Wrens and sparrows

Wrens and sparrows
Originally uploaded by ariel1511976

We got much more snow than expected. It was also pretty cold - cold enough for me to skip my jog. It got to a maximum of -6 degrees celsius. Simian went to work but got home just after the snow started.

Simian went out to shovel in the evening and we've stayed in most of the day otherwise and enjoyed the snow from indoors :)

Birds in snow

Yes - it's snowing today. Right after we were told there would be no snow - guess what? It snowed!

Salinger

Salinger is dead at 91. RIP to the person who created some of the most interesting characters in fiction. I am sure if there were any unpublished manuscripts that they'll be published any day now.

Simian drove his other car to the city and I went to the station to pick him up. I was halfway through preparing dinner when he called to say he was heading home, and was about to leave when he got to the station. Unfortunately thanks to my new hi-tech car, I couldn't get the garage door to close (you don't need a remote any longer - the car can 'learn' your garage opener). Finally after reversing back and forth several times, it worked the good old fashioned way - I opened the car door - and the garage opener worked.

Poor Simian though - I had thought he would wait in the station but it turned out the station HAS NO HEAT. It's below freezing out tonight too.

Of course on the way home, I couldn't get the door open again. Maybe I should just keep the old garage door opener with me.

Driving around

Simian and I took the Prius out today to get groceries. It's a little bigger than I'm used to so heading in to a parking space is a little more challenging. Backing in isn't so much of a problem because I'm used to that :)

The car has solar panels on it - and so it runs the air conditioner in summer. It also means that if you get back to your car and it's parked in the sun, it'll be nice and cool. For winter, it has seat warmers, but so far the car has been pretty nice and toasty because it's climate controlled.

It's got so many features though, it's a little overwhelming - like a bluetooth speaker for your phone in the car!

The good news also is that it's so efficient, you only need to do an oil change once a year!

Pressie from HeeJ

Pressie from HeeJ
Originally uploaded by ariel1511976

Thanks for the cool present HeeJ - you know what I like :) The bag was cool too!

Prius

Prius
Originally uploaded by ariel1511976

THIS however was the biggest surprise. Apparently Simian and Dad had been plotting secretly - and it's my new birthday present. Simian took a video of me - all I could say was "I don't understand" and "why is there a new car?"

Pressies!

 

When I arrived, Simian handed me a birthday present - the Z18! I wasn't expecting it at all - and it takes good videos so expect to see more videos soon :) He also got me a plant.

G also sent a huge hamper full of chocolates and crackers!

Back in Maryland!

Back safely in Maryland. The weather when I landed was perfect - 15 degrees - and the flight was lovely and uneventful. There was so little turbulence, even the pilot remarked it's the first time he didn't have to warn everyone to fasten their seatbelts.

We landed on time but waited to get a gate but Simian and I were on the way home by 6 pm.

I had a few birthday presents and surprises when I got home! Will take photos tomorrow but needless to say I was pretty stunned.

Bye !

 

The hardest part of leaving is always saying goodbye to family and friends - and to these guys.

See you in March!

Pin checking out CD

Pin checking out CD
Originally uploaded by ariel1511976

Thanks Planetofsound and Imp for the CD! I had been looking all over for it. I especially loved the photo of Planetofsound in it :) Pin liked it too.

Lynx stalking Scout

Lynx stalking Scout
Originally uploaded by ariel1511976

Lynx really has it out for poor little Scout. She spends a large part of the day hoping the door will open so she can bounce on Scout!

Dad's Birthday and Prata party

 

We had a surprise birthday party for Dad today. My cousin, B, came to pick Dad up in the evening on the pretext of taking Dad for a drink.

The food and the ice didn't arrive before Dad got home and I was getting a little worried. Everything turned out okay though - food arrived just after 7:30 and everyone was eating by 8.

Dad looked like he WAS surprised. We had a prata party which is always fun. The dough looked amazing and the guy flipping the prata was really good! Everyone agreed it was nice and crispy.

I make an apple walnut cake for Dad and everyone had a tiny slice. I figured after the dessert prata everyone would be pretty full!

Ariel licking

Ariel licking
Originally uploaded by ariel1511976

Poor Princess Ariel had to go to the vet again today for an ultrasound. Here she is licking herself. The good news is that she has no kidney or bladder stones - the bad news is that her kidney has shrunk. Mom had to take her because I had a doctor's appointment myself but Mom said she was very well behaved.

Chinatown

 

Mom and I went to Chinatown as she needed to buy some beads for a class she's teaching for some friends. While in the store, I saw an earring I had bought - or to be more precise the disc with no hook attached. The only difference was that I had paid $15 or $20 for it, whereas this earring cost $2.80. Mom showed me what to buy and how to attach the hook to the discs using pliers (not rocket science really). Plus the store was having a buy one get one free promotion so I walked out after having spent $8.30. If anyone would like some of the designs (since I have extra) let me know! I've attached 8 earrings and have more to go! I am extremely pleased :)

We also went to Dessert Hut in People's Park Complex where I had fantastic Ah Boling - the sesame and the peanut had a lovely smokey crunch to it. Then we went to the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple - Mom hadn't been there and said it was a beautiful building.

National Museum

 

The Museum had an exhibition on old carrier bags - both plastic bags and paper bags - used in Singapore in the 1960s to the 1980s. I would have had more to post but they disappeared into the black hole of my memory card.

Quest for Immortality

 

Mom and I went down to see the exhibition at the National Museum - the Quest for Immortality. It was a small exhibition but pretty nice. Unfortunately, my new camera's memory card ate up some of my photos. I can't for the life of me find them now.

I also saw my old Lit teacher, who is now volunteering as a docent at the museum, and we chatted with her for a bit.

First dip in the pool

 

Dad's baby, the new pool, is done. They've put in the chlorine and we all went in for a dip. I managed to try out my new Aquapac again and took some very jerky videos! The problem with using a compact camera was that the lens hits the package and you can't really take good shots.

River was most upset that everyone was in the pool. He ran around and barked and had to lick everyone to make sure we were alright.

Lunch at Lingzhi

 

Had lunch with the gang at Lingzhi this afternoon. Of course I had to have my favourite fake chicken nuggets. Planetofsound suggested we try the truffle and carrot soup for a change and that was pretty good. Plus I got a lovely pig charm from D - this seems to be the year of pig charms for me :) - and lavender hand cream from J! Planetofsound and Imp also got me a CD which they insisted is NOT my pressie! Thanks guys!

Pressies!

 

Thanks to everyone who emailed, texted or called! It was great hearing from all of you :)

Simian sent flowers and M got me cool stuff, including a book I wanted - she's a mind reader ;)

I also baked my birthday cake - it really was just an excuse to eat the strawberry shortcake I made last week again. Dad had however gotten me a chocolate banana cake too. What are birthdays for except to get to eat two kinds of cake? :)

Lunch

 

M treated me to lunch at Min Jiang. Someone had told her that it had good vegetarian food and they weren't kidding. They even had two vegetarian set lunch menus. We stuck with the ala carte and it was a good thing we did because I was still full at dinner! The mock peking duck was especially good. We also had mock goose, hot and sour soup and fried dumplings. We ended lunch off with a mango sago with pomelo.

Thanks for a great lunch and for the pressies!

Forrest and Clock

Forrest and Clock
Originally uploaded by ariel1511976

This is Forrest - Forrest is the sweetest natured cat. He also has two current obsessions. One, he likes to lick the paint on walls. Two, he has taken to staring at the clock on the table for long periods of time. Forrest is not the smartest banana as you may have deduced - hence his name.

Lunch at Naive

 

Mom and I had lunch at Naive, a new vegetarian restaurant we found out about recently. The food was pretty good if a bit pricey - the peanuts in the peanut soup had been boiled till they were soft and melty :)

They have an unusual ceremony called the 'bloss' when you sit down. They come with a bowl of sesame seeds which they ask you to grind as a symbol of thankfulness. Then you get to sprinkle the seeds on your food :)

I forgot to take a photo of Mom's dessert which was a pudding/custard. The texture of the custard was lovely. Unfortunately it contains two of my least favourite things - green tea and red bean - so I passed.

Strawberry Shortcake cake

 

When I saw this recipe a while ago, I immediately thought of Imp. Imp loves two things - any dessert with apple in it, and Strawberry Shortcake. I decided today would be the day I attempted strawberry shortcake, and I think it turned out pretty well. I cut down the sugar in this recipe, but otherwise kept it the same.

Dinner with Imp and PlanetofSound

 

Dinner at Imp and PlanetofSound's place is always an event. The food is always exquisite. Today was no exception. We started off dinner with a potato leek soup and had nut loaf (which I call vegetarian meatloaf :)) and a fantastic pasta. Recipes are here via Imp's blog. To top if off, we had mojitos which were a welcome relief from the heat.

We watched Vicky, Christina Barcelonia afterwards, which was good and then a local movie called Gone Shopping came on television. We didn't finish it but enjoyed the scenes filmed in Mustafa!

Dinner at La Strada

 

I had dinner with J, C and J - old classmates. J and I see each other more frequently but I haven't seen J and C in years.

We had dinner at La Strada. Traffic and parking were horrific and it was only after circling around for several minutes that I found a parking space.

Dinner was so-so. The soup wasn't bad but the pizza was over-priced ($26 for pizza?) especially when the olives on the pizza were NOT pitted. Dessert wasn't inspiring so we skipped it.

C is a new mother - and J just had her second baby so they had a lot of baby stories to swap. It was good catching up.

Table after one coat

 

Doesn't it look all shiny and pretty now? Thank you polyurethane.

Pigs

Sadly when I saw this post, I was most envious of the fact that pigs can run faster than I can. That's 7 minutes for 1.6 km people!

Finishing sander

 

Mom and I decided that the barbeque table on the side was looking rather sad and old and needed a new coat of paint. We decided to try and do it ourselves (Mom blames Simian). We bought a finishing sander (though actually using the sandpaper on its own worked really well) and with N's help, we sanded the table down.

We then gave it one coat of paint - though the brushes we bought were horrific and left pieces of brush hair all over. One of the workmen in our house working on the pool gave us a paint roller - that worked SO much better so tomorrow we'll probably need to go buy some painting material to finish off the second coat.

Vegetable Korma

Vegetable Korma
Originally uploaded by ariel1511976

It's been a busy couple of days. Simian left yesterday. He said everyone on his flight was patted down, and their hand luggage checked manually and swabbed for explosives. He also had his shoes and socks manually inspected. Then of course, Newark Airport was shut down because someone just walked through the exit lane into the secured area. Fortunately Simian was not affected.

We had a little scare last night - Ariel started dripping bloody urine. We went to the vet immediately and the vet said that it is probably an infection. She's on antibiotics and we're monitoring her.

M and I went for dinner at Raj. We tried a vegetable korma dish which was a bit of a mistake since it turned out sweet. The rest of the food was good as usual though.

B&B Pudding

B&B Pudding
Originally uploaded by ariel1511976

Imp and Planet of Sound, J& S and D came over to usher in the New Yea together. I made a bread and butter pudding, with a custard sauce of course and used panettone bread for the base.

We started off the year with everyone watching The Room off Simian's laptop. No one ran off this time - but the mood was akin to horrified fascination. Thanks guys for coming!

Happy New Year everyone.

Shorewood Lip Dub

This is fun - and it's amazingly, done by a bunch of high school students.