Gong Xi!

Yesterday was Chinese New Year's Eve. The plan was to go in the morning to my colleague's flat to leave some mushrooms I had prepared for the BBQ celebrating her birthday later [mouthful, yeah! now say it twenty times!]. After that, I was supposed to go to the lab, work for a while, and then come back to the BBQ. After that, it was supposed to be Reunion Dinner at Doris' place and fly kite in the nite.

Well, it all went tumbling down when I met a kitten while delivering the mushrooms. She was in a bush an meowing at the top of her lungs. Rescued the kitten from the bushes, had Marian deliver the mushrooms, get some meat and some milk and come down. For the next hour or so I pondered what to do. Should I a) put it back in the bush and hope that her mama would return? (not really, kitteh was apparently meowing for ages; b) put it back in the bush and pretend it never happened? c) take it home?! So I force fed the kitteh for an hour or so while the thought that I cannot take it home sank in. I cried (like for real tears) and pleaded and thought but yeah, could not bring it to the lab as it would be too disruptive to the other peeeps (it had some lungs!!); could not bring it home as flatmates are allergic and I am leaving Singapore in 5 months; could not put it back, and hence the crying.

In the end, I texted doris and asked for advice. And texted several other people that I knew lived by themselves and could give even a temporary home to it. Only one of them called back, angry that I guilt-tripped him; he also called back later in the night to check on the kitteh situation (brownie points for him!). The rest gave either "awww would love to have it but you see the landlord does not allow it, why don't you take it to SPCA?" - where nobody would take it since it's fucking CNY and people do not go out to adopt kittehs and then it would just be killed so wtf am i doing with it right now?!, or curt "I am very sorry but I cannot", when I know that they could only if they wanted just a teensy bit [below the kitteh finally sleeping in my bag]



This and the fact that while I stayed there and force-fed the big-lunged kitteh about 30 people passed me, and at least five kids and nobody and I mean NOBODY came to see or even looked at wtf was I doing there? totally killed my trust in human beings.

This trust got restored later by Doris, who was my hero of the day. She called her friend who called another friend who has a gigantic house with 14 other cats, 2 dogs, and a maid to take care of everybody. The kitteh, who we named "Gong Xi" hopefully will adapt and live happily ever after there.