🎶Hey, where did we go? Days when the rains came; Down in the hollow, Playin' a new game.🎶
The last few days, I've been trying to help the people I had grown up with - more specifically Rahni and uncles Jeoung and Hoai - the first I have needed to help keep calm and not feel like she has to babysit a dumbass who went rogue while in Shanghai and nearly got the rest of the team arrested. The latter two I have helped navigate the seedy underworld of Paris of the East as we discovered that said dumbass was trying to roam the city as a way to find a house of ill repute to have a bit of fun. I hope the fucking idiot got his thrills and caught the 👏 while he was at it! To be that idiotically self-absorbed that you would risk your job and the other people working with you, not to mention cause problems for the company you're working for shows that this guy shouldn't be working at the DQ Drive-Thru in winter, let alone anywhere else.
🎶Laughin' and a-runnin', hey, hey
Skippin' and a-jumpin'
In the misty mornin' fog with
Our, our hearts a-thumpin' and you🎶
To help my own state of well-being, as I once more was starting to recall times, I worked with a particular government agency cleaning up some pretty horrifying messes, I began writing poetry and talking with friends. Joking and laughing, a few of us talked of frogs, since I related a story that Wei had once told me when I was little. I don't remember where he heard it himself, but it was about a little deaf frog that decided one day to climb a tall tree. The other frogs were yelling at him and telling him that he couldn't do it, that it was impossible. But since he couldn't hear them, he made it all the way to the very top. Stunned, after he had come down again, the other frogs asked him how he had done it. Not understanding he thanked them for their encouragement. Wei told me, even in the word itself, you're told I'm Possible and said that I just needed to believe I could do something, and I would. That's one of the many reasons that (and lessons learned from) I love and cherish my big brother.
🎶Standin' in the sunlight laughin'
Hidin' behind a rainbow's wall
Slippin' and a-slidin'
All along the waterfall with you🎶
My friend susandaddy had loved the tale I shared, and has been joking with me, saying, "Ribbit!" and sharing frog pictures. I needed her joyful presence, and it's helped keep my own stress-levels down. the Chrysanthemum Firework has been offering moments of thoughtful discussion, too. I mentioned to her how a friend of mine and I would catch toads and frogs for bait down along the local rivers and lakes when we were kids, catching big-mouthed bass, catfish and other good fish to fry or coal roast. She misses fishing, herself, and said we should do that this coming spring and summer a few times. It has me wondering if she's merely teasing me, or if she's serious, since her dad was a big sports fisherman and loved to take her and her sister out with him on some weekends. In any case, I will wait and see what happens, I don't really make plans any more due to how often I've found myself disappointed or ending up not feeling well as I struggle with my health from time to time, or sometimes just my anxiety.
I also mentioned a time Vighn and I had been out fishing and snared a duck on a line rather than a fish, it wanted that frog, and wasn't willing to let go. Vighn knew he would be in trouble, since we were using his grandfather's pole and tackle that Aha had warned all us children not to mess with. It had been Paha's favorite, one he'd gotten from his grandfather, and since he hadn't determined who would get it when he passed, it was being held for when the grandsons were older and figure out which one enjoyed fishing. I put a firecracker up to the duck's bill to tempt it, managing to get the hook out of its gullet as it had the firecracker lodging it's bill open just enough for me to work that out of there. And since it wouldn't let go of that, much like my own biological grandfather and his brother had done when a cherry-bomb was chomped onto by a snapping turtle that they then couldn't get out of its maw, I lit the fuse. Reed shared duck soup with us that night, marveling at the gall I had while quietly chuckling as Vighn was relating the story to him. The poor boy got a couple of whacks with that fishing rod on his hind end by Aha, when he went to return it the next morning.
A lot of memories surface, a lot of friends step up to help make life easier, but I am starting to feel old before my time, as I sit and type out these stories instead of being out there to make more grand moments to the cadence of time's parade.
Ribbit! One of the koi ponds of the local arboretum near the Sunset Funeral Home and Lawns has a garden of remembrance for those who wish to sit and commune with nature and the spirits of the departed. I have enjoyed the serenity of that place on occasion myself, working on watercolor or colored pencil techniques either there or when I had returned to the place I currently reside.