and telling her about our lives, pam married, me about to be married, when all of a sudden, remembering grandma’s excellent long term memory and her lifelong involvement in the salvation army, i told pam and mum that we were going to sing a song. and i launched into

amazing grace, how sweet the sound

that saved a wretch like me!

i once was lost, but now i’m found

was blind, but now i see

and we were stumbling into the second verse, when grandmas lips began moving, and her voice, which i hadn’t heard for years, singing that declaring verse,

through many dangers, toils and fears

we have already come

she remembered it. she could hear us! she could respond!

pam and i had tears pouring down our faces, while mum, who probably has the best voice of us all, kept soldiering on with grandma…

and from there, we sang holy holy holy, onward Christian soldiers (grandma knew the words to that one better than we did), praise God from whom all blessings flow, and as many old-time hymns that we could recall. and our tears continued as grandma sang them all. who knows what she was thinking, if in her mind she was trussed up in her cape and hat and suit, convincing sinners, won’t you come? or if her mind was simply recalling words from her salad days.

but they were words that had given her hope and joy over the years. those were the words coming from her mouth, not despair!

with our goodbye, we sang again amazing grace. as the final verse started, we wiped our wet, black rivered of mascara faces and finished

when we’ve been there ten thousand years

bright shining as the sun!

we’ve no less days, to sing God’s praise

then when we first begun

we had had our miracle. we kissed grandma, we left. a few months later, my beautiful wedding bouquet, the centrepieces, were sent to my gran’s room. my bouquet was filled with ivy, strands of blackberries, freesia, lilies, pansies and smelt glorious.

she died the next year.

i miss grandma sometimes, her unique outlook and her appreciation of the small things. grandma has been on my mind lately, as i recently read somewhere that in an effort to heighten your appreciation of something you have been among for years, talk about it as if you were describing it to a blind person. so i do. even if i am just walking along alone in the outdoors that grandma loved so much.

i have experienced so many miracles. but this day in 1999 was the first time i can remember watching one up close. and with all miracles, you can try to explain it away, but instead, you eventually just have to realise you have been given a gift. and accept it.