Farewell, Thou Voluptuous Sow

Gong xi fa cai, wan shi ru yi!
Bu bu gao shen, xin xiang shi chen!

And just like that, it's the Year of the Rat.

With random auspicious sayings out of the way, I have to say it's kind of wistful in a way to see the Year of the Pig already gone. Piggy's been pretty good to me, you see, blessing me with all sorts of... erm... blessings. A new job's that proved to be so much better than the last one (granted, it's quite difficult for any job to be worse than that last one), being able to get new stuff for my apartment, even a sweet affair.

Also, perhaps unfortunately so, I was blessed with a very healthy appetite.

I looked back at some old pics taken just before the last Chinese New Year. There I was, slim enough to fit into a bloody size 30cm jeans! By the end of the 15 days, I could no longer wear that. And for the rest of the year, it only seemed that I could only get fatter.

I suppose it was a combination of things - my energy levels had dropped (perhaps due to aging, but more likely to be from pure inertia), work commitments, clashing schedules, lack of motivation, getting posted to the food capital of the country for several months, and of course, having a PIG for the patron animal of the year.

Oh, I've known what was happening. In case I had forgotten, more recent reminders popped up. Like when I did Body Balance a week or so back, only to discover I could no longer hold the poses as well as I did before. More specifically, I was having trouble supporting my own body weight. Like wtf?

And then there's the time I was in Body Combat (just for a few rounds, I am no longer fit enough to take a whole class these days). Imagine... just jogging on the spot made me think I should get a sports bra.

Sigh, I guess there's only so much body fat one can ignore. I don't make resolutions but I am thinking that perhaps, just perhaps, chubbiness has gone out of fashion, right along with the Year of the Pig. Maybe it's time once again to put my gym membership to good use - and I'm not talking about the steam rooms or the soda fountains. It's said that under the Rat's dominion this year, us Dragons will enjoy what the Chinese call tao hua yun - literally, peach blossom luck (ie. love luck). Still, it would be better if I can help it along and hopefully, point it in the right direction.

After all, I do want to be attracting desirables, rather than oh, say, bitchy aunties who like their boys to be... meatier.

Junk. Food

Yeah, the season of the dong dong dong qiang with the gong xi gong xi draws ever nearer. In fact, it's just around the corner. Spring dosth cometh down to ye mortale realmes. And of course, for many a chinois household, this means it's the weekend for frantic spring cleaning.

For many a household I say, but not for this one.

No, I'm already overwhelmed by the need to sort through piles of junk (literally, PILES) and reorganise my stuff to bother about little details such as changing the curtains (not that I have a spare set lying around... or maybe I do, somewhere in all that junk), cleaning the ceiling fans, and wiping down every window in the apartment. Heck, it looks like I'd have to leave sweeping and mopping the floor till I get back from the homelands, which really is too late but heck, not like there'll be any visitors (and if there are, too bad, I won't be home till some days into the new year).

But yeah, talking about junk. The state of my apartment follows the universal law of nature - where the is space, it will be filled. Ordered chaos (or chaotic order), if you will. So if I don't put anything that's functional or at least decorational there first, some stuff or other will eventually find its way there, and most likely that stuff would be junk.

Digging through my stuff the past week or so, I've found that my junk generally belongs in one of three categories:

1. Stuff that should be thrown away, but I had never gotten round to doing it. Example, old newspapers.

2. Stuff that I had wanted to keep, and keep them I did - in the piles of junk, never to be touced or even seen again. Most of these things were the random stuff I had brought with me when I first moved in, only to pile them all into one room, to be sorted out later (later turned out to be now, which is about... *gulp* two years later).

3. Stuff that I would use from time to time, but wind up getting lost in all that junk, so that I keep buying new ones. Especially stuff like stationery.

Thing is, I had finally bought shelves for the 'store' room, which spurred this sudden need to reorganise and junk stuff. So, on the plus side, I'm finally setting that room to rights, and it's now slowly taking shape as a study/utlity.

Sorting through all that junk that accumulated in all my years of whoring hording though, is tough. I'm the sort who would think, "Yeah, but no, but yeah, but... maybe I would want this one day". Never mind that that one day hasn't appeared in the last several years the thing has been sitting in an ever growing pile of untouched junk. And it's always the small things that add up. Things like old VCD's, old floppy disks (come think of it, I can't read these disks at home anymore), old gifts...

Big things are easier. The old PC (sans hard disk, which had long ago reincarnated into an external HDD) and its monitor, and the old computer table - one of those designed with a recess to hold the monitor at an angle, which is now redundant since I use a laptop. These were things I gladly let go of.

Of course, the remnants of the kampung boy that I was convinced me that with the trouble it would take me to junk the stuff, I could put just a little more effort into it and send it to the scrapyard. You know, being an occasional greenie and all (not to mention the promise of some spare cash to line the ang paos for other people's kids). So I enlisted the muscles of Joshua and we sent the stuff, along with my old newspaper collection, to be sold to the junkieons.

To thank the little bugger for his aid, I bought him lunch at a nice-ish restaurant, called Bumbu Bali, in a place literally called Princess City (ie. Bandar Puteri, over in Puchong). I remember the food there being quite nice. It still was nice, though not excellently so. The prices were rather steep for a place like this but otherwise, it was OK.

I found it most disturbing to see Soup Buntut among the specials. Like, really? ASS SOUP??? EEEW!

The drink I had was pretty good - Banana with Palm Sugar Ice Blend. A little sweet at first, but once the ice melted somewhat, it was better. Joshua had the Cookies and Cream. You wanna know if it's any good, go ask him.

The food was alright as well. We had the BBQ chicken with nasi kuning, and the BBQ fish with nasi ubun (or something or other). And despite the tiny mound of rice, it was immensely filling. I'd give it up a one thumb up only though, cos I felt the food just wasn't quite worth the price.

By the way, the money from the scrapyard didn't even cover lunch expenses, much less make it into red packets for overeager children.

*wipes away the solitary tear running down my cheek

Oh well, at least I managed to clear some major junk from my place. And it even paid for lunch.

...

Almost.

Unravel

while you are away
my heart comes undone
slowly unravels
in a ball of yarn
the devil collects it
with a grin
our love
in a ball of yarn
he'll never return it
so when you come back
we'll have to make new love
he'll never return it
so when you come back
we'll have to make new love
Bjork

Sundays are meant for chilling, so the monkey and I, with token straights in tow, waddled our fat asses over to Pavilion to unwind. Did we do anything new or novel? No.

Well, almost not.

There are certain places which I would never ever go, save when the generosity of my heart prevails over self-interest, and I wind up accompanying my friends there as a show of support. The Eye is one such place. Kenko Fish Spa is another.

Honestly, I hate touching fish. I wouldn't handle guppies with my bare hands, if I could help it. So why in the world would I willingly subject myself to frenzied fish feeding on my feet? I must be masochistic. And no, it really doesn't help that I'm rather sensitive (ie., extremely ticklish).

After several traumatic attempts at getting my feet wet (involving bouts of nervous giggling and grinning through gritted teeth), I finally managed to leave my feet in there for the fish to kiss (and boy, were they kissing all over my feet) by distracting myself with some other fun activity - camwhoring! I think it must have taken me fifteen minutes or so to get used to all the pecking enough to ignore it. And about another five minutes more for the fish to uncover a piece of loose skin and attack it. Voraciously. It was about then I decided I had had enough for the day.

Make that for a lifetime.

The tranquil atmosphere belies the hunger that lies beneath

Gentle massage that will help relieve stress and tension? Really? You mean my tightly curled up toes and those hands pressed into the floorboards were actually a sign of me relaxing?

Comfort, for me, would involve me eating fish rather than them eating me, thank you very much.

Which is why it's a good thing that Pavilion has a got a rather nice food court in the incarnation of Food Republic. Here's something I understand, and one sure fire way to provide me with warmth and comfort.

I want citizenship!

Anyway, one man's fish is another man's torture, and thankfully for Kenko, people seem to enjoy the fish spa thing, bar the occasional nervous gigglers (like me), and one squeeler (thankfully, not me). Oh and spotted! Fly Guy with wife and a rather cute male friend dipping their feet in.

In the meantime, parents with chaotic children and terrible teens, who need stronger therapy than that found in either a food court or a fish spa, well they might want to head over to Times. Seems that this bookstore will be happy to relieve you of your screaming kids and give you some books in return so that you can finally go chill out at the bistro in peace and quiet.

New books for used kids

Now that's what I call stress relief!