Name an attraction or town close to home that you still haven’t got around to visiting.
It takes about an hour and 30 minutes from Los Angeles to San Diego by drive, so it’s not precisely near one another. Still, I love to visit the San Diego Zoo and Sea World on vacation.
Disneyland and Universal Studios are the closest attractions, but I want to meet the animals, including Red Pandas, Tigers, Cheetahs, and Orcas, in person! I contemplated bringing my cats to introduce them to one another, but the Zoo and Sea World policies don’t allow it, so that they will stay home. But I turn on the Wildlife videos on YouTube before going to work, so I hope it will be a vicarious encounter. Of all the animal residents at the zoo, my special interests are Cheetahs and Orcas because they are exquisitely beautiful. I heard there is a unique safari program about Cheetahs, so I look forward to it.
Wild at home: Toro and Camille from L to R
Since my life with Toro and Camille, animals – Wild or Domestic – have become friends to me, or so I feel. I think animals know and like me better.
If you could make your pet understand one thing, what would it be?
Camille and Toro from L to R
Dear Toro and Camille,
You may not understand human letters, but I know you understand my heart because when I write, it is my spirit addressing the world, and now you, even though I am writing this letter to you during my lunch in the office now.
I always tell you I love you, and I do mean it, and I am thankful for you choosing to live with me when I saw you for the first time at the orphanage. I am sorry for not being able to provide us with a pleasant home environment in all aspects – from our tiny one-bedroom apartment to living with a mom who is sensitive because of her highly acute sensory system, which prevents me from letting you roam around. I feel like I am a terrible guardian who inhibits your instincts. But I also think there’s light ahead of us, a light that will lead us to a brighter future, which includes our living in a lovely house or an apartment commanding a great view so that you can see me coming from work through the windows. How about that?
We rode the same galaxy train to a star across the rainbows, where we will live together forever. I know you guys all go to Cat’s Star later, but we will bypass there for a groovier kind of star. So, I will not let you go of – in any manner. We will stay together no matter what. Someday, we will travel together and see the world. I love you so much in every universe.
The word “Job” always triggers the image of Job, whose piety to God was tested by Satan, who made him go through the trials of life so that he could curse God for the suffering. The etymology of Job is from Greek Iōb, from Hebrew Iyyōbh, meaning ‘occurrence.’ Or ‘Joining Others’ Business,’ which is hardly anything dreamy.
My ideal Job is one where I can perform my abilities to the greatest extent possible with good pay and benefits packages to secure my livelihood. After a series of misses on the Wheel of Fortune, I finally landed my current Job as a case manager assistant in a law firm, which I am grateful for (although some of the co-workers behave foolishly and immaturely as if they were teenagers.) It’s not a dream job, and I wouldn’t have to sustain a job if I won a lottery or possessed bequeathed estates from the family trust account. Still, it helps me pay the rents, dues, provide the food and medical to my cats and Mom, and keep my appearance.
No jobs are dreams; if you insist, they will not last like a midsummer night’s dream because feelings are fleeting and precarious. Earl of Kent wouldn’t have had to get a job if King Lear had not let him go of employment as his trusty servant. And when he got it, it wasn’t his dream job, either.
Daylight Saving Time. Puritanical and Calvinistic. I see no absolute necessity in going against the law of nature to disturb our biological rhythms that work differently on individuals by forwarding an hour to work all day as long as the Sun Chariot is racing around the celestial hippodrome. Why not let the time alone and accept the things of nature in summertime? I attribute it to puritanical ethics that waking up early in the morning constitutes an ethical code of a “healthy, wealthy, and wise” individual, as campaigned by Benjamin Franklin. While it has some truth, everyone has different mental and biological dispositions. Sleep deprivation causes loss of memories, anxiousness, nervousness, and attention deficiency. It has to go.
I am of Cat People by birth. It is said that the ones born in the year of the tiger are independent, resilient, headstrong, and adventurous, all of which are the characteristics of Cats. Rudyard Kipling called a cat a creature that walked alone, and there is no better epithet than this. All three of us, Me, the Tiger, Toro the Tabby General, and Camille, the Puss in Black Socks, love to be alone but also hate to be alone when together.
We can be merry and demanding, charming and aloof, affectionate and timid. We are also picky eaters, not in favor of trying new things but adhering to each of our favorite food articles. As Lucy Maud Montgomery, who loved cats very much, said, cats are so lovely, so friendly, and so selfish, which makes them all the more humanlike. When I see my Toro and Camile, I sometimes wonder if they think they are humans, especially Toro, who is not an iota interested in other cats but humans.
Cats are also for the poor. In ancient Egypt, cats were considered poor men’s lions at home and kept as chief snake catchers. In Europe, cats were chief mousers on the farms. I am grateful for my cats to live in such a tiny apartment with me and my mom.
My Sweeties 💕❤️🥰🧚♀️⭐️
Many people take pride in publicly announcing their dislike of cats as if there were some virtue in doing it. They compare them with dogs and are peevish about cats’ independence and capriciousness. But that feline tendency suits me, and that’s why I like cats. And my cats are also bilingual, understanding Korean and English when I tell them, “I love you so much in every universe.” Precious. ⭐️✨🌟🧚♀️
I love writing everything from jotting down To-Do Lists to journals to columns for my blog and emails on and off work. And I write non-discriminately, using pen to paper and computers, including iPhone and iPad.
I used to love Twitter before Elon Musk took over with the name “X” because when it happened, my ten-year-old Twitter account was hacked, plastered with scammed business messages with all my writing prompts, including little poems, vanished into a digital void all of sudden. I took it as a divine sign to avoid the X, which I gladly followed.
I have always loved writing letters about the favored articles I read in magazines, such as BBC History Revealed, where my letters have been printed, because they reflect my thoughts and feelings unadulterated, which could and might have been misinterpreted in speech. Speaking is the most direct and fastest way of communication like cutting the Gordian knot with one fell swoop of a sword. Still, it can be discriminating in judging the speaker in a biased way by the external aspects of the speaker, such as appearance and accent. What’s spoken cannot be retracted. There is no way of editing what you have said pace writing. Writing is more generous and redeeming than speaking. Forget the fear of perfect grammar that will stifle your creative energy. You can write short flights of fancies as they spring from your mind and resculpt them with chisels and hammers later.
My nine-year-old blog is where I can be myself without exposing myself blatantly, although I resist regarding a blog as a social media. So, I defy being called a blogger, which gives a sense of being on par with a YouTuber. As mentioned before, by writing, people can perceive me truly as who I am, not what I look like, which reminds me of an anecdote about a Turkish astronaut from Little Prince by Antone de Sain-Exupery. When the astronaut attired in the traditional Turkish costume presented his brilliant discovery of unknown stars at the international conference, no one took him seriously. Yet when he appeared again in a tailored suit at the same conference the next day, the attendants recognized his achievement and esteemed him highly.
The invention of writing has a relatively short history, dating back to around 3400 B.C. by Sumerians. Socrates hated writing because he thought it could take away one’s attention to listening or was not an effective learning method. But I thank Sumerians and Phoenicians for inventing and developing writing systems as my favored means of communication.
Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh 
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