What I did on my (summer) vacation

Surely I'm not the only one who immediately thinks of this when someone mentions summer vacation? (and don't call me Shirley!)

On the first day of my summer vacation, I woke up.
Then I went downtown. to. look. for a job.
Then I hung out in front of the drugstore.

On the second day of my summer vacation, I woke up.
Then I went downtown. to. look. for a job.
Then I hung out in front of the drugstore.

On the third day of my summer vacation, I woke up.
Then I went downtown. to. look. for a job.
Then I got a job keeping people from hanging out in front of the drugstore.

On the fourth day of my summer vacation ...

If you're not sure what I'm referring to, check out Cheech & Chong's Sister Mary Elephant skit. I swear you'll never say "thank you" the same way ever again! :)

But back to *my* vacation... here's a quick of list of all the activities I crammed into three weekends in Malaysia and 2.5 days in Singapore:

• Fri 23rd: arrived; ran some personal errands
• Sat 24th: gatecrashed my mother's yoga class; gatecrashed my friend's mother's birthday party
• Sun 25th: late night coffee with Als
• Mon 26th: morning walk in the park; bought my BlueBerry phone; met with Mandy; bought tea & chili sauce to bring back
• Tues 27th: in the KLCC area for personal stuff plus Rachel's performance, and caught up with Rik as she and hubby gave me a ride back after the concert.
• Wed 28th: followed-up on phone-related issues; #chickenwingtwtup
• Thurs 29th: debilitated -- I blame dirty ice! Canceled appt with Lan as a result.
• Fri 30th: Coffee at Bangsar Shopping Center with Als and Mars in the evening, followed by meet-up with Chewbies and some of her friends at a mamak in the Bangsar Village area.
• Sat 1st: the ankle incident and hospital visit :(
• Sun 2nd: the reunion! 1 2 3
  
• Mon 3rd: hospital follow-up; impromptu massage/torture session with Sunny as my ride and co-victim!
• Tues 4th: dinner with Veya and Lan; joined by Baby Angel for coffee later.
• Wed 5th: lunch with St Marians Airnon, Ija, Sally and Rik; dinner with PWC: another St Marian, a long lost senior :)
• Thurs 6th: tea-time with Rachel
• Fri 7th: TK-217 photoshoot; foot spa; bbq beef ribs for lunch, ka-ROCK-k in the evening: hail St Marians!
• Sat 8th: breakfast with Veya; follow-up massage/torture session; mamak catch-up with Chewbies
• Sun 9th: follow-up with Mandy; tea with Zu
• Mon 10th: Singapore here I come! Many thanks to Moomykin for hosting me!
• Tues 11th: lunch with Prasana and Kin; tea with Lin; dinner with Connie & sig other.
• Wed 12th: pre-lunch with Bea and Kin; dinner with Kin's family; packpackpack!
• Thurs 13th: the LONG journey back to Springfield that started at 3am in Singapore, ended at 9pm in Springfield with the Woman in 5D incident.
  

Want some pix? If you're friends with me on Facebook, look for the MY2010 album!!

I'll be filling in the blanks and adding links back to this list, so if you're interested in my mundane minutiae and navel gazing, by all means please bookmark and revisit/refresh this page over the next week or so, k?

Ciao!

If you liked this post, please consider subscribing to my feed or subscribing via email. I'm on Twitter too!

The box of tapes revealed!

Wow how time flies... I'm almost flying out of Malaysia already and never really did get the time for my threatened mix tapes revue... well I guess that means my next trip is going to have to be a much longer one! In the meantime, here's a peek into what was in my box o' tapes:

Bought/Originals

Rima Rashidi – Pabila Kurenung Potretmu
My schoolmate! Can’t say I like the cover – why on earth would the record folks dress her up as a bride?? Ugh! Keep.

Milli Vanilli – All or Nothing, the U.S. – Remix Album
I am one of those who didn’t care that they were lip-synchers. I liked the songs, I liked the image. So there! Didn’t bother to explore “the real Milli Vanilli” who came out after the cat was let out of the bag. I do have the ‘regular’ album in CD format. Keep.



Good Morning Vietnam- Original Motion Picture Soundrack
Loved not just the songs but the Robin Williams as Adrian Cronaur bits as well! I now have this on CD, one of the first gifts Kosh got for me when we were remote dating! No need to keep the tape. Discard.

Def Leppard – Slang
Umm, if I were to say I have absolutely NO recollection of this tape’s contents AT ALL, how badly does that reflect on this album? Especially knowing how fanatical I was about Def Lepp?! I gave it a listen, and omg it's warped *and* insipid. Discard.

The Beatles – Please Please Me (discard) The Beatles – “1” (keep) The Beatles - Greatest Hits I [pirated version] (discard)
I had plenty more Beatles tapes – did I get rid of them as I got their CD equivalents? Or did I play them so much they died? I was in the process of getting every one of their albums on CD. I have six of those, plus the #1’s compilation, and the 2-disc anthology. I’d keep the “1” tape just for the cover art. I’ll still go through all the songs and make sure I have them on a CD or in mp3 format somewhere before discarding them.

Traveling Wilburys – Vol 1
Discovered Roy Orbison thanks to this amazing collaboration; got chills when the video for End of the Line featured an empty rocking rocking chair during his solo in the song. I now have a bootleg CD of this album courtesy of dating-years Kosh, so don’t need the tape no more. Discard.

Warrant – I Saw Red
A cassingle!! O. M. G. I remember buying a few of these during my first year in the U.S.!! I am so over cookie cutter hair bands tho. Discard!!

Amir Yusoff – Some of this is Real
A fellow Malaysian/Swiss mutt, this was his debut album that came out around ‘95. It’s a highly listenable set of tunes, as I recall. Will hold on to this until I get hold of a CD! Keep.

Tommy Page - Tommy Page
O. M. G. What a blast from my high school teenage crush years!! I SO had to play this, despite the slight warping and straining by the player! I have two CDs of his, but not of this, his debut album (I think).

Phil Collins – No Jacket Required
Really? I mean, I know I enjoy the many hits from this album, but I actually bought the tape? Meh. Discard.

Nico – [self-titled 1993 album]
Nico – [self-titled 1995 album]
An ex-bf who broke into the music scene as a Malay rapper in the 90’s. Really not my style, but will keep for s’s and g’s.

Raihan – Puji-pujian
They were the original ‘modern nashid’ group, a capella songs of Muslim worship a la Boys II Men --absoluetely beautiful to hear -- that I really enjoyed. Of course their success spawned imitators who oversaturated the market. I didn't bother with any other group or albums after this one. I have this CD, so will discard the tape.

Sudirman – pilihan sentimental emas
Ah, the late Sudir... amazing voice, lovely songs. I do hope this tape works, but will be kept anyway – uness/until I find a decent compilation CD of songs I like lah. Keep.

Own / mix tapes

Xtension Chords – Shock Value
Is the the a capella group from U of I? Can’t remember! I know I liked this, tho, so keep!

TNT plus various artists
O. M. G I did record this on tape!! I remember trying so hard, unsuccessfully, to find this particular album on CD while a student in the US. I’ll take a listen to see if it’s worth the effort to either locate the CD or get the tunes online. Keep.

Recordings of songs from American Top 40 (mid- to late- 80’s): 4 tapes!

From my Swiss pals: 3 tapes of compilations of various European faves from the late 80’s.

The St Charles Mixx
I vaguely remember this - I know I stayed over at a friend’s place in St Charles during Xmas break freshman year... so I guess I created this for myself while I was there, using her CD’s?

Easter Mixx ‘92
Recorded on April 17 & 18, 1992. Side One is mainly Led Zepplin, Side Two is mostly Extreme. Seeing as this was still my freshman year, I suspect I was recording some of my dorm roomate’s CDs. Up until then, I’d only caught Led Zepp on the radio, so this was my opportunity to finally get me some LZ to myself. Ah, good times!!

KMGL Magic 104 Tour, October 4th 1990
From my year in Oklahoma: we arranged for a visit to a radio station that all of us Malaysian students loved to listen to. It was our first time listening to format radio, and this easy listening station was what appealed to all of us – my housemate and I kept calling in requests so often the DJ knew us well by voice, LoL. Had a major crush on him but he turned out to be not a nice guy, ugh. I don’t recall what’s on this tape, so I’ll need to take a listen, then I’ll probably discard.. next time!

... catch ya on the flip side of my trip!!

... of casts and crutches

My previous post talked about the three incidents that happened to me on Saturday... now I’ll elaborate on the ankle event, and explain why I am now sporting a half-cast and wielding crutches... there’s only so much I can or want to share 140 characters at a time!

Upon getting back to my parents’ place, I took my shoes off, limped my way up the stairs, studied what looked like an apple under the skin of my ankle, took a nice long shower, and once I was refreshed and dressed, went to hunt for ice, bandages and a cushion. Spent most of the afternoon lying down with the bandaged appendage slightly elevated with the occasional hobbling foray to the next room for some internet time.

On one of those forays, though, the ankle decided it REALLY didn’t like any weight on it! There was pain.. nothing I couldn’t handle, but I didn’t like its presence... so decided to get it checked out.

Fyi, it wasn’t just a Saturday evening - which already had me wondering where to go since I figured most clinics would be closed by this time – but it was also the 1st of May, or Labour Day, hence a public holiday, again upping the chances of not finding anything open. ... so we went to a nearby hospital emergency room instead.

They put me in a wheelchair so I wouldn’t have to hobble around to the different places they needed to take me: the nurse’s checking station, the x-ray room, the doctor’s office, the pharmacy, the cashier.... and in between every stop I was pushed back into the waiting area and parked facing the TV – I found that rather telling :p

Anyways, so the ER doc wasn’t sure what she was seeing on the xray: might be a chip, she said, but wasn’t sure,,, and the radiologist wasn’t around to interpret the film... so I’m supposed to go back on Monday and see the ortho guy...

... in the meantime the swelling was pretty bad, and the doc speculated about damaged ligaments, then fixed me with a backslab(?) half-cast thingy and told me to keep the foot elevated as much as possible, and sent me off with muscle relaxants and anti-inflammatories. They would have sold me a pair of crutches too but we already have a pair from a while back, when my dad had a motorcycle run over his foot.

So what was the damage to my wallet? Read Healthcare in Malaysia: my ankle woes to find out and weigh in on your own hospital experiences!

... So all this happened on Saturday... and Sunday was my school reunion, which I attended with crutches... more on THAT in another post!

Jamais deux sans trois, again

Saturday morning started off with a gecko handshake:
I was up early, and wanted a drink a glass or two of 100Plus (a sport/isotonic drink) before heading out for tennis. The bottle of 100Plus was on the kitchen counter, so I grabbed it and pulled it towards me... only to feel something soft and squishy wriggle in my hand. I tore my hand away at once, and a 3” gecko went flying to the floor and ran off. Bleeaaaaah!

Immediately went to the sink and washed my hand... but it took a while before it stopped tingling - psychological aftermath of having not just come in contact with, but having squished, the little bugger. What a way to start the day, eh?

Then came the injury:
It was the first time in years that I was wielding a tennis racquet, and I’d been wondering just how badly I was going to be playing... turns out all that racquetball hadn’t corrupted my game anywhere near as badly as I’d feared. In fact, the main ‘issue’ I had was disbelief at just how ‘heavy’ the ball felt upon contact with the racquet which also felt rather weighty. I was handling myself pretty well, though, if you ignore my running backwards trying to position myself to return a high-bouncing lob, only to run out of tennis court and run into the chainlink fence! The ball embedded itself in the fence about a racquet’s lentgh above me. Ha!

A huge difference between racquetball and tennis is the area that you need to cover. Tennis requires a lot of up and down as well as lateral left and right movement. So there I was, chasing down a shot to my backhand: not sure if I got to it and returned it, or stepped awkwardly just as I got there, but then it happened: I felt my left foot twist under me, and I swear I heard a pop! that freaked me out despite there being no pain. I quickly reversed my direction, made myself fall on my behind, taking all weight off the foot.

It was then that I started wondering what #3 was going to be... they say these things come in threes, right?

Cat bite fever?
So Z and I went off to breakfast, chooing a nearby mamak that she not only drove me to, but insisted on dropping me off at right at its entrance so I’d not have to limp along more than necessary. I was the stubborn one who afterwards insisted on walking back to the car rather than enjoy the VIP treatment of getting picked up from the place. Yeah, typical me :p

We then hung out at her place for a little bit, catching up on news etc: can’t do that when you’re across the net: too far; or at the mamak: too noisy! I was paying lots of attention on two of her cats, especially Noir who it seems really loves attention, but also gets very particular about just where she wants to be petted, and will bite to show she wants more. Umm, yeah, she did the clamping down on my hand twice, the second time felt a bit more painful than expected, but I didn’t think twice about it, to busy chatting... when I got back I realised the cat had left five puncture wounds in my right pinky finger; she had actually drawn blood! No wonder it was so pedih!

With Cat Scratch Fever playing in my head, I washed my hand – the same one that had squished the gecko, btw – and hoped that this was #3.

More on that ankle, and why I'm sporting a half cast and wielding crutches, next. Stay tuned!

Less than a week to go!!

In a week's time, I should be gasping for air trying to reacclimatize myself to the pollution and humidity of Malaysia. Fun! But on the bright side, I have all these distractions to look forward to!

1. Choosing, writing and sending off postcards for the Postcard/Link Exchange of 2010 (registration is technically closed, but I'll gladly accept anyone who signs up before I get the address labels printed out this weekend!)
2. Figuring out what Malaysia-themed gift to get for Steve.
3. Showing TK-217 around KL.
   
4. Participating in a proposed photo scavenger hunt, another kapgar brainchild!
5. Food!!!! Nasi lemak BRJ. Nasi lemak Sri Steven's. Milo ice blended Sri Stevens. Teh tarik. Roti canai. Roti chanai Raju. Roti bakar. Kaya. ... and plenty more. I believe a friend of mine is treating me to beef ribs too, yummy!
   
6. My school reunion!! There almost 100 attendees (excluding spouses/kids!!) to date, about 35 from my year alone. This is going to be waaaaay too big to be comfortable for me, but what the heck.
7. Going to DFP with DZE to see Rachel perform!
8. Tennis with my tennis mates! It keeps getting pushed further and further back, hopefully we manage to get a least ~one~ session in before I leave!
   
9. Maybe even a torture session or two! I mentioned it a few times here and here, but today I dug out my one and only poor picture of how I looked after my first-ever session. In black and white you can kinda see the bruising better, I think. That's my huge-ass arm, btw - the bruised part is the triceps area. Ouch. Yes, I am a sadist. Or was it a masochist?
10. Checking out and, if it seems like a gadget I'd be happy with, purchasing a dual-sim quad-band Malaysian-made Blackberry-wannabe.

... and a few others that I'll not share with ya, teeheehee, I gotta keep *some* things to myself, right?

Have a great weekend y'all!

Thursday Thoughts

Life After Work's sister sites have been out of commission for a while now; I had all these plans for a Food in February theme over at a malaysian abroad, but despite quite a few ideas for a variety of different posts, I just never did sit down and churn the posts out... just never got around to it.

*sigh*

I'm struggling here.

I do have inspiration for a series of posts for Life After Work, thanks to snglguy's own series that's just starting (see parts one and two), about the different places he's called home - he says three for him, I say omg I count at least ten! I'll tell you more about them once I get a hold of some pix, so that might take a few months since it involves heading back to Malaysia first...

Something I'm looking forward to wrt my trip is that I'll be helping spread the reach of kapgar's Norman (well, actually one of an army of Norm clones) to Malaysia, Switzerland and perhaps even Italy. So lots of coolness there.

Still dreading the cost of tickets, which have probably gone up in the past month or so of my procrastination. Go me!

:p

Where I was, in photos

Here's a quick photoessay of where I was over the past two weeks:

It started with Xmas in Atlanta, GA:

(no, not everyone on this pic was on the trip, many were from Atlanta and its neighboring 'burbs)

followed by a long drive to a rather cold and dreary Panama City Beach, FL

(what bird is this?)

... but it turned sunny the next morning...


... so on our way to Mobile AL we stopped by a lovely beach...

... for footsoaking and jumping in the cold (don't let the sun fool ya, it was COLD!)

In Mobile I was amused to see not-so-creative variations of this sign at most of their rec centers:

Our trip then took us to Columbus and Atlanta, Georgia; lunch on one of those days was at a Buffalo Wild Wings ("let's play hollywood!"), where I was dared to eat one "sizzling" sauced wing (the highest on their hot sauce heat scale)...
... I can only say it had the heat, but there was no ...body... to it. Sure it made my lips and throat burn, but there was no ...satisfaction... to it. Tasted like concentrated tabasco, and I hate tabasco. Ugh.

Then back to Atlanta where we celebrated New Year's with much noise and rejoicing...

... so much so that most of us didn't sleep till 3, 330am. Of course, the next day was the long journey back... but it dawned once again nice and sunny...
... which made the trip pretty tolerable. It had been a fun trip, and I got to know the 13+ people, plus those who hosted us here and there, much better indeed.

Then I came back to Springfield, and all too soon was driving Kosh to work at 6 in the morning, peering through an ice-encrusted windshield that defied the scraper...


... and today I had this much snow to clear off of the car...

... and it continues to fall, wouldn't surprise me if when I go out again I'll have the same amount of white stuff to clear off again!

... so even as I had grumbled about the cold weather we'd had throughout our "escape from the winter cold" trip, on hindsight I see it had still been much more pleasant than what awaited my return.

Okay, I am SO ready for summer now.

Or a trip back to Malaysia, LoL!

Whaddaya say, Kosh? ;)

If you liked this post, please consider subscribing to my feed or subscribing via email. I'm on Twitter too!

going potty: a forest in a bag, and other tales from the deck

After just about a month in the new place, things have settled down enough for me to then look at the deck and the legacy of pots left behind by the landlord. The previous tenant had said that she had not bothered with them at all. Most of them are in bad shape:

full of dead stuff

broken

cracked

A few weeks ago, I had gotten my hands on some spider plant offshoots, and had put them in water in order to grow out some roots. Today, most of them looked like they were plantable. Well, they had to be - the cat had decided she wanted to eat the leaves...

Here you can see how the leaves had suffered from the cat's attention! Hopefully they'll survive... spider plants are supposed to be really hardy things... right?

As I was doing my "gardening", I remembered vaguely a friend of mine from college saying something about baking old dirt / potting soil before reusing it ... heh... whatever - aren't spider plants supposed to really hardy and hard-to-kill? :D

So I've (re-)planted two small and two large pots with spider plant offshoots. Some of the pots are filled with (new) peat moss. Others are using the old soil that was in there, but totally crumbled and mashed up and mixed with another pot's soil. Again: spider plants are supposed to be really hard to kill, so hopefully they'll survive what I've done to them, LoL!

Had a great surprise when opening the unopened bag of potting soil that had been sitting on the deck for a year or three:

Yeah, it's a jungle in there!

Kinda cool, I suppose that bags of soil still have random spores/seeds/roots that can sprout? I know these bags usually have small holes in them, so water can get in... but I guess sunlight -- even if it's through the plastic -- was also sufficient for growth?

There are still many pots to tackle, but until I have more spider plant offshoots to pot, or other hardy herbs that might come in handy, I'll probably let them be for the moment.

If you have any suggestions about what else I could plant out there, by all means leave me a comment :) Take note that since the cat can't be trusted not to gorge on them, I can't bring them inside during winter, I don't know if that makes any difference in suggestions.

Thanks!

If you liked this post, please consider subscribing to my feed or subscribing via email. I'm on Twitter too!

fatlipped

Last October, I was a pill poppin' fool trying to get an allergic outbreak under control.

Since then, I've tapered down to one pill every other day or so.

Couldn't got off the pills completely, though: I'd get welts on my elbows within three days of the last popped pill, and that would be the first indication of reactions still threatening.

So what with all the recent fun and excitement (har har) of packing and moving, the stress plus the dust pushed the allergies through: on Wednesday I was going about my business when I realised my lip felt funny... went to check in the mirror, and hey, whaddayaknow, half the lower lip was swollen. Not good.

So Wednesday night, and the whole of Thursday, I was in a benadryl-induced zombielike state, fighting a fully swollen bottom lip and a ton of welty hives. Today (Friday) I woke up feeling much closer to normal.

We've still got a lot to unpack, but hopefully I've got enough drugs in my system to withstand the effects of those dust mites!

... scary thing is, I only have an ever-so-slight reaction to dust mites, according to the allergist: imagine how much worse it could be / have been for someone else with a more severe reaction? Yikes!!


Have a great weekend everyone! And for those who celebrate: Happy 4th of July!

If you liked this post, please consider subscribing to my feed or subscribing via email. I'm on Twitter too!

A free Friday?

No proper edition of Foody Friday (no major adventures in the kitchen) or Fitness Friday (derailed once again by that snot-nosed niece bug!) this week.

Instead, let me highlight that tomorrow is the first ever World Blog Surf Day, brainchild of Golden Prague. I'll be participating on my a malaysian abroad site, so do drop by as we go around the world visiting participating citizens of the world who will write about how life is living in a foreign country.

Hope y'all have a good weekend!

If you liked this post, please consider subscribing to my feed,thanx!

I'm alive, really...

So, it's been a bit silent here, sorry!

I was unabashedly concentrating on the paid blog while on vaykay, even though that meant posting some content that would have been more appropriate here. After all, I am trying to keep that other blog a more detached/professional one, while this one continues to be my personal and mixed bag one.

So in case you missed out, please check out a malaysian abroad for posts on
1. my mega spice shopping trip
2. my mega chocolate shopping trip
3. my snot-nosed niece

Another reason for the silence is the fact that I've had to battle whatever germs that snot-nosed niece gave me! I had staved it off with some Panadol during the Switzerland-Chicago flights, but with the screwed up jet-lag and the subsequent mega-crappy weather (rain rain rain rain rain - at least no floods where I'm at!), I was laid low for a few days.

I'm relatively better now.

Will share some food experiments and the start of a new exercise regime in the next posts. Stay tuned!

If you liked this post, please consider subscribing to my feed, thanks!

In KL!

The Chicago to Kuala Lumpur journey was surprisingly painless, despite:

1. ... assuming my flight was leaving from the International Terminal. Turns out because the flight was being run by United, I needed to go to Terminal 1. Nvm, lots of time...

2. ... being told to use the self check-in once I get to the correct terminal, only I can't get it to work, so I'm shown to another queue, takes longer than it should but finally get to the counter. Then it takes forever for the United person to figure out my name, even when I pointed out where my "last name" began on the passport. He insisted my first name was my last name. Grrr.

3. ... the little adventure when getting back from our post check-in brunch! Because I had 3 hours to kill before I needed to be at the gate, as planned Kosh and I went out for a bite to eat. NOTE TO SELF: do NOT go to the O'Hare Oasis on I-294 from the airport unless you are heading back into town. Because, yikes, there was no easy way to turn around to get back to the airport from there! Since we had lots of buffer time, our little adventure on a forced southbound I294 to 64 then turning around to get back in the right direction wasn't as stressful as it would have been in any other circumstances!

4. ... forgetting to take my 3-1-1 bag out when going through security. No one called me on it. I hear it's all too common an occurance. I don't want to think about the implications. (*lynne* buries head in sand)

5. ... finding someone sitting in my aisle seat once I board the plane. She insisted hers was the aisle at first - she probably knew otherwise but was hoping not to have a neighbour, or that I wouldn't mind switching with her. Helloooo? She was this rather large woman, no way I'd want to be trapped against the wall, window or no window! Thankfully the plane was less than half empty, so once the doors closed, I moved to the row behind me, and she moved from her window seat to "my" aisle with profuse gratitude. Yeah, whatever.

6. ... the underside of the armrest that protruded into my back as I tried to sleep across just 2 seats (the plane had a 2-3-2 seat layout).

7. ... being served baby food for breakfast. I usually order lacto-ovo vegetarian meals when I travel, and the lunch/dinner meals was great, a sort of colorful couscous with baba ganoush and lentils. Breakfast was applesauce and bread. I was gazing longingly and jealously at others who had yogurt and a danish pastry :p

8. ... once again having to point out where my last name begins when at Amsterdam, because, hey, once again, they had no idea how to figure the Malaysian passport / name / whatever. Grrr!

... ... yes, I have listed eight points, I've yet to reach Malaysia at the end of this list, and yet I call the journey painless!!? Okay, I admit I'm either weird or very very patient! :)

Stay tuned for more mundane minutiae in the next post :D

If you liked this post, please consider subscribing to my feed, and checking out my other blog: a malaysian abroad

all's well!

I didn't mean to leave you all hanging, awaiting news of the fate of the gumstick iPod shuffle lamented in the post below.

Good news!

Walked from the apartment to the Apple Store (over 1hr) last Fruiday, and went up to the Genius Bar, where we told that we might have to wait a long while if we didn't have an appointment, but we only had to wait like 10mins.

They plugged the bugger into their computer and hey, it was recognised!

The bugger got reset, of course: all songs lost, but that's not a big deal because the are stored in Kosh's laptop, it's only copies that get loaded onto the shuffle.

There had been some other files on there too (it can also be used as a usual USB stick) - but since Kosh hadn't touched or bothered with them for over 2 years, figured they weren't anything we'd miss.

They loaded some songs onto the now-functioning thing - all seemed well.

Made our way back (took the el back in - enough walking for the day!), plugged the shuffle in, and hey, *now* it's recognised. So I've loaded my playlist back onto the thing.

So far so good.

Yay!

My thanks to all who provided support and suggestions during this difficult time. I appreciate it all :)

If you liked this post, please consider subscribing to my feed, and checking out my other blog: a malaysian abroad

Fitness Friday: ~broken!~

Thursday afternoon I was multitasking on Kosh's laptop: looking around for plane tickets / dates for my impending trip back to KL next month (another postcard offer coming soon!) PLUS charging the iPod Shuffle which is what I've been using to keep me occupied while at the gym.

Rather than being stuck into the side like in the picture, the shuffle was attached to a USB hub, and was sticking out at me a little.

iPod Shuffle
Originally uploaded by strollers

And whaddaya know, I must have nudged the bugger while typing... because all of a sudden there was an error message, talking about how a device was attempted to be removed without properly ejecting it which may result in damage, loss of data, etc.

Crap.

Kosh spent a few hours trying to get the blasted thing to get recognised by his laptop, but to no avail. Moved to my PC, which recognised the thing, but couldn't do anything with it, due to I/O error of some sort. Downloaded some software that claimed to be able to fix things. Didn't work on the Mac. The PC version wasn't compatible with Vista.

So tomorrow, we are going to the Apple Store on Michigan Avenue. See if they can salvage it... or propose some sort of trade-in that's worth it. After all, this now-dead shuffle has a capacity of 512 MB or 120 songs -- utterly minuscule compared to what's available out there today!

I can survive half an hour on the treadmill without music, but now that I've upped the routine to one hour (I'll talk about that next week), having some tunes is vital something ideal. But I don't want us to shell out $$ unnecessarily. Not at this time. Not in our current situation. *sigh*

If you liked this post, please consider subscribing to my feed, and checking out my other blog: a malaysian abroad

humped and tongued on Christmas!

Things that happened to me on Christmas:

1. Got humped by a dog. This was at a yoga pal's house, it was their pet. At first I thought Wolfie was really excitedly sniffing at me because he smelled evidence of the psycho kitty,, but then he "hugged" my arm... and when I pushed him off and stood up, he proceeded to "hug" my thigh. Thankfully the critter was a small breed, because at least I could push him away pretty easily. But ugh. I guess *those* jeans go straight into the laundry basket! Didn't have the opportunity to ask his owners if this was a common behaviour of his, or if I was his type :p

2. Bit my tongue. Hard. What distracted me, I don't know. But this is a reason I rarely chew gum - when I did, the insides of my cheeks were a mess because I'd keep accidentally biting them! Getting the tongue is a less common occurrence, but hey, it happened. And right now I feel as if I should be talking with a major lisp, because, gah, that one side of the tongue is certainly bigger than usual!

Okay, only those two things to whine about from yesterday.

I wonder what today brings...

3. In the meantime, here's a GREAT thing that happened yesterday: someone mentioned that there was an Indian version of "12 Days of Christmas". I heart the internets. Found it easily. And proceeded to laugh and laugh and laugh... How can you not, when it starts off:
On the first day of Christmas
my true love gave to me
a totally insufficient dowry

Click on "play" and prepare to be amused:


[the only thing that falls flat to me is the "five Indian games" ... what's that about, how's that funny, can someone explain?]

So it seems the song is by an Indian boyband called boymongoose. And hey, they have another Christmas parody song out, called Single Girls (to the tune of Jingle Bells, in case it's not obvious). Part of the refrain goes Single girls, single girls,
I'm only 5 ft 2
but on the internet I can be just as tall as you

Enjoy:

If you liked this post, please consider subscribing to my feed, and checking out my other blog: a malaysian abroad

broken...

Anyone got suggestions as to where I can get my bag fixed?

Okay, so Kosh calls it my purse, and I suppose that is what it is called in the US. In Malaysia, it is usually called a handbag. I, however, don't like either term. What I have is essentially a rugged yet delicate small leather backpack-like thing, bought in Switzerland in 2003. It's a bag. Nuff said.

Thing is, one of the thingamajigs broke (circled in red - click to embiggen).

What's broken isn't obvious in the photo right now, because we have tried to fix it. You see how there's a male and female component? Well, the female component, the ring, had a little piece break off. So we glued the piece back on (with male component in place within it), made sure it dried properly, all that jazz. I used the fixed bag once and ooops whaddayaknow, "he" slipped out of "her"!

I have no idea how to replace the thingy, even if I knew where to source a replacement. I don't even know what to call it ("a carabiner type connection with swiveling capability"?), hence the catch-all "thingy".

I've been wondering about bringing it to a shoe repair place: they work with leather, so I wonder if they also work with bags, or at least know of someone who might. But which shoe repair place? None that I've passed by downtown seem to do anything except shoes, and I seem to have accepted a defeatist attitude about this.

.. and yet ... I miss my bag, and want it fixed!!

Y'all have any suggestions?
... That don't involve getting a new one, that is!


... because here in Chez Naranek, we try to fix things up as best we can, squeezing maximum value and use out of something before discarding it ... like my winter boots, for example.

Last winter, the zipper handle broke. You know, the little piece that you hold on to when you pull the zipper head up or down? Yeah, that little thing went bye-bye. The zipper itself was working well, and the boots were still in good shape, so throwing them out just because of that little broken piece would have been such a waste.

So first I used a paper clip: threaded it through the hole in the zipper head, and used that as a handle. Worked well enough, but it was a dinky thing that bent when force was applied, and would poke my fingers kinda painfully. Recently, Kosh and I searched the apartment for a possible replacement for the paper clip: key chain loops, those little rosary bead-like chains, all too big to thread through the tiny zipper head hole.

Finally found something that worked - can anyone identify what we used?

If you liked this post, please consider subscribing to my feed, and checking out my other blog: a malaysian abroad

pill poppin' fool

Okay, saw the allergist.

Having hives for more than 6 weeks puts them in the chronic category (as opposed to acute, usually as a reaction to stress, food, etc), and considering their behaviour, they might be indicative of an autoimmune condition. Gulp. But thankfully, the tests that the GP had ordered two weeks ago covered the things the allergist wanted to check, and they had all come back fine. That means some scary things like lupus or certain thyroid problems can be eliminated already. Phew!

It seems that identifying the cause of a chronic hives is usually unsuccessful, and that the things can go into spontaneous remission fast, or it may take years... oh joy!

But anyway: since the hives are the result of the body producing too many histamines in reaction to this as yet unidentified cause, the first step to relief is to stop them histamines. Using antihistamines. To block the H1 and H2 receptors. Or something like that. I got overloaded in doctorspeak.

Bottom line? I'm gonna be a pill poppin' fool:

To get the hives under control:

morning:
10mg zyrtec
150 mg zantac

25 mg hydroxyzine later in the day if symptoms demand it

night:
10 mg zyrtec
150 mg zantac
10 mg singulair

In addition to that, I take
a multivitamin
500 mg Vitamin C
birth control

Yum. That's about 9 pills a day.

Glad I can manage pills though! Back when I was young, heck even as a teenager, I just. couldn't. swallow. any. pills. My parents had to hide it in a piece of bread and have me swallow that instead... didn't work too well, because I'd crunch/chew it and bleaahhh...!! :p

No longer to be taken:
Benadryl: no need for this at the moment, since I'll be playing with the zyrtec/zantac/singulair cocktail at this time... have a full bottle at hand though, if needed :)
81 mg aspirin: have been taking this daily low dose as a preventive measure, for long-term heart protection. However, it seems aspirin has been known to cause and/or exacerbate existing hivey conditions, so just to make sure all bases are covered, no more aspirin until the situation is back under control.


... and it's only once everything is a-ok (or at least in remission such that I don't have all these antihistamines in my system) that I can consider going for the skin pricking testing thingy. But if you were paying attention, you'll realise that it's probably going to be a waste of time and money, since symptoms are pointing away from a specific food/pollen/whatever allergy and towards an internal off-kilter situation.

Yeah.

This is going to be fun.

Remind me to get back into daily meditation. I'm gonna need it.

this that and the other

This:

So we brought the cat to the vet a few weeks ago for her annual wellness check-up. Remember that it was as a result of the previous check-up (slightly overweight, slightly dehydrated) that we ended up getting her the automatic cat feeder and the water fountain.

The water fountain is great.

The food thingy... well... let's just say we've discovered our cat is probably an emotional eater. Kinda like Daddy and Mommy. When she's bored, she eats. If she's kept occupied, getting lots of lap time, she doesn't really eat much. So it was a challenge figuring out her daily consumption let alone trying to then cut back on her portions. Because she wasn't consistent!

The thing is, and we found this out the hard way, if she feels she needs to eat and there's no food because she's finished her allocation for the day/12hrs, she pees in the wrongs places... to show her ire...

So we stopped trying to cut back, and instead just let her have the portion she seemed happy with, every 12 hours.

Yeah. So now she's weighing 12 lbs.
Last visit she was 10-ish.
Doc wants her at around 8lbs.

Guess who's gotta go on a diet?

That:

So I went to see my General Practitioner doc about my hives urticaria, and he was quite concerned that I'd been suffering these for over a month... he immediately put me on (not too high) a course of steroids, because he didn't want me to experience side effects like the hunger and the bloating. Told me to continue with the Zyrtec and Benadryl but to expect not need them much soon.

Within 24hours, I woke up for the first time in so long, itch-free. What a relief!!

Scary thing is, I'm already in the tapering off phase of the 'roids, and, well, I *need* the Zyrtec and Benadryl! Yesterday I forgot said "supplementary" drugs *and* was an hour late taking the 'roids, and wow, the itchy welts started appearing on my scalp, scary how fast the things came back as soon as I let my guard down... and this morning I woke up to find splotches on my shoulder and chest - just a few, and not itching, thankfully, but still...

It's not over, not by a long shot.

I've got an appointment with an actual allergist next week. That'll be a token visit, setting up for whenever it is that I need to go in for the actual testing. Of course, I would need to get that done when I am *not* still having these hive thingies and therefore not having roids, zyrtec, benadryl or claritin in my system. I wonder when that's gonna happen.

I was looking at myself this morning and last night, at the amount of pills I'm taking all of a sudden... I hate it.

I want this things solved and fixed, stat!!

The other:

USCIS has acknowledged receipt of the package we sent. My conditional Permanent Residency is extended for one year as they actually process the thingy. According to their website, that office is currently processing similar applications from 6 months ago. Yes, you read that right. We'll see how long it actually takes. I've had relatively good experiences with much shorter processing times than advertised.

I'm going to have to go for another round of biometrics stuff (see item three here), they say to capture fingerprints, photo and signature. I'm quite surprised they aren't taking a cheek swab too. *rolls eyes*

Once I get the above done, I can have a better idea of when my next visit to Malaysia will be... as I might have mentioned before, my passport expires in March '09, so I need to be heading back anytime between now and then to get the thingy renewed.

Of course, I'm reluctant to throw so much $$ for the trip unless it's "worth it", so I might add another leg or two to the journey: Switzerland (see my niece!), England (visit HW!), ... maybe be adventurous and visit a blog pal or two? But extra legs means extra $$ too... so we'll see... one step at a time...

Have a good Tuesday, everyone!

itchy and scratchy

... seeing how my paperwork blues post garnered lots of comments and questions, I will be responding to them in a separate post rather than having it buried in the comments section. This will happen in a day or two, so stay tuned, k?

In the meantime:

I occasionally have these welts appear on my forearms near the elbow, we've always figured it's some sort of low-grade contact irritation. Back in high school, I remember occasionally getting them, and assumed I was reacting to a particularly nasty mosquito bite. Then one day my parents decided to try and make me more of a girl, and bought me some sort of toiletry set from Marks & Sparks; in order not to waste it, one day before school I put some of the scented powder on my face. Halfway through school I was scratching and scratching at my cheeks, feeling these huge raised welts. I remember a friend of mine asking what was wrong. Me: "Oh, just reacting to a mosquito bite lah." She: "Ummm... it looks much more than that!!" I don't recall what happened to that toiletry set, but I've been wary about putting unnecessary junk on my face ever since: one of the reasons I don't do make-up.

Fast forward to about 2 years ago. This was just before I was leaving KL to get hitched, fiancee visa in hand. For a few weeks prior, I'd been getting those elbow welts, and since I'd been hanging out with Rail at all these different mamak shops, and we all know just how well they actually clean their tables, I figured I'd just switch to wearing long-sleeved shirts, never mind the heat! Another strange place that itched was my right ring finger, under my engagement ring. Then, one morning I woke up and my entire scalp was itching like crazy! It was covered in these tiny welts and o.m.g. did they itch!! I happened to have an appointment with my masseuse-cum-torturer, who said I was probably "heaty". Thankfully everything receded in time for my trip to Chicago.

Then soon after the wedding, the itchies and scratchies acted up again. The hives struck badly, and Dr Kosh had me take Claritin, which seemed to help dull the worst of the breakout. One curious development was my engagement ring - it would actually BURN my skin if I wore it more than 24 hours. As a result, I have worn it only once or twice since then. :( I'm also thankful we chose "cheapo" silver rings for our wedding bands - so far no problems with that!! :)

Discussed it with a GP who gave us the names of two allergists we might consider visiting, but by that time the symptoms had all but died out, and I felt I didn't have anything to show. Besides, procrastination and inertia are two of my many middle names, LoL!

... fast forward to about a month ago ....

Remember the the day of the bling? It was also a day of bowling. And I *think* I was starting to feel hive-y itches before leaving for bowling, but I wouldn't swear on it. ... but you know where this is leading, right? Yup... a few hours after coming back from bowling, my thumb and ring finger of my right hand (two of the three digits that get inserted into questionable ball holes) stared to swell. The elbow welts returned, and in greater numbers. Caused by the bowling? Or the cheapo bling? Or some combination thereof? No idea. But I divested myself of all my jewelry, just in case.

No real difference.

A week or two later, I went to bed with a tingling sensation in my upper lip - woke up the next day looking like half of Angelina Jolie's pouty lips! That went down in about 2 days. I'd post a photo except that my 'stache and nosehairs seem more obvious than the duck-billed lynne, LoL!

And in the past week, I've had hives on my scalp, specifically at the base of my head. Splotches have appeared on my eyelids. Over the past two days, they've appeared on my shoulders, behinds my ears, heck even on my earlobes too!! It has *not* been fun!

Claritin didn't seem to be doing anything. The generic equivalent of Zyrtec seems only slightly better, perhaps staving off new outbreaks but not doing anything for existing hives.

... and no, we haven't dug up the piece of paper from two years ago with the allergists' phone numbers, let alone gotten an appointment fixed. Did I mention inertia and procrastination? :D

Then yesterday, I attended my Meditation session in the 'burbs: One of the attendees, when asked the usual "Hey, how are ya?" responded with "Oh, my allergies!! They've been really bad this week. My hives are *so itchy!*".

And I felt this load roll off my shoulders - it's not just me!!!!!

Since this outbreak, Kosh and I have speculated about the significance that I've had similar outbreaks at the same time of year (even though 2 years apart), and have been wondering if I had developed some sort of seasonal allergy. To know that someone else is experiencing an upsurge of symptoms makes this hypothesis slightly more likely. It's a bummer though, to suspect that I may have developed allergies. Doesn't sit well with my Leo pride.

But all the more reason to visit that allergist, to figure out that I'm allergic to, eh?

Now please excuse me while I scratch my scalp to death!

:p

eye was floored

... so yesterday, Kosh and I went in for eye exams and glasses... I've only ever done a full eye exam once, like 10 years ago - I can fake it w/o glasses most of the time, since I've got just slight astigmatism and a mild case of rabun jauh which combine to poor vision usually at night when it's raining. And we went in for the exams and all to make use of the vision thingy Kosh had been paying for, which we'd not used/redeemed, via work.

Anyways.

here's the question:
... how many times was I lying down on the floor at the eye doc's place?

Why?, you ask?

Well, my body is made in such a way that when it feels it's being violated, it faints, or threatens to, anyway.

That is it a violation of my body to drain blood out of me is a well-known truth, and the reason why my donating blood is not practical.
My ONE childhood experience with a tampon was also deemed a violation, which is why I'll stick to sanitary pads, thank you very much.
Extreme claustrophobic conditions will also elicit a violation response, as discovered one night when checking out a new "in" club in KL and ending up cutting the trip short almost as it began with me needing to just sit in the cool night air, head between knees, and having my friends head off a guard who told us we couldn't lepak there (yes, it was the time when the no-lepaking laws had just come into effect).

And as of yesterday, it seems that dilation of my pupils is ALSO deemed a violation...image stolen from blogography - thanks Dave!!

About 5 minutes after getting the drops in and being shooed out into the waiting area so that the eye doc could see (haha) other patients while waiting for the pupils to get fully dilated, I was already feeling all cold-sweaty, blood-drained and ears a-ringing. I kinda mumbled to Kosh "ummm, are there like side effects to eye-dilation? Because, ummm, I'm going to faint if I don't lie down like *now*". Poor Kosh, never having seen me this vulnerable, wasn't quite sure what to make of it all, and it's not like the place had somewhere for me to lie down properly so I just lay down in the waiting area.

Was fine soon enough, and was fine all throughout the rigmarole of choosing a pair glasses and all, but then Kosh asked me to see how dilated *his* eyes were, and the process of focusing on his eyes made me all pale again,,,, by that time there were more people so I went to the quietest corner I could find for another lie-down.

By the time I was okay the doc could see us, so in we went into the examination room again so the doc could look at the retina better... and of course, all that "look left" "look right", etc etc with that friggin bright light left me again ready to pass out. Staggered out and lay down for a minute before being helped up and into the initial eye examination room - it was already the end of the day so the room was all mine.

So, answer? Four times.

Fun.