Today's the day where this Christmas tree - MY Christmas tree - is FINALLY stripped of all her glorious ornaments, sparkling ruffles (can't think of what you call the little long bushy caterpillar-lookalike thingy) and her majestic lights. Muahahahaaa. Into the attic you go.
Usually, we I put the tree away by the second or third week of January. Work is keeping my sister busy. School is keeping my brother "busy". Hence, I get the honour of keeping the tree away (with my mom, of course) cuz I'll be on summer holidays at this time every year. However, this year, I didn't get the tree down at the usual time cuz I'VE BEEN WORKING LAH! Gimme a break. Let me sleep. Leave me alone.
Every once in a while, the imams (from the nearby Mosque) would walk around my neighbourhood, dropping by to visit every Muslim family. They identify Muslim houses by observing their frontyard, i.e. avoiding houses with idols, crosses, small temples or anything that would symbolize religions other than Islam. My family, although Christian, has never practiced hanging up crosses in any part of our house. Religion is, after all, the matter of the heart not actions.
That's probably why the imams always (and I mean ALWAYS) mistook my house for a Muslim's. Even with this Christmas tree shining so brightly from my house in the evening, they still rang the doorbell and shouted "Asalamualaikummm..." with me standing just several feet away from them in my frontyard, looking at them with utter wonder if they couldn't see the Christmas tree in the house. Or... are Muslims setting up Christmas trees in their houses too this season? Heeheehee. Too far-fetched.
After staring at my face for a while, the imams finally figured I was a Chinese. Thank God I still look passable for Chinese... passable since it took them so long to figure me out. I was beginning to wonder if they were gonna ask me, "Are you a Baba Nyonya?". I would have been speechless.
Anyway, they were very nice about their mistake and apologized. But I couldn't help but laugh. At myself. Sigh. Now I'm beginning to miss the tree. Sigh.
These hands in this picture *points to the picture below* are my hands since this morning, right after a visit to the doctor.
Had an appointment with a doctor today for a blood test (I usually need to do one anually). Nurses and doctors have always complained about my invisible veins on my elbows and how they are sooo very, very fine. Thus, the great difficulty of getting enough blood from me. So far, only two person have been able to draw blood from my elbow - a government doctor who took my blood to test for Thalassemia disease, and the Blood Bank supervisor (head of dept.) during my industrial training. And they only needed one try.
Today, I got poked in four different places. Four needle puncture marks. Three plasters. And still, NO blood. I have bring these miserable hands to go back there in two weeks' time for another try. ARGH!!
I hate needles!!
For life.
My My! How painful it must have been for you during the blood test...sad...ouch! Good Luck for the next time! Curious to know why they poked your hands sooo many times! I mean...Hello! we're also humans who feel pain...right? =) hope next time they take blood, they're not poking you everywhere! =p So...how does it feel to be on "holiday" from work? nice right? at least you had something to do...we're like almost forced to beg for work to do! *sigh* at least there's the comfort of knowing that there are only 6 days of work left! Hurrah! well...not exactly happy...'cos we've made some friends with the supervisors over there! hehe....okay then have to go now...see you later at coll ya? Bye!
ReplyDeletehahaa. if you think being plastered is all that bad, now my hands are bruised.. greenish-blue to be exact.
ReplyDeletethey're poking me everywhere cuz they cant get ANY blood out of my veins. the first two tries gave out no blood. the third attempt had blood, but not enough. the fourth try were pretty much the same as the first two tries.
my mom was beginning to wonder if i have enough blood in my body cuz my blood pressure's fine.. sigh.