Friday Five 24-February-2023

thefridayfive 

These questions were written by Dreamwidth user Sabcatt.

1. What’s the last thing you got in the mail?
ooof. I thought with Postcrossing and other friends, I'd have interesting to say. But if I'm being truthful, as of today, the last thing I got was... bank letters. At least it's about the monthly deposit from the mutual funds I bought.

2. What’s the last thing you sent in the mail?
After I'm done here at Starbucks I'll walk across the street to the post office to post a letter off. But coming to think of it, I think... they've updated the post office operating hours and they now don't open on Saturdays? Or postmen don't deliver on Saturdays? I'll check it out later.

3. How many unread emails are in your inbox right now?
I'm the irrational "need to clear my mailbox" type of person, so of my own emails, work and personal, I have none.

HOWEVER, my Boss has be checking HIS mailbox and believe me when those red numbers wreak havoc on my psyche.

4. What is your most recent text message about?
Yesterday when I sent an update on Sai Lup to the family group chat.

5. Do you have a favorite postage stamp design?
We actually have a series of postage stamps that's for animal rights, and I know I bought two sets of them when they came out. But since I'm a pro at keeping things then forgetting where I've kept them in... I can't find them now.... oops.

F.riday5.com | The Other Shoe

1. When did you most recently drop something off with someone?
This actually reminded me i should have dropped off some stamps (rewards shopping kind of thing) to my bestie when I saw her on Thursday but I had forgotten.... again... need to do that on Tuesday.

2. Who is drop-dead gorgeous?

LOL yes. I can still make a joke.
This is Kitty, the. cat even I am scared of.

3. On what are you waiting for a price drop?
Not really... I successfully waited for the flight tickets to drop and bought them... the ones for London... but apparently now Cathay Pacific is doing an even steeper drop. ohwell, I bought the tickets already.

4. What were the circumstances when you once dropped the ball?
Not anything recently, but since the boss (as bosses go) will scapegoat the people around to take the blame, I'll bite. In Cantonese, we say "To eat a dead cat" 食死貓 to mean taking the blame for something. So, a couple weeks ago, he missed a flight to somewhere. His driver told me he was ready AGES ago. But he was using his mindset from pre-covid that he can just mosey over to the airport 40 minutes before his flight (business class, and all that). Well guess what, post-covid it's a whole hour, and so he missed his flight. And he blamed me, because I didn't do the online check in for him (WTF). But then sure, if he wants to blame on me, sure, my mistake. Sorry.

5. What news recently made your jaw drop?
I dunno. Haven't been checking the news. I've actually got a subscription to the Wall Street Jounal; I got the promo of USD $2 a month, thought I'd start reading world news; haven't read once *shrugs*, and I think I'm going to just cancel it, but apparently, signing up is easily done online but damn it, for cancelling I need to call them *rolls eyes*. In that case, I might as well start reading until the subscription expires in July.

Finicky

I really didn't want to bombard everything on a Saturday, but I just wasn't in the right headspace over the week to write my usual self-deprecating sarcastic stuff. But since Sai Lup seemed to be doing better when I saw him yesterday, and I'm out doing my usual shelter finances at Starbucks, and did the Friday Fives, and now have quite a bit of time left, might as well do it now.

Finicky. Usually not me. Not me in the post either.

Passport visa

So, I went to get my China visa. I knew I would get some trouble over that. I've mentioned before I officially have 2 names because of my 2 nationalities and how the culture of these nationalities differ in the surnames.

Macau being previously a Portuguese Colony, so on my Macau ID Card, my surname follows the Portuguese way of stuffing both mom's and dad's surname. So my name is Susana dos Santos Schmidt *totally made up name, for illustration purposes*, where dos Santos comes from my mom's Portuguese surname and Schmidt comes from my dad's Austrian surname.

I have the same longass name on my Portuguese Passport. Portuguese Passports have to be renewed every 5 years.

On my Austrian Passport, my name is Susana Schmidt. Austrian Passports have to be renewed every 10 years.

So when applying for a China visa in Macau (I assume in Hong Kong too), if you are a permanent resident you can apply for a 3-year China visa, for the same price as a 6-month or 1-year visa. Or if you're just a tourist then you can apply for a 1-time visa to China. I've always preferred to use my Austrian Passport whenever possible because I can sign a shorter name and I can use it for longer. You know that rule about not being able to use your passport with less than 6 months validity?

In the past, when applying for the China visa, all i had to do was explain to the staff about the culture thing.

This time though, apparently, the Chinese Consul is a new guy, so they didn't know whtat he thought of that.

I'm like, I'm not hiding the fact that I have 2 nationalities from you (and I know China doesn't recognize dual nationalities, but I'm inclined to think it's more about THEIR people, so you can't have a Chinese Nationality and an American one), I'm just explaining to you why my name is slightly different.

They asked me many questions. But they asked me all the wrong questions LOL. The funniest yet:

- So which passport did you use to apply for your Macau citizenship?
- None? I was born in Macau. I had my Macau citizenship before I got any of these passports.

I was laughing so much in my head. Had they asked instead, "in your Macau ID, which nationality are you registered as?" then I'd gladly have replied the factual truth of "Portuguese" (that's why I have that Portuguese version name).

I told them to "just submit it to the consular office. If they do not approve it, then I just don't get to go to China, no biggie!" Seriously, I have no plans to go to China yet, it's just that if I have the visa on hand then IF I do go then I already have a visa on hand.

Anyway, in the end, my visa got approved.


Why I hate socializing with people

So, a couple of months back, someone I knew was in a car crash. Her car got rear-ended by a truck on the way to work. Since it was "on the way to work" so it's covered under the employment insurance. She even had a neck brace for a while. I know her because she works in that side project that my Boss has. As mentioned before, I do not work at that side project, though I do participate in some of the work things there. But, in terms of location of work, I have absolutely 0 relations with that place.

Oh, she's also on the ceramics workshop place where I'm doing my ceramics workshop, so sometimes we do see in passing.

Two nights ago, I saw her for the first time after the covid lockdown and all that. What is the normal greeting of any sensible person?

"Oh hey! Long time no see! How are you? Are you ok?"

Her response? "Why do you ask? What have you heard?"

I was confused. "You had your accident? I saw you in your neck brace? So I'm asking how you are? as a normal person would?"

Then she goes on and says she's heard a lot of rumours about her at her workplace. Yeah well. Some people would squeeze every last bit of that workers compensation insurance thing. You get a third of your salary (because you are recovering from a work-related injury), cannot be fired because of absentia, and all that. So her fellow colleagues had been complaining that they've got a lot of work to do, coz her work got piled up to them.

Well, if we go that deep into a personal viewpoint, I'm in the camp of "I go to work even when I'm sick, so if you are well enough to go play with ceramics, you're well enough to go to work." But I don't go around gossiping about her. In fact, I never once thought about her until she showed up. And her mild accusation of me being part of the gossip? Oh yeah that fired me up.

Then she comes back again and tells me "You don't have to tell anyone about seeing me here."

You know how mad I got? "You think I have the time to go to a work place that I DO NOT WORK AT and gossip with people? You don't have to worry a thing, if I gossip, I do not gossip behind people's back; I say it to their faces," that shut her right up. My bestie was surprised that I can get so.... mean? Rude? But she had it coming. Tell me you're not feeling guilty, coming back to tell me to "not mention to anyone I saw you here." You know what, I wouldn't have mentioned, but now that you have demanded I don't, now I would; coz I'm not gonna do as you say.

There was a third thing I wanted to write about, but now that I'm here and having written the two.... I can't recall what the third thing was, darn it....

London Trip

Oh yeah, the friend that's going to London with me, she's finally got her passport. And it's when she was checking out the flights that she found out that now Cathay has even cheaper tickets than the ones I got on BA. So I told her, she can go on the CX. It goes to London an hour earlier than mine, and goes back to HK like 2 or 3 hours later. So she can wait for me at Heathrow and then coming back she can leave a couple hours later. She's the scaredy cat type and wouldn't want to fly alone, but the choice is up to her.

True, I'm slightly gutted as I think the Cathay planes might be newer than the BA planes, Cathay seats are said to be a little spacier than BA, and it's a whole HKD$1000 cheaper. but I won't let that curb my enthusiasm.

Oh, now that Brexit is done, does that mean that I'll get an inbound chop in my passport? That's basically the only thing I could be salty about going to Europe with an EU passport, they just look at the passport and let us in, no chop, no stamp, no PROOF that I was there haha. Oh, and that reminds me! I thought my friend would have to queue a bit because of her MSAR passport and I can just go through so that means she wouldn't have to wait too long for me... but then because of Brexit so I'll be in the same queue then. Ooops. Sorry friend, you're gonna have to wait for me if you do take the Cathay.

Sai Lup’s Home

So... Sai Lup's back at home.

But this is exactly what I was worried about. Are we just extending his miserable life? He likes to walk - he can't now; he likes to eat - because he can't walk so can't stand up to sh*t, we can't give him food that would make his stool overly liquid, then he'll dirty himself and everything else. He'll cry and whimper if he wants anything (peed sheets, food, hungry, want to turn around, etc). I don't mind about the extra work and money, but I'm honestly concerned about my quality of sleep in the long term if he has any such emergencies over the night.

The head tilt is going to be semi-permanent. He’s whining non-stop. He wants something but I can’t decipher what. But he has just quiet down now, maybe he's fallen asleep.

I have the room set up with one dog bed wrapped in diaper sheets, one on the side without. I had this floor-chair thing before that I placed at the extended part of my bed, now I have it on the ground so I can sit next to him. The bed without the diaper sheets is just a transfer bed. When he pees the bed, then I have to scoot him over to the transfer bed, change the diaper sheets as needed, then scoot him back to the bed with the fresh diaper sheets.

For his 6-day stint at the clinic I paid over MOP$30,000 (some USD $3,720). The clinic suggests to start him on acupuncture for the legs, and preferably acupuncture-vets that would do house calls, because taking him out would not be easy. Since he already had his ACL, and he's a tad on the overweight side, he's not gonna be able to walk. And he must go on physio and acupuncture so his legs do not atrophy.

Frankie seems to be traumatized by how Sai Lup is. Frankie would usually come to me in my room but since Sai Lup came back, Frankie hasn't step foot in my room. He actually just sat at the door looking in. I have no baby gate and I always let any and all dogs in my room. No idea why.

I'm going to take the chance that he's quiet now and catch some shut-eye.