The calendar says winter is over and today’s the third day of spring. God’s creation however, not the calendar, dictates the weather; it was still very cold over the weekend. And grey too.
Tress and I went to a local pub styled restaurant just across the road from the station on Friday night. We had a good dinner, wound down the week and chatted. We then went home and having had a long busy week, we were both tired and the good feed set us up for a quiet night to sleep early and recharge our batteries.
I had trouble sleeping however, and some-time in the middle of the night, Tress let out a small “oh no”. Kuan Kuan – wife of Henry, my “7th” chek, had passed away in a hospital in Malaysia. She was operated on earlier in the week, for colon cancer. The operation was a bit more involved than expected but she was expected to make good recovery. Her passing was, therefore, a shock and we took the rest of the weekend to digest the news.
The grey weekend probably reflected our mood from then on. LBJ had his grooming session early on Sat, and we pottered around and when he was finished, Tress and I trekked east to Ringwood where I was strapped in for my now monthly plasma donation.
We had planned to cook a pork rib congee and had wanted to get to an Asian butcher for the ribs. So on the way back from the Red Cross in Ringwood, we decided to drop in the new Glen again. We were there some weeks ago and the ribs we picked up from the Asian butcher was pretty good. We shopped there, then had lunch in the very busy food area in the same building, before coming home and prepping the ribs and other shopping we had done.
We then went for an appointment to see my optometrist, my vision having had occasional less than 100%. While prepping the ribs however, Kiddo rang on occasion of it having been father’s day yesterday. We chatted for a little bit before we head off for my appointment. My vision was only slightly worse and the very honest optometrist said he didn’t think I needed new glasses so we came back.
Tress had been busy prepping to lead the discussion this week and she also kept up with her make belief ghost buster role on imaginative creatures residing mainly on her mobile phone. So through the weekend, she alternated between those two tasks.
Later that Sat night, we went and saw the new movie that was latest hit. “Crazy Rich Asians” was the first mainstream Hollywood all-Asian cast feature film and it was shot in Malaysia and Singapore. Those factors made many of our friends catch the movie and to our surprise, when we went to our seats, we found ourselves seated next to John and his wife Siew. John is Henry’s cousin and he recently vacated the Board of an NFP, which I stepped into. So the coincidences were a bit creepy.
The movie was a lot of fun but other than those features which made it special, it was pretty ordinary stuff. Movies in Melbourne can be expensive on weekends and that feature on a Saturday night was more than $40. As an occasional treat it was fine.
On Sunday it remained wet and cold and St Alf’s had Andy and Mif Little back from MAF in Mareeba. Andy spoke on Colossians 3 and his simple message of keeping our minds on things of God as a means to doing all things as though we’re doing it for Christ, made a lot of sense. It is something I have to try harder at. With help from the third person of the godhead, of course.
After lunch at our usual place, we did a bit more grocery shopping and had coffee, after which we bumped into Barry and Patricia, whom we haven’t met for a while. Their daughter Stephanie is almost as tall as Patricia now and it was good to see them again.
Back home later that arvo, I cooked the congee, packed them away for the week’s lunches, did a minimalist vacuum, and Tress built up her discussion notes and the hunt in her parallel universe. We then put our feet up to watch some tele and caught up again on social media, refreshing our updates on the sad news around my “7 Chim”. She was a beautiful person in all sense, but life is fleeting and often appears bewilderingly senseless, if viewed from other than who God is and what he’s doing.
Ante 