La la land

Bedtime for us is reading a book, a clash magazine, a bit of pillow talking or watching tv till we doze off. So we needed a bedroom that gives out vibes of tranquility, a certain coolness – away and different from the louder parts of the house – something that’s sedative. Thus the dark navy wall which reminds me of the sky and sea, and satin sheets that even the cat loves (he seems to have a good knack at choosing sheets with higher threadcounts, very smart pussy we’ve trained him to be haha). And not too long ago, we managed to finish up our decal project. Yay. This is how our bedroom looks now!

Again, we bought decals from etsy.com – the artist who designed this is from Las Vegas and he handcuts them himself – very impressive yeah.

The before shots.

The whole process is easy peasy once you’ve hurdled over the positioning of each flake. Ery took a while though, he’s meticulous like that.

Try  it sometime!

It really transformed the masculine wall to something that’s fleetingly calm. Problem is the cat thinks they’re real and keeps scratching them! Down boy!

Get your chalks

Though the 13-th month bonus has been prematurely spent on travel, I thought we might have some left to revamp our third bedroom. We used to rent it out to this German guy (Pat) so it’s still furnished with a single bed, wardrobe and study desk with some darn ugly mirror squares, our half baked attempt to add a bit of character to the room. Bare essentials really. And now it’s just been collecting dust and a whole lotta junk which we can’t fit into our bomb shelter (you’d have to wear a safety helmet to attempt opening its door).

So, I was rather inspired when I saw the set decor of 500 Days of Summer, the fairy lights lining a bed’s headboard, a cartoon sketch of Ringo Starr, vintage flowery wallpaper – it was all so dandy and lovely, kinda like the movie, rooms fit for dreamy fantasies. One thing that really caught my eye in the movie though was a chalkboard wall which character Tom drew his architectural ideas on, I mean, who wouldn’t want a space as big as that where you can scribble your thoughts and draw anything to fit your mood? You get to become this kid with the itchiest fingers who can draw endlessly on the walls without the yakking. Lovely idea ain’t it?

Question is when I googled blackboards/chalkboards in Singapore, all I could find was some new technological e-learning tool and not the old school boards with brown dusters and boxes of white chalk – remember the dusty smells, remember the teachers who assigned blackboard cleaning duties, do you remember? Have chalkboards gone extinct on me?

Cold metal furniture, a sharp contrast to the dusty walls.

Very hard to upkeep with cabinets like this.

Should draw a fish on the wall.

What would be my inspirational quote?

Going solo

One of the first few things I do when I get my pay (other than buying clothes and shoes and all the fashionable items that I simply should have) is – buying flowers for the house. It just makes the house seem so much more alive.

It’s my off day today and I’m a pretend housewife. I wished it had begun with some power-reviving hot Thursday morning sex, the ones that’ll leave you mute with exhaustion, but instead I woke up to a husband syncing not with me, but his ipod. Musicians. Hmmfph.

So, after saying our goodbyes at the door…I decided that today will be a day of decadent self pleasure for me. No, I’m not planning to wank (there’s still a chance I’d get some power-reviving hot Thursday afterwork sex). This day will be about me. Already, I’ve tried out some wicked toiletries and my face, after a long time, was exfoliated, toned and moisturised. I shaved my legs and did a body scrub. I watched a few episodes of Fringe and had  a few spoons of coffee ice cream for breakfast. I’m updating my blog, I’m taking pictures of flowers around the house.

What I’m planning to do later:

• Go for a jog
• Read a book in a cafe, or browse through borders for more good books
• Plan my annual Christmas party
• Meet my mum for dinner

This is gonna be a good day.

Sunday Dinner

Last Sunday, I met up with Bebe and joined forces for a sweaty workout at the gym – just so I could lose weight in time for all those Chatuchak clothes we’d buy in December.

Afters, we headed back home to my place to chill and have dinner. This was what we whipped up – a healthier option, and a real easy to make recipe for last-minute entertaining.

BBQ chicken and sauteed onions and mushroom sandwich

• Marinate chicken fillet with BBQ sauce, cook in oven for about 20 mins. Break them up into pieces.
• Heat some oil in a pan, add in thinly sliced onions
• Add sugar and salt, a dash of pepper
• Once the sugar has melted, add in the mushrooms
• Spread some mayo on bread, layer up lettuce + cucumbers + tomatoes, add chicken, mushrooms and onions.
• Smack them up in the oven, and then Ta-da! Perfect chicken sandwich!

Notice the hot pink frying pan, which I bought for $16 at metro. I’m so into hot pink kitchen accessories now!

476 Days of Marriage

Alternatively,we’ve been married for:

• 41,126,400 seconds
• 685,440 minutes
• 11,424 hours
• 68 weeks

And in those units, I’ve been asked to, in a rather polite and exceptionally nonchalant manner,

• shave his armpits
• burst his back pimple
• grow fat together with him
• grant his wish to become a tai-tai

And on my side, in those same units, asked of my husband in a slightly polite and exceptionally hopeful manner, to

• not shave my armpits or the nether regions
• not burst any pimples of mine
• buy me a Chanel bag
• increase level of difficulty when practising bedroom aerobics so that I can lose weight without getting out of bed.

I have no idea what is the exact point of all these bullet points other than the need to point them out in my pointless entry.

Missing M

I was sitting next to my mother (pictured above next to her favourite painting at home), wearing a huge red ribbon-like headband Blair Waldorf would have easily been spotted in. We were both on the sofa, talking and sipping teh with this hardbound book on my lap.

As it turned out, the book was of our family tree and I was pointing out people I recognised and those who are no longer alive, probbing her with questions. Then it came to this moment where my hands began scrolling  down the parchment paper where I should have been rightfully labelled and I said, “And this would me your daughter, me…” and guess what? I couldn’t find me. Me, the eldest daughter of Kalsom Binte Bari, the first grandaughter of Yah Binte Manap, wife to Ery Asrul Roslin, was nowhere to be found in the family tree. Amirah Fatin was not even amongst the roots and weeds, not even camouflaged against the hard brown trunk.

Then I woke up, with Van she nibbling on my toes.

I hate revealing dreams like this. Either it’s my unconscious or God talking to me and it’s never easy coming to terms when I have it all translated.

I am the worst married daughter. She’s the one woman who trudged through life with me – wiped my snot when I didn’t know how, took me to the doctors when my belly button was bursting out like a loch ness peeping out of my belly, bought me the first prettiest red dress from Mothercare and pranced about with me in front of the Pisa in matching mother-daughter outfits, entertaining all of my shenanigans – laughing, giggling, soothing me when my first crush wouldn’t even look at me, crying tears of joy when I told her I finally found someone to spend the rest of my life with. And all I can give to her now after all those years is a weekly lunch and occasional how-are-you calls?!

I do not want to miss her. I believe in the universally accepted wisdom that “Syurga ade di bawah tapak kaki ibu” and that this eeky yucky feeling I have now is a circumstance which I have complete control of. And I’ve found a solution to making everything feel right again.

3 hours + $16 cab fare  = meeting mom = avoiding anak durhaka hell = need not meet tanggang

Starting today.

Happy Birthday Desserts at 1 Caramel

vanilla bean rice pudding in chilled cherry soup. topped with crunchy polenta, plums and sliced cherries.

coconut panacotta, with mango puree and white choc granite. black olive caramel fondant on the side.

Way due pictures but it’s been a while since I had such orgasmic desserts, and 1 Caramel serves them, and it’s my moral obligation to at least let the world know of its existence. A chic cafe tucked on Handy Road, it also has a variety of cakes you won’t be able to make up your mind which one to choose. I’m glad I chose this place for a quickie celebration (haha recession so I couldn’t afford a full blown fancy dinner)!

Random

Somewhere in between everything, I find time to sit and think.

I’m still in recuperation from raya weekends where I nearly dropped dead from all the drama worthy of a Moore documentary but thanks to my husband who constantly reminded me that raya is all about having fun, seeking forgiveness, being compassionate and the perfect opportunity to let bygones be bygones – I could come up for air and unchoke myself from the mess.

I have an interesting bit of news to share though, my dear friend is getting married and I’ll be hosting her event, in this foreign langage I’ve been forcibly made to adopt as my mother tongue – Malay. It’s daunting, but a privilege nonetheless cause who knows a Suria scout might be lurking in the hordes of makciks makciks and put me on my road to stardom, the kind of stardom that’ll bar me from Geylang and kedai kopis, but fantasies aside I wished I had a cassette tape, some kind of an audio book called How To Host A Wedding In Malay: Learn in 15 Minutes because that would be damn helpful. Someone out there who thought of this idea, please make it come true because YOU will be my hero.

Googling up doesn’t help the situation too cause apparently there are no templates whatsoever for me to plagiarize from and neither are there Youtube vids for me to replay and replay and study from. And the staggering low rate of Malay weddings I’ve been to in the past year, or make that in my lifetime, means I have no on the field experience either.

Why am I the chosen one?

What do I do now? Yelps.

Meowsy eid!

From iftar till sahur

Introductions are in order.

Meet Ezan, the extreme left girl who looks like she’s about to morph into something I can’t figure out yet. Despite the fact that we were in the same sec school for four years, it took another us another six before we met at a chance encounter and became good  friends. She’s wacky, clumsy, spontaneous, has a lot of arm hair and she’s already sporting the bride’s blush (or the look of a mortified bride) cause come Halloween this year, she’ll be wedded to the guitarist – Dat.

Dat looks a bit stoinked in here, cause I think he secretly hates being photographed but am too nice to tell camwhorers like me off. So he just looks stoinky in pictures. Other than fishing his weekends away, he likes to make movies especially spooky pocong serials in Malaysian islands that only retirees would go to. Dat’s also one half of a twin, the other being Zamier who has a few cats. I’ve met Jumper, his cat, but last I heard it hasn’t returned home.

But Zamier doesn’t have as many cats as Linda, also known as Baby Love, Linda Sepet and Linda Satu Metre, who has a grand total of nine pussies. That’s a lot for anyone to handle. But all nine know how to poop in the toilet so she doesn’t spend as much money on cat litter as I do and therefore able to afford the Ray Ban shades she’s seen in. She’s got to be the most adventurous, well-travelled, kind and spontaneous single girl I’ve ever met. She listens to all my nonsense too which is why she’s sporting those shades (Linda, you won’t look like real back-up singer if you don’t wear those).

I love those shades  actually, very fashionable like Bebe Soto who is obviously looking fashionable and Chinese in the pictures because she is Chinese. She’s also the youngest amongst us and oh my, she has the greatest online shopping URLs. She ate with her perfectly manicured fingers during iftar that night too, a great sign of social integration, so I suppose she must really love Jepp, her Muslim-Malay boyfriend on the left.

Jepp used to work at a Mee Soto shop and maybe that’s why he likes Bebe Soto. He is funny and atrociously crappy – the two biggest reasons why he always revs up parties! I also recently found out he has that voice perfect for hardcore rock/metal songs although his articulation is debatably inarticulate. He drives a van filled with his work tools – not my cat van van cause that’s illegal and he could get caned for that – but a real van like a vehicle.

And the only person left now is my husband, the one with the coke bottle. He’s the best co-host I’ve worked with as he tops up guests’ drinks, gives them towels to shower without me telling him to do so. I could go on and on why I like him but if you ask me and maybe you already have, it’s kinda rhetorical and  probably a better idea to save all that content for a separate blog entry title Why I married my husband and am still married to him.

And because I’m lazy and it’s really too warm a weather to think of a suave way to end these introductions, I’m gonna pose another rhetorical – can there be anything sweeter in the world than the company of your goodest friends?

More here.