Conversations

I often wonder what kids think. Of their parents, their surroundings. And having a kid at home that talks very well is so fun because I get a window into her thoughts! A snippet of the weekend's conversation with Kayrin:

Kayrin: Mommy, when I grow up I want to go and study in the U.S.
(pointing to the large world map on the wall).
Me: Ohh, OK. (praying for a strengthening of the ringgit).
Kayrin: I want to go to High School Musical 2.

*********************************************

Kayrin: Let's play a game, mommy.
Me: OK.
Kayrin: You be dead and I'll be Jesus.

Food Hankering

I'm thinking about Japanese food to satiate me, as I sit here, not yet done after more than 10 hours of working straight through without a break. Tonkatsu (pork deep-fried with batter) would be greatly appreciated now. The piece of tender pork is served with a large heap of shaved cabbage, and a thick, dark kind-of-sweet sauce. To eat the tonkatsu, pound the fragrantly-roasted sesame seeds and pour in the dark sauce. Then dip the tonkatsu in that sauce and bite into the succulent piece. Ummmmm. There's another vinegar-tasting clear dribble for the cabbage. The combination is awesome. And oh, there's a bowl of sticky rice to go with it all too. I always overeat when I get to that tonkatsu restaurant in Marunouchi Building, Tokyo.

Tokyo is now my most-visited foreign destination, and I'm starting to realize the potential this place holds. There are great shopping, even amidst the super-expensive Ginza. Uniqlo is my favourite. A big store of at least 4 stories, the selection of casual wear is amazingly cheap! The brand has been called the "Gap of Japan." At Uniqlo, sweaters were even cheaper than what we get here in Malaysia. And the range is amazing..I confess: I made three trips there over the five nights I spent in Tokyo in November 2006. I came home with two below-the-knee-length winter jackets for myself, two colourful sweaters for Shaw Feng, two knitted sweaters for I-haven't-decided-who, and a pair of cut-offs for myself. Who'd think Tokyo would make for great shopping eh?

Outrage

I said a prayer yesterday for the family of a man who lost his life when he was set upon by carjackers at a gasoline retail station. The poor man was just having his car filled up at 5:30 a.m. when three men bashed him up and drove off with his car. On the ground, bleeding, he activated his immobilizer. The car stalled within the station compound and the furious assailant broke a window, climbed out of the car and came to drag the victim back into the car before bludgeoning him.
To be sure, I am lucky enough not to have witnessed this horror but Wei seems traumatized enough after having to review the CCTV recording. The station was under her charge.
As in the senseless killing of lots of other people, including poor eight-year-old Nurin Jazlin, the question I want to ask is: Why isn't the government making this country a safer place than it was a decade ago, a generation ago?
And my other rant: those community radio services telling parents to NOT send their kids to pasar malam, shops and wherever on their own but to watch their kids closely. Sensible parents don't want to lose their kids. Please use the air space for something better. Pass the message to the leaders that kids want to play outside.
Does it occur to our esteemed leaders that perhaps they should make our country a place where we all can walk around without having to keep looking back, whether for bag-snatchers or carjackers or kidnappers?
I'm OUTRAGED.

Annie Lennox

I used to find Ms Lennox's androgynous dressing hard to accept when I first heard of her music and laid eyes on her in 1984. That was the year I had to take a school bus after the freedom of taking the public bus to school a year earlier. And the school bus driver, a rather young rougish uncle had fancied playing the Grammy award nominees' music day in day out. So there were..
1) Beat It by Michael Jackson (I didn't find it that inspirational)
2) Sweet Dreams by Eurythmics (Failed to get the message)
3) Uptown Girl by Billy Joel (Thought it was cute and has a snappy tune)
4) Karma Chameleon by Boy George (now, his cross dressing I find amusing and the song I loved singing to)
That's all I can recall for now. But now I find Ms. Lennox's voice spine-chilling sometimes and her songs great. Her rendition of `A Whiter Shade of Pale' is perfect in that she does it her way but what is simply haunting is `No More I Love Yous'. So here I am, Ms. Lennox, a fan after more than two decades of first hearing strains of your lilting voice.

Friendship

Friends come and go, according to the wise, old folks. I've had many of my friendships fizzle out. Sometimes due to my moving away, friends migrating and at times, by our growing apart. Through the years, I've always believed that women are better at forging friendships that last. But I realize it's a misconception that I have.


Shaw Feng's friendship with Heng Hou outlasts all of mine. They've known each other and stood by one another for a longer time compared with my relationship with Shaw Feng. And yes, Shaw Feng and I dated more than a decade before we got married.


It makes me ponder what friendships are about. I figure this is what it means:


Knowing who you can call when you're in a fix, even if you haven't had a chat or coffee to catch up in the past 12 months.


So here's a toast to the likes of Heng Hou, whose friendship has "spilled over", and is someone I know can call upon, for anything!

Money Tips

I'd like to think I'm pretty money-savvy. OK, may be when I'm not undergoing retail therapy, buying four pairs of the same kind of shoes, three tees of the same design. In different colours, mind you.

At other times, I'm very happy punching in the figures to see how much of interest savings I'm getting by pre-paying my mortgages. Definitely not too complicated. Calculators abound. I get a kick out of plugging in bigger and bigger numbers under the pre-payment column and seeing interest payment dropping or payment period being shortened considerably!

Some mortgage calculators...

bloomberg

bankrate.com

Getting rid of that mortgage is worth crowing about, at least to the other half. Yup, I did a lot of self-praising and fished for them from Shaw Feng when the current mortgage was paid off in January this year.
Then, guess what, we tasted the financial freedom for a while and went off looking at bigger homes. Mmm, they are nice to look at but I keep pulling myself back into reality. Or at least I'm making Shaw Feng pull me back from going into debt again!

Kid Speak

Kayrin's latest fascination -- time. She wants to know what month and date it is, and can ask for it several times a day. But her sense of time is improving. Last week, she badgered her mah mah and me to bring her to Bukit Jalil Park. On the way there, she said to her grandmother in a mixture of cantonese and English (cantonese is in italics), "Yesterday, you said we could go to the park tomorrow. Tomorrow is today lor."
She's also speaking in English that isn't purely English anymore. Yesterday, Shaw Feng held her after her trip home in yeh yeh's car.
"Why is your face so cold," Daddy asked her.
"Because it kena air-cond."

Get a Perspective!

This makes me rethink what I think I need. Not much more, I'd say. Appreciate what you have, Shaw Feng says, is the message here.

http://www.miniature-earth.com/me_english.htm

...ah!

This past week, Kayrin started talking in a funny way. She adds the "ah?" to her sentences. So they sound like this..

Where are we going -- aah?
Why is it like this ahh?

We first noticed her inclination during our trip to Cameron Highlands last week. It was odd because we don't speak that way. Then I read that some kids go through this phase, just as Karen Cheng's kid did.
We'll see how long this phase lasts then.

Cameron on a SLR

Skimming the Clouds

I love this photograph. It's Kayrin being tickled pink by something Shaw Feng was doing or saying. I forgot what it was but the joy in her face stays captured here. We were at the Boh Tea Plantations in Sungei Palas, Cameron Highlands. The 3-day stay at Cameron Highlands Resort was wonderful (Oct. 4-6) despite the meal-time tantrums and struggles. The lovely, luxurious hotel was very quiet during the weekdays and we had very attentive waiters on hand to take care of our mealtime needs. Basudev was also good to mine for tips on where to go for the cheap and fresh vegetables -- the pasar malam, of course!

Books

I've been getting some reading done lately. No longer able to finish one novel in a night, I was put off for several years after the arrival of Kayrin, to even attempt starting any books. So, since 2003, it's been mostly reading to Kayrin when one mentions books.
But these past few months have gotten me back to books. Watching Shaw Feng devour book after book is also an inspiration.
I've gone on Mark Haddon's "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time," which scares Kayrin with its cover of a dog stabbed by a pitchfork. That took ages for me to complete. Months.
Then I took on "Marley," another "dog book," as I told Kayrin. That's still unfinished. Not much of a challenge but nothing too exciting.
Was it before or after that that I went on to the "Kite Runner," a sad one on life of a boy in Afghanistan.
And during my sick leave after the miscarriage, I started and completed "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows."
Now, it's Mark Haddon's "A Spot of Bother." So far, so good. About the life of a family.
Here's a place for recommendations and reviews. Curled Up With a Good Book.

Malls versus Nature

When Kayrin moved back to KL, I told myself I wouldn't make her a mall rat. I didn't want a kid who hangs out at malls from the age of 2 (that's how old the little one was when we came home in April 2005).
In Singapore, with no luxury of a car, she and I went for long walks. Kayrin in a stroller and me pushing her around. We went all the way down the ECP, strolled down Siglap to the Siglap Linear Park, ventured to Bedok's nurseries, climbed pedetrian bridges to get to ECP and dawdled our way to beef noodles at Marine Parade.
Back home, there are cars to ferry us around. The old white Proton Iswara (WEG 2614) to start with, and graduating to the S40 and now in addition to the Volvo, the A-class. With these cars, we hardly push her out anymore. And I'm starting to realize how it's so much easier to drive into a covered car park, unload the stroller and push her into a place with temperate climate..25 degrees Celsius.
The other option is to go in search of nature..farther away, hotter, more humid and possibly infested with mosquitoes. And forget not, the lack of clean toilets! Urgh. What is green, great jungles without strategically positioned toilets for nature's calls! Here's a challenge to myself then, to get away from these malls a little. Let's see what I can achieve in the next four days, when I get a break!