This has actually been a day filled with distractions, trivial matters to keep my mind off the more important stuff, something I need from time to time.

The drop in temperature last night was unexpected, by me at least.  I didn’t sleep well and finally in the middle of the night got out of bed and dug out an extra blanket.  But we both slept poorly.  My gf told me that she’s going to be stressed out until my job situation is resolved.   I understand this – of course her future is completely intertwined with mine.  But it certainly doesn’t do much to help my own stress level.

Yesterday I started doing the math – in part because I discovered that there was a lot more sitting in my MPF and ORSO accounts (pension funds in HK) than I’d realized.  I’m going to know by the end of this month if what looks to be my dream job is going to happen or not; right now I’m told it looks 60-70% positive.  I was thinking, I’ve got the money to retire now – maybe not quite on the scale I’d prefer, and definitely not in Hong Kong.  Move somewhere else, run some kind of small business on the side, try and make some money from the internet, the picture is far from clear.

We had to stop in Hang Hau today, and while I was in the malls I went looking for a new jacket.  It suddenly occurred to me after about 30 years that I’m sick of my standard Levi’s denim jacket.  The problem was that in most of the shops that I looked at in East Point, the only coats I saw for men were either down parkas or hoodies, not much in between.  And walking through the mall, even though the temperature had risen to 20 degrees by the afternoon, I saw people wearing down coats, women with coats buttoned up to their neck and scarves as well.  People here dress by the calendar, not the weather report.

After that, time for the annual inspection for my car.  I went over to DCH in Kowloon Bay and while I was there, I stopped into their used car department to see what a vaguely reputable dealer might offer for the Spike Mobile.  But as soon as they popped the hood, I guess there was some kind of sticker inside that showed that the car was privately imported into Hong Kong.  (And it was – a 2002 model brought to HK in 2007.)  So they said they only buy “dealer cars” and weren’t interested in mine.  Well, the car did pass inspection, it does seem to be running okay these days (hope writing that doesn’t jinx things) so maybe I’ll stick with it a little longer.

Then back to Hang Hau – I’d accidentally timed things exactly right so I could meet my gf as she got off the MTR and we could go home together.  I suggested that we stop in at Taste and grab some of their cheapo sushi for dinner, which we did.  Well, you pay HK$60 for a platter of 8 pieces of sushi, of course the fish ain’t gonna have much taste but it was filling.

And then back home.  A good friend in Shanghai had reminded me earlier that he still wanted to publish my book, if I would ever get off my ass and finish it.  Emails flew back and forth, I sent him some samples, I’ve promised him I’ll finish the first draft by the end of the year.  Of course, I promised him that last year as well.  He’s quite patient.  (This ain’t some biggie deal by the way – it’s a small publishing house and I think the best I can expect is a percentage from actual sales and I expect actual sales to number in the high double digits or low triple digits.)  So doing some actual work on that tonight has kept me busy.

Oh, I’m getting a free Xmas tree.  Someone was advertising a 6 foot artificial tree that she wanted to give away rather than throw away and I’ll be collecting that on Saturday.

Well, this is the latest I’ve been up in weeks, time for bed.

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