T-Rex / Canada Day

They set up a giant T-Rex model at Aberdeen Center... and tomorrow is Canada Day, yay~

Chirashi

At Ajisai. Awesome as always! Yummm!

Chiropractor

801 car

"801" also stands for "yaoi" in Japanese... 8 = ya, 0 = oh, 1 = ichi.
I only learned about the pronunciation in the last month or so. Before that, I thought it was some kind of bulletin board classification number. Hahahaha...

Broken branch

... of a sakura tree.

Crazy weather

Crazy! Thunder storm in the afternoon. But 3 hours later, it was all sunny like nothing happened!

North Van

How long has it been since I last visited my aunt's place in North Van? Must have been years...

My cousin is in town from Toronto. She probably found out about her mom's cancer.

Summer solstice

Yikes... past 12 already. Just missed the date stamp. Anyway, it was summer solstice, the longest day in the year. Summer should be already here. But it doesn't feel like it...

The raspberries are starting to turn red.
Raspberry (2)
Raspberry (1)

Happy Father's Day!

No new photo today. This was taken on the same day as the other peony.

Pre-Father's day

My family always eat out on special occasions, but never on the day. (To avoid crowds.) Today was dim sum.

Figs

Raspberry (2)

Raspberry (1)

Funeral

About 60 people came to say good-bye to my uncle today. Funerals are always harsh. I guess this is the first "real" thing to me. Despite my illusive memory, I do remember staring at a relative's dead body at a young age, but I have no recollection on who it was. Then before 10 there was my dad's brother. Then a classmate a few years ago. But all those are with the missing half of my brain now. This time, it's different. I'm painfully aware that I was trying to block things out. Didn't want to be there, didn't like it. The whole situation... felt so wrong. Perhaps I was only a spectator in all those previous times. Now I'm "the family". At this rate, how am I gonna function when my parents' time comes?

My mom is the youngest of 9 kids and this uncle was the 4th. I haven't been close to him. Don't even really know him that well. Only learned about him from other people's speeches. It's amazing that he married my aunt only after 3 months of meeting her, beating the other guy she had been dating for 10 years. And in his 46-year marriage, they never augured. Not even once. Sure he was a super nice guy. When we first immigrated here, he took us into his home before ours was ready.

Yeah, he was into stamp collecting and photography. I knew that one, but I didn't know he had his own dark room. Hey wait a minute... I do remember angrily shredding up a black-and-white photo he took of me, in a bath. All naked in the tub. I was... probably around 8 or 9? Hated that photo. Hated it! Hated it! Hated it! And I'm sure by today's standard, that's something pedophiles love. Aaaaaargh!!! That's why I stayed away from him instinctively! No, no, he never touched me or anything like that. As far as I remember.

Ha! Talking about memory, some of my friends seem to think my picture-taking is stupid. They don't understand the camera is a backup for my memory. It means a lot to me because that's a way to remind myself of events that happened. Yeah, it gets thaaat bad. Sadly, nobody sees the damages on the inside. They expect things of me like I'm completely normal. Which, at times, is painful.

As much as I'd love to shoot some backup memories for today, it didn't seem appropriate. So, instead, a funeral Pinky.
At the ceremony, 2 things were seriously bordering me.
(1) The clergy was preaching. Yeah, my uncle and aunt never had kids, so the church gave a lot of support. (And then the family on my aunt's side did the most.) So... is this "preaching opportunity" an exchange for all the help? Using my uncle's death to gather new followers? I'm sorry, but the preaching itself was badly executed. I do believe in God, but I have problems with how the Church do things.
(2) Why are women always the one to suffer? In average, women live longer than men. But women live shorter when married, while men live longer married. As if men sucks the life out of women. Today, I saw with my own eyes that, it is true. Women's longer life is a curse, not a blessing. Having to go through your husband's incurable illness alone is enough punishment. No need for childbirth pain. That's one of the problems I have with the bible. That everything gets blamed on the woman. And men, are 99% so insensitive. They take their partner for granted. My dad is the perfect example. My childhood memories of him, was the dictator with the homemade rattan whip who demanded absolute obedience. Even so, I'm extremely worried about how I'm gonna react when his time comes.

Well, at this point, I can't imagine myself getting married, or even finding a partner. I might look younger than my age, but I'm already too old to be in the market. When my time comes, there would only be my brother and his family. (That is, if he doesn't go before me. He is, after all, older than me.) I'd probably donate my body to science so there would be no need for funeral. Hopefully that would spare him the hassle. If I happen to be lucky enough to have a funeral, I'd like it to be a happy one.

Black clothes

Gotta dig up black clothes for my uncle's funeral this Tuesday. My mom and my aunt don't have any so they're doing some shopping. I hope mine still fit.

Joe's back!

Got a phone call from Joe last night. Wow, he's in town with Motoko! And amazingly he's on his feet and recovering! We had dim sum for lunch today in a certain Chinese seafood restaurant in Metrotown. It's always so difficult to get a table there. Even with reservation, I still had to wait for 20 minutes. The food was excellent, though. But they close in the afternoon between lunch and dinner, so we were kicked out.

Maybe not a break-in?

As I took a walk to the bank in the afternoon, I was paying attention to broken glass. And sure it was, less than one block away, around where I though the noise came from, there were broken glass on the floor. Didn't look like car window, though. What a relieve...

Car break-in?!

Aaaaargh!!!!!!! 5 minutes ago, I heard a bang, and then glass breaking. So I got my camera ready and went to the living room window. Couldn't see anything, though. Sound travels in a weird way... I just hope that wasn't my car. (>_<;)

Pears starting

In my back yard.

Farewell

My uncle passed away at around 3 pm today.
Parkinson's is definitely not a nice way to go.

The old folk's home he's been staying at has no refrigerated room (argh, not sure what you call that...). Apparently they're leaving the body in bed until tomorrow. Lucky the weather is cool now. If it was like last week, it's gonna be nasty...

Weird dream

Naah... just kidding. That bruise has been there since the accident 11 years ago. Maybe a broken vein, but it looks like a big blood clod stuck under the skin. Deep down in my subconsciousness, I probably think it's gonna kill me some day by getting loose and giving me a stroke or something like that...

Peony

Huge flowers!!

Azalea (2)

This time, in my back yard.

Guu & chocolate fondue

Guu was pretty good. Better than what I remembered. Last time when I was there (actually the other branch), the food was very greasy. They put mayonnaise on almost everything. This time, yes there's still mayonnaise, but somehow less greasy.
Then we went across the street to the dessert place for the all-you-can-eat chocolate fondue (argh, forgot the name of that place). The price went up a bit, but service wasn't bad at all. We didn't have to wait for long although they're short staffed with only one guy serving. Apparently the review was bad before due to service. They'd better improve with the price increase! The food itself was good too. Good chocolate, fresh food. Oh, but I just don't like the gummy bears.

Interesting shadow

See anything unusual...?