edit & post hangzhou, yellow mountain & shanghai pics
catch up on oFoodie
edit & post carving pumpkins pics
sleep
change my ac filter & get a tire rotation
start doing p90x again
prepare for d.c. (hooray!!!)
sleep
eat a balanced meal (have not done so since saturday)
sleep…
edit & post d.c. photos
oi.
today, i’m volunteering with Operation Kindness (it’s been awhile!) at the Unleashed Indoor Dog Park “Howl-lo-ween” party. i’m excited, been wanting to go there for awhile – it’s just so far. but i get to kill two birds with one stone now by volunteering and getting to go – finally! jessi and bernie are going to drop by as well, so that’ll be fun.
other than that from 2-6pm, i have nothing planned. it will probably be my first low-key halloween in a very long time. i don’t even have a costume this year! ahhh, feels good.
last night was a definite fail at the wong/pang residence.
i blissfully (actually, very exhausted after straining over work papers for 2 hours) set off to bed, cuddled up in between my pillows and snuggled into my blankets. g came to tuck me in (aww – i make him do it) at around 12 midnight, then went back to watch some tv in solitude.
i groggily awoke to an awful smell. g was shaking me awake wailing “what should i do, what should i do?”. apparently, nikon got sprayed in the face by a skunk outside. “what should i do? i locked him in the garage!” i mumbled incoherently “it smells bad”. “oh no! i must have gotten the smell on your blankets!!” i drifted off to sleep. poor g.
g was forced to face the predicament alone. minutes before, he was cheerfully letting oink and nikon outside to do a little pee business before bed. oink quickly finished up and went back into the house. nikon, always the mischievous one, darted down the row of houses that make up our backyard. g followed aimlessly, but was startled to hear a growl coming from nikon, and suddenly, the world was filled with the pungent smell that can only be described as: skunk.
now what to do? the whole house smelled like skunk. g smelled like skunk. my blankets smelled like skunk. nikon was covered in skunk. g pulled on a coat and rushed to the local wal-mart to grab handfuls of febreeze, lysol and automatic fresheners. after stationing cans and plug-ins all over the house, he set to take care of the one that caused it all… nikon. holding his breath the best he could, but gagging the whole way g bathed nikon not 1, not 2, but 3 times until nikon was finally rid of the stink.
i woke with at start at 2:40 a.m. oink was sleeping beside me, but there was no sign of g. i crept outside and opened the office door. there was poor g, asleep on the floor with nikon. oink clambered over to g with licks galore. “go back to sleep,” came his tired voice, “nikon still smells. i’m keeping him company.” – “but he doesn’t smell anymore! come sleep in the bed.” – “no… he smells…” and thus, my lazy bum went back to bed while g finally crashed to sleep.
in the morning, the house still stinks. after work, my car still stinks (it was parked in the garage). in the evening, the house still stinks. they say skunk smell stays around for up to a week and a half. woe is us.
and a wasp just chased me around the house. super. fail.
today is the day that my brother and i become ’3 years’ apart, instead of 2. oh… the memories.
you see, when we were young – no matter what a nuisance i was (aka, breaking into his cardboard box fort that was already broken apart) – he never, ever hit me. as we got older, he would withstand quite a lot of punches before he decided to hit me back to get me to stop. and now, all he does is give me hugs, or say odd things about being a pokemon master.
a long time ago at the church we went to when we first moved to texas, there was this husband and wife with two daughters. they were really nice and the husband even led us in worship from time to time.
the younger girl went off to mexico (or spain, i can’t remember) to live or study abroad. she came back with quite the surprise for her parents… and a broken heart. she had been courted by a man who she had thought loved her, and had gotten pregnant by him only to find out that he actually had a wife. with that, he left her and she made her way back to her home in austin. her parents were gracious and loving, as many people in the church would expect.
the husband, with all smiles, got up to the podium to lead us all in worship – exclaiming what a beautiful day it was and shared with the congregation how he was going to be a grandfather and how excited he was. i can still see his joy.
but, word spread of how his daughter had become pregnant.
the next sunday, the husband was up at the podium again, but not to lead worship. to my astonishment, he somberly asked the church for their forgiveness and apologized if he had offended anyone for his statements the week before. he left the stage and when he sat with his family in the pews, i saw them hugging. and the daughter had tears in her eyes.
apparently, some people in the congregation had issued complaints. and this is what i remembered. not the church’s “love”… but the family’s love, who even after that, still stayed faithful to the church that turned their back on them.
