Tuesday, April 29, 2025

Well, March was dramatic. Our friend, Garrett, died for 2 minutes before being resuscitated. Okay, let me backtrack a bit. I mentioned before that we've been active in the Heavy Boardgamers community, but things slowed down after the passing of my mother. We still attended here and there, but definitely not weekly as before. The slots expanded, as too many people were attending the original Saturday slot. It expanded to Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with a different person leading each day, and with an unofficial focus on each day (lighter games, heavy games, a mix of game weight and Magic: The Gathering). The waifu had become friends with Edmund, a University professor who led the Friday session, and with whom she had played board games with before. We looked into the Friday sessions and saw a guy named Garrett who asked if people would be interested in a session of Vagrantsong, a campaign-style board game with combat, item collection and stuff. Onion wanted to try it out as it had the rubber-hose aesthetic and interesting premise of fighting ghosts and becoming one if you died. We contacted him and arranged to play our first session at 17 Tiles. It was a good start, and we enjoyed the game enough that we made plans to continue the campaign at our place instead, so we wouldn't need to pay the entry fee and buy food/drinks every time. That was over a year ago.

Since then we've ended up being good friends. Along with the regular sessions of Vagrantsong, some of which were extremely frustrating and difficult missions (and we finally finished the entire game and expansions), we also played other board games and even helped him move to his current rental place. Playing Nintendo Switch games, a shared love of Renaissance-era Disney (among my waifu and him at least), and giving each other gifts during Christmas and birthdays led to a good friendship. So we decided to get him a ticket for The Lion King live show as a Christmas gift last year. It was for March. A few weeks before the show, after saying he was really tired from his early morning shifts at Jersey Mikes, he fell sick and we hadn't gamed together in a while. Considering he had started a new job, it was still a transitional period, so we thought to give him some time before we met up again. And then complete silence for several weeks. Now, there've been times when he's replied several days late. We're all busy, it happens. But absolutely nothing, and he hadn't been seen online on WhatsApp since the last conversation we had, it was weird. We followed up but it was never delivered. So we googled him and found out he was hospitalized. He had a cardiac arrest and died for 2 minutes, but luckily his sister was at home and her boyfriend resuscitated him. His family set up a GoFundMe to help with expenses.

We met his sister before, when we helped him move in with her, but we never chatted. I found her social media accounts and she filled us in on what happened. We arranged for a visit at Toronto Western Hospital and got to catch up with him on his birthday. We bought him a nice card with a cat in it to remind him of Toshi, who he said he really missed. He was a bit slow on responding, and his tracheostomy was visible. His dad, mom, sister and her boyfriend eventually showed up, and we got to chat with them too. It was good to finally see how he was doing, but sad to see him in that state. But we were also glad he was making good progress on recovering and had begun eating very small amounts of solid food after being tube-fed for months. 

We had to head off after an hour as Onion had a French assessment at YMCA. After our trip to Montreal October last year, we had fallen in love with the city, but couldn't communicate well, despite most people switching to English for us. We made an effort to start learning French on Duolingo, and she managed to get an assessment for French lessons at the YMCA from her status. I chilled at a cafe waiting for her and she came back to share her results, which were not bad. Her classes start in September.

We did watch The Lion King later in March. It was way too late to refund it, so we offered the ticket to Garrett's sister first, but she couldn't take the time off on that day, and my friend Victoria was having a bad illness. So I got my cousin Chloe to claim them. The show was fantastic. It's been showing for over 20 years, and I finally got to see what it was about. Very nice seeing how they used the props to represent the animals. The prosthetics, hand puppets and massive pieces for some were brilliant. Having the main characters represented by humans with headpieces was an interesting choice. Mufasa with swords looks cool. They basically covered the movie, with some new pieces, and an intro with traditional African dialogue and singing. All in all, very glad to have seen it. 

Another thing I watched was Spiritbox! In late April, they were performing at the Great Canadian Casino Resort, a new venue I'd not been to before. They were out of my radar for quite a long time. In fact, I didn't even know I attended a show that they performed at. Last year, I watched Korn and Gojira. Spiritbox was actually playing as the first band, but I came late after work and missed them. At the same time, being unfamiliar with their work, I didn't really care too much at the time. Then I saw an Instatory by Lindsay Schoolcraft, former keyboardist and female vocals of Cradle of Filth, who I follow, where she shared a Spotify screenshot of her listening to Spiritbox's The Mara Effect pt. 3. I was curious, so I listened and really liked it. I picked out a few songs and viewed the highest viewed ones and after a few listens, grew to really like them. The ethereal voice mixed with the growls was really well done and I was shocked by how I ignored them prior. So when I saw they were headlining a gig, I got the tickets and man, what a treat. Loathe, whom I discovered that night, also opened for them. A fantastic show, and Spiritbox shared a bit about how they got started in accounting work for a hospital before joining Iwrestledabearonce, which was another surprise because I had no idea the former vocalist left and she took over. I really only listened to them when I was still a part of AsNaiveKiller, and Joseph Stanley was obsessed with trying to copy their unique style. Either way, Spiritbox's show was great, I enjoyed myself and parking was free! And to think less than half a year ago I didn't care for them, until I saw a random Instastory from a celebrity.

Right before the month ended, I needed to organize a forum for the church. As a board member, my specific position is Facilitator for Worship, Music & Spiritual Formation. So my job is to organize occasional forums related to those topics. Richmond Hill United Church is in the midst of a very big transitional period, and our repairs to the historic building aren't cheap. I wanted to get a feel of what people were thinking, and potential opportunities, so I hosted it on Zoom and listened to what people were thinking. At the end of it, I found people stick with what they like, and don't necessarily object to change, but want it to be done organically. not for the sake of trying something new. It was good to get the perspectives from the various members who attended.

And as always, more passings. I suppose the big one is Pope Francis, the progressive voice of the Catholic church, and the pope who I followed closely as I became more politically aware. On a personal level, my grandaunt, who I call "yee por", has passed away. I've known her ever since I was a child, and she's lived in the same place all these years. She basically adopted my mom when my grandfather wanted to abandon her, and raised her as her own. Even after adulthood, my mom was still very close to her and we visited very often when in Malaysia. After we moved to Kuala Lumpur, my mom pretty much had dinner at her place with her family weekly, and I joined quite a bit. They used to own Angel Cakes in KL back in the 90s. She was also very kind and supportive when my mom passed, and despite her own weak legs and mobility issues, made the effort to personally come down to the funeral parlour and pay respects to my mom. As mentioned back then, I dropped by their place for dinner after the funeral aspects were handled. Her son, Uncle Robin, messaged me to inform me about it, and that she had passed peacefully. It was quite a surprise as she's been so long-lived, and one of the oldest relatives I still had. And on the younger side, a friend from City Harvest Church Singapore, Jasmine Cheang. She was in the same zone as me, and our cellgroups interacted frequently. I saw a lot of zone members attend her funeral, based on the Facebook pictures, reminiscing of her kindness and personality. It's also the 1 year anniversary of Jun Jie, Onion's cousin, and my RHUC church member, Linda Clark, who I helped her family handle the digital aspects of her funeral.