Happy 50th Independence Day

I have been enjoying six days of departure from all things wharf-related i.e. work, food, home, shops + wet summer weather. It has been splendid.

I am happy to report I have managed to strike off quite abit on my 'to-indulge-in' list made prior to trip home. To-date I have binged on steamboat, satay, dim sum, rojak buah, pulut durian, twister (but had to give carrot cake a miss), asam squid, lemon grass prawns, kerabu mangga, roti jala, coffee bean's mocha ice blended (I have yet to find a drink that comes close to this in London), roti telur, murtabak and nasi lemak.

I am a happy bunny.

Update on kitties:

Both Winnie + Cleo have put on some weight. Hurrah. We are very pleased about this as it means they are conclusively happy, well cared for + have a healthy appetite.

Ginger has had her vaccination done and despite being merely four months old, she is constantly terrorising Winnie + Cleo! The two physically bigger kitties just cannot handle her, she creates mayhem everywhere she goes. As Mumsy aptly describes the situation; with Winnie + Cleo, it feels like there are no cats at home, with Ginger, it is pure chaos!

***

Today I celebrate our country's 50th year of independence in my homeland and my only hope as a Malaysian is for our minds to be 'merdeka' too.

Selamat Hari Merdeka Malaysia.

De Vacaciones

Going away for a short break.

A break from toast, cereal, sandwiches, soups, cheese-laden food, crisps, Indian take-aways, kebabs and most of all, a break from my bad cooking * jump for joy *

It’s going to be a stuff-my-face-silly-week-long fiesta.

Nasi lemak Roti jala Pulut durian Asam squid Sambal belacan Vanilla teh tarik Steamboat Nasi ulam Satay Cucur udang Goreng pisang Masak lemak cili api Apam balik Dim sum Kuih keria Dome's twister + carrot cake Char kuey teow

Ooh I can already feel my thighs expanding.

Bubbye Canary Wharf, take care plants, be good peeps and see you all in a bit!

Stop to Smell the Roses

Was at the Monument office yesterday in a mad rush trying to complete the rcsa. I’m almost there.

Just when I needed to be at the wharf to sort my work out, we were summoned to Reading this morning. Spent the entire morning session with our newly appointed big boss. Plenty of changes, a lot is happening and I’m keen to find out what is in store for us (me me me).

Got bits and pieces done after team-lunch.

Rushed off at 5pm, jumped on train + dashed for the tube. Got into the wharf at 6ish to sort out Fed Res Bank’s deliverables + some more rcsa. Left office quarter to eight to rush home to cook some dinner.

I am beat. Still tonnes to do before Friday. Will I be able to get all my work done on time?

It Ain't Easy Being A (Hairy) Girl

Anything involving the provision of services comes at a premium in London. Be it a plumber for your blocked sink, a hair cut, a gardener to trim your hedges or even a 15 minute consultation with the GP. Not only do they cost a fortune, they also cannot be made available immediately and normal procedure requires for you to make an appointment way in advance to book in a slot.

I miss the easy KL life. Gone are the days of just popping into the saloon for a quick wash and blow during lunch hour just for the occasional much needed pick-me-upper.

Or walking to the nearest clinic that is on the company’s panel to be prescribed the medication (F.O.C) within the next 15 minutes or so.

Everything is about time and money here.

Off late I have been turned down by my beautician for an eyebrow threading and leg wax appointment due to their very busy schedule. It is the wedding season they tell me.

What about next week then?

Let me check the diary. Nope.

The week after?

There’s A*** if you’re okay with him.

Er, no thanks, he ruined my eyebrows the last time.[Having one eyebrow shorter than the other isn’t quite attractive, I would know]. Well maybe the week after that then? Nothing at all? What about December 2008?

Harrumph.

I am well aware that my treatments don’t bring in as much money as a bridal package would but surely you can get someone to mind the saloon for your regular and loyal customers who don’t have to get married but still need to have decent looking eyebrows.

Doesn’t anybody care about how we, the other segment of women who don't need to get married any time soon or are already married, look and how we too need our legs waxed to be able to not look like there's a gorilla underneath the skirt.

Obviously not.

Since I am left to my own devices, I have decided to invest in an epilator to do the job of waxing my legs. I have contemplated this idea before but having very low pain threshold [read: chicken sh*t], I put it off. I guess now is a good time as any to finally get this monster looking tool unless I don’t plan to wear any skirts for the next six months until every other 'Asian' in London’s gotten hitched. No I'm not racist, I'm just very bitter (and hairy).

Anyways, I got the epilator yesterday so that’s one problem solved.

Next, the eyebrows.

Regrettably, I cannot do my own eyebrows and neither do they sell any DIY hair removal kits for this part of the body. Either I continue to be at their mercy until I miraculously get an appointment, or my bushy eyebrows starts affecting my vision, whichever earlier, so I can, if I get truly truly desperate, go to one at Covent Garden, but at £12. Makes you wonder if the thread used is gold plated.

For those not in the know, it cost me RM7 (£1) in Lucky Garden for my threading. Complain. Complain. Complain. Where is the justice in this?

If you pass by a person that looks like she has two caterpillars crawling above her eyes, do stop to say hello.

Yet Another Birthday

Mum,

Wish we were home celebrating your birthday alongside Ninie, Cleo, Ginger + Dadster. Hope you had a lovely day nonetheless!

LotsOfLove.

Who Got Me The Anti Aging Kit Then?

I won't be bashful about this.
I'm never one to pretend and hope that everyone remembers it.
In fact, I shamelessly remind everybody about it!

I am one year older today.

A year on, I only have more wrinkles to show for
and I am still none the wiser.

Here's to my 33 years of existence in this world.

* chink *

MY WISHLIST

Blues skies throughout summer

Mild winter in December

Love and food in abundance for stray cats and dogs
the world over

Plenty of relaxing beach retreats in Berjaya Redang
when I am home

To walk a labrador at the park every Sunday morning

To visit New York, Portugal and a Greek island

Pancakes and maple syrup for breakfast everyday

Ability to write sas codes with great ease

60 days of annual leave in a year

Vanilla teh tarik tap in my kitchen

To fly Winnie in minus the ridiculous
6 months quarantine period

Have effortlessly gorgeous hair

A pot of trifle with heaps of custard

Be part of a samba troupe for a carnival

Convert to a vegetarian

A self-cleaning home

***

Happy Birthday Wharfer,

May all that you've wished for come true.

Random Updates

Retired Catsitters
Prince leaves us today to be reunited with his family. I will miss his company immensely and his greets at the front door when I get home from work.

He did, however, manage to leave me life-long souvenirs – scars and scratches all over arms and legs, and a bump on my forehead (minor injury from one of many play-time episodes).

Prince, thank you for adding some colour to our life for the past three weeks, you have been a delight to have around.

***

News from Home
Mumsy and Dadster have been blessed yet again with a bundle of joy. A week ago, they found a kitten in the car engine (!). Apparently, they heard the meows two days before finally discovering where it originated. Oh the poor kitten; imagine the horror of being in an engine that was running. It took awhile for Ginger (Mumsy has christened it with said name) to get back to normal. Dadster said she was very frightened and traumatised by the whole ordeal.

They have been feeding and caring for Ginger and after a week, she is now happy and dandy, curious and playful as how a cat should rightfully be. Mumsy wants to take Ginger to Dr. Ee to de-worm her and also to find out if she really is a ‘her’, and not a ‘him’!

TGIF

I'm knackered and so thankful it is finally the end of the day.
6 p.m.

The end of the work week. Start of the weekend. Finally.

It has been a long and gruelling week.

What I would do for a nice big bed with fresh clean sheets and lots of soft down pillows with some gentle music in the background to soothe this throbbing headache of mine and lullaby me to sleep.

Now if I can only get myself out of this place pronto.

* Elvis has left the building *

***

That time of the month?

IK complained of suffering from bloatedness, stomach cramps and not feeling too well generally. That's what happens when you don't take your EPO regularly.

Har-har.

***

TGIF everybody!

To Live A Cat's Life

How I yearn to be a pet-cat.

To wake up (late) to tummy rubs, cuddles and kisses
from doting owner who thinks the world of me.

The curtains are drawn to let the sunshine in
where you will find me sunning myself by the window-sill.

If it gets too hot I can curl up on the
soft velvety sofa amidst the fresh cushions for my daily kips.

Laze about the house and chew on owner's
favourite shoes, plants and cables and get away with it!

Go around looking adorable with my pink wet nose,
fluffy fur and cute paws.

Basically,
I eat, catnap, play, snooze, look cute with big round eyes,
nap some more, poopoo, snack, have a slumber siesta,
peepee, kip again and eat,
all day long.

More importantly, I won't have to go to work. Huzzah.

But wait.

I foresee one problem.

I really wouldn't want to have to lick my own bottom.

Yikes.

***

It has been a terrible Tuesday for me.

I am tired of going to work.

Despite the unappealing 'self-cleaning' involved,

I still think I want to be a kitty-kat.

Avenue Q

We spent Saturday evening in bustling Leicester Square watching the 'laugh-out-loud' musical Avenue Q at the Noel Coward Theatre.


This is a synopsis from its website:

"LIFE MAY SUCK ON AVENUE Q, but for a bright-eyed college graduate called Princeton, this is his new neighbourhood. A tiny bank balance and a variety of weird and wonderful friends and neighbours lead Princeton on a hilarious journey of self-discovery. Performed by an unholy comedic alliance of humans and puppets (!)"

It was enjoyable; they had us in stitches, chuckling throughout the performance. There were many parts in this musical that struck a chord; the uncanny similarities in our (my) very own life, parts that all of us (I) could relate to, for example ‘everybody is a little bit racist’ (shock-horror), ‘schadenfreude’ and ‘but only for now’.

There were some naughty + cheeky parts too which made it largely unsuitable for children (in my opinion because I can *occasionally* be quite a prude), which is rather ironic considering the puppet-dominated cast not dissimilar to Sesame Street!

We ended our evening at Bella Italia for an al fresco dinner, thanks to temperate weather and for once I actually remembered to snap some photos of our food (go me!) instead of just gobbling it down and then go, oh fug, I forgot to get some food pix for my blog *burp*. I still have a long way to go prior to becoming the real McCoy (blogger that is!).


We had some delish linguine pollo e funghi + pizza. Food was good but the main show-stealer was the Godfather - chocolate fudge brownies, vanilla and toffee ice cream with some chocolate crunch, dribbled in chocolate sauce, topped off with loads of fresh cream, nuts and two wafer curls. Utterly sinful. We polished off the decadent Godfather in no time – it is to die for, believe you me.



We finished dinner at about half eight and jumped on the tube, in a mad rush to get home to feed a hungry cat!

Early Bird

This is the little monkey that wakes me up at 5 a.m. every single morning for the past 2 weeks.

Ruled by Routine

Thank god we're already halfway through the week.

Tomorrow is Thursday and Thursday's always good, knowing that when I wake up the next day, it'll be Friday. I'm always ecstatic on Fridays, who isn’t?

Below is an insight to my typical week:

Look forward to fantastic-Fridays.

Super-Saturdays and splendid-Sundays go swooshing by.

Splendid-Sundays become sad-Sundays by noon-ish. This is because it’s depressing that the wonderful-weekend will end in a couple of hours. Sunday evenings are mostly very emotional for me, the *ahem* drama queen.

Miserable-Monday mornings. Whine. Moan. Complain. Hate the world.

Depending on how Monday went, Tuesdays can either be terrible or terrific.

I’m always relieved when wonderful-Wednesdays arrive, it’s midway, you can’t go wrong there. Plus, I have my super fun salsa classes on Wednesdays.

Terrific-Thursdays are mostly happy days simply because fantastic-Friday is around the corner.

Finally, fun-Fridays arrive. Claps. Cheers. Whistles. Cartwheels.

There you go; I perform like clockwork really. Monday blues, Tuesdays – mediocre, Wednesdays – tolerable, Thursdays – almost there, Fridays – exceptionally merry, and finally, enthuse for the weekend. Repeat.

Rah rah rah for routine.

It's Only Tuesday

Work has been sh*te. (Dis) Credit goes to The Prick. He has been a key character featured in this blog and seeing that he's been triumphant at depleting my patience lately, I thought it appropriate to air The Prick and the Wharfer series yet again today after its long departure.

Let me just remind you very quickly; The Prick is very patronizing, unreasonable, annoying (at best) and very good at distributing his work, so good that he is almost always left with none on his plate. Although I must give him credit *coughs* for having a knack of making himself sound very very busy during our weekly departmental meetings.

Anyways, back to my gripe. His recent request is so ridiculous, I do wonder if these report-users would actually read every single little minute detail on the report. Asking for tedious tasks to get done promptly is always a lot easier than doing it yourself, so, hey knock yourself out and get the Wharfer to perform this arduous exercise of manually extracting millions of historical information from various print outs/documents/etc and tabulate it in an excel spreadsheet, why don’t you. Jeez.

Did he offer to help at all, seeing that 'it is a very critical issue at hand and could be a potential breach in regulatory guidelines'? No. So much for having an issue of great magnitude-shmagnitude. What a load of crap. Why don’t people like this just die a slow and painful death and fall off the edge of the earth? Why are these freaks around to rain on my parade? Why?

Despite all that bleakness in my (work) life, the weather has been anything but that. It’s been gorgeous since Saturday; dry with temperatures soaring at a high of 23 degrees. There is hope for a proper summer after all. Having said that, I do feel bad for the people in Tewkesbury, Cheltenham etc in the Midlands hit by the floods. Where did all that rain come from?