Looking back now, I have been on no-pay for almost 4 months, since Nov. Sept and Oct passed in a dark cloud of fatigue, anguish and an ever-high mountain of things to do.
Nov and Dec were mainly about settling things, making sure the rites and rituals were followed and adhered to, dealing with the loss, setting up things for the finances, the accounts and distribution to avoid internal conflicts, lots of roll-eyes at incidents that were so telling of characters and personalities, tidying and clearing out as much of the clutter as possible by the 'divine deadline'. Things I hope I would never have to relive. I met up with friends a few times, keeping as much at home cos have so much to do. Just going through my Dad's entire collection of files and documents and everything and sorting through them was a 9am-5pm job daily. Sorted and filed up all the docs that seemed important and came up with a cupboard full of A4 files. At least now labelled and put together. An epic job that I never want to do again... Through it I got more insight into my Dad's life and also into the whole mess of affairs in Malaysia. I dont have the full picture but I did have a rough idea with some details instead of the foggy picture. But again cos this mess has been brewing for at least 4-5 decades and unresolved, it might take a while and some maneuvering to move things into resolution. Just hope it dont get more complicated due to the words and actions of the other parties involved.
Jan was a quieter month, mainly keeping up with the rites, adhering to the rituals and forbidden things, getting the house clutter cleared before the installation of the air-con, paint job and Taoist rites to mark the end of the mourning period, 100 days. Things were starting with the SG lawyer, and compiled the lists and documents I had and handed over. Most of the accounts for finances were set up and running, and I was sorting through membership subscriptions, newspapers, phone bills, credit card, insurance policies payment, and so on. Had to call here, email there, print out forms and send, go down in person. Kept busy with such things until the final part of the ceremony.
I stared taking a peep or two at my own portfolio, hoping to see how I could make it earn some $ for me whilst I was tied down by all these. Bought in 2 lots of a share before it nose-dived... sian. Imagine being on the roller-coaster ride downwards, a steep one. Also started going out more often with friends for mainly dinners, that did cheer me up more and more. A chance to breathe socially outside. Talked about other topics and just go back to being more me.
Feb was a month of slowly resuming things, left off. I restarted KM to get my fitness back. Had put on 10kg and was struggling to contain my eating and appetite. Unsurprisingly once I restarted KM, my eating went back to the normal meals. Even portion wise, it was reducing two weeks into it. Cos I have to eat by a certain time before the exercise or have to eat after, so my meal times are back to strict timing. I find my appetite has come back to normal from the excessive overeating in the months earlier. Went to see the lawyer, and we went to the temple to pray to Tai Shui just before the 15th.
I am using my Dad's ChromeBook to log into the internet and hence can start monitoring the 'live' prices for stocks and also resume blogging. It is so much easier on a bigger screen, with a keyboard. I did do these on the phone but it wasnt big enough and often end up with typo and auto-correct errors in my posts. Am going out to meet friends more often, like I used to, except being on no pay meant I can meet on weekdays afternoon. We had some notably delicious and value meals - the fish shop at the basement of Taka that had very fresh fish and delicious Oden at a good price, the extra topping bowl of raw fish from Teppei Shyokudo with the heaps of fish that covered the rice and made for a very nice fish-to-rice mouthful every bite.
I headed over to JB with Tab, showing her how to go to CitySquare and JBCC through public transport. I had gone in numerous times since the first time in August, mainly to deal with the accounts in Msia. After that got mainly sorted out, I headed in a couple of times to do a mix of shopping for new year goodies, some more over-sized T-shirts, and so banking. We headed in on a Tues if I remembered correctly. The crowd was surprisingly manageable, luckily so as it was just a few more days to the Lunar New Year and I had expected a huge flood but it seemed we have pre-empted it. Phew. So we went shopping around for cheaper clothes, I needed more bottoms cos my increased weight meant I couldnt fit into my current wardrobe. Think besides my berms and some more plain berms I bought for the mourning period, I cant fit into my jeans. So we spent a long time in FOS, looking and trying out men's wear which on us still looked feminine. We joked about the 'obiang-ness' of some of the stuff we saw and how it would really fit a very 'obiang' theme, reminiscent of the 'Retro-obiang-nerd' dressing we did. I left with 4 bottoms, one which was the same size as Tab's... Okay remind myself not to make that one tight otherwise I am reaching Tab's. So I told her, these are really emergency supplies, even if I lose, I must keep for future days when my weight ballooned excessively again...
We ate at this Jap restaurant, Azuki which I tried with my mom a few weeks back. I had gone in once to do banking and bought a few tubs of CNY goodies, which my sister really liked two of them - an almond nuts, sunflower seeds, thin film waffer biscuit and the fried seedweed. I told her how I struggled and after sampling just one stall, I couldnt taste other stalls. A week or two later, I went in with my mom to stock up more of CNY goodies, and we had a seriously tough time tasting through almost all the stalls for the seaweed she liked cos that stall ran out of that. Omg, it was tough to taste anything else after so many stalls. I kept guggling water to rinse my palate. So after that trip, we had enough goodies. The exchange rate meant that instead of paying $8 for a basic tub, I could pay that and get some real good quality and exotic stuff. The same would have cost like easily $15-$20 back in SG. We discovered the nice Jap place and I prefer it more than Sushi King after that horrendously bad oyakodon. The set meals were delicious, filling and definitely cheap by sg standards. So Tab and I settled inside and chatted. Me mainly eating the set and Tab having a go at the revolving sushi. The tamago with roasted mentaiko sauce is superb. Something so simple yet so flavourful and cheap. Dont see this combination in sg. We walked around JBCC and after some more shopping, Tab was telling me to stop her from buying anymore. We headed back to CitySquare and headed to the bookshop. I bought more CD storage cases for mom. Tab bought 2 books. Lastly we headed to the square filled with CNY goodies. As Tab went about trying some of the samples, I declined quite a bit cos of the prior experience. I showed her that stall that I bought from quite a bit with some of the stuff that were pretty good. Instead I end up buying more from them, two tubs of seaweed, a tub of a tart that had a chewy combination of cashew, jelly, sesame and some flakes. It tasted good to me and is a chewy. The salesgirl told me she recognised me from earlier purchases. Wow, really... I told Tab about the nice crispy sotong seaweed I had tried earlier with Mom while we sampled almost all the seaweed. She tried it and liked it a lot. She took 2 and I took 1 tub to get the offer, 3 tubs for R$50. We were mostly done and headed back via public transport. Definitely had a fun time. Felt good to get some good value stuff and clothes.
On another occasion, we walked through the CNY stalls in Takashimaya while waiting for others for dinner and noted how pricey the goodies were. Superbly expensive, it was easily $15-19.90 and above. Crazy prices and some were very small tubs. And not generous with samples too. Few stalls had samples to try, as opposed to every stall was letting you try everything they had. I regretted not buying the Kueh Lapis in JB but I think my waistline was grateful. Maybe next year. We did leave the Taka stalls buying tea though. I bought the second last box of Ginger Flower oolong that was so fragrant and unique. Definitely worth it.
Painting with Tab was an imprompto affair as Tab asked me over WhatApp earlier in the week whether I would be free on Friday. She laid out the plan to make a replica of the painting that Quet loved so much but that costs at least $5k and above. It was meant as a gift to her. I was alright with it and we decided on when to meet, where to do the piece at and also who to bring what materials. We decided to meet at Dolby to buy the materials (kindly sponsored by FH), pack our lunch so that we can save some food money and meet earlier than the initial 2pm, at 12pm instead. Our venue would be SMU, the benches with access to food and drinks and toilet. We were to channel our most inner uni-student and dress up like one, doing Rag too. But as my sleeping hours are still havoc, I had woken up late, after finally sleeping at 5am. Woke up and it was close to eleven. I had to get ready and packing cardboard box into my KM bag was no easy task. My job was to bring the cardboard, newspapers and cups for painting. Ended up with pencils too when Tab msged me saying she had forgotten those. I didnt have time for breakfast nor pack lunch, so I packed along 5 mini-tarts from the cny, and some chips and ritz biscuit, plus my 1litre waterbottle full of tea. We bought the supplies in Art Friend and joked how extra stuff could be sponsored, like an extra canvas here and there and so on.
Tab wanted to take a train to the Museum area from dolby but I told her it was really walkable. So we headed to the mrt and emerged from the other exit nearer to the Cathay. We walked along the path which I was telling her, reminding me of the days of taking guitar lessons. It was my weekly path. Then we ended up at the SMU campus just opposite from Hotel Rendezvous and settled down at a bench that was sheltered and cooler than the main bench area. Once we settled down, Tab suggested that we eat before starting. I queued for pasta with the rest of the SMU students, decent pasta with a free lemon tea for $4.80. And by the time I got my food and was eating, Tab had finished and was sketching out the outline. The proportions were different tot the original due to the size of the canvas and she made her own original design choices.
Once I had finished eating, I joined in and waited until she was done with the sketch before painting. Within minutes of painting, I had stiff neck, stiff right shoulder from having to lift my entire arm to paint. Kept twisting about and stretching my stiff neck and shoulder. Joked that the costs should include a shoulder massage. After an hour of that, the stiffness went off and it was so much better not to keep feeling the stiffness every few minutes of painting. But there were two workman who were discussing very loudly their plans and etc. I find myself listening in and it wasnt a positive discussion, so I used my hp and played music from Spotify so that my mind can focus on the music instead. Utada Hikaru's R&B is suitable for a rainy day listening. Found a list for FF and ChronoCross soundtrack in symphonic style. It made the mood better despite the loud, complainy discussion, rainy day and a bit of a dark corner with light kinda lacking but it was cool. There were many topics we chatted about whilst mixing colors, painting, that spanned comical to serious to remembrance to downright yellow lines. Reminiscent of Rag days. We kinda fit in so much, some guy came up to me to ask where the nearest toilet was, which I didnt know. Later on when we needed to wash the paintbrush and get more water then I had to look about for one. In fact we could enter down the escalator to the student cca underground part of SMU. Think this one has public access cos its the linkway from the mrt later which we used. I munched on the 5 tarts I bought as we continued on. Though we didnt eat the chips nor the ritz biscuits. Too busy.
We learnt not to underestimate an art piece that 'looks like what a ten year old can do' and how the asymmetrical worked wonderfully into something that looked symmetrical at first glance, how polka dots are a bloody pain to paint, how there were so much texture and details in the seemingly simple picture, how irritating it was to have to keep painting layers to cover the white part of the canvas, how used sponges with paint should stick together and stay one side, how to mix turquoise which to my chagrin wasnt used at all in the painting... How difficult it was to do outlines in markers... Yep a steep and deep learning Art-jamming session. Granted, I havent had a chance to try it out yet. But this gives me an experience for it.
Slowly things came together. Though it didnt look exactly like the real deal, the colors and the piece did stand out. And by 6pm, though there were noticeable flaws, we were too tired to continue on, cos there were many adjustments made repeatedly before that. Such as repainting, repairing, re-outlining. So decided that will be it. The silver part didnt pop as much, perhaps Tab would fix it using silver markers when she goes over to Quet's place. We signed off at the right edge and then we cleaned up quickly, threw the unwanted and headed to the toilet before heading to the mrt to go to Promenade to meet Quet for dinner. Fatigue caught up with me and I wanted to sit down. Saw Tab rest the edge on the floor and told her to rest it on my bag. It was tall enough to hide me behind the painting as I sat for just 2 stops. Interestingly when you look at the painting from the back, through the light, it looks very arty-farty, like Picasso style where you can see the brush strokes.
We went to Teppei Shyokudo cos Tab wanted to try the delicious bowl of raw fish don. We had to queue and wait for seats cos it was a small place and finally got it. Tab turned the painting over to face Quet cos she didnt notice the back of the canvas when she arrived. We waited and it took a while before she noticed. We were making eyes and faces while eating. Finally she did. She was happy with it and we put it at the back of her car. She better not put behind or else it might fly off when she opens the top of her car. We walked around Marina square and went to Homefix to some picture hangers. I was still hungry and we settled down in MacDonalds. I actually ate a Fillet meal. Counting, then I had a brunch, a small snack and a don then a fast food meal... well three meals. Overall it was a good experience and would become another memory of doing something different from the usual. Though we kinda agreed that colour printing a copy might be less of a pain. There are still quite a lot of paint left, 4 small canvases for more art-jamming in the near future at Tab's place. At least, by then my cannot-visit-any-homes-until-15th rule would have lifted.
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