Awesome Rawsome

While the girls had Japanese curry with Japanese rice, I paired the curry with raw baby spinach and a poached egg. It's a complete meal too with protein, fiber, nutrients, and some carbs from a few cubes of potato.  

I always have a packet of baby spinach, arugula, salad greens, cucumbers, bell peppers, and microgreens in my fridge.  The girls love to toss some raw greens into their meals. It's training since young and they'd feel like they missed out on something important if there was a day that they didn't eat any green leafy veggies or fruits.

Pandan Leaves

Grandma asked her to go down to the garden at our condo to cut some pandan leaves coz grandma wanted them for boiling sweet potato tong sui.  Reluctantly, she sauntered downstairs with a pair of scissors.  It was sizzling hot at 3 p.m. with an outdoor temperature of about 36-38 degrees Celsius.  Minutes later, she video called me and bemoaned that she didn't see any pandan plant in the garden and that there were a lot of mozzies feasting on her limbs.  She asked grandma and me where the pandan plants were located as there are a few small gardens at our condo compound.  On the phone video, there's another plant with long leaves that resembled pandan leaves too.  She kept telling grandma that there were no pandan plants and asked grandma to quickly tell her where the pandan plants were.

She got an earful from grandma who got pissed that she still didn't know what a pandan plant looked like and had no idea where the location of the plants was after living here almost all her life.  But she kept insisting that there were none.  Grandma was pissed, whereas she was huffing and puffing away under the scorching hot sun hunting for the elusive pandan leaves with mozzies feasting on her limbs.

To placate grandma she cut a bunch of long green leaves that resembled pandan leaves 99% and brought them up while lamenting that those leaves don't smell like pandan leaves. 

Of course, she got lasered by grandma.

She stormed into the living room and plonked herself on the cold floor right under the ceiling fan as she was drenched in sweat after 10 minutes of being grilled in the killer heat outside, and bewailed non-stop that she got swarmed and attacked by mozzies.  It's Dengue fever season now.  

The next day, I checked out the garden at our condo and she was right.  The pandan plants were no longer there. All the pandan plants must have been cut by residents during the lockdown.

😂😂😆😆

These look like pandan leaves but they're not.

Uncaged Finally

Haru is finally left uncaged at night and when no one is at home.  She finally weaned herself from the cage.

She found a tactic to get herself out of 'prison' by creating havoc inside the cage and litter box whenever we caged her for too long - usually during nighttime or when no one is at home and she's too bored cooped up inside the cage.  Imagine havoc to her overnight litter box with poo and all! 

When we ignored her meows, she created havoc instead. And she got her way out of the cage forever.  

Very smart kitty! 

According to researchers at Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine, the physical structure of the brains of humans and cats is very similar.  The human brain and the cat brain both have cerebral cortices with similar lobes. That is why cats are so intelligent. I always feel Haru is like a human trapped in a cat's body.

The weather has been so sweltering lately that Haru sleeps on the floor, which is cooler.

The first time we left her out of the cage when we went to the shopping mall, it was for around 4 hours. We closed all our bedroom doors and the kitchen door.  She was a good cat. When we came home, she was waiting for us in the living room, stone-faced. 

She was also quite good when we left her in the living room throughout the night.  However, this naughty goblin has been very mischievous the past two nights. While we were asleep, she did everything that she was forbidden - she climbed on my chair and played with my neck support pillow, walked on my keyboard, jumped and walked on Cass' laptop and desk and I don't know what else she did. I'm pretty sure she climbed up the dining table too to check if there was any chicken or bread for her!

This morning, she jumped onto one of our cabinets where we placed Japanese lucky cat figurines (maneki-neko). She swiped down one of the figurines and broke it into a million pieces!  She must have been fascinated with those cat figurines and wondered why those figurines look like her 😸

Alycia's Stay In Ipoh

During the Hari Raya holidays, Alycia tagged along in a friend's car to make a trip back to Ipoh along with her grandma.   After a 7-hour long crawl on the trunk road on Sunday, they reached Ipoh at almost 8 p.m. 

The 6 days Alycia spent in Ipoh have been the best bonding time for her and my parents after not being able to travel back for 2 years during the pandemic.  The last time she had such a long time bonding with my parents (just her and my parents) was 18 years ago when she was only a two-month-old baby.  The mil (who was taking care of Alycia) had to be in Hong Kong and I had to work, so hubs and I sent Alycia back to my parents in Ipoh for several weeks.  We missed her so much when she was away from us.  That was when I had to truncate my breastfeeding journey with Alycia because of the inevitable separation.

Hubs and I would travel back to Ipoh every weekend to visit her.  My parents enjoyed taking care of their first grandchild tremendously.  They were both in their early 60s then and still full of vitality.  Fast forward 18 years on and their first grandchild is back in Ipoh to spend some of the most magical moments with them again, just the three of them 💓

Mum updated us with photos throughout the day.

Dinner at my parents' favorite restaurant, Poh San.  Papa is 79 and mum is 76 this year.

Koong koong gives Alycia refresher driving lessons on his old Nissan Cefiro. 

Alycia's college mates who are from Ipoh came to my parents to fetch Alycia to their housing estate for cycling. They carted my parents' foldable bikes along. They all drive from Ipoh - Sunway - Ipoh regularly. They're all 19, the same age as Alycia. I don't think I can allow Alycia to do this!

Mum made puff pastry pinwheels for Alycia's brekkie.

And 'apam balik' with sweet corn, chocolate hazelnut butter, and crushed walnuts. 

And homemade 'chee cheong fun'.  Mum is a talented baker and cook.  I grew up helping her whenever she baked cakes, bread pudding, pau, puffs, bread, mooncake, and many more.

Condo Unit On Fire - Life Watch

Several days ago, we witnessed a condo unit being razed by fire. We watched the incident life on our Nikon camera, on video mode.  The affected condo is located about 5km away from our condo.

It was about 6.30 p.m. on a Friday and we were all tasting Sherilyn's madeleines, fresh out of the oven.  Suddenly, Sherilyn commented that she saw black smoke billowing in the sky. We ran to the window and lo and behold, we saw something in bright orange flickering inside the penthouse of a condo from a distance. Initially, we thought that it was lights or reflections of the sun.  Sherilyn quickly whipped out our Nikon camera, turned it on video mode, and zoomed into the condo unit. 

What we saw was absolutely horrific! We saw the entire penthouse unit engulfed in fire. Moments later we saw the ferocious fire shooting out of the window and spreading to the rooftop and unit below.  We could also see firefighters in their orange suits putting off the fire inside the unit, albeit vaguely.  What crossed out minds was - was anyone injured?

On video mode - a surreal feeling watching life a condo unit being engulfed in fire.  The fire was put off pretty quickly.
We're very amazed at how powerful the zoom function of our old Nikon camera is - it's almost like binoculars!

This incident was however not reported in the newspapers. So I surmise that no one was injured or died in the fire. 

Note to self: no more walking around in birthday suit when no one is at home coz someone a few kilometers away could be using a camera to zoom in on us! Horror! 😨 😂