a few stolen minutes...

Got a few hours break from work before the next tsunami workload arrives! Enough time to steal a few minutes to blog. Work going beautifully (touch wood!). Busy but fulfilling....so I am quite happy.
I need to take a few hours off from work this Friday. My late grandfather is being honoured by a university. They are naming their medical information center after him. The whole gingbang family will try to make it to the presentation. Thats probably a bus-load of cousins at one place at the same time.
As busy as I am right now, I am also keeping track of the time to my vacation. Just a couple of weeks left now. I'll be loading up the bags soon. Tickets confirmed. Visa still valid. Credit cards cleared. Vacation time approved (not in black and white, yet......but who cares! I am going!).
O yes, one happy note:- my littlest niece took her first steps. She had been holding on me and my siblings, to chairs and tables and walls and doors to walk. never having the guts to try walking on her own. We waited and waited and waited for the momentus event. It finally happened! Gues what she was holding on to? A jeweller's shopping bag! Oh oh my poor brother and sis-in-law will have to watch out for this little one's shopping habits in the future....

Not denial

I have thought about it. I could not be in denial after the amount of time I have spent thinking and analysing about it. I am always aware of the fact that I am not perfect and I have long ago been also aware that neither is my friend.
We have been there for each other and that amounts to a whole lot of understanding and friendship. At the lowest point of each of our lives, the other had stood firm behind like no other person on earth had done that for each of us.
I would like to believe that the one incident could have been acted out by either of us. It just happened to be my friend who lived it. All I know is that I might also some day be susceptible of that similar behaviour. The same risk is also faced by my friend knowingly and unknowingly.
I also know and I have told this to my friend.........I can excuse one incident of such behaviour but thats the only time I shall accept it.
I am capable of leaving as suddenly as I appeared and leaving no trace of where I have gone.

Calm before the storm

By the end of this week, I should be deep in work-what-nots.
This will go on for a period of three weeks minimum. I am still recovering from a week of family celebrations. I am in the in-between stage of finding it hard to let go of the relaxed routine and being eager to get into the adrenaline rush of work.
Its almost like the feeling I get after a vacation spent on an overseas trip.
Speaking of vacations, my looked forwards trip is now just a month away. I am a little apprehensive of this trip. Alot happened during our last meeting. There was a very short break up period. Am I in denial?

Love thru the generations

The celebration season is cause enuff for a number of family gatherings. I met several of my surviving aunts and together with my cousins, we rehashed all the old stories of the previous generations.
Our late grandpa was the stern looking one who had a soft heart. He brought several of his orphaned nieces and nephews and helped brought them up in the last century. Our late grandma was the disciplinarian. She had nine children plus all the orphaned kids she brought up and living thru a world war required her to bring them up with a firm hand.
Grandad was a medical doctor, repected by society even to this day. Unfortunately for him, the world at war requires one to take sides, and although he did not do so, being caught in the middle is not an easy life either.
Their nine kids were a handful to bring up.....we remembered stories of escapades and punishments, some sounding as exciting as the movies we see. The naughtiest son ended up as a high ranking police officer before retiring and going into business. Another son was made a mayor of the city. All the children became a success or had successful children.
As my aunts reminised over the past, I cant help but noted how the kindness my grandparents bestowed upon the orphans has been 'returned' several times over. My dad actually has more than his eight siblings, he has several cousin-sisters who love his kids unconditionally too.
My dad used to make sure that his cousin-sisters always had enuff money to spend. Nowadays thats what my siblings and I continue to do.....one of 'aunts' pulled me aside today to tell me to stop giving her money whenever we meet cos she is almost ashamed to keep on receiving.......I told her that if I had to stop doing that, I would also have to stop going over to eat her wonderfully delicious roast chicken forever!