I hate vacuuming. i hate a whole buncha chores too but vacuuming has got to be up there on my hate list especially for the ruckus it makes when in use. its like using a lawnmower indoors and it puts me in such a grump that i'm incapable of having polite conversation with anyone.

but then i discovered sticker technology!

no. not the kind u traded in primary school for their touch and sniff capabilities (funny how when u grow older, touching and sniffing is generally a bad idea but yet no one said anything back then). i'm talking about lint removers and if you get one with an extended handle like the Evercare Large Surface Lint Pic-up, u're in like flint. it takes on a life of its own in your hands and makes u wanna hum a jingle while you prance around your living room playing tic tac toe on your carpet. its delightful, its fun, its sticker technology!

i got it to pick up my poochie's fur from the carpeting but it picks up EVERYTHING! and now, i'm inspired to clean the carpet EVERYDAY! who cares about the latest ipod when you can get so much more outta the Evercare Large Surface Lint Pic-up! available at a store near you!

so there's this chick right, and let's say her name is tutu. tutu takes regular peeks into the life (and lust) of a babe in toyland's blog (which she highly recommends to anyone but must have open mind), and almost everytime she reads a new entry, she thinks: damn... i coulda been her.

except for a few things of course...

1) tutu's damn scared of germs and requires a notarised certificate of STD-free health status (which really wrecks the type of spontaneity required for the lifestyle),
2) tutu's damn shy to talk about sex,
3) tutu wanted to be a tai tai. first.

tutu played hard during her college days, which naturally meant that she had to work hard after she got out. when she wasn't working, she would drink beer, meet strange people and watch stupid chick movies.

and then one day, something absolutely unexpected and magical happened to her. just like in the movies, she thought.

La Diablo Domestica came to her in a dream. He dangled the carrot of eternal taitaidom in front of her and she was like... waaaaaaah. really ah? REALLY, he answer back. so she happily traded in job, beer, singapore, and strange people for taitai life. and as early-bird bonus, she gets to keep her chick flicks.

so now she can watch chick flickathon while ironing, cleaning, doing laundry, walking dog, putting dishes into dishwasher (damn hard work), vacuuming carpet, trimming hedges, planting new grass, watering flowers and driving her dear husband mad. next time i see DD, i'm gonna kick him so hard in the balls he'll choke on them.

so i wikied chop suey, which means its a mixture of leftovers, which would explain why i couldn't find similar pictures of the same dish. cheh.

American Chinese food is as chinese to me as goat cheese, and i remember the first time i came to america, a college mate (bless her heart) tried to bond with The New International Student by talking about chinese food.

"i love Chinese food," she declared with glee. "especially chop suey."

huh? kong si mi? chop suey si simi lan?

I'd of course read and heard about the term in passing, but never really knew what it was. we certainly didn't eat it in asia, as far as i could tell. and trust me, being a singaporean, we know about our food and our neighbours food and our farfaraway-neighbour's food -- we know northern indian, southern indian, northern chinese and southern chinese, taiwanese, vietnamese, thai, cambodian, laotian, burmese, japanese and korean.

but chop suey? sorry. donch have.

so, reluctant to try out chinese restaurants here today (for some other reason, they use a lot of bamboo shoots here, which is really really weird) and overdosing somewhat on burgers and steaks and salad, we decided to do thai. and all i wanted was a simple tom yum soup and a pad thai.

the soup was alright but lemme tell ya... this was the worst pad thai i'd EVER eaten in my whole life. the husband didn't touch it. and we had to send the soggy mess away. it was frightful.

so now i'm hungry and talking about singaporean food with a friend in SG with whom i'd gladly trade places for a weekend (dowan weekday cos dowan to work), and i'm going outta my mind. And to right the dining wrong a tad, i'm gonna get a hit of instant noodles pronto. i need the noodle fix. BAD.

i was pretty sure i'd given all of my 5 years of university back to the teachers and retained nothing that could take me further in life but just as i was about to write it all off, i realized something...

i knew html code.

at first, i couldn't figure out how and why i knew it and how i knew where to go to get more of it. its totally bizarre in a Jon-Doe-The-Series meets Long-Kiss-Goodnight sorta way. or at least i'd like to think so. and then it came back to me...

before i'd gone to uni, i was in some sort of a prep school. why and how i ended up in the middle of a small republican town in western massachusetts still escapes me and my family, but there i was in republican chick central. three main things i remember of my educational period there were 1) being taught to sit properly with legs crossed ONLY at the ankles; 2) breaking and entering; 3) and yes... html. i even remember its called hyper text something language and 3 outta 4 ain't bad.

why we were learning html at the same time i was learning how to use a word processor is also a mysterious gap that my memory is unable to fill. but yes. i did learn html. And DOS too, i think. And the difference between how Europeans and Americans eat with a fork.

So back to the present... i've been messing around with code these past weeks because i have soooo much bloody time on my hands, and trying to wrap your head around this html stuff is damn addictive man. macham playing puzzle game. You know how you dream tetris after playing it for consecutive hours just before going to bed?

ya now i dream html code.

i loved the book. ok maybe the ending in the book was a bit convoluted, but i still loved the book. and i read it before all the hoopla about it too. so i'd like to think of myself as da vinci old school. In fact, its people like me who went and bought the book first who made it such a big deal. yes i'm that cool.

so needless to say, i was waiting eagerly to be wowed by the movie. after all, with tom hanks at the helm, maybe it won't be a serious art film but it would be a sure hit, right? WRONG. The Mighty Hanks may have been a great Robert Langdon but his co-stars struggled to carry the weight of the movie. especially the over-hyped Audrey Tautou of Amelie fame. The problem, i suspect, is that many french actors have such a misconception about hollywood that they try to act hollywood-esque and their performances end up being contrived and over the top. think Vincent Cassel in Oceans Twelve.

Jean Renu has a bit more Tinseltown experience under his belt so he escapes unscathed but doesn't quite form a remarkable impression. Nor does Ian McKellen but then it might be because i'm reluctant to let go of how wowed i am by his Magneto. (so good that they're spinning off a film all about his Magneto, due next year).

Opus Dei and the Vatican have nothing to worry about. The movie could likely kill the buzz created by the book and save them the hassle. In fact, I say they skip the Da Vinci Code movie altogether and go watch MI3. That one also got Vatican. and more fun some more.

one good thing about american tv is you get Real Sex on cable. the show, which is more funny-haha than sexy, basically tells stories of people and how and where they choose to have sex. essentially, you get pictures of oil-wrestling orgies, gender-benders, strippers, genitalia piercings competitions, and other exhibitions of a sexual nature.

one of the topics of tonight's episode was the kamasutra, as instructed by a woman who holds classes for couples looking to add a little tantra into the boom boom. whatever floats your boat right? but the thing is -- and i know this stuff is taken very seriously by a lot of people -- some of these positions damn jialat man. bloody dangerous... if you don't get a coronary from the contortioning den surely can die of laughing at your crumpled-up partner one. assuming you haven't already hurt yourself cracking up over some of the names given to these positions.

make your own conclusions with the help of moving pictures from Kamasutra Animated. make me blush one.

So i'm watching martha stewart on tv and she's with a bunch of ameritaitais yappin away and then one of them asks about the colour of chicken eggs. "i've been told that the colour of the eggs correlates directly to the colour of the chicken's eyes. is it true, Martha?"

say what? surely she can't possibly believe that. Martha didn't know. and i was just about to laugh at them and take the piss when i realized... i didn't have a freaking clue either. in fact... my husband had asked me that same question when he saw white eggs at the grocery store last week and i didn't have an answer for him then.

so i googled it (as they suggested on the programme) and guess what? its just an indication of the breed. see wikipedia's explanation. so next time someone tells you some cockamamy story about the colour of chicken eggs, u can tell them to bugger off.

A vaccine that blocks infection by the two types of viruses that cause most cases of cervical cancer is safe and effective and should be approved, a federal panel recommended Thursday.

The latest update on Gardasil (forbes.com) sounds like good news for every woman... this is what your pap smear's looking out for. but its apparently only recommended for young women under 26 years of age, which sucks for most of the women out there who have been waiting for this with bated breath and who have been enduring pap smears for years. well, at least our daughters will be protected.

but what's this about birth defects?

ok we know that we and the chimps go a long way back, but get this... humans and chimps can actually mate and produce offspring... today. as mentioned in this report from The Age on the human ancestry.

maybe you knew this already but its news to me. explains a lot about a lot of people huh.

in the spirit of taitaidom, i would like to draw your attention to www.makeupalley.com, where you can find useful and helpful reviews about cosmetic products and even swap what they call "gently-used" items with other like-minded make-up recyclers. i think eew on the latter but that's just germ-freak me talking.

journo pal Preethi Scoopamanistoree provided the link because, big professional globetrotting woman that she is, living on the edge by the skin of her chinny chin-chin and her wits alone, what could she possibly find use for in a makeup link? gasp.

so i caught the 2-hour season 2 finale of Grey's Anatomy this monday, after a sunday pre-finale episode. for grey junkies out there in countries where the episodes are lagging behind, this was quite a gripping end to the season in the grey-area-between-professional-and-personal arena, but a big disappointment in general.

and a bit far-fetched too, in terms of the guys at the hospital throwing a prom for the chief's sick niece; and Izzy's (played by Katherine Heigl) little suspension of sanity was over the top, even by my standards. silly girl.

one good thing that came out though, was the inquisition of the interns. made for a good summarising of the season according to each of the principals, their skeletons and baggage (gratuitious pic of Heigl here). was brilliantly executed. but for sure, it barely made up for the rest of the episode, and the premise of unrequited and requited love, lust, everything, could flatline if season 3 doesn't manage to redeem itself from the blah-ness of this finale.

if anything, Meyers stole the show. he plays Declan, one of hunt's team members in this 3rd installment of the mission impossible franchise. as the eager and almost dialogue-less agent, his understated performance was nothing short of sublime given that he has held his very own as leading man in movies like Velvet Goldmine and Match Point. Of particular note in MI3, the look he gives to cruise after holding up Phillip Seymore Hoffman's charactor in the bathroom was priceless, not to mention the limited moments we see of him opposite Maggie Q and with the rest of the gang. look out for him in the movie, and then catch him in his movies.

for those interested in the animated thingies u've seen here, they're from:

http://www.feebleminds-gifs.com/
http://www.iconbazaar.com/objects/animated/pg01.html
http://www.ausmall.com.au/freegraf/archive2/freegf58.htm
http://bestanimations.com/
http://www.newcreations.net/3d/core.html

remember not to steal bandwidth. cheers.

everybody here has a baby. or will have a baby. soon. EVERYBODY. its cute, suburban, and very, very frightening.

And why shouldn't they, really? this is after all the best place in the country to make babies and grow and nurture the family... best schools... best homes... best hospitals... best climate... best neighbourhoods...

urm.

dog we have. baby nope. so we're not quite sure what else we're supposed to do in terms of living. its more best than we know what to do with. and its quiet. we saw only two people while we were visiting homes over the weekend. and it was because they lost their cat. its like being a stepford wife, but on the west coast and without the nice new england environment.

the old uncle-like realtor's trying to convince us to get a nice home in a quiet neighbourhood. too quiet, we said of a few of those he showed us over the weekend. i mean... we scared make boom-boom neighbours can hear leh. not to mention need to close all the windows first... like dat where got spontaneity? so lay chay one. we wanted somewhere more happening. he seemed confused.

his apparent tactic now is to pretend we never said that because he's still going strong on the quiet criteria, which seems ludicrously irrelevant, since everything is already so damn quiet that apart from making babies and nurturing 2.66 children, there's little else much to do here.

we could pimp the dog and sell her babies though. it could help pay the heating bills.

One of Bausch and Lomb's contact lens solution under its Renu brand has been pulled off the shelves in countries like the US and China while others are under investigation for possible causes of a rare eye infection called fusarium keratitis, which can lead to blindness. An FDA warning came in April.

The Renu items mentioned were the MoistureLoc and the Multiplus solutions. and some of its other stuff.

But guess what? i went to a major grocery store today to replace my solution but it ONLY had Renu lens cleaners available. How, you tell me. How?!?

"Hello Mrs Tonque? This is Jake from ***pet movers. The dog was checked into Changi Airport last night and boarded the plane headed for Frankfurt. Our driver went to collect her this afternoon as scheduled but here's the thing... he just called to say that she never arrived."

What the fuck? Panic panic panic. Couldn't reach my husband. Couldn't think. Smoked a cigarette. called the movers back.

"no word yet, m'am. we're still checking. please stay by the phone."

fuck fuck fuck. Where's the dog? Smoked another cigarette. Husband called. Panic panic panic. Smoked another cigarette. Husband comes home. Calls ***pet movers' Singapore counterpart. Panic Panic Panic. Maybe she ran away? Maybe she died? Maybe she got kidnapped? Dognapped?

"Hello Mrs Tonque? We found the dog. We think someone in Frankfurt forgot to put the dog on the plane. She's at a kennel at the airport now and will be shipped to you on the same flight tomorrow."

WAH LAN EH. #*&##^@#$@!*!!!

they say an idle mind is a devil's workshop. either my mind isn't idle enough after sitting around the whole day waiting for the grass to grow, or the workshop needs more gear... cos the devil sure ain't knockin over here.

the problem with keeping your options open is that you end up with so many options that you don't know what to do with them. should i go back to school? get a job? start a business? make a kid? what? i could sit on it for a bit longer but i'm afraid the fox of grandfather time will get to me before i decide which climb to seek refuge in.

a friend who reads this blog once said to me that she liked it because it wasn't as self-indulgent as blogs are known to be. Unfortunately, dear C, i have to disappoint you because i'm feeling a tad bit sorry for myself despite knowing that having all this time on my hands is a luxury many wish they could afford. hence, yes, it is a happy problem, i know. but i'm just not having any FUN.

in the past 24 hours i've watched The Family Stone, Match Point, and the entire first season of Grey's Anatomy, plus ALL the bonus features. i've smoked a pack of cigarettes and am now watching, though i admit distractedly, Casanova. It's not very good. but then again, i don't paint a pretty picture myself.

I have also received an email from a certain Matt Damon, on behalf of the ONE campaign, on poverty and Aids, and read the entire pitch. but i confess i am uninspired. perhaps i will be later.

if the devil knocks.

we are now in earthquake zone.

and finding a house is next to impossible, considering the geological conditions here and the available residential options. Why people here insist on setting up a vibrant town and living area on hilly, unsecure land along the pacific coast, i cannot fathom. some of these luxury homes are built on stilts that extend pass the edge of cliffs such that half the house rests on them. madness, i tell you.

past landslides have destroyed homes and killed many, and not all were caused by earthquakes either. so technically, if we lived on the beach, and managed to survive an earthquake, we could still perish in a landslide. live at the top and we risk toppling downhill. live at the bottom and we risk those guys at the top toppling down on us. not so fun, i think. and certainly not worth the beach view either.

the search, therefore, continues.

Its cheating cos i make it with instant lasagna pasta (less messy) and i add bottled arrabiata sauces for a bit of easy oomph.


Ingredients
- One large lasagna bowl for oven use
- one box of San Rema oven-ready instant lasagna pasta
- two bottles of tomato-based premade pasta sauce
- 3 garlic cloves, chopped
- Olive oil
- Balsamic vinegar
- Mozzeralla cheese
- 1 can of canned tomatoes or 1 big fresh tomato, chopped
- half can of tomato puree
- Mushrooms, sliced
- Half onion, sliced
- Bacon, strips
- Ground beef/chicken
- Salt
- Pepper

Directions for Meat Sauce
- Ground beef/chicken
- heat olive oil in wok
- fry onions
- add bacon strips, garlic, pinch of salt and pepper
- when bacon is cooked, stir in chopped fresh of canned tomato
- stir in puree
- add ground beef/chicken and stir until lightly cooked
- keep warm

Directions for Lasagna
- preheat oven as per directions on lasagna box
- spoon bottled tomato-based pasta sauce onto bottom of lasagna bowl
- spoon meat sauce over
- lay enough lasagna pasta over the sauces to cover
- spoon meat sauce over pasta
- sprinkle mozzerella cheese over
- spoon bottled sauce over mozzarella
- add another layer of pasta and repeat meat sauce, cheese, and bottled sauce until 4 to 5 layers
- sprinkle cheese on top
- put in oven until cheese is brown

For Da Vinci Code fans, here's another book that rides incredibly well on the wave of the whole thingmajig. Leonardo takes centrestage here for the most part, and we learn more about the Cathars. On them, check out The Lost Gospel of Judas too, said to be the biggest discovery of its kind since the Nag Hammadi texts.

... in other words, the grilled ham and cheese sandwich.

and they don't use none of that smelly stuff either.

the best purchased croque monsieur i've ever eaten (ie, not frying it yourself a la maison) was, surprisingly, on the TGV to Paris. i highly recommend it next time you're on the train. and get to the deli early before it all sells out.

its also simple enough to make and improvise. here's an example for those who need spelling out:

- between two slices of bread, place ham and choice of cheese and whatever else you like.
- put sandwich on oven-proof plate and place in 180-degree oven for 5 minutes or until cheese softens.
- remove plate (use mitts pls) and add more cheese on top. insert into oven again until cheese turns light brown on top.
- serve.

however, I think the real french way of making it could be something like this.

possibly fed up with spoiling us rotten, my father in law decided today to put me to work in the garden while my husband was, conveniently, out running a four-hour errand.

so for the first time in my life, i drove a motorized lawnmower... one of those massive and cumbersome machines you see on telly. it makes these aweful bone-breaking sounds everytime it hits a twig or a terrified escargot, and shoots miniscule pieces of grass and snail bits at you. the funny thing is i tried to recall any one time i saw a lawn being mowed in singapore but i couldn't think of ever having seen it done there before, so i wasn't quite sure how to do it stylishly.

anyway, now that i know first-hand how to operate the creature, it's not much to write home about. it's hard work, no fun, and i know i don't cut a scene like jesse metcalf does, glazed toned muscles rippling in the morning dew... cut grass spiralling away in slow-mo... the rose of exertion in the cheeks... which might be a good thing since i'm built, er, differently. but i digress.

unfortunately, i didn't cut the grass so well, so i was sent off to plant geraniums. i had to romove them from the temporary plastic pots they were bought in, and replant them in groups into rectangular thingies. and i had to use my hands because i was warned that the flowers were fragile. this meant digging my hands into last summer's soil already in the rectangular thingies and removing the weeds that had grown underneath in the past year, and then making little soil holes to put the geraniums in, and then covering it up with newly purchased moist fertiliser the colour of my poochie's ka-ka. yummy, said the geraniums. i had latex gloves, but they were too big, so soil kept falling into the interior and getting roti-prataed against my hands and collecting between my nails.

before the afternoon's toil, at the start of a day that held no warning of a gardening theme, my hubby and i managed to sneak a half-hour's visit to the Cardinal Richelieu's massive castle grounds. Richelieu is the meanie from Louis XIII's reign back in the 1600s, whose legacy inspired Alexander Dumas' Three Musketeers. Much of his chateau has been destroyed and what remains has been preserved as a national park. A great park it was, complete with gorgeous lakes and big old trees lining walkways and such. we fell in love with it but in the rush, we couldn't find out how and when it was destroyed.

the internet this evening provided the answer. the estate suffered a more tragic fate than a war or revolution. merchants had tore down the buildings and structures on the grounds in the mid 1800s and sold off the estate, brick by brick. what stands today are a fraction of the extravagance of the area. the site is now owned and protected by the Sorbonne in a move to ensure that what's left is preserved. (Richelieu and the Sorbonne go way back.)

Apparently, selected professors are permitted to spend their summer on the grounds and in one of the villas still standing. imagine... having the access to the massive garden and its lakes... having the history of one of the most formidable prime ministers in france surround you... taking evening walks beneath trees ripening with flowers, waking up to fresh, crisp air and having breakfast in the middle of an eden, dinners at a long rennaisance-style table in a mirrored room of sky-high ceilings...

"and here you are planting geraniums," laughed my father-in-law.

wah lao eh.

There’s something to be said about how the rules of engagement transcend all borders when it comes to unknowingly hitting on a married woman:

Austrialian Teenagers in Singapore:
I was at an Irish bar having a drink with an old friend who has been married for slightly over a year. Two very young men, with the threatening bloom of adult fuzz on their faces, approached us and introduced themselves. They danced about their introduction, uncertain and a little shy, but somewhat inebriated. My friend here fancies you and we were wondering if we could join you ladies for a bit, said the bolder one. My friend turned to me and smiled, and in an extremely mummy tone, said: awwww that’s so sweet. But we’re waiting for our husbands. And with that, the boys blushed and apologized and swiftly extricated themselves from their little faux pas, no doubt chiding themselves as they walked brusquely away for not having checked for wedding bands first.

Unknown European Yuppie in Singapore:
While I was waiting in line at the Singtel Comms Centre in order to close my broadband account, I had locked eyes with a stout caucasion man walking determinedly towards the offices, thinking that he was a member of the staff. He wasn’t and I promptly forgot about the encounter. But as I left the building and walked towards Somerset, I heard a heavily-accented "excuse me" behind me and turned around. I saw you at Singtel a moment ago and I was wondering if we could be friends, asked the accent. I was flattered, despite the fact that I was a good foot taller than him. That’s lovely, but I’m married, I replied as I flashed him my wedding finger and watched him turn the colour of beetroot. He then graciously apologized and wished me good day. I thanked him and wished him back.

Dutch Truckdriver in France:
My husband and I had stopped for a coffee break in the midst of our drive from Paris to his hometown. While he went to the loo, I decided to have a cigarette outside, but realized that I had left my lighter with him. The only other smoker in sight was a tall scruffy-looking man in a wifebeater and shorts. Happy in the assumption that he would not be able to speak English and try to have a traveler-a-traveller tete-a-tete with me, I requested in broken French to borrow his lighter. He smiled a slightly interested grey and black toothless grin and reached into his pocket, pulled out his lighter, and very gentlemanly cupped his other hand around the lighter as he lit my cigarette. I noticed his short and jagged fingernails were black with oil and soot and tried not to stare at them. As I withdrew away, he said something and I replied that I don’t speak French. Neither do I, he responded. Basket, I thought. Here we go. And sure enough, he went on to tell me that he was from the Netherlands and that he was driving south and asked where I was heading and where I was from and how I was traveling and I quickly replied: I’m heading south too, with my husband who I’m waiting for. With that, the man quickly made an about-turn between the moment where I said husband and before the end of my sentence, and walked away as he gave an awkward and friendly wave, saying Ah! You’re married! You have a husband!

Two things that surprised me most about the reactions of all these men were how swiftly they withdrew and how graciously they handled the delicate matter of unknowingly approaching a married woman and being given the brush-off. The rules of engagement was at play here, among men from very different places. It knew no age, race or border, this understanding that no matter how we perceive that all is fair in love and war, coveting a married woman is a big no-no.

Especially if you're not sure how big her husband is.