Your Spouse, Your Friend

Do you see your spouse as your friend? We all started as friends, but how many, after grandly and happily signing on the dotted line, think of the other half as the best friend?
It's a nice, warm feeling inside when we first get to use "my husband" or "my wife" in conversations. Then it all gets too ingrained in us all. And so the friend faded into the background as our role as the husband or wife comes to fore.
Here's for you:

A friend's message gets promptly replied,
My text messages fly out of sight;
A friend's birthday greetings makes you pleasantly surprised,
Mine -- I wasn't even sure it arrived;

A hotel's birthday cake was a delight; worth a mention to all alike,
Mine, the night before, was perhaps a little too slight;
While waiting to get onto the clouds, you update the world on your whereabouts,
But to let me know, that's a chore you'd prefer to do without;
It's fun to comment on pictures of friends' hotels and holiday meals,
Yet too much to ask about my daily 59-minute traffic ordeal.

So here's a plea,
Perhaps you could reach for me
upon waking,
And not pick up the super-duper phone
to know what's buzzing;

Cos I'm a friend when we're biking around,
Perhaps I can still stay one now
We laughed, and each moment was treasured
as an ode to a best friend found.

New Member

We're about to welcome a new addition to the family. Right now, under our roof on weekdays, there's Kayrin's grandparents, the maid, Shaw Feng and myself. Soon, there will be Kuaci Ham-Ham, the name Kayrin has picked. I'm trying to figure out the breed. It could be a Russian dwarf hamster or a Roborovski.
I was quite adamant on getting a pair for Kayrin but thank goodness the sensible one at home (yes, SF is sometimes the less-emotional one) said one for a start is good. They can live solitary lives, these hamsters. I'm envisioning a little thing scurrying about on weekends, tree shavings all over the floor and a certain smell permeating the living room.
Now we've got to worry about Kuaci's diet (no fruits as it may get diabetes), check out where the nearest vet is (for emergencies), and having to comfort Kayrin when she loses her pet, either through death or when it runs out of the home.
So, welcome Kuaci, and may Kayrin learn responsibilities! We've already convinced her that for a hamster to want to come and live with her, there has to be no binky in sight. She still misses the pacifier, weeks after bravely giving it up on July 20, at the ripe old age of 5 1/3 years. In return for a Nintendo DS. And yes, I paid 830 ringgit to swipe that binky!

More Common Than a Proton on the Road

Here's a dootzy one for you: What's more common than a Proton on the road these days? A Vios? A City?
A Food Blog!
They are aplenty. Everyone eats, so now everyone shoots what they eat and put together strings of words to tell us what they've eaten. (Yours truly included, except I don't lug the Nikon around very much, so I don't do many food reviews). Some great blogs I've stumbled upon are: Ms. CK Lam's What2See: The Best of Penang Food (which has a friendly writer to boot), Penang Tuapui, and out of KL, A Whiff of Lemongrass (whose picture-perfect shots are enough to make me green).

Kayrin's Dream

"I had a dream last night," Kayrin told me over the phone today. "A hippopotamus ate daddy. Luckily he escaped."
Thank goodness daddy's not in a hippo-infested area. He's just in Hanoi this week.

Skin Care

As I age, the search for effective skin care becomes more pressing. Since last year, I've been using Renova. It's tretinoin, 0.05% strength. It's one of those creams, as KK my friend said, we can't recommend to everyone. Once you start, you go through the "it gets worse before getting better" phase.
There's the flaking of my skin initially. Yes, it can seem quite awful. Skin near my nose and my mouth could be easily rubbed off my face if i scrub too hard. Shaw Feng, at one point, remarked that I looked like hadn't cleaned my face properly in the morning. Eeeek.
But wait, tretinoin does exfoliate the skin or something like that. Supposed to help with acne too. And reading reviews on SmartSkinCare.com helps. It's a good site in that the articles are written in a very objective manner. Any questions I have on the latest treatment I read about in magazines, I come to this site for details and assessments. IPL, dermabrasion..they've got it covered.

July

July is a month filled with sadness and happiness. A bit oxymoronic. July 6 marked Woan's second anniversary in heaven, and we placed flowers for her at Nilai Memorial Park, where her remains are kept, on July 5. Khoon Eng and Ivan made their way there on July 6, a Sunday. It was especially hard in the days leading up to the anniversary. I kept thinking about her last days with us two years ago. Well, she's not suffering now, as Shaw Feng said.
July 12 came along and Shaw Feng was very sweet to arrange a dinner at IOI Marriott's Japanese restaurant, Midori, for all nine of us! Whoa...it was fun doing a buffett with the family, where you get to peek at what others on the table are eating. Kayrin had lots of fun with Ivan around.
And my birthday present? a HTC Touch Diamond! So, after 1 Ericsson, 4 Nokias, I've now abandoned the main brands..Thanks to the lovely, terrific gift from Shaw Feng. I promise I'll one day be posting lots of pix on this blg ;)
And July hasn't endd. There's more to come. July 31 is when Shaw Feng turns 38. Scratching my head now trying to find a place for dinner. Somewhere he, Kayrin and I can eat good food and have some fun. Any suggestions?

The Good and the Bad

I was mulling this entry for the past two days and had wanted to write solely about how awful weekends can be just before SF travels. He gets stressed and I get worked up about his not helping, and we end up having rows or simply ignoring each other. Well, it did go that way this past weekend. We snapped at dinner on Saturday. The crappy food pretending to be Penang favourites didn't help either. That was at Simply Penang at Bandar Puteri Puchong. I'm not going there a second time, that's for sure.
Today, it dawned on me that SF is one who's always there with me for family gatherings. He comes along without complaint. If this was a piece only about how awful my husband is, I'd probably get labelled a witch then!
He cooks for us most weekends. His latest venture: Tofu in minced pork, laced with Shaoxing wine. Oooh, superb!
In the previous few weeks, it was braised pork in soy sauce, with hard-boiled eggs.
As you can tell, pork is very favoured by SF.
Thanks sweetie, and Happy Birthday!

Extra Mandarin

Kayrin started her extra Mandarin classes this month. That's an additional 1/2 an hour a day, which brings her schooling hours to 12 p.m. from 11:30 a.m.
So far, the little one is enjoying it. What a relief for me! I was initially against lengthening her hours. Why torture a kid, right? But being a kiasu mom, I was also worried she wouldn't adjust to Mandarin-medium classes next year, so after speaking to the headmistress, we're doing a one-month trial. I'll speak to the little girl at the end of the month to see if she wants to continue with the classes.
She's caught on that there is some difference with the additional class.
"In class I speak English, but during pou chup (tuition), I speak Mandarin," she told me two days ago.
She's having fun so far, she said.
I am an anxious mom, ya? I worry about overloading her. I worry I'm not giving her enough lessons.
And oh, now, our evening past-time is reading C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia. We've finished The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Now, it's Prince Caspian.

Viral Fever -- Losing 3 Nights' Sleep

Kayrin developed a fever on June 24, and I no longer remember when I discovered it. It's a bit of a blur now. How can anyone blame me for my not-too-great memory when I lost three straight nights of sleep after that.
She saw Dr. Wong on June 25, I still went back to work that day. But two more nights of being awake after that, I had to call in and ask the boss for a day off. Thank goodness boss is a nice fella and I got my day off to recuperate. I slept and kayrin slept the afternoon away too after we got Augmentin, dhasalone and Piriton from Dr. Wong. What a big difference the medicine did!
So on Saturday, June 28, we went to thank Dr. Wong and her staff with a box of Belgian chocolates. All for giving mummy back her sleep!

Contact Dermatitis

I've got another theory for my cold sores -- contact dermatitis. Last week, I was rinsing my mouth twice a day with Bactidol. On the rare occassions when I use it, at SF's urgings when I complain of a sore throat, I'd get tingling sensations on the tongue. Since SF dismisses my complaints, I thought that may be it was natural to get these sensations. So last week, I just overdid it with Bactidol..and voila, here's the cold sores in full-blown stage, at least 4 lacerations on the tip of my tongue, and three more on the insides of my cheek. And 2 on the frontal part of my gums. No more Bactidol for me. People with eczema are more prone to contact dermatitis, which is an allergic reaction of sorts.

Cold Sores

Apparently I can't blame Kayrin's teacher meeting or the boss or Shaw feng for my cold sores. Not entirely, anyway. Some food trigger a breakout and most times, you inherit from your parents the tendency to develop them. I know for sure that my mom has them from time to time. Mouth ulcers are also triggered by food such as cheese and nuts.
Guess what..on Friday the 13th, I couldn't stomach the lamb served at the office lunch, so I had yoghurt with crackers smashed into them. And when that wasn't sufficient, I had my second slice of cheddar cheese with bread! That was two slices in a day after months and months of not having any cheese.
Now I'm really suffering.

Stress and Mouth Ulcers

The stress of having the boss in town, the nightly dinners with colleagues and Kayrin's parent-teacher meeting must have gotten to me. Over the weekend, I woke up with a mouth full of ulcers! Yikes. Tongue was so swollen I couldn't talk properly. There was a cold sore on my gums, on the insides of my cheeks. Wah, I haven't had it so bad for so long. This is really torture. That plus the cheese, the Jacob oatmeal crackers on Friday must have done it. Uggggghh. I'll have to try meditation to destress.

Meet the Teacher

I'm going to my first parent-teacher meeting at Kayrin's kindy tomorrow. It's quite unnerving for me. One, it means I'm really the adult here now, with someone to be responsible for apart from offering her my breast when she used to cry. So if it didn't sink in during birth that I'm now someone's mommy, if it didn't register when the Tumble Tots teacher called me "Kayrin's mum," then this could be it.
I'm anxious because it means that instead of telling the teacher how I want my daughter taught and what I want her to learn, I could be the one under the microscope for my failure as a parent.
What if measured against other parents, I'm always not there for her? What if measured against Nicodamus' mummy, I had failed to teach my cheeky one how to write? What if up against Aliyah's emak, I didn't spend enough time showing my daughter how to draw? I've always been a failure at drawing, anyway. Oh yikes, I need some sort of hand-holding at the meeting tomorrow.
And adding to my distress is Shaw Feng having to scoot off to Hanoi yesterday after my arranging for weeks for him to come along. Boy, oh boy :)
Kayrin's headmistress must have sensed my anxiety when I rang this morning, hoping I'd dreamt all this up.
"Oh, it would be good for both parents to come, not just the mom or dad," Miss Cheng said. I muttered some sort of reply about being there early.
I guess doing this is just like giving birth, no? I just have to go through the experience on my own. It's great that Shaw Feng was there to hold my hand throughout. For that, I'm so very proud of him. There are the doctors and nurses to urge you on but guess who pooped the baby out. Breathe, let the air out of the lungs, unclench the teeth. And pray for me!

A Peck on the Cheek..

A peck on the cheek
A hug for the day
A warm word to get me on my way
on this I count on to keep nerves from being frayed

A smile as a greet
A touch of the hand
A loving look makes the day end
on a sweet note, just like how we were when we began.

Happy Father's Day, Sweetie!

Gasoline Surges 41%

And so the day begins with a 41 percent jump in gasoline prices to 2.70 ringgit a liter, for the 97-RON grade. 41 percent. Ouch.
If you had been pumping 50 ringgit of gasoline into your car till yesterday, today that same amount of the liquid gold would cost you 70 ringgit.
If you had been paying 70 ringgit each time, now it's 100 ringgit.
Now, does that hurt or what.
We shouldn't be so furious, I'd say. After all, we'd been shielded from a fuel-price increase in the past two years. In Australia, prices for the drivers have surged 60 percent in the past year.
In Singapore, the 95-RON is going to S$2.186 a liter (latest info from May 23). That's 5 ringgit. So phew, we are such lucky Malaysians.
But wait, no! Just a minute. What gets my goat is the lack of options! In Singapore and Australia, one could take the train, the bus.
At the Raffles Place MRT station, changing trains mean crossing the platform, or taking the escalators to another level of the station.
Anyone been to the Masjid Jamek interchange lately? To change trains, cross the road at your own peril. Sure, there's a zebra crossing but it's not even sheltered. When it rains, I can't even cross that road without getting into puddles that are at least a few inches deep.
And taking the train means I have to rely on SF to drop me off at the station in the morning. Reasons:
(1) not safe to leave my car at the carpark if I drive there. Car could be gone when I return.
(2) not safe for me to walk alone in the carpark at 6+ a.m. or at 7+ p.m.

And not safe to take the cab on my own to head home from the train station.
So, tell me, oh wonderful ministers, have you ever had a day of commuting to work on public transportation in the Klang Valley?

Shoe Horn

We got a free shoe horn when Shaw Feng bought a pair of shoes over the weekend. Curious as a child is, Kayrin wanted to know what it's for. Aha! A chance to keep her occupied for a while, I thought. So I cleverly asked SF to show her what it's for. Five minutes passed, and having learned how the 2-footer long stick works, she goes around lightly smacking SF and I with it.
She was chanting as she did it: ``Horny, horny.''

Hong Kong

A holiday in Hong Kong in March was truly fun. Great time to be there, as the weather was cool enough to walk around without breaking into a sweat: 22 degrees Celsius during the day is what I term perfect. Kayrin had a good time, and savoured her flight and hotel stay. Thank goodness for inflight entertainment.

Here In My Home - Malaysian Artistes For Unity

A Hankering for Japanese Food

Usually it's Shaw Feng who has this desire to have Japanese food. This round, I began thinking of sushi being dipped into wasabe-laced sauce before the weekend started. And the kind dear took me out to a nice dinner at IOI Marriott's Midori to placate me. Having arrived early, we almost had the entire restaurant to ourselves. Food selection isn't as extensive as Jogoya. But I rate this a much better restaurant. There was sukiyaki with rather tender beef. The beef could have been sliced thinner though. Sushi selection was moderate. I tried the soft-shell crab sushi, and spotted at least five other types. Sashimi slices were small but fresh, Shaw Feng said. Oysters didn't give him any tummy ache the following day. There was also the tempura section, the teppanyaki section but we didn't venture there, as the both of us were still on antibiotics for our throats. Kayrin had fun munching on edamame and the dried papaya that was laid out at the dessert corner. The crowd started filtering in when were were almost done. So, it is quite popular. The cost for the two of us: about $180 ringgit. That's without any alcoholic beverage.

Would I go back? Yes, and soon, I hope!

Deworming

I used to have to take deworming medicine in primary school. I remember what it was like. We all queue up when a nurse from a nearby clinic arrives. Every student then talks about how yucky the medicine is, how difficult it is to swallow the yellow concoction. And the nurse just spoons it into the student's mouth, without changing the spoon or cleaning it!! That's the disgusting part.
Two days ago, Kayrin had hers. She's luckier. We got her a glass bottle dosage of 10 ml from her paediatrician and no spoon was involved.