Category: Drama

Celebrating Swiftiependence Day with Taylor Swift

I don’t want to be superstitious, but I really do believe that Taylor Swift’s arrival on Earth was a little wink from the universe for me.

I woke up yesterday and read her announcement that she had bought the rights to the master recordings of her first 6 albums.

Well on 30 May 2025, “I did something bad”, but my husband, therapist, and actual friends say was something right and brave.

“I never trust a narcissist, but they ‘love’ me”

I’m sick of hearing “don’t blame me, love made me crazy, if it doesn’t, you ain’t doing it right”

I did it for the girl who was told, and the woman who is still repeatedly told today, that she’s worthless, a burden, an ingrate, the problem.

I did it for the “precocious child” who had to escape by reading every night and scream inside “I hate it here”

“I’m lonely but I’m good, I’m bitter but I swear I’m fine”

“Cause for every lie I tell them, they tell me three”

“Cause I can’t pretend it’s okay when it’s not
It’s death by a thousand cuts”

Gave you too much but it wasn’t enough
But I’ll be all right, it’s just a thousand cuts”

“Even on my worst day, did I deserve, babe
All the hell you gave me?”

“Did you think I wouldn’t hear all the things you said about me?
This is why we can’t have nice things”

“I didn’t have it in myself to go with grace
And you’re the hero flying around, saving face

“… If you wanted me dead, you should’ve just said

… So I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street
Crash the party like a record scratch as I scream
“Who’s afraid of little old me?”
You should be

… The scandal was contained
The bullet had just grazed
At all costs, keep your good name
You don’t get to tell me you feel bad

… Is it a wonder I broke?”

“Look what you made me do”.

I will be eternally grateful to my husband, children and those who “like me for me” when “my reputation’s never been worse”.

“It was the great escape, the prison break
The light of freedom on my face”

“They say I did something bad
Then why’s it feel so good?
They say I did something bad
But why’s it feel so good?
Most fun I ever had
And I’d do it over and over and over again if I could
It just felt so good, good”

“I’m fresh out the slammer

Now we’re at the starting line, I did my time.

But it’s gonna be alright, I did my time”

Hopefully

Despite my best intentions, I am once again updating far too long after my last post.

It’s a struggle to do all of the things I want to do even when I have the luxury of time. The days slip past even faster when happy and despite all my whinging, I am happy.

I was searching for a blog title and this fits best.

Pakatan Harapan did not form a majority government but hopefully things work out better than before. It is really hard to be optimistic due to PTSD from the Sheraton Move.

As a hardcore consumer of books, TV shows, podcasts and what not, it’s really hard to recall right now all the things I was supposed to blog about in a regular timely manner.

I basically got obsessed with all things opioids first and then crypto cause I’m a sceptic and I’m constantly entertained by the scams and frauds in the land of tech crap.

Fell in love with these 2 Korean Netflix shows too.

The Glory which is all about a girl getting bullied who took revenge is IMPOSSIBLE for me to dislike. I am not a forgive and forget type. When I believe I’ve been wronged, I am a “curses upon you, your family, 8 generations, up, down, side to side” type cause that’s what they did in China and it made total sense.

On that light note, I’m going too stop here, and hopefully blog more consistently again.

Amazing S***

I just finished S*** Town by Serial productions and was as intrigued by it as I was in 2016 when I listened to Season 1 of Serial.

When I first listened to S*** Town awhile back, I lost interest at the very beginning as it was so different from Serial. How silly of me, and how glad I am that I gave it a second try.

One of my superpowers is my extreme negativity. My mind often goes from sweet innocent topics like puppies to institutionalised racism in nanoseconds. So listening to John’s frequent negative rants about living in S*** Town Alabama sounded eerily familiar to me.

John ended up pushing so many people away because of his negativity. I say s*** about life here too and that’s not what I want. Even more so, my kids also love repeating the things I say nowadays and I do not want them echoing me in this way.

I do feel the things I say about where I am are logically and rationally truths. Being the chatterbox I am, I find it hard to keep these things to myself.

John could have moved away was something one of the closest friends he lost said. Whilst that is true for me too, I actually think that moving away is not something I need to do.

I wasted a few years of my secondary school life wallowing in misery because I returned from the UK. I emerged from that with a very clear understanding that happiness follows me, where I am, where I go. Happiness is not buried treasure, it is not marked with an X on a pirate’s map.

One of John’s tattoos read “each wounds, the last kills” and it refers to moments of time. Such a smart riddle but I’m not going to subscribe to that view. Each is in fact a gift.

Thumbstruck

When I watched Mulan as a kid, I remember a particular lyric of the song, Matchmaker striking a real chord in me. My mom regularly nagged me to 快手快脚, and here was Disney declaring

Men want girls with good taste

Calm

Obedient

Who work fast-paced

With good breeding

And a tiny waist

You’ll bring honor to us all

The virtue of being efficient suddenly seemed unquestionably true. So I’m always trying to complete tasks as fast as I can. I take pleasure not only in doing something right, but doing it fast too. I’m pretty sure that this mantra of mine has not helped my blood pressure readings and is why I’ve been on medication for 5 years.

The latest toll for my dumb quest to work fast paced is that I slammed the car door on my own thumb. Just because I saw that a water bottle had been left on one of the kid’s bikes overnight as I was exiting the car. So I wanted to get to it as fast as I could to wash it up.

The pain was insane! It happened in the morning but my thumb was still throbbing at night. I had to go to the clinic to get painkillers.

I don’t even know why I felt that I needed to rush. Really need to work on just slowing down.

Cunningham Recklessness

Well… I did something stupid.

Background facts

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!

Alexis with her furbros

Blink and you’ll miss it.

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 😂

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.

Bloody Valentine

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 😅 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. 😂

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.

Curbing my home ID enthusiasm. Not.

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!

Voilá!

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.

A splashquatch.

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. 😂

The struggle to lose weight continues, thus the title. I really felt like a wet Sasquatch in the water.

A piano of my own

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.