a cold, a new year, a wedding, a reunion, and a valentine

i'm sick.
a cold.
greenish goo is coming out of my nose. was oncall yesterday. will be again a day after tomorrow. hopefully i'm better by then.

it's chinese new year today. gong xi gong xi.

my roomies and i also attended a friend's wedding today. became sorta like a mini reunion between us and a few of the guys we used to hangout with few years back. they're mostly married and having babies now. made me feel like such a big sister today. i mean, we were there to see their transformation from university boys to working men. we're that close that we got to know their families, went travelling together .... we even saw them through their troubled lovelives, met their lady friends.. we went to their graduation, and to their weddings, and now they're fathers. sigh. i'm glad we still went today, despite being sick, post-call and all. btw, congrats to the lovely couple-an & epi.

then there was valentine's day.
last year i got a virtual flower from this guy i was sorta seeing, who i thought i kinda liked, but well... i dunnolah what was going on with this guy-sometimes i felt i was a girlfriend (like when i got the valentine flower-even if it was only virtual), sometimes i felt like i was just a "convenient" friend, sometimes just someone to give medical advice... anyway, i digress. basically, we're no longer in touch.
this year, being single and not really seeing anybody, valentine was supposed to just come and go for me.
but surprise-oh-mother-of-all-surprises.. i got a dozen red roses delivered to me at work! red roses. a dozen of them. with a tiny bear holding a heart that says "i love you" on it. and a card that says "happy valentine day" (grammatical error included), but no sender name.
of course, 1st thing that came to mind was: they got the name wrong.
but i checked (cuz i had to sign the delivery papers right) - name, workplace..all correct.
2nd thing: this is a trick. somebody's playing a prank on me.
asked my so-called friends. 'course evryone denies it and juz continued going waahh-soromantic-solucky-ugotasecreatadmirer-wah-wah on me. sheesh.
3rd thing: somebody out there trying to 'bomoh' me. um. yeah. good luck to them.

4th thing: mebbe i won a prize, or a lucky draw thingy, or this could be a promotional thing. from some insurance company.. or even the flower shop itself?
5th thing that came to mind: mebbe...in a state of utter despair and desperation (singletons-nearing-valentine syndrome) or perhaps under the influence of certain substance(s), i sent them flowers to myself? hmm.. but i havent been intoxicated recently. i got the cold only after. and please, even if i did get myself under the influence, i'd definitely get myself sth totally crazier or more extravagant than just a bunch of flowers-like a diamond ring, or a tattoo, or a new car. hehe.

and so the last thing that came to mind was: someone actually sent me the flowers? it's so....freaky.. freakier than the bomoh thing. really. i'm not one of those people who's used to getting "secret admirers" sending me anonymous gifts or flowers or whatever you know. not when i was in school. not in university. and now at work, at 32? yeah, freaky.

my friends (and staff at my workplace who were witnesses to the whole-delivery girl whisking her way into the nursery, flowers and all asking where i was-thing..sheesh) kept bugging me to findout who it's from. please, as if i'm gonna send phone texts to all the guys i know and say : how's it goin? did u by any chance spend more than a hundred ringgit for a dozen flowers for me on valentine?. i mean, what if it was a girl that sent me the flowers? ;)

o well, v-day came and went, and the sender (or senders? a group of people pulling up a prank is still possible) remains a mystery. if he/she/they prefer to remain anonymous, then let it be. the flowers are nice, and i'd like to keep them for now. no guilt attached.

bye bye birdie

a colleague of mine found a lil baby bird in her garden 2 days ago. she couldnt find a nest anywhere nearby so she took it in. yesterday after work she gave it to me cuz she had to work today. the plan was for me to look after it today and tomorro (since i have to work), she'll take it to the spca.
it was a cute lil bird and i was tempted to keep it, but i really dont believe in taking in flying birds as pets so even if i was gonna care for it for a few days, i'd let it fly away when it can (i remember as a kid, my dad used to buy these colorful lil birds to keep as pets, but i would always release them from their cages-without my father knowing of course).
anyway, i looked up the internet last night on how to look after baby birds and apparently the best thing to do is to leave them alone. even if we have to take them in, we're not supposed to feed them anything (i already gave the bird water and a bit of rice-oops!), keep them in a box in dark quiet place and then bring them to an animal shelter.
so that was my plan today-to bring the birdie to the spca, but alas... it died sometime during the night.
sigh.

now i just gotta persuade my roomates to lemme keep a cat. got too much love to give ;)

roasted baby anyone?

true story:
18 day-old baby admitted with what looked like severe skin infection over his face and neck. it was all red and angry looking, with a few areas peeling off. his eyes were shut closed with gooey purulent discharge, and he's got crusts all around his mouth as well. the parents initially claimed they too have no idea how their baby got that bad. then later they offered us this little info: their lil one was crying non-stop, driving evryone crazy.. so they took him to a 'bomoh' hoping he can help them stop the baby's crying. the bomoh then gave them a mixture of coconut oil + onions + black pepper, and told them to smear the mixture onto the baby. and so the 4-time parents did. all over his face, esp around his eyes, and mouth (cuz u know-crying..mostly involves the eyes and mouth? the tears and the wailing? i dunno-this my theory) and never washed it off, in fact, kept on reapplying it daily onto the poor sucker's face (sucker-get it?cuz he still breastfeeds?harhar)-one coat of seasoned oil after another.
we're talking about a pair or parental unit here, who's had 4 children- basically 'marinating' their lil one cuz he cries a lot, and cuz the bomoh tells them too.
why cant people follow doctors' orders like that-no questions asked.
i mean these parents, after finally letting us know this important piece of information, actually asked us afterwards: u think this might be related to whatever is happening to our baby?
um..yee-ah!
why dont you try smearing the same ingredients all over your thirty-sth-yr-old skin and see what happens. i mean, the kid was just past a week old at the time.
sheesh..
course, i didnt say that to the parents. i'm just a doctor, not a bomoh. i cant just tell people what i want.
instead, we washed the poor baby's face off - start him on antibiotics, and he got better after a few days.