Exploring gravitational fields

Roop curled up on the couch, fell asleep and turned over on his back, all four paws in the air, still fast asleep. It was almost a good hour later when he woke up, then realised that the room wasn't quite the same way as he left it when he fell asleep. He rolled and twisted and struggled and then shot me a desperate "help me" look in his eyes.

So I rolled him gently on his side, pointed out to him which was up and which way was down, and he set his legs down gingerly and slowly eased himself up. And when he realised that gravity was back to normal, bounded round the room, delighted that the world is back the right way up again.

That's my boyo. Loopy Roopy.

Bye, Jacky

Jacky was one of those pet shop stock Schnauzers that shouldn't have been bred, shouldn't have been bought. She was barely 7 and had kidney failure, and her owner wanted to put her down when he found out.

But his friend, who also had a dog, thought Jacky should be given another chance. And that's when our neighbours took Jacky in. With them, she had 9 months of cuddles, sitting on laps, going on long walks with their resident dog, and play dates with our two.

Jacky died last Tuesday when her kidneys finally gave up. We hope though, that she hadn't given up on people. There're those that will give up a sick dog. But there are those that will take a sick dog in. We hope she's had a great 9 months.

The smells of home

Fresh, almost flowery scent of rice steaming slowly on the stove top.

Oily fried fish wafting from downstairs, meaning that the neighbours' dinner will be better than mine.

Pungent earthy smell as a heavy cloud discharges passing showers. Quick flurry of windows being closed in the block opposite. Now I know who's home at this time of the day and who's not.

Doggy smell on my finger tips after I've scritched Roop's chest.

Eid feast

The nicest thing about being the only Chinese family in a corridor of Malay households is that we feast better during Eid/Hari Raya Aidilfitri than on Chinese New Year.

Weeks before the festival even, the next-door neighbour started the ball rolling with a jar of home-made cookies. Come back for more, she added, when we've finished this.

It's just that there were other things to occupy us. At lunchtime on Hari Raya, the neighbour across the landing had us over for for a meal of longtong, rendang, tahu in sambal, chicken curry with stringhopper pancakes.

At dinner time, the neighbour down the corridor came bearing a tray of more longtong, tahu sambal and chicken in a spicy tomato sauce. More longtong is inaccurate, a different type of longtong is more like it. The lunchtime version was local, the dinnertime version was Indonesian (the neighbour's Indonesian uncle did the cooking, he runs a restaurant there -- which means the food was restaurant-standard yummy).

At supper time, L went across the landing after the neighbour's last guests had left, bearing a food container and offering to be neighbourly with the leftovers -- he wasn't shy and the neighbour did say that she overestimated the amount of food, they had industrial sized pots sitting on their stove and how could you let anyone live with days of leftovers on end? :)

(And why do pictures of perfectly good curry and rendang always turn out like shots of upchuck?)

And now, we wait

I found a lump on Rupert's paw a fortnight ago, a little angry, weepy sore-like bump under a toe nail that made some interesting red footprints.

Rupert didn't seem bothered by it, it wasn't hurting him at all. Me, I freaked out. We humans have more emotional baggage than dogs. The last time we found a lump on another dog's paw, it turned out to be a mast cell tumour, and that resulted in Queeni losing a toe. This time round, the lump is very different, so we're hoping for a less traumatic outcome.

However, the lump didn't respond to a course of antibiotics. So the vet's Plan A of treating it as an infection didn't work and on Saturday, he resorted to Plan B -- excising the lump and sending it off for a biopsy. We won't know the results till a week's time.

Roop spent one day staggering around the house like a drunken sailor, another day comatose and now, he's right as rain. I'm glad he bounced back because it was really distressing to see his perky tail pointing down instead of up. I hope we have more bouncy, tail-wagging news from the lab soon.

UPDATE:
I should have updated this post much earlier, I didn't realise there were so many people pulling for Roop -- and I'm so grateful for all your kind thoughts.

The lump was benign, caused by "clinical turbulence" -- two toes rubbing against each other. It may occur again later, or on another paw. But nothing major to worry about.

I would have thought that "clinical turbulence" was when Roop farted in the exam room. FWIW, the vet faxed the lab report to me at work. Even a roomful of newspaper sub-editors couldn't understand the English. I got as far as "generally benign lesion" and that was enough to do the happy dance of joy.

Thank you, everyone, for thinking of us.

Love and all that

B and his partner of years and years went to New Zealand last Christmas where they got civil unionised. He's still such a newly wed, playing with his ring. Such a joy to see. I honestly don't know which part of this gay marriage is a threat to society.

Grrr

It's taken me the long weekend to calm down.

On Friday, I had meant to stop by the pet shop on my way to work to get another bag of dog food. For a confluence of reasons, I didn't. The connecting train to the office arrived just at the same moment as I crossed over to the platform, so instead of taking the escalator to the exit where I would get out of the station and upstairs into the shopping centre where the pet shop was, I stepped into the train. I figured that I would pick up the dog food during dinner hour instead. What I didn't know then was that goD was looking out for me and my dogs.

Because 10 minutes later when I got into the office and checked my e-mail before starting any real work, I found a post on my dog e-list on a dog food recall. My blood ran cold when I realised that the brand that I feed was on the recall list.

P&G had issued a voluntary recall of some brands of pet food because a manufacturing facility had been compromised by salmonella. I googled like crazy but couldn't find anything which told me whether the recall was limited to the US and Canada, or also included exports to Asia.

In mounting panic, I called the pet shop. Yes, they knew what I was talking about. Yes, we are affected. And yes, stop feeding that to your dogs. Right now. They bent over backwards, working out a refund scheme for me, and helping me to select another brand that was close in composition so that an abrupt change of feed wouldn't throw the dogs' digestive system out of kilter. But when I asked why wasn't there any publicity about the recall, they pointed out that if I wanted to take up the issue, I would need to contact the importer/distributor. They were merely the retailer.

I left the office, retraced my steps back to the train station, got to the pet shop, got alternative food. Getting something to feed the dogs was at that time more important than doing work. No offence to my US friends, but this time, I elected not to buy American. I'm fussy about buying made in China foodstuff, but I think I've fallen into a colonial sort of complacency where I had assumed that anything Western-made is A-OK. Well, that's a fallacy these days. A British cat breeder friend had remarked that EU requirements for pet food are much stricter than US standards, so with that thought in mind, I decided to buy British.

Then I returned to work. I could really have used a good stiff drink, now that I was done with the crisis. But there was no possibility of that since I was at the office, so I opted for a cigarette instead. Yes, I am kinder to my dogs' systems than I am to my own.

By then, I had somewhat stopped freaking out. Meanwhile, L at home had thrown out the dog food and cleaned the container in which it was kept, as well as their food and water bowls, and also the kitchen counter top, and after all that, the sink and also sponge which he used to clean up. We're not fooling with salmonella. We're only jolly lucky that we don't have young children and elderly people in the house who could have been easily compromised by handling the dog food.

What really shook me was that there was no news of the recall here. If it wasn't for a heads-up from the US friend on my e-list, I would not have known. And that's when I started getting pissed off with the importer of the pet food, as well as Agri-Veterinary Authority (AVA), which is the regulatory body. The P&G release was dated July 30, a full week ago. In the 7 days since, we had no publicity on the matter.

The local importer has my name and address on its database -- from time to time, they send me brochures on the brand's products and on special offers that they may be carrying. At no time did they contact me regarding the recall -- when they knew full well I must be feeding that brand.

And as for the AVA, which during the last melamine-related recall made so much self-righteous noise about how they regularly test pet food that has been imported and how all imports meet their requirements, well this time they were well and truly caught with their pants down. I shot them an email that night.

I haven't yet heard from the importer or the AVA -- the parties with whom the buck should stop. They could be puking over the toilet bowl now for all I care. As long as it's not my furkids and my family doing that.

I can still do with that drink.

World Cup withdrawal

Didn't realise it was so bad until I resorted to watching the FA Community Shield on Sunday night simply because it was shown live on TV, and because it was some good football. Otherwise, I normally would not have bothered because Manchester United and Chelsea are not clubs that I follow or support.

But pressed to take a side, I clung onto the most remotest of links -- forlorn over Forlan, I decided to root for the club where he once played. Yup, I've sunk that low.

Sign of the times

We don't understand what this new sign that appeared downstairs means? Don't walk your dog on a leash? So what the hell, we're just gonna lift a leg on it

Still hooked

4.30am is no time to start reading a book. Unless you finished the previous one at 4.25am.

OK, I learn fast. Halfway through Stieg Larsson Book 2, I went out and got Book 3. I was not going to be left hanging again in that deprivation mode when I finished Book 1 overnight, with hours to go before the bookshop opened to get a serial fix. The reason why I had to go out twice, to two different bookshops in two days, was because the bookshop where I bought Book 2 did not have Book 3. So 24 hours later, I took the train downtown to a bigger bookshop to get Book 3 -- while reading Book 2 on the train there and back. I think I haven't slept properly for the past 72 hours. L thinks it's a good thing that Larsson stopped at 3 books -- if he'd gone on for more, that would be a good week without any sleep.

And this is why I hardly ever start reading trilogies. You know you're starting on a long haul because you're never going to stop with one book. It's like the literary equivalent of opening a bag of potato chips, you're never going to stop at one chip. But sometimes -- like Tolkien, and now Larsson -- they're worth the long-term commitment .

The problem now is that Book 2 isn't the same edition as Books 1 and 3, so I haven't got a matching set. When I bought Book 2, I just grabbed the first edition I came across, like a junkie needing a quick, desperate fix. It didn't matter then that Book 2 didn't match Book 1. And now my copy of Book 3 doesn't match Book 2.

This sort of thing only bothers OCD people. And people who are proud of their matching Terry Prachett Discworld paperbacks. :)

Austen industry

I've just realised that my Jane Austen related books are fast outnumbering the Austen books proper. And these are just what I have, which is a small fraction of what's out there, plus what I've borrowed from the library. I'm not even including trash like Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

I wonder if Austen ever realised that her name and plots would kickstart a whole new genre?

Hooked

L had one piece of advice before I embarked on the reading spree -- leave the Stieg Larsson till when I'm on leave and can afford the time because I wouldn't be able to put it down.

Well, I started the potboiler at a Starbucks, and went home, got into bed that night with it, and stayed up till 7am till I finished it. And that's not the end of the story. I slept for a few hours, then leapt out of bed after one cup of caffeine (normally, it takes me three cups before I can even crawl out of bed) and headed straight out for the mall -- to get Books 2 and 3 from the library, and if not, the bookshop. I hadn't even showered (but at least I brushed my teeth and washed my face!), I was in that much of a hurry to get my hands on the next two books in the series.

L laughed me out of the house. He's going to stop laughing when he realises that he's going to have to wait till I'm done with the sequel before he gets his hands on it.

Rock n roll is everywhere

Reading material

Home this week, clearing leave days and planning on staying in bed with two dogs and reading. Oh, OK, at the most, I could schlepp to the sofa.

I've already finished the Prachett. The Larsson I've always been meaning to get round to reading, same as Che Guevara. Hilary Mantel I got on the strength of The Economist's review and winning the Man Booker Prize. Look at the heft of that volume, it's definitely bedside reading material and not something you can slip in your bag and fish out at Starbucks.

Sumer is icumen in

Lhude sing cuccu.

Yeah, I know it's kinda cuckoo to go on about summer when you're living one degree north of the equator, and there's watermelon available year round (don't hate me, R, I remember what you said last summer about watermelon being an indication of the season). But the supermarket signs of summer -- such as imported stone fruit -- is really something worth singing about. Guess I'm not about to count my food miles there.

Oh, the poster is a mailer of a restaurant's seasonal menu. It's too pretty to consign to the recycling bin with the rest of the mailers that I get, so I'm sticking it on my wall for the colours. And the laidback effect that it gives me everytime I look at it.

Murie sing cuccu!
:)

Love, etc

My husband loves me too. He went and got Blutack when I realised that we didn't have any in the house. So that his wife could stick postcards of her crush at her desk.

Feed a fever

I love my friends, and I think they love me. They spammed me with pictures of Diego Forlan when they knew of my World Cup crush. Then one of them turned those pictures into postcards ("you only get eight, any more would be a shrine") when I went into post-World Cup post-Forlan withdrawal (yes, I know Spanish La Liga starts next month, but I'm not likely to follow it -- I'm smitten but I'm not stupid enough to follow a league where I only know one player).



And even the one who then spammed me with pictures of Forlan's model girlfriend, in an attempt to jolt me back to post-World Cup reality. Why do footballers always have to date models? Life is unfair enough as it is.

Saturday night out

... feeding my Forlan crush at the Kopitiam's free screening of the World Cup third and fourth placing.

We knew that they would stop alcohol sales after midnight so we brought along our own liquid picnic.


PS: I have realised that the drawback to watching with one's husband a match featuring one's crush is that every time Forlan got possession, L would elbow me, "Eh, your boyfriend!"

If only.

Yummy

A weak attempt at food blogging -- which is to say, I want to show off what I did for dinner over the weekend. It doesn't look anything as food porn as Chubby Hubby though. But then again, he's a pro.



We usually have a packet of frozen roti prata (Singaporean Indian pancake, usually eaten with curry) as a staple in the freezer, and one day, instead of heating a prata in a non-stick pan on the stove top as I usually do, I stuck one in the oven because I had it going for something else. To my surprise, the flat pancake crisped up and puffed up into layers like flaky pastry.

That sparked off ideas of what to do with prata, mostly along the lines of using it as an easy pastry substitute. It's more restrictive than pastry because you are restricted to working with a circle of frozen dough which you can't roll or manipulate. But it is a lot more convenient, and doesn't involve getting out the rolling pin and pastry board. And I thought pre-made pastry was already convenient. This beat even that.

The easiest thing to make was a sausage roll, I simply rolled a prata round a sausage and popped it in the oven. Last week, prata became the pastry topping for a chicken pot pie. That worked out quite well and it was dead easy because you could just place the circular prata over the pie dish and fold it down over the edge.

Then I got adventurous. Prata became the dough for a pasty. It was an ugly-looking pasty, because unlike malleable dough, I couldn't pinch the pancake neatly into a decorative plait where I sealed the ends, let alone decorate it Martha Stewart-like with pastry appliques on top. But hey, looks doesn't matter because once you cut into it, it will just crumble away into flakes anyway, and it tastes just as good.





Oh, that dish in the corner, it was a vegetable soup.

Dog's breakfast

Well, it sure looks better than mine!