Sunday Soap

I am usually no sucker to TV series, especially those with dramatic family scenes. I get quite sick to the guts watching stereotypes. Yet I spent the better half of last Sunday watching one... what more, it was on YouTube. I was searching for something else on YouTube but it dished out some suggested links on another show. I had heard of the show before and just casually clicked on one of the links. Well, one clip led to another and before I knew it, I had watched enough to know the whole story.

The series is about a dysfunctional American family: a recovering drug addict son, a deceased father who had embezzled money from the family business, a gay son, a politician son in-law, and the list goes on. It has all the makings of... an American soap! This particular one has an uncanny way of making you see a little of yourself in some of the characters. Touché!

Alright, Hollywood got me this time. One point for Tinseltown. Infact I am completely smitten by some of the characters in the show. The show in question is Brothers and Sisters.

But this morning it got me thinking. Why are most of us so able to relate to a dysfunctional family? (and that is how Hollywood makes money*). Well, because most of us come from one don't we? Most of us do not live textbook lives and do not have textbook families. A dysfunctional family is really the norm rather than an exception.

(*All things said, it was a rather well done series and deserves some credit)

blooming and branching

Little Korea

With my sense of direction, or rather, the lack of it, I was anticipating a night of many wrong turnings before we could finally find the restaurant; and end up having supper in place of dinner.

I was wrong. We reached there on first attempt, perfect timing for dinner. In no time after we made our order, the waiter was laying out onto the table, a countless number of little plates of pickled dishes. A minute later, we were barbecueing away.

After the hearty meal, we strolled through the cosy Korean enclave and feasted our eyes on the lines and lines of colourful items on the shelves of the charming Korean mini marts.

It was a lovely well deserved night out for two shameless, self-proclaimed chefs: me and mum.

Coup de Grâce

I was driving through the busy road on my way to work this morning. In the middle of the road, in the front, I saw a brownish object moving vigorously, staying in the same spot. It looked like a large piece of dry leaf fluttering in the wind. As my car inched nearer, I could see that it was a small brown kitten.

One side of its head was completely smashed in, red, raw and collapsed. But the kitten was clearly conscious and alive, flipping and twisting violently in pain on the asphalt road. It was clear that its condition was beyond help and that it would eventually die. But it was also clear that at that rate, it would persist for a long time in that state before it would succumb to its fatal injury.

A flash of thought immediately ran through my head: should I run over it to put it out of its misery? I only had a split second to make the decision on that busy road as traffic continued to move.

As I reached the spot where the kitten laid, still struggling, still sufferring in pain, I found myself swerving the car to the side, missing the kitten.

I do not know if I would have felt better if I had had the courage to run over the kitten instead.

After witnessing one of the most painful things I had ever seen, I continued driving away from the spot, hoping that all the other motorists around me wouldn't notice me crying in my car.

The limit set of a chaotic trajectory

I turned 34 two months ago. Aren't we all quickly moving through the passage of time?

With a mere few weeks left before a new year arrives, what have we achieved? What has changed? what has remained the same? The cowboy still rides off to the sunset with the prettiest maid; the glass slippers still fit only the prettiest of the three sisters; glittering gem stones still dorn the costume of kings, dull unattractive common charcoal still burns in the hell fires of a furnace.

Aren't the damned still damned, the doomed still doomed; doesn't the world still stage the same scripted play of injustice from sun up to sun down.

Meditation of a different kind

Just passed midday and it is raining outside. It has been raining since last night. We were lucky to have chosen yesterday to do our hiking. The rock climbing would have been even more treacherous had it been wet and slippery.

Cliché as it may be, it was a breath of fresh air - pardon my pun - to be jolted by the wonderful experience yesterday. You are forced to focus one hundred per cent in order to hang on to dear life as you claw your way up the seventy degree cliff. Momentarily, there is only you, the rocky cliff, and the cool air you feel behind your back; open space, freedom and not a worry in the world.