Tuesday, June 15, 2004

I was out cleaning the car.. The weather look hazy so it is a bit cool in the morning.... It is a daily ritual that I do daily in front of our house.... Like swiping the dried leaves, weed the potted plant, trim the plants and wash the cars whenever I feel like doing it.... It did not rain the last few days...So the cars are not that dirty, except for the dirt, it look alright... So I just wipe it and start the engine of the Volvo.... Yesterday I did not drive the Volvo.... And sometime if you do not take it for a ride....It just get stubborn and refuse to start....It did just that this morning....This car is a bit moody.... It like to be pampered and showered with love....So just because I did not drive it yesterday...It refused to start today.... Well I think it did not like to see me driving the new Honda, jealous I supposed.... Well actually I care for my Volvo just like I care for my Honda, I love both of it... But I just could not be driving both cars at the same time.... So I think it is alright to leave it alone sometime.... Well I thought that it also need a rest.... I know why it did not start... It is the battery, so I used a jumper to reactivate the battery in the Volvo... As a boy scout, we are taught to be prepared... For that matter the boy's scout motto is 'Be prepared'... Actually I had kept a jumper for an eventuality like this...I had this jumper in my car always for this kind of emergency or to loan it to others on the road side when I see a stalled car... It is something that I always like to do for others when others are in time of need..... So with the jumper I connected the two batters together and voila.... My Volvo engine just start working.....Great... I do not have to push this car to get the engine running..... Well it was a great feeling getting the Volvo engine running again....And while keeping the engine running.... I watch a young girl taking her dogs for a walk...Two beautiful dogs.. One big black and the other a small one the size of a big cats...It was real nice to see these animals being lovingly taken care of by its owner....This is the first time I saw this young lady a brown girl with this dog walking in front of my house....Perhaps it has being going round for sometimes already... But I did not notice it... So today seeing her I greet her saying that what a lovely dogs she had there.... And she smile and we just talk a little and she says that she live nearby... Looking at my Volvo... She say that it is such a beautiful car and well kept... Well I thanks her and say that this car is much older then her.... She smiled.... And continue to walk her dogs away..... I wonder who is this young lady is...Anyway she could not be a Malay for Malay do not keep dogs...She cannot be a Chinese or Indian but may be a Eurasian because of her brown complexion, only Malay look like here...Well it does not matter, she is a nice young lady with the dogs....A great scene of the day.... For cultural reason Malay do not keep dogs, the Malay mostly takes cats as their pets... Whereas the Chinese and the other race do keep dogs as pets, that is Malaysian and my neighbor do keep a dog and we do not mind.... It is our way of respecting our neighbors.....Talking about dogs, let me tell a story about dogs, some are nice story and some are not that nice, one thing... Although I do not keep dog, I love dog but at the same time afraid of dog as well... I guess it is because I was often chase by dogs in my childhood in the Kampong, for we life near a Chinese housing area and they all keep dogs... I am told that when the dog bark and chase you..... Do not run for dogs love to chase, it is like a game to them.... But the natural reaction for us is to run when a dog chase you.... So our parents told us that the smart thing to do when a dog come to you is to squat down and touch the sand and once you squat down the dogs are sure to stop chasing....So when you stoop up quickly... The dog would start to run away and that would be the end of it.... I do not know whether this strategies works with some fierce dogs.... Well as for those dogs in our village it always works...But up till now I am still afraid of dogs....And at the same time still love those dog... Sometime dog would come over to the house and sit at the porch....At a few time I would feed this dog.... And soon it did not want to leave and became friendly... It then turn into a problem...Every time you chase it, it would wags its tail... But then I just want to feed them and do not want to own them... In the end I had to chase it to the nearest SPCA... On another occasion I woke up one morning... It was slightly raining, I found four dogs sleeping on my patio, in front of my house.... It was raining last night I guessed the dogs need a place to shelter for a night and it choose my house.... Well I had to chase it and it went away happily after the rain stop, wagging its tails, I think it is friendly and want to thanks me for letting them spend the night at my patio....Well I told my neighbor,a Chinese family about this and they say according to the Chinese.... It is a good sign.... So as years goes by I still see some dogs wagging when I am out of the house.... I just tell them just go home and I think they understood what I was saying and off they go....It is a sort of a love and not so love story of dogs with me.....And another not so nice story is about my new neighbor who rented a house nearby and kept eighteen dogs with her,my goodness eighteen dogs... She is a single mother with a grown up daughter.... So there are more dogs in the house then human and because there are so many dogs it smell and it disturb the neighbor....It soon became nasty with this lady quarreling with the neighbor.... Lucky for me it is not very near my house... But still I could smell the odor of dogs whenever I near the house.... Well we all decided to tell this new neighbor not to keep so many dogs but she was stubborn and insist that it is alright with her... We told her that according to the local regulation neighbor could keep only one dog if the adjacent neighbor do not mind....We would not mind if she keep two but not that many.... It lasted for a few months and things soon became worse and then the dogs keep making noise all night long... So a report was made to the local authority and eventually she move out... And now the neighborhood is in peace again... With our friend Janet with her cute dog...Taking it for a walk from time to time, we do not mind it at all....And I love to see this cute dog around...Well that is the story of the dogs and us in this neighborhood....Interesting eh!!.... After all they say that dogs are man's best friend.... I believe that....

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