THE PASSING OF OUR 'STOCKING'

There she was, having her kittens right smack on our old sofa on our patio. There were six of them, tiny little creatures with eye still closed.

The queen was barely an adult..still too young to have babies. She just came to our residence as soon as we moved in, that was more than three years ago.

With a twist of misfortunes, the queen was ran over as I reversed my car. It was indeed a very tragic incident. She quickly ran over her kittens as soon as she realized that her life in this world was nearing the end.

She looked at her kittens with sad eyes as she breathed her last breath. She was dead, right in front of her newborn kittens.

With her passing, the kittens were sort of left on their own. To cut the story short, only him (known as Stocking) survived to adulthood.

But, with no mother to teach him the way of life for a cat, he was far from a male cat that he was supposed to be. He missed most of the things that cats do.

He became a cat too dependent on us to give him food and love.

As everybody was busy with their own life - Kamal was married and moved out of the house,  Syafiq was too busy with his work and I was busy with my work in UniSZA, Stocking was left to survive in the cat's harsh world all by itself.

A rogue tomcat chased and bloodied him every time they came face to face. I remember seeing him high up the grill of our sliding door, sometimes twisting his legs, just to be away from the sharp teeth and claws of the muscular tomcat.

Then, as he was almost adult, it was his turn to bully that tomcat, who by now was so frail and sickly. It was sheer joy to see him giving his old enemy the chase. then that old tomcat disappeared, probably died somewhere.

With that old tomcat gone, Stocking's life became much easier. There was no other cat that could bully him. He was the king of the neighbourhood.

Suddenly he became anorectic. He did not want to eat anything my wife gave him, not even his favourite deep-fried golden-striped trevally (selar kuning).

Then one day I found him sprawled at the edge of my garage, very weak and emaciated. There was blood oozing out of his nostrils and mouth. He was dying. Fifteen minutes later, Stocking was no more with us. he has passed away at the age of just above three years.

Syafiq buried him beneath the busily fruiting mango tree. Stocking was no more with us, but with his mom and siblings....

FRUITING DWARF BANANA AND BREAD-FRUIT TREES

Our dwarf banana tree suddenly bore fruits. I remember planting it many months ago under the mango tree at a corner of our lawn. All these while, I kept it just because of its leaves, It supplied us with banana leaves for grilling fish.

Then, a few days ago, there it was, busily fruiting.

On the opposite corner, my bread-fruit tree (sukun) also gave us a big surprise. It too was bearing fruits, 8 to be exact. All these while its fallen leaves kept me busy during my weekends.

Bread-fruit has been my favourite since I was introduced to bread-fruit fritters long time ago by a boy-seller at Chow Kitt road.

I hope these are signs of good things to come in our lives. 

BEWARE OF UNEVEN ROADS

I am both surprised and angry at a few road signs near Kijal asking road-users to be careful of uneven road surface ahead.

Angry because they have been there for ages. Usually, such road signs are up temporarily until the damage is repaired. But, no, they are still there and look like to remain there for a long time to come.

And the unplanned bumps are still there, causing many car rims of unwary drivers become crooked as they speed along.

What frustrate me further is that they have the money to smoothen the so-called uneven surface, but they choose not to do so. I just wonder why.

Are they waiting for another road carnage before they do something?

Or are they waiting for the next general election?

IS IT TRUE THAT FB IS BAD FOR MARRIAGE?

I was pretty deep in facebook. I felt pretty free expressing what I felt at various issues raised by fb friends.Until I wrote down simple cheeky words to a brother of mine. The words were: "Who's that brother? Is there anything.?" Then all hell broke loose.

I was accused of trying to break-up a marriage. Despite of my explanation, he still said that I was the one responsible for his rocking marriage. I vehemently denied. I have used fiercer words before, without any jealousy or fights before. I was informed much later that a laptop was broken to pieces soon after.

Then there was this fb friend who was going on a meeting in Riau, Indonesia. I texted him wishing him bon voyage. Then, unexplainably and out of no where, a lady fb friend  answered and the text read: "Thanks 'abang'...I'm at LCCT.."

Then a war, just short of the third world war,  broke out. I was attacked relentlessly by the lady folks in the family. Why? Just because of the word 'abang' that I thought was mistakenly sent to me?

I was accused of having an extra-marital affair, flirting with a girl of my daughter's age, being an itchy old man  and other what nots that were too dirty to be mentioned here.

I tried to explain, but failed miserably. I chose to remain quiet. I quit fb for good just to pacify the raging fire.

"Is it there any truth in people saying that fb is one of the great causes of marriage break-ups?"

 What say you?