ppirouettes

2011-11-05T14:34:00.000-07:00

Leaf-Tasting at the Park

2011-09-29T21:13:00.000-07:00

Write on the Board One Hundred Times: I AM NOT AN INTUITIVE COOK!

2011-08-03T08:51:00.000-07:00

I look at the fish in front of me, and I look at the laptop 15 feet away with my recipe for steamed cod in it, and I think to myself:

***

How hard can it be to marinate a fish and steam it?

****

Yogitoes

2011-07-30T13:00:00.000-07:00

Paleo Baby

2011-07-24T13:20:00.000-07:00

Getting more adept at holding on to his food and putting it in his mouth...

His first piece of steak - top sirloin

One week later, chicken for dinner

A Cold

2011-07-12T13:04:00.000-07:00

HAayy-choo! (yes, this is how the bub sneezes)

Runny nose and sleepyhead,

My eyes are bleary, I'm off to bed...

Happiness Is Passing Gas By Myself

2011-07-01T06:49:00.000-07:00

My teething bub and his watermelon

2011-06-27T22:06:00.000-07:00

Two little teeth coming in!

So far he's gummed down half an apricot, made faces at a piece of nectarine, kinda sorta took to a slice of peach, gnawed through a bit of apple, and most eagerly guffs down almond milk from my mug in the mornings.

Yummy watermelon!

New Backpack!

2011-06-22T22:02:00.000-07:00

I got me a cute little backpack to show off!

My Little Jumper

2011-06-22T21:43:00.001-07:00

Cheddar, To Be Exact

2011-06-20T22:57:00.000-07:00

I don't know why but baby's poop smells an awful lot like cheese to me.

Ryan with a rare bout of constipation

Mommy makes up a new song!

2011-06-17T10:01:00.000-07:00

Our little bub is 5 months old, and Daddy felt like having a little celebration, so he came home with a whole cheesecake and sparkly candles. Except Ryan's been conking out as early as 5.30pm the last week, before Daddy gets home. We finally put it together this morning, and gave our son his first birthday cake. Mommy even made up a special birthday song just for you! :D although only half of it made it into the video :(

Happy Birthday Little One

Hope your day is filled with fun

Lots to say and lots to play

Lots to make a happy day!

~from mommy to ryan

I See You

2011-05-25T11:35:00.000-07:00

Hanging out with Mommy

2011-05-18T11:46:00.000-07:00

PeekaBoo!

2011-05-08T01:29:00.000-07:00

Peekaboo! from Penelope Foo on Vimeo.

My First Vacation

2011-05-05T10:02:00.000-07:00

Chilling out in Keauhou Bay, Kona, Hawaii April 25 - May 2, 2011

Mommy tries her hand at outrigger canoeing

Carrying baby this way is a lot heavier than it's supposed to be

Car rides make me sleepy

Happy Birthday Daddy! We love you!

Daddy goes diving

Hanging out on the beach while Daddy goes diving

Getting nipped in the butt by a wild foal

@ the Farmer's Market

Most mornings were spent just hanging out in the house

Just a happy kid :)

My First Skinny Dip

2011-04-30T10:14:00.000-07:00

In the tide pools of Kona, Hawaii, April 2011

First Pick Up line

2011-04-29T09:18:00.000-07:00

Ryan chatting up Miss Fan Cei Ling

I'd say his pick up line trumps most guys', doncha know ;)

Chatting with Mommy

2011-04-29T08:49:00.000-07:00

Ryan at 15 weeks in Hawaii

I Went Swimming!

2011-04-16T02:52:00.000-07:00

2011-04-02T10:06:00.000-07:00

Isn't it hilarious that babies can't touch their hands together above their big ol' heads?

My favorite part of the day is when my baby opens his big beautiful eyes in the morning and looks up at me and gives me a big open toothless smile.

Discovering Little Fingers

2011-04-01T15:41:00.000-07:00

Survivor Mommy

2011-03-28T05:19:00.000-07:00

So we got to spend an exclusive weekend together while Daddy was away on business. No grandmas, no sitters, no pets, just the two of us, the lil' bub and I.

Before hubs set off, I ran a plan of several outings through my mind: Farmer's Markets, getting more clothes and a sunhat at the baby store, making a trip to the supermarket for groceries, walks.

This is the first lesson I learnt, that I should discuss any plans with baby before I set my heart on any plans because the bub, being a sentient, thinking individual with some of Daddy's personality to boot, decided these trips were not his kind of fun.

What's more fun for a baby on a rainy weekend? Self expression at best.

To stay awake all Friday and fuss and have mommy catch his spit-ups and mop up sour milk everywhere, so that we can have a bath tonight.

Followed by a lazy Saturday- since it's been raining all day, would sleep in til 10, get a snack from mommy, nap another hour, and continue to nip-nap his way through the rest of the afternoon.

nd Sunday is for poop and play! 3 blowouts before noon (a record!) and another for good measure later in the afternoon. Lots of storytime, practicing vowels, surveying the territory, some boogie woogie on the floor, and working out those muscles with some 15pounder bicep curls and deadlifts(that's mommy).

Eat Sleep Poop and Play

So I caught that book-movie(Eat Pray Love) by Elizabeth Gilbert, starring Julia Roberts, while being held hostage with the bub zonked out across my lap. I think the bub had more fun with his philosophy.

Daddy comes home tomorrow morning, and we can't wait to see him!

Loving my little bub

2011-03-18T12:16:00.000-07:00

My bub is growing up so fast I thought I'd better whip my ass and get recording.

Truly, at 9 weeks, I look at my bub and think he's not a baby anymore, because I feel the need to put pants on him.

Now he's ooohing and cooing (I swear: today he said: how cool!) and aaahing, giggling and gazing and paying attention to everything and everyone else but me, and trying his darndest to stand himself up on those little feet, where did my baby go??

First month was undeniably tough, even with the help of my mom. Not knowing what to do, overwhelmed with information, advice, suggestions, I was just a mess, including all that was going on with the postpartum body - blood, hormones, milk. I felt awful every time he cried, and whoa, can this boy holler or can he holler. When it's a responsibility as big as this, the last thing you(read: I) want is to be helpless.

Despite still being somewhat clueless, I am beginning to tune in to my baby more and more. Hubs is enjoying more playtime with him, and I think the little bub adores his daddy.

My favorite times with him:

bouncing my cheek off his
dancing with him to rock and roll! sometimes a little milder..
rubbing his velvety soft head, sometimes he coos as I do this for him
snuggling him to sleep
watching him feed - fiesty little guy likes to spar with a nip! and when he looks up at me with big brown eyes(mine! :D) and long curly lashes
showertime together
looking at each other in the mirror and sticking our tongues out
watching him stretch when he wakes up in the morning
watching him sleep..

Can I just say that I adore him, and that I love every moment with him?

And now we are three

2011-03-14T13:36:00.000-07:00

A year come and gone, and now we are three.

Australia/ New Zealand Adventure Dec 2009

2010-02-07T20:15:00.000-08:00

Summary of our 18 day adventure in the South Pacific! We spent a week in Australia, diving Adelaide looking for leafy sea dragons, and ferried over to Kangaroo Island. Part 2 of the trip was 10 (short!!) days in gorgeous gorgeous New Zealand, where the water tastes as fresh and crisp as spring breaking.

Here are the photos:

Australia

New Zealand

Enjoy! :D

Day #1 – After arriving the previous evening in rainy Auckland, we spent the night on an ostrich farm. We spend the day rappelling down into caves, exploring the caves with a private guide, viewing beautiful glowworms and trying out different cave photography techniques such as hand-triggered flashes, and flashlight painting. We even saw a dangerous fresh-water eel.

The late afternoon was spent photographing farmland, goats and pigs.

Day #2 – We did a 12 mile, 7 hour world-famous hike called the Tongariro crossing, across volcanic craters, blue lakes, shrubs and thick forest. That evening we hand fed a local magpie that had lost its parents, and was under the watch of the hotel manager.

Day #3 – We drove to Wellington, rode the cable car up to the botanical gardens and enjoyed a nice dinner in the city.

Day #4 – We took the ferry across to the South Island, drove to the Abel Tasman area where we stayed in a cottage with beautiful gardens and enjoyed the company of many doves.

Day #5 & 6 – we did a two-day sea kayak trip on our own in the Abel Tasman Sea, bringing our own food and tent. We saw sea lions and several blue penguins. The scenery was breathtaking, and one afternoon we had to battle gale-force winds for a while, but we persevered and made it to our destinations.

Day #7 – We traveled down the beautiful west coast of the south island during a rainstorm, visited a sea lion colony and witnessed probably hundreds of waterfalls. We rented a beautiful cedar house for 2 nights.

Day #8 – We put on crampons and hiked up the famous Franz Joseph glacier. Wow – what an experience! Beautiful blue ice, various ice formations. Fell on ice & dropped the camera several times but no damage was done.

Day #9 – We left the glacier area, driving over the mountains through the Haas pass, witnessing dozens of waterfalls. We arrived in beautiful Wanaka, where we rented a cottage for 3 nights with the most scenic views imaginable.

Day #10 – We did an all-day hike up to the Rob Roy glacier view. This hike was filled with amazing beauty. We spent lots of time watching families of free-roaming sheep, and also spent time with several Kea birds. A Kea is an extremely intelligent alpine parrot. We also witnessed several small avalanches on the glacier.

Day #11 – We did a morning hike in Wanaka, and traveled through Queenstown to beautiful Te Anau, gateway to the famous Milford sound.

Day #12 – The 2 hour drive to Milford sound is one of the most scenic drives in the world. We arrived early, boarded a dive boat did two cold, amazing dives in Milford sound. After waiting in a restaurant for a couple hours to off-gas, we drove back across the mountain pass, stopping several times for nature photography.

Day #13 – This was a day of hiking and nature photography in the stunning area between Te Anau and Milford sound.

Day #14 – Travel day. Fly to Queenstown, fly to Auckland via Christchurch, and fly home to Los Angeles.

Camera Equipment used:

Nikon D300 & Nikon D80, Sigma 10-20mm wide-angle lens, Nikon 18-200mm VR lens, Nikon 80-400mm VR lens, Phottix wireless remote for triggering the D300, Manfrotto tripod and head, Circular polarizer on day #13

My First Highlights!

2009-10-30T01:00:00.000-07:00

Haircut and highlights!

Ah ma! Sui boh??

My Hubby the Shopper, I'd Never have Guessed

2009-06-08T15:50:00.000-07:00

Look at this beautiful pashmina, 70% cashmere and 30% silk, with butterfly motifs and sassy tassels:

My hubby bought this for me :)

He told me: I walked down the streets of Ubud in Bali and went into 10 boutiques before I found this one.

10 boutiques. I'd have given up after 7.

But nope, the hubby was persistent. He had to find his wifey the perfect take-home gift. So he trudged on and finally found one he thought I'ld really like.

:D I really do love it.

It feels so warm and so delicious, my perfect shawl for springtime!

*love*

***

I have to shamefully confess, that when the hubs said he brought me a gift from Bali, I thought he had gotten me one of those touristy t-shirts the locals peddle on the beach. I was so prepared to feign total happiness over a touristy t-shirt when he whips it out.

Instead, when we were home, he got his backpack, unzips it and takes a little paper package out, carefully unwraps the paper, and unfurls the shawl in his palms. And he gently presents it to me, like a beautiful shawl ought to be.

I was quite honestly breath-taken. I hadn't expected that at all.

My hubs is the most wonderful person in the world.

*bliss*

**

And yes I know.

SHAME. Shame on me for being so small-minded. :p

My Hubby Is Home!! :D

2009-06-07T23:09:00.000-07:00

Caffeine Hungover

2009-06-04T22:17:00.000-07:00

I hadn't been sleeping well the past week, and for the last 2 days, I had sat in Starbucks cramming for my final paper.

Ooooh, I am so not a coffee drinker. The last coffee I had was probably in junior college that kept me buzzing til 3 in the morning. I was literally skipping home from school.

From desperation to keep awake in the middle of the day, and with some incomprehensible fuzzy logic, I convinced myself that some caffeine wouldn't hurt, and that ice blended COFFEE WITH Chocolate Chips didn't have half as much caffeine in it. And Grande it was too. Twice.

By evening, my legs had mischievously acquired a whole psychotic life of their own, shakin' up a diabolical storm under the table.

I went to bed with my mind still racing and whirling.

Well I woke at 6 this morning, biked to school and finished the paper, came home and collapsed into bed and crashed for a couple of hours.

I finally woke, started getting up and felt like my head just got encased in a too-small cement block.

I fell back on the pillow and spouted some profanity into the dark.

When I finally managed to roll off the bed, I downed a liter of water. I'm not sure that was a remedy for hangovers of any sort, but I was thirsty.

And since, I've been sitting on this couch, balancing that cement helmet on my head and visualizing my brain liquidifying into murky substance (*play Space Odyssey music*).

If this is as hungover as I'll ever get, it's not so bad, but I think I'll just stick to Milo next time.

***

Goodnight Mousey.

2009-05-29T14:34:00.000-07:00

Mousey passed away today, at 5 years 8 months. We had hoped she would stay with us a little longer, but she had to go.

We love you very much Mousey. Go find your mommy under the Rainbow Bridge. Eat lots of hay and veggies, and run around. Go find your mommy. We love you.

May 25, 2009

2009-05-25T23:01:00.000-07:00

Some hiking

Some roses from hubby

and some cards - it's the day we got married 2 years ago in Buffalo :)

And some home-made Phad Thai from a box that came with the rice noodles and a packet of sauce.

me: hmph, this tastes like rubber bands with ketchup

hubs: MY WIFEY IS THE BEST COOK IN THE WORLD!

****

Went to Sakura sushi the next day, our newest sushi discovery. Their fresh eel sushi is to die for! Mmmmm!!! I want to nod my head vigourously and say "Oishii!!!", with my mouth still full, just like they do on Japan Hour!

****

Nice big turkey sandwich, with a side of grapefruit and strawberries for lunch the next day before the hubs flew off to Bali

Ooh, I felt so sad as I watched him walk into the airport with all his bags. I think I had a moment of separation anxiety. I went home and promptly had a big bowl of Cheerios.

ToOtin' My Own Lil' Horn

2009-05-13T21:41:00.001-07:00

Wow, after more than a dozen tries at this, I finally got to say to myself, "YUMMMMMMM!!!"

Before this, even as the sweet hubs declares every single time that it's delicious and I'm the best cook in the world, I always found something wrong with it - either the salmon was too charred or completely burnt at the skin, or it was too dry, undercooked, unsatisfactory, sauce too strong, too sweet, yadda yadda yadda.

Finally I loved it today!

Yay to me! :D

Time To Get A New Pastime

2009-05-12T19:17:00.000-07:00

We almost moved to a bigger apartment just to store the stuff we had :)) We decided it was wiser to shape up and clean out instead. THAT generated a lot of trash :))

Seriously, this is something definitely worth watching:

***

Body Worlds 2 in San Diego!

2009-05-12T17:05:00.000-07:00

Hubs and I took a trip down to San Diego for the exhibit, and this is my report for the Anatomy I class I am currently taking at the Santa Monica College:

Real human bodies, stripped of skin, plastinized and displayed in full anatomical glory. As curious as that sounded, I had always hesitated giving the exhibit a chance. I was perfectly happy looking at the beauty and sensuality of the person/body on the outside - models, actors, regular beautiful people. Will the exhibit clinically desensitize my admiration of skin-deep beauty? Does it look ugly, disgusting, creepy? Will I freak out? I had great reluctance visiting the exhibit, there is a fear of being tragically unable to see the superficial beautiful person any more.

No better time than now, I decided on taking the chance on re-inventing my paradigm of beauty.

I can say very little about the exhibit itself, for it left me nothing short of awe. Although I will say that my favorites were the exploding man, the capillary distribution and penetration models, and the tiny test-tube fetuses. Every display is valuable, not just for the donors that made it possible, but also for the preservation process, the orchestration of display, and ultimately the education for the people. Suffice to say, the experience has not only disproved my initial fears, it has been a source of great education for something that is easily taken for granted - life, that I function perfectly despite the many physical developments that could have gone wrong. I left the exhibition with a newfound respect, understanding and appreciation for the intricacies and the astounding engineering of the corporeal body. With utmost respect, there is really nothing quite like it that is man-made. And for all this, the body is but one of many factors that come into play for the enactment of life. Beauty is indeed more than skin-deep, and so goes the saying, it is only the tip of the iceberg.

The movie Brain Power was equally fascinating, showing how the human brain has the immense intelligence and capacity to keep the body alive, especially under extreme duress.

In the knowledge and money-driven societies that have evolved, these important instincts seem to have adapted from their raw forms of hunting for food and overcoming or escaping enemies. We now compete for the best grades in school, learn every possible skill we can, take risks in the stock market, gain approval among peers, and push aggressively to emerge winner in the rat race. The anatomical aspect is surely one of many equally fascinating factors of the human functioning in context.

Nevertheless, to know the choices we make every day, from what we choose to eat, to making split-second decisions on how to escape a fire, and that such superb survival instincts are part of our anatomical make-up, is really quite humbling; that time is but perception and dreams are a means of unleashing our creative prowess is nothing less than empowering.

***

Pay Attention To Me

2009-05-06T16:19:00.000-07:00

Ear Plugs to Lasers: The Science of Concentration

Viktor Koen

By JOHN TIERNEY

Published: May 4, 2009

Imagine that you have ditched your laptop and turned off your smartphone. You are beyond the reach of YouTube, Facebook, e-mail, text messages. You are in a Twitter-free zone, sitting in a taxicab with a copy of “Rapt,” a guide by Winifred Gallagher to the science of paying attention.

The book’s theme, which Ms. Gallagher chose after she learned she had an especially nasty form of cancer, is borrowed from the psychologist William James: “My experience is what I agree to attend to.” You can lead a miserable life by obsessing on problems. You can drive yourself crazy trying to multitask and answer every e-mail message instantly.

Or you can recognize your brain’s finite capacity for processing information, accentuate the positive and achieve the satisfactions of what Ms. Gallagher calls the focused life. It can sound wonderfully appealing, except that as you sit in the cab reading about the science of paying attention, you realize that ... you’re not paying attention to a word on the page.

The taxi’s television, which can’t be turned off, is showing a commercial of a guy in a taxi working on a laptop — and as long as he’s jabbering about how his new wireless card has made him so productive during his cab ride, you can’t do anything productive during yours.

Why can’t you concentrate on anything except your desire to shut him up? And even if you flee the cab, is there any realistic refuge anymore from the Age of Distraction?

I put these questions to Ms. Gallagher and to one of the experts in her book, Robert Desimone, a neuroscientist at M.I.T. who has been doing experiments somewhat similar to my taxicab TV experience. He has been tracking the brain waves of macaque monkeys and humans as they stare at video screens looking for certain flashing patterns.

When something bright or novel flashes, it tends to automatically win the competition for the brain’s attention, but that involuntary bottom-up impulse can be voluntarily overridden through a top-down process that Dr. Desimone calls “biased competition.” He and colleagues have found that neurons in the prefrontal cortex — the brain’s planning center — start oscillating in unison and send signals directing the visual cortex to heed something else.

These oscillations, called gamma waves, are created by neurons’ firing on and off at the same time — a feat of neural coordination a bit like getting strangers in one section of a stadium to start clapping in unison, thereby sending a signal that induces people on the other side of the stadium to clap along. But these signals can have trouble getting through in a noisy environment.

“It takes a lot of your prefrontal brain power to force yourself not to process a strong input like a television commercial,” said Dr. Desimone, the director of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at M.I.T. “If you’re trying to read a book at the same time, you may not have the resources left to focus on the words.”

Now that neuroscientists have identified the brain’s synchronizing mechanism, they’ve started work on therapies to strengthen attention. In the current issue of Nature, researchers from M.I.T., Penn and Stanford report that they directly induced gamma waves in mice by shining pulses of laser light through tiny optical fibers onto genetically engineered neurons. In the current issue of Neuron, Dr. Desimone and colleagues report progress in using this “optogenetic” technique in monkeys.

Ultimately, Dr. Desimone said, it may be possible to improve your attention by using pulses of light to directly synchronize your neurons, a form of direct therapy that could help people with schizophrenia and attention-deficit problems (and might have fewer side effects than drugs). If it could be done with low-wavelength light that penetrates the skull, you could simply put on (or take off) a tiny wirelessly controlled device that would be a bit like a hearing aid.

In the nearer future, neuroscientists might also help you focus by observing your brain activity and providing biofeedback as you practice strengthening your concentration. Researchers have already observed higher levels of synchrony in the brains of people who regularly meditate.

Ms. Gallagher advocates meditation to increase your focus, but she says there are also simpler ways to put the lessons of attention researchers to use. Once she learned how hard it was for the brain to avoid paying attention to sounds, particularly other people’s voices, she began carrying ear plugs with her. When you’re trapped in a noisy subway car or a taxi with a TV that won’t turn off, she says you have to build your own “stimulus shelter.”

She recommends starting your work day concentrating on your most important task for 90 minutes. At that point your prefrontal cortex probably needs a rest, and you can answer e-mail, return phone calls and sip caffeine (which does help attention) before focusing again. But until that first break, don’t get distracted by anything else, because it can take the brain 20 minutes to do the equivalent of rebooting after an interruption. (For more advice, go to nytimes.com/tierneylab.)

“Multitasking is a myth,” Ms. Gallagher said. “You cannot do two things at once. The mechanism of attention is selection: it’s either this or it’s that.” She points to calculations that the typical person’s brain can process 173 billion bits of information over the course of a lifetime.

“People don’t understand that attention is a finite resource, like money,” she said. “Do you want to invest your cognitive cash on endless Twittering or Net surfing or couch potatoing? You’re constantly making choices, and your choices determine your experience, just as William James said.”

During her cancer treatment several years ago, Ms. Gallagher said, she managed to remain relatively cheerful by keeping in mind James’s mantra as well as a line from Milton: “The mind is its own place, and in itself/ Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n.”

“When I woke up in the morning,” Ms. Gallagher said, “I’d ask myself: Do you want to lie here paying attention to the very good chance you’ll die and leave your children motherless, or do you want to get up and wash your face and pay attention to your work and your family and your friends? Hell or heaven — it’s your choice.”

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

You know the people in the streets that try to intercept you to ask you 'Do you know who Jesus Christ is?" so they can convert you? And the lady in the slow line who's getting impatient and tries to get anyone's attention so she can roll her eyes at someone? Or even the relentless hawker in the street trying to sell you a touristy T-shirt?

Well, me being constantly caught up in my own world and the 3 feet radius around me, I tend to look like a likely candidate for prey. You know how they like to spring the surprise element on innocent people like me jus-mindin'-my'own-bizness. Usually the hubs spots a character like this a mile away, and warns me so that I don't get sucked into giving these people their time of day. "No eye contact!' comes the warning. And I promptly look up and start looking around just like the dork I am.

I don't know what my point is here, the article reminded me of the above.

Sometimes I multi-task simple things, like listening to music and running or writing this, one's pretty much mechanical, the other requires my cognitive attention.

Or I try washing the dishes at the same time the hubs is talking to me, you know I think it's a no-brainer task and I AM listening to him. At least that's what I think. And the hubby is always pulling me away from the dishes so I can pay him full attention currency.

:) I guess that's a lot more important than trying to show that I can multi-task.

And maybe it'll be an excuse to get a dishwasher sometime.

xoxo.

I Know What You Did, I'm Your Wifey, So Just Say What You Did!

2009-05-05T20:31:00.000-07:00

So, I come home, and in the trash -

Yes I look in the trash, and I'm sure many normal people do that, to make sure the recyclables are in the recycling bin, and the trash trash in the trash bin; because it is my little two pennies worth of saving the planet and I should be allowed to do that.

- so I look in the trash, and I see,

A can of Reddi Whip - that's whipped cream from a nozzle.

I bought it for the big boy's birthday brownie a few days ago.

And so in staged horror I exclaimed,

"Sweetie! What happened to the Reddi Whip??!" - I shot daggers at the hubs caught off-guard.

"Uhh, it's gone!" answered the sweetie from the other side of the apartment, backing up against the wall.

I picked the can out of the trash.

"How can it be gone, sweetie?? I just bought it!" Me shaking the bottle with unreasonable abuse, not wanting to understand him.

"It can't be gone! Did you finish it??" says I again adamantly.

"It's gone!" says the hubs indignantly.

Sound of an empty can being shaken. Stubborn stubborn.

Finally:

"It's gone, sweetie. IT MAL-FUNC-TIONED, and I had to empty it ALL down the sink!" says he, eyes glazed over.

I stopped in situ and looked up in disbelief.

And then I could not help but laugh.

Lame, but so adorable ;)

***

Mom Visits April 2009!

2009-04-25T22:01:00.000-07:00

Mo-oove Like A Ninja. Hiyaaahhh!!!

2009-04-25T00:14:00.000-07:00

When I see a mountain of shirts before me, I wish: that they would magically fold themselves up in a nice neat pile and put themselves away in the drawers.

Of course, that will never happen. Inevitably, they. have. to. be. folded. One by goddamned one.

Today, ah but today.

Even as the pile of laundry sits there, mocking me.

I don't look away. I fix my stare right on it and say,

You don't scare me anymore. I now hold a secret weapon. *play ninja music*

Praise the Japanese.

This just makes my day.

:D

There Are Women Who Take Going Green Very Seriously

2009-04-22T16:53:00.000-07:00

Full Moon Collection 12 Moonpads Organic Cotton Reusable Cloth Menstrual Pads

Description

Got a question about this item?

• contact the seller

• view this shop's policies

All Moonpads are made using 100% organic cotton flannel and terry cloth, which is all grown in the usa and milled by union workers. The flaps are 100% cotton, and they are sewn with 100% unbleached cotton thread. Each moonpad fastens around your panties with a sparkly cowgirl snap. Pantyliners have a ring snap. Each Moonpad has a little ribbon under the flap so you can hang it out to dry. I'm sure you'll love them!

Moonpads are fun, simple, compact and easy to use. No inserts to insert (or lose), just one solid, surprisingly absorbent fully formed entity. To wash, just rinse after use, hang to dry if desired and toss in your washing machine! Detailed instructions included.

******

I guess there had had to be a way to deal with our womanly woes before Whisper.

..

A Guide to Underwater Photography.

2009-04-08T22:43:00.000-07:00

My hubs made this website! :D

It's awesome! There is so much in it: Underwater composition, technique, cameras, lenses, pretty photos of all the wet and weird!

Even if you don't dive, check out this page to see all the nice photos by great underwater photographers and find out how they did it!

And here's the Facebook page to mingle!

:

April 8, 2009

2009-04-08T15:03:00.000-07:00

My hubby went out on 'an errand' and came home with these :)

Happy April 8th Anniversary to you too Sweetie, I have never been happier than these years with you,

Love, wifey

***
26 Beach Cafe

To my sweetheart, my soulmate, my light and laughter, my safe haven, my northern star,

I love you.

**

TV Dinners

2009-04-08T10:03:00.001-07:00

I luuuuu-rve my bistro bowls :D

**

Singapore and CNY 09/ Anilao diving

2009-04-07T14:45:00.000-07:00

Lots of family, friends and critters!

Dive trip to Anilao, Philippines.

Happy (Ox)picious Niu(Cow) Year! :))

**

Hokkien Song to make Ah Ma laugh! Me too! :o))

2009-04-07T13:19:00.000-07:00

Translation with X-referencing!:

If I had a million dollars,
My life would have no worries (3-letter acronyms of various taxes in Singapore)

If I didn't tell, nobody knows,
But if I did, it's so embarrassing
That I'm already so old, (condoms)
but haven't sat in a plane before

Slave at work for so many years,(from kungfu kid to grandmaster with long white beard)
No car, no house and no lover
Others get married, start business
Become rich and powerful, proud (wealthy man puffing cigar with money)

If I had a million dollars (see the snickering Austin Powers)
I wanna take planes,
I wanna travel the world
Sun tan in Hawaii
Eat Sushi in Japan

If I had a million dollars
I wanna buy car and house
Eat all the delicacies in the world,
And who's the lucky one
to be my girl (ugly girl with LOTR ring)

If I had a million dollars,
If you need money
Open your mouth (hippo) Ask me don't be shy! (loan shark)

- guitar plays..for too long - man sleeping)

If I didn't tell, nobody knows,
But if I did, it's so embarrassing
That I'm already so old, (spanking)
but haven't sat in a plane before

If I had a million dollars
I wanna travel the world,
Italy drink coffee, I wanna eat spaghetti
I'll buy a car and house
I'll buy shops and collect rent (brothel)
Very free - no need to work
Bring my dog for a walk.

****

I like how I've actually heard these various words or phrases from Ah Ma. She used to tell me that I 'you sei gai' , which means 'tour the world'. They actually sound quite cheem to me, like you know, authentic Hokkien from Fujian.. although I must admit my Hokkien is not quite up to par.

And I think I remember her saying saying 'spaghetti' once, the exact way it's said in the song!

Mousey the Little Trooper

2009-03-08T10:55:00.000-07:00

A month ago, we finally had the vet remove Mousey's bladder stone, and she made it through! She's our oldest guinea pig at 5.5 years, that's like 70 years in human years I reckon.

We've always had doubts putting her through surgery, having had no luck with surgeries in the past with Snowey, Fluffer and Tobey. We crossed our fingers and hoped that the stone could somehow be passed out in due course. But Mousey's bladder stone just kept getting bigger and bigger until in the end she was squeaking and in so much pain, we bit our lips and decided to go ahead with it.

We gave her more lettuce, more blueberries and more cuddles the night before, and dropped her off at the vet's in the mornig.

It was a big relief to get the call from the vet that afternoon: the surgery went well, and it was the biggest stone the vet's ever seen in a little piggy. Nasty.

So now Mousey's home and recovering, still hurts a little but she chomps away as much as she can and pees and poops more than ever! Such a little trooper! Yay Mousey!

Update: Now she's eating pellets on her own, and chasing any other piggy in sight!

Mousey

BeBe

and we finally named this one: Fudge-pie, or Fudgie :)

What's on your Face?

2008-12-04T17:03:00.000-08:00

Quote of the day:

'What's that socialising thing they do on the computer now... MyFace??'

Zion and Bryce Canyons, Utah

2008-11-29T04:28:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks after, we loaded the car and drove through the desert, past Las Vegas(there's a big toy castle in Las Vegas!) and into the Red State. We spent 2 nights each in Zion and Bryce. I loved the clean, easy camping and the spectacular views in the canyons.

The first day we unwittingly did an 11 mile hike, and barely made it to the bus before it got pitch dark. And though we had kept our spirits and optimism up, it would have been most unpleasant if we had had to spend the night out there in t-shirts and shorts.

Not withstanding that, the trip was a lot of fun - we hiked through the trails, woke up for a beautiful sunrise, took photos of everything from mountains to rocks to water, stalked mule deer, chased after pronghorns, visited an amazing wildlife museum, saw some elk locking horns and a couple of great bisons, and a cow with the most massive horns I've ever imagined, and even hitched a ride in the back of a convertible driving up Zion.

*******

In my girl scout days, we pitched a tent with stakes, rope and a square of tarp, cooked our food over twig fires and did our business with a shovel behind the bushes.

Boy am I glad camping now is much more evolved. YAY for pop-up tents, flushable toilets and hot water showers!!

As I have also learnt, a plain steaming pot of instant noodles is great comfort food when you're out camping, so is a jar of Nutella :D

Some photos for now

********

Pantanal, Brazil

2008-11-29T04:19:00.000-08:00

Back in September:

Awesome trip, loadsa fun in a stick-drive, and wa-aay too much doodoo everywhere

http://scottpenny.smugmug.com/Pantanal,%20Brazil

Natalie Comes To Visit!

2008-11-14T00:08:00.000-08:00

When I was back in Singapore last year, I spied Natalie behind the pharmacy counter at a drugstore. We exchanged emails.

Back in junior college, we were in the canoeing/db team together. Those were happy, splashy, fit days of abs and biceps.

Now that Natalie is in California waiting to start on her new job, she comes to stay with me for a week while Scott is away diving in the Philippines. Why has he gone diving without me, I'm asked. I can drive, and I have the car and my credit card - I'll be fine, I say ;)

Me and my partner-in-crime, we tore through town and raided the malls, combed through the bargains and rung up the register with a vengeance. We huffed and puffed up the mountains, lamenting our soft thighs and weak lungs. We more happily padded barefoot down the beaches and sunned ourselves silly. We yakked through it all and late into the night til we fell asleep.

We had many shared and unshared memories to talk about, more than 10 years of catching up to do. It was all very comforting and very heart-warming and I couldn't have asked for better company.

Thanks Natalie! I'm so glad you came to visit! :D

To All My Friends For Your Kiddos :)

2008-10-01T11:10:00.000-07:00

Don't Forget To Flush

2008-09-07T22:49:00.000-07:00

Aboard the Sea Bass yesterday, as divers waited for the head (i.e. toilet, on a boat):

"What's taking him so long, is he fixing on his pee valve?"

"Yeah, it's a pain"

"I know a guy who sells them cheap, for like $20, but they're not balanced, so water could go up the valve while you're descending."

"I'd rather just pay for a balanced one, you don't want critters swimming up the valve either you know..."

"So, how do you women do it in that drysuit underwater?"

"(She)'s got something similar to the valve."

"(She) uses one of those gadgets, what do you call'em? (everyone else: "the She-wee") so it's like a female p***s you hold up against you, do it standing up. You can just throw it in the purse and carry it around."

"Yeh, but she also has a zip at the crotch, so she doesn't have to undress to do it"

...

"I just hold, cut my dive short, come up and strip down quick"

...

and She Who Dived In A Wetsuit shrugged it and said:

"I flush."

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

We had beautiful clear, cobalt blue water at Farnsworth yesterday. I call it Farnsworth Blue.

On a great boat with a group of wonderful funny people, that made the trip all the merrier.

Torpedo Ray aka Electric Ray

Dana brought me a raspberry chocolate cake for my birthday, and cuppy cakes with little sea creatures on it - Woot! love the crabby!

More photos by hubs

BeBe popped a baby!

2008-09-07T21:21:00.000-07:00

Hubby gives each of our 3 girls a piece of cucumber, and we set out to the store for some dinner.

30 minutes later, we come back home, and I go to give them a piece of tomato.

Bebe was sitting way in the back of the cage, it was dark there, and I reached in with the tomato for her. There's a little dark something in front of her, I half-wondered what it was and prodded it without thinking.

And suddenly there was a flash of what looked like an eye, and then something scrambled away!

I gasped and I scrambled away.

"SWEETIE!! THERE'S AN EXTRA PIGGY IN THE CAGE!!" I ran out of the room to fetch the hubs, shrieking like I was struck with leprosy. At this point, I wildly imagined that the piggy had jumped in through the open window and somehow into the cage right where it sat.

The hubs stared at me with eyes stretched wide, in his 'No-Way!' manner, went "Whaaa?" and then marched right into the bedroom.

.."I told you!"

We adopted Bebe from an official rescue that had screened it for pregnancy, but I guess some things are hard to tell. Bebe got a little chubby, especially over the last week, but it never occurred to us that she could actually be pregnant. We just thought she was getting lotsa good stuff to eat.

This is the loveliest surprise, and boy are we glad that it was a normal, healthy labour and delivery for Bebe. And she is being such a good mommy too, always cleaning the baby and laying still for it to feed.

Sigh, happiness comes in such surprising ways.

Hubby diving the Oil Rigs

2008-09-02T19:14:00.000-07:00

photos by Mikey B.

31

2008-08-31T10:50:00.000-07:00

Just when I stamped a label on the hubs, he goes out and proves me wrong.

I was at work on Friday, when I called him during a break to say hello, and what does he tell me?

He tells me he's out shopping.

For my birthday(the next day) present no less, but make no mistake about it - the hubs is out. Shopping.

Not a targeted-purchase operation, not a hunger driven grocery cart pile-up, not a necessary 30-sec stop, but a true searching, looking escapade.

Sure I wished sometimes he'd just be my company when I shop, which he does too, but I never expected that he would venture out at it alone.

I love my hubby, he does everything and would do anything to make sure I'm always happy :)

In the end, just as even the most avid shoppers do once in a while, he aborted the mission when he remembered me delighting in a pretty charm bracelet a week ago (I hadn't meant it to be a hint on a birthday present at all then).

At once, he reclaimed his hunter-gatherer instinct and set out to secure the item of desire.

Target acquired~

I absolutely love it!!

How happy for a woman to get something so chirpily frivolous for her birthday, even at 31 ;)

Thank you sweetie!

Charms, beads, and lovely jewelry all handmade by Judy Carlson. Thank you Judy! :D

~
For my birthday, we biked down to Manhattan Beach for the day in beautiful sunny weather, and even met a group of bikers on the way - one of them had ribbons all over her helmet and a big birthday smiley with a party hat on the back of her jersey - I guess it's her birthday too!

Finally got back home and then a quick splash in our little pool in the courtyard to cool off. Ahhhh, I always liked that last bit the best. :)

31 and never happier :)

The Anti-Retail Man

2008-08-28T15:36:00.000-07:00

Walking along the Promenade yesterday, we strode along a young couple on vacation from England (I presumed from the invariable bright pink of tourists in Santa Monica, and from their accent). We come to a stop at the light.

Across the street was the Victoria Secret store of sexy lingerie fame, that women adore in all its Pinkness. To the left was a pizza stop. At the crossroads of a fledging relationship, the guy gives a grimace.

"Oh I know that look, it's the but-I-don't-wanna-go-shopping look." chimes my jolly-wolly hubby to them.

The guy shoots us a look of self-pity and moans "We've been at it for 3 hours."

To which the hubs heartily dispenses some empathy and oft-executed advice

"Oh I totally understand. There's a Borders right down the block - make a dash for it."

How's that for instant camaraderie.

How Long Can You Hold Your Breath?

2008-08-28T13:53:00.000-07:00

After a nice long sleep-in on my day off, hubs and I took off to Malibu for some freediving. There was a little bit of surf, not too much, but enough for me to feel wooozey after about 75 minutes. We went right through the mass of kelp, got tangled a bit, but without scuba equipment, it was much easier to get out and get through.

Looking down snorkelling was like looking through a haze, but once you dive right in, the water column clears up and there are beautiful sights - the bright green sea gras swaying back and forth with the surges, red algae, kelp forests, schools of baby perch darting about, rock fish, kelp bass hanging out, a couple big guitarfish cruising by, silvery baitfish everywhere, giant kelpfish playing hide and seek.

As I was taking a breath at the surface, I spotted a harbour seal about 60 feet away, doing the same and checking me out for a bit. Through my foggy mask, I thought it was hubs, albeit strangely grey and spotted, until the real McCoy bobbed up right in front of the imposter, just as it ducked, splashed, and dived down under1 ~ Whaa..???

Freediving was a lot of fun - much lighter, streamlined, thereby faster, and quieter without the bubbling(you hold your breath and dive under for as long as you can). You can sneak up on fish and get up closer, that's what the hunters and photographers( like hubby) do. But really, I just think there's a lot more freedom of movement and speed, you feel like a mermaid!

case in point: Feeling and looking like a mermaid are two very different things.

Bubble Bubble

2008-08-26T07:27:00.000-07:00

Hubs and I went swimming in Laguna early in the morning yesterday, it was a beautiful sunny and the water was clear as can be. With all the fishes and reefs under us, it was like swimming in a huge aquarium! I saw lots of silvery topsmelt swimming just under the water surface, a school of barracuda, a harbour seal cruise by on the sandy bottom, a baby bat ray, and the hubs saw a dolphin close by.

My Little BeBe!

2008-08-25T23:34:00.000-07:00

We have a new piggy!!! She's a little 8 month old abby-peruvian mix, and she's a little darling! We got her from a rescue. Her name from the rescue is Phoebe, I'm calling her BeBe. She has a plume of hair on her hiney!

And here is the love of our lives, Mousey. She's been with us since she was a little baby, now she's almost 5 yrs old, somehow she still seems like a little kid that's never really quite 'grown up', if you know what I mean.

So now we have Mousey-Pie and Cookie-Pie and Bebe-kins to rule this house - the guinea pig way - once again everybody! ~

She's A (Weather-Man's) Lady

2008-08-25T23:22:00.000-07:00

I saw a weatherman dance on the news tonight, to Tom Jones' She's A Lady. Boy was he really enjoying it, rockin' it, and even unbuttoning his jacket at one point. He had not a care that he was on national tv, he did not once look into the camera. Just doin' his thang, and finally dancing off the screen with the warm and cold fronts billowing around behind him.

Of course, I was so amused watching him, it didn't even matter that not a word on the weather was said.

That was some spontaneous en-ter-tain-ment :)

Seriously, who can resist Tom Jones?

Well, she's all you'd ever want
She's the kind I like to flaunt and take to dinner
But she always knows her place
She's got style, she's got grace--she's a winner
She's a lady
Oh, whoa, whoa, she's a lady

I Hope BW Has A Solid Evacuation Plan

2008-07-29T20:10:00.000-07:00

So the earth shook beneath my feet today. Technically, under the feet of the massage table I was on.

It was a 5.4 on the Richter scale. Even if it were a 7, I was too noodled to gather enough strength and power to jump off the table and duck under it.

In my semi-consciousness, what registered was a gentle rumble accompanied by chandeliers tinkling. It might very well have been a new spa relaxation technique before I snapped out of my dreaminess. Anyway, it was over before I had the chance to panic.

The epicenter was 40 miles away, so we didn't get the worst of the earthquake. Although we're probably about 10 or 12 meters above sea level, so the tsunami that may or may not happen could bury us in a tremendous flush.

On that note, geologists are warning of an impending BIG earthquake(since San Fransisco) courtesy of San Andreas. It's been 150 years and no one can hold anything in that long.

Seriously, I think we need a portable radio and a bigger dining table.

1st Anniversary!

2008-05-25T22:24:00.000-07:00

On April 4, to mark the day of our customary wedding, I made the sweet dessert soup that we had during the tea ceremony in Singapore.

Sunday, 25 May marked our first year anniversary. A year ago this day, we were in Letchworth State Park, Buffalo, saying our vows and drinking champagne to cello music with friends and family, and ended the day with the wedding reception in the beautiful Botanical Gardens.

I had to work the afternoon, but that evening, we went down to our favourite grassy spot on the beach, stood close under the palm trees, and said our vows to each other once more. I bawled my eyes out again and felt more thankful and more loved than I had a year ago.

Blessed always, blessed always
For the arms of God surrounds us
Let our joy be so triumphant, that we rest in God and say Amen
- "Blessed Always"

***

Wish I had some photos to share, but I forgot the camera.

Dinner at 26 Beach Cafe was excellent, they have the best salad ever - pan-fried goat cheese medallions in a summer salad blend with sundried tomatoes, berries(raspberries, strawberries, blueberries) and walnuts, served with the most heavenly raspberry vinaigrette.

And a good ol' slab of lasagne, you know it's freshly made when the lasagne doesn't come shaped like a box.

The smiley waitress, having learnt that it was our wedding anniversary, even brought us a surprise - oozy chocolatey brownie topped with a huge dollop of vanilla ice-cream with chocolate fudge and powder - yumMMY!!

Constant Vigilance!

2008-05-17T06:43:00.000-07:00

Got into an accident on the freeway - it was not major. It was bumper-to-bumper traffic and slow-moving, but I guess this is where constant vigilance for brake lights in front of you comes in.

No one in all three cars involved were hurt(can't say the same for the cars though), although the impact gave me a sore neck for a c0uple of days after. The car got smashed in with the hood half crumpled up, so we were at the mercy of the nearest mechanic. Luckily for us he's our regular mechanic who doesn't try to rip people off.

We also had the foresight to have all our registrations and insurance updated just a week ago, thus avoiding more complications and paperwork.

The price paid is small, the lesson taught is huge - buckle up, and put your cellphone away. Unfortunately, in LA, where people spend half their day sitting in traffic or on the road to the nearest store, such precautions are often conveniently forgotten.

I really think it's just a matter of developing good precautionary habits and behavior, which in our case, everyone did for the large part and had their seat belts buckled in. This, undoubtedly, more than saved us from further and more serious injury.

Constant Vigilance!
-Professor Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody

Hello-OH COOKIE!

2008-05-16T13:37:00.005-07:00

Say hello to Cookie!

Cookie is a sweet, bright, 3yr-old black and white abby. She came to our home as a companion for Mousey, who's been very lonely and depressed since Tobey passed away. Cookie also lost her cage-mate, albeit to more tragic circumstances.

When we visited Cookie at her home in the previous family, she was named Oreo. She looked lovely, but had a very extensive balding patch on her back near the rump. The owner said some baby piggies that were there a year ago had been pulling out Oreo's hair, and being the sweet little pig that she is, she let them. The hair never grew back.

Back home, we re-named her Cookie and put her with Mousey. Cookie is the sweetest thing ever, and wow, we've never seen Mousey so bossy! Mousey's just running around Cookie, sniffing her, following her around like she's guarding Cookie and checking what she's up to, planting herself next to her at the hideys, giving her big wide yawns to show teeth. Even when we tried to tempt her away with some lettuce to give Cookie a break, Mousey would come over, grab the lettuce and run right back to station herself next to Cookie. But it's all good, Mousey seems a lot happier with something to do. Cookie's just completely blase about it.

3 weeks later, they are happily trotting after each other, running around the cage and apartment, looking for secret hiding spots, chomping on lettuce and hay, chasing each other and sometimes just sitting side by side in the hideys.

Mousey has since recovered from an unknown source of URI, and sustaining her weight. She is a lot livelier, and I have seen her popcorn (a quick jump-n-twist that guinea pigs do to show they're happy!) more often than I've ever seen her. Cookie has since grown back all her hair in that bald spot, and she looks lovely and healthy - she's even gained 2.5 ounces!

On a different Cookie note: I'm rooting for David Cook to win AI Season 7 cos he does such wonders with some of those songs, although D. Archie gives me goosebumps every time he sings, I so love his voice! It's a tough choice, and I can't wait to find out who wins! :D

We miss you Tobey

2008-04-07T22:58:00.000-07:00

Tobey died last Tuesday on April 1, on the surgical table, struggling in the midst of an enema. It was painful to watch her, and then her heart just stopped. Even as the good doctor tried to resuscitate her, I watched her fall limp and go.

Tobey ate everything we fed her, she loved big green leafy lettuce, parsley, spinach, carrots, cucumbers, apples, strawberry tops..anything, she was such a voracious eater.. Blueberries, Tobey loved blueberries and wanted one after another. She loved oranges, even when the other piggies turned away in uncertainty after sniffing at them. Tobey would linger for minutes and lick at the spot on the carpet, where the orange juice had dripped. Tobey loved tomatoes, just like Mousey.

Tobey liked her cheeks rubbed, burrowing under and into the fleece, blankets and pillows. She loved exploring. She was the fastest and the strongest. Of 6 piggies, she was the fastest by far to reach the top of the stairs. She dashed all over the apartment during floortime. The piggies loved getting under the bed, and we would set up a barrier using all sorts of stuff - boxes, baskets, bags, boogie board, but Tobey would find her way through a crack, or make her way by chewing, pushing, butting at, jumping over the obstacles. She was not one to give up easily. She knew where to go and remembered how. She was such an gregarious, amazing little thing.

Tobey had malignant cancer, but she lived such a vivacious life. In her last days, she had terrible bloat, and that broke her.

We had hoped to bury Tobey with her mommy Fluffer in Solstice Canyon, because they were so close when Fluffer was still alive, but Solstice Canyon was closed for restoration. We buried Tobey in Temescal Canyon instead, in a private little corner sheltered by overhanging branches and surrounded by lovely soft green grass.

We love you Tobey. We miss you in the apartment. We know you are now under the rainbow bridge with Fluffer and Scrappy, in a big field happily chomping on all the grass and veggies together.

Sick

2008-03-15T23:01:00.000-07:00

I have never been so sick in my life.

Fevers, chills, sweats, coughs.

Throat infection. Ooohhh. So, SO Nasty.

Severe throat pain. Se-VERE.

Coughs..

It was pure torture. PURE TOR-TURE. I felt like acid was burning through my pharynx. Whenever I coughed, my throat felt like it would EXPLODE in pain and tears streamed uncontrollably down my face. I was pathetic. I was certain that my voice would never be the same and that I would have a permanent hoarse-y, raspy voice which might not be so bad, but my point is it was, like, life-altering painful.

Hubs was doing no better. Chills and heavy sweats in the night. The mattress and pillows were soaked. He had a low-grade fever running persistently, which was really worrying.

But even in his great discomfort and fogginess from the flu, he had the presence of mind(or not) to research our symptoms online over the weekend, talk to the doctor, drive us to the doctor and get our prescriptions and drive us home; all the way holding my hand and comforting me, giving me hugs and generally just wearing a sick-with-worry-about- wifey-even-though-I'm-miserable-myself look.

That just says everything about how much my hubs loves me. I'm the luckiest girl - I have the best hubby a girl could want.

A couple more days on Vykedin and Tylenol and we were both pretty on the well-paved way to recovery. By the time we got to the doctor's though, I had lost my voice and was thereafter silenced for the week. And no, my voice did not attain that somewhat appealing raspy quality.

New York, Baja, Costa Rica, Singapore & Manado

2008-03-09T01:17:00.000-08:00

This month, we are seeing one of the best blooms of wildflowers in Southern California in recent years, a happy consequence of the past month of rain (usually rare) and sunshine. Fields are carpeted in pretty purple, pink, yellow and white. Trees and shrubs are flowering and putting out their biggest, brightest, boldest. Everywhere we go, we ooh and ahh at spring come early at the Pacific Coast!

Hubs and I were away for most of December, January and all of February, and returning to Santa Monica to such an uplifting sight was a big welcome for us.

Here is a summary of our travels: (pictures in process)

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

NEW YORK

My second trip to NY city, woohoo!!!

I loved New York City the first time I was there a year ago. Then, Scottie showed me the city, where he lived and hung out, and visited with his friends I met for the first time. It was a blast.

This time, the hubs was there for work and we stayed in Greenwich, Connecticut, at the company's residence which was a lovely old manor house with about ten rooms that was thoroughly romantic in a gentle white flurry of snowfall. I think it was my first snowfall. I took the train out to Manhattan everyday when the hubs went into the office.

our PT Cruiser in the snow

The best part about this trip was getting to hang out with Angela, who had moved to NY for a year at this time. We chilled out in her apartment and wrote nonsensical emails to all our friends, walked the cold, windy streets of Manhattan, explored the Grand Central and huffed-puffed in the gym together - a throw-back to the good ol' NJC days.

Angela and I in SoHo!

The second best part was getting to go to a super-chic party at The Pierre, for hubs' company Christmas party. Violinists lined the grand stairs up to the party hall, coats were checked in, waiters gliding around with cocktails on their trays, men and women gathered around the grand piano chatting. I made my way to where the party was (hubs and I had arrived separately - he was chauffeured from his office, and I took the cab from Angela's) and amidst the ocean of partyers, my husband emerged to meet me, smiling broadly, told me how beautiful I looked(my boy is such a charmer) and led me into the crowd. I could tell he was having a good time and I was glad. It was a beautiful room, with huge chandeliers, which always adds grandeur. Well, I didn't think it was NY culture (nor did it look very chic!) to be toting a camera and snapping away at every little thing, so I didn't. Moreover, there was already a photographer with a quirky curly red moustache going around doing his job. There was such a great buffet spread - sushi stations, dim sum stations, pasta choices, and as much lobster and shrimps as you can devour. By dinnertime, we were all stuffed. A waiter actually carried a set of bells out to the hall and struck each one with a stick, from the smallest one to the largest one. I thought that was rather quaint!

At dinner, we mostly chatted and then the live band came on, and the dance floor opened up! And everyone donned pink feather boas and retro sunglasses and danced away to some awesome rockin' music! Wooohooo!

BUFFALO

We also flew into Buffalo to spend an early Christmas with the family. We had a BIG CHRISTMAS TREE!!! Complete with dozens of packages in all sizes wrapped in happy Christmas paper underneath it! Ooh Scott and I must've gotten most of the boxes I felt like a very lucky kid! Thank you to Dad and Mom and Grandmas and Chris and Julie for the many presents for Scott and I!

Christmas Tree all the way up the the ceiling!

Buffalo was snow-white everywhere, with about a foot of snow. Early mornings we spot deer tracks in the snow, and looking out the kitchen one midnight, there was a big deer chomping on our bushes right outside the window!

Dad driving through the snow in his John Deer

We visited with hubs' cousin, Mark, who owns a hot-air balloon-flying business, one of those big ones fired by propane that you climb into a basket and fly in. We definitely want to go up in one when we have a chance, and fly over Letchworth State Park, where we got married in!

complete photos!

***

BAJA PENINSULAR, MEXICO

Soon after Christmas, in the quiet pre-dawn hours, we loaded our car with clothes, tents, sleeping bags, scuba gear, cooking pans, and a big jar of Nutella, and set off south on a Mexican adventure. 3 hours later, we were across the border and headed into the deserts of Baja.

We found the camping spot in the desert just before it got dark that same evening - just 100 feet from the Transpeninsular freeway, under the star-crusted sky. No one else was around, except for trucks roaring past the freeway. Setting up the tent was as hard as it got, the wind had kicked up to a howling gale by that time and our car proffered no respite. The tent barely held up under the pounding wind - one of the poles actually snapped. The temperatures had dropped to the 30sF and the two of us huddled together, still freezing under numerous layers of blankets and sweaters. To top it all off, the howling wind drove me half-crazy with irrational thoughts of being bloodily murdered by axe-wielding Mexicans out in the middle of nowhere. I laid awake all night, almost frost-bitten and mentally terrorised. Boy was it a miserable night, neither of us got any sleep at all.

The next morning, it was like a new revelation: the wind had died, the sun was rising. The morning glow lit up the cactus and flowers all around, the air was fresh and cleaned out by the morning dew, there was such stillness and quiet you could hear your heart beat by beat.

The rest of the trip we decided to convince the manager of a 5-star resort to let us set up camp on their beautiful green lawn, under a grapefruit tree laden with harvest. When we did not camp, we booked ourselves into a motel and took a shower.

One of the intended highlights of the trip was a whale-watching boat trip. Well, we did spot a couple of grey whales, but it was hard to get up close and personal. I guess I wasn't being really realistic when I thought we could actually go up and pet them, like we see on all brochures and commercials. For one, it's against the protection of endangered mammals law to touch these whales; secondly, we're in a little boat and we could put ourselves in some serious danger should the whales decide to play 'toss-the-dinghy!'.

where are the whales...

Other fun stuff: dives off a beach, a cove off a rocky cliff, and a lighthouse, watched flocks of pelicans dive-bomb for fishes, kayaked to a small island in a beautiful cove, drove for miles across the desert and marveled at the expanse of land and vegetation; often, for as far as the eye could see, there were more cactus than you could shake a stick at; yakked our time away in the car and listened to Metallica, The Gypsy Kings and Michael Buble. As we drove along the Californian gulf, we were awestruck by the beauty of the ocean scenery, it so much reminded us of Hawaii.

Miles and miles through the peninsula, by the end of our Baja adventure, our car tires had gone bald.

photos!
photos by hubs!

***

COSTA RICA!

Once we got home, my very restless and resourceful hubs found cheap tickets to the ecological paradise, Costa Rica; barely a week into unpacking, we were hauling another luggage out to the airport.

Costa Rica was an unforgettable trip - hikes through cloud forests and majestic rainforests, guided walks through ecological sanctuaries, spotting numerous wildlife, listening for bird-calls, hitchhiking, dusty bus rides to our various stops, white-water rafting along the way(this is possibly the most fun thing ever, I even flew out of the raft at one of the rapids! it was totally awesome!!), a village of hippies, coastal hikes, staying in a dream villa on top of a hill overlooking the forests and ocean.

**

Here are some of the creatures we met:

MAMMALS:

1. SLOTHS are really hard to spot cos they look nothing more than a ball of.. nothing. You don't even realise they are there, they are a neutral shade of brown and mostly just sleep and don't move at all in the treetops. Apparently, they come down the trees just once a week to defecate, and go right back up.

2. COATIS are in the raccoon family, and we met a couple of individuals - they mostly travel in groups so we reckon these loners got too aggressive, or too fussy.

3. KINKAJOU
4. AGOUTIS look like big brown rodents
5. MONKEYS - Spider, Capucine, and you can hear the Howlers for miles around

and many species of butterflies, insects and frogs.

BIRDS
Too many, too exotic, too too beautiful.

hummingbird in flight

the beautiful motmot

Tried as we did, we did not spot the elusive Quetzal, the most beautiful bird in the western hemisphere, and supposedly even more resplendent than a camera could capture.

the Resplendent Quetzal

photo from National Geographic

And I met a(nother) turkey named Penelope.

FORESTS
Both the cloudforests and the rainforests were indescribably lush, tranquil, breath-taking, especially when the sun beams down through the foliage and the forest shines like an epiphany. Up north, we walked through the Monteverde and Santa Elena cloudforests, and took a guided walk at the ecological sanctuary with local expert, Eduardo, looking for everything from leaf-cutter ants to toucans to howlers and sloths. Til now we are still amazed at how Eduardo actually spotted a sloth, sleeping on a tree, through the canopies somewhat 5 miles away! Even through his super telescope, all we could make out was a furry butt.

friendly collared peccari named Charlie

he came up to nuzzle with me!

The forests were just magnificent, lush and splendorous with ancient trees, giant ferns, snaking vines....through an intense competition to survive, whether to grow, creep, expand, strangle, usurp, flourish..exhibiting a vigour that makes the whole forest seem to move and come alive. It was better than the Omnimax.

lush green forest

(our guide at Santa Elena, who is also a Biology teacher)

the forest shines in the sunlight

birds singing in the cloud forest

WHITE WATER RAFTING
On our way down south to the Caribbean coast, we hopped into a raft and paddled our way down the River Pacuare. This is my first white-water rafting adventure! but years of dragonboating and rowing have made me quite comfortable with handling the paddle, boy I was SO excited!

There were 6 paddlers and the leader who sat in the back and steered, in addition to shouting out commands, 'Right! Right!! Left! Hard left!! Stop!! Alante Alante!!!' And here we go, paddling with all our might, with water splashing all about, scrambling left or right to avoid getting stuck, smashing into boulders or crashing into rockwalls, flying out of our seats in the boat and barely managing to stay IN the boat. We went through 7 or 8 rapids. At our worst it was like a giant baby getting all excited in the bathtub, at our best it was like a scene out of The River Wild. At one of the rapids called Wildhorse, I actually flew over the guy behind me and out of the boat! I crashed into the water and the current swept me along the boat, but just out of reach of my team. I had a hard-hat on and bobbed nicely in my life-jacket, so although the current was swift and my team was desperately reaching out for me, the world came to slow-motion. I was really on a high. It was such a rush. I blinked and grinned like a fool. I felt happy, very, very happy. I now think my white-water experience would not have been complete without getting thrown out of the raft. I highly recommend it.

Although it was a 5 hour trip, we rested often and allowed the river to carry us forward gently, as we went by soft waterfalls raining down on us, through gorgeous canyons and wide open rocky banks, spotting birds and giving rides to children waiting to cross the river, stopping for a sumptuous lunch, jumping into the fresh cold water for a swim.

When we reached the end of rafting tour, our luggage was there waiting for us, and after a quick shower, we continued on our way to our next destination by the Caribbean coast.

VILLA TOUCAN

By an immense stroke of luck, we got to stay in a villa that was the stuff of dreams, well my dreams anyway.

THIS is it..ALL of it!! :D

Dream villa in the rainforest (with wireless!)

with a patio looking out to the oceancomplete with a trampoline!!

The villa was in a wonderful place filled with beautiful flowers and fruit trees specially planted for the toucans. Dozens of beautiful toucans flock the grounds in the mornings and late afternoons. Every day, we would spend hours roaming the grounds or just laying back in the deckchairs, watching these beautiful, colourful birds flit from tree to tree, amongst many other exotic birds, big and small, listening to their calls and twitters and songs. From time to time, the howler monkeys also staked their presence by roaring through the forests. Sometimes we felt obliged to return the greetings, and joined in the cacophony. The many sloths that inhabit the trees were always fun to spot. Mostly, they just slept or remained very still. Once or twice we spotted one on the move - it was actually much faster than I'd thought it would be, but maybe in was in a bit of a hurry to get to the next branch of leaves..' bit late fer tea, sir?

chestnut mandible toucan

The owners also had several cats and 2 dogs, a spaniel and a german shepherd, that followed us everywhere we went on foot - through the trail behind the house, to the road as we tried to hitch a ride, as far as they could possibly go. The spaniel was particularly adventurous, disappearing into the trees and bushes for most of the time, and emerging all muddy and happy every few minutes to check us out and promptly disappear into another bush again. The german shepherd was a lot more like the guard dog, and stuck by us closely or scouted the path ahead momentarily with her buddy. They were totally awesome dogs. I think their names were Marley(spaniel) and Jessie. Marley had such a stubby tail that when he tried to wag it, his whole hind quarters waggled. He might have been about ten years old. Jessie was the young one, we reckon around 3 or 4 years old, that loved a good wrestle. The cats mostly cried for food and made a nuisance in the kitchen, crashing a plate or so every now and then.

Wireless internet connection in the middle of the rainforest???!!! Incredible? IN-credible! Unbelievable, UN-be-lieeeeee-vable!!! We HAD to JUMP for JOY!! We even watched episodes of House on FOX.com without a hitch!

The last day was absolutely perfect, it rained all day. After 2 weeks of hiking and exploring, we were more than happy to chill out in the big open villa, watching and listening to the rain, and feeling the cool breeze. It was like our very own sanctuary.

This was a dream villa...we contemplated doing a Ripley on the owners.

atop the continental divide in Monteverde Reserve

more photos!

***

SINGAPORE

Home for the new year!!! YAYYYYY!!! We arrived just in time for the reunion dinner, having been stuck overnight transiting in HK.

It was Scottie's first Chinese New Year celebration! Dinner was at Uncle Freddy's where the entire mom side of the family gathered. We had Lou Hei, which was the usual messy affair, with salad flying all over as we tossed enthusiastically with our chopsticks. We had a huge huge feast of hot pot, with all and every one of the usual suspects - prawns, chicken, beef, lotsa veggies, mushrooms, tofu, abalone, scallops, rolls, braised pork etc etc, and also fishballs, cuttlefish balls, foo chow balls, fishballs, prawn balls, meat balls, vegetarian balls, and more fishballs, did I say fishballs??

We ate til we could eat no more, and we ate some more. I was perfectly happy, but the hubs disapproves of the constant eating, which went on for the next few days as we visited with my dad's side of the family.

After a prolonged dinner, we gave out the Ang Pows. More than the monetary value, this practice is a gesture of blessing and good-will. This is my first year giving out ang pows as a married couple! I experienced a pleasant sense of empowerment to be in the position to say a blessing as I handed out a red packet, and a sense of fulfilment as the ang pow was received with both hands. There is a meaningful connection that is now different from when I was the recipient. I was surprised by how this simple tradition touched me the way it did this time.

My report on Scottie's first CNY experience: He loves Bak Kwa and cashew cookies, and had a lot of fun hanging out with the aunts and uncles, finding out more about Singapore and Asian culture, and also trying to pry into the dating/love lives of my cousins. My cousins have endearingly come to the conclusion that he is quite the 'kay poh', which is marked as a very Singaporean trait.

Grandma: Grandma is in good health with memory lapses, and enjoys the company and gatherings at CNY. New memories may be a problem, but old memories stick like glue. She tells me about her life in China, when Grandpa, whom I never met because he died before I was born, was forcibly enlisted in the communist army in the early years of marriage. When he fell ill in camp, Grandma walked from the wee hours of the morning only to reach the camp in the early evening. She would rent a room with a family and cook for Grandpa, bringing the food to him, because their ration in camp was a watery rice porridge, that provided no nourishment for a sick man. Grandma would bring him the food she cooked, and eat his porridge instead. When he was better, Grandma would walk home. She would make this same journey several times, until the day Grandpa escaped from camp. He ran, hid and dug sweet potato from people's gardens for food. When he finally made it home, Grandma said, he was so filthy he was infested with fleas. These are stories I never had a chance to hear before this, because I didn't make the time to sit in her company.

Grandma speaks only Hokkien and has received no formal education, but she tries her darndest to communicate with the hubs with her best vocalisation of the few English words she has come to learn. Her vocalisation of 'Scott', for example, translates from Hokkien to 'one cent/penny', which makes her laugh. Grandma likes to laugh at Scottie's gibber(as she understands it), or when he flashes her a grin. Grandma has episodes of hysterical laughing, when she laughs so hard tears come into her eyes and her teeth pop out of her mouth. Grandma laughs so hard she's wiping away the tears and putting her hand over her mouth to save her teeth. Everyone in the room can't help but laugh with her, and we all turn into one big silly laughing forum for a while. Scottie, like the rest of us, calls her Ah Ma, and gives her a big hug.

ah-ma chio! :D

***
MANADO, INDONESIA

We were there to dive, and dive we did - 32 dives for me and 35 for Scottie in 9 days. It was awesome, loved the diving variety, loved the crazy currents, loved the peculiar critters, loved the idyllic cottage-by-the-water we stayed in. Hated the mosquitoes.

The hubs has industriously written out dive reports, so here they are for Bunaken and Lembeh.

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

And then we are home to sunshiney Santa Monica :D

Pot

2007-12-25T04:37:00.000-08:00

Jesus, I feel smoked.

Christmas party on 24th, the REAL Christmas, when Germans celebrate. Scottie and I arrived to a fairly mild crowd at a former brewery, now an apartment building. Red Christmas lights, red drapes, red furniture, red sheets on the bed, red iBook - the host sure likes red! Party-ers dressed up for the occasion, namely Santa hats and furry capes and stockinged legs. People brought sauerkraut, devilled eggs, pasta, pies, cookies, truffles, liquor. Everyone brought gag gifts: we were told to wrap up the ugliest thing we find in the house.

It was a mostly sedate crowd, some chilling out with a drink, some dancing and some hooping to really REALLY loud techno pump - I noticed the DJ had headphones on - if it was my guess, it would be to muff out the 300 decibel music he's happily spinning. Some, like me, were tearing our throats trying to hold discernible conversation with another.

Sometime after the music started, I detected a faint smell of weed. My neighbour smokes the occasional stick, so I recognized what it was. Quick scan and registered a couple of pipes being passed around to anyone who cared for a puff. A woman who had arrived in a Mrs. Claus outfit, stripped down to a red string bikini and sheer tight pants. What eventually, we don't know. One guy fell right over from an upright position, like a plank, and busted his eye on his glasses.

It must've been on the dancefloor when I must've been right next to someone with one of these pipes. The music got louder, the lights got dizzier, the dancing got wilder.

Technically I didn't smoke the pot. But the fumes that smoked up my lungs would've have knocked out a horse.

When the email said pot-luck, I had no idea it meant this.

***

I don't remember what partying is like, I mean the kind with techno/trance whatever music and tequila shots and rum and all. I've been to one or two some years ago, but I guess I've never been much of a party-er, not with booze and hard liquor, and certainly not with any kind of drugs. I hardly ever drink enough to be drunk.

It wasn't unpleasant at the party, in fact the music was good dance stuff, and we met a couple of friends and talked to some nice people. The food was a lucky pick of sorts, but the homemade ones were never wrong.

Just for the record, I drank only lime-ade.

Tomorrow's brunch party will be a lot more Martha Stewart.

Merry Christmas!

2007-11-18T20:09:00.000-08:00

The Quest for Iscandar

2007-11-02T20:46:00.000-07:00

We're off to Outer Space
We're leaving Mother Earth
To save the Human Race
Our STARBLAZERS!

The hubs and I have been singing this every day for the past week.

Every morning at breakfast, we put on the DVD, sing the opening song, and follow the adventures of Captain Avatar and his team on their Quest for Iscandar, to bring back the cosmo DNA and save Earth from the deadly radiation that will eliminate all life on earth in one year.

This anime is the mother of all animes. It was made in 1974 - BEFORE I was born.

****

One week ago I gave the hubs the ultimatum to clean up his bookshelf - there was no explicit penalty to this ultimatum, I had simply growled threateningly.

So the hubs sits himself in front of the offending bookshelf and verily set to work.

I must say that when he does get to it, he is indeed efficient with his task.

Usually.

2 minutes into this do-or-suffer.menacing.wifey task, the hubs ups and runs to the TV with a box of DVDs in his hand, pops a DVD into the player and stands there, eyes fixated to the screen.

I watch him, perplexed.

And, the above video came on.

"Look sweetie, this is a show I watched when I was 8 years old." - eyes still transfixed on the TV.

"Oh, wow." I think of old-style cartoons I watched in the 80s when frames sometimes froze for 5 seconds (..doesn't seem so exciting anymore in this age of CGI)

As the opening song played, hubs tears away from his transfixation and comes to me, holds up his arm and says

"See sweetie, my hairs are standing up." then steps away and looks at me with puppy eyes.

There is a glimmer of wetness in his puppy eyes.

I recognize this moment - it is a sentimental moment.

Time for a hug.

***

So now every morning, we make breakfast, pop in a new episode, sing and march and punch our fists into the air to the opening song, and settle to watch the next adventure.

Will the Starblazers defeat the evil Gamelons? Will they make it to Iscandar that is far beyond the galaxy and bring back the cosmo DNA to save Mother Earth in time? There are 208 days left.

And the bookshelf sits content in its state of clutter.

I need a Fuzzy Wuzzy seat warmer

2007-10-08T13:41:00.000-07:00

Summer is overr!!!

It's still sunny, but the winds are beginning to kick up - yesterday the winds hit 50 km/hr. So it's the blustery and chilly time of year again.

I like that I can get bundled up in jackets and scarfs and gloves and Uggs, now I just wished I had a fuzzy wuzzy warmer for the toilet seat.

Take Me Home, Country Road

2007-10-08T12:46:00.000-07:00

Well, Maui has its famous Hana Highway of waterfalls and secret pools, and Kauai - KAUAI had a never-ending shoreline of spectacular ocean/coastal scenery. OH I felt like I was in a dream! or a painting, and the painting's come alive!! It was incredible, IN-Credible; surreal, SUR-Real; unbelievable, UN-BeliEEvable ... and so on and so forth :D

We had loads of fun in Kauai driving around. I was surprised to find Chinese heritage in Hawaii - a Kung Long Shopping Center and Ching Yung Village where we had some kung pao chicken and chinese broccoli for dinner one night.

It was actually too hot too be laying out in the sand, so we spent most of our day in the water diving, boogie boarding or snorkelling. We also did some very muddy and slippery hiking, drove up the Waimea Canyon, watched the sun set every day and did some cooking at home and chilled out by the tv in the evenings.

And oh! Hawaiian radio rocks! They have a station that plays hyms and inspirational songs like Shout To The Lord (All the Earth...) which I liked - reminds me of the years when I still went to church. Whatever's on radio is always happy, encouraging, romantic or just has a good groove to it. Ermm, they also had their own rendition of Take Me Home, Country Road.

Here's a little Hawaiian sing-along for you!

More photos here:
Topside http://scottpenny.smugmug.com/gallery/3595947#P-1-15
Underwater http://scottpenny.smugmug.com/gallery/3586676#P-1-15

Maui II

2007-09-28T00:45:00.000-07:00

photography by The Hubby
- except for the one blurry picture of hubby plunging into the water :p

Sunrise at Haleakala Crater

We woke up at 3am to drive 9000ft up the crater for this awesome view. OOooh! it was c-c-c-COldd as we waited, but ah! what a sight when the crack of dawn came! Commanding, yet gentle; awe-inspiring, yet humble. It was one of those moments you stood motionless and reflected on your life, start confessing your sins and wished you had given that candy bar back to the baby.

We took a short hike down the Sliding Sands trail at the crater after the sunrise. A gently-sloping easy path, but boy at 9000ft, was I out of breath!

Next was our adventure into the Hana Highway! Driving this highway is the ultimate tribute to the saying 'It is not the destination, but the journey that matters' - 52 miles of narrow, winding roads that lead into a subdued little town that didn't have a restaurant nor grocery store open past 7.30pm. We barely squeezed into the last store that was closing for the day when we got there.

On the way, however, is breath-taking scenery that errr...takes your breath away. Seriously, standing at the edge of the cliff, looking out into the far horizon, listening to sounds of the crashing waves, with the spray of ocean mist on your face, you feel there is no other place on earth you'd rather be.

One of the many many waterfalls along Hana Highway

We also stopped at a few turnouts and hiked/thrashed our way into the more obscure waterfalls/hideouts.

Venus Pool, looking out into the ocean

Our guidebook also rated it the Best Place to Ponder and Write a Great American Novel:

We decide it's worth more fun than that! :D Wheeeee!!!

Nirvana Baby! Wheeee!!!

Blue Pools - we had to ignore several keep-out warnings on the trail, and hike our way across boulders to find this gem. This place was absolutely surreal - the ocean washes up the boulders just 20 feet behind me.

Blue Pools

It was a little piece of paradise on earth. We stayed for the sunset, and I have no words enough for its beauty.

More photos here:
Topside http://scottpenny.smugmug.com/gallery/3595746#204451673
Underwater http://scottpenny.smugmug.com/gallery/3586596#203771869

ALOHAAAAAA!!! :D

2007-09-22T12:01:00.000-07:00

WE'RE IN MAUI!!! ooohhh it's BEAUTIFUL!

It's so green and lush everywhere! and the ocean is really really blue and sparkly! Flowers of all colours blooming everywhere, cotton-white clouds in the sunny blue skies, and little coves all along the coast to snorkel in, waves crashing on fine sandy beaches and craggy lava rocks, underwater caves to explore where white-tipped reef sharks rest and green turtles lay sleeping, 100 ft clarity in the water, schools of fish, fish of all colours and patterns - spiked, streaked, striped, banded, painted, spotted, camouflaged..

Oooh! Hawaii is just such a happy place! :D

View from the lanai, Wailea where we're staying with friends

Thy Loving Presence

2007-09-13T12:59:00.000-07:00

Scott and I have 3 wedding dates: our court date, our wedding day in Singapore and our wedding day in Buffalo. The more joy to celebrate.

People often ask me which date is the real one. What can I say? We made vows at all three weddings, and they were all real.

The least spoken about I guess would be our union in court: simply as it was as private an affair as it could've been, with no one else but us and the judge. With just us and the judge, I tuned in to the quiet celebration, to the dignity, to the great blessing of this moment in our lives.

***

We made a court date for this date 2006 at the Beverly Hills Municipal Court. Why September 14? We don't know. We simply picked a date. Scott proposed 2 weeks before and it seemed an appropriate interval....whatever that means.

Anyway.

12 noon was our appointment.

11.00am we threw on something nice from our wardrobes and sped off to 90210. We cleared security at the entrance, and got directions to our Judge's courtroom.

Judge Richard Stone. Judge Stone. Pleasant-est guy around, he was cracking jokes with his clerical staff when we arrived. It's nice to know the judge will not be barking out our vows to us in an already very nerve-wrecking time.

He gave us a choice of location - the courtroom or the rooftop. We chose the rooftop, and so we went.

There, overlooking the Beverly Hills neighborhood, 'neath the clear blue Californian sky, Judge Stone stood before us and gave a sermon on the sanctity of marriage.

We didn't have rings then. We just held hands.

As Judge Stone spoke, tears welled up uncontrollably and the next moment, I was bawling my eyes out.

**

I used to think about loneliness, about the wrenching uncertainty of my future, how sad I might be all alone. I wondered if I will ever have someone to hold my hand, and share the laughter and dry my tears. I wondered if all I ever will have is watching others be happy.

As we stood there on the rooftop, I felt an immense sense of gratitude, reassurance and peace.

Lay back in the arms of someone
You give in to the charms of someone
Lay back in the arms of someone you love -ONJ

In Praise of the Seas - The Allure of the Deep Blue

2007-09-11T23:58:00.000-07:00

Some of Scott's best photography yet. I thought these were so hauntingly beautiful:

Beyond the ken of mortal men, beneath the wind and waves,
There lies a land of shells and sand, of chasms, crags and caves,
Where coral castles climb and soar, where swaying seaweeds grow,
And all around without a sound the ocean currents flow...
- Graeme Base

The Man with Nine Knuckles

2007-09-05T10:57:00.000-07:00

Our friend, Alex, from NY swung by for a visit last week on his way to Burning Man in Nevada.

This is the wedding gift he brought for us, a sort of symbolism for fertility

It is a water jug of sorts - you fill the water into the handle-end of the pot, and it streams out from the penis-end.

but this is what happened on its journey here to us.

Oops.

Alex had also packed something else similar, instead with a huge head that symbolized wisdom - no prizes for guessing where that got bonked and cracked open (which I surmise was what he intended for his roommate in the following story).

Alex: " Oh well"

And as the story goes: His hand, btw, was broken when he had fUU-Riiously bAshed his dickhead of a roommate repeatedly on the skull for being, well, a major dickhead. Alex's knuckle got smashed irreparably. His roommate, uhh let's call him Dick, was in such shock that he supposedly ran naked into the streets of NY, albeit in the middle of the night. Still Dick's skull of steel was intact and he suffered no more than a slight headache and a bruised ego, and got away easy for some mega dumb-ass prank he did.

Alex, on the other(or this) hand, may make his appearance at Burning Man as a Russian hero with nine wives (according to a famed Russian tale and thus the beard), but he has a tale of his own to show for. Ironical, but pretty funny I think :p

The first time I met Alex, he had a broken shoulder from skiing, and the last we heard from him, he had been held hostage and in prison for a number of days in Iraq (true story) where he had gone sightseeing - don't ask me why.

In between, though, we are always relieved to hear of him engaging in saner activities like the Argentinian Tango and cross-dressing in public.

It's always good to see you Alex :)

It's An Ocean In Here Sweetie!

2007-09-03T12:37:00.000-07:00

California waters is co-old. I have dived in 52F/11C waters in my wetsuit all 12mm of it in three layers, but I am for the wiser.

And fortunately, hubs loves me enough to keep me warm on my dives. This is what he got me for my birthday -

Ta-Daaaaaahhh!!! My new DUI TLS350 drysuit! I will never freeze my butt off looking for slugs underwater again! :D

***

Before donning my new drysuit in the ocean, I gave it a go in our pool. Here's the episode in pics and videos:

Burping my suit

Got my BCD on me

Checking my valves

Putting on my fins

And ready to go..

huhhhh..I'm as floaty as a life-saver.. won't. go. down. unngh!

Try again -

I drop like a stone!

What happened?

Evaluation:

hahaha, so sotong, forgot to deflate my BCD the first time :p

So what's the conclusion?

Success! And all ready for the ocean! More underwater adventures coming up! Yaaayyy!!

Singaporean leh!!

2007-08-31T22:03:00.000-07:00

Headlines on New York Times online:

A Singaporean doing the most Singaporean thing to do! :D :D

and note: the article is written by Steve Lorrr!! :D :D ROFL

Who's with Gwyneth? The Google Guy

Tan Chade-Meng, with, clockwise from top left, ex-Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright; Muhammad Ali, the boxer; the newscaster Tom Brokaw; and the actor Robin Williams.

By STEVE LOHR

Published: September 1, 2007

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — The gallery of photos lining a hallway at Google’s headquarters here is filled with the faces of luminaries who have visited the company: Mikhail Gorbachev, Bill Clinton, the Dalai Lama, Muhammad Ali and Jane Fonda.

And in each of the more than 100 pictures, there is someone else: Tan Chade-Meng, a geeky fellow with a big smile who is a household name only in his own household.

Mr. Tan is a 37-year-old engineer at Google, and his initial chutzpah, his quirky workplace and a steady stream of distinguished visitors have turned him into the company’s in-house Zelig.

The visitors are often there to get a glimpse of the future in progress, and perhaps something to drop into conversation that suggests an advanced I.Q.: “When I was out at Google the other day...”

They end up getting a moment with Mr. Tan as well, and Mr. Tan gets another photo for his growing gallery.

At first, Mr. Tan had to work for his pictures. One day in 2003 he saw several police cars at the Google campus and muscular men in dark suits and sunglasses patrolling the hallways.

His interest piqued, Mr. Tan hustled down to the lobby and “waited for someone famous to come by,” he said. It turned out to be Jimmy Carter. The resulting photo and another of Mr. Tan with Al Gore went up on the wall outside his office.

Soon, no celebrity could visit Google without a “Meng” photo op — as in “Where’s Meng? You’ve got to get your picture taken with Meng.”

Mr. Tan, his photo gallery and the company’s endorsement of his little side project, said Eric Schmidt, the company’s chief executive, are “representative of much of what is right and fun about Google.”

At Google, Mr. Tan has a reputation as a top-flight engineer. But he is also known for his fondness for one-liners and for being a regular contributor to the company’s online humor groups. The job title on his business card reads: “Jolly Good Fellow (which nobody can deny).”

“In my free time, I do engineering,” he said.

Mr. Tan gets tips by e-mail or phone a few days before a famous person arrives. No one has turned him down yet.

It is an eclectic group. Colin Powell, the hippie activist Wavy Gravy, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Gwyneth Paltrow, Robin Williams, Jane Goodall, Tom Brokaw, George Soros and James D. Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, have all posed with Mr. Tan.

Mostly the guests appear to be good sports about it. A few, including Mr. Clinton and Chris Rock, the comedian, have even come to his small office for their moment in the spotlight.

Some drape an arm around Mr. Tan. He and Ken Thompson, a creator of the Unix operating system, hold plastic pink flamingoes. (The photos are online at picasaweb.google.com/chademeng.)

Mr. Tan is not a stickler for photographic technique. He uses an inexpensive digital camera, and the photos, he said, are shot by “random people who walk by.” Larry Page, the multibillionaire co-founder of Google, has snapped a few.

Mr. Tan, typically dressed in a sweatshirt or Google T-shirt, beams at the camera with a toothy, ear-to-ear grin that some colleagues good-naturedly call his Bugs Bunny smile. His regular brushes with fame have apparently not gone to his head.

“I’m just some guy at Google,” he said.

***

Aside to family, doesn't he look like Uncle Freddy??!

30 Years Young

2007-08-30T23:03:00.000-07:00

I hit the 'big' 3-0 this year.

Awkward teenage years and youthful twenties behind me now, I wonder what life will be like in my 30s.

Dave Barry says he grows steadily older each year without ever reaching maturity. Of course he's just the funniest bloke around, but I wonder if I've managed to mature even proportionately with my years.

Let's not even talk about wise. Wise is for the old.

Actually, I'm fairly grateful that I was born somewhere somehow I am not sold as a child-bride or into slavery; or into any one of the horrific circumstances of extreme poverty and hunger, or cultures with female oppression and genital mutilations.

In fact, at 30, I am blessed with wonderful people in my life - friends and family, and my husband, who puts, above everything else, our happiness together :)

I am physically healthy, emotionally fulfilled, and mentally sane...at least that's what I think.

Contentedness is underrated - especially at an age so young ;D

***

Did I have a happy birthday? Find out here! and here! and here!

And Happy Birthday to all my friends turning/turned 30 this year too!

2007-08-25T22:16:00.000-07:00

Hubs and I decided on whim Thursday evening to spend a day diving at Casino Point, Catalina island. So we packed our diving stuff and lunch and got up at 4.30am the next morning to catch the ferry.

I'm always lazy with dive reports, but here's hubby's :D

http://diver.net/bbs/posts002/72214.shtml

or if you just wanna look at the photos -

http://scottpenny.smugmug.com/gallery/3364814

enjoy!

Also, we finally got ourselves a sturdy rack to hang/store our loads of scuba gear!!! This made me so so so SO HAPPY!!

Unfortunately when two bungling handymen try to put poles and parts together, we can guarantee ourselves an accident.

I absentmindedly let slip one of the poles and it fell and hit Hubs on the forehead with a resounding 'gong'. OWWW!! :-o

Yikes.

It nicked him just above the nose and drew a little blood. We wiped it clean and he wanted a plaster (a.k.a. Band-Aid) on it - the biggest one we had.

He's okay but growled at me for a little bit after that :( sorry sweetie...

Anyway, he's off to a Hawaiian-themed BBQ party with the underwater photographer's society now. He will be fine and even forget about the biggest-plaster-on-the-forehead if no one has the heart or curiosity to point it out to him at the party.

I finish assembling the rack and put things to where they belong, at least some of it..

Ah! such satisfaction to finally have decent storage for our gear, so I can stop stressing about things lying about. Let's have some order in the house, ORDER IN THE HOUSE PLEASE!!

:D OH HAPPY DA-AY!!

speaking of Hawaii, we're going to Maui next month!! YaaaaYYYY!!!!!

Xueli

2007-08-24T22:43:00.001-07:00

This morning, perhaps delirious from a short night of sleep, my mind was racing with a dozen out-of-the-blue thoughts. One of which held my mind's attention for a significant while.

This is Xueli - it means pretty as snow, although she's not all white. She was a puppy-dog when we took this picture. She came to us a little, happy, excited puppy - cutest little bundle of fur and big eyes I'd ever seen. I was 8 years old, and remember being both scared and delighted by the sight of her. My uncle had adopted her from a friend whose dog had a litter of pups, and she became the (extended) family dog, mostly my Granma took care of her (Granma did everything then) but we have all walked her, fed her, took her for walks, bathed her, and played catch with her.

She had lovely soft hair, especially so after a bath and after she had dried off in the sun. The black part of her was beautiful, raven black and shiny. The white part of her was clean, pure and pretty as snow. It was a lovely feeling just brushing her.

She was mostly a quiet dog that didn't bark the house down. She was timid - she was terrified of thunder, and would scramble frantically and squeeze herself under the coffee table (it had a gap only 3 inches high!) Even when she was fully grown, she somehow managed it. She never chased cats int eh neighbourhood and was nervous with the ankle-biter that lived in the home next to the elevator, and hated walking that way. the funniest thing about her was that she knew what 'zang zui' ('to shower' in Hokkien) meant and bolted at the sound of the word. Bath time, as you can deduce, was to play catch. She would race herself crazy around our apartment in and out of every room, before coming to a sudden halt, tongue hanging out and panting, by which everyone present would freeze in their step, any false move and off she goes again!

She ran away a couple times, slipping free from the leash. One particular time that she ran away and we couldn't find her, Granma found her the next morning curled outside on the doorstep. How she made it 11 floors up the apartment building, we don't know - did she ride up the elevator??? or climbed all 11 sets of stairs up to come back home?? how did she manage to find her way among the jungle of high rise buildings and thousands of staircases?? Although we know dogs track a path by smell, we certainly have not walked her up 11 flights of stairs - we always took the elevator and pressed the button for the 11th floor; so until now we are still baffled - did she learn to press the elevator button???? All we knew then was how relieved we were and could only think how she spent a night out cold and hungry.

Xueli used to sleep in the living room at night, sometimes on the old brown suede couch that we have since discarded, sometimes on the ol' pile of newspapers we kept for the karang guni man. Sometimes when I woke up at night, I would wonder if she was okay, and would look for her and watch her sleep in the dark, sometimes she lays so still that it worried me, until she blew a little puff of air through her nose. Sometimes she trembled in her sleep, and I would start piling blankets on her. Sometimes she whined and I would wonder what she was dreaming of.

I cried when Granma told me Xueli had died. At that time, Granma had moved into my aunt's landed property home and Xueli had gone with her. They came back to Telok Blangah on the weekends. One Saturday, Granma told me Xueli had died, of old age..she was 13 years old by then. I asked Granma what she did with Xueli's body, and she told me she had thrown it out with the garbage. Although I was upset, I knew Granma would not know any other way to do it. And I think although we all love and miss Xueli very dearly, no one would be sadder than Ah Ma, and no one would miss her more.

I felt the sadness of the loss then, but this morning, fourteen years after, I suddenly saw the moment that she passed on; in my mind, I saw her lie down on her side, tired and drawing a last shallow breath..her eyes slowly close and she becomes still.

***

I have repetitive dreams - the same dream that happens from time to time, and one of them is of Xueli. When I dream of her, I often wake up thinking that it was real. Several times, I distinctly remember waking up after dreaming of Xueli, and walked around the house looking for her, not realizing that she had been gone for years.

I don't know why it haunts me, or what haunts me - perhaps because I wasn't there with her when she was passing, perhaps I feel sad, or guilty. Or perhaps it is only natural when I miss a dear beloved one.

Fun with Mom

2007-08-19T17:00:00.000-07:00

Scott's mom flew over from Buffalo for a holiday last week, and we shopped and shopped everywhere.

One day, when the hubs went away on a dive boat, the mom-in-law and I rented a neat little Daisun and drove ourselves around to do more shopping.

The map-reading and the navigating is another story, but let's just say we made our way home at the end of the day.

So, now I have a lovely new purple-and-butterflies bathroom, new blue, green and bright yellow bath towels, new Mexican-inspired dishcloths, wine glasses and whimsical silverware in the kitchen, a nice new floral embroidered toss pillow on my couch and more clothes that look the same but in different colours in our wardrobe.

When I have my own home, I will not have tan-coloured carpets, white blinds, beige doors and cabinets, and golden door knobs - I swear they must be installed in every rental apartment in LA just to drive tenants into depression.

Well now, colour me happy, mom's in the house and we can go shopping! :D

***

Just to prove we're more useful than we care to be, the ladies made dinners a couple times - some un-beliEEE-vably delicious salmon steaks with mom's special marinate, roasted asparagus and peppers, and brown rice.

The next day, I stir-fried leftover rice with corn and red peppers, put it on a bed of spinach and made a quasi-gourmet presentation of it. Boy, was mom impressed! She asked me about the recipe and I showed her my secret stir-fry sauce - Hoi Sin sauce by Lee Kum Kee!

Hahahahahah! :D

***

On other days, the three of us trooped to a couple of free, summer evening concerts in the park - an opera and a jazz-tap ensemble. They were our first experiences with both genres.

Opera was interesting - I didn't understand a word, and couldn't even tell if it was sung in Italian or French, and wonder if anyone amongst the crowded cheese-and-wine picnickers did at all. And knowing that, I had very loudly announced my advice to my companions before the performance:

"WE SHOULD READ OUR PROGRAMS BEFORE THE SUN GOES DOWN AND IT GETS TOO DARK, SO WE'LL KNOW WHAT THEY ARE SINGING ABOUT." Nodding in vigorous agreement with myself.

The singers had mighty strong voices, I can tell you that. As well as that poor Great Dane that seemed a little distressed with the sopranos.

Now Jazz-tap(tap dancing to jazz) was totally different - straightforward entertainment with a marvellous groove. Easily and absolutely enjoyable. The audience had a great time cheering on the dancers and joining in the tap beat with a bout of messy clapping.

Encore! encore! at the end of it all!

***

Hubs and I decided to have a fun surprise for mom one afternoon. We all hopped into the car, took the route past a Santa Monica private hangar, which prompted mom to quickly declare:

"I will not go parachuting, bungee-jumping or skydiving."

Fortunately for her, we had no plans of pushing her off the plane, with or without a parachute just yet.

just kidding, mom ;)

Instead, we brought her to karaoke. Where she blasted her lungs out, circled her fists and swung her hips to the groove of Copacabana, Runaway Sue, Crocodile Rock and Great Balls of Fire!

Woo hoo! Go momma!

***

Here are photos of some other fun in the sun!

An Ah Lian moment

2007-08-19T14:12:00.000-07:00

The Provocation:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20227400/site/newsweek/

BeliefWatch: Reincarnate

Rajesh Kumar Singh / AP

The Next Lama: The Dalai Lama says he won't reincarnate in Tibet

By Matthew Philips

Newsweek

Aug. 20-27, 2007 issue - In one of history's more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is "an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation." But beyond the irony lies China's true motive: to cut off the influence of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual and political leader, and to quell the region's Buddhist religious establishment more than 50 years after China invaded the small Himalayan country. By barring any Buddhist monk living outside China from seeking reincarnation, the law effectively gives Chinese authorities the power to choose the next Dalai Lama, whose soul, by tradition, is reborn as a new human to continue the work of relieving suffering.

At 72, the Dalai Lama, who has lived in India since 1959, is beginning to plan his succession, saying that he refuses to be reborn in Tibet so long as it's under Chinese control. Assuming he's able to master the feat of controlling his rebirth, as Dalai Lamas supposedly have for the last 600 years, the situation is shaping up in which there could be two Dalai Lamas: one picked by the Chinese government, the other by Buddhist monks. "It will be a very hot issue," says Paul Harrison, a Buddhism scholar at Stanford. "The Dalai Lama has been the prime symbol of unity and national identity in Tibet, and so it's quite likely the battle for his incarnation will be a lot more important than the others."

So where in the world will the next Dalai Lama be born? Harrison and other Buddhism scholars agree that it will likely be from within the 130,000 Tibetan exiles spread throughout India, Europe and North America. With an estimated 8,000 Tibetans living in the United States, could the next Dalai Lama be American-born? "You'll have to ask him," says Harrison. If so, he'll likely be welcomed into a culture that has increasingly embraced reincarnation over the years. According to a 2005 Gallup poll, 20 percent of all U.S. adults believe in reincarnation. Recent surveys by the Barna Group, a Christian research nonprofit, have found that a quarter of U.S. Christians, including 10 percent of all born-again Christians, embrace it as their favored end-of-life view. A non-Tibetan Dalai Lama, experts say, is probably out of the question.

***

I've never used this word before, but I feel compelled now to respond:

"Siao ah!!"

**

Soup for the Soul

2007-08-09T23:03:00.000-07:00

This is the soup that Pei Chin made for me.

I'm so happy I could cry.

How would I have known that, 14,000km away from home and Mom, I would have Lian Ou Tang to drink?

My favorite - Lotus Root soup, with groundnuts and red dates in pork broth, cooked from scratch with the freshest ingredients and simmered over the stove for hours and hours.

mmm.....It has an aroma so light and fragrant, and a taste so sweet and surreal it transports me back to my mom's kitchen in our HDB flat in Telok Blangah, where my mom has made a potful and is bringing me a bowl of wholesome, nutritious soup just like this one.

***

Soup soup!! I am bouncing around waiting for the soup to boil over the fire.

I am grinning and skipping all over the living room waiting to taste my soup.

Sweetie!!! come take a photo of my soup!! I want to tell everyone I had Lian Ou Tang!!!

DO YOU WANT SOME SOUP??! You can try some!! IT'S REALLY REALLY YUMMY!!! :D

bounce bounce bounce.

The hubs looks into the pot and refused to be stirred by my enthusiasm.

As gently as he could, he turns down 3 times my loud ballistic offers for him to try a spoonful of wholesome nutritious soup.

My mother-in-law, who was visiting from New York, bless her kind-hometown-Buffalo-roastbeef-and-baked-potatoes ol' soul, tries not to screw her nose at the sight of my steaming hot bowl of pork bones and tuberous roots.

I don't take their rejections personally; I am too dizzy with delight to be a dampened spirit, and unabashedly besotted with gluttony over my bowl of soup, looking like I was possessed by the Tasmanian Devil himself.

***

Home-cooked soup, especially soup this good, is nourishment for the homesick soul.

Happy 42nd Birthday to Singapore :)

My Piggies eat poop

2007-08-06T21:52:00.000-07:00

We have the most adorable guinea pigs, Mousey and Tobey.

They eat all day long, chomp chomp chomp.

Lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, celery, cucumber, strawberries, parsley, lots and lots of timothy hay. Chomp chomp chomp.

Look - this is Mousey, isn't she funny?

I like watching them prod around in the shavings sniffing out pieces of food and hay.

***

When I woke up this morning, still groggy with sleep, I lazed on the edge of the bed peering into their cage, and watched Mousey in her hutch nudging around in the shavings for morsels of food. She looked so cute.

She sniffed at a pellet of poop.

and I said to her languidly, no Mousey that's poop.

She sniffed it a couple more times.

And promptly gobbled it up.

And looked immensely satisfied with herself for having found a yummy bite.

I was hoping she would spit it out, but she had eagerly munched it up and swallowed.

My face melted into a mixture of disgust and nausea - eeeeeeEEEWWWWw, mOUSEEyyyy!!!!!

Blaarrgghh.

That pretty much woke me up.

****

WHYYY is my guinea pig eating poop?! You would never think that a normal behavior unless you were some kind of dung beetle.

Research time:

As it turns out, piggies eat their own excrement sometimes. Guinea pigs produce 2 kinds of poop - one that is actual waste and another called cecotropes, which are nutrient-rich with proteins and essential vitamins.

The delightful thing about this peculiar behavior, is that these poopy treats, like all worthy foods, are best eaten fresh off the harvest; so when the piggies want a treat, all they have to do is dive in back and pluck a scooby snack right out of their piggy butt! :D yummy!

Disclaimer: This behavior is only acceptable with guinea pigs, rabbits, most other rodents and certain other mammals; not including dogs, cats and curious human babies known to have exhibited other charming displays of a sense of adventure.

Here are the piggies chomping on more palatable (to us at least!) gourmet choices.

Poop-snacking aside, guinea piggies are lovely pets, all they do is eat, poop, grow fat and look cute (according to Nat). Here's how it's done:

Master of Disguise

2007-08-01T13:09:00.000-07:00

Ho-ooly Calamari...

octopus

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Contemplating my culinary flair

2007-07-30T10:31:00.000-07:00

Don't you just love it when your food comes to you looking like a piece of art?

I like this whole concept of artistic presentation on my dinner plate. I love all those beautiful food photos people put up online of what they eat and all. They make me drool unglamorously. I love cookbooks - they have page after page of gorgeous dishes that make me believe I am capable of conjuring such artistry, and that the food would even be delicious. Furthermore, I would proudly serve it on beautiful dinnerware on a Martha Stewart table setting.

I do have this cookbook from the CIA(Culinary Institute of America) " Vegetables" that's really awesome.

***

This morning, I was so inspired to make myself a healthy protein power breakfast, I actually made use of what was in my fridge: I snatched up the crimini mushrooms and red capsicum/pepper and 3 eggs. Chopped 'n mixed 'em, salt 'n peppered 'em, and into the pan they go and fired away. Sizzles and smoke and all.

Wa La! My mushroom and capsicum omelette...unfortunately, burnt on the outside, bubbly and runny on the inside, flipped like a poor acrobat, uncooked and unsavoury.

I would post a photo, but it was even unsightly.

*weep

***

Alas, my beautiful food reality looks more like this:-

Our favorite cereals: Kashi GoLean Crunch, Heart2Heart, Cheerios Crunch, Raisin Nut Bran, TJ's Vanilla Almond Granola and Mixed Berry Granola...and more. This would rival Seinfeld's perpetually-stocked display.

Pour myself a bowl and add soymilk, eat with a ginormous(gigantic+enormous) spoon. I cannot go far wrong :D

Squatter no more!

2007-07-26T22:19:00.001-07:00

Granted I had the easy way out and did not have to stake out a corner for seven, eight, twenty years to claim my place legitimately, I am squatter no more. Hooray!!

The Drama:

After filing applications for my permanent residency status last October, I was given travel and work permits without further hassle. In May this year however, Scott and I were summoned for an interview, that basically required us to submit more supporting documents. So we dredged out love letters(emails!) when we were dating, put together photos of our weddings and sent them to Immigration Services via certified mail.

Last week, we received a letter: our application was denied. My work permit and advanced parole(travel permit) were terminated with immediate effect. I was to leave the country within 60 days.

The reason: we had failed to respond to requests for additional documents.

This must surely be a mistake. Horrified and in panic mode, we quickly got together our receipts and delivery proofs and sent them in with a letter to petition a reversal/re-opening of the application.

Scott and I were on tenterhooks over the weekend as we waited for a reply. On Monday, sooner then we thought it would, a letter arrived in the mail: Immigration Services has reconsidered and "the adverse decision is vacated"(the hubs thought the choice of words was pretty funny). Omg!! I can stay!! I shrieked in relief and hugged hubs. What a scare that was!

Then we realised that the letter was dated the day we sent in the petition to re-open the application. They must have found the documents and instantly rectified the situation with this letter, even before they got our petition letter! In any case, I was glad it didn't have to be a drawn out battle that would last years and stress us out. False alarm forgiven.

Two days later, another letter came that congratulated me on my new permanent residency status (yayyy!!), and also welcomed me to the United States. Funny this second part of it, for I have been here a whole year. I guess when I was alien and illegal, I was non-existent.

My green card arrived today. I exist.

Now I guess I will have to start paying taxes.

I got my hair cut!

2007-07-26T20:37:00.000-07:00

Nice? :D

ok ok, vain la, i know :P

A thousand cows in a burger

2007-07-15T16:48:00.001-07:00

Uh oh, now the song is jingling in my head.

Supersize supersize the American Way,
Going down throwing down all day everyday
Supersize Supersize the American Way
Getting fat, going broke, either way you're gonna pay
Supersize me
Supersize me

***

Part of my assimilation syllabus into America is the very famous, very entertaining quasi-documentary on fast food culture in USA. From this movie, I learnt that

there are some very very...very large people
doctors don't have to look proper and kindly; they can look pretty scary and crazy (credit to: Dr. Daryl Isaac, who went on to look scarier and crazier with each scene, but eventually won me over with his fierce concern for his patient's health. I kinda thought he stole the show actually) and
fries will stay fresh for 10 weeks

Now, I will throw in a personal anecdote for good measure:

Just before I left for LA, Carl's Junior begun their move into Singapore. CJ ran naughty, tongue-in-cheek ads everywhere and we were just riled in anticipation of a new choice of burgers and fries. There is no lack of cheap, delicious and nourishing food in Singapore, but no one advertises Yong Tau Foo the way MacDonald does their Big Macs, or in this case, CJ their Cheeseburgers. Part of the excitement I accrue to the naivette that the burgers will come just as big and juicy, and the fries as plump as they look in the ads. We are simply incorrigible.

In LA, hubs and I are driving downtown, "What do you want for lunch sweetie?" as we waited at the light. I looked out the window and, spotting the joint to my right, chimed brightly "Carl's Junior!"

The hubs paused in palpable horror.

Nonetheless, the wifey has made up her mind, and she is hungry.

We go into the restaurant and I chimed my order happily, "Cheeseburger, with fries please!" and trotted to the table with my tray. I sat down, hubs across the table watching me. I unwrapped my burger and.. stared.

It looked like one of the very, very large people had sat on my burger.

I braved myself to take a bite, chew, and.. taste it.

It tasted like someone very, very large had sat on my burger

:( I felt tears welling up in my eyes.

The hubs sympathized with a chuckle, but as sweet as he might be, he could not help but launch into a tirade about the junk food industry. I felt too sorry for myself to pay attention.

I know someone who paid a hundred dollars(SGD) to try the UberBurger in Singapore. I hope that it comes from just one cow.

Shopping in America

2007-07-12T21:50:00.000-07:00

You know what the best thing about shopping in America is?

You can return anything you buy.

I would like to go get a baby, preferably brunette with twinkling hazel eyes and a delightful chuckle, and try being a mother for kicks. I'll keep the receipt for bailout.

**

One day walking into the grocery store, Scott and I came by a woman, presumably a mother, ladened with too much shopping, looking hassled and pushing a double pram with a baby in each seat, whereupon the very amiable hubs, without missing a beat, spouted cheerfully:

"Oh look sweetie! Trader Joe's is having a special on babies - get 2 for the price of one!"

The mother of two burst into laughter.

True story.

**

I, on the other hand, come home and ponder the above fun hypothesis.

Afternoon naps

2007-07-10T07:35:00.000-07:00

Usually, daytime naps are taken in the car when hubs is driving us somewhere.

Something about riding in cars, buses, boats and planes just makes me sleepy, especially when the sun is beating in through the windshields. My eyes strain and squint to watch the road ahead and keep up with conversation, but inevitably, the eyelids hang too heavy and I slip into the unconscious. Strangely, I somehow awake from slumber just as we pull up to our destination :P

Yesterday, hubs and I took an afternoon nap together. I had been watching Oprah on tv, when hubs came over to cuddle. We were both tired, him from the nitrogen build-up and I from an active Sunday and work in the morning. Eventually, we slid onto the floor and drifted off in embrace, wedged in the narrow space between the couch and the coffee table...Zzzzz...snorrrre..zzzzzzz

45 min later - *awake and groggy*. Backs to each other, Hubs is now pressed up against the sofa, and I am wrapped around the coffee table(our table is a tree stump).

Irrational rant: Oh wherefore our allegiances lie?

I roll over and land on hubs and go back to dreamland, body aching from the confined and convoluted sleep area.

Afternoon naps make me feel privileged, and is particularly sweet when there is someone to nap with :)

Beautiful Sunday

2007-07-08T22:03:00.000-07:00

Hmm.. Scott says I've had a busy day today..

Woke up at 6am, sent the hubby off to his dive boat.

Had cereal for breakfast - Go Lean Crunch, my fav!

Cycled to the boathouse

Rowed for an hour

Cycled to the Farmer's Market at Ocean Park - nine grain toast from The Breadman!

Came home and messed with the MacBook

and out again to the beach - tonnes of people at the beach!

Boogie-boarded for an hour - the waves are rRRrooOllin' in! wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

Came home and cycled to the plaza

Shopped for a list of stuff

Hubby comes home! Hug hug!

Drove us to dinner at Siam Best. Finally had the shrimp wonton with asparagus special - bleah. the phad thai was yummy tho. I really liked the mango sticky rice we had the last time.

Home to look at all the photos hubby took on his dives. Nice set of pics today.

Well, I'm pretty happy with my day - how many people get the luxury of a beautiful day like this? :D

TRANSFORMERS movie...

2007-07-06T22:30:00.000-07:00

KICKS ASS!!!!! woooooooooohooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!! CGI rocks!! I am officially a Michael Bay fan (Armegeddon is another kick-ass movie- I felt a tremendous cathartic sense of relief walking out of the theatre after watching the asteroids bomb into earth.. can't say much about the plot though, ).

Funny how I grew up, not playing with Barbie dolls and Strawberry Shortcake, but watching Transformers cartoons in the late 80s/early 90s, yep, even when I was 19, I would tune into the Malaysian RTM channels to catch the cartoon. Nope, never owned a Transformers toy, but never missed (with my brother)an opportunity to plonk down in front of the tv for another battle between the Autobots and the Deceptacons...My brother and I used to sing that song Transformers, more than meets the eye, lalalalalalala lalaaaaathe Deceptacons, Transformers...ok ok, I never caught the lyrics, but here they are from Google anyway:

The Transformers,
More than meets the eye
Autobots wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of the Deceptacons
The Transformers
Robots in disguise
The Transformers
More than meets the eye
The Transformers.

...And Then the simple world was inundated with evil Tellytubbies and Tamagotchi and Yamagotchi and what nots..

The Transformers movie reincarnation with CGI is way cool, going to the movie made me feel young all over again hahaha. The theatre was filled with fans, clapping and cheering throughout the show, when Bumblebee spruced up into a shiny yellow Camero, when the Autobots crashed into earth a la the meteorites in Armegeddon etc etc. It was goo-oood.

Celebrating a year in America. Cheers.

Independence Day

2007-07-04T00:23:00.000-07:00

4th July 2007, my first Independence Day in America. We had friends over and went to the beach and had a smashing time boogie boarding, the waves were awesome! Then biked/bladed 4 miles to watch a pretty decent fireworks diplay at the marina, in fact we could see fireworks going off in several locations within view of the marina, so that was pretty neat.

This is a year to the day I moved to Santa Monica. A year living 14,000km from home.

In this year, I
1. Moved to America
2. Married the most wonderful person I know
3. Had 2 weddings - one in Singapore and one in New York
4. Honeymoon-ed in Bali
5. Travelled to New York, Buffalo, Portland, Mexico, Monterey Bay
6. Did 129 dives in the cold cold waters of California
7. Got chauffuered in a limousine
8. Became a massage therapist
9. Saw the magnificent Niagara Falls
10. Heard whales sing underwater
11. Cooked
12. Ate more cereal than I ever did in my life
13. Started rowing again, yay!
14. ...can't remember anything else now, but if I had kept blogging during the year, this probably would've been much easier...

this is a non-exhaustive list of major accomplishments and trivial pursuits for me to look back and remember how I spent my time, probably not too diligently for idling time away on the beach/in the sun/in the ocean.

What I know is that this has been the best year of my life thus far. I miss my family, esp my grandma, and friends back in Singapore, but how blessed I am to have my husband by my side, to have his love, support, encouragement, inspiration, to wake up in his arms every morning. I know moving here in the beginning was the right decision. I am happy =)

Happy Independence Day :)

Wedding Photos

2007-06-27T14:03:00.000-07:00

I'll try to pick up on blogging again - for now, here are the wedding photos. yep I got married!!! to my Bali beau :D

enjoy!

Solstice Canyon

2006-11-15T23:47:00.000-08:00

We buried little Fluffer's body today. At Solstice Canyon, in a quiet spot where the sun beams softly on her grave, the soil warms her, the stream gurgles beside her, and the trees shelter and protect her.

...

Little Snowey, she was so beautiful, although we thought she was somewhat deaf, her big black eyes were so bright and alert, and she was always climbing onto her little hind legs, trying to reach up as high as she could, sniffing for a piece of lettuce or parsley. Snowey ate so much, she loved all the fresh veggies and fruit we gave her, she'd eat anything. She'd be so happy. She would purr when you stroked her back. Rumblestrutting - such a funny word. Snowey showed me what rumblestrutting was: when a female wants to show domination, she struts and sashays her little butt and makes a rumbling noise. When we got Snowey back a month ago, she was losing hair on her sides, and rumblestrutting and humping other piggies: her hormones were wreaking havoc. She had abnormally large, inflammed ovarian cysts. So when Fluffer died, we immediately made an appointment to have Snowey spayed the next day.

Today, we brought her for her surgery in a box with bedding and hay. Snowey knew. She looked at me with those big black eyes and laid quietly in the box. I whispered to her, "Snowey, you're going to be okay.." ...but as we left, Snowey said goodbye with her big black eyes...

Tomorrow, we will lay Snowey beside Fluffer.

...All guinea pigs go to a little heaven, under the Rainbow Bridge, where they play with all the other little pigs and have lots of hay and sunshine.

Under The Rainbow Bridge

2006-11-14T16:44:00.000-08:00

Fluffer died today. She was 4 years and 9 months.

She had cancer, and we put her to sleep at the vet's. When guinea pigs die, we say that they have gone under the rainbow bridge.

Fluffer was the best little piggy in the world.

I Wish Someone Were Waiting For Me Somewhere

2005-10-22T18:48:00.000-07:00

Anna Gavalda - I remember the little booklet buried among the other more stately and prominent hardcovers. It caught my eye as i scanned through the vertical spines quickly (before I got a crick in the neck), and picked it out immediately. The title must've struck a chord somehow...

What followed was an engrossing read of courting rituals, lovers' antics and love stories; by Gavalda's writing sometimes subtly sensual, sometimes wildly passionate, or blatantly erotic, always with a pinch of salt. Courting Rituals of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés was especially fun to read as the opening story: when the mysterious stranger answers his cell phone on a first date, our heroine decides she has heard enough to cut short what could have been a passionate love affair. ("I come to my senses all at once. Traitor. Ingrate.") - Hilarious =P

Other stories: a salesman who unwittingly caused a horrific road accident and doesn't realise it until he reads the papers the next morning; two boys who borrowed their father's Jag for a night out and ended up destroying it; a veterinarian gang-raped by drunken farmers in a small town and gets her revenge. From first person to third person narratives, Gavalda tugs the heartstrings and plucks the nerves deftly. She brings up a whole gamut of emotions - loneliness, longing, pain, desperation, all stylishly and insightfully written.

****

My God, it's so surreal that I am able to say this: I do have someone waiting for me now..in Bali. Someone wonderful and someone I'm crazy about. It does feel wonderful.

36 hours to go..