Hello, I blog!
I share all my sporadic and toilet thoughts in here, because I am random like that.
Oh hai, neighbour!
There’s a really sweet lady who lives next door. Quite young too. She’s a property lawyer, if I recall correctly and rarely do I see her at home. (In fact, I rarely see her at all, because she travels pretty often.)
Needless to say, I was startled when mum opened the front door while we were on our way out a day ago … only to find the neighbour seated outside her unit, reading the newspapers.
I was startled for two reasons.
Reason number one being, the queerness of the situation. The last few times I’ve met her, she was usually in power suits, looking all poised as she makes her way to (or from) her car. Whereas here she is, slumped in front of her door, newspapers in hand with no power suit.
Apparently, one of her family members had taken her usual set of keys, leaving her with another incomplete set. As such, she was only able to unlock her main door but not her gate. The main door was slightly ajar, with Lady Gaga’s music emanating from within – possibly her only other source of entertainment apart from the newspapers she was reading.
Ah well, I am not in any position to laugh because likewise, I’ve been locked out of my home before … albeit five years ago. A much worse situation than her’s too, I imagine – because it was a cold day, I was running a high fever and still had to wait slightly more than an hour for someone to arrive home and let me into the damn house.
Reason number two as to why I was startled?
I was in midst of a very bad rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (The Indian Version) as I was making my way to the front door earlier and even while mum was opening the door. (For the record – if you hadn’t known already – I break into strange songs when I deem the coast clear … or so I thought.)
As such, my eyes grew wide and my voice trailed off when I spotted the neighbour. My rendition of the ridiculously bad song (yes, complete with my faux Indian accent) was most definitely audible from where she was.
Thankfully, she said nothing about the singing and simply greeted us in her usual cheerful manner. (Although she was looking at me a little strangely. Then again, it could also be just my imagination.)
Thankfully, I regained my composure fast enough to attempt inviting her into our home to wait – although methinks mum did most of the talking. (I was still … pretty speechless.)
It is going to be hard to ever behave normally again the next time I meet her.
My cousin, the glutton
When my aunt, uncle and younger cousin returned to Singapore (from Vancouver, where the younger cousin was furthering his studies) for a visit a couple of weeks back, they brought with them a horde of goodies.
Sweets, biscuits, jellybeans and whatnot.
I am not really a sweets person, though I rummaged through the bags and bags of goodies out of curiosity. The aunt said I could take anything I wanted since the goodies were for all of is, but I still felt a little bad taking too much.
I ended up nomming on a few jellybeans, and chanced upon this really delicious milk candy (in a red wrapper) which I really liked. I ended up pocketing five of them, much to the delight of the aunt who kept beckoning me to take more.
I refused, informing her that I would be content with just five. After all, she had a huge packet available and I can always help myself to more in the future if I still wanted ’em.
The five pieces of milk candy I’ve pocketed were gone in a matter of two days, and I’ve been having a mad craving for them ever since.
A couple of days ago, I popped by my grandmother’s place (where they were staying at during their visit here) and dug around for more milk candy. Grandma and mum tried to assist but because they weren’t very good with recognizing brands, they could only work with the miserable description of “the small candy with the red wrapper”.
We dug about in the refrigerator, in plastic bags and in the various jars stored all over the living room. The search proved futile.
My cousin walked out at that juncture and we pounced on him, asking where the candy was.
“The milk candy?” he grinned at me. “The one with the red wrapper?”
“YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS!” I screeched.
“Oh, no more!” says he.
I shot him a questioning look, and he rubbed his belly in response.
Damn. The younger cousin had wolfed down the entire supply of milk candy. The only milk candy I can now find in the house are traces of it in his pee or poop. Oh em gee.
Hmph. If I had known earlier, I should have just accepted my aunt’s invitation to ‘grab more’ and pocket at least half the original supply.
To Malaysia for three days with the extended family tomorrow. And yes, the glutton is going. But he’s a really lovable glutton, even though he polished off the entire milk candy supply.
So there. (;
Australia Part IV: In a nutshell
To sum up the whole load of things I miss from those two weeks of freedom in Perth, Australia:
1) Having one entire house to ourselves, and having the run of the place. Cleaning was a bitch considering the vast amount of space, and we had to clean the floor without a mop – but it was still fun, nonetheless. D threw a pail of water on the ground and soon after, we were slipping and sliding around on towels. Wheee.
2) Cooking together. I wasn’t much help because … I can’t cook as well as the others so I ended up washing dishes most of the time. I didn’t mind, though. Seeing clean dishes drying next to the sink actually gave me a lot of satisfaction, strange as it sounds.
3) Long drives along the Kwinana Freeway to and from Perth City from our place. Especially in the mornings and evenings because the view of the sunrise/sunsets were just to die for!
4) Stormy nights. The storms in Australia were nothing like Singapore’s. The wind would howl all night long, making me snuggle deeper into the blanket, with the sound of hailstones occasionally pelting our rooftop. I still wish I got to see a tornado, though.
5) D’s singing. Well, not his singing per se – but more like the fact that there will always be a noise-making machine in the vicinity when the house becomes too quiet.
(Click for the enlarged version.)
6) Grocery shopping in the local supermarkets, where we would gawk at the wide assortment of Tim Tam chocolate biscuits, and the fact that the prices of our favourite junk food were so much lower than that in Singapore.
7) Having to pile on layers and layers of clothing each time before we leave the house, and having to strip all those layers upon re-entering the house.
8) The cold weather. Singapore is effing hot, period.
9) Street malls. Meaning shopping-dedicated streets which are no-entry to cars and other motor vehicles. Wide pavements, pretty streetlamps with rows and rows of shops lining the street on both sides. There would occasionally be bands and other performance groups busking there which livens up the street-shopping atmosphere – proper performers – not those harmonica-yielding uncles and aunties we see in Singapore.
10) Looking out of the window during a drive around Perth City (and the suburbs) and never failing to spot something interesting.
11) Having instant pasta. Especially the microwavable nacho cheese pasta. Speaking of which, I still have two packets left over from the trip. Nom nom nom.
12) Meeting friendly Australians every single day. Well, almost. There were a handful of salespeople we encountered that had attitudes of raging buffaloes but the bulk of them were really affable. Not to mention how there were some really good-lookers around. Hrrmmm.
13) Packet milkshakes. Looks like an ordinary milk carton but packs a punch once you shake them really hard for at least a minute. The milk within thickens and froths. Yummy instant milkshake!
14) Picnics and barbecues. The barbecue pits provided at public areas are electric. Place yer food on the metal heating element, press a button and you’re ready to go. No need to grabble with messy (and dirty) charcoal and having to put up with black, sooty smoke. The Australians are an environmentally-friendly bunch!
15) Having two people screaming into my face every single darn morning to “wake up, already” … because they are morning people and I’m not. (I think I was the last to wake up every single day. Yikes.)
16) G’s aunt and her interesting use of language. She would mix both English and Mandarin together in a way where it sounds really jumbled up. I will especially remember the most CLASSIC example, when she was asking us to get into the car.
进去car里é¢!”
(And because ‘car’ sounds like another word in Mandarin, we were all wondering “she wants us to go WHERE?!“)
17) The slow-paced lifestyle. I went there and promptly forgot about everything that has been bugging me when I was in Singapore … like my health problems. And escaping from doctors for two weeks was a breath of fresh air.
18) Waking up to “Lucky I’m in love with my best friend. Lucky to have been where I have been” every morning – the song that was set as G’s phone alarm.
19) Us attempting to stargaze out in the dark in the dead of the night at 1 A.M. with a simple camera and tripod set-up. (ZOMG, Australia’s night sky is really full of stars!) Then, the sprinklers got activated by nobody knows what, which sent us scurrying and shrieking while initially thinking that it was a wild animal.
There are actually a lot more but my memory has somewhat faded considering the sheer amount of time that has elapsed since the trip until now.
Let’s stop at nineteen. It is a nice number.
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