Blueberry Scented Dog

After his surgery, I made him wear his sweater so it acted as a protective layer against his nails when he scratched himself. As any hair coated dog (coat that grows long rather than sheds), he got matted. But I couldn't brush him out due to his wounds. 

Inevitably, he got so terribly matted that shaving him down is the only way to go. Trying to work out tight knots close to the skin will be extremely painful to him.

As with every groom, regardless of whether he receives a schnauzer cut or shave down, he gets what he dreads. A shower. Several months back, Coles was clearing stock for an organic kids shampoo. They were going for $1 a bottle so I grabbed 2. I finally finished off his previous bottle & I used this new shampoo for the 1st time. Yup, I don't bother with dog shampoo.

I can only imagine that he must feel terribly out of place. Dogs love smelling like their environment. Supposedly goes back to the wolf days when having a scent that sticks out like a sore thumb is like carrying a target on your back. So everytime he comes out from a shower, after blowing him dry of course, the 1st thing he'll do is jump on the sofa & trash about.

He didn't do it today. In fact, he seemed resigned to the fate that he has to carry this blueberry scent around. He smells awfully sweet but I can't help but laugh at him becoz I know how much he dislikes it. He really has it bad this time. Not only is he smelling bad (to him), he also looks like a hairless rat from the shave (can't be helped). Aww... my dear Ton...

Before shaving, also being the 1st on our newly changed sheets.

After shave & shower, looking like a hairless rat & smelling of blueberries.

Celebration For Birthday Boy

As I grow (older), I come to the realisation that there's nothing you can buy as a present that truly means something. We're very fortunate to live a life that needs are seldom a worry. Then, any gifts you can buy with money simply becomes a mean to fill a want. Even then, it's not necessarily beneficial. (Imagine game consoles to kids who spend hours a day on it & you can't tear them away from it.) So rather than buying hubs a present, I chose to buy him an experience that I've no doubt will become a fond memory for years to come.

The only photo we have of the escape the room game.

We were trapped in a science lab, the canister containing the virus in my hand. I could see where the antidote was but I need the code to unlock the cabinet. It was dark. The moment I took the virus off its holder, we were plunged into darkness, similar to that of an old fashioned photography darkroom. I managed to find a single torch. We had only 1 hour to escape. We finally did with 10 mins to spare. But alas! We went straight into another room & we had to solve even more puzzles to unlock the final door to our freedom. I panicked as I watched the timer count down. I knew we were out of time. 

We didn't make our escape. The staff came & ran through what else we needed to do to solve the puzzles. We were allowed 2 hints but the staff came in more than that to push us in the right direction. They later told us that we got the hints immediately which was rare. Just that a successful escape usually requires at least 4 players. Too many & everybody just gets in everybody's way. It was truly something different. 

We went home to get ready for dinner. I had booked a table at the restaurant in Mandoon Estate. It was for 6 pm but I wanted to leave by 4 pm so we could take in the sights. By the time we got home, it was already almost 2 pm. So I slowly started to get ready; have a shower, get dressed, get the make up going. We got there around 5ish. We didn't really get to wander around as it started to pour shortly after we got there. The only place open for business was their beer bar. So, why not? Hubs ordered the Black Swan, their award winning black beer (not stout). In hindsight, I should have chose something else but I went with the safe choice, apple cider. I knew the degustation would be small portioned so I suggested a snack. He wanted a pizza so I ordered a lamb, feta & mint pizza which was absolutely divine. But also absolutely a mistake. I was so stuffed at the end of the night. Totally overestimated how much I can eat.

We finished up at 5.55 pm & walked the 10 paces to the restaurant. We were shown to our seats & I went, "Err... what cutlery are we supposed to use?" It was our 1st ever fine dining experience. The plate with knife on the left was a no brainer, definitely for bread & butter. Hubs was saying that it should be from outside to inside but he wasn't sure. We were thrown off by a teaspoon on the right most outer corner. I said the teaspoon should be for dessert so it should be from inside to outside. He countered that the biggest knife & fork were on the inner most & they were for the mains. Also, dessert cutlery are usually given out later. In the end, I said, "Let's just look up the internet." Yup, outside to inside. But it didn't solve the mystery of the extra teaspoon. 

After bread & butter, we were given a small shot glass of beetroot veloute which wasn't on the menu. I drank it straight from the glass. When the waiter came, he cleared the teaspoon & it was then it occurred to us that the teaspoon was for this. Ooops. It was all good. Food was smashing. While I understood the concept of contrasting textures as valued by the judges in Masterchef, this was the 1st time I experienced it 1st hand. Like on top of the veloute, there was a small piece of crispy sweet potato. Like in the desserts, there was creamy, crunchy bits, soft bits etc. I heard "perfectly balanced" a thousand times in the show. But what is perfectly balanced? No such thing in hawker dishes that we're so familiar with. No such thing with the franchise casual restaurants we've been to (think Jack's Place, Swenson). I knew it meant incorporating a contrasting flavour into the dish & yet have it complement each other. But I've never tasted it. I finally did.

I'm citing the veloute again. (Becoz it's the easiest to describe.) It was sweet but not overpowering so. Then there was a hint of saltiness to it. The bang came from the horse radish cream, gently swirled on top of the veloute. It brought the beetroot veloute to a whole new level. We were unanimous in our opinion that the venison with brussel sprouts was the best dish from the savoury menu. Savoury done. All the cutlery gone. Here came dessert cutlery. Again, there was an extra teaspoon. When the mango sorbet (which wasn't on the menu) came, we knew immediately the teaspoon was to be used for this. Lol. It was then I came to realise that the veloute & the mango sorbet were not on the menu becoz they were palate cleansers. They were not strictly speaking, a dish. We had different opinion on the 2 desserts. I preferred the rose granita with honeycomb & lavender jelly while hubs preferred the sparkling sorbet with strawberries & white chocolate. But, oh wow! 

As I grew as a cook, I found myself drawing away from franchise restaurants. Hog's Breath was 1 of the last we had a meal at. I remembered thinking to myself that, "I can cook better than this. Why am I paying 60, 70 dollars for this?" I think this will profoundly change my restaurant choices in the future. Of course, I still miss economic beehoon/noodles/kuey tiao that is so readily available in kopithiams. But when it comes to restaurant dining, there's no turning back. 

$240 bill (after Entertainment Book discount) concludes our evening. By then, the apple cider that had gone straight to my head had dissipated & I drove us home. Beautiful. You can bet we'll be trying out other restaurants for all future special occasions.

Mandoon Estate Beer Bar. 

1st half of the menu.

2nd half of the menu. 

Pesky Pill Bugs

It's only 8 am in the morning & I'm bored. I've been awake since 5.30 am. Dog's been walked, his teeth had been brushed, his morning drink been given (not alcohol but coconut water). All that's left is to give him a shave & shower him. But what I'll like to do 1st is to go to the library to return my books & head to the shops for dinner ingredients. Library doesn't open till 9 am. I've even gone outside to try & drown some pill bugs.

So, it's spring & I've tried planting some herbs so I'll always have a supply when I need them. The very next day, I saw that my sage is covered in pill bugs. They seem to prefer sage to all the other herbs I have. I brushed them off & searched for a way to rid of them naturally. If we're going to consume the herbs, the last thing I want is to spray them with pesticides. In many websites, they recommend filling tuna cans with beer & burying the cans up to the neck near the plants. The smell of beer is apparently irresistible to the pill bugs. They will climb in but they can't scale the vertical wall & eventually drown.

How it looks like 2 weeks ago.

I tried & it works. I used yogurt tubs coz I have 1 everyday for breakfast. Once I'm done, I'll just chuck the whole thing away. But I think they're just not enough to severely decimate their population. There're millions more where they came from. After that, I read that if you dissolve yeast in water, it works just as well. You don't have to waste a bottle of beer just for that. I have a bottle of expired yeast just good for the job.

So I've placed a tub to the left, right & front of my sage simply becoz I think the sage needs it. Then I placed a few more tubs evenly spaced out between the other herbs. While they're trapping the pill bugs, there are also many who doesn't fall for it. Now, I just have a sorry looking, half eaten sage plant that I'm not sure will survive. 

I was bored so I went out & scooped them up with my garden shovel as they emerged from the ground & dumped them into the yeast solution. They're not really bugs but rather, they actually belong to the crustacean family. Unlike their prawns & lobster cousins, they're land creatures & will drown in water. Sorry, it was you or my plants. 

Here's my sorry looking sage. It's not very clear but many leaves were eaten to the stem & the remaining leaves are brown.

1st Positive Psychic Feedback

I have been doing reiki on hubs & Ton since I learnt it, mostly on Ton Ton. Not that I'm bias or anything. Just that I've always told hubs to come to the bed so I can do him. But I'll wait & wait while he's outside either watching tv or playing games. Then it's way past my bed time & I just go off to sleep. Whereas Ton Ton will just follow me wherever I go, giving me constant access to him.

It will be easier to have a massage table so I can sit on a chair with my legs directly under hub's body. But we don't have the space & sitting cross legged beside him on the bed, stretching across puts terrible strain on my back. So I do it the lazy way.

As usual, he was lying on his back last night, I laid on my right, facing him. I put my left hand on his abdomen. While it helps to put my hand directly on the spot that needs to be reiki-ed, the body will use the energy as it deems fit regardless of where my hand is. Shortly after, I started to feel this sharp pain on my right sole. I know hubs has chronic sole pain from standing long hours at work. I know he said 1 side is worse than the other but I don't know which side it is.

I did what my teacher taught us to do when experiencing pain/discomfort. Dismiss it. We are to tell our mind, "If this pain is not mine, go away immediately." I wasn't expecting it to work even though I've seen it 1st hand during my course. Still a cynic as ever. But the pain really did disappear as if it was never there in the 1st place. So I asked hubs, "You were saying 1 foot is more painful than the other, isn't it? Is it the right foot?" He was surprised. "Yes! How did you know? Has it got something to do with reiki? Are you reiki-ing me? Is that why your hand is here (on his tummy)?"

I've done a few 20 mins sessions with hubs & many 15 mins sessions with Ton Ton but I've never gotten the psychic feedback the teacher & the volunteers who have practised reiki for many years were talking about. I just thought that I'm 1 of the people who never gets it. Sometimes it just comes to you when you least expect it. I wasn't even doing a proper session with both hands on him.

I hope in time to come, I'll be able to develop my psychic abilities. It will certainly pave the way to animal communication in the future.

Work Place Bullying

It came to my knowledge that 1 of the anaesthetist who did 1 of our list for us was asked to leave by the public hospital she was working for due to verbal abuse of staff & patients. Anti work place bullying is a big thing here. We had to view the work place bullying video every year & do a test on it. Still, I was surprised to hear of that. Unlike on Sg, 他们不是说说而已。

How many times have we been screamed at unreasonably in my previous job? There simply isn't any use to bring it up. A staff did & was penalised for it. This is exactly what's wrong. They, the bullies, are allowed to get away with it. So they have every incentive to keep at it.

Sacking the bully drives home the message that work place bullying is not tolerated. More importantly, it reinforces that everyone is worthy of respect. 我们都是人。我们没有贵贱之分。This is something severely lacking in Sg.

2nd Spring In Perth

Spring came way too fast. It certainly feels that way. We're having a 3 days temperature spike, with tomorrow forecasting to hit 31°c. I'm reverting to the night time "headache" of sweating if I have a blanket on but shivering if I have it off. I'm sure pretty soon we'll have to switch to a thinner blanket.

The fly trap I've set up in late winter has already caught 1/5th bottle of flies. I'm just thinking to myself, how many more will it trap comes summer? The bottle is starting to emit a foul stench due to decomposing flies which also works to lure even more unsuspecting flies. But I dread the day I have to clear it so I can mix a new batch of the fly attracting powder.

It's also my 1st day back to scouting for the 1st time in 5 weeks. My regular anaesthetic nurse is back from her holiday so I've passed the baton back to her.

I've got activities planned for this weekend for advance birthday celebration for hubs. Really looking forward to it. In the meantime, I really got to work on getting my fitness level up again. I've got my S Health app set up for working towards a 5 km run & I'm really excited. Let's enjoy spring!

Strawberry Pilgrimage 2015

2nd year running. Perhaps it'll become something of a yearly pilgrimage. We're early this year, thanks to Jen's heads up. The strawberry fields had just been opened as of yesterday to the public. Immediately, I texted hubs, "Let's go tomorrow (today)!" Great minds think alike. Apparently, Nix had already asked hubs to join them today.

Happy man with the biggest strawberry we could find.

Based on last year's experience, I chose to wear slippers as I badly dirtied my track shoes & not to mention the discomfort of having sand in my shoes. I also brought a pair of scissors to cut the strawberries rather than using my nails to pinch the stems off. I had a hard time getting the dirt out from under my nails last year & it just won't do for a scrub nurse to have grubby nails.

We still paid $10 for the tray but it was evident that it had shrunk in size. Also, this year, we have to pay cover charge of $2 per head. It was explained to Nix that groups of people came in together & bought 1 tray. But along the way, they picked & ate so much strawberries that they decided to charge $2 for every person without a tray. Since the tray had shrunk, we decided to have a tray of our own.

Strawberry almond crumble with strawberry ice cream.

I had already sourced out a couple of recipes that utilises strawberries, 1 of which being strawberry ice cream. So last night, I stuck the ice cream tub into the freezer in preparation for today. Looks like there'll be plenty of desserts coming up.

Sama Sama

I don't usually comment on things such as politics. I'm just not interested enough. But election after election, it becomes apparent that it is the same every single time. Be it ruling party or opposition, they resort to dishing out dirt on the other party.

Whatever happened to "不管别人做的好不好, 自己要先做的好。不管别人做的对不对, 自己要先做的对。"? Fight fair not hit below the belt. Let your actual proof do the talking for you. Sad to say, none of them seem to fit the criteria.

Part Time Vs Full Time

Today, my manager asked if I will be interested converting to full time rather than my 30 hours a week part time position. If they offered it to me right at the beginning, I would have taken it. I work full time hours as it is, some weeks slightly over 30 hours, some weeks slightly over 40. It balances itself out. I get paid overtime when I exceed 8 hours of work a day (which is quite frequent by the way, probably 3 to 4 times a week).

Switching to full time means I get a constant salary. I'll get paid the same amount every month. If I do work over time, it will be accumulated till I've got enough hours to get a day off. If I don't hit 38 hours working in theatre, I'll have to be deployed out to the clinic. Not such a good deal to me. Until they make it compulsory, I'll stick to my part time arrangement.