Forewarned is Forearmed

It's good to know the symptoms of a heart attack so that we can know if we're having one and we can also help others who may not know.
A well-known symptom is pain on the left arm. However, there can
also be intense pain on the chin or jaw as well as profuse sweating and feelings of nausea.
Sometimes there may be NO pain during a heart attack and many who had such a heart attack didn't wake up. It's usually the norm to have chest pains.
Once we recognise the symptoms of a heart attack we should
immediately place 2 crystal aspirins under the tongue where they will dissolve and we can swallw them with some water. These crystal aspirins work faster than the tablets so it's advisable to keep them handy.
After that, we should inform a family member or friend to get us to the hospital. Meanwhile we should NOT lie down but sit up and wait for help to arrive.
It's good to know that we can do something to help ourselves in such situations.

One Smile Makes Two

Making friends is not as difficult as some of us may think. I’ve heard some people say that it’s hard enough to begin a conversation with a stranger so how to make friends?

Usually it’s eye contact first and then a smile. Smiles can do wonders. They break whatever invisible barrier there may be and from that point on, it’s a “Hi” or “Hello” etc., etc. and the rest follows naturally.

This was what happened outside a doctor’s clinic. An elderly woman and a younger lady were standing outside waiting for the clinic to open when I walked up. They looked like mother and daughter. The older lady looked at me and I smiled at her. In return I got an answering smile and she asked if I were also there to see the doctor. From then on, we traded information on why we were there.

So it was a casual conversation but somehow it gave a nice feeling that people whom we don’t know are friendly once the barrier is down. Smiles are what bring down barriers and they are the seeds of friendship.

I would like to share this song which I was taught in elementary school. It goes to the tune of Auld Lang Syne.

A smile is such a funny thing
It wrinkles up your face
And when it’s gone
You’ll never find its secret hiding place.
But far more wonderful it is
To see what smiles can do
You smile at one, he smiles at you
And so one smile makes two.

I don’t know who the composer is but I think it’s beautiful and my teacher taught us this song, telling us to smile all the time so that we can make more friends. This is why I’ve never forgotten the lyrics, old as I am.

Smiles are like rainbows, always pretty to look at.

They make a person more approachable, right? The smiling
girls are my sisters.

Simple Pleasures

Each of us can draw our own rainbow. I remember my science teacher teaching us to remember the colors using this: VIBGYOR

V is for Violet, I is for Indigo, B is for Blue, G is for Green, Y is for Yellow, O is for Orange and R is for Red. The colors come in this spectrum.

It is interesting to think of our days as rainbow days. An important day would be a Red Day,like a red letter day.

My day today is Green as there is a feeling of peace and calm. I look at my potted plants and they give me this feeling. The different variety of foliage that I have potted all have their own beauty. Nothing in Nature is ugly. Even the weed has its own beauty. Look at the dandelion, an obnoxious weed to some but its flower is pretty and the weed has some medicinal value too.

To me, looking at my green plants gives me a great deal of pleasure, especially when I see those that have withered and dried up, perking up in new growth after loosening the soil and pushing in some surviving shoots. There is a resilience in these plants just as there is within us, a tenacity to live.

Breathing in the fragrance of the jasmine, which has started to bloom again, is another pleasure. The rainy weather has dampened the flowering and there are few buds but this morning, a shy little jasmine peeked out from the leaves surrounding it. Even the size of the blooms is affected.

Nevertheless it was a lovely surprise.

Just as the flowers need the sun to bloom well, so do our souls need some encouragement to open up and grow. So often we grow but without any real growth within us. Maybe looking on our days as rainbow days and coloring them as such can make a difference. Maybe we can help others to color their days too?

Celebration, Bonding, & Renewal of Old Friendships

After the tea ceremony in the afternoon, there was a small and cosy dinner in the evening for relatives and old friends, friends from school and college days.

I feel very blessed that my classmates
and college mates came to celebrate my son's wedding.

Most of us are grandparents and there are still avid golfers among us, myself included. Here is one of my golfing buddies, although we don't golf together now as we live in different states, separated by the South China Sea.
Relatives are my siblings and their children and grandchildren and my sole surviving aunt and her daughter. Since we have a big family, there are many of us, the young ones included.

Midway during the dinner there was a rousing "Yam Seng", the toast to the newly married couple. Guests and relatives toasted to their happiness and a fruitful, long-lasting marriage. In Chinese it goes something like this, "till they grow white-haired together".