Nearly burnt the house down last nite :(

My precious Guru H.E. Tsem Tulku Rinpoche is unwell again.. and this time is as serious as the last. We all received sms-es and emails requesting us to do prayers and light tea candles for him. The magic number to offer was 50. By the time I got back, ate dinner and washed up, it must have been close to 11pm. I was not going to light 50 candles outside the house and have the neighbors watch me behind their curtains.. thinking.. "this woman is either a nut case... an arsonist wannabe.. or worst..doing fishy voodoo-vy stuff..."

I decided that it would be better to do it inside the house where I could also keep an eye on the candles until they go out. I was not going to sit outside the house ... all by myself.. no, that is not so bad.. what if other "beings" decided to join me at my little mini bonfire. So, I got me this (which I thought was a damn sturdy) tray which I bought from Ikea and lay 50 tea candles atop it. Place this in front of Lord Dharmapala Setrap in my Tara Room inside the house and began my prayers.



20mins into prayers...sniff..sniff.. something sure does not smell right. Wah.. the tiny tea candles which was aligned in straight lines now seemed to be doing a wavy formation...mmmm.....what's that.... water on the tray... no... it was melted wax.

Yikes.... the tray looked like it was melting....

I was in the middle of a chant so decided to just shove a metal tray beneath the plastic one and continued with my praying... thinking.. just a little bit of wax what..

Waaaahhh...the flames from the tea candle seem to have grown bigger.. coz they were burning off a bigger pool of wax now...waaaahhh...panic.

Did something only a stupid doink will do.. pour tea over the flames... arrrrgghhh the flames jumped up like those in the kwei teow hawker's stove. Luckily the brain managed to engage in the right gear... ran to the toilet with a tea towel, made it wet it and placed it over the flames...ssssssssssssssssssss

That was a close call. The whole room was choked full with smoke.. opened all the windows and switched on the fan full blast. Sat down.. finished my prayers.

By the time I finished cleaning up... coz there was wax and water all over the floor...I only managed to get to sleep at 2am... served me right for being so stupid.



This morning.. a friend KK told me "remember...any chemical....never put water"...now I know...:(

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