Gettin' Piggy With It (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)

If I had been bugged the last few days, this probably would be what you'd hear.

munch munch munch munch munch munch munch munch

googoogaagaa aboodoodoo how? how?

munch munch munch munch

snore...

[repeat]

[and keep repeating for about four days]


Daniece likes to point.

She points here, there, everywhere, and at almost everything. The princess wants, the princess demands!

Or maybe she's seen too much of that Sophie Ellis Bextor music video...

I want that one!

Here's a secret to staying young.

Don't get married.

Ancient Chinese customs say he (or she) who is not married is still a child. Being considered a child, of course, has its perks, especially during the Chinese New Year. After all, it is the time when all unmarried people are eligible. I meant for receiving ang pows la!


However...

The ang pows you get will also likely come from a pile of generic kid's ang pow, ie. one that is filled with one dollar notes. Probably not many of those in each packet, either. And all that, after having to listen to the "You must get married" talk - not because they have your best interests at heart, not because they expect you to carry on the family name and honour thy ancestors, but simply because "I don't want to give you any more ang pow next year!".

Also, as I found out, many people have no qualms about squashing centuries of culture and tradition, when they realise you're not about to get married any time soon (or any time at all). And your brother's had a baby, meaning the next generation has arrived. I know it's only the fourth day of new year but seriously, IS THAT ALL I'M GETTING???


But there is more than one way to be prosperous.

Unfortunately, I've headed down the Miraculously Expanding Waistline Way. Well, it is the Year of the Pig, and we have to honour the patron animal of the year...


So I made an offering.

I meant besides my sanity, my stomach and my soul.

Really.

I made a Peanut Butter Cheesecake to share with everyone. Yes, I do know how to spread some sin around. This was the second time I tried doing this and I thought it turned out better than the first. At least it tasted like cheese this time, and not just peanut butter.

Turned out everyone in my family would have preferred it to taste of less cheese and more peanut butter. Still, everyone loved it. Despite not having seconds. Especially when they heard that a big part of it was condensed milk.

Sin sin sin. Now served on a flowery porcelain plate.

I am officially fat now.


So why am I here blogging?

That means I'm sitting. Worse, I'm SNACKING! Heaven forbid!

I should be in the gym! Like, right now!

Oh wait... I haven't had my dinner. Maybe tomorrow then...

In The Mood For Red

Back when I was a student with time in my hands, I always loved getting the house ready for the Chinese New Year. Well, not the sweeping or the scrubbing or the washing part of it anyway. My inclinations never skewered that way.

No, what I would take charge of was, of course, the decorations! I loved doing it. From the folding origami to laying out the wall patterns, I would always strive to do something different every year. Granted, it wasn't easy and sometimes less than satisfying considering the limited resources I had to work with - namely, the season's cards and ang paos (red packets), thrown together with last years' (sometimes last five years') decorative pieces (think fake plum blossoms).

Once I was so bored of sticking the fake blossoms on twigs I decided to string them all up and hang them from the ceiling of the living room. This was way before a certain cafe opened in KL to rave reviews about its suspended feathers.

Nowadays, though, it's a much simpler affair. Above all, working till the last (or next to last) day before the new year means I don't have enough idle time in my hands to plot nefarious schemes to frustrate my mom (while I'm the one who puts up the decorations, she's the one who has to take them down).

Even with a place of my own now, I don't really bother much to do anything to it. As it is, I can barely keep my place clean and tidy. What's the point of decorating the place if there are books and mags here, there, everywhere; the dining tables a place to store shoeboxes and mails; and I haven't wiped the grime off the windows?

At least this year, I have new curtains so nobody has to look at the windows. And the mess on my dining table can be easily moved to a less conspicuous spot in my house (I have an entire room dedicated to a miscellany of messes). As for the books and mags... erm, I'll just call them decorative details.

Besides, tacky Chinese New Year decor is fine for the family home but no way I'll have that in my place! My reputation would be as tattered as a decade-old origami crane.

Maybe to add flavor to the occasion I'll buy a pumpkin for a centrepiece.

And perhaps, just perhaps, I would raise the red lantern - though my preferred phrase is "big red lantern high high hang".

For now, I'll settle for tinting my blog red.

Happy New Year, all! Time to get piggy wit' it.

Sand In My Shoes

Beach holiday, oh beach holiday. I've been wanting for... well, a long time. So did I spend the past week away on a beach holiday?

No.

I did watch The Holiday, which was a nice, sweet film (I cried a little but I cry at children's movies too). Then spent most of the week away travelling around on business.

It so happened one of my stop-overs was at a little seaside town on the east coast. So even though I wasn't on holiday, I did get a beach. Not a great beach, but still one takes what one gets.

Token picture of coconut trees.

Spot the crab!

Foamy, bubbly, briney thingy.

Token seashell pic.

Twiggy thingies.

Hey Geekchic, you gonna be doing this?
Try it in a traditional Chinese wedding dress!

Peek-a-boo!

I woke up at 6:30 for this. You'd better put on a good show!

Mud and rocks. So much for beach.

This is making me want a real holiday. On a nice beach. Or even up in the mountains. Under the stars.

Who's coming?

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

Here's the crab. Actually, a different one but who can tell, eh? It still blends into the muck.

dukha

sepi
singgahnya sebutir tangisan di
pengkalan mata, terhilang hala
hanya pedih menunggu
saat tersisih

A Morning On A Day Off

He barely ever sleeps before midnight, but he did. He wishes he didn't. Wouldn't have woken up before break of day then. But he did.

So he rolled out of bed, and flipped on a movie. Some foreign film, no subtitles (he gets by without it). He thinks he hears the same word being repeated through what passed to be the dialogue. Something that sounded like "kimochiii".

The sun crept up the sky. He went out to buy himself some breakfast, and the day's papers to pore over.

The sun crept up the sky. He made himself a drink. Sunrise to greet the morning.

Joao Gilberto stirs the air with her languid vocals, invoking quiet thoughts and quiet dreams.

Quiet thoughts.

Quiet dreams.

He thinks, knowing even as he thinks that he thinks too much. He dreams, but he dreams too much as well.

He sits, he ponders, and he writes. He writes about sitting and pondering.

He could just walk out, get into his car, and leave. Head somewhere, anywhere but here. And spend the day thinking and dreaming still, just somewhere else.

He could slip into deliberate misdemeanour, provoking the holidaying drones into shock, disgust, and perhaps even amusement. Maybe even find himself starring on YouTube.

He could take to the streets with a big bunch of balloons, handing them out to random people - foreign, local, young, old, even bumi or non-bumi. He would wish them all a nice day and ask only that they pass on a smile to someone else today.

Sponsors for balloons, anyone?

Still he sits, he ponders and he writes. And he writes about sitting and pondering.

Quiet nights of quiet stars
Quiet chords from my guitar
Floating on the silence that surrounds us.

Quiet thoughts and quiet dreams
Quiet walks by quiet streams
And a window that looks out on Corcovado
Oh how lovely

Antonio Carlos Jobim : Corcovado