Friday, November 8, 2024

Okay, well. I guess I should try to at least get back into the routine of blogging again? I made it a point of posting once a month, then with the whole issue of my mom's passing, I just ignored it again. Typing out the details in the previous post was mentally taxing but also cathartic in a way. I still do want to document my life not too far from when events happen, but I suppose I'll also give myself a little leeway with frequency. Like my wedding post for example. And getting engaged. Yeah, I definitely need to write those too. For documentation and looking back on it. Speaking of another thing I need to document, Onion and I went to Montreal for a much-needed holiday last month, and it was fantastic. I think I'll dedicate a full post to that trip.

Anyway, it's November now. Almost the end of the year. The waifu and I have been officially married for just over a year. And it's been almost a year since I wrote my last blog post. I wonder if looking towards the end of the year makes me melancholic or something. Or, like, it's about time that we start looking back on the year and how it was.

So, 2024. Let's see...

Had my first Chinese New Year where the waifu and I gave out red packets. First time. Ouch to our wallet. And apparently there's some sort of tradition observed by some Chinese that the first year, you need to give two red packets? None of us believed in that, but we did it anyway just to be nice. And because we weren't giving that many out in Canada, as opposed to Malaysia. Kudos to all the other married relatives who gave red packets all my life until we got married. Lmao. I understand their financial pain.

We've also gotten tighter with my cousins Lilian and Colin, kids of my uncle Thomas, youngest brother of my dad. Having been away since 2001, and only reconnecting in 2018 when we moved back, it took some time to warm up, and COVID didn't help. But with my waifu bringing board games to family gatherings and interacting more, we've gotten a lot closer in general. We've been invited twice to Lilian's birthday celebration, last year at Snakes and Latte followed by Mexican food, and this year at a sushi buffet.

Also got to check out the April 8th total solar eclipse. Words cannot describe the absolute cosmic beauty and experience of seeing that. Seriously. One of the most epic experiences of our lives. I dragged the waifu out, and she was pretty meh about it initially. Drove all the way through a crazy jam-packed 407 to Hagersville and parked at a Tim Hortons to check it out. Let's just say the waifu appreciated me dragging her out, haha. We went to explore Port Dover after, checking out the town and supporting some small businesses.

For Onion's birthday, I wanted something a little special instead of just fancy dinners. I looked up some interesting concepts and ideas and found murder mystery dinners were very much our thing, with the whole escape room aspect. Ended up with The Wedding Party, organized by Secret City. While parking, we encountered another couple who was a little late, and the moment we arrived, the cast immediately interacted with us in character, and I myself had to improvise on the spot. The dinner was delicious, the cast were funny and acted great, and the puzzles were a great balance of challenging and fun without being ridiculously hard. Our table of 6 was us, the couple we met while parking (Lisa and Remy), and another couple, Andrew and Brujetta (no idea how to spell it, but that's how it's pronounced). We clicked immediately and had a wonderful time. When Lisa and I were told about the "truth" of the game, it was epic! At one point, we were wondering where to find the next clues to solve, and Remy saw some boxes, and hilariously went "The gift boxes! The *ucking boxes!" LOL. And all of us rushed over. We solved the entire mystery with a minute to spare. Some of the cast personally thanked us for being so engaging and making their job easier. We ended up not going our own ways after but chatted for another 2 hours at the Old Mill, getting to know each other. Every couple was basically made up of the guy being born in Canada, and the girl born elsewhere. Lisa was from China, Brujetta from Indonesia and of course my wife from Malaysia. Brujetta and my wife shared their birthday, and we found out that Remy and Lisa lived in the exact same building as us! Lisa said I looked familiar and she had sworn she'd seen me before. All of us chatted about a ton of stuff, from electric vehicles, Malaysia, China, art, and as we were heading off, Pokemon. All the guys turned into 10 year old kids when we spoke about our starters. Pikachu and Cyndaquil for me!

Onion and I also went downtown a lot more this year, just to explore, get around, check out shops and some meals. Like at certain points we'd be hanging around somewhere, and since the weather was pleasant and we were stupid, we thought why not just walk along Yonge St back up to near our place? We did it a few times. Walking from Bloor and Yonge to Lawrence, or Eglinton. It was a nice change of pace. We got to really stop by and check out many shops we hadn't seen, and got to really know the area and local businesses better. A slower pace to just absorb that strip of the city. We also watched the Final Fantasy VII Rebirth concert, conducted by Arnie Roth. I still don't have a PS5 yet, so we pretty much got spoiled as to what happened in the game. I mean... of all the ways to be spoiled, an official orchestra is the next best way apart from playing the game right? One thing I definitely noticed, whether be it nostalgia or something, was that the arrangements of the original FFVII pieces sounded much nicer than the new, original pieces made for the game. Cosmo Canyon was fantastically impressive, an opinion the waifu shared.

We also paid money to torture ourselves. We joined the Toronto Waterfront Marathon 2024. For cats. Yeah, lol. It was a charity run basically. As we adopted Toshi from the Toronto Cat Rescue, we've been kept up to date with what's been going on, as the waifu also volunteered for SEO and other ad-related things for TCR. We woke up early and got our bibs at Nathan Phillips Square. Walked all the back to our heat, and saw thousands upon thousands of people waiting to run. When it was our turn, off we went! We took it easy for our 5k run. General jogs, and moments of walking a bit, as Onion needed to rest here and there. My treadmill running in the gym paid off as I felt I could handle it decently. Overall, pretty cool to run on the closed-off streets downtown and take part in it. 

For Halloween, the waifu said she'd not seen the activity in our community, so I told her that we could go for a stroll around and check out the trick or treating, with all the kids in costumes and the candy being given out. We made a last minute decision to take Toshi out, and everyone loved her. So many people were stopped by to ask to pet her, and tons of people wanted to take pictures of her. Full on celebrity! It was pretty warm weather (thanks, climate change), so it was pretty comfortable. It was nice seeing the kids in their creative costumes, and we got to see plenty ringing on doorbells and getting candy. Overall it just felt really nice to see the community all taking part in it. A big difference from our first year back, as all the kids in our area of Richmond Hill had all grown up and left or stopped. 

On sadder news, several deaths. Brian Moore, one of my church members and father of Brandon Moore, passed away last year, and I had forgotten to mention it. He got ill around the time of my wedding and passed soon after. He was always thoughtful and friendly, very engaging in conversation with me and Onion, and we missed him quite a bit. We honoured his memory at The Curtain Club Theatre in Richmond Hill after the funeral in the church, where I handled the Zoom duties. Lots of people shared funny stories of him and his family, like one time falling asleep for real when he was lying on a prop bed

I learned that Dale B. Martin passed away. A famous scholar, his Yale New Testament series on YouTube is unparalleled and a great introductory course for anyone interested in biblical scholarship. I watched his debates with Mike Licona and always liked his idea of the 3 Jesuses. One historical, one of the faithful, and one in our heads, with how we each interpret the first century apocalyptic preacher.

Onion's cousin, Jun Jie passed away suddenly due to a car accident. He was riding on his motorcycle and an irresponsible car driver ran a red light. The messiness of the accident happening in Singapore while the family was in Malaysia caused issues. Jun Jie was always nice to me, and always funny and generous. When I first met Onion's family, he was engaging and friendly from the start, and treated me well, and from what I could tell, was very chill with the extended family. He was always tight with the waifu, and she took his sudden passing very hard, having grown up with him, and the two being the first to enter the workforce. He was always responsible, and it felt like a robbery of such a nice person from this world. 

We also saw news that Sako Gokdag, of Exclusively Yours Jewellery, had passed away from cancer. He was the one who resized Onion's engagement ring I bought for her, and we bought our wedding bands from him. He was recommended to us by Nicole Moore from church, and he always did a fantastic job. Yes, our interaction with him was transactional of course, but it's still sad. He was nice to us, friendly and gave generous discounts. 

Also, Bean the cat. A few months ago, we saw a Facebook post on our condo's Facebook group asking for someone to take care of their cat as they were going on a trip. Onion responded and we ended up being the ones to handle him. Basically he had a form of anemia and needed daily pills, cut into half, to control it. We learned how to do it, got to know the couple, Laura and Joseph, and when the time came we did our duty for the weekend. Woke up at 7am, cut his pills, played with him and made sure he was well, along with another check through the evening. Laura and Joseph were really happy with us and asked if we could take care of him again at a future time, and of course we agreed. We were happy to help out for free, just to be nice and help out fellow cat lovers, but they wanted to compensate us. Later on, Bean developed a severe infection in his eyes and after a costly surgery, had his eyelids sewn shut for a while. It was a trying time for them, and the vet fees were very expensive. Here and there, Onion went to check up on him when they couldn't be around, and took care of him as needed. Eventually he recovered and they had a friend, Sarah, who offered to look after him while they were away. We introduced ourselves to her, and helped her out one morning to put eyedrops on him. One time, Bean accidentally bit Onion when she put a treat on her hand, and she ended up going to the ER for treatment when it started swelling. We learned that it wasn't something to mess around with? Anyway, when the waifu and I went to Montreal, Laura and Joseph were very happy to return the favour and take care of Toshi, for which we were very grateful. We caught up after the trip, exchanged some stories about Montreal and our lives in general and how we met our respective partners, plus we saw that Bean seemed very healthy and they told us he was more energetic than before. Laura messaged us a few weeks later, telling us that Bean had passed away. To say we were devastated is an understatement. We really got to adore him in our brief moments together, and we're so sorry for Laura and Joseph too. It was just bad news and rough times over and over. When we first took care of him, we played with him, tossing his toys here and there, and he played like a volleyball player. So cute. He was only 3 years old. I trust he's playing volleyball on the rainbow bridge now.

And the last thing to be sad about? USA elected Trump. Again. What a moral failure. Seriously, what the hell.