As a bit of an annual ritual, I like to sit down around the time of my birthday and look back on the year gone past.  Also a bit of an annual ritual,  I procrastinate and do it several days (weeks) after my birthday, but inevitably backdate it to make it look as if I did it on my brithday.  This year is no different.

In the days running up to my birthday various parts of my body sent out the anatomical equivalent of a network broadcast to all other body parts.  This clear was in an effort to let every part of me know exactly how old the other was.

About 10 days earlier I was cleaning the house.  Yes, the low-energy, low-risk activity that you perform several times a week.  I bent, not from the knees, to pick up a shirt from the floor and *bzzzzt*, burning sensation down my back.  I stood there in agony for a few minutes before the worst of it passed, but, did I know, it would mean spastic back for the next week.

Payback from my body for the 9 hours plus per day that I murder it in front of the computer.  I’ve learned to get up for frequent breaks ever since the first time it happened in Shiyan, but obviously I need to break more often as the years go on.  Luckily this time it wasn’t as bad that then.

By the Sunday, several days later, I was only faintly aware of my back and went for a game of Sunday Ultimate.  5 minutes into the game I was up against Joel jumping for the disc, when I got a little nudge, went down at a bit of angle, landed on my ankle and *crack*, my ankle didn’t play any more.

The rest of me went down like its weight in pork and all of us spent a good 3 minutes writhing in the mud with agony, as I couldn’t find a position in which my ankle didn’t feel like somebody was trying to hack through it with a blunt, but red-hot butter knife.

Eventually when my pain centres returned control to my brain, I picked myself up out of the mud and hobbled my way to the side of the field.  There I sat for the rest of the game, ankle in-and-out of ice that Julia rushed to get me. Just as well, because it swelled heavily even with the ice. Two to three weeks of elevated ankle, heavy bandages and no frisbee were to follow.

The celebration on my birthday itself was easy and sedate (thanks to all involved) – as suits somebody with a body in bad repair. Dinner at Silk Garden, drinks afterwards at The Loft where I had a cameo at Sri’s belated birthday party.

Then the Sunday following my birthday we were on the beach sans cups to drink out of.  Cleverly, I thought I would grind down the top of a beer can on the pavement, stick my finger in through the opening and pop the lid from the inside, producing an instant cup.  However, I didn’t grind it evenly and it didn’t quite pop like it should have – instead, it lifted just enough for the opening to cut really deep into my left-hand index finger.

Happy friggen birthday.

Embarrassed at my stupidity, I hid in the loo for 10 minute holding the near-severed parts of my finger together  until it stopped bleeding.  Not so stupid after all, because those 10 minutes, followed by a plaster to keep it together, enabled the skin to heal cleanly 3 days later. Even the groves of my finger-print line up, and no scar.

Anyway, I guess I should be thankful that I’m still able bodied, but I will certainly need to start working harder to stay in shape.  I have this uneasy feeling that my days in front of the computer are numbered…. Oh dear.

As I left the house this morning I looked at my camera and thought “I should take my camera with me today, just in case something exciting happens.”.  But I left it behind, because nothing ever does.  But wouldn’t you known it, a car catches fire on Jalan Kolam in Kota Kinabalu – almost right in front of me, and there I am without proper camera.

Luckily my trusted old Nokia has a 1 megapixel camera in it, and although the details of the burning van is a little fuzzy, at least you get the picture.

I was quietly typing away at my computer when a funny smell of something burning fills the air.  People are forever burning stuff around here though, so it’s not particularly note worthy.  Then sirens grow louder, but that’s not particularly noteworthy either, because that happens often too.  But when the sirens stopped virtually right underneath the window of the office I happen to be in, we looked out the window.

And there, almost in the u-turn lane, were one of those beat up little vans you see everywhere, in a great ball of fire. The fire department where there quick and started to prepare the hoses.  A little bang went off as the remaining petrol in the tank exploded, but it was quite small compared to the large flames engulfing the van.

Cars catching on fire in Kota Kinabalu is not as uncommon as you’d think.  This is the third burning car I’ve seen in the last 12 months, and they’re usually the old white panel vans which were coming apart anyway.

So there’s my action for the day.  It happened not 20 minutes ago. Traffic, of course, grinded to a halt during the ‘show’, people have to stop and gawk.  But now the traffic is cleared and a tow-truck is about to remove the wreck.

Ha. Eat your heart out Jimmy Goh