Friday, 30 September 2022

A while ago, Cass told me that she had a light bulb moment when she collected my parcels from the lobby of our condo. She usually helps me to collect my parcels at around 9-ish p.m. after working out at the gym.  

Yeah, I have quite a number of parcels to look forward to every day.  About 70-80% of my stuff are purchased online since the pandemic started, from food items to underwear to pet supplies, supplements, and much more.

When the Government imposed a lockdown 2.5 years ago, delivery riders were no longer allowed to go up to the residents' units to deliver items.  Instead, all parcels and food items are to be left on a long table at the lobby and the respective recipient has to collect their stuff themselves. 

When Cass saw the amount of parcels left on the long table at the lobby every day, her money-minded brain suddenly had this idea that popped out on how she could earn a little pocket money -- by helping residents collect their parcels and sending them to their doorsteps! She would charge RM1 for delivering to each unit.

Cass asked me if she could do this so that she could build up a nice little nest egg. 

I'm hesitant as I don't want Cass to be spending too much time delivering parcels and neglect her studies. All I want is for her to focus in her studies and her health.  She could consider working on a  part-time basis after her SPM.  

Also, a Committee Meeting of the condo would have to be held before this side hustle is allowed in the condo grounds. And this involves an under-18 child.  I don't want to be known by neighbors as the infamous parent who allowed her young teen to work!

I've told Cass to forget about this whole side hustle idea and just focus on being a good student. But she's not about to give up yet. 

Cass whipped up this one-tray grill on Monday in between online classes. 

Homemade pork burgers, Japanese pumpkin, garlic, onions and potatoes.

My kind of meal. So delicious!

Cass wanted to make Japanese sando but it was a flop.  She made this in between online classes, thus didn't have enough time to do deeper research on how the sandwiches are wrapped and cut.

And it turned out to be a regular sandwich that didn't look too pretty after it was cut into half. It's bursting with fillings of egg mayo, chicken chop, salad greens and cherry tomatoes. Very delish, nonetheless.

Weekend Is Here

The weekend is finally here. I hear someone rejoicing and planning fun activities to do over the weekend. Going to school is torturous for her as it's not easy to cope in a Chinese Independent High School.  I'm talking about mini-tests almost every week, on top of homework.  But I ain't rejoicing at all. When she's at home, I have extra work to do. She cooks and bakes almost the entire morning and messes up the kitchen. She badgers me for things the whole morning. I actually prefer her to be in school 😬.

Even though it's the weekend, it's not a rest day for me.  Sherilyn has to be in school before 6.30 a.m. tomorrow to take part in a marathon. The school bus will leave at 6.30 a.m.  After sending her to school, I continue with some chores at home before sending Alycia to the cafe for her weekend part-time job. Then I get home and settle more chores before going for my morning run under the glorious sun to soak in some sunshine vitamin and mood-enhancing energy.  

Before I even get to rest, it's time for me to fetch Sherilyn back from school, get the girls lunch and do another round of laundry. Then it's time to fetch Alycia back from the cafe. But that's not it.  I have to be Alycia's driving instructor, which is a nerve-racking 'ordeal'.  I let her practise driving every weekend when she gets to drive home from the cafe. At the car park, I teach her reverse parking.  In my entire motherhood journey, I think sitting next to my teenager, who's a new driver, is one of the most difficult tasks. I have cold sweat and have to hang on tightly to whatever I can grip in the car while stepping on the imaginary brake all the time that Alycia's driving 😂.  

Alycia's driving has improved slightly but is still not good enough for her to drive independently yet.  There will be many more nerve-racking sessions with her before she passes my stringent test requirements. 

Oven-baked prawns with garlic butter, prepped by Sherilyn early this week.

Sherilyn hardly has the time to cook and bake now as she has intensive tuition classes to attend. She has less than half a year more to go before her SPM exam! 

Spaghetti aglio e olio with baked prawns. Very, very aromatic and yummeh!

16 September 2022 ~ Malaysia Day Outing @ Pavillion Bukit Jalil

One of Cass' greatest desires is to learn ice-skating.  For more than a year, she saved money to pay for her ice-skating lessons. She did odd jobs for me and her dad as well as saved money from ang pow collected during CNY and birthdays.

Hubs finally had the time to bring Cass for her first ice-skating lesson on Malaysia Day, a public holiday.  Cass had earlier called the Blue Ice Snow Park @ Pavillion Bukit Jalil to book an appointment for ice-skating lesson but was told to walk-in to try her luck as it was a public holiday and all the slots were already taken up. If she's lucky, she may get a slot.

As expected Cass didn't manage to secure a slot for the skating lesson.  However, she and Sherilyn went for casual ice-skating @ RM35 for 2 hours.  While they skated, hubs and I had breakfast and checked out the mall. It was our first time at Pavillion Bukit Jalil, a newly opened mall.

We walked quite a bit before we finally found the Blue Ice Snow Park. The mall is very huge and if it's your first time to the mall, it's a tad difficult to locate the skating rink.

Very good exercise for us - it took us a good 15-20 minutes of brisk walking from the car park to the skating rink.

Very much smaller than the skating rink at Sunway Pyramid but we prefer Blue Ice Snow Park as it's new and the facilities and skating shoes are newer and cleaner.

Sherilyn & Cass paying for the locker rental using their dad's credit card.

The last time the girls went ice-skating was 3 years ago, before the pandemic, with Raelyne their cousin from Singapore.

There's a huge screen outside Blue Ice Snow Park that life screens the activities in the skating rink.

Cass balancing herself.

Sherilyn skates better than her sister, but ice-skating is not her jam.  

With two hours to skill, hubs and I had breakfast at Oppa Toast Cafe.

The BBQ beef teriyaki toast that hubs ordered was super scrumptious. Juicy BBQ beef slices wedged between crispy toasts topped with a jiggly egg and cheese. And you don't have to worry about messing up your hands as disposable gloves (packed in a tiny cute bag) are provided so that you can enjoy your killer toast.  The coffee was superb too.

Crispy Korean fried chicken. For the first time I really enjoyed holding my piece of fried chicken with my hands at a cafe as I needn't have to worry about having oily hands afterwards.

After the girls were done ice-skating, we brought them to Oppa Toast again for them to have their breakfast.  

Cass ordered egg toast and Korean hotdog.

Right after leaving Oppa Toast, we segued into Sedap to have roti canai and satay! 

Revenge feasting after almost 2.5 years of modest eating, mostly at home 😂

The girls wanted to try IlaoIloa's Milo froyo, only available for one day on 16 Sept as it's Malaysia Day. Their verdict - not much Milo taste but nonetheless still refreshing and yums.

The girls wanted to check out Tsutaya Books, a popular bookstore originating from Japan but what we saw before our eyes was jaw-dropping.  The queue into the bookstore was at least 500 meters long! This is the first Tsutaya Books in South East Asia.

Before we left, we had our lunner at Dai Cha Dim.  While we waited for the food to arrive, Cass and Sherilyn quickly darted off to Tsutaya Books as it's just opposite the restaurant. They were not about to give up trying their luck to step into the bookstore.  Fortunately the queue moved pretty quickly and they managed to get into the bookstore.

Lunner at Dai Cha Dim.

We clocked up almost 10k steps after spending over 4 hours at Pavillion Bukit Jalil. My total number of steps for the day was over 14k. 

10 September 2022 ~ Mid Autumn Festival

The day that Cass was discharged from HKL was Mid Autumn Festival. I thought that we could have a long overdue Mid Autumn family dinner at a restaurant that evening but my poor girl twisted her ankle on her way out of the hospital to her dad's car 😖. It hurt so badly that Cass could not walk. She had to hobble and hop around.

While everyone else went out for dinner, poor Cass stayed home and nursed her foot with the classic RICE regimen — rest, ice, compression, and elevation.

Our Mid Autumn festival dinner ~ steamed fish, steamed chicken with minced ginger sauce, stir-fried celery, stir-fried spinach and 'phai kuat wong'.  I doggy-bagged the dishes for Cass who ate them for lunch the next day.

The moon that night was full - round and bright!

The night before Cass' MRU procedure, I had a meetup with my ertswhile childhood friends.  Jo (first from right) is back for a holiday from San Francisco. We were supposed to have dinner at Pavillion at 6pm but had to cancel the dinner as one of our friends couldn't make it. We ended up having a late meet up at a friend's house and I only got back after 11pm. And the next day I was up at 5 am to get some chores done before leaving to camp at the hospital.  

I only had 5 hours of sleep the past few nights last week caused by Haru's constant wailing and having to wake up early to go to the hospital.  

Friends since primary school, over 40 years of friendship!

Haru's Sixth Sense

On Friday this week, the day that Cass fainted in the hospital, Haru behaved suspiciously differently.  She meowed and wailed the entire morning from midnight until 4.15 a.m. when I woke up that morning to get ready to go to the hospital.  

On Thursday, Cass had to stay overnight at the Institute of Urology & Nephrology @ HKL as her MRU procedure was postponed. The stay was totally unexpected.  We waited the entire day from 10 a.m. and at 5 p.m., we were informed by the Urology MO that the procedure had to be postponed as it was already late.  The MRU Dept. promised to let Cass do the procedure first thing in the morning at 8 a.m.   The IV line on her arm had to be re-inserted (the third time!) before 7.30 a.m. and she had to be at the MRI Complex before 8 a.m.  Thus, it is more viable for her to sleep overnight in the ward.

I had to leave the house at 6.45 a.m. on Friday so that I could get to the hospital before 7.30 a.m.  I was told by the staff that if I were late, Cass would miss the slot again. As Cass is below 18 years old, a parent must be around during the procedure.

Not only did Haru meow the entire night, but she also kept scratching on my room door, begging to come into my room.  The moment I opened the door, Haru sniffed the floor of all the corners of my room and kept jumping up my bed.  It was as if she wanted to sleep with me. She was extremely clingy.  This has never happened before and Haru is not a clingy cat. She's not a cat that likes to be cuddled.  And this bizarre behavior in Haru made me very worried as Cass was scheduled to do the MRU that day.

The night that Cass had to stay at the hospital, Haru sat at the entrance of the house the entire night, watching the door, as if waiting for her sister to come home.

Many cultures revere cats, considering them to be magical or all-knowing. Cats appear capable of predicting unexpected events before they occur. There is a reason why the black cat is often associated with witchcraft.  I often read of cats that have the ability to sniff out sickness in their owners.  

Now I believe that cats have the ability to sense danger happening to their owners too.  If you are a cat owner, I believe you'd have experienced this baffling behavior in your cat.  Some owners even believe that their cats can predict future events and I think it's true. Each time before an episode of lightning and thunder, even before we humans can hear the thunder, Haru would be already crouching somewhere as she's terrified of the sound of thunder. 

The two nights that Cass was away in the hospital, Haru meowed and caterwauled throughout the night. Last night she finally stopped wailing as Cass was already home.  When I opened my room door at 6.30 this morning, she was sitting quietly outside my room, waiting for me 💓

Yap Hup Kee Palace @ Kuchai Entrepreneurs Park, KL

This is a throwback post.

We had lunch at Yap Hup Kee Palace more than a month ago on 31 July 2022.  We chose Kuchai Entrepreneurs Park as Sherilyn was at a basketball court around that vicinity for cheerleading practice.  She didn't join us for lunch though as she ate with her teammates at another joint nearby - and later complained profusely over how terrible the food and service were.

Hubs dined at Yap Hup Kee with his friends recently and liked the steamboat. The steamboat set doesn't comprise the run-of-the-mill fish balls, pork balls, and foo pei.  Instead, you'll see unique seafood items like pacific clams, mussels, sea asparagus, etc - all with 'yong liu' (stuffed with fish paste). 

Besides steamboat, the other signature dishes are chee cheong fun with curry pig skin, 'sui kow' (fried or boiled), wantan noodles with minced pork, and delectable fried snacks.

Hubs ordered two plates of chee cheong fun with curry pig skin, two bowls of 'sui kow' in soup and  a plate of wantan noodles. By the time we chomped down these and the hot pot came, our stomachs were already about 60% full.  I was so stuffed that I didn't even get to try the stuffed mussels and pacific clams with fish paste.   I just couldn't put any more food into my mouth though the stuffed clams were yelling out to me to try them.

Note to self - the next time we dine at this restaurant, my priority will be the unique yong seafood and won't bother about the chee cheong fun and wantan noodles even though they're delish. 

Wantan noodles with minced pork.

Chee cheong fun with minced pork and sui kow soup.

Curry pig skin. The santan in the curry broth wasn't very fresh and had a slightly rancid taste.

Gastronomical delight.

After a heavy lunch, hubs suggested having dessert at Dáo.  Though everyone was stuffed to their chest, at the mention of Dáo, the girls and even the mil couldn't refuse. 

Dáo desserts is a specialty dessert cafe selling traditional soy-based desserts with a twist. They serve soy milk, silky smooth tau foo far with a choice of ginger, brown sugar, and chrysanthemum syrup, soft serve soy bean ice-cream and tau foo far with tong yuen (rice balls).

YAP HUP KEE PALACE

Address: 39, Jalan Kuchai Maju 7,  Kuchai Entrepreneurs Park, 

Kuala Lumpur.

Contact: 03-7971 6417

Operation Hours: 11am- 10pm