Rats... Disappearing for a while...

Just a last minute post before I disappear for a while for Chinese New Year. After being abroad for a while, it's great being back home in time to spend this annual celebration with the usual company, i.e. family + extended family + friends. There's a chance I won't be able to celebrate next year's on familiar ground though (for reasons I'll go into some other time), so looking forward to the next few days' worth of food, festivities, and monetary increment =P (though if the Kaiji bug bites, the new year may see me poorer instead >.<) The first day of the Lunar New Year is, as of now, officially a day away. So for followers of the Chinese Zodiac, now's the time to bid farewell to the year of the Pig and usher in the year of the Rat. For fellow Fruits Basket fans, this means it's bye bye Kagura, and hello Yuki !


Now, personally, I have nothing against Rats (both rodents and humans born in their year, which include my lovely mom =D) or Yuki in particular, but my Furuba loyalties definitely lie more towards Kyo, the shunned cat of the pack. Not only does his kitty form come in my favourite colour, but of the two, Kyo gets more development in the anime (and also the manga, I hear hmm...) and it certainly helps that he's voiced by the awesome Seki Tomokazu =P
Unfortunately enough, the cat doesn't even show up in the Chinese Zodiac, much less have its own year due to some sneaky circumstances... In Fruits Basket, they use the story that the ratty Rat misinforms the Cat about the date of the great race, causing the kitty to be a no-show in the end. The version I learnt is the more sinister one... Rat and Cat race together as friends, but while crossing the river on the back of the Ox, ratty Rat pushes the Cat into the river...
Thus the Rat comes in first in the race, while the Cat is nowhere to be found... Any wonder why the two animals maintain such a volatile relationship till now?

Like Tohru in Fruits Basket, I naturally feel rather bad for the poor Cat in the tale (though in reality, I have no actual affinity for cats, =P). I won't actually be petitioning for an actual Year of the Cat like she does (it's not ever happening, lol), but I was thinking that perhaps I'd treat this year as the Year of the Rat (ext. Cat) for the sheer heck of it! I doubt that the ratty Rat would actually concede to this, but I figure it owed that much to the Cat after what it did...

Of course, if you're not at all into Fruits Basket, you could always celebrate the Year of the Dango, XD

Anyways, it'll be an early morning tomorrow when we leave for my dad's hometown (we go to my mom's on the 3rd day of CNY), hoping to beat the traffic pileup caused by other families also making yearly pilgrimage. Hopefully I won't be put in charge of the driving since this so-called 'short' post is well eating into my sleeping time... I'll just end here by wishing everyone celebrating (and even those who aren't) an early

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR

and may the Year of the Rat/Cat/Dango? bring you lots of wealth, health, happiness, prosperity, and anything else you could wish for!