Another Week
As I had expected, I went through an uneventful medical check-up at the Family Visiting Clinic which went ahead of the appointed time – very rare – and lasted less than two minutes which had been normal. The next appointment will be a few days before the Chinese New Year in 2027 or some 20 weeks away. The doctor printed my last blood test report to take home which showed an almost clean bill of health apart from the bad cholesterol level being slightly high. Su looked back on the date the blood sample was taken and noted that I had a high cholesterol diet before that date. Frankly, I wasn’t particularly bothered, for I had always taken the view that cholesterol levels bear little relationship to one’s diet. At my age, keeping a good mood and staying healthy are the major occupations. I was particularly struck by what the only grandson of Oscar Wilde wrote of him at the end of “The Wit of Oscar Wilde” published first in 1997 by The Folio Society of London, and let me quote, “In August 1900 in Paris, a few months before he died, he ran into an old friend, Anna de Bremont, who asked him: ‘Why do you not write now?’ His reply was: ‘Because I have written all there was to write. I wrote when I did not know the meaning of life. Now that I do know the meaning of life, I have no more to write: life cannot be written, life can only be lived…” Anna de Bremont was Anna Elizabeth, Countess de Bremont (1849 – 18 October 1922). She was an American journalist, novelist, poet and singer. She spent much of her time in England.
I can’t help feeling that I have continued to write – for whatever purposes – because I have yet to know the meaning of life! Meanwhile, I continue to live life.
And in this spirit, we went for the Sake evening at ABC last Thursday. We met some wine friends including Brendan Ho and his wife Elsa whom we first met at another wine dinner a few weeks earlier, also at ABC. Brendan graduated from Wah Yan some ten years after me and was always in a three-piece suit. He told us he had signed up for the Burgundy wine evening the following week, which will be tomorrow. We will see. As for the sake wine pairing dinner, Su brought her private pewter ware for the sake, but we didn’t buy any wine because they were not the genre we were used to. The following evening, I accompanied Su to a reunion dinner at an eatery joint in Sham Shui Po between her broker friends and met the usual suspects, Alan Lee, Clement Lau, Sam Lee, Kelvin Ng and Irene. Everyone brought whiskeys, but we ended up having many bottles of beer afterwards, and I felt somewhat tipsy on the taxi home. Saturday was our Lodge Ladies Night, which was a full house at Zetland Hall. Afterwards, Bosco took us back to Mei Foo and Keith came up for more whiskeys. It was with much determination that we managed the trip to Ricci Hall Sunday morning and back.
I had a meeting at ZH Monday evening; and because it was a long meeting, I booked dinner. Meanwhile, Su had planned to dine with the group we had dinner with last Friday. I was worried over Su being embroiled in another crazy drinking session and called her to find out how she was doing after my ZH dinner. They were having a great time and asked me to join them at Yau Ma Tei, which I did. I arrived well before 11 pm to find they were drinking all sorts of stuff and having a great time with karaoke, singing the songs of the mid to late 80s vintages. To cut the long story short, I suggested having noodles after midnight and eventually Alan took us to one eatery nearby at Shanghai Street around 1 am and had a bite. We didn’t hit the sack until 2 am. That brought us to Tuesday when our birthday month girl Nat had arranged a dinner at her place they moved in recently at Royal Palms. Su had planned to arrive shortly after 5 pm to pick up some culinary tricks from her maid and to view the place before dark, which we did. It was a great party for six, and we demolished six bottles of wine and bubblies. Nat was a great host and the food and wine were simply superb. We were home by 12:30 am.
It was thus we had been indulging our bodies with good food and wine for most of the week nonstop and tomorrow night promises more. I think it was too much and the body might not like it, which was why we decided to take a break today and had opened only a bottle of white to go with the dumplings Su made with the home-made wrappers, made under the supervision of Nat’s maid.
As I have quoted earlier, life is to be lived. We will see.
