The Lone Grey Squirrel will be out of action on the blogging scene for at least a week. They got me working on some fool’s errand. And I’m up to my eyeballs in work. But a squirrel’s gotta eat and we can’t live on just what we can get from bird feeders alone.
See you on the other side of this dark phase.
I love water and being on water and that usually means being on a boat. I have been on dugout canoes, sampans, rubber dinghy’s, kayaks, canoes, narrow canal boats, fishing boats and ferries. I have even been on a tornado class catamaran. But even though our cousins, the black rat (Rattus rattus), were famed seafarers, stowing away on ocean going vessels and spreading the Black Plague during the Middle Ages, squirrels tend to be landlubbers – well, tree-huggers actually. This naturally means that it is generally not a good idea to leave me in charge of a vessel or responsible for any important maneuver cause my brain is just not wired for anything nautical.
The Exhilarating and Dangerous Thrill of a Tornado Class Catamaran (photo from http://www.tornado.org/)
Take my friend, Mike previously of Ottawa, Canada (and more recently of Silicon Valley, California). He was the proud owner of a Tornado class catamaran. So proud of it was he that he invited me to go out with him for a day on the Ottawa River. We spent several hours out on the water with the wind in our hair and the spray in our faces. Basically, Mike handled everything; pulling this rope, raising this sail, etc. And I was mostly ballast. As you can see from the photo above, the crew have to lean out over the side of the craft so as to balance the boat and not allow it to tip over when making a turn or when a strong wind has caught the sails. So as ballast, it was my job to follow Captain Mike’s instruction to hang out over on the starboard or port (yes, I do know a few salty sea words).
I think I must have been one of the best and most obedient ballast that he ever had cause suddenly, he offered to let me take over the steering for a spell. I protested my inadequacies for the task but Mike insisted that I was ready. So with some trepidation, I took over the reins of the boat. Now I don’t know how I did it but it was not more than 30 seconds later that one of the hulls of the catamaran lifted clear out of the water and we were in danger of tipping over and capsizing while traveling at warp factor 10. Only by Mike’s quick action of relieving me from the steering and sending me leaning out on one side prevented us from being a contender on TV’s Top 20 Most Spectacular Wipe-outs. A clearly shakened, Captain Mike, went a whiter shade of pale and developed a stutter. Nevertheless, I understood from the sign language and rude gesticulations that he would not ask me to steer his beloved Tornado again even if Hell freezes over.
And yet, that is not my most embarrassing moment on the water. For that, I will have to bring you back further in time; when I was in my early twenties and going on a canal boat holiday with three friends. For more about that adventure, read this previous post.
Happy Times on the Water (Photo: LGS)
It was a fun holiday and a great experience. But the moment in question came right at the end when after a week of boating on the canals, we had to return the canal boat to its spot moored to a dock in the village of Heyford. Now my friend, Julie, was trying to guide the boat in close to the dock using the steering and the engine. However, there seemed to be a bit of a mud bank near the dock and the boat would somehow deflect outwards when Julie tried to drive it in and in the end, there was still a gap of about 5 feet between the boat and the dock. We both agreed that this was not acceptable. Julie then suggested that I grab a rope from the middle of the boat and as she tried to drive the boat in once again, I was to try to pull the boat alongside the dock with the rope.
So, I got hold of one end of the rope and jumped off the boat onto the dock. With rope in hand, I signaled to Julie that I was ready. She revved the engine and made her approached. At what I deemed was the right moment, I proceeded to pull on the rope. Expecting that it would require quite some effort to fight the mudbank, I decided to lean backwards and use my whole body weight to pull the boat in. The last thing I remember was falling back and off the other side of the dock, was my eyes looking up into the clear blue sky and seeing the other end of the rope flying freely in the air. I remember the whole episode in slow motion. I watched with the calm serenity of those who know they cannot avoid their fate and just watched the other end of the rope continue its beautiful arc across the sky. And then there was the inevitable splash and I was covered up to my chest in foul smelling mud.
Lesson: Always remember to check that the other end of the rope is actually tied to the boat!
A Younger LGS Discovers Therapeutic Mud Baths Long Before They Were Fashionable (Photocredit: Unsympathetic friend of LGS)
I was having dinner with my wife and another couple at a new restaurant recently. The place was well decorated and had some nice thoughtful touches which kind of offset the fact that they were still having teething problems and we were disappointed to find out that many of the items on their printed menu were actually not yet available.
One of the little things that they had was a set of cards with fun questions on them which was meant to occupy and entertain diners while they waited for their food to be served. We tried a few of those questions and came across one that said, “If you could be a superhero, what superpower would you like to have?”
Rather unimaginatively, my three dinner companions all wanted to have the power to control people’s minds. I suspect they were all influenced by the character Professor Xavier from the X-Men movies (and of course the original comic series, except I doubt if any of the three ever read X-men comics).
Then they turned to me and asked me what would be my answer. Now, of course all you regular readers know that I am in fact the Lone Grey Squirrel with superpower of cuteness and the ability to bury bad nuts but I couldn’t say that in a public restaurant and compromise my secret identity. So instead, I said that I would like to fly.
“Fly? What kind of superpower is that? Where would you fly to which you could not get to by airplane or helicopter? It’s not much of an advantage …….unlike controlling people’s minds. That has so many possibilities.” Friend A said smugly.
I replied, “Being able to fly means being able to avoid the hassle of going to Low Coat Air Terminals and having to go through all those inconvenient security screenings.”
Friend B mocked, “That really doesn’t sound so impressive and besides how does flying around help you to beat the bad guys?”
My reply stunned them into silence and awe. ” I would fly around above and poop on their heads ………I am Pigeon Man!”
Yes, with Pigeon Man, no head, shiny car, designer suit or dress is safe and statues tremble in fear! Mwahahaha.
P.S. LGS would like to apologise to all pole dancers for implying in the last post that pole dancing was something sleazy. A visitor came by to educate me to the fact that pole dancing is a healthy gymnastic-like activity and sport. It is an athletic and artistic activity and not at all erotic; it is very different from the stripper pole dancing that does attract sleazy men in smoky bars and nightclubs. If you want to educate yourself more about the difference, visit unitedpoleartistes or read it at this wikipedia article.
Don’t worry. This socialist squirrel has not sold out. This may look like an “advertorial” but be assured that I was paid nuts for this. No, I am merely sharing with you my good experience with a particular medical product.
I snore. Really bad. My wife is either long suffering, a deep sleeper or slightly deaf. And the snoring is a sign of something more sinister. For awhile now, my wife has mentioned that I sometimes splutter at night when I am asleep as if I was struggling for breath. I now know that I have been suffering from sleep apnea; a condition where due to some obstruction of the airway while I sleep, I actually have lapses when I stop breathing and then re-start with a splutter. In the long term this leads to all sorts of health issues. The most immediately observable symptom is dropping off to sleep during the day at the drop of a hat; sometimes even when I am having a conversation. I used to call these episodes “Panda-ing” cause pandas have that ability of dropping off immediately. However, it really is not a laughing matter.
Anyway for the last month, I have been using a device called the Somnoguard. It looks like a gum guard that a boxer or an athlete would use and worn over the teeth. But it also had a screw that can be turned like a medieval torture device which causes the lower jaw to move forward relative to the upper jaw.
Diagrams for you scientific types
The theory is that the apnea is caused by the soft palate or tongue closing off the airway at the back of the throat. However, the obstruction is relieved when the lower jaw is moved forward and the chin is raised. This is similar to the maneuver that is taught in first aid where, when dealing with an unconscious person, the chin is moved forward and up to clear the airways.
Well, I can tell you that this works very well. It takes a few days to get used to the discomfort of wearing Somnaguard but now I hardly realise it is there when I wear it at night. More importantly, within a week, I stopped snoring; I feel much more alert during the day and my blood pressure has even been lowered. So I fully recommend this procedure.
Now, “are there side effects?”; I hear you ask. Well, the teeth and gums hurt a little at the beginning and the lips may crack. The former goes away and the latter can be solved by using lip chap. But did I tell you about the unexpected additional good benefits? For one, you have a built in excuse for not taking part in long conversations at night cause you can do nothing but grunt when you have the device in your mouth.
However, the main additional advantage is that it trains your jaw so that your chin sticks out. I am told that this protruding chin look is quite the hit with the ladies.
I was hoping that it would help me look more like heart-throb Kirk Douglas.
The Protruding Chin and Cute Dimple Look
Unfortunately, my wife tells me that I now look like ………..
I am a Jay Leno fan ....... really but the chin ........ not so much.
Just before Christmas, I did a full medical check-up and was told by my doctor that my blood sugar was high and so was my blood pressure. He said that I was about 15 kg overweight for my height and that I needed to lose that to bring my medical condition under control. I immediately quipped that “I wasn’t heavy for my height but I was merely short for my weight.” I did not get even a twitch of a smile from my doctor. Gee, tough audience. Anyway, I got the message. Effect a lifestyle change and start losing weight or else when I return for a followup in 3 months time, I may need to start taking medication.
So with that in mind, I returned to the gym after an absence of one and a half years to do battle with the bulge. Fortunately, a gym has opened up very near my home which makes it a lot easier for me.
At the gym, I always like to use either the stationary bicycle or the rowing machine. These are my favorites because when I was in Ottawa, Canada for a few years, I took advantage of their many hundred kilometers of cycling trails and also learned to kayak there. I would not say that I excel at either but I can hold my own in cycling and because not many people in Malaysia do rowing, I guess I am ahead of the curve in knowing the right technique. The right technique incidentally is to pull the handle by first pushing off with your legs and then as you are about to reach the furthest point, to then pull the handle towards your chest.
Anyway, on my very first day at the new gym, I decided to go on the rowing machine. My target was to row 5 km in 25 minutes and was doing better than I expected considering the long layoff from regular exercise. While I was doing the exercise, there was this guy (let’s call him Gymmie) who was doing a rather intense workout on the treadmill. When I was about reaching my 4 km mark, Gymmie got off the treadmill and after toweling off the sweat and taking a swig of water, walked over and decided to give me a pep talk.
He asked, “Hi! Are you new here? I come most days but don’t think I have seen you here.”
I replied that it was in first my first day here and that I was trying to lose 15 kg.
He laughed and said, ” Well, don’t give up. I have been coming here for about 10 months now and I have loss about 10 kg. If I can do it, so can you. Maybe for you it will take at least a year to lose the same amount. But don’t give up. Why, when I first started, I was like you – shaped like a watermelon!”
Now I doubt if any of us like to be described as shaped like a watermelon and although being a polite squirrel, I kept a civil conversation going but secretly, I was already plotting to bring in some itching powder and shove it into his shorts the next time we meet.
Having exhausted every avenue of conversation on the topic of exercising fruits, Gymmie decided to try out the rowing machine next to me. I am not sure what his motivation was but I suspected that he wanted to demonstrate his 10 month gym seniority over the newbie. However, though he may be very good on the treadmill (which I am not), it was clear from the start that he did not know the right rowing techniques. He was committing one of the most common errors which was to pull using his arms right from the beginning of the rowing stroke instead of using the legs to push first. This is very tiring and no one can sustain that for long. Yet he tried to match or even better my stroke rate. Well, he did not even last 3 minutes. After that, he very quietly got off the machine and walked off in the opposite direction without so much as a “goodbye”.
That made me a very sweaty but happy squirrel.
To help all readers to learn how to row properly, the Lone Grey Squirrel has brought to you the video below which shows a man using the rowing machine improperly. Notice that the handle in his hands doesn’t really move at all. The only thing moving is his butt moving back and forth. He’s not rowing at all. He’s just butt sliding. To row properly, just do everything different from what you see on the video or see how to do it correctly here. In the meantime, enjoy.
Have a Great New Year Celebration! But Remember to Play Safe!
As we say goodbye to a tumultuous 2011, I thought I would look back at the year that was………..
January – The year touched the ground running with a medical emergency involving a neighbor’s aunt and my wife and I had to call for an ambulance and escorted her to the hospital. I was also traveling a lot but got to see the orang utans and sun bears at Sepilok in East Malaysia (Old Man of the Forest)
February – Nothing much happened in my own life but the world was ablaze with unrest. I watched on TV the Arab Spring unfold from Tunisia into Libya and Egypt and on to Yemen and Syria. There were also reports of religious intolerance in my part of the world. In a word, “turmoil”. (Say No to Intolerance)
March – I was traveling again and this time I got to see the awesome world’s largest cave system at the World Heritage Site of Mulu National Park in Sarawak, Malaysia. But the world continued to moan under the throes of natural and man-made suffering with the great Tsunami of 2011 in Japan and the abuses against women, religious freedom and the silencing of political voices through assassination in Pakistan. I wept. (Fallen Knights)
April – This month passed quickly as I was busy with work as well as all kinds of activities from helping others attend to legal and medical issues. Busy and not a lot of fun. (Bummed Out)
May – I took a breather in May and had time to reflect a bit on life and where I wanted to be headed in the future. (Hard Labour)
June – I managed fulfill one of my new year resolutions by getting involved with speaking at a Christian Youth Camp. It was a good experience but I was reminded about how little I knew about “teen speak” nowadays. That was humbling. (Teen Speak)
July – Another black month. The world was stunned by the deaths of so many, especially young people, by the hands of a mad man in Norway. Nearer home, I attended the funeral rites for a close family friend whose daughter passed away at the age of forty from leukemia, leaving behind a young son. (The Other Side of the Tracks)
August – I started the month in a funk due to the terrible things that happened in July but I slowly regained my appreciation of the positive potential of the human spirit and ended the month with a trip to Singapore where I got heat stroke while wandering around the tropical island. The spirit may be willing but this old squirrel flesh is getting weak. (Mad Dogs and Sun Stoked Squirrels)
September – Stop everything! It’s the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand. This squirrel was glued to his chair in front of the TV watching rugby for the next 5 weeks. I even grew a year older in that chair. (1962 & the 49′er)
October – What a month! First the All Blacks win the Rugby World Cup – always a good omen that all is well in the world. Later in the month, I was myself surprised to find myself in Mongolia. I would never have imagined finding myself there in a thousand years. A very wonderful experience. (Heroes of Sukhbaatar Square)
November – Another black month. The main event was the shocking and sudden death of an amazing man who had an impact on so many lives and he was a dear friend. (Life and Legacy)
December – Even from the ashes of tragedy and sadness, life finds a way to keep going and with time happiness can return. I had the joy of seeing this in the life of one of my widower friend who has found a new love to share his life with. (Two Funerals Past and a Wedding Soon)
My wife and I have been looking around for some cushions for our sofa. Yesterday, we happen to walk by “Shop Super Snooty Swanky” and decided to go in and see what we could find. The place was indeed full of attractive furniture and fittings, like something out of a top end design magazine, but the prices were quite astronomical and somewhat skewed in my opinion.
For example, there was this fantastic brass spotlight on an ornate an polished brass stand – the kind of toy you might see in the garden of a Hollywood mansion and used to throw light on Hollywood luminaries as they party the night away. What might be the price of this work of art? It only had a mere USD 2,500 price tag. Yet next we saw a single rather gaudy wooden chair which cost USD 3,000. Hmmmm. Don’t understand this.
Anyway, we were walking around when suddenly this rather refined woman let out a loud squeal. We turned around in surprise and saw this woman waving a cushion around and doing a little happy dance. With a strong British aristocratic accent (only she wasn’t even British), she explained, “I just found this wonderful cushion. It’s filled with duck down feathers and at only USD 200, it’s a steal. I can’t believe that yesterday at ‘Shop Not So Glam’, I almost settled for some cushions which cost USD 40. Thank goodness I didn’t buy any cause for just five times that price, I can now have a duck down feather cushion. Yay!”
We congratulated the excited woman on her success and then quickly set off to go to “Shop Not So Glam”; all the time thanking her quietly for giving us a tip as to where to get our cushions. When we got there, we found that they were even having a sale and we finally went home with armfuls of cushions which cost us USD 10 each. Just imagine, we could have bought 20 cushions for the same price as that one duck down feather cushion, although I would not know what to do with 20 cushions.
A case of one woman’s discards is another squirrel’s treasure?
I have mentioned before that my wife suffers from malapropism when I wrote about “possessed foods“. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines malapropism as “the usually unintentionally humorous misuse or distortion of a word or phrase; especially : the use of a word sounding somewhat like the one intended but ludicrously wrong in the context”.
Here are just a few more examples from my wife’s growing portfolio, only she also exchanges words with words of similar meaning but still incorrect in the context;
1. “I wonder how he survives. It seems that most times, he is living foot to mouth.”
2. “Was there a Chinese Emperor that did not have his porcupines?”
3. “There is an ache at the foot of my toe.”
4. “That’s the only suggestion that I can make off the top of my tip.”
5. “We are living a cemetery livestyle.”
Just in case you couldn’t figure it out what she meant, hear are some clues;
1. foot = hand
2. porcupines = concubines
3. foot = base
4. tip = head
5. cemetery = sedentary
Over the last couple of days, I spent some time with my friend Porgie and his two kids, John (13 years old) and Meg (11 years old). Porgie and family live 1,600 km away and seldom come to Kuala Lumpur. The last time they were here was more than 3 years ago when Porgie’s wife was hospitalised for chemotherapy treatment of cancer. Unfortunately, soon after she returned home and passed away.
This time, Porgie’s visit was with a happier purpose. Porgie had found a new love and they are planning a life together. This trip was to introduce his two kids to her two kids from a previous marriage. My wife and I were privileged to be part of the introduction process and to back Porgie up in case the meeting of families did not go well. However, as it turned out, there was nothing to worry about. All four kids got on well and when we met up with them (a day after they actually met), they were already behaving like life-long friends. Perhaps it helped that Porgie’s kids have long been concerned about their father’s loneliness and had hoped that he would find some new love.
So we had a riotous weekend with them, taking them shopping and sightseeing and generally giving them opportunity to have fun together. However, in a quieter moment, when everybody else were busy shopping, Porgie reminded me that the next day was the 3rd anniversary of his wife’s passing. It was something that did not surprise me. Porgie would never forget.
Coincidentally, that same day, I received an electronic message from another friend, Charles. The message noted that that day would have been the 5th birthday of his wife since she passed away from cancer. It celebrated everything that he had loved about her and thanked friends that have helped him in his grief all those years and continued to make her memory real for him. Charles will never forget.
I don’t believe that Charles will ever re-marry; that’s just not him. He will have only one love in this life. At the same time, I fully understand and appreciate Porgie’s decision to remarry (and he seems to have chosen well, his new partner). I don’t think it in any way diminishes the love that he will always have for his first wife. Charles and Porgie have just chosen different paths.
I am thankful for my wife of 18 years and look forward to many more happy years together. Still, thinking about Charles and Porgie, I wondered how I would have reacted in their position. I believe that I am more like Charles but who can really be sure?
This squirrel is just pondering the imponderables.
(The names have been changed to protect young lovers all over the world).
A friend came by today. I could hear him approaching a full minute before he arrived. Vrooom. Vroom. Vroom. Boomed his car engine. My friend is a fan of high performance cars and he was coming by in his latest love affair……a Ferrari.
This was not the first time that he had brought his Ferrari over but this time he asked if I would like to take a ride in it round the neighborhood.
Now, as you may know, I am a modest type of squirrel – not used to drawing attention to myself; certainly not one who would be associated with flashy cars. However, it so happened that I was on my way to deliver some reports to someone nearby who is a bit of a snob and had always kinda looked down on me. So I thought that it would be nice to see his eyes widen in surprise and turn green with envy when I show up at his doorstep in a Ferrari.
So with an evil grin, I hopped in and set off to make my neighbors envious. We drove over to that guy and I had the pleasure of seeing his jaw drop at the sight of my ride. I shouted my goodbye as we drove off but could barely be heard over the sound of the throbbing engine.
My friend suggested that we now proceed to circle the neighbourhood. He said that the car would be a chick magnet and I agreed to go along for the ride and experience this attraction of chicks. We laughed happily until we turned onto the main road …….that’s when the engine died out and all kinds of warning lights came flashing on.
We were stuck in the middle of the road and blocking traffic. We were certainly a magnet attracting all forms of unwanted attention. My friend tried restarting the engine and it came to life. We sighed in relief and started to get going again. We made another 100 m before the engine died out again at an even worse location. We had no choice but to push the car to the side of the road to the accompaniment of horns blowing from cars that were blocked by us.
My Hot Wheels Being Towed Away
All I wanted was to spend a half hour cruising around in hot wheels to impress the neighbors; what I got was a 5 minute ride before spending the next 2 hours trying to get the car towed away to a garage. In the meantime, we had to deal with a few snide “Nice car, doesn’t it run?” remarks from the passerbys. It certainly did attract a lot of attention when the tow truck showed up.
My short-lived attempt to experience the life of the rich and famous reminded me of the plaintive cry of Zero Mostel’s Teyve the Milkman from the musical “Fiddler on the Roof”.
“Lord who made the lion and the lamb,
You decreed I should be what I am.
But would it spoil some vast eternal plan?
If I were a wealthy man.”
Apparently, some vast eternal plan would be spoiled.
