A Terrible Terrible Nightmare

Had a terrible nightmare on Thurs morning around 3 am. I dreamt that Jeff & I were in a black MPV & Jeff was driving. At the back of the car, we were transporting the dead body of a cousin I haven't seen in a 2 years since I got married. Coz now I go visiting with Jeff & family on CNY. But in my dream, he had the body of a young boy.

We were trying to drive him somewhere where we could hold his funeral. But the journey was long & we could never seem to get to our destination. On the 2nd day, I discovered that his body had started to decompose & was starting to smell. That scene woke me up.

It's been a long time since I could remember any of my dreams. Coz if you don't wake up in the middle of the dream or right after it ended, you'll just forget it completely. I wonder what this dream means.

A couple of weeks ago, I had another dream. I dreamt that I was living in a big mansion. So big that I had to rely on servants to switch off the lights in the living room for me coz there were just too many switches & I didn't know which was for which. I was going to a party & was wearing a pretty white dress. When I went out of the door, I stepped into the big garden with a big pool. Beside the pool were parallel jet sprays that shoots water high up into the air in an arch. Somehow, I was in a very good mood & I went running through the water & danced. This dream left me in good spirits when I woke up.

A Fateful Day

Today, I sustained a sharp injury. Well, it was actually a blunt tip but I managed to poke myself & the metal blunt tip broke into 2 so you can guess how forceful the impact was. It's a very troublesome thing coz I have to go to the staff clinic to see the doctor & have my blood taken to be tested for Hep B, C & HIV. I have to do this 3 times, once immediately, once 3 mths down & the last time at 6 mths down the road. It started raining heavily soon after I was pricked which increased my sense of foreboding.

I went to the staff clinic at 2 pm when they reopened after lunch. It was there when I saw Darrick, my ex boyfriend. He passed me by & took a seat in the row in front of me. He didn't see me. I didn't call out to him coz what can I say? So much time has passed. 9 years to be exact. We didn't part on good terms but neither did we part on terrible terms. The doctor's room was right in front of where he was sitting & I passed him by 4 times to get into the room. Like before, he didn't take much notice about his surroundings. Or maybe he did see me but for reasons similar to mine, didn't call out to me. All I can say is I'm glad that he's well.

Wang Wang's fur is starting to turn white on the forehead & ears. He's getting old. I don't know how my parents, especially my dad will take it when the day comes that he passes on. I feel very sad. We can't stop time's progression. I can't stop time from claiming all those whom I love. Yes, I may not be very close to Wang Wang but he's family. To non dog lovers, my dogs are just dogs. But to us, they're part of the family, treasured & deeply loved. It brings back the age old question. Is there life after death? Will we meet again someday, sometime? Or is death the finale, with no encore?

My Sunday

My stomach feels lousy today. Had bad gastric pain last night. I've never had gastric pain before & I don't know why it struck me all of a sudden. I was forced to take panadol, losec & antacid. Today, I felt nauseous the whole day & had no appetite at all. Still I ate so there wouldn't be a repeat telecast of last night.

Made cheese cake again in the early afternoon. Fast forward to late afternoon. Went to NTUC at BPP to get ingredients to make chicken curry. Not too bad though it's not as thick as my MIL makes it. Think I added too much water. Nvm, I'll try again.

While at BPP, I paid a visit to the library & I was very lucky to find a book on Chinese cookies & pastry. The recipes are straight forward enough & looks easy to make. I'll definitely try my hand at it next weekend. There's my favourite Lao Po Bing & Jeff's egg tart (although I know I do have the recipe in another book of mine somewhere). Maybe I can even try making the seemingly simple enough Sesame Cookies & Char Siew Bun. Wooo... I'm so exicted!

Sometimes I wonder if I should be a nurse at all. I love cooking though I don't seem to have much talent in it. The food I cook are ok enough to serve at home but will fail miserably outside. I'll always love baking more but my cakes always turn out lousy & my bread totally inedible. Only my cookies turn out well. Right now, I'm interested in trying to bake with healthier alternatives, replacing sugar with sugar substitutes & using low fat versions of ingredients. This way, we can all enjoy indulgences without feeling too guilty.

Last Min Romp @ WCDR

Came up with the idea of bringing Ton Ton & Puggy to WCDR late last night. As Jeff is working morning shift today, I thought I'll head to WCDR after dropping him off at work. Like I said, I misplaced Ton Ton's harness & leash so I used a semi choke collar (the only thing I have at home) on him. Using a plier, I sort of twisted the hook back into position on Puggy's old leash to make it work coz he pulled so hard that the hook doesn't close properly & it hasn't been used since then. Well, desparate situations call for desparate measures. :P As for Puggy, I put him in the carrier since I didn't have another set & also so that he won't shed all over the van.

The walk to the van wasn't so hard as Jeff helped me carry the carrier while I carried Ton Ton. I drove to Jeff's work place & it's the 1st time he arrived so early! LoL. He's usually late or on the dot & I dropped him off at 6.40 am. The journey to WCDR should have been fast coz it's really near. But it's been ages since I've been there & I drove into the wrong carpark. If you've been there, you'll know that the road only goes 1 way. So I exited the carpark, drove a long way for a chance to U turn, drove all the way down to Pasir Panjang market & U turn back just to get to carpark 1.

The walk to the DR was tedious. Puggy's very heavy & all his weight on a thin carrier handle gave me the beginning of callouses on both hands coz I had to swtich hands frequently. At the same time, Ton Ton wasn't too used to the semi choke & would stop the moment he felt the tug on his neck. But he did really well & soon got the hang of it even before we were half way to the DR. For the 1st time since I've had him, he didn't pull on the leash. All I had to do was jiggle the leash a little when he got ahead of me & he got the message. I think I'll stick to the semi choke for him from now on. Haha!

I thought I was early at 7.20 am but there was already another guy there with his female husky. Ton Ton went chasing after her (what else is new?) while Puggy stuck close to me. Soon, the guy left & many more people came. Suddenly, the DR was full of whippets (4 or 5 of them), a GR, a MS, CS, JRT & husky. Puggy refused to go anywhere without me. To get him going, I had to walk away & he would dash ahead of me, only to turn back when he realised that I wasn't following. Although Ton Ton went socialising, the 2 rascals spent quite a bit of quality time playing & chasing each other.

I brought along a sandwich with cheese to try to recall Ton Ton back. It was very very hard to get his attention. I called his name, stomped on the ground, clapped my hands to no avail. So I had to move closer to him (about a metre away) & wave my hands, showing him the treat before he came to me. It took a few tries & later on, he could come back without the treat. It wasn't perfect coz I still had to be in close proximity (about 5 metres) & he tends to hesitate before responding. So gotta work on that.

I finally left at 8.30 am & began the tedious route back to the van. My hands were already hurting so it was terrible. Of all the things, I left their water bottle on the kitchen counter. Luckily, I brought along a plastic container & I managed to fill it with water from the water cooler on the way back. Only Ton Ton drank. Puggy didn't even bother to look at it. Well, they had a good time but my bad time is coming. Bathing them! Then I got to shower & fetch Jeff to go out. Hehe. Suddenly, I feel like I have a semblance of life again.

Trying to get Puggy out of the carrier. He didn't have the balls & I simply shaked him out onto the ground in the end.

Ton Ton's portrait before running off.

Puggy's portrait.

Puggy coming back to me after peeing.

My 2 rascals.

Off they go!

Ton Ton running about with other dogs. I didn't dare take any more pictures coz don't know if the owners will mind.

Finally, they spent some quality time together, sniffing logs...

chasing each other...
(Will you believe me if I tell you Puggy's the faster runner?)

& sniffing each other.
(As if smelling each other at home isn't enough.)

Look at his retarded face as he raced back to me. (With the star.)

Puggy's very good at recall & I didn't even teach him!

A shot taken 1 sec too late or it'll show his entire face.

That's it folks! Thank you for reliving the trip with us!

Shopping At BKK

Here are some of the things I can think of buying at BKK.

1. Triumph bras & panties set (thinking of getting at least 5) & corset
2. Doggy clothes (must get all dogs to try Ton Ton's size 3 for size estimation)

3. Other various doggy items (1 thing I really really wanna buy & have been looking for a long time is the doggy pouch/carrier thingy. It's like the human baby carrier where you carry the dog in front of your chest & there're holes for the legs to stick out.)

4. Luggage bags/suitcase
5. Handbags/purses

6. Clothes (Heard that roadside make shift stalls won't have my size but can try departmental stores)

7. Local food (No insects or exotic stuff please!)

I wanna do some sight seeing since it's our 1st time there. We have a half day tour on day 2 which we have to pay THB100 per person so I guess that's all the sight seeing we'll be doing. Rest of the time will be exploring & shopping & eating! Guess I better start losing some weight 1st.

We've discussed & agreed on wearing berms & sandals throughout since the weather there is very likely to be hot & according to the yearly rainfall in BKK, Oct is 1 of the mths with high rainfall. But we'll wear a pair of jeans or long pants & sports shoes for flying. 11 more weeks before we go!

BKK Here I Come!

Recently found out that Deepavali has been changed from 28th Oct (Tues) to 27th (Mon), which translates to... LONG WEEKEND! We're finally heading to BKK for the 1st time. There was a mad rush (on our part) to source for the cheapest F&E as most of the flight tickets are fully booked.

CX was totally sold out on the return flight, SQ's remaining flight timing was quite poor, TG's surcharge is an amazingly high $270 per pax. As we're gonna be there for 3 days 2 nights only, we wanna try to get the earliest flight out & latest flight back to maximise our time there. Went round many many travel agencies & I've got timings like, 10.30 am there, 4.40 pm back (the best) to 1.30 pm there, 1.30 pm back (the worst). Lots of price variations too.

Although unwilling, we finally settled for Jetstar, 7.30 am flight out on 25th Oct (Sat) & 8.50 pm (BKK time aka 9.50 am Sg time) back on 27th (Mon) at $574 per pax. Ex right for budget airline? TG was even worse at $680 while SQ at $660. Imagine 2+ hrs on a plane with no leg space, no food, no drinks & no entertainment. Gosh! What to do? It's peak period. We were lucky to even get to go.

Guess what? I'm working the very next day. I only arrive in Sg at 12 mn & I don't know how I'm gonna get up at 6 am to go to work. I was advised to bring as little as possible so we can buy as much as possible. We plan to use the bag we bought from HK & bring 2 sets of clothes only, other than the basic passport, driving license for alternative identification, HP & charger, DS/PSP with charger for flight entertainment, fully charged camera (must not repeat the same mistake as our TP/HK trip), S$500 worth of Baht, S$200 cash, 1 credit card (for just in case) & our 1st aid bag that served us since the KL trip with Robert & Enrica, which subsequently followed us to TP & HK.

After this trip, there probably won't be anymore for a long time to come. Gotta save money for a further destination. :P

Say Cheese!

I made the cheese cake on Sunday afternoon after Jeff left to go to work. It was kinda successful. Kinda only coz everything went well except that I used a broad based container which made the cheese layer very thin. Anyway, Jeff liked it a lot & I find the taste acceptable, considering that it was made with equal & low fat cheese.

So next step will be to do a dog friendly 1. I won't be able to add sugar or equal to it so the cheese has to stay sourish. I haven't gone through the ingredients for digestive biscuits but I think dogs most probably can't take it. So how do I hold the cheese in place without a base? Wholemeal crackers won't do. Perhaps a thin layer of doggy sponge cake. Then, I can't add rum to it. So how to make it special? Maybe a disgusting (to humans at least) combination of meat & cheese. LoL.

Healthy Cheese Cake

Thinking of making healthier cheese cake. Went to sao mu with Jeff & my parents in law today late morning at Bright Hill. After we dropped everyone off, we headed to Great World City. Had dinner at Crystal Jade, walked around & went to Iwannagohome. We didn't manage to get anything coz everything's so ex despite the discount.

I did get a dress from Dorothy Perkins which burnt a big hole in our pockets. It costs $89 & I wanted to try for fun. My 1st try was size 12 but the arm & chest area was a bit tight though the body area a bit loose. When I tried the size 14, the arm area was still cutting into my fats though the chest area is ok & the body area is very loose. I had wanted to leave the store empty handed but Jeff insisted I buy it since I like it so much. So he paid for the size 12 since size 14 was way too loose. He told me to stretch the elastic band at the arm sleeve until it loosens up. LoL.

After that, Jeff wanted to go Tampines. It seems to be our regular hang out for the past few months. *peng* We got a high velocity fan for our computer room coz it gets very hot & stuffy. Then we dropped by Ikea & finally Giant for cheese cake ingredients.

It's been 2 or 3 years since I last made cheese cake. As we were getting the ingredients, we passed by the frozen section with SeraLee cheese cake & I asked Jeff why are we spending so much money & effort to make 1 when we can buy 1 for $7.90? We had a good laugh at that. I got low fat cream cheese which contains 50% less calories than the regular 1s at $5.20. Then I got cream, eggs & digestive biscuits for the base. It's definately over $7.90. But of course it's much much healthier & lesser calories coz I'm using Equal instead of regular sugar. I wonder how it'll taste like. Let you know when I've made it tomorrow.