Miracle froth...

At the risk of sounding like an auntie…. I’m gonna blog about this.

To remove tough stains on whites (I haven’t tried this on coloured clothes):-

Directly onto the stain, splash some bleach and then some Vanish detergent.

The mixture will turn into a miracle milky froth. Leave the froth on stain for a few minutes, and then rub/scrub gently.

Stain WILL go away.

Even old stubborn ones.

My whites, are white again!!!

Plus, you get super smooth hands after.

(Ignore the redness, and/or stinging sensation…. Acid peel – schmacid schpeel, this works!!!)


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Unspoken Code of Conduct...

It was a lovely weekend girly lunch. One of those long lazy ones with good food, great gossip and better company.

We brought Little A along, and as always, he was a joy to have around, a good little boy who LOVES his clotted cream and jam on scones…..

So the service left much to be desired. But the place was packed, the food was good and we were too busy enjoying ourselves talking anyways.

The afternoon wore on, fantastic roast beef set, a very yummy sandwich, fries and scones scones scones!!!! And like all good things, it had to come to an end…. Plus Little A was getting sleepy…

So we asked for the bill…

It came.

It took me 2 micro-seconds to adjust the look of pleasant surprise on my face…

It was HALF of what I had mentally calculated it to be.

But as much as I tried to adjust my features, I think the waiter caught my look of surprise and proceeded to ask me if it was the “correct bill”.

I shot a quick look of “NO ONE SAY ANYTHING! LET ME HANDLE THIS!” to the girls… and proceeded to confirm in a very dumb blonde fashion….the very few things that we actually DID order and which were reflected in the bill…. He seemed happy, I pulled out some cash and paid the bill.

The waiter obviously didn’t see the big ass plate of roast beef that we had. Yorkshire pudding and all!!! Although one can’t really blame him, we polished everything off!!!

The change came and Ming gave me look of shock … she had the look of “You’re KIDDING me! You only gave him ONE RM50 note and THERE’S CHANGE??!?!?!?”.

I gave her the smallest of nods to indicate things are a-ok and with much haste (using Little A’s falling asleep as an excuse) we left the joint.

In an unspoken code of conduct, understood only amongst people who have been friends for almost 20 years…. none of us mentioned ANYTHING about the bill.

Even outside.

We waited till we were at least 50 metres away…. When I said…. “Oh, by the way, they forgot to charge us for the roast beef set”. (it was the most expensive thing on their menu).

Ming, 8 months pregnant, and carrying her 3 year old son at that point in time, immediately dropped her head, and proceeded to POWER WALK towards the car…. Fiercely whispering “HURRY UP YOU GUYS!!! WALK!!!!!”

Makes me wonder what kind of role models we are for a 3 year old… but then again, he’s 3, he was half asleep and we may have saved RM40 but the buzz of excitement, the good 10 minutes of hysterical unexplained laughter we indulged in on the way home…. was PRICELESS!!!!!!!!!! We’ll worry about morals when he gets a little older I guess….

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Vindicated!!!! (The Heat is On – Part 2)

I AM NOT BLONDE! *doing twirly dance of joy*

And I have proof!

My radiator DID go bust on me!

It cost me a little more than RM200 to get my cracked radiator fixed, and I am happy. Cause this means that I am NOT one of those clueless lady drivers!!! (contrary to WHATEVER the Nut chooses to write on HIS blog).

The Bookermobile is doing her thing on the road again :D

Feeling very proud and walking around with my head held high KNOWING that I have irrefutable evidence that I am NOT blonde…..I got a call :-

J : Hello, how’s your car?

Booker: Ok. It didn’t blow up. Just a cracked radiator.
It’s all fixed now. Only cost me RM210!
*grin*

[yes, I grin into phones… I believe a grin adds depth to any phone conversation]

J : Oh good. So you got the car back now?

Booker : Yup. She came back last nite.
*smug look on face*

J : Great! Did you check the radiator water level?

Booker : *blink*

J : Hello?

Booker : *frowns*

J : *tilts his head to a side, shaking it slowly* <-- [I just KNOW he did it]

Booker: …no….. THEY FIXED IT ALREADY MA!!!!!!!!!!! *pout*

J : *sigh*


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The Heat is On!

The radiator heat-o-meter gauge thingy on my car decided to start climbing the other day…. And it was just a short trip to the pasar malam…. To get some tau foo far….. but it was late, and all I actually DID manage to get was a healthy splatter of fish guts water from the friendly toothless fishmonger….. sigh….. must be my old ratty t-shirt….. but I digress….

So smelling like yesterday’s catch, I got back to my car….and drove home. 100 meters from home, I noticed the radiator heat-o-meter gauge thing going up…. Hmmm not a good sign…. I’m no car expert, but I know enough of its mechanics to know that the gauge thingy should never be higher than the middle line…. And that your eyebrow should rise progressively with the gauge…. And so… following that rule of thumb, I had the look of sheer HORROR frozen on my face by the time I got home!!!!

Alarm bells ringing…I rush home, opened the bonet and did an expert STARE.

*PHEW* nothing blew up….

And my look of sheer HORROR relaxed to one of just SHOCK.

Next…. I did the most Macguyver thing I could think of…… I checked the water tank thingy next to the radiator…..

And Lo and Behold!!!! My look of SHOCK turned into one of SURPRISED SHOCK! (with exclamation mark!).

The water tank with plastic hose tube thingy was EMPTY! Dry as the sahara…..

That’s what you get I suppose for not really checking…. My poor car!

So I filled her up…. Could her the hiss as the first drops hit the radiator while I was filling in the tank… aiyoh…. How my heart ached…. Sigh….

So problem solved! My look of SURPRISED SHOCK! slowly relaxed to one of CONCERN.

Concern over my TYPICAL LADY DRIVER-ness….. sigh….

*Fast forward a few days…*

So my car ran pretty much like normal after that…. For a few days….

Then Saturday came along…. And I was designated driver for my parents’ errand running.

Of course it HAD to be a scorcher of a day…..

And 30 mins into driving around town, I noticed that I was looking MILDLY SURPRISED when I checked myself in the mirror….. asked myself why…. And then glanced the way of the radiator heat-o-meter gauge thingy…DAMN! It was rising again….

40 mins into driving and it had gone ¾ way up…. That’s when the (by now kinda familiar) SHEER LOOK OF HORROR plastered itself on my face….

And, as if for good measure, I realized that we were NO WHERE close to home yet….. another 20 mins of driving lay ahead of me….. and half of that, was me being held up by red lights and traffic snarls…..

By then, I had passed the SHEER LOOK OF HORROR line and my face was slowly arranging itself into the *^%$&^%$^*&^%@ (in Hokkien – we WERE driving around Klang) KILL ME NOW look…

I declared it DefCon 5 there and then…… Heart racing, body leaning forward, I stared, sulked, scowled, motioned impatiently, swore at and almost spat at anything in my way of home…. It wasn’t one of my prettiest moments in life I must say….

Reached home…. The gauge was just touching the red zone…… I IMMEDIATELY popped the bonet, and caught of whiff of “burnt something”…. Oh NO!!!!!!!!!!!

No staring this time….. I went into auto-pilot and reached for the garden hose….. and hosed my car’s insides down…. (Flashback :I have an uncle who used to run a chicken farm… and on hot days, he’d hose the crates and crates of chickens in his lorry down…to cool them down, so that they don’t DIE……... Same logic applied here…..)

Everything the water touched under the car bonet sizzled and spat angrily. Steam rose, and I continued swearing in my bad Hokkien (in my head…. I have very decent neighbours)…

10 mins into hosing, and the insides of my car STILL steamed and sizzled…. I was almost in tears by then….. firstly for my car and secondly for my bad Hokkien….

After flooding the garden…. And deciding that my car’s not going to blow up…. I stood there and inspected the water tank thingy. Empty. Again!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!

SHOOT! Something’s leaking…. DAMN!

I knew that I needed to get her checked….. but logic dictated that I let her cool down a bit….. so I went into the house, decided I needed some cooling down too….. made myself an apple vodka cocktail and slept.

*Approximately 2 hours later*

I woke up, inspected the car….. still hadn’t blown up… phew! And drove to the mechanic, 5 mins away.

I walked up to the foreman and in my embarrassingly halting Hokkien somehow managed to convey the message that my radiator almost blew up.

He looked at the car, then suspiciously at me… and then opened up the water tank thingy. It was FULL. (I smiled smugly and he softened his gaze at me)…. Next he opened up the radiator cap….. and started frowning. He stuck his finger into the mouth of the radiator then looked up at me questioningly. I of course looked back at him even MORE questioningly….

He then took a deep deep breath… and asked very very s-l-o-w-l-y…… if I had filled water into the radiator recently.

No. I answered.

He then asked, again very slowly, when was the LAST time I filled water into the radiator.

Oh. You’re SUPPOSED to fill in water into the radiator? I asked.

I was about to tell him that I had NEVER done anything of the sort cause the radiator cap tells me in BIG RED WARNING letters “DO NOT OPEN!” (and in much smaller letters “while hot”) And since I fill up the water tank thingy regularly… like when it dries up……. But I didn’t have to say anything…

I guess my earlier answer made it clear just what he was dealing with….. such instinct! Must be the 30 years of experience as a foreman….

Anyways, he patiently filled up my radiator. It took him 2 trips with a big ass 5 litre bottle to fill it up…. And then he let the engine run for a good 10 mins…. All the while checking, sometimes half diving into the bonet with his flash light, sometimes ducking under my car…checking and re-checking.

After that, we turned to me and said very patiently, that there was nothing wrong with my car. No leaks, no cracks. Just an empty radiator….. (and a dumb owner) ß no, he didn’t say it… out loud at least.

The wash of relief over me that instant was overshadowed only by the sudden feeling of being INCREDIBLY DUMB standing there, talking to the very very patient foreman, who never once made any snide remarks, or crack any “typical lady driver” jokes….

He didn’t even charge me for his meticulous checking and 2 trips of water that day.

Sigh. So I’m relieved. Cause my car didn’t blow up… and I don’t really have to drive around with the SHEER LOOK OF HORROR on my face no more…. Phew!

Squiggly little thing.....

What is it about squiggly things?????

So there we were, happy with our purchases…. From two warehouse sales located a stone’s throw from each other… when we decided to have Korean for dinner.

Nice.

So we got in the car, she and I, and tailed Betsy to Kota Damansara.

You would think tailing a bright turquoise Gen 2 amongst the more generic silver, gray and black cars whizzing about PJ would be a brainless, minimal concentration task wouldn’t you?

Not that day.

Nothing to do with his (I don’t even need to mention his name… who ELSE has a turquoise blue Gen -2 named Betsy?) as always, pristinely kept car, but focusing on Betsy proved a bit of a task that day…..cause something else caught my eye…..

Parked under some trees while we shopped, my car had become a landing spot for a myriad of things….. little yellow leaves, some crinkly twigs and what I thought was bird poop. A white tube like deposit, which landed smack in the centre of MY half of the windscreen…..

“Great!!!” I thought…..yet another reason for people to get me to wash my car….

I usually ignore bird poop and the likes, wherever it lands on my car….. so I did just that…. Until 200 metres out of my parking spot, the white tube like piece of what I thought of shit, started to MOVE…….. it wiggled, then wriggled and then did a double back flip and triple tuck dive to the bottom on my windscreen!!!!

It was then that I noticed it’s legs….. and it’s soft segmented body….. that wasn’t bird poop!!!! It was a soft squishy white baby caterpillar!!!!!!!!!!!!

My neck muscles immediately tensed up…..it was soft, wriggly and white…. And it was hanging on to its dear life, just where my wipers were……

I tried focusing on Betsy……

But I couldn’t. I kept looking at it’s wriggly body and it’s little nubs for legs!!!!!!!!!!

Ewwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!

To be fair to the little thing, it wasn’t ugly or horrible in any way, it’s just that nature had made it soft, cold and squishy… with little nubs for legs……… and it was ON MY WINDSCREEN!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stiff necked, eyes on it’s nubbly legs, I said to She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named…

Booker : “I’m seriously disturbed by the little white caterpillar on my windscreen!!!”

She-who-shall-
Not-be-named : “Haiyah just ignore it la!!!! Let me read you my favourite line from this Bill
Bryson book I got for a steal at MPH”

And she proceeds to flip through her book and actually reads me a couple of lines from the book….

She may as well have been doing the hustle and singing me opera… I couldn’t focus……..


Booker : “I SERIOUSLY, SERIOUSLY am disturbed by the little white caterpillar on
my windscreen!!!!!”


She-who-shall-
Not-be-named : “Ignore it”

Booker : “I can’t”

And before I can tell her of my plan to pull over when I saw some trees of similar make to the ones I was parked under earlier, and very Macguyver-ishly use a twig to flick the soft little nubbly thing onto a low branch where it can live happily ever after……… She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named reaches over, and nonchalantly FLICKS ON MY WIPERS!!!! :-


The next few minutes of what happened in the Bookermobile have been censored for the safety and sanity of all reading this blog….


But for those who don’t really have much sanity to begin with, read on….


ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE!!!! The moment the wipers started moving upwards, the poor little caterpillar’s body got caught in it and was squished, mashed, and squeezed between the wiper and the windscreen….. it’s bodily juices were smeared and splattered on my windscreen… in a graceful up down quarter circular motion……. REPEATEDLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!


“ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!”

“ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!”

“ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!”

“ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!”

“ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!”

“ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!”

“ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!”


I have to squeeze my eyes shut as I type this…… the muscles at the back of my neck are tense and I have the heebie-jeebies all over me!!!!!!!!!!!!!

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!

The poor caterpillar!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In the midst of the pandemonium -> Loosely translated to me devastatedly screaming “Arrrgghhh!!!” (pls see above) pretty much to the rhythm of the wipers, Ms. She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named took one look at the crime scene on my windscreen, and BROKE OUT INTO HYSTERIAL LAUGHTER!!!!! I now know what cackling like a witch sounds like…..

I was so disturbed……

But I think Ms. She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named felt a little remorse after we stopped the car. For she got out of the car, immediately whisked out some tissues, and cleared all evidence of the murder that had occurred on the sprint highway that day………..

I am still disturbed………

*shudder*


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Little Hugo II

For 3 minutes, he did nothing but run up, along, above, behind, on and down my computer screen.

No bigger than a staple, his exo-skeleton was half brown and half translucent and he was just taking his late morning walkabout the office he's come to call home.

Lovely little thing....

Don't Say It - Update

I am bursting with pride here.

Dinner with Khims, Ming and Little Aiden last Saturday couldn't have been better. Cause the Little Car Inspector proclaimed my car to be "CLEAN". Said with conviction and happy approval.

I love that kid.

*humming a happy tune*

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