I found Slate’s Slow Burn and listened to 3 seasons – Biggie and Tupac, Clinton and Watergate. All these major historical events that I know of but knew nothing much of.
As a kid, I had created my own account of what these events were all about and never bothered to get a fuller picture.
New York/California rappers/gangsters shot each other. Puff Daddy will see the fat one that died when he gets there. The End.
US president cheats on wife with Monica Lewinsky and a stained dress proved it. The End.
Top US classified information was stolen from some kinda military base near a water dam (thus Watergate, duh) and Nixon was the bad guy. The End.
All 3 seasons were so good! Told in an interesting way and thought provoking.
I also finished Sweet Bobby. Catfishing that lasted 8 years? The perpetrator is indisputably repugnant but it’s still really hard not to victim blame. Why isn’t there an insistence to turn on the camera, ever etc.
My Year in MENSA was also hilarious. Elitism mixed with Alt+R political incorrectness, plus Facebook. Cocktail for comedy. I never knew Mensa is what Spanish speaking folks call idiotic or stupid women. Haha.
During the Covid lockdown, we adopted Loki. Loki is a pomapoo. It was August 2020, and he was 8 months old at the time. J was overjoyed. It had been J’s dream to have a dog for many years, albeit a more “manly” one.
Loki is an absolute soft toy come to life. He can be noisy (will bark at cats, bigger dogs, and anyone or anything that passes our home) and cheeky (will climb onto our sofa when we aren’t home) but it really felt like Loki was always meant to be part of our family. I love our little cuddle sessions.
Anyway, Loki was part of a litter of 3 male puppies. Leo, Loki’s Pomeranian father, was just 7 months old when he impregnated Mimi, a Poodle, with (fun fact) just 1 testicle. Last of the lot, Loki gave Mimi a hard time and couldn’t be birthed naturally. Fortunately for us, the vet thought Loki was a female puppy and for that reason alone, Loki’s ex-owners decided to fork out for a c-section.
At 8 months, 5 dogs was more than Loki’s ex-owners could handle and he was offered to us for adoption. J and I have had many many quarrels over Loki cause J really spoils Loki and I get super jealous and irritated.
Tortious act
A few months ago, Loki’s ex-owners asked us if we would be open to adopting Loofie as well.
They wanted Leo’s bloodline to continue and decided to buy an all white female Pomeranian to breed with Leo. At the pet store, they came across an adorable brown and black Pomeranian with heart problems and ending up buying her as well. Again, they found themselves with 6 dogs and needed to give one up.
They didn’t want Loofie to be totally alone in the world and thought reuniting Loofie with Loki would cushion things for Loofie.
J was alright with the idea but I straight up declined cause it’s another household expense and tried to convince J’s sister to adopt Luffy. I was already imagining all the play dates Loki and Loofie could have. Alas, her future condo doesn’t allow pets.
J and I then offered Loofie to another family that we knew love dogs (so that Loki and Loofie might have play dates still). After I made the offer, I realised that I wanted Loofie myself. I couldn’t sleep cause I kept thinking they’d accept. So before they accepted, I deleted my messages to them and told Loki’s ex-owners that we’d take Loofie.
Aftermath
Loofie has been with us for 15 days. It was really challenging. He had diarrhoea for 4 days due to antihistamines. He’s only used to pooping indoors. At the worst, Jason had to get up 3 times at night to clean up his poop in our bedroom. We forgot about dog grills that we could use to make Loofie poop on pee pads only. Using that now, thank God.
Poor Loki was so used to being the only pooch in the house. Loki hasn’t had any peace since Loofie came. Loofie shadows and bugs Loki to no end.
Loofie is so different from Loki. Kinda gross actually, haha. He burps and farts. He does this thing where his face looks just like Snoop Dogg and we call him that quite often. I was thinking of switching his name to Snoopy but J rejected the idea.
Luckily, Loofie is still adorable in a goofy way and hopefully his fur will grow out soon!
Once again, the last few weeks have passed by in a whirl.
Felix and Alexis took part in their first swim meet two weeks ago. It was very ambitious of us because they had only attended seven or eight classes before the Swimin12 Sports Day. Alexis was very insistent that she want to take part because she wanted to get a medal. Fortunately, the little miss got what she wanted and went home with a silver medal.
Our silver medalist and consolation prize winner ๐
I also took Felix and Alexis ice skating at 163 Mont Kiara. It’s a tiny ice skating rink but really fun since it’s not so crowded. Skates there are still very new. The ones at Sunway Pyramid were vile. I paid RM5 for newer ones at Sunway Pyramid but the pair they gave Alexis looked pretty worn in, and when we swapped that pair for the older ones instead, she got a blister that burst in 20 minutes.
Can’t wait to go again.
Alexis is flaunting her new bob in the pictures. Really Jason’s child, can’t stop looking at her reflection and loving her new hair.
We watched The Batman last Thursday and I just loved it.
Even though the screen was black most of the time (a pet peeve), I just loved the detective vibe of the whole show. Robert Pattinson is also the Batman that all women deserve in return for all the unsought action films we put up with for our other halves. Gorgeous.
I’m also watching Euphoria and this series is just… crazy. There’s so much to process each episode. I’m glad it isn’t just the pure emo, we want to cut or kill ourselves teen trope that I thought it might be.
I was also rabidly listening, reading and watching all the Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos stuff.
Apart from all the media content I’ve been consuming, I’ve been feeling very content. It doesn’t feel appropriate considering all the Russia-Ukraine madness but in my own little world, I have been doing alright.
J and I solved our decade long plumbing woes and showers in our house are finally hotel level epic. I had been nagging J to install an instant water heater in place of the concealed rain shower we have in the guest bathroom but he decided to get a proper plumber to diagnose the issues we’ve been having instead.
Turned out our water pump was leaking, our existing storage water heater was too small and its motherboard gone, our water pipes were of random dimensions and sometimes not connected to the water pump when it should be.
The final magic touch was simply swapping the shower handle for a high pressure shower handle from Shopee! These babies seriously work. RM18 and it’s like a urine trickle to Niagara Falls. Haha.
Since Valentine’s Day fell on a Monday this year, J and I decided to celebrate on Saturday. With kids, schooling, Loki etc. it’s just easier.
Early
LaLaport is yet another behemoth of a Malaysian shopping mall built on what was Pudu Jail (I do not have plans on going or staying there after dark ๐ Lord forbid I should see hanging corpses like in Sixth Sense).
We packed them off to their grandparents for a sleepover and headed to LaLaport before dining at Skillet at 163.
If nothing, we can be proud of the architectural beauties we have in Malaysia. It’s obvious we don’t have the population or spending power to justify so many of these new shopping malls. Yet, Lalaport is gorgeous.
We got some bits and bobs at Nitori, the so-called Japanese Ikea. Nitori’s electronic and sleep sections really remind me of Harvey Norman, and the household section had many Ikea reminiscent items but it really doesn’t deserve to be called the Japanese Ikea. ๐
Definitely returning to visit Rollerwa and Coo & Riku with the kids. I took Felix and Alexis to Rollerwa in 1U and they absolutely loved it and have been asking to go again.
Wheely love these 2.
We also spotted a cotton candy stall that sells huge ones shaped like giant Hello Kitty heads or unicorns, and I just need to fulfil that dream for Alexis (read:me). Haha.
Our meal was lovely. Can’t go wrong with foie gras, wagyu and champagne. Haha.
We take our steaks seriously. Haha.
What went very wrong were pictures of me in my full Ursula glory. I very much need to lose weight. As opposed to being in a mental state where my weight doesn’t matter to me, I want to be in a physical state where my weight doesn’t matter to me. I want to be in photos with Jason and the kids without my dramatic “Woe is me, I’m fat” breakdowns.
Actual
Valentine’s Day was in fact a bloody affair thus the blog title. Unbeknownst to us, Alexis was allergic to her temporary studs. Both her ear piercings got infected after a week of wearing. There was pus, dried blood, and when I tried to clean the piercings last night, there was screaming, crying. Bad mom guilt struck hard again.
We took her to the doctor for peace of mind. She got antibiotics, a good cream, and meds for the pain and itch. Hope it will all be over soon without her losing the piercings.
Thanks to the pandemic, I hadn’t seen my sister and her family for almost 2 years. So it was wonderful to have her back in Malaysia for 3 weeks in December. Thus the total blogging absence or so the dilettante desperately tries to justify. Haha.
One of the many highlights of her visit was our stay at Sekeping Serendah and day trip to The Sticks!
We stopped to have the giant prawns at Yew Li Restaurant in Serendah before checking in to Sekeping. So glad we made the stop! Just have to ask for their signature style.
Sekeping itself was just gorgeous, but as luck would have it, there was a wedding at the Orang Asli village, so we e had to put up with quite a bit of Mat Rock karaoke. We still enjoyed our ๆ่่ barbecue. It was so convenient to just tear open the pre-marinated meats on sticks and plonk them on the grill. The coal was masterfully set up by the Sekeping Caretaker but he never returned with a pair of kitchen scissors he promised. The best set was the Korean one for sure.
The Sticks was also lovely as anticipated but it was really busy and one of their staff members started to ask us if they could clean the huts at about 5? Considering the day trip period ends at 6:30, they really shouldn’t have at all. Marred the experience. They also didn’t serve us keropok lekor for tea like the last visit, so we were served just banana pisang and French toast. Since the latter is far far tastier than the former, there was simply not enough French toast to go around. When we asked for more French toast, the staff made another 2 slices, so 4 more triangles. ๐ Ridiculous.
Anyway, before I knew it, the 2 weeks with us were over. My sister’s family is back in Singapore. Can’t wait for the next meet up. Fingers crossed for Club Med Bali in September! Haha.
Unfortunately for J, I have been obsessed with interior design since 1995 when I discovered interior design mags in the UK. I would give my parents’ house a makeover every night like a sleep meditation exercise. I still remember walking through Ikea in One Utama for the first time in 1999 and feeling like my home planet had beamed me in. Magical magical place.
When we moved into this house, it was a fixer upper. Although it’d have been nice to have the perfect house from the start, I wouldn’t change anything cause the journey of getting our house just perfect is part of what I imagined for marriage? Like a lifelong project together.
We’ve added cabinetry, laminate flooring, porch tiles, porch roof and an auto gate as little year end treats to ourselves. I love it when J asks me or I ask J “Do you remember the cement porch?” or “Do you remember pre-auto gate life?”.
This year, I finally got a mirror for the dining area. I always wanted to get one for the dining table. 11 years ago, I just wanted to get the ubiquitous Ikea Toftbyn but some how kept postponing it cause it felt like such a splurge. #youngLApauperlife
It was good I waited cause I didn’t just get a mirror, I got a mirror wall. Haha. Poor J. I didn’t just get a mirror wall either. Haha. I got myself a sliding partition door so that the living and dining area can cool down faster and I got myself a proper grown up dining table with dining chairs!
Voilรก!
For 11 years, we used an Ikea Bjursta. It was great cause it was so cheap, (RM699/799 only!) it was extendable, and our house isn’t huge. The only niggling issue was that the table legs didn’t expand with the tabletop. Ikea has fixed this design flaw now. Pre-Covid, we were hardly home and barely used it. After 2 years of intense lockdown usage (and as the 10 year warranty conveniently expired) the the laminate table top started to chip at the edges and bulge. Very annoying and gross looking.
Dining chairs are so expensive generally that we never bought proper ones to replace the plastic Ikea ones we got as placeholders.
I did get Eames knockoffs from Shopee last year but they were not much better than the Ikea plastic chairs. Haha. They creaked and their screws needed tightening all the time. Very annoying also.
TL:DR? Very pleased with my 2021 home improvement projects. Will I be doing some more projects in 2022? Why, yes, indeed. Haha.
After many years of saying that I would send the children for swimming lessons, I finally signed them up with Swimin12 at PJ Palms Sport Centre.
Yesterday was the first of 12 paid lessons following which I am guaranteed that they would be able to swim. If they can’t, they will continue to receive free weekly lessons for up to a year. I am hopeful that by the end of 6 months they will be my little water babies. Knowing my kiasu kids, they will be able to at the end of 3 months.
Coach Sabrina said that they were comfortable, confident and able to do more than expected of first timers at their trial class. This is despite our very infrequent visits to a proper pool.
Anyway during their trial class, I decided to swim when they have classes as opposed to scrolling social media by the bench. So I brought my mom yesterday and we both popped into the pool for the swim.
The good thing is that I had energy to swim 1km, the bad thing is that it took me an hour to swim 1km. I can only do the breaststroke and evidently not well. My mom would start laps after me and overtake me! I seriously need to work on my technique because I’m icing my knees even as I blog. ๐
The struggle to lose weight continues, thus the title. I really felt like a wet Sasquatch in the water.
It’s really tempting to act all culturally superior and denounce Love Hard without even watching it.
After all, it completely comes across as another Netflix cheap shot at milking Christmas rom-com fans BUT this movie is actually good! Or should I say it’s good actually.
I’m not even a Nina Dobrev fan as I never got sucked into The Vampire Diaries. If you wish to indulge in some vampire screen time, your time is far better spent watching True Blood or What We Do In The Shadows.
It’s funny how I didn’t realise how much representation matters. When I first watched Black Panther, I didn’t understand the hype on how important it was to African Americans. Bingeing K-dramas, watching Shang Chi, and now Love Hard has changed that. I complete get now the comfort and reassurance it provides.
On a car ride a few years ago, I asked my dad a random question in my usual habit.
“What is the one thing you wish you had learned but didn’t?” His answer was playing the piano.
The Gift.
He was unsurprisingly really happy when the neighbours gave him their Yamaha piano. It was left in their empty house for many years after they moved to a condo and their children migrated.
Seeing the piano, Felix wanted to learn to play. He asked me to download the SimplyPiano app for him. I subscribed for a year on the condition that he would practice whenever he is at Wai Gong and Wai Po’s place.
Felix didn’t break his promise and really impressed me with his progress. I have no idea where his musical gift come from as Jason and I aren’t exactly musically inclined.
The Second Gift.
Eventually, I realised Felix was the only one playing the piano and I asked my dad if I could have it so that Felix could practice more. My dad very sweetly agreed.
Once the piano was in my house, my own suppressed wish to learn the piano came out in full force. I created a profile on SimplyPiano too and starting playing. Every. Day. At least half an hour. I’d play even more if I didn’t live in a terrace house with neighbours I actually liked. Without Felix’s abilities, my lack of rhythm, hand eye coordination, tone deafness has meant slooooooow progress. I really can’t even begin to describe how much joy I feel when I play a song I like. Missed notes or beats be damned.
My joy was unfortunately curbed by the memory of my dad saying he wished had learned to play the piano. I didn’t like knowing my dad didn’t have to option to learn to play cause he gave the piano which was a gift to him to us.
Considering the cost, I couldn’t bring myself to ask Jason for, the ultimate fantasy, a black piano.
See what clear water turned into after the piano tuner was done vacuuming the interior.
The Third Gift.
I am undeniably blessed in many ways because one of my ex-colleagues turned bestest friend heard of my black piano fantasy, and decided to give me hers! A fancy Kawai black piano!
She hasn’t played it since secondary school and has migrated so she offered it to me!
The piano did need some TLC. Both piano tuner and I were shocked at the crud that had collected in there. Haha.
Anyway, my fantasy black piano now sits gloriously at our music area.
