Woke up to a knock on my door at 7AM on a Saturday, it's today that I've been worried about for a week.
"Dennis! Wake up!"
It's mom with her high pitched voice, asking me and my sister to wake up for Ching Ming (Spring Remembrance), it's the day where the Chinese go visit the graves of their late relatives. For my case, it's time to visit dad's grave.
This is the 10th time I visit my father's grave since his sudden death in 1998, but I think we had it easy this year.
Previous years, my family had to wake up at 5am for Ching Ming, we usually go visit my late grandfather's grave first before going visit my father's. However, this year we had it easy since grandpa has gone back to Penang last year.
It is also the first time in more then 20 years that I didn't light a joss stick for grandpa during Ching Ming.
"What a pity."
I recalled my dad saying during a visit to my grandpa's grave, he was looking at the very old grave that's covered with growth and vegetation right next to grandpa's.
"It's been years since the last time anyone came visit this grave, I guess the family don't remember him anymore."
Dad, always the caring person that he is, clear up the stranger's grave a little, light a joss stick and gave some offerings to the departed stranger.
According to my grandmother my father never failed to go visit my grandpa's grave while he's alive, I intend to do the same.
Having my day started walking among the dead, I return back home for a quick rest and prepare myself for a celebration of a friend's birth. As a matter of fact, I have 4 friends who are having their birthday today, managed to celebrate 3 of their birthday over lunch and dinner. Missed out one, since the birthday girl made a decision to be somewhere else instead.
The one friend who we celebrated her birthday over lunch was done rather quick and easy. We just had lunch over at a shopping mall near by have the usual chit-chat, laughs and cam whore session.
The dinner plan for the other 2 friends however was a brilliant one but turned out to be a disappointment. The plan is to head up to Ampang's Lookout Point for dinner and since the supposed Earth Hour is around that time we will get a good view of the city turning the lights off. Before we even arrive I was having second thought about this whole plan when we saw the number of traffic in the area is. Along the stretch of road we have cars parked on the emergency lane and it's like maybe 700m long.
Reservations were made weeks ago, we already have a spot (at least we think) so we parked the car at the side of the road about 300m away and started walking to the restaurant.
A few of my friends were there already and they have waited for a place for 30 minutes. What happen to our reservations? It's a mystery, UFO came and aliens erased it from the restaurant database was my bet however it's was a management problem that was the cause. I was already tired since lunch, my patience was already at it's limit.
30 minutes later a waiter approached me, offered to take the cake which I was carrying to put in to the fridge. Poor fella approached me at the wrong time, wasn't not too happy with the management at that time and wasn't keen in waiting so long for food, plus I was bored so I decided to pretend that I was pissed for having to wait for a table even after reservations.
"Where's the Hell is my table?! I've been standing here with this cake for an hour now and I have a reservation yet I must wait for an hour to be seated?!" I shouted
I guess being an observer in an acting class does help, all those hours watching people doing what some people consider as nonsense does pay off.
The waiter's expression changed from cheerful to the not-too-happy look, he nodded, said sorry and walk off to the manager, who promised me a table in 10 to 15 minutes.
I wasn't keen to have dinner there after the little stunt I pulled off with the waiter, it's a rule not to mess with the people who serves you food, you have no idea what extra ingredient they have for you. Managed to convince my friends to go somewhere else for dinner, rather be somewhere else then to be stuck in Ah Beng and la-la land with people who pronounce Gasoline as "Gas-online".
"Give me an espresso, and a Tom Yum Noodle."
We are now at Yuan restaurant in Desa Pandan, or was it Pandan Desa. I couldn't remember, but I do remember working there for a couple of months and I quite like the restaurant which is just downstairs from my used-to-be office.
"Tom Yum and espresso? It's that a little too shocking?"
Mei Yoong asked, curious about my weird selection of food. I told her that I needed the shock to wake myself up, was really tired but my day isn't gonna end like this, I got another group of friends to meet up with after all.
"Wolves, wake up." Aurelius said while moderating a game of Werewolf at Linus place.
"Wolves, who do you want to kill?"
With my eyes closed, I tried to listen out for any possible clues like sound of minor body movement, and such.
Werewolf is a party game that my group is now kinda hooked on to. It's a game that involves 2 parties mainly citizens and a pair of wolfs. The goal of the citizen is to kill off the wolfs before they all get killed by the wolf, the wolves can mess around with lies and deception, either to defend themselves or simply use the citizens to kill off each other.
There are other characters in the game like the seer, who can reveal other people's card, witch that can heal and kill once, and cupid, who select 2 persons to become lovers, that have to protect each other for if one dies, the other one dies too.
This game becomes hard to play when you play it with people who knows you really well.
"Wolves, make up your mind... Wolf please make up your mind... " the moderator said.
That's enough for me to suspect one of the wolves.
Have a Great Day
Dennis
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