little miss may

On a clear day,
rise and look around you,
and you’ll see who you are

After months of procrastination, and after reading how easy it was for Giddy Tigers to do the same, I finally took the plunge and upgraded my outdated WordPress 2.0 to 2.2.1. I had wanted to do it some time ago when 2.2 was out, but with all the moving and settling down and this and that and all sorts of other excuses, I waited… and procrastinated some more… and waited…

…for a clear day…

…until my kiasu-ness got the better of me…

…and decided to do it! Just like Nike. Well, almost.

Took me just under an hour to get everything straightened out, including the blogroll / THHC™ links on my sidebar. At first it was totally gone… Gasp! Where were my links?!

Poked around WordPress’ support pages, did a few trial and error code changes, and things were back to normal again, without that horribly yucky, inconsistent spacing (remember that problem you had, L B?) which just irritated me. Woo-hoo! All in the clear now!

On a clear day,
How it will astound you
That the glow of your feelings outshines every star
You will follow every mountain, sea and shore,
You will see from far and near
A world you’ve never seen before

When I did the inspection of the unit I’m renting now, I didn’t quite go up the rooftop to check out the view. The description did say that you could see the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and had a small picture of it posted on the page where it was advertised.

The week I moved in, I could hardly see the bridge because the tree still had a full head of leaves. However, now that Winter is here and the leaves are all gone (except for its so-called berries, the view of the bridge is much clearer now.

Great for watching those fireworks on New Year’s Day, don’t you think?

On a clear day
On a clear day
You can see forever
And ever, and ever more

Last Sunday I made a trip to Ikea for a semi shopping spree. Didn’t buy much since I’d already bought all the big necessities; it was just to poke around to see if I could pick up any more good bargains. Pinched a reading light, a quilt cover set, some chair pads, bits and bobs.

As I was waiting for the train to arrive on my way home, I met a middle-aged Chinese woman. No… the middle-aged woman met me. I was sitting on the bench straightening out the items in my bulky bag when she asked me the next train’s ETA. It’ll be a good half hour before it arrives, I replied.

She sat down next to me. Bit by bit, she started talking. First to ask the number of stops to the station she’s going to. Then she asked if I came alone. I said yes.

Why alone?

Well, I don’t have to wait for anyone, and I don’t have to worry about people waiting for me, I replied.

Yes, like me. Alone is good. You’re independent, that’s good. Don’t have to rely on anyone. If you can do it on your own, then do it.

By that time, I was wondering what the story was that she really wanted to tell me. She needed to tell her tale to a stranger, to let it out. I could tell she was sad and hurting.

…57 years old.
…Came to Sydney with her husband 19 years ago.
…Started a restaurant business, was in it for 15 years.
…Too busy with work, she missed the opportunity to have children.
…Husband started going to China for long periods of time.
…He was looking after another woman and her son, not biologically linked.
…Divorce proceedings started 2 years ago.
…Wants to move out while her soon-to-be ex is out of town for 2 months.
…Afraid of being robbed, raped, hurt, and only wants to be safe, at peace.
…It’s not easy being alone, but bit by bit, she’ll work it out.
…Life goes on.

Are you married?

No I’m not, I said.

You have nice, long earlobes. You’ll have a good life, a good partner. Your face looks like mine when I was young, she commented. She fished out her wallet and showed me a photo of herself, when she was 27. The eyes, the hair.

There was some resemblance, I do admit.

I just hope that the resemblance stopped there, at physical appearances.

I wonder if there’ll come a day when I tell my woes to a total stranger, like she had…

Guess who’s birthday it is this time?

It’s none other than our own majesty, King’s Wife!
HAPPY ROYAL BIRTHDAY!

Many many happy red carpet returns, and may you have lots of wonderful times ahead, with wonderful memories to reminisce after!

I can’t believe that I’ve missed the celebrations for two years in a row, and on both occasions, I’m not in KL. Is it fate or is it fate? Nevertheless, I’m optimistic that one day, one fine day… we’ll celebrate togeder-geder, ok?

And on other matters…

I’ve been thinking of getting a local NSW / Australian driver’s licence for the past few weeks; my three months’ limit is up and I can’t use my KL one anymore. Though I don’t own a car here, it’s quite handy to have a licence just in case I need to up and drive somewhere at the last minute.

Trouble is, it isn’t as easy as just converting my KL licence to a local one. I checked out the RTA website for requirements, and I’d have to:

Alamak! I thought just show them my KL licence can gau-tim already, but I guess I was wrong. This is more mah-fan than I thought! And to make matters more complicated, I heard from my cousin that I need to use my own (or borrowed) car for the test. The RTA does not provide one like how our JPJ has cars ready for you to hop in and drive. I’d have to make sure that everything works as well — signal lights, car lights, horn, this and that — otherwise I’d have to reschedule for another session if the car isn’t in perfect condition. Cannot play-play here!

Hmmm…

Maybe I should just stick to taking the bus or train, huh?

There’s no point to this post, really.

Just wanted to.

Felt I had to.

After all those inactive days.

Almost a week now.

Seriously?

I think my mind’s in hibernation.

Seriously.

Yet, mindless mind-blogging a-plenty.

Thoughts bouncing like a ping-pong ball.

Ping! Pong! Ping! Pong!

With lots of air inside, like a rubber duck.

Squeeze it, and it goes p-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-t…

My hands and feet are perpetually cold.

Warm me up?

M-m-m-m-m…

Perfect.

Thanks.

Almost a week and I’m sure you’ve been wondering what the first dish was that I cooked in my new Tefal® wokpan. Well ok, so you haven’t been holding your breath till I told ya, but I would like to think you did!

I was contemplating on cooking some beef vindaloo but I had a change of heart. Besides, I didn’t go meat-shopping for the past few days and all I had in my freezer was a 500g pack of minced pork. Hmmm, what would mince pork be good for?

Meat sauce for spaghetti, of course!

I had a bottle of chunky garden vegetable pasta sauce in the cupboard, and a tomato and some mushrooms to spare in the fridge. And an onion on the counter, which was trying hard to sprout but gave up because it was too cold. Anyway,

Dice the tomato up in big pieces…
Into thinner bits for the mushrooms and onions…
Brown the onions first, then cooked the mince in my new Tefal® toy…
Add in the diced ingredients, give it a good toss…
Pour in the chunky pasta sauce and let it simmer…

In the meantime, bring some water to boil in a pot, put in the spaghetti and add a teaspoon of salt. Cook to desired texture, drain, and melt in dollops of butter to stop the strings from sticking together too much.

Put as much cooked spaghetti as you want on a plate, add a heap of sauce with a small sprig of oregano and a sprinkle of Italian herbs…

Spaghetti ala AhMayLiuLiu style!

Nothing entirely special, but it tasted really good, if I may say so myself! I’d cooked so much of it that I’ve had 3 meals of spaghetti over the past 3 days already, and I still have 2 more helpings to go… LOL! Anybody want to help me finish? Trade-in for some Ipoh sar hor fun?

Oh, and mustn’t forget to wish sengkor a
H A P P Y S P A G H E T T I B I R T H D A Y !
Lots and lots of spaghetti for you!
And sweet potatoes too!

Best-est-est wishes to you on your birthday. Still waiting for that huge plasma TV with state-of-the-art sound system, but I’ll let you off the hook till Christmas. Not too crappy eh? *grin*