Thursday, November 30, 2006

Watching this could actually affect what you eat or don't eat

During the credit roll to Happy Feet:

"You know, I was just thinking; after your sister watches this, she may swear off fish and become a vegan."

"You know, I think that could just happen!"

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Taking responsibility for our actions

I received a call from a friend one day at four in the morning. Disoriented and half-asleep, I thought she might have called me by mistake so I hit the 'busy' button. The next thing I knew, I received a text from her telling me that she'd discovered her husband was cheating on her and to call her when I could.

I took my mobile with me and called her right away from the living room. I knew exactly what she was going through and how talking to someone can make a difference.

Her husband's transgression was unforgivable but he claimed no physical contact other than holding hands. What is it with men? Can they be so dense that they think just having dinner is not infidelity? It is when your spouse doesn't know how many dinners you've had together or if you find yourself in a kitty corner with your dinner partner. Or is it that it has to be sex before they claim unfaithfulness? Or that giving the all-universal line: "I didn't think" will absolve them from any blame? "I was stupid" is another favourite line with perpetrators. As if being stupid and not thinking can possibly take away the indescribable pain your wife suffers from finding out about your affair. Here's another good one: she was convenient. Can you believe the callousness with which men treat our feelings and trust?

Any spouse who thinks that having dinners and intimate long chats or holding hands with any person other than their partner does not amount to infidelity or an affair should be shot. And hung out to dry. There is such a thing as emotional infidelity. It all boils down to this: if you are hiding it from your partner, then you are being unfaithful. Having dinner, intimate conversations, sharing private jokes, intimate or even 'legal' physical contact, having crush-like thoughts such as, "she would love this pair of earrings"; they all count.

And the husbands fobbing off the affair as their wives' faults because there were problems in the marriage? They should be castrated, humiliated and then tortured some more. The last time I heard, men (and women alike) are responsible for their own actions. Whatever it was that was going awry with the marriage, both husband and wife contribute to it.

Most women usually accept their husbands back into their lives after an affair. Usually they do it because of the kids. Sometimes, the thought of being alone is scary. Sometimes it's just weariness; if you have no kids, the thought of going out there into singlehood, hooking up with another guy, only to have the same thing happen to you again, is just too much to bear. Might as well stick to the current guy; if it ever happens again, you are more prepared and you've already given him fair warning. The second time around, you will make absolutely sure that he suffers. And anyway, what insurance is there that the next guy you end up marrying won't cheat on you either?

And yes, an affair jades you. Trust is a thing where once broken, is almost impossible to mend. That crack, however small and expertly glossed over, is still there. You no longer believe that men are to be given the benefit of the doubt. They don't deserve that benefit. I know many women, myself included, who have been in and encounter many situations which could potentially lead to "emotional/physical entanglements" or affairs. But I do believe that women in general are stronger in character and therefore are able to avoid tendencies to stray, no matter how difficult their domestic issues might be.

When caught, some husbands may promise the world to ensure their wives don't leave. But at this point, it's only words. Saying it won't happen again is not enough, is never enough. The words need to be follwed-up thoroughly with action. Nothing can guarantee that it won't happen again, least of all promises. After all, couples promise to love and honour each other when they say their marriage vows and look what can happen even after those vows have been said.

Picking up and surviving after an affair is never easy. Rebuilding the trust and earning it falls on the perpetrator. The one who had the affair has to prove that this marriage is worth saving. Of course, the wronged has their fair share of work cut out for them too.

My friend gave in after a day's contemplation and returned to her husband. I think it was a wise move. I think her husband still loves her despite her feeling that he doesn't. At the very least, he has the family to think of and I think he is the kind of person who will not let his family fall apart so easily and therefore will work to prove his worth. She has stated her terms and he has given in to all her requests and knows what he has to do in order to regain her trust.

I am just glad that the anguish is now somewhat diminished from her voice and that she sounds much better now than she did when I first spoke to her. She doesn't speak in fit and starts, punctuated by stifled crying. She sounds and seems more like her old self. I admire that she made it extremely clear to her husband what she needs in no uncertain terms (even drawing up a legal contract) and that she is making some major changes in her life to ensure that things work out. I think she is much stronger than she thought she was (in the end, we all are, when we find ourselves faced with situations like this) and this episode has made her even stronger, but sadly has also jaded her. I don't think it was her fault that this happened. But I do believe that there came a point in time when there was a lack of communication in their marriage and this served as fuel to the affair. I believe her husband was weak and succumbed to temptation. I also believe he liked the attention that the other woman was lavishing on him and so he lapped it up.

In the end and at the risk of sounding like a male-basher, I believe that men are just weak. They crave attention, they have humongous egos, they do the stupidest things without thinking or with no regard of the consequences. Some even hold little regard for their other halves.

Yes, we're only human but we should be responsible for our actions especially when what we do affects the people who are closest to us.

Call me jaded but I have seen too many infidelity cases to reserve judgement on men. They all have the potential to be scum. I see it in the workplace, I hear of it from friends, I have seen it happen to others, I've had some measure of experience myself. I reserve my high regard for the opposite sex until their lot proves that they really deserve it.

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Almost as bad as "The dog ate my homework"

My ear surgery had to be postponed a day. The following conversation ensued when my ENT specialist did a quick check-up prior to surgery on the day I was supposed to be admitted.

Dr. Soni: Oh dear, your ear still looks a bit moist. Have you been putting the ear drops three times a day like I told you to?

Me: Actually, no.

Dr. Soni: Why not?

Me: Err...my cat stole the ear drops.

I kid you not. He really did. Right off the side of my pillow on my bed and straight down the stairs to only where he knew. The offending bottle of ear drops didn't show up till a few days later somewhere in the living room.

Saturday, November 18, 2006

I really should eat more steak

Why else would I eat more steak except for the fact that I can't even tell the difference between medium and overly well done? It would serve to reason that if I ingest more steak I should be able to distinguish between the former and the latter within just the first bite. Unlike what happened to me tonight; it didn't dawn on me that my New York strip was way past well done until I'd chomped away into a jaw-dropping marathon halfway through the piece of steak. It didn't register that something was not quite right and that one shouldn't have to chew quite so many countless times just to get the meat into small enough pieces to get down my throat.

No, of course I didn't realise anything amiss until Chin Lai had finished his piece of beer-soaked tenderloin and Rizal's perfectly finished steak had arrived. I noticed the lack of redness and blood in mine but somehow it didn't hit home until I had an exquisite taste of Rizal's steak. Then only did I realise that what I was chewing before, that the piece of ... thing (for lack of a better word) wasn't steak, it was a piece of rubber masqueraeding as medium done strip.

And then I got the chance to make a fuss about my dinner. I don't think I was mean or fussy. You just can't accept the excuse that the chef did not know that the strip is a thinner cut than the tenderloin, thus if you ask for medium for the former as opposed to the latter, he/she would not know that you'd need less time on the skillet for the strip than for the tenderloin. Or that the waiter should have told me that the strip steak was a thinnner piece of meat than the tenderloin therefore if it was done medium it would be more well-done as opposed to if it was a medium tenderloin. I couldn't even understand what the waiter was saying when he tried to describe the white tuna special. Was the host trying to bullshit me?

My main was taken off the bill, but the least they could have done was to offer dessert on the house or given an overall discount.

Did I mention that we had to cancel our dessert order because we'd waited for more than 30 minutes for it? Operating on a full house and not being able to cope with the crowd is a pale excuse. It's a Saturday night, a busy night by all standards and a full house is to be expected. You do not go around and tell your clientele that you did not think you could cope with a full house.

So if you feel in the mood for an overdone piece of strip steak and don'd mind accepting feable excuses for why your food is taking ages to get to your table, head to The Boathouse at Taman Tun on a Saturday night. Oh, and ask to be seated in the room; that will surely ensure that you are ignored most of the night.

Friday, November 17, 2006

Back home to my furry brown cows

In today's hectic dog-eat-dog world and stab-you-in-the back after I have lunch with you encounters, I'm so glad I have two furry brown cows to return to at the end of the day. The two furry brown cows are my incorrigible cats. There is a third but all she does is sleep and her existence is almost as much of a non-existence that she doesn't count.

I was scuffling from living room to study last night for lack of anything better to watch on TV and indecision on what to surf online for. Like a dutiful canine, Trixie padded after me from the living room, meowed at me just to make sure I knew she was in the room with me and then proceeded to curl up in a corner among the stacks of junk just to keep me company. It didn't matter that I went in and out of the study more than a few times that night; she dutifully followed after me.

When I finally plonked on the sofa to watch Astro, she sprawled her furry self on the coffee table in front and was joined later by the fatty, Pixel. Not a few minutes later, he was sprawled perpendicular against Trixie, using her as a pillow. Unfortunately my phone camera was upstairs being charged, so I had no opportunity to record down that oh so adorable pose.

Everytime I got up to walk to the kitchen, Trixie would pop her head up to keep an eye on me. Pixel was of course, asleep and dead to the world.

Sigh...the small pleasures of life. I'm glad my furry brown cows still remind me of these little pleasures.

Can you please talk louder? I've got a piece of dressing in my ear.

I've had to raise my voice to a couple of people in the office. Normally, they already talk as if they are whispering some secret that I am only meant to hear. And that alone already annoys me. But with the piece of dressing (medical, not salad) that's stuffed in my ear to keep my graft in good condition, I am even more impatient when people speak slightly louder than whisper level.

I told a couple of my sales people to speak up when they met up with me this morning, in a good way. And then another one of them, a guy no less, comes up to me and talks like he's got no energy got it from me after lunch.

"Can you talk louder please? I can't hear you la!!" I just about yelled at him impatiently. It's all understandable if you're female, but if you're a guy and whispering, you've got no business having me strain my other good ear just so I can try to make out what you're trying to say. Especially when you've lost a case you've been working on.

I don't suffer imbeciles lightly.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

What do I do with a 7-day MC?

I got discharged from the medical centre yesterday with a bag of antibiotics and painkillers plus an ointment for the ear. Doc sent me home with a 7-day medical cert, which in all likelihood, will not be used. Got off work early today to stop by 1U Jusco to get kitchen mats for mom and wondered at the immense lack of parking space. Don't people have to work at 4pm in the afternoon??

My right ear is stuffed with dressing and itches like hell. The string from the stitches is hanging out in a loop just begging to be pulled. Urgh, I have to resist the urge to scratch and poke my ear until next Tuesday at the very least. I just hope my fingers don't stray to the itchy spot in the night when I'm asleep. Last thing I want to find when I wake is a pillow drenched in blood, undone stitches and a ripped up ear.

There's nothing worth watching on TV, I don't feel like reading and I had to force myself to write. All this and it's only 8pm. Rizal's off in Hong Kong and I'm supremely bored.

I wonder if I can get my brain to shut off by 10pm?

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Where have I been lately?

I've discovered the world of DIY all over again. I don't quite remember how but I pointed my mouse to Craftster one day and I have been hooked ever since.

I'd long given up DIY projects because of the time and hassle one has to invest. These days I find I lack the patience to see through anything more difficult than darning a hole or sewing a button back on (I just recently darned a hole on a fairly new top; I'd just left it lying in the closet for lack of incentive to fix up the hole).

Trawling through the web, I stumbled upon Crafster and going through the forum has started my creative juices a-stirring. Melted beads, reworked furniture, easy paintjobs; they all look fairly easy and promising. Plus it would give my house a much-needed personal touch. Plus a few more pieces of furniture, shelving and storage solutions, to be exact.

Anyway, I am hoping to embark on a DIY odyssey of sorts, go back to getting my hands dirty so that I can tell people that, yes, I made that piece of ...whatever, and oh, I took those pictures and decided frame them up differently. I suppose it gives me a sense of accomplishment to be able to prove to myself that I am handy with my hands. I'm not sure how capabable my right brain is after such a long hibernation, but I suppose now's as good a time as ever to start prodding it to life.

We'll see in the next few weeks or months what it's actually capable of.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Laziiieeeee...

Am feeling lazy and very complacent. That and my internet at home was down for the better part of the week. Urgh...
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