heavy

During service last Sunday, I was tearing up a lot. In my head ran through all the plights of cats and dogs I know that are suffering/have suffered. Last week I found out my SG yoga instructor's dog passed away due to cancer. Skylar, a cat in Jo's cattery has a growth in his head that's pushing against one eye, and it's getting worse. Her latest post says blood spurts everywhere when he sneezes. Nigel, the neighbour's outdoor cat is at our door 3 to 5 times a day. He wants affection, food, to make friends with our furries, I dont know. I know he's out there, in the heat, in the cold, no real home, no real love. And I dont know how to walk up to my neighbour and tell them to love their cat more. Love is different to everybody.

It wasnt easy to bring furries over to Oz. Not easy at all. So many risks. So much money. So much to fear. I still shudder when I thought about the whole process of exporting them over, the last moment I saw them in SG, the despair when I learned about Ginger falling ill, the unsettling worry and fear right till we reached quarantine facility and hospital.. It was so much drama and trauma. I would not ever wanna go through that again.
I hug my furballs everyday, thinking of what they've gone through. I love them with my everything. I learn so much from them, every single day. How it's okay to not be the same as others. How it's okay to have imperfections. How it's okay to be alone sometimes. How it's okay to show love and affection. How it's okay when things dont go your way. 

It's okay. Life goes on.

Not a day goes by that I dont think about them leaving me. It's always on my mind. Things come and go. One moment, you're so caught up with a trend, a food, an obsession, a person. Next moment you wonder how those years went by when you were so infatuated with that. I dont wanna miss my furries' beautiful faces. Their innocent love, their individual character. Their body warmth, their headbutts, their unique purrs.

Some people refuse to think/talk about death. Avoid it like the plague. Deal with it when it comes. I've seen enough deaths over the last few years to know that running away from the topic brings more pain. I still cry buckets when I think about my furries leaving me. I just try to cherish them more now. Give them all the attention they need and want.

Okay, done with furry banter. Where am I going with this?
Keep your loved ones close, they're irreplaceable.

Happy 2018!

Half a month in to the new year folks! Was pretty caught up with spending time with friends in the East, getting our hands green (yes, gardening!), and spending more time with Fen. It has been so wonderful.

End of 2017, BIL went to take our letters from our place, and told us we have a speed ticket. Was from way back in Oct, in the first week of our landing when we were using rental car, and were unfamiliar with the speed limits on the roads without a GPS. By GPS I mean those legit ones, not your phone maps. We only saw this letter late Dec, and due date was 1 Jan. So, I didnt have enough time to appeal, and just paid T_T Do not speed peeps, it's not worth the fine!

Spent the last day of the year with Keith and his family, picking blueberries in the morning, and dinner at his place at night. His house is so cozy! Fen and I agreed we should make more effort to hang out with his kid~ Rockclimbing next perhaps, hehee~

We headed home around 2300, and reached home just in time to welcome the new year. Didnt need the clock or TV shows to tell us. Every other random sky had mini fireworks going on, and we can hear people making donuts in the distance (tell me you know what is making donuts). We stood outside in the chilly dark, alongside our neighbours, quietly wishing one another happy 2018. Peaceful and lovely.

Fen had a break from work during the festive holidays, finally. We spent a couple of days plucking weeds from the backyard, and front side lane. And went to Bunnings to get seedlings and a mini greenhouse. Our 1st try was a disaster, either no germination or seedling wilted. We then found out from a gardener near our rental that greenhouse is for winter!! We basically cooked our seedlings T_T Having a 2nd go now, and bought vegetables (kale and brussel sprouts) seedlings! Whee! Seeing some very positive growth, although we might have mixed up the seeds a little, coz we thought the seeds from the 1st round had all died and so topped up with other seeds, and unsure/confused with the identity of the seedlings now, HAHAHA. Didnt know seeds/seedlings can resurrect?!

You'll probably hear me talking about these places where we frequent, because cheap/always got sale and Fen loves a good DIY:

• Bunnings
• The Good Guys
• KMart
• Big W
• Target
• Super Cheap Auto
• Coles/Woolies/Aldi

Many of these shops have competitive prices on the same item, so we're running up and down for deals every other week. Seriously, I didnt even care this much in SG *rolls eyes

Fen spent a good number of days working on our car. He's like an artist painting the car, delicate work. So much effort and muscle with the polishing, too. He totally needs a polisher soon. 

We also went to donate plasma. Wanted to donate blood actually, but the bank needs plasma more than blood, so yea, first time donating plasma. I'm not comfortable with the red blood cells being returned back to the body part. Sounds.. unsanitary, even though everything is sterile. Still. And the bank doesnt use numbing cream! The thick needle goes straight into the skin, mighty ouch. No colourful bandages after donating too, bummer. Lol~ Okay okay, the idea is to save lives.

The dry weathers here have Fen's skin kicking up rashes, and left me with really cracked heels. BodyShop to the rescue! Our hottest day experienced was 43℃, and we went to the mall to cool off during the hottest hour, and chanced upon some really good cream! Hard to miss, the leaf packaging looks like weed.. o.O"

That's Fen's. He's tried a couple of creams from other brands, but this one worked best.

 

That's mine! Love it!

If you didnt already know, we've been sleeping on our mattress without a bed frame. Not complaining, we've got a good mattress, blessed enough already. Because Fen's cousin is coming for a short stay, we had to get a bed for him. So we got a queen set for our guestroom, and decided to also get a king bed frame for ourselves! Finally sleeping on elevated ground. Hahaha. Furries can get more jumping activity too.

I wanted to sign up for some gym membership, saw this HIIT gym, and went to check it out. Lacks the aesthetics and equipment I've seem in SG gyms and studios, so... save the money, kekeke. I just need to stay motivated to workout/yoga at home! Argh.

Finally cooking steak again. Fen LOVES it. Such a quick meal too, no wonder it was on our menu during SG days, where only food that can be prepped in under 30minutes will make the list. Have also tried out bulk cooking, which is a little intimidating, watching how much soy sauce I'm spamming. I found egg noodles in the Asia supermarket that are really close to the wanton noodles in SG! So proud of myself ^^

Next happy news. Our shipment from SG is FINALLY going to be delivered. After 3 months. Within my forecast, but was promised it will be delivered before Xmas. Welp.

Done with random musings. A little hiccup to end off 2017, but so positive and thankful for 2018. Treasure every day, folks! Xoxo.

Cooking

I've been so obsessed with cooking the last couple of weeks.

I'm pretty good at stir frying bok choy, with just (pork oil), oyster sauce and sesame oil. Bcm is still a wip. Nowadays I make easy meals that can last around 3 days in the fridge.

1. Japchae, a Korean dish. Never knew what japchae is until I came here. A introduced me, and Fen and I love how it tastes!

Pick any 4 of your favourite dishes to mix with the noodles.

These noodles are so chewy despite their dull gray unappetising appearance!

Add desired amount to pot of boiling water and cook for 6-7minutes.

In a bowl, pour some light soy sauce and sesame oil.

Strain cooked noodles.

Add to bowl of sauce. Before mixing.

After mixing.

Add in your 4 dishes. Before mixing.

After mixing! Eat it!

2. Chicken soup with kway tiao. Has to be my proudest achievement yet. I make good soup. YAAAS.

3. Baked rice. Similar to fried rice, you use whatever leftover dishes to mix with rice and bam, dinner.

Used basmati rice, cooked smoked salmon, spinach, mozzarella.

4. Shakshuka, a Middle-Eastern dish. Fairly easy to make. Havent quite perfected the taste, need to try again.

Capsicum, onions, lotsa tomatoes, feta cheese, eggs.

5. Hotdogs and sandwiches. LOL. Mostly for Fen to bring to work. He likes it =)

I didnt add every single photos of the foods or cooking process, only the japchae was more intensive. Lemme know if you would want the whole process or recipe, I'd be happy to share if you'd like to read!
But really, what isnt googleable these days. You can easily search them recipes and make a fusion out of them to suit your taste =)

Feline blood donation

Bit on my fork. Hard. 

Now I have an achy shaky tooth. Zzz. Lesson learnt, eat slowly, chew carefully. No wrong taking your time to focus on your meal. No wrong.

Pitch donated blood for the very first time. I am so darn proud of her. She's forever my champion. Probably done lots of things a cat wouldnt do. Taking a plane, selflessly saving other furries' lives, living a very very loved life.

I am conflicted if I want her to donate again. Many reasons for that.

• My furry is away from me, for 8 hrs. Could have been just 6, but she had her munch before I sent her in. Still. Too long. Hahaa attachment issues. You would know if you've gone round a guilt trip sending her on a flight that she wouldnt see you for at least 10 days.
• The hospital asks you to sign a disclaimer form every damn time you selflessly send in your donor baby. And I quote, "I hereby release and hold harmless the hospital from losses of any kind...". Essentially telling me that if anything happens to Pitch, not their problem. Err... Like, wouldnt you do everything in your power to save her? Wouldnt you absorb all costs to keep her healthy? You want her blood to save someone else, so.. cant you keep her safe and well too? It's not a life exchange, right? I'm well aware the clauses companies use to keep themselves indemnified, and emotional attachments cannot be in them. But I dont quite think there is a level ground here. O wait, you know what's the benefit the donor gets? A free bag of dry kibbles. I raise my eyebrow.
• I asked the vet what (health) benefits does a cat get for donating blood. She actually got me wrong, she thought I was asking what's in it for me to send my cat for blood donation, and went on to say I get a free bag of cat food. Pfft. Anyway, if you are a human blood donor, you might know that if we donate blood, our bodies get like blood regeneration which is like good for us. Like new clean blood, yea. So I wanna know if that's the same for furries. This vet, she was honest, brutally honest, not that I'm complaining. She said no known health benefits to the donor cat, and if anything, it could lower their blood pressure and lead to life danger. To level the blood pressure during blood donation, the donor cat is on IV to pump in fluids that she is losing. Ooooookay, not quite a plus to be a donor cat. AT ALL.
• My furry gets clipped. I DISLIKE/LOATHE/HATE/ABHOR/DETEST my furries getting clipped. It's a peeve, I believe. Everyday I look at Ginger and his badly shaven body, and I feel so sorry and sad for him. Thank god it's not winter. Cats' fur grow at snail speed, it takes 9 months to fully grow out!!!
  Granted, I was told Pitch would be clipped if she is a donor cat. I was also told the area clipped will be a small little 5cm x 5cm on her neck, and her front leg for catheter to pump in fluids. Well, I can tolerate this peeve; it's saving another furry's life. I'm bigger than that. So I'm cool.
  When I collected Pitch 8hrs later, I saw that they had clipped a really large area on the other side of her neck (she already has a patch from her 1st donor checkup that is slowly growing some fur), her front leg, AND her hind leg. THE HOSPITAL CANNOT COUNT. O MY GAWD.
• Pitch was very restless when we collected her. She was a little groggy, uptight, wouldnt sleep with us, very needy, kept real close to me wherever I went. She only relaxed and got some shuteye 10hrs after we collected her.
• Pitch, like Ginger, yanked her catheter out during her stay at the hospital, resulting in a red bruise on her front leg. Now she's just licking at it non-stop. She looks like she had a fur-cut that went wrong. 

Patchy Pitch

Would love to hear your thoughts. If you were me, would you let Pitch go for another donation? Fen responded a resounding yes. Ugh.

Fried pork lard

This is a distasteful entry. One that will push me back miles from my aspiring vegetarianism goals.

Fen and I were at A&S' for dinner last night. The menu was bak chor mee ("bcm"). No one was craving for the dish, it was just dinner.

Since we are new settlers, naturally we would compare the taste of A's bcm with what we're familiar back in SG. Fen and I thought "something" was missing. We couldnt figure out, and I just casually mentioned pork lard. Because all hawker stalls pride themselves with this little evil blob.

S got excited because he is a lard lover. He decided then that must be the missing ingredient. I then recounted childhood memories of how I saw Granny prepare fried pork lard once. Of coz, back then I didnt know what she was cooking, except that cubes of white solids turning brown and produced oil. Granny was so happy making it, excited and all. She loves pork lard, she loves cholesterol in general.

Since I was deemed the most free among us, with no job and idling at home, it became a challenge for me to attempt making fried pork lard to make bcm 2.0. Armed with fuzzy Granny memories, and 5 websites sharing fried pork lard recipes, I mustered the courage to drive out to the Asian supermarket, and shamelessly buy pork fat. With my research that indicated the output is far lesser than input, I decided to buy 1kg of pork fat. They came in slabs.

This is a third of what I bought.. For comparison, that's a 16cm chef knife.

The dicing part was hard work. Really laborious, partly because I had a blunt IKEA knife. Bah. WMF on its way in the shipment! Also because the slab was so slimy and oily! Argh.

1kg of diced pork fat. Pink marshmallows? =/

By this time I was quite grossed out with the smell. House smells like Tasman. By the way, I can no longer walk into Tasman, the butchery aura of despair and death has presented a no entry sign to me.

I was also having sore wrist from the slaying. It was a mountainous 1kg pile of 1-2cm diced fats. Took about 40minutes for a novice.

Time to juice the lard. And so began my steps that followed the websites' instructions.. Until I found the lies hidden in the recipes not discussed.

Dunk them in a deep pot

On medium heat. But the pot is sitting on the biggest burner of my cooktop. 

For the record, I did add pink salt. Like... half a tablespoon? More realistically, 6 twists of the salt grinder.

So I know how it should look like when fully done, hawker centers have taught me well (visually).

In just a few minutes..

It could be a bit amusing to watch something so dry turn into a pool of liquid. Mesmerising, if I may.

Wait, what's with the foam?

Turned the fire down to its lowest. Maybe foam will go away.

Shit. What is this. I so did not put soap detergent. Where r my cute little fatty cubes?

Fishing ensued.

 

O there you are. You sneaky little oink.

The foam was not going away and I cant see the cooking process. Perhaps my fire was too big, perhaps my pot was not right.

I decided to switch off the heat and fish out all them cubes. And then think about what to do next.

This is not right. Still got juice in them.

I took out a saucepan, and went for smaller batches.

Them cubes are not escaping my eyes this time!

More manageable this round. Less foaming, more even coating. And I figured each cube needs to touch pan, like, for more direct heat and searing. If you know what I mean.

Looking more right.

Even after this first batch was done, I still picked out the ones that still had juice in them. Not all cubes are evenly juiced. Hahaha, QC -_-

See the difference?

Also, notice from above pic how colourless the pork oil is? It's not yellow. My research found the pictures of oil all pretty yellow. I suspect overheated oil. I disapprove.

Moving on to second batch.. By this time, I realised this fried pork lard is not easy to make! For a novice, at least. For a first timer, a person who doesnt work in hawker. For a no-lard lover. For a perfectionist. You get the point.

So much work.. My back was aching and my legs were tired from standing. Cooking doesnt come with chairs.

1kg slabs of pork fat, a mountainous plate of pork fat cubes, juiced and contained, all in this same plate. It shrank, but still that's a lot of fried pork lard!

END PRODUCT

Let's not forget the juice. The pork oil I mean. Remember I said it's colourless? It also has a very low melting point. Like coconut oil. Also, both oils are saturated fats, creamier. And where I'm at, it's steadily 16℃ this week. So the pork oil solidified in just under 2 hours, to this smooth moisturiser.

1kg slabs of pork fat produces 1litre of pork oil. Interesting. Face moisturiser, anyone?

I did let A&S sample the fried lard. Apparently, it should be crispier. So, I should have let it cook longer. When I tasted it, it burst oil in my mouth on biting, which I thought was the right doneness. But I'm no lard eater, so it was hard to assess on my judgement. Basically, it's disgusting to me. I'm trying to like it, but no.

I'm however, gonna try using the oil. But Fen and I dont stir fry often. We use toasters and ovens and eat raw. I'm guessing everything would eventually go to A&S =/

I'm prolly never making fried pork lard again. It was a humbling experience, fun while it lasted (for 2hrs).