Chillaxing at home

Little Miss appears to be back to normal again, which is great to see 👍 She’s being affectionate again, she’s walking around, and she ate two cans of food last night! 😱The appetite stimulant meds that the vet gave her is definitely working!

And the vet called too just to check to see how’s she’s doing. I really appreciate this follow-up call, it’s a really nice service 😊

Cats are apparently considered ‘senior’ when they’re over 7 years of age. She is sooo much older than that, I don’t even remember what she was like when she was 7! 😆 She’s 18 this year!! And despite her health problems, she is still fighting. She tried to scratch me again this morning because I was bothering her (again 😇). Gotta love her spirit 💪

The cases in HK are now going up by 100+ cases each day now. WTH. We had it under control! 😒 WTH happened?! I wanted to go to Wan Chai today, to go and visit the Wan Chai Computer Centre (again 🤪), But N convinced me not to, and to just minimise my going out during these crazy times. So we stayed home once again. N went out briefly to meet up with a friend to help her out with some stuff, and then he stopped by the supermarket to buy some groceries. But other than that, we were home all day. I just hope all this craziness will disappear soon enough 😔

Making up for yesterday

We went over to a friend’s place for dinner tonight, which was nice. We played this card game called Cards Against Humanity, and apparently there are different versions of the game, each of which are tailored to a specific country’s culture. They had the Aussie version, so that was pretty cool. The game itself was rather inappropriate, but it was still quite fun 😆

And Kitty was also feeling better today too, thankfully. She was up and about much more, so that was nice to see. And she was eating again too, thanks to the appetite enhancer / promoter meds that the vet gave her 😆

So a much better day than yesterday!

A bit of a traumatic afternoon

Kitty was bleeding again this morning 😔 Luckily got an appointment at the vet this afternoon. They ran a whole heap of tests on her again, which of course cost an arm and a leg 😱 Surprisingly, though, some of her test results came back better than the ones from just a few weeks ago! This little one is a fighter, I tell you 💪 Her doctors in recent years have been surprised at her resilience. Heck, we’re surprised sometimes! 😄

But I wasn’t there with her when she saw the vet, though. As with so many places in HK now, everyone checks your temperature. And my temperature beeped a very high 38.1°C today, well above the cutoff temperature point when they’ll tell you to leave the premises (which is 37.5°C) 😱 It was a hot day (the maximum temperature was 35°C 🥵), so they gave me some cold water to see if that’d help. They took my temperature again soon after, but it was still coming in slightly above 37.5°, so I couldn’t stay at the clinic 😔 N stayed with her instead while I just went back home.

She actually peed in her carrier on the way to the vet, so we had to clean her up when she got home. We gave her a rinse while she was still in the carrier, it was the only way we could do it without her running away. As you can imagine, she was NOT happy. And this was after spending time at her doctor’s office – and having to wear an Elizabethan collar to boot! It was a very traumatic afternoon for the little one 😩

You can hear her growling 😡

So now I’m a bit concerned about my own health 😔 I checked my temperature again when I got back home and I got 37.8°C! Still high 😔 I was feeling perfectly fine this afternoon, but now I have a bit of a sore throat. I’m not sure if it’s psychological or if I genuinely have a sore throat… 🤒 And with all the COVID cases at the moment in HK, I can’t help but freak out a little bit!

Takeaway lunch and some bleeding

N wanted to go out for lunch today, but just as we were literally walking out the door, he remembered that he had a meeting in about 45 minutes 😆 I asked if he could take the call at the restaurant or if he needed to be in front of the computer for it. He said he would prefer the latter. So that meant his idea to eat out just wasn’t going to happen today, so we just went and bought takeaway and ate at home so he could make it in time to his meeting 😆

Kitty started bleeding again today 😔 This is probably the third or fourth time this has happened to her in recent years, but it still doesn’t make me feel any more prepared to deal with it. I also forget what to do when it happens. She seems relatively ok at the moment, so we can wait until tomorrow to go and see the vet. But still, bleeding is not normal, so I’m still feeling rather anxious 😟 Plus she’s been particularly fussy with her food the last few days, so I hope this isn’t a sign that she’s taken a turn for the worse 😔 I’ll keep you posted 🤞

Apart from this unplanned (albeit quick) outing, I had a very productive day.

More tech gear 😂 and TV

Little Miss woke us both up a number of times last night, so needless to say, we were both very tired this morning 😒

We went to Times Square in Causeway Bay to pick up the tripod that I bought with my camera last week. They were out of stock so they had to order it in.

Times Square is one of the shopping malls in Causeway Bay. They have a promotion again where they give you HK$X in vouchers for every HK$Y that you spend in one day, with a minimum purchase of HK$Z. Sorry for the algebra, I just don’t remember the actual dollar amounts. All I know is that the promotion is good 😂 We got some vouchers during their first promotional period during April-June, and now we got some vouchers again during this second promotional period, July-September. It’s definitely a good way to get more foot traffic into their mall! We definitely wouldn’t be going there as often as we have been these past few months if it wasn’t for these vouchers 😄

We were both pretty tired (thanks to Little Miss 😒) so we didn’t really hang around at the mall for too long. We just picked up some groceries on the way back home and then just chillaxed for the rest of the evening.

Oh, we’ve started watching Modern Family! We both just want something really easy to watch, a modern version of Friends, if you will. And this is the closest thing I could find. We watched a few episodes of Grace and Frankie, but I couldn’t really get into it, so we abandoned that about four episodes in. But Modern Family is going strong so far, seven episodes in 👍 Apparently they had eleven seasons, so they must’ve been doing something right!

Things not working together

I went to bed at around 2am last night, so I was fully expecting to be getting up really late, especially since we have another public holiday today 😌

But no, my body had a different idea. And so did Kitty 🙄 She was hungry at around 6:45am and she let me know it 😒 I decided to get up and feed her, and then go back to sleep straight afterwards. But this time, my mind had a different idea. It wanted to wake up and do things. WTH, man. C’mon, mind and body. Just work together for me, will ya?!? 😩

So I watched a few YouTube videos on different cameras that may suit my needs. As I’ve mentioned before, my top priorities are portability, convenience and ease of use. Not just as a camera but also for vlogging. I want something that’s good enough to do both because I just want to carry one thing. I don’t need the fanciest gadget out there or the sharpest photos. I just need something that will do a pretty good job.

So after watching a bajillion videos on YouTube, I narrowed it down to two Sony point-and-shoot cameras: the ZV-1 or the RX100 VII. As N pointed out, the video capabilities is what I’m really focussed on, and that’s exactly what the ZV-1 does: it is primarily for vlogging. Taking photos is secondary, although its camera is still pretty good for a point and shoot. I’m going to watch a few more videos on the ZV-1, but I think I’ve pretty much made up my mind.

So we went to Causeway Bay (CWB) today to go to the Sony store there to check these cameras out. Unfortunately, though, we discovered that the protesters were also over in CWB today 😔 So the police had cordoned off the main road going through the area, clearly trying to drive people out of the area and discouraging people from loitering around.

And the Sony store is on this main road. Needless to say, they had already closed by the time we managed to get there. I was terribly disappointed as I really wanted to see their cameras today 😔

We decided not to check out the Wan Chai Computer Centre, as it too sits on the main road that the police have cordoned off, so they have probably shut their doors for the rest of the day too 😔

I was so looking forward to checking out my potential new camera, but I guess I just have to wait until the weekend. Hopefully the protesters don’t target CWB again on the weekend, and we can safely head over to the Sony store and hopefully, maybe, buy a camera 🤞

I should’ve researched where the protests were going to be today. I should’ve anticipated it, at least, given the significance of the date and the introduction of the new security law. And that it’s a public holiday today. Sighhh… I was too busy doing my research on cameras! 📸 😂

Happy, amused, and very full!

We went and had yum cha today for the first time in what feels like aaages. We went to one of our favourite places, but they’ve changed their menu a bit, and it seems like the quality of their dishes has dropped slightly. I’m sure they suffered during the past few months and are trying to cut costs, but you can’t sacrifice the quality of your food. Unless you are happy to take the risk of losing regular customers. I’m not sure if we’ll return again now. We probably will, since they’ve been one of our favourite restaurants since we moved to HK; but if we leave with the exact same opinion for a second time, then they may just have to be bumped off our list 🤷‍♀️

We then took Kitty to the vet after lunch. Getting her there is always a painful experience because she never likes leaving the house. She’s always been an indoor cat, and so new environments just aren’t her thing. And especially now as an older cat. She gets so angry at everyone, and she hisses and growls at anyone who comes close to touching her.

They still managed to get a blood sample. though, and her test results came out much better than the vet expected. So he commended us for managing her health really well this past year, as there was no major deterioration in her health, and to just keep doing what we’re doing. Yayyy, I was so happy to hear that 👏

And then later on in the evening, we went to this rather interesting hot pot restaurant. We went with a friend from China, and she asked us if we knew the meaning of the name of the restaurant, which is in Chinese. Apparently it’s the name of a famous brothel in ancient times! Interesting choice for a restaurant name! 🤣

The brothel theme continued in the restaurant, with some sex positions listed in their drinks menu and their moist towelettes in little packets that looked like individual condom wrappers 🤣 Quite amusing, and good food too 👍

I have to study the Chinese since, as you can imagine, this is not something I would ordinarily come across in my textbooks! 😂

The biggest comedy of errors

I had an excellent start to my day: I somehow managed to get up at ridiculous o’clock this morning, and so I had all this time this morning to work through my to-do list.

And one of the things that I wanted to do was film my next YouTube video. But apparently our neighbours had other ideas: they’re doing renovations upstairs 🙄 The drilling and hammering sounded like it was directly above me. So filming in the apartment wasn’t happening today, sighhh…

So I got ready to go and film outside, pulling together all my usual equipment and making sure Little Miss had food and aircon (it’s very warm again today).

It took me a bajillion hours to leave the apartment. And when I finally did and I made my way to the bus stop (I’d rather catch the bus than walk in this heat), no one was at the bus stop. So I checked the bus timetable. Apparently I was ten minutes out with the bus arrival time. So instead of being five minutes early to the bus stop, I was five minutes late. Argh! So I had no choice but to walk 😤

And then as I was walking, I noticed just how bright it was, so I went to go get my sunglasses from my handbag 🕶 Apparently I left them at home. WTH. I almost always bring my sunnies with me, unless there’s a downpour. But it was clearly sunny outside, so there was absolutely no reason not to bring them with me today. Plus they sit right next to my wallet at home, which I brought with me today, so what happened with my sunnies?!? 😤

So you can only imagine just how annoyed I already was when I got to my chosen lunch venue – and how even more annoyed I was when I saw just how many people were waiting for a table. I waited for almost half an hour for a table 😒 I wanted to beat the lunch time rush, but because it took me so long to get out of the house (and then the subsequent debacle with the bus), I ended up getting to the restaurant almost an hour later than I had originally planned. Argh!

While I was waiting for a table, my mum called to tell me that their financial adviser hadn’t kept their phone appointment, and that they’d been waiting for his call for half an hour. Not sure what happened there either. It just seems like the universe is against us today. Sighhh… 😒

It was too bright and hot for me to stay outdoors for too long today, so I decided to just go home and see if I could continue filming my video back in my study. It was a beautiful day, though, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to take a few selfies while I was out. But then I ended up doing this for longer than I expected – and so missed the bus home! I missed the bus leaving home and then I missed it again going back home. Arghhhh! 😩

Anyway, so I finally got home, and I thought I’d watch back the footage that I took today to determine where in the script I needed to pick up from. It turned out that what I filmed today had absolutely no audio. Not bad audio, no audio. I must’ve had the audio setting set incorrectly, so I ended up not capturing any audio whatsoever. So basically I was back at square one. Can you believe it?!? Un. Be. Lie. Va. Ble.

If anything could go wrong, it did go wrong today. I didn’t have much time this afternoon to film my video from scratch, so instead, I did a vlog, ranting about my day! 🤣 🤣 Not sure how well it’ll go down with my audience, but oh well. Such is life! You can’t things too seriously, and sometimes I forget that. And who knows, it could end up being one of my more popular videos! 🤷‍♀️ You just don’t know 😆

Mysteries

Little Miss kept scratching at the cupboard doors in our bedroom last night 😒 If I walk to the spare bedroom and get her to follow me, she’ll stop her scratching. But the downside to this is that I end up having to sleep in the spare bedroom! I don’t even know why scratches anyway. It’s not like she doesn’t have any food or water 🤷‍♀️ So my sleep ends up getting terribly disrupted on most days 😔

Despite this, I still managed to get quite a fair bit done today, thankfully 👍 And that’s also despite the crappy weather we had today. Man, this 💩 weather is still lingering around! I wonder if this means we’re going to get more typhoons this year… 😱 Our first year in HK (last year) was very uneventful, thankfully, with only one T8 typhoon the whole year. T8 is the second highest typhoon level, i understand. So these typhoons are still a big mystery to me. I’m curious and nervous at the same time – as in, I don’t really want to feel our apartment building swaying as if we’re on an amusement park ride! 😲 Yesss… This is how it has been described to me. W.T.H. Hopefully that was a really bad one and most typhoons aren’t that insane!

My crappy week continues (or does it?)

Aaand my crappy week continues: I woke up with a headache, and I never managed to get get rid of it, even after taking a quick nap in the afternoon. It lingered around for the entire day 😔 Thankfully it was only mild, and I still managed to do stuff throughout the day. I still think the crappy weather isn’t helping my mood…

My one and only goal for the day was to film my next video, and I actually managed to do that! 😲 I even surprised myself 😂 And that’s even with Little Miss scratching at the door; some baby upstairs (or downstairs, I don’t know exactly) crying; and people generally making noise in the apartment upstairs 🙄 Hopefully very little of their noise actually found its way onto the audio… 🤞

And then in the evening, we watched the first episode of season three of Community. This is the western tv show that I’m currently making my way through. I’m still slowly working my way through the Korean drama, Crash Landing On You 😊

Okay, so it wasn’t the worst day. But I’ve had better 😆