 Cleffairy: Boca De La Verita.The famous mouth of truth. Legend holds that if you put your hand in the carved mouth and tell a lie, it will bite your hand off.
Wordless Wednesday: Hero of My Dreams
Cleffairy: Always attracted to polite, mild-mannered, humble and intelligent man. Clark, you’re the the hero of my dreams, now and forever.
What is it with Superman?
What is it with Superman? I’m always obsessed with him, regardless of his incarnation. I’ve loved him as a child, and loved him even more as an adult. Superman… or rather Clark Kent, what is it about him? He inspired me to do so many things… great things, including taking up journalism and pursue writing as a career… what is it about him that inspired me so much, and makes me feel so good? Damn, I have no idea, actually. I’m crazy for him to the point that I actually wrote a love letter for him and posted it HERE
There’s something about him that will always have a special place in my heart. Perhaps it’s the special kind of bond that he had with Lois that made me feel so wistful and wished for such a relationship myself… the love, the sharing, the office romance, the secret identity, and perhaps, it’s just the passion and the will to uphold truth and justice that attracts me to this fictional character so much.
Two of my favourite Clark Kent. (Dean Cain)
(Smallville’s Clark Kent, Tom Welling)
Cleffairy: You’re still the hero of my dreams, the savior who brings hope when I had none.
Why Sunday roast is logical
So, a friend took me for a sumptuous Sunday Roast buffet. It was really a lovely affair, but I won’t be talking about the food that I had cuz I’m too lazy to upload the pics and drool over it in the process. I want to talk about other things instead; one that doesn’t really involve me tempting you to run to the nearest butcher and roast your own meat in the oven.
All right. Here goes nothing. Believe it or not, my paternal grandparents pretty much practised colonial customs when it comes to daily meals. They make sure their kids and grandkids have breakfast, light lunch, tea and supper, just like the Brits. Apart from that, my late grandmother make a point to make roasts on Sundays too. It’ll be all sort of things, depending on her mood. and depending on what is cheaper during her trip to the wet market. Sometimes we get whole roast chicken with a side of mashed or boiled potatoes, sometimes juicy roasted beef with her special prawn paste chilli dips (it’s known locally as ‘air asam’) with a side of hard-boiled egg salad or plain rice for the big eaters in the family. Dessert is always either creamy custard puddings or my late grandmother’s milky lychee puddings. And if she’s really in the mood, there will be some extra puff pastries or fruit cake on the table to treat ourselves with too.
I never did understood it back then. My grandparents were not rich. They struggled to make ends meet, and they usually have just enough to eat, and definitely cannot afford any luxury. Hell, they did not even have their own car to go about, but they made sure to feed their children and grandchildren with nice food on Sundays.
I used to ask my late grandmother on why she took all the troubles to cook such nice things on Sundays, and her answer will always be “Because it keeps the family together, and because everyone deserves some good food after a long working week,”
Her answer never did make sense to me until she passed away. She was right. Those awesome Sunday lunch or dinner was the thing that keeps the family together. It is the thing that made us all gather and catch up with each other. Since she passed away, by and by, we stopped gathering the way we did when she was still alive and chat over the food.
I must say, my late grandmother was a smart woman despite her lack of education. She kept her family together through food, and saved up her time preparing for meals by using the leftover Sunday roasts in other dishes during the rest of the week.
Married to a typical Chinese man, I never bothered to make Sunday roasts cuz the man in the house doesn’t really take beef and it’s more to eating out affair on Sundays for us. But I think I should start observing that for my sake and my kid’s sake. The kid will probably be happy with some roasted chic, and I’ll be happy with the fact that I can recycle the roast into sandwiches, soup, stew or noodles if we did not manage to finish up whatever I roasted.
Cleffairy: Families who eats together stays together.
Wordless Wednesday: Domestic Abuse
Found this somewhere in www.family.org.my on domestic abuse:
Domestic abuse is almost always a technique for gaining and maintaining control, and likely is born out of the abuser’s own pain. An emotional abuser keeps others under his thumb by blaming and shaming. He uses name-calling, swearing, and other forms of contemptuous speech to convince his victims that they are unworthy of better treatment. In most cases, he is highly manipulative, displays narcissistic tendencies, and flatly refuses to acknowledge any personal responsibility for family dysfunction.
Cleffairy: How true. It is a technique of gaining and maintaining control in an awful way.
Eat well, sleep well, work well
A friend of mine treated me to a Sunday roast buffet last Sunday. The food was marvelous and there was plenty of meaty and savoury stuff to savour. The meal was paired with fine booze, and the whole dining experience was heavenly. I went to the lunch date on my own minus the kid and his father. It’s been awhile since I’ve taken some time off for myself.
A tremendously welcoming break I had in years. It may be just for a mere 2 hours, cuz the kid’s father couldn’t bear babysitting the brat too long…It is understandable, you know, as the brat is too demonic to handle. Even I go crazy with the brat sometimes, so seriously speaking, I couldn’t blame the father for feeling annoyed. Plus, he’s a busy man and all that. Surely entertaining the kid is not exactly something on the schedule, and he could have used the time for better things like meeting clients, doing work and whatnot…but heck, it’s a timely reminder that I’ve been around the kid too much that I never did take some time to breathe, and I really do need such a thing sometimes. I’ve been coddling the kid too much to the point that I forget that we all need some ‘ME’ time, some time to breathe, some time to rest, some uninterrupted and quiet time. I’m really grateful that the kid’s father agreed to take care of him for awhile. It was really a much needed escape.
All I did these days is just stay in the goddamn cave, work, play some stupid online game, stare at the Facebook wall, cook, buy some stuff to eat whenever the stomach actually growls, read some books, write whenever I feel jaded, and that’s just about it. All done when the kid is around. Shit, the kid is almost 24hours with me, cuz no sane babysitter would have bother to take him in and survive him for a couple of hours! F*UCK it, I can really go CRAZY!
To be honest, I don’t feel like I actually exists these days, since life is just so mundane and boring and not much people to talk to. The man is not always around, friends are busy with their own lives and etc. It’s back to the shitty times of 2006, if you ask me. But I’ll do what I can to exist from these day forward. After all…people around me are living well without sparing a second thought for me. With or without me, they are still enjoying their lives, going around living their lives the way they want… they are still stuffing food into their mouths and gulping them down easily. They are happy doing what they want, socializing with who they want…so why the hell shouldn’t I do the same? I should eat well and live well too. That is the only rational thing to do. I should share their sentiments; ‘With or without you, it is just the same. I still need to eat and live’.
Cleffairy: I got to start improving my life. I should eat well, sleep well, work well…then I will slowly will start to live well again too, just like everybody else around me.
Three Deaths in The Family
These days, whenever my personal number rings, and whenever I see the caller ID is either my mother or my father, my heart will beat like nobody’s business. Those phone calls from my parents scares me. I don’t always feel like this, but lately, there’s been too many deaths in the family.
First, a week ago, I was informed that my grand uncle has passed away unexpectedly. The man was rather fond of me when I was a little girl, and being the granddaughter of his elder brother, I was spoiled rotten. I wish I could have went back to my hometown and pay my last respect to him before he was laid to rest, but due to some unforeseen circumstances, I did not manage to make that trip back. I did not want to talk about this. I try not to think about it, but at times, I do feel really bad about not being able to pay my last respect to him. He has given me so much wonderful childhood memories that I will never forget; he’s one of the first to hold my hand and walk me around the park, and he’s one of those people in my lives who had given me piggy back rides and had carried me whenever I was too tired to walk, and yet, I could not even make that trip back to walk with him during his last journey.
I feel terrible, and terrible still when I received another phone call from my mother a few days after, telling me that my grand aunt has passed away while she was sleeping. Another pang of sadness hit me. She was my late grandmother’s sister in law, another person who was really, really fond of me, and would have never forgotten to send me birthday presents and souvenirs whenever she goes traveling through my grandmother until I was 16 years old. Despite the fact that this grand aunt was living in Kuala Lumpur, I did not manage to pay her the last respect that she deserved either. I found out about her death way too late, and by the time I was informed, the funeral was already over.
I was still mourning for both my late grand uncle and grand aunt, and then I received another phone call from my mother again yesterday morning, informing me that there is another death in the family, and this time around, it’s one of my aunt. She passed away after suffering from cancer for quite some years. She’s also another one of those people who loved me so, so much and was really fond of me as a child. She’s one of those people who told me bedtime stories, and hugged me whenever I feel bad about getting bad grades. I did not manage to pay her any last respect either.
There was three deaths in the family within the period of two weeks. Instead of just feeling sad, I feel really numb and rather estranged too. I stopped sharing my grievance and sadness with people around me, and those who are close to me, as I don’t see any point in doing that anymore. There is nothing they can do to help me. What comfort they could offer me anyway? But there are times, I feel that things are just too much that it overwhelms me. I have no shoulder to cry on when I received such news, and keeping it all inside, is just a tad to painful to endure.
Cleffairy: We’re all living on borrowed time.
They got it easy
I don’t mean to sound bitter, because for what it’s worth, I know God gives us what we deserved. But I do wonder why some people, especially kids and teenagers these days got it so easy. Most get spoiled rotten by their parents with gadgets and whatnot, and some college kids even owned a big shot and classy car even before they graduated. Made me wonder what the world is coming to and what sort of values materialistic parents are teaching children these days? That it is all right to substitute their time with worldly items?
I know most parents these days could afford giving their children cars and stuff, but how about teaching the kids to earn what they want instead of just taking handouts from their parents? I don’t know what the world is coming to anymore. Not when I see college brats driving flashy cars and yet they do not have to work for it or pay installments for it. And especially not when I see kindergarten kids holding hi-tech gadgets and smartphone whenever they go around shopping with their parents! And hell… why the hell some primary school kids get to boss their maids around carrying their bags when they goes to school and returns to school? Good gracious, most unheard of during my time! I had to carry my own bags to the point that I had hunchback, no less! I bet these kids gets their oversea holidays once or twice a year too!
Cleffairy: I never got it easy when I was growing up. If I want something, I will have to earn it.
Gardenia vs. Massimo
If you’re living in Malaysia, there’s a big chance that you have eaten Gardenia, the local sandwich loaf that’s been produced commercially. It used to be my first choice for my family’s bread intake. The loaf used to be so fluffy, soft, and not to mention quite thick, but ever since Massimo appeared in the market with a huge ‘BANG’ (there’s political, racial issue and whatnot behind Massimo’s appearance, but I’m not gonna talk about that today), my choice has always been Massimo.
Massimo is a must have item in my kitchen ever since the first time I’ve tasted it. In terms of taste and pricing, Massimo is much nicer to the taste-buds and also much kinder to the pocket. A regular loaf of Massimo bread only cost me Rm2.10 if I were to buy it at promotional introductory price in KK Mart. It’s really great for me, as I’m a huge fan of a good toast during breakfast and supper.
My son, who is previously not quite a bread fan, is also turning into one after being introduced to Massimo. He no longer mind having half boiled eggs with toasts after switching to Massimo, which is really great, in my humble opinion.
Massimo sandwich bread is rather soft when you take it on its own, and goes really fluffy on the inside and crunchy on the outside when it’s toasted. I don’t get that from Gardenia. Well, not in the recent years, at least. Gardenia was great when it was just introduced, but it seems to me that the quality has somehow dropped after a few years time. I don’t feel that it’s worth paying for a loaf of Gardenia sandwich loaf anymore, though I still go for their other products like Twiggies, chocolate bread, buns or even instant waffles every now and then when I feel like it.
I have come to realize that Massimo sandwich loaf lasts longer in comparison to Gardenia too. It doesn’t go stale easily and does not have any bread fungus grown on it even after two or three days beyond its expiry date. (Yea, I eat those sandwich loaf even if it’s after the expiry dates, as long as it doesn’t have any fungus on it. So, sue me. LOL)
So, I’ve ditched Gardenia for good and opt for the cheaper but better quality Massimo sandwich bread instead. How about you?
Cleffairy: IÂ always choose a cheaper, but better quality foodstuff if I have the option to do so. How about you?
Security Modesto
Do you plan ahead in your life? I’m not the sort of person who plans ahead. I have the tendency to move with the flow, and reacts accordingly to the situation instead of making plans beforehand. Planning is not my forte, and more often than not, I found that my plans are always ruined whenever it comes to planning big things in my life. Things never go as planned, but these days, I’m giving quite a big thought about my retirement plans.
I know I’m not even in my 30s yet, and it’s far too early to even consider a retirement, but I think about it a lot lately. Perhaps it’s the stress and the terrible exhaustion that I’m experiencing that causes me to give retirement plans a thought. I suppose it’s a form of escapism. Things are getting too much for me to handle at times that I thought and dreamed of retiring in a place where nobody knows me.
But retiring is quite a serious business. I wonder what I’ll do when I finally retired? Will I get bored with the mundane life? Can I get used to such a life when I’m used to buzzing around everyday? And where will I retire and spend the rest of my life? The answer to my own questions is I don’t know how it would be like when I retired, but I do have a vision of where I want to live when I’m retired.
I want to live in Modesto, California. Why Modesto, of all the place, you ask me? Well, Modesto seems to be quite a decent place to live. It’s not only lively and colorful, but have good weather all year-long too. Pretty relaxing and quite a laid back place, I must say. Away from the true blue city life that’s so hectic that it can give you severe migraine daily.
The people in Modesto are pretty friendly, and there’s plenty of secured neighborhood around too, thanks to Security Modesto, a security service provider company that provides a top-notch security service to the good folks in Modesto.
Security guard Modesto is the best around in Modesto. They came highly recommended by the folks in Modesto. I have a friend who lives in Modesto and she told me that they are well-known for being professional, on time and not to mention helpful and easy to work with as well. They have been providing great service to the residents and businesses in Modesto, and you definitely can count on them to keep you safe on all occasion.
That’s really great isn’t it? One of the most important thing you should consider when you move to a new place during your golden years is not only a great neighborhood with modern amnesty, but great security as well. I suppose if I were to retire in Modesto and live with my husband along with my cats and dogs, security should not be an issue as long as I subscribe to their excellent security service.
Now, I’ve told you where I want to live when I finally retired. How about you? Do you have a retirement plan? Where do you want to live when you’re finally retired? Do you have any specific place in mind? Do share. I’d love to hear about it.