Inedible

I had a skype conversation with a friend yesterday and it went like this:-

.

Friend : pork is not food

Me : because?

Friend : no reason ... just like a diamond ... not food. It's inedible

.

That really made me laugh. At least StevenC and I still think that pork is food even though we do not eat it.

Do Not Murder

Do not Murder!!!

.

Two nights ago, my husband saw a rat running from our kitchen to the living room. He was so terrified that he froze for a few seconds. After regaining his composure, he asked ME to deal with it. Then he went to the bedroom and closed the door, leaving ME to deal with the pesky rodent.

.

I remember, in the first year of our marriage, I had to terminate the life of a rat. It ran into one of the rooms, also known as our "rubbish" (store) room. I boiled some water, trapped the rat and poured hot water to kill it. The cleaning part was a little messy.

.

This time, I was smart enough to tell dear hubby that I would buy a mouse trap and deal with it another day.

.

I went to the hardware shop the next day and bought this piece of card board with thick glue spread onto it.

.

That night, I placed it near the rubbish bin.

.

Next morning, voila! I saw a rat wriggling amidst the glue-y paste, trying in vain to escape. Fearing his determination to break free from the glue, I quickly threw it into a plastic bag and tied it up.

.

It's at the moment in my trash can ..... hopefully dead by now!

.

So there, a murder took place today.

Christmas Musical 2008

Christmas Musical 2008? What?!?!?!?

.

In 2006, we did an Easter Musical and in 2007, we did a Christmas Musical.

.

This year, we'll be combining both Christmas and Easter to form a complete story - from before the birth of Jesus to the resurrection of Christ.

.

For many umpteen donkey years, I have been involved in props (and in the later years, stage). Two years ago, during the post-mortem of the EM, I requested to be involved in the Lights section for our next musical. In 2007, I was under Stage and Props again!!!

.

This year, I was a little more adamant and guess what? I am now involved in stage production, props AND lights. Sigh!!!

.

A challenge is a challenge. I figured that I can get the stage & props done by Nov 30th and begin with the lights from Dec 1st onwards. Should not be a problem, I think.

.

It's a good thing many people signed up as volunteers for Stage and Lights. Thank God for them.

.

Right now, my biggest worry is how to design the stage with 12 (TWELVE) different scenes. Any ideas, anyone?

Singapore (September 6th - 8th, 2008)

I was in Singapore last weekend (AGAIN!) and no, this time it was a 3-day instead of a one day trip. We were there for only one reason - to watch Rebecca Chellappah (a.k.a Ranjini) perform, together with Hyun-Jin Lee from Korea, Noriko from Japan, Catarina from Portugal and Mutian from China. Together, they performed several songs.

.

Just prior to leaving Seremban, I felt lethargic.. which is not that surprising considering the fact that we were supposed to leave for Singapore at 1pm and finally left at 5pm. The waiting period was what made me lethargic, as I can't stand waiting PLUS, I don't like not being able to get much done at home as I wasn't certain what time we will be leaving.

.

The journey to Singapore was a very long and toturous one as I had a combination of a headache, stomach cramp and back ache. It was an uncomfortable journey. I tried to adjust my sitting arrangement, moving from one side to another, but to no avail. I still felt horrible.

.

We arrived at Aunty's place at 9.30pm and for the first time, I didn't carry any bags up the apartment. I was too sick to do anything. But I did eat some rice, chicken and dahl, just to fill my

stomach.

.

After dinner, to ease my discomfort, I laid down on the mattress. I slept soon after that.

.

I woke up at 12.30am, with stomch cramps and backache ... and this time, feeling nauseous. I threw up my dinner. It was a painful ordeal as I felt s though I am trying to vomit my stomach out.

.

I tried to sleep after that but was intermittently disturbed by the fact that both my stomach and back were hurting.

.

At 4.30am, I threw up another time. This time, it was a little of my dinner and water. Once again, I endured the painful ordeal.

.

Once again, I tried to sleep but couldn't.

.

At 9am, I decided that enough was enough. I got up and lo and behold, I was feeling much better. So I took a shower to freshen myself.

.

The moment I came out of the bathroom, I felt ill again. Breakfast was Nestum and Milo (Tina told me later that I shouldn't drink Milo when I feel nauseated).

.

I decided to go see the doc. I certainly didn't want to suffer through another night of pain and nausea.

.

The doctor confirmed it was food poisoning and gave me a shot to stop me from feeling dizzy.

.

We walked back to the car, which was parked about 150 meters away. Almost reaching the car, I had to sit on the grass because I wasn't feeling good.

.

During the car ride back, I was feeling terrible and just as we turned into the road going to Aunty's place, I threw up again - for the third time. I saw Milo and Nestum in the plastic bag, which I had the good sense to bring along.

.

I slept from 2.30pm - 4.30pm and felt SO much better after that. Almost 100% well.

.

I decided to go for the performance and was glad I made it. The performance was great. Such great talent!

.

By then, I was feeling like my old self except for the fact that I felt thirsty all the time. I ate one sugar-free sweet to take away my thirst and it was a BIG mistake. After that, my throat stated hurting.

.

By the time we got back, my voice changed. I knew I was in trouble because my throat started hurting and I was begining to cough.

.

I slept pretty well that night.

.

I decided to do a little shopping the next day. I had a list of places to shop at but I didn't make it to all because I felt so exhausted after 2 hours of shopping. I came back early to rest.

.

We left Singapore at 7pm and arrived back at 11.30pm. The journey back was smooth. There were no traffic jams at the immigration and customs area.

.

My cough got worse, though. It's been 3 days since we came back from Singapore and my cough has graduated to a higher level. I coughed till my throat, ears and lungs hurt.

.

Sigh! When will I get better again?

Creditor Comes A-Calling

Nobody likes to receive calls from a creditor calling to say that you have not paid the outstanding balance.

.

I got such a call yesterday and was utterly surprised. I distinctively remembered paying in RM250 for last month's credit card bill, after I have confirmed with a telebanker that my outstanding sum payable was RM232... which meant that I paid an extra RM12. The bank OWES me money!

.

As I was in Singapore when the call came through, I didn't haved much choice but to call a friend of mine working in that bank. She told me that she would explain when I got back to Malaysia.

.

Well, today I went to see her. It seemed that I made the payment on the billing date and the bank's system didn't take that into account. Because of that, I got slapped with a RM10 + RM3 for financial and interest charges.

.

Of course, being me, I was cool, calm and collected. My friend offered to write to the credit card company to ask them to "take note of the payment made" and "reverse all interest and financial charges".

.

For a great bank like this, I am curiously surprised by their system's inability to factor payments made on the billing date itself.

.

All told, I'm glad I didn't have to fork out another RM250 for something which I thought I didn't pay.

Singapore in a Day

I've been wanting to bring my car into Singapore since March. As usual, I procastinated, simply because there were a lot of things that needed to be done - taxes, church events, weddings, etc.

Early August, while having breakfast after our Kepayang Hill exercise, Esther asked (err.. she actually pestered me) if we could go to Singapore before September. I mentally looked at my schedule. Every Saturday was filled with things to do... except for the last Saturday of August. I happily said "okay" to this date. A few days later, it suddenly dawned upon me that it's a long weekend for Malaysia because of Independence day. A sudden recollection of a long 4.5 hour jam on the second link a few years ago came into mind. Gulp! Do I want to go through that again?

I talked to Esther about it and she was confident that the traffic would be smooth. When I told Rajen about it, all he said was "All the best" because he also remembered the longest Singapore-Seremban drive he suffered through in his entire life.

Two weeks later, someone mentioned that it's the start of the Singapore school holidays! Double Gulp! I asked Esther again, "Do you REALLY need to go?"

August 30th came. I slept past 2am and woke up at 3.15am. Got ready and waited 1/2 hour for Esther to come. I left my car at my parents' place for Esther to drive. I told her that I don't want to wake up 10 minutes early to fetch her.

From my place, we picked Matthew and Min Chee and headed for the highway. It was 4.54am.

I noticed the "OD Off" next to the pedometer of my car but was too tired to figure out why that light came on. I dozed off to sleep intermittently while Esther and Min Chee talked. Matthew slept too.

We were supposed to stop at the Machap R & R but we missed it! I couldn't ever imagine missing such a big rest area with many sign boards along the highway.

Two reasons why we missed it:-

1 - The signboards, which were supposed to be reflective, lost the reflective-ness. We couldn't really read what was printed on the signboards. Esther mentioned something about 3M losing the business many years ago and the govt used products that are cheaper ... and of course, lower grade.

2 - It was really foggy at that time of the morning

Esther was looking for the fog lights. I didn't even know there were fog lights. Shows how little I know about my car. Min Chee, from the back, was trying to look for the fog light lever. She then noticed the "OD Off" light and asked about it.

To cut a long story short, OD Off means OD on. I told Esther to press the button near the gear stick and the light was gone. RPM went from 4000 to 2500. And the car ran so much smoother. I just hope there is not much damage done to the engine.

We stopped at the Gelang Patah R&R at 7.30am. Filled out our forms and filled up petrol.

There was hardly any traffic at the immigration on the Malaysian side. We proceeded to cross the bridge and arrived at the Singapore Immigration in 5-10 minutes. Not many cars there either. Phew! We stopped for a while to purchase the auto pass card. It was a simple and quick procedure.

With a map in hand, I navigated while Esther drove. We arrived at Orchard road at 9.30am with no problems at all. We parked at the open car park near Borders and looked for breakfast.

After breakfast in Takashimaya, I was on my own. Esther, Min Chee and Matthew followed Patrick.

As usual, I went to all the craft shops I knew - Borders, Takashimaya and Plaza Singapura. I didn't really buy a lot of stuff this time ... which is good cause I'll be going to Singapore again this weekend.

We met for dinner at Crystal Jade in Takashimaya and left Singapore at 8.30pm. Our aim was to arrive at the PD toll by 11.30pm.

Once again I was nervous because there might be a big jam at the Immigration. True enough, 2.5km before arriving there, we came to a stand still. We were there for an hour - which is not too bad, actually.

By the time I arrived home, it was about 1am! I was really tired, partly because I was talking to Esther in the car. I really wanted to doze off but knew that if she didn't talk to anyone, she might feel sleepy. I think, half the time I didn't know what I was talking about.

We calculated ... from the time we left our houses to the time we came back was 20.5 hours. What a looong day for us.