Once in a while, there will be strangers who came and wandered around the garden and porch area. Some were just passing or dropping by, some stayed and moved on and some suddenly disappeared without a trace. The strangers that I’m talking about here are not human beings but cats.

This cat has been here for quite a while. At first, he was always hiding underneath the car in the porch and behaved in a defensive way. He was not friendly at all. The slightest movement will cause him to either hiss at you or to speed like a rocket and vanished into thin air. I guess his attitude is driven by insecurities and his experience being bullied either by other animals or human beings when he is out there alone. Unlike the first stranger, who can fit herself comfortably, this one is rather difficult to get close to at the beginning.

And then, we started to notice a pattern. He will always appear during the feeding time of our kittens (they’ve almost become cats now). After cleaning and feeding our cats, we tried to be friends with him by putting some of the cat food in a little container and put it near his hiding place. He came out from underneath the car and started to eat but when we want to get closer to him. He backed away and hissed.

However, that did not turn down our effort to be his friends. When we fed him, we will mew at him and pat him on his head to show that we meant no harm to him. Sooner or later, he began to put down his defense against us and is able to walk in and out the gate freely. Even if we pass him by, he would not run away anymore. He would even do a bit of those cat-flipping-around tricks and act like a cat that has been spoiled just to ask for a touch on his furry chest. How adorable could that be? But at this point, he will still hiss if we touch his feet. I think he must have had a bad encounter concerning his feet.

And now, what do you know? I think he has considered this place his home! He is not only walking in and out freely but also sleeping on top of the car! I find that an amazing change since the first time we approached him.

He is begging for food now with the loud and pity mew. So, we have to stop here and feed him.

We met this cat at the entrance of a temple during our trip to Miri last April. She seemed lonely there but I don’t think she is.  While we were pampering her, a dog stopped by and sniffed her. She looked at him but not in an irritated way. It’s more like saying “hi” to a friend. Then, the dog walked away. Maybe it was their way to communicate. So, cats and dogs can really be friends actually.

She was quite friendly despite the rather “What are you looking at?” emotion on her face. She came to us and mewed when we entered the temple. She even lifted up her right foot to post for the picture and she looked at the camera. From the colour on her body, she gave a mysterious feeling. It seemed like she has a lot of stories behind her.

Sometimes I wonder if animals feel lonely too. Do they need a companion? On the other hand, we as humans are drown in the sea of our emotions between love and hate or likes and dislikes. I guess this is one of the reasons that somehow leads to loneliness and the need to have a companion. Maybe you do not agree because you are currently living independently. However, could it be possible that there will be the day where you just hope that somebody could be by your side?

Relationship or companionship is one of the hardest things to let go. And it has also caused a lot of people to do many things that are not worth to be done and ended up paying the price that they shouldn’t have to. Therefore, we must not only have the wisdom to set priorities in our lives but also to be rational all the time and remember to pull ourselves out of it when it is time to let go. Having companions are great but we must always have a clear mindset so that we won’t be “drown” and let the emotions control our thoughts and actions!

I have heard a lyric of a song, it sounds like this, “The darker the night, the more beautiful it will be.”  Does it really true?  It is not true if there were no light at all in the night.  It’s totally blackout.

For other colours, we can further describe that it is light or dark, such as dark red or light green.  I will describe a place without light with “dark black”.  As long as there is a little light, even it is as little as a candle light.  The darkness is gone.

Light can be reflected; the water on the glass in the picture above reflected the light of the lamppost.  If the light were our hope, when it shines on us, we should do what the water has done, we should reflect the light that shine on ourselves and lighten up the others.  There are many people living in the darkness waiting for us to give them a hope.  Even a tiny smile may also help.

But there is a condition, the water itself is clearly transparent and that’s why it can reflect the light.  It means that we must have no dust in our heart so that we can reflect ourselves and gives hope to the others.  We must remove the dust from our heart, such as insincere thought, selfishness, hate, and the irrational love that overloads others etc.

Think about it carefully.  Look at it carefully.  Even the tiny water droplets are very small; however each of them is as bright as the light from the lamppost.  Don’t be stingy to reflect your hope to help the others, a small help from you will be a great help to them.

Yesterday, we found pomegranate juice unexpectedly when we were walking along the beverages section in a local supermarket.  We were looking for some nutritious drink.  Liquid has become one of the most important substances in our diet nowadays. 

We were quite surprise because we didn’t expect that we can find it in Kuching’s supermarkets.  For those that have tried pomegranate before, you’ll know that you have to suck on each seed in order to taste the fruit itself.  So it makes me wonder how did they make pomegranate juice.  This bottled juice make our lives easier since we don’t have to take the juice from its seed bit by bit.  Eating the fruit really takes a lot of patience.

The container first caught my attention as the dragon fruit but when I took a close look, I found that it was the pomegranate juice instead.  We decided to buy and try it out. 

Its juice is crystal red in colour.  When I first opened it, it smelled like rose syrup but the first taste of the juice confirmed that it was not rose syrup because there was pomegranate taste in it.  However, I feel that some water should be added to it before drinking because it’s a bit sweet although it is not in a concentrated liquid form.  It is also full of Vitamin C.

Although the price is quite high compared to other fruit juice, but it is worth the time you spend for eating the fruit.  Moreover, the vitamins are more concentrated this way and we won’t miss a single bit of them!

Pomegranate fruit.

Related post:
1.  Pomegranate and Our Senses

“The pictures in your blog are very nice, which website did you get them from?”

?!? What ?!?

I faced this type of questions quite a few times, and every time I just explained that I took them all with camera except those mentioned. 

Two questions always come to my mind.  (1)  Why can’t I take those pictures? Why do I have to copy from others?  (2)  Those pictures are not perfect; from which point of view that makes them said the pictures are nice?

May be I do no look like a photographer because I am only carrying a normal camera instead of a SLR; May be there are too many nice pictures on the web, and my photos are just “similar” to them.  May be their definition of “nice pictures” is simpler than mine.

I prefer readers to critic on my photos so that I can have more ideas on how to take picture in a better way.  I do not have strong feelings on all the comments because some are just blindly praising, and some have different tastes, but I always think about it carefully.  What I want is to find the balance of a “common taste” and my own taste and style.

My brother questioned me that he has taken a lot of abstract picture, but what I have selected to put in “Light in the Night 4” are not the best one, there are other better picture.  What I can tell him is that there are too many similar pictures which I have put in the previous “Light in the Night” post.  Sorry for that.  I will reconsider and they may appear in the gallery section.

For the abstract pictures in “Light in the Night” series, I did not expect you to like them all, as long as there is one picture that you think it is nice, I know that at least we have some common taste.  It is too subjective to say that it is nice / acceptable or otherwise. 

Anyway, we hope you enjoy viewing the pictures in our blog.