My Dear Marshall...

Marshall is my younger uncle's dog, but he really belongs to everyone, not just my uncle. He's a handsome Shetland Sheepdog with a shaggy white mane and a gentle (if not cowardly) disposition, a dog that responds to Hainanese scoldings and will look at you quizzically when you scold it in English.

Marshall is also very manja. Whenever I visit my granny's (where my uncle stays), he will come right up and stand in front of me until I give in and give it a great big HUG. He loves to be carried, to be stroked and to be the centre of everyone's attention. When new pets come, Marshall always goes through a season of insecurity as everyone oohs and aahs over the newcomer, and especially so if he catches me stroking the new pet. When my older uncle brought Benji, a mini-schnauzer, back, I couldn't go near it for Marshall will bark if I step near it to stroke its black stubby coat :D When I approached Benji, Marshall wedged himself between Benji and ! and barked until I turned away. Sometimes, it's nice to know that someone is crazy-jealous for your attention ; )

Marshall is our second dog (in my lifetime, anyway) and has been with us for 13 years now. His legs are no longer what they used to be. When my uncle first brought him home, he showed off his sturdy paws, saying "This is a sign of a healthy dog. Look at his legs! So thick and strong!" and indeed they were. My cousin and I used to bring him for long walks around the park--the longer the better, and these walks were great opportunities for us to catch up with one another through the years in secondary school and junior college. As such, whenever Marshall sees both of us under the same roof, he whines and whines until we get the hint and bring him out for a nice long walk. Until recently. Now, my cousin has to carry him from the flat to the lift landing, then gently put him down for a short walk at the void deck before bringing him home.

Marshall used to bound to the door whenever we go over and will jump on our clothes and paw us for affection, but now, the most he can manage is a painful limp. Even if I were to walk straight up to him and open my arms and say "Bao4 bao4! (translated: hug, hug!)", he takes a while before he can stand up on his once strong limbs and allow himself to be cradled. He used to be a playful puppy that chases the tennis ball across the room; now he's a grouchy old man that is no less loved and no less adorable in his grouchy-grandad-ways. Every night, he sits by my cousin's computer table and gnaws at his paws while growling and grousing unintelligably.

Marshall is also my grandmother's faithful daytime companion. When she goes into her bedroom for her afternoon nap, he follows her into her room and will nap by her bed as she naps. He hangs around the kitchen as she goes about cooking for her children and her children's children, gnawing and grousing as he always does.

My dear Marshall is aging, as it inevitably happens. His once slim and strong body is full of unnaturally shaped lumps that are as big as his torso and weighs him down considerably. He can no longer stand and eat at his little food dish. This once greedy dog's appetite is waning. His beautiful fur coat is still gloriously thick and luscious, and he looks deceptively healthy, but when he moves, you can almost see him wince. We will need to put him to sleep soon. I don't look forward to the day, but that day will be here soon. I will miss him so.

Simple Pleasures in Life

I first saw this phrase "Simple pleasures in life" in a church-mate's msn nick and it struck me. Ever since then, I've started paying more attention to the simple pleasures in my life--things that I enjoy, that lifts my mood, if only for a while. It helps me get by the sad days better, and brings more joy to the good days. Afterall, we'll always have sad times and happy times in life, so why not find pockets of pleasure to go with both seasons? =)

Here are some of mine in no particular order... Will post more here when it strikes me next time.

1. A good shot by my Canon Powershot A710 IS (I think they should pay me advertisement fees...)
2. My office's 19" LCD monitor that I use for my work. It makes everything look better.
3. Enjoying a morning walk with a loved one with a hearty breakfast at the end of the walk.
4. Wearing new clothes that look good!
5. Clear blue skies, a scattering of white clouds and a cool breeze.
6. Dark chocolate. Enough said.
7. The scent of my favourite perfume (Happy To Be, by Clinique.)
8. Using my favourite pen(s) to doodle / take notes / write in my offline journal.

What are some of yours? =)

Quirkie Creations: Happy Valentine's Day!

This is a bouquet of tulips that my colleague bought for his girlfriend. Tres jolie, non?

Mr Intuition and I won't be going to any swanky restaurant nor will he be giving me any jolie fleurs today, since we both don't like how Valentine's Day is so commercialised. We will be meeting for a simple meal at a coffee shop though, and I am looking forward to the food ; ) You don't need to burn a hole in your pocket to have a great Valentine's!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Green

My brother's little basil plant.

I used to think that there are only two types of pasta sauce: creamy and tomato-ey. Then I learned that there is white-wine sauce, aglio olio (garlic and olive oil, pretty much no sauce...), squid ink sauce as well as pesto sauce (huh?). I first heard about green pesto from a health-conscious colleague while talking about food.

She: Cream sauce is actually very unhealthy. The healthiest type of pasta sauce is...
Me: Tomato based sauce!
She: ... pesto sauce. Wah, my favourite!
Me: ?? pesto?? You mean the brand, Prego's?
She: No, i mean pesto. It's green colour, made of herbs. Mmmm.. yummy!
Me: ?????

I forgot all about the pesto sauce until one day, I was ogling at the ham and cheese selection at Jason's supermarket, when the sundried tomatoes, semi-sundried tomatoes, hummus and pesto sauce caught my eye. I toyed with the idea of buying some pesto to try it out, but the lovely semi-sundried tomatoes were too tempting, so I bought that instead. And I forgot about pesto again, until one evening when my brother and I were watching Jamie Olivier on TV effortlessly whipping up his delicious dishes. This time, he did a pesto pasta--pounded herbs with garlic, doused it with olive oil, added a shower of parmesan cheese etc etc... Greens never looked so good.

As usual, I forgot about it, but my brother didn't. He bought spinach, harvested his little basil plant, pounded in pistachios, added cream cheese and blended it all together with salt and olive oil. Viola! Pesto sauce! "I made my own pesto sauce today and I'm prett-y proud of it. It tastes prett-y good. There's some left in the fridge, help yourself. Oh, and I realised that it goes surprisingly well with tofu. It's slightly salty though," said he.

Let me tell you a bit more about my brother, the health nut. His colleagues are on a mission to make him flabby by tempting him with all the sinful yummy stuff like char kuey tiao and cream puffs, but he has always politely declined, saying that "it's unhealthy." When they ask him what type of food does he enjoy, he thinks about it and replies in all honesty, "Healthy food." And then there's the issue of salt. There were a few times when I complained that the pasta I cooked was too bland, but to him, it was just nice. Sometimes when he cooks, he'd say "today's sauce is a bit too saltish" but I'd think it's okay. Needless to say, when we cook together, salt is often a point of contention.
(Me: "There needs to be more salt!"
He: "No, it's salty enough already."
Me: *adds a dash of salt when he's not looking*)

Back to the pesto sauce. I was having dinner home alone tonight and the only available quick-fix meal was Tofu Pesto Pasta *cringe*. Don't get me wrong, I like tofu, but usually as a side dish. Tofu as a main ingredient in a meal? As the ONLY main ingredient? My brother liked it, but then again, he gets a kick out of eating healthy food, which is something that doesn't happen naturally to me. However, I have been pigging out on all sorts of unhealthy food, and will continue to do so since CNY is just around the corner, so perhaps my tummy will benefit from something light and healthy instead. Tofu pesto pasta, here I come.

My green dinner.

I decided to do the whole hog and have a healthy dessert while I'm at it. The taste verdict? The pesto does taste pretty yummy, and it doesn't mask the subtle taste of tofu, but it's still a rather bland dish. I added a shower of parmesan cheese as well as a pinch of salt with sauteed onions and red chilli, which thankfully added some flavour. It tasted just o-kaaay to me, as opposed to my brother's verdict of "prett-y good". The best part of the meal was the dessert, which was juicy and oh-so-sweet.

Considering the fact that my brother is pretty flab free and I'm not, perhaps I should do this more often.

Pitstop Cafe =)

Last Wednesday, my cell group and I went to look for some fun in town and after some wandering around, we finally ended up at Pitstop Cafe.

The concept behind Pitstop Cafe is similar to Settler's Cafe, but it's got a younger, fresher and friendlier team manning the forte! And the best part is, Astroboy was my hall mate back in NTU Hall 11 days! (that wasn't too long ago, was it???) He opened the cafe with his wife and 2 other friends, and you can read all about the cafe here, interspersed with Astroboy's amusing musings =D

We played 2 games: Seequence and Taboo, both of which were great group games :D At first we thought that we'd just stay for an hour, but honestly, time flies when you're having fun, and we ended up extending our stay for another hour. Oh, and I received a free membership, since it was our first time there =) Check those games out at Pitstop Cafe one day when you're free =)

Kukup Part Deux

The weekend is here! Finally, I can post Kukup Part Deux with the pictures and all. I've been wanting to post Part Deux quite some time back, but I never really found the right time to do it, because on weekday nights, there'll be my mother, my brother and me fighting for use of the computer, and when I finally get it, I use the time to veg-out reading other people's blogs instead of typing some posts of my own =P So there you have it, the reason why I didn't update it as quickly as I'd like: Other Blogs.

Previously I showed you where we stayed and what we ate (not all the meals, but some of the food, at least...). For this post, here's a glimpse into the programme--what we did (such as lie on the couch, ref: the 1st picture).

Mangrove Swamp
When you're in Kukup, it's best that you travel in groups of 10, because EVERYTHING there is catered for Groups Of Ten. We went in a group of 6, and had a tough time persuading the landlady to let us stay. Anyways, I digress. We went to the mangrove swamp on day 2 and had fun exploring the place. It was full of inspirational quotes (click on picture below to read the text).

One reason why I LOVE my Canon Powershot A710 IS: I managed to capture some of the spider-web!

Suspension bridges make me nervous. I couldn't look down while walking across the bridge. I'm so glad I didn't cross the bridge with the guys. See the pic? The guy was bouncing on the bridge and the girl was hanging on for her life.
After exploring every nook and cranny of the mangrove swamp, we went to the Kelong for our next educational tour. Here is a quirky little poem on the ferry that we took. Click on picture to enlarge =)


Kelong
I enjoyed the kelong, despite being uber prone to sea-sickness.

The kelong guy told us that these sea turtles were kept by them until they were matured, then they would be released into the sea. When I repeated that story to my colleague, he said "Yeah, right!" Oh well :P It is a cute turtle, nonetheless.


Our absolute favouritest activity at the Kelong was feeding the archer fish (what we called the spitting fish :P) We would place ikan bilis on the small plank above the water area, and the fish will take aim and SPIT! at the ikan bilis with great accuracy! Those standing behind the ikan bilis will get wet, so be warned :P It's amazing how accurate they are. We could feed them all day and be constantly amused. What was more amusing and amazing was that a parrot fish in the same "cage" as them also learnt how to spit for fish (it can't spit very well, but spit it did!) :P Fish do learn behaviour! How funny is that!


What did we do when we're not triapsing around the town, going to the swamp / kelong, eating? well... in view of the IRs coming to town and in the wake of 007's Casino Royale, we erm, had some practice :P


I had fun =) Kukup! Great for holidays and for doing absolutely nothing!

Kukup

I just came back from a relaxing and fun weekend getaway to Kukup. It was a small fishing town along the coast of Johor, and it's home to plenty of mudskippers.



All we did from Friday to Sunday was to eat, watch vcds, walk around, sing karaoke (my ears, my ears!!), eat, watch mudskippers, play board games, sleep, eat. Did I mention that we ate a lot there? All in all, we had a lot of fun =) One of my favourite ways of passing time there was to observe mudskipper behaviour. It was endlessly fascinating for me to watch them move around painfully slowly with their little fins, then suddenly skip around as fast as lightning. They sometimes chase one another and do "reverse parking" into their muddy little holes... All these could only be seen during the low tide!

Food, glorious food! On our way there, the taxi driver told us that we needn't worry about any lack of food there, and boy, was he right. Our host certainly kept us very well fed. Check out the mouth-watering hei piah (prawn biscuits, literally).


Lodgings wasn't a problem either. We went to Kukup not knowing where to stay, because we wanted to go there and find somewhere. Thankfully the taxi driver had a good recommendation =) Check out the pad! It's a huge place, and the best thing is that we had the place all to ourselves =) We felt like we had a private club or something, given that all our food and snacks were served, we didn't have to clean up after ourselves, and all the tours and meals were taken care of. So spoilt!



We also walked around the town a fair bit, especially after lunch. Here are some sights around Kukup. Notice the rubbish and the mudskippers!





There're more pictures... Look out for Kukup Part Deux!

My New-Old House Part Deux

Before I left for my little holiday, I thought I'd better make good on my promise to upload pictures of my new-old house. Here are the pictures I took one morning! I love natural light for photo-taking! I'm just showing the colours of the walls and some of the curtains because my family likes their privacy :P And also because *cough* messy lah *cough cough* :P

My purple, saccharine sweet room:


My brother's cool blue room:


My cheery dining room: I had some problems with the exposure for this shot because I was facing the window ~_~b. . . But if I DON'T face the window, I can't get enough natural light into the room for a decent shot!


My restful, light brown living room: I really like this colour, but I don't think you can really tell from the photo. *Bad photographer, baaad...!*


Even my balcony got a nice face lift =) It looks nicest in the day-time because the sunlight really lifts the champagne colour, but when we get home in the evening, it looks a tad too dark. But nonetheless, a great balcony colour =)

Logical Love and Other Updates

I was reminded of the topic of "Love" while msn-ing with a friend and we came up with an interesting equation.

Love by Logic
1. We love God because He first loved us.

If our love = empty,
we haven't experienced God's love, because if we had, our love will be > Empty.

If we love God very much,
it's also because we have experienced God's love,
because we love God for He first loved us. (So no credit to us, all glory to God ^^)

2. Properties of Love
Love = {suffers long, kind, does not envy, does not parade itself, is not puffed up, does not speak rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil, does not rejoice in iniquity, rejoices in truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, never fails}

3. Faith, Hope and Love. The one with the largest value is:
Love > Faith, Hope.

4. If you're running low on love, you should go to God, because God is love.

1 John 4:8
"He who does not love does not know God, for God is love."
1 John 4: 19
"We love Him because He first loved us"

5. Can fear and love intersect?
Fear & Love --> Mutually Exclusive
Because perfect love casts out fear (ref: 1 John 4: 18)

If you've got any other math equations for this topic, please let me know in my comments section!

Anyways, as for my updates, I'll be going Kukup for a short holiday with some friends =) Enjoy your weekend, folks! I know I'll be enjoying mine! And may God's love be shed upon your hearts! Lots and lots and lots of it!