Rest in peace, Kinny

It's the saddest day of my life.
Looking at Kinny, our old cat gasping before she left this world. We patted her, told her that we loved her over and over again. Hoping that she would go in peace. Hoping that she would be freed from the torture that she was dealing with.

Kinny lost her eyesight a few days ago and from that instant, her condition deteriorated. she was depressed. Refused to eat and drink. We stopped force feeding her because she seemed to be in pain when we did it. So, we decided not to prolong her suffer and tried to encourage her eating on her own. It got better a few days ago and she seemed alright yesterday, walking around the garden which she loved so much.

Today, she was unable to walk. She meowed at me for the last time. It was a weak one. Later, the breathing got shallower and shallower until she gave her last breath and passed away. It was something unexpected. But somehow, deep inside me, I was relieved that she left us. It was just too painful to witness her behaving that way. Not wanting to respond to our calls, perhaps because she was too weak to, or perhaps she was too depressed to do so. Sigh, I suppose when it's time to go, it's time to go.

We gave her a proper burial at our front garden. A place she loved so much. A place we thought appropriate for her. For a cat who had brought us so much joy and happiness.


Oh, Kinny...You were so much loved by everyone in the family. And you were very much pampered by papa too. For the past 13 years, papa in his senior years never had once missed your yearly vaccination appointment. He gave you the best food. He changed your diet to "low salt diet" when your vet confirmed that you had reached the right age.

Oh I remember you and your peculiar drinking habit- drinking straight from the pipe water. My family blamed me for spoiling you. But they had it all wrong. When you were still in Japan, you had always liked looking at flowing water. You would just stare at the water for a long time, and sometimes even made splashes to satisfy your curiosity. I don't know when you started the drinking habit but oh yes, you would sit in front of the water pipe and wait for people to come and turn the pipe on. And you being the fussy one wanted the water flow to be slim and slender. You would refuse to drink if the water was too "thick". Yeah, yeah, as if the water tasted different when the size was bigger. Or perhaps you would choke on the fast flow? Imagining you drinking always puts a smile on my face...

I have to agree that among the most memorable memories would be that you, after me giving birth to Sya, insisted to sleep beside Sya's cot. Yes, you were baby Sya's guardian. You would come to me if Sya's awake. Meowing to me if I was too busy to notice. It was very much appreciated Kinny...I would remind Sya when he grows up that, he once had a cat babysitter named Kinny...

When I came home for good this year, my family had told me that I, was the reason for you to hang on to all these years. Is it true Kinny? Were you waiting for me? Poor Kinny, I have come home for you too. You were part of my family and you were the reason for me to come home. Yeah, I do apologize. And 4 years were indeed too long. Too long for a cat. So here, I would like to say this to you, "Omataseshimashita, sorry for kept you waiting all this while. You had always been in my mind. The last two months we spent together was wonderful and I love you so much Kinny"

Kinny, in Japan at the tender age of 4 months

At her glory age of 2 years...

Kinny during her motherhood...

Kinny babysitting Sya beside the cot

Kinny hated taking pictures, this was during her later years...

One of the few last pictures of Kinny, taken last month

Rest in peace, Kinny. I am sure the garden up there is prettier than ours. We wish you happiness. Doing what you love most. Watching out for us like you had always been, with a tiny difference that you are now in a better place...

Kinny watching her favorite garden...

Get well soon, Kinny

My old cat Kinny is ill. She has aged and weakened a lot recently but it was last weekend that the condition had become worse. She disappeared for 2 days and came back weak and dehydrated. We brought her to our nearest vet and the diagnosis given was: Intoxication. Apparently she is poisoned, possibly with pesticides. She is cachexic, dehydrated, pale and jaundice. Her kidneys and liver are impaired and she also suffers from bilateral conjunctivitis. Well, since my sisters and I are all in medical line, the vet decided to let her go home and advised us to feed her with glucose water and blended food. Not forgetting a string of medication hopefully to reverse her impairments. We have experience with human beings but with animals, it was definitely our first. It is so difficult to force feed a cat who just refuses to drink or eat. We use small syringes to pump in water or medication into her mouth. She does not like that very much. And since she is too weak, she just pees or poo wherever she feels like. Initially we let her loose in the house so that she could walk around in hope that she would feel much better. However, with her current problem, we have decided to put her in a cage. She dislikes that either. At the moment, the most worrisome matter is her eyes. I suspect her eye sight is very much affected by the conjunctivitis. We have applied eye ointment but it has not shown much improvement. She doesn’t sit in her normal position. She sits on her 4 feet, head down, watching the floor. Not her usual pose. We are afraid that she may be depressed.

Looking back, Kinny has been with us for the past 13 years. I brought her back from Japan when I was still doing my undergrad study. She later becomes my daddy’s cat. She has always been the quiet cat. One of her charmed point is that she would sit by her bowl while we prepare her food. She would only eat when everything is served. Not like my other adopted cats who are impatient and would meow continuously. She has always been the princess type of cat.

Now that she’s ill, we are trying hard to make her feel better. At the same time, we hope we are not prolonging her suffering. We are still positive that she would recover fully to that chubby cat we once love so much. Let’s pray for my Kinny~

A series of FORTUNATE events (part 2)

One Monday morning, exactly a week after I started work.

"Knock knock" (Soft knocks)

Me: “Come in. ”

Mr. O: “Doctor, I think we should go out la. Upstairs there is a fire. The alarm did not go off but I think we should just go.”

Me: “Really? OK, I am coming. ”

So I quickly prepared to evacuate from the building. Taking along my handbag and a computer bag which had my MacBookPro in.

Dr. X: “Aiyaa…do you think we should bring our stuff. So many things! Besides it could be just a small fire. Possible a false alarm too. So leceh la.”

Me: “I think we’d better. Quick, we should just evacuate as soon as possible and grab everything we can”

Dr. X was still unsure what to take along with her when I gushed out the room.

I could not smell any smoke nor could I see any fire as I went out of the building. When I arrived at the assembly field (We were told to evacuate there), there were not many people yet. People seemed to take their own sweet time, and something else is obvious, none of them took along any bag! There I was with two big bags and looking very silly. I swear I could hear people gigling behind me. “It had better not be an April fool”, I thought.

After about 10~20 minutes, we heard the fire alarm went off. Yeah right, it’s about time. I could appreciate some smoke coming out from the 2^nd floor. Yeah, there was a fire alright. I felt a little relieved. Mainly because I knew I didn’t over react and my action was correct (Though the standard protocol is to leave everything behind and evacuate as fast as possible!). But as time passed, my relieve turned to anxiety as it was clear that the firefighter failed to put out the fire. We could see more dark smoke coming from the second floor. There were even small explosions heard. We became more anxious when we saw more and more fire brigades arrived. A total of seven to be precise!

Suddenly, we smelled strange chemical odor reaching our compound where we all were. The smell became stronger and we were quickly advised to move from there. Since we were directed to a place far away from the fire, we didn’t know what else happened after that. But one thing for sure, the firefighter was still working hard when we went back.

News about the fire was on TV that night and all the major newspapers the next day. The whole building was closed until further notice. It was good that nobody was hurt from the big fire, but we were saddened by the news that the second floor was badly damaged. My office was on the first floor and it was directly under the affected area. We were told to stay away from the building for at least a year. Until the building is restored and refurbished.

So, here I am. Back to the country I love so much but unable to practice what I know to my full capacity, and produce some quality work until we all settle in. We’re still adjusting to the new environment. It is quite stressful when you have to share the space with so many people. It will take some time until we see that familiar smile on the faces of these people. Meanwhile, let’s just hope that the government would do things at a faster pace. As much as I can tell, not much has been done to help relocating us or repair the building.

A series of FORTUNATE events (part 1)

To think that we were able to escape the earthquake, tsunami and radiation, and be able to come back home in one piece is indeed a blessing. We are really grateful that we are back in Malaysia. Good food, good people and it has been great catching up with my old friends. But things back home has not been going too smooth ever since we came back.

So what... it has been more than one month since I came back to Malaysia. Both husband and I have started work soon after that. We left Sya with his grandparents whenever we are at work and at the same time looking for a suitable kindergarten for him. Since both of us work in KL, we have to get up at 5am to prepare ourselves for work. 6.15am is the ideal time to move from my home in Shah Alam. If we were 5 minutes late, we would have been caught in bad traffic jam and we would end up late. We finish work at 4.30pm but we never reach home earlier than 5.45pm. We would be jumping with joy if we could come home at 5.30pm. So as you can see, the stress level due to the traffic jam is so much higher if compared to our previous life in Japan. We didn't have to deal with traffic there. Just easy bicycle riding.

Hence, we decided to look for a new home.

Looking for a new home in the middle of KL is absurd. If you browse the internet, you will notice that the price is impossible for government servants to buy or rent. At least to us. We had one choice though, which was to apply for government quarters. The procedure didn’t take too long and we considered ourselves lucky when we were granted a bungalow house in Federal Hill, Kuala Lumpur. It was still under renovation when we first went there. The house is huge with five rooms and a big garden. It is shady with big trees around, possibly aged at least a few hundred years. We have just learned that the Federal hill is a conserved area due to the limited greens in KL. What a fantastic place, we thought.

While waiting for us to move in, the house is guarded by a lady guard who stays in 24 hours. She stays there with her family. She is pleasant and chatty. Whenever we visit the house, she always asks us when we would move in, so that she would move back to her home town. Apparently she has not been going back home ever since the last occupant left. She advised us that we should get more people to stay in this house. I asked her why? She said, oh nothing… that house was too huge for three of us and it’s a waste to leave the rooms unoccupied. How nice of her, we thought. We did not think of any hidden meaning of her words then.

We went there every weekend to make sure the renovation was done timely. One of the reasons why we need to move in fast is that, our cargo has finally arrived. I will talk about that in another entry. Anyway, my more than 100 boxes are occupying my parents house and it’s not a beautiful sight. So, we desperately need to relocate them somewhere. Of course with another main reason that we want to escape the terrible traffic jam every day.

One week ago, I had paid the deposit for the house since the renovation was almost done. We went there last weekend and we were pretty satisfied with the final product, with our eyes half closed. Haha! It was only then that we noticed that we had forgotten to make curtains. The twenty three grilled windows and two sliding doors surely need nice curtains, right? Yup, twenty three windows…my mind was calculating the price for the whole house. Anyway, we didn’t bring any measurement that day and unfortunately I would be busy with an afternoon tea date the next day. So darling hubby volunteered to make the measurement himself. It was late in the afternoon when he went for the measurement. After that, he came and fetched me home and we went to our nearest Nagoya textile to make curtains. I don’t know about other people, to choose materials for curtains, and tell the tailor of the exact measurement was definitely not an easy task. It was one thing I would like to escape if possible. And to make things worse, each room had different window measurement!

While choosing the materials for my curtain, my husband and I was discussing regarding one particular area which I thought need not to have curtain. It was this area in the middle part of the stairs where it has one long vertical window stretched from the second floor to the first floor. I thought it was unnecessary since all the windows are tinted dark. As long outsider can’t see us, that should be fine…I thought. However hubby insisted to have the window covered.

Hubby: Lebih baik tutup dengan langsir lah yang.

Me: Ala…kat rumah my parents pun ada tingkap camni, tapi mak tak pasang langsir pun…

Hubby: Bila malam-malam nanti, nampak pokok bergoyang kang, ada yang suspen nanti. Hubby laughed.

Me: Ke abang takut nampak kain putih melayang? I asked jokingly.

Hubby: …

Me: …

Hmm, someone took my joke seriously. Something's fishy, I thought.

Me: Did anything happen while you did the window measurement yesterday?

Hubby: …

Me: Is there something I should know?

Hubby: Hmm, yeah. I felt weird yesterday. In that house alone.

Me: But previously you said the house felt ok?

(For your info, my hubby claimed he could see “the unseen” when he was a child but later after adulthood, he couldn’t see them anymore but he retained the sense and can feel them)

Hubby: But this time when I went alone, the feel was stronger. Previously when we went together, the feel was weak and those things can disappear when there are more people around.

Ohh…ok. Now I know why he insists to have all windows covered with curtains.

Me: Are they “keras” type. Or just naughty type?

Hubby: Hmm…more of a naughty type.

That surely didn’t make me feel any better…

Hubby: Especially the guestroom downstairs and the storeroom.

Me: ….

Hubby: ….

Me: Seriously…do you think we should reconsider about this house?

Hubby: Yeah we should. We were so occupied and anxious to start our new life in Malaysia that something like this just escaped some serious discussion. Moreover, I didn’t want to make you worry unnecessarily since you were so into it.

We had a long serious discussion.

Me: I think we should just quit the thought of staying there. It’s not worth to take the risk too. Well, I may lose my deposit but it’s worth it. I totally believe your intuition. Besides, the place is quite isolated and both our neighbor houses are vacant. Everything is just too good to be true. Let’s just call it off darling.

Hubby: Yeah, I agree.

So, here we are. Back to square one. Back to house hunting again. Together with a long list of other things to do. First thing first…I need to ask my tailor to hold the curtain making. I will definitely have to get a new window measurement. Oh dear, there is no way we can afford a house with 23 windows and 2 sliding doors. So, what am I going to do with the leftover materials? Oh well…that can be arranged I suppose. Worse comes to worst, I will have many pairs of curtains enough for the next few years. Hahaha…

Hmm, I wonder whether we should look for condos instead…

Now I have to keep myself busy again. Oh yes, I have to tell you that I don't get internet access at work so it’s impossible for me to do internet searching and read blogs during lunch time. Yup, there is a story behind that as well. Will write about that part of the story later. Believe me, many dramas had happened after coming back and some people had even asked me whether I am jinxed, coming back from Japan.

Hmmm...maybe I should seriously consider mandi bunga? Nah...just joking!

Till next time friends! I will update. For my blogger friends, thanks for being so concern and patient with me. It's going to be a while till I find back my own pace. Meantime, do take care!