Assorted Ravings of the Slightly-Weird

BQOTD

It's been a long time coming...

That's not to say that I haven't been thinking bitchy thoughts; just that I've been too lazy/out of sorts to blog in a while. But this was so funny I had to share it.

From my college roomie who says the funniest things in all seriousness:

"She's not old enough to be a cougar, but she could definitely be a puma."

HE HE HE.

Tis The Season...

... for baking, baking and more baking.

This past weekend, I marshalled up the forces (a skeleton force indeed due to attrition over the years) and spent 2 days making peanut almond cookies and pineapple tarts, with our own home-made pineapple jam.

5 people in 10+ hours over 2 days = 8 1/2 recipes of peanut almond cookies and 2 1/2 recipes of pineapple tarts. And it's not close to being enough! I'm facing the prospect of having to work the next few nights making more pineapple tarts. We normally make open-faced tarts so I thought I would try making the closed version with some store-bought jam, just to fill up the bottles and make it look more 'presentable'.

If there's time I'm also going to make love letters aka egg rolls. We did that once, a long time ago. We set up the barbecue, thinking that after we made bottles and bottles of love letters we could feed the army of helpers with some good ol' BBQ.

HA. HA. HA. Oh ye of over-abundant faith. Who knew that love letters would be so damn tedious. After one afternoon of grilling and rolling and much swearing (due to burnt fingers) we ended up with one bottle. Albeit one big bottle but still, just one bottle. The helpers were so wiped out, we just ordered takeout instead.

So, it's probably just a pipe dream of mine to make love letters on my own this year. But I have to say, the home-made ones taste so much better than the ones you get commercially. Yum.

I leave you now with some pictures of our spoils. A lucky few will get to see these in person! :)

Pineapple tarts and peanut almond cookies waiting to be packed


The loot

A Weekend Jaunt in Jerusalem

On a whim I took a quick trip to Jerusalem.

That's right: the Holy City.

I hopped onto Turkish Airlines from Shanghai (on the tail end of a work trip) on a Thursday night and by Friday mid-morning I was in Jerusalem. Woohoo! My first impression: the whole country is extremely rocky. My second impression: all the houses look the same, 1- or 2-storey buildings in the same colour.

As I walked around the Old City, I just kept wondering what it must have been like back in the year 1BC. Some of the streets are so narrow, they look like they've been there forever. But then some of the buildings look new enough that you don't really get the sense of history seeping through the stones. Plus, most of Jerusalem feels quite commercialised so perhaps a traveller making a pilgrimmage may be disappointed. As for me, I was glad I hopped onto the plane. 3 days may have been a tad too short, but I did manage to visit most of the historic sites and to immerse myself a little in the culture.

The only snag was that when I got to the airport on Sunday, my flight was delayed and as a result Turkish Airlines put me onto a different airline to get to my final destination of Shanghai. In the end, it wasn't really much of a snag because I ended up getting home 9 hours before scheduled :) And, I managed to watch Kingdom of Heaven on the plane as well, which was kinda apt.

Photos are here. I only brought my Fisheye Lomo as I didn't have space in my luggage for a big bulky camera. Lomo rocks!

Milk Monster's 1st Trip

Just back from a weekend getaway to Bali with the entire family.

That's right. Grandma, Grandpa, proud parents, proud aunt (me!) and Milk Monster herself. The entire nuclear clan upped and went to Bali, ostensibly for a twin celebration of wedding anniversary and birthday, but more to ogle at the star herself, Princess Milk Monster.

The villa we stayed in was amazing. Since it's currently the low season, prices were much less stratospheric and pretty darn affordable if you compared it to getting 3 hotel rooms. Located in the tiny village of Ketewel, by the beach, Villa Maya is a great choice for a quick getaway. You can just relax in the villa the whole time, or go for a walk on the black sand beaches, or hire a car and drive around. When we stepped into the grounds, we all just went "Wahhhh". I can't even describe it here so I'll leave it to the photos that will be coming up but in the meantime you can check it out here.

Milk Monster is an amazing traveller! Only 4 months old and she took to plane travel like a duck to water. The minute she got on the plane, she fell asleep (like mother, like daughter). Minimal crying, minimal fuss, both outbound AND inbound. Next up, Canada? Haha.

Funny Cakes and A Re-start to Cooking

I was reading the online version of the NYTimes today when I came across this article.

Hehehe. Some of them are SO BAD, I could have done a better job.

I've also started cooking again with not-so-bad results. Cooking for me really depends on my mood and it's been almost a year since I last felt like stepping into the kitchen. So I guess it's good news that I'm back in the mood to cook :)

I'm waiting on Martha Wannabe to upload photos of the menu I created (cough cough) for her birthday dinner. Other stuff that I've done recently include 2 flavours of polenta balls stuffed with cheese and, of course, my favourite mentaiko pasta. I like to dream up recipes, tweaking stuff that I learn from TV (I <3 AFC!) and from the web. Most of the time I run through my recipes in my head whilst driving, and since my boss is kinda pushing me to come in to the office earlier (ie right during rush hour) I now have A LOT more driving time.

(What is the point of leaving home at 0830 and getting into the office only at 0905, when I could leave at 0850 and get in at 0910?!?!)

Grrr. Ah well, I guess the upshot of all this increase aggro (I totally understand road rage now) is that I can cook up more stuff in my head.

Yawn Yawn Yawn

It's 1740 on a Friday afternoon and I can barely keep my eyes open.

I've been sitting around for the past 40 minutes trying to look busy, and basically I'm waiting for someone to reply to an email before I can send it out and leave. How unproductive.

*YAWN*

And another. *YAWN*

And now the guy I've been waiting on has just stepped into another meeting. Wah lau, brudder, you don't wanna go home, fine. BUT I DO!

When is the weekend ever gonna start?!?!?!??

Random Links

What with the new addition and all, it's been a busy time! Maybe this blog should now be turned into the chronicles of a newbie aunt :)

So far I've managed to dodge the hands-on nappy changing, although I have assisted in a few already. Did you know that breast-fed baby poo is bright yellow in colour?? How interesting!

Anyhow, seeing as it's Friday and all I'm guessing most people are in the weekend mood already so here are some links for diversionary purposes.

1) I found this a few weeks ago on the NYTimes website. It's so creative!

2) Staying with the NYTimes, here's a testament to the strength of man's best friend.

3) And finally, there's this. A site worth visiting every day!

The Luxuries of Age

Getting old sucks, but on the plus side you get away with a lot more than you could if you were younger.

Case in point: I'm in the elevator at the office, and an elderly lady is in there with me. The two of us ride in companionable silence for a while, and then the following conversation ensues.

(If you can't read Chinese, too bad.)

Auntie: 哇！你的身材很好！
Me: er... 谢谢...
Auntie: 胸部要大，身材才能好... 你有胸，是自己的吗?
Me: 当然是自己的！

I swear, if it had been anyone else except an old auntie, I'd have gotten really mad. Instead, I just wrote it off to the eccentricities that plague the old, particularly the elderly female.

A Long Time Coming...

This is the best promotion ever :)

I'm now an aunt!

Yay! Hooray!

Welcome little one, it's going to be a fun ride :)

Shiver Me Timbers

My office is the coldest place on the island.

Even when it's dark and gloomy and cold outside, the temperature in here is guaranteed to be at least 10 degrees colder. It's a bone-chilling 18C here and it's a common sight to see people wearing fleece jackets in the office. Me, I have a hoodie and a shawl and a long jacket; sometimes I wear all 3 at once. When I walk out into the hot sun, it takes me a good 5 minutes to warm up to the ambient temperature.

Yesterday, it was so cold not just in the office but in the whole building that I just HAD to get out to defrost. Never mind that I really needed to pee as well, if I had had to spend another minute in this Arctic corner of the equator, I'd have frozen.

Needless to say, I then spent the next 30 minutes driving home alternately shivering from defrosting and shaking from having to hold my pee in. (The loo in the carpark is too gross for words.)

It was NOT a fun ride.