Is It A Blessing To Live Up To 100?

While waiting for our turn to see the doctor at HKL recently, a nonagenarian sat next to us.  The moment she sat down, she struck up a conversation with Cass in Mandarin.  Then I joined in the conversation and talked to her in Cantonese.

The frail lady was very chatty as if she hadn't talked to anyone for a long time.  The first few words that came out of her mouth were that of self-condemnation.  She told me that she felt like a burden to her family as she frequently needs someone to bring her to the hospital.  She has an age-related bladder issue and needs a urine bag.

Lady - what's the point of living so long?   A few of my sons are living overseas and I dare not ask my other children to bring me to the hospital as they are all very busy.  Only my 3rd child, a daughter is willing to bring me to the hospital.  It's a blessing to have daughters.

Me - how old are you?

Lady - I am 90 years old. I feel like a burden to my children because I am useless and need a urine bag.  I keep waking up at night to go to the toilet.

And then she kept harping on the fact that it's pointless to live such a long life.  I wanted to chat with her longer but her daughter pushed her away in her wheelchair to another waiting area.

This kept me thinking.  Is it a blessing to live up to a hundred years old?  The Chinese are fond of wishing the elderly good health and long life during Chinese New Year and birthdays. 

A good family friend of ours who's in her late 80s has been bedridden and living in a nursing home in Ipoh for over a year now. She has dementia, doesn't talk, needs to be fed through a feeding tube, and has to be on diapers 24/7.  Stick thin and looking immensely forlorn, it pains us each time we look at her.  Everyone thought that she would pass on first before her husband but her husband died in his sleep recently. He was 92.   It's very costly to keep her alive but I guess God is not ready to take her back yet.  And so she continues to suffer 😥. So do her children.

Do you think that it's a blessing to have the gift of longevity if there's no quality of life?  Would you be happy if none of your children are living with you or near you in your golden years?   Imagine yourself in your eighties, alone and in ill health.  You feel like a burden to everyone because of your failing health as well as a financial burden to your children who each has their own commitments.  

It would be ideal if we have sufficient savings to live a comfortable life till the day we depart from this earth to meet our creator and be blessed with good health, mobility, and cognition till we breathe our last breath so that we will never be a burden to anyone.  One is truly blessed if he or she has no major health issues and dies peacefully in sleep. I pray I'll be blessed in this way.

Sunday, 16 October 2022 ~ Pavillion Bukit Jalil

Cass' figure-skating coach wasn't able to teach for two weeks since last Sunday.  What perfect timing!! This is because Cass has to prepare for her finals these two weeks.  

Before we received a text message from the coach about the class cancellation, Cass promised me that she would study after coming back from the skating rink. But I felt that Cass should not go anywhere but stay home to study on the eve of her finals.

I'm so glad that I don't have to spend my day at Pavillion Bukit Jalil (PBJ) for the next two Sundays 😜

Besides the vast options in eateries, cafes, and restaurants, there isn't much to do at PBJ. I'd rather be idling and paying my sleep debt with forty winks at home.

Anyway, Cass still wants to get her new figure skates before her next class and has been badgering me to bring her to the skating rink at Sunway Pyramid to buy the skates. We may go there this Saturday.

This time hubs and I had our lunch at the Ei8ht Avenue Foodcourt instead of his favorite Grand Harbour Chinese restaurant as I wanted to try other eateries.  

Ei8ht Avenue is a non-halal food hall that offers Chinese local delicacies that are loved by Malaysians. There are famous local food brands from all around the Klang Valley. These brands have one thing in common - a long legacy of incredibly delicious food. What separates Ei8th Avenue from other food halls is that, unlike typical food halls, customers can order their meals from their seats and be served when their food is ready.   Not to be missed are famous brands such as Prawn Noodle King, Chan Meng Kee, Samy & Min Bak Kut Teh,  Ah Fatt Gor Curry Mee,  Kim Lian Kee,  Restoran 38 Fishball Noodles, Little Eat Shop, Sin Hoy How, among others.

We tried the char koay teow, curry noodles and pork noodles.  

Nothing to shout about really as we've tried much better ones. So I don't think hubs will be ordering these again if we come here again.

We finally got our hands on the overly-rated thick egg tarts from Oriental Kopi.  Well-known for the insanely long queues at their Mid Valley Megamall outlet and now at Pavillion Bukit Jalil, we managed to take away their popular thick egg tarts, polo bun, and Mee Siam after queuing for about 15 minutes.

Hubs bought the buy-6-free-1 promo @ RM28.80

My verdict - the filling is very custardy and very filling.  Chomping down the entire egg tart was enough to fill up my small tummy, leaving very little space left to eat my main meal at the Eight Avenue food hall.
Nothing to shout about, despite rave reviews on the tarts.  I prefer the traditional egg tarts from Tong Kee and my favorite-est Portuguese egg tarts from Red Kettle.  This is my personal opinion. 
Sherilyn was the lucky beneficiary of these egg tarts as she got to bring them to school for 3 days in a row.  The tarts taste better after a few minutes in the air-fryer.

The Polo buns from Oriental Kopi were pretty good.  As I was too stuffed to try it on the same day, I  briefly air-fried it the next day. It was crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside, stashed with a wedge of butter. I omitted the condensed milk.

The Mee Siam was also nothing to rave about, in fact, I think it's rather vapid. I think the Mee Siam that comes out from hubby's central kitchen knocks this one hands down as it has much more ingredients 😁.  Again, this is just my personal opinion.

Cass requested for Rollney Kürtőskalács ice-cream and her ever-indulgent dad got it for her.  It's a unique ice cream atop a chimney cake or Hungarian sweet bread. The cylinder-shaped hollow bread is filled with a little cereal at the bottom. I find it too sweet for my liking.  

Saturday, 22 October 2022 ~ Lazy Saturday

Today has been an extremely lazy Saturday for us.  It's a day of takeout and food delivery for us.  

After sending Alycia to the cafe for her weekly part-time job, I went to a nearby shop to pack 'chap fan' for brunch. 

Then I went for my morning exercise.  I love my mid-morning brisk walk + jog around our condo compound with lush greenery. It's my daily chillax and mind-detox session while I soak in the glorious morning sun. 

Cass who usually finishes all her meals by 2-ish p.m. on weekends (she's been on IF for more than a year now) began bugging me to order her dinner at 1-ish p.m.. She loves the healthy cauli rice poke bowl from The Fish Bowl @ Gardens Mall.  So I got her that through Grab Food.  This smarty-pants always knows how to claim tons of vouchers from Grab Food, Shopee Food, and other online shopping platforms.  Today she found a RM9 voucher from Grab Food for her poke bowl. From an almost RM30 poke bowl, I paid only RM19 for it.  We both shared the poke bowl from Fish Bowl and that was our lunner.

By 3 p.m., my stomach was already rumbling, and as I was browsing food from the 'Shocking Sale' section, I saw 'tong sui' (sweet soup dessert).  Perfect, as 'tong sui' was exactly what I was craving to have!  I ordered taro cha cha for myself, black sesame tong sui for the mil and tau fu far for Sherilyn from Tong Dessert @ OUG Lucky Restaurant. I managed to claim and use a free delivery voucher as well as a RM3 food discount voucher for this order.  I made another order of Hong Kong-style fried rice from Tsuen Wan Restaurant and also managed to claim and use another free delivery voucher as well as a RM3 food discount voucher for this order.

That's why I love ordering from Shopee Food!  It's cheaper than eating at the restaurant itself.  I hope Shopee will continue to give away these discount vouchers.

Very delish Hong Kong-style fried Yang Chow fried rice and 'tong sui' ordered from Shopee Food. The  two 'tong sui's have just the right sweetness level and are not too cloy.

I love lots of thick coconut cream in my taro cha cha!  Kara brand of coconut cream is by far the best, i.e. tastes the closest to fresh coconut milk.

My order of organic flaxseed meal and organic almond + oats + cocoa powder from Lazada.  I drink this combo every morning and sometimes switch to instant oats with plain organic almond milk.

Cass had online Math tuition and then spent hours in the afternoon doing her Math homework, as well as revising for her upcoming finals.

Sherilyn has been having a marathon of tuition and is in the trenches of revising for her forthcoming SPM trials.

Monday, 17 October 2022

Classes are held online every Monday for Cass. In between classes today, she cooked konjac noodles and shared them with me.  She added a packet of plain noodles (sans the seasoning), lettuce, frozen garden peas, two eggs, and some leftover takeout chicken.

For the soup, she used Melaleuca's Simply Fit instant vegetable dashi. 

Our brekkie today - spinach konjac noodles and healthy banana bread from Front Room Cafe.  Konjac noodles are my guilt-free way of enjoying instant noodles. They're keto-compliant, full of fiber, and may help lower cholesterol. 

Love this instant vegetarian dashi from Melaleuca.  Cass loves to cook konjac noodles with this vegetable dashi.   It's priced at RM76.40 for a pack of 30 sachets.

My stock of different flavored konjac noodles (spinach, sweet potato and carrot), which I ordered from Lazada.  At RM7+ a pack, the konjac noodles are very versatile - they taste great when cooked with clear soup, broth, dry or stir-fried.

Lunch for Cass is an egg mayo sandwich from Tedboy. I got this from our neighborhood supermarket.

Wednesday, 12 October 2022

Alycia is having a short term-break and she's off gallivanting again.  She got back from a sleepover and hike yesterday evening and with less than 12 hours with us, she went to Melaka with another group of friends this morning.  They are staying at a lovely Air BNB house, set within a rubber estate.  It's her third trip to Melaka this year, and with different groups of friends.

Below are the photos of the Air BNB house where Alycia and her friends are staying in Melaka today. The photos were taken with her new iPhone 14, unfiltered.

Wish I was having fun with them girls too!!

From a reserved and shy little girl who didn't like to socialize, Alycia's now become a social butterfly.  She's got many groups of friends, from high school to college to her workplace (a cafe that she works part-time at every Saturday and sometimes on Sundays), church, to university now.  

I can't help but feel sidelined by my eldest daughter as she hardly has the time to even have a meal with us now 😥. The only time she talks to her dad and me is when she needs something from us, like money or our help 🙄

And this girl bought herself an iPhone 14 early this week. It's the most expensive phone she ever owned.  Her dad and I didn't pay a single cent for it and we would never have for such an expensive phone!

Taken at our condo at 6.55 a.m. today.  It was a very, very wet Wednesday morning today.  The weather has been chilly and wet for the past two weeks. It's so cooling that I have not turned on the air-conditioner in my room for two weeks. Our electricity bill this month is RM100 cheaper, but still on the high side at slightly over RM400!

Negitama Gyudon - our dinner yesterday from Sukiya Tokyo Bowls & Noodles @ Mid Valley Megamall, ordered via Shopee Food.

Yakiniku Don

Sunday, 2 October 2022

Today is Cass' second ice-skating lesson at the Blue Ice Snow Park skating rink @ Pavillion Bukit Jalil.  Cass and I took a Grab car to and fro as hubs had to work. 

Cass went into the skating rink about an hour earlier to practise skating before her class started.   After sending her off, I walked around the mall, window shopping with nothing in mind to buy, until I stepped into Sports Direct, and ended up spending 1.5 hours there. And came out of the sports shop with a pair of Adidas running shoes 😬

I'm one who will invest in a pair of comfy walking/running shoes as I walk and run quite a bit every day.  Ever since I ditched my sandals and wear only sneakers, my feet are cleaner, my cracked heels have healed and I chalk up to at least 10,000 steps every day. Plus I managed to shed some weight after I replaced sandals and slippers with sneakers.  When I wear sneakers, I walk faster more comfortably and don't mind walking long distances, not to mention bidding good riddance to achy feet and painful blisters.

Since I have 101 reasons to buy new sneakers, I got myself this pair of Adidas running shoes in my favorite color.  

Reasonably priced at RM229.

Cass with her pretty coach.

The cheapest pair of skates cost RM800.  Cass has saved enough money to buy it. But her doting koong koong and granny surprised her and told her that they will pay for the skates. Woo hoo!  Cass is truly blessed to have such loving grandparents 💓

After we left the skating rink, we went to get takeout at Grandmama's and Sushi Empire.  And the last stop was at the supermarket to get our favorite Ready-To-Eat Triple Washed salad and coleslaw before we went home.