The first time I tried to chop with a clever, I ended up hacking the chicken to pieces because I couldn’t get the cleaver to land on the same place twice to successfully chop right through the bone.  I have since discovered that cleavers are utterly useless when applied in the sawing action – I would do better with a hex saw.

And they wonder why I don’t like cooking whole chickens…  Because it usually means having to use the cleaver – that and the fact that I am a lazy eater and hate having to pick out the bones.  Give me a fillet any day…

I’ll be removing all the recent posts I’ve done on the boys and moving them to their new home.

So what the heck was I thinking when I had my eyebrows embroidered?  Honestly, I don’t know, but I must have been out of my mind.  Not only did I conclude after I had them done that it was the biggest mistake of my life, some four years later, I’m still regretting that decision.  As I said, I’m not a girlie girl.  I am a fuss-free, no-maintenance girl.  That’s right – it’s not “low” maintenance, it’s “no” maintenance.  What happens to embroidered eyebrows that aren’t maintained?  Well, your natural eyebrows grow back and then you just look funny.

After four years of looking funny, I decided it was finally time to get something done about it.  A quick search online revealed that you could get your eyebrows “un-embroidered” and it was apparently easier than removing a tattoo.  Figuring I should go back to where it all started, I went back to Ultimate Impressions (now called Bluunis).  Can you believe they don’t undo eyebrow embroideries?  Yup, you can touch up and get more treatments done, but you can’t remove them – never mind the fact that one of their staff managed to embroider one eyebrow higher than the other to begin with, but who’s complaining?

They asked me if I wanted to touch up my eyebrows.  Touch up?  Touch up?  Didn’t you hear anything I was saying?  I want them gone!

Since I did see it was possible to remove them online I knew it could be done, but where?  It turns out there is another beauty salon in Midvalley Megamall that does it.  They are called Empro.  They have a booth location on the second  floor near Jusco.  To be honest, it isn’t particularly inspiring because it’s so open.  I can’t help but wonder about the hygiene.  Despite the staff incompetence, Bluunis at least invites more confidence as far as infection control is concerned.

So here’s the low down on removing eyebrow embroidery…

It takes 3-5 sessions or more.  Each session is half an hour long.  They will shave off your eyebrows and laser the embroidery to get it off.  After each session, you eyebrows can’t touch water for three days.  For two weeks, it is recommended that you do not eat eggs and seafood because they are supposed to make your scar itchy.  You need to wait at least a month in between sessions.  There is no guarantee that you will be able to completely remove the embroidery but it will appear lighter.  Oh yes, it hurts more than the procedure for eyebrow embroidery.

The irony of it was that the girl said eyebrow embroidery doesn’t hurt.  Are you kidding me?  It was one of the most unbearable experiences of my life!  I had this terrible itch running down my leg but because it was under my skin, I couldn’t even scratch it.  It was so unbearable, my leg was twitching on it own every time the needle connected with my forehead.  I barely survived one session of eyebrow embroidery because of the pain and now you tell me I have to endure more than three sessions of greater pain?  Not to mention I’ll be eyebrow-less for two weeks after each time, and that the whole procedure might not completely remove the embroidery so I might actually be doing all this just to lighten the embroidery?  I think I’ll leave my eyebrows as is…

What’s the moral of the story?

If you’re planning to embroider your eyebrows, think long and hard before you do.  If you regret it and want to get rid of them, the procedure isn’t quite as simple or painless.

If you’ve already done your eyebrows and are regretting them like me, here’s the quick fix:

Go get yourself and electric eyebrow trimmer.  You can get one from Watson’s.  It’s like an electric shaver for your eyebrows.  You can use them to re-shape your eyebrows and keep them neat.  It’s not exactly maintenance free, but at least it’s pain-free and a lot easier than plucking your eyebrows…

“Hi! Hi!  Long time no see…”

“Yeah!”

“Let’s get a table?”

“Where shall we sit?  How about you and your kids over there, I’ll sit here with mine and you there?”

“Okay!”

“Hang on, we need a baby chair.”

*shuffle and swap chairs*

“Let’s order.”

“Max, do you need to go to the toilet?”

“Gavin – toilet?”

“Kirsten needs to go to the toilet.”

*more shuffling*

“Where’s the colouring activity?”

“They didn’t give us any.”

“Call the waiter.”

“Hang on, I’ve got some crayons and paper in the bag.”

“Ah… the baby’s fussy.  I’ll go walk him around for a bit and see if he sleeps.”

*shuffling again*

“Play gently!  Don’t be so rough!”

*food arrives*

“Okay, your food’s here.  Put the crayons away and eat first.”

“So are you going to Derek and Lena’s wedding?”

“Yeah.”

“Baby’s fussy again.  Let me get him a toy.”

“It’s okay, I’m done.  I’ll carry him for you for a bit.”

“I gotta go, Max wants to go to the toy shop.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got it.”

“You coming to the shop?”

“I’ve got to take the kids home.”

“Wow, it’s crazy trying to eat lunch with the kids!”

“Yeah, we hardly got to talk at all!”

“Next time then.”

“Yeah.”

“Kids, say ‘bye’.”

Albeit not exactly verbatim and somewhat abbreviated, that was essentially how lunch went on Monday…

I have found that all of the main bookstores will order the books in for you as long as the title is available from their supplier.  If they aren’t available, I usually order them directly from Amazon.  These are the bookstores that I usually frequent:

• Times
• Kinokuniya
• Popular
• MPH
• Borders

Personally, I find that Kinokuniya is by far the best source for most of my books.  More often than not, they have what I want.  Their books are well organised and easy to find using the computers.  If not, the staff is usually very helpful and knowledgeable.  Ordering in books is convenient.  I just have to make a telephone call and they will place the order and call me when it comes in (so long as the book is available from their supplier – more often than not, it is).  Only gripe is that some of their books are rather pricey.  Although most titles are a standard price across the board, there are some book titles which I find are cheaper in the other bookstores.

Borders is by far the most disappointing of the lot.  My experience with the staff manning the telephones has generally been good.  What I was most disappointed about was how difficult it is to order a book in.  They have big posters advertising the fact that if you can’t find a book title, they will order it in for you.  That’s nothing special – all the other big bookstores do it, too.

The problem with Borders is that you have to make the order in person.  You also have to place a deposit on the book and you have to pay a shipping fee.  The shipping fee is RM2.50 – which is really pittance – but if you consider the fact that none of the other bookstores require you to pay shipping charges, then it seems rather petty that borders requires its customers to do so.  Regarding the deposit – if the value of the book is less than RM30, the full amount must be paid upon making the order.  It takes 5-6 weeks to bring in, by the way.  If the value of the books is less than RM100, a RM30 deposit is required.  If the value of the books is over RM100, no deposit is required.

So last Sunday, I decided to ask them to order in three childrens’ books for me.  It took so long that my baby and child were in tears from having to wait so long.  Not only that, the total of the three books added up to RM90, so I figured I would only have to pay RM30, but since each individual book cost RM30.40, they said I had to place 3 x RM30 deposit (RM30 for each book).  In that case, I might as well pay for the whole book since the balance I would have to pay upon picking up the book would have been RM1.20.

After that horrendous experience, I think I will never ever place a special order from Borders again.  Why should I when I can get it done over the telephone from Kino, Popular, MPH and Times without having to pay a deposit or shipping fees?

MPH is a real disappointment in terms of organisation.  I can locate 10 copies of a book I want on their system but I cannot find them on the shelf.  Unfortunately, neither can their staff.  After hunting around for ten minutes, they came back to me apologising that they couldn’t find the book.  Additionally, if you want to check the availability of a book title, you have to call each individual branch of MPH to check if they have it.  There is no central source.  Sometimes they tell you they will call you back but it can be days before you hear back from them – if at all.  That said, some staff are better than others and do come back more quickly.  The guy at MPH in The Curve came back to me within minutes on a particular title I wanted.  Unfortunately, it was another one of those “phantom” titles that appear in the system but not on the bookshelf.

Popular is a bookstore I have learned not to underestimate.  Just when you think it isn’t available, Popular might just have it.  My only gripe is that most of what I want is only available in their Singapore branch.  I can’t understand why they would sell it in Singapore but not in Malaysia.

Times is almost as bad as MPH and Borders – the range of their books is mediocre at best, their computers work only some of the time, and their staff is usually incompetent.

These days, if I want a book, the first place I check is Kino.

1. Cooking dinner for this family is extremely stressful.  I’m sure we’ve all heard it said before that food is love – or at least if you’re Chinese it is.  And if you want to show how much you love someone, you’ve got to do it sincerely and not adopt my cavalier attitude of “this is what I’ve made and if you don’t like it, too bad”.  Unfortunately, this family has very fussy tastebuds and in order to satisfy everyone, there are a lot of considerations to observe.

For instance, the men in the family don’t consider anything a meal that doesn’t have at least one proper meat dish.  By meat dish I mean something with either beef, poultry or pork.  Fish and seafood aren’t defined as meat.  Since my MIL has religious observations not to eat beef, that means it’s got to be chicken or pork.  My SIL doesn’t eat pork, so it’s got to be chicken.  And no Chinese meal is complete without at least a soup dish and a vegetable dish.

2. It’s my MIL’s kitchen.  I honestly never knew why chefs complain about cooking in unfamiliar territory but now I know why.  Sometimes, you just need to have certain equipment in order to do things right.  You also need to have a feel for what’s available and where everything is.  It’s dreadful planning meals because I never know what’s already in the refrigerator and freezer at home.  I don’t know where all the condiments are.

My MIL also uses different kitchen equipment to what I’m used to.  I mean, she can fry sunny side eggs in a wok!  For me, if I don’t have a proper non-stick pan, my sunny side eggs will resemble scrambled eggs.  I used to love baking but the only kitchen I feel comfortable baking in is my mother’s kitchen.  I know where everything is and I know what equipment she has so I know what recipes I can follow and what won’t work.

3. Did I mention how picky everyone here is with their food?  I’m like my aunt – dinner should take no longer than half and hour to prepare.  I love using pre-prepared stuff.  Sauces in bottles and sachets are my thing.  I like to sit back and admire my efforts and bask in the compliments of my subjects.  Unfortunately, my cooking receives the worst criticisms from my Dad and hubby.  Frankly, I don’t know who’s worse – my Dad who explodes with compliments at the outset and slowly begins to whittle away at those compliments by adding suggestion after suggestion until you begin to wonder if there was anything at all that he enjoyed, or hubby who picks out the peas, carrots and corn from his fried rice, complains that the vegetables are too salty, not salty enough, the quantity is too much, too little, etc.

After all that, who in their right mind would volunteer their services up for cooking?  Certainly not me.

But since my MIL was ill, I thought I would try to be the good daughter in law and make dinner for everyone.  Since it was the weekend and I had both kids with me, I sent my SIL2 on an errand to buy groceries.  When she came home, we soaked the vegetables in the sink.  My MIL, who can’t for the life of her relax even when she’s sick, decided to check what we were up to in the kitchen. This was the conversation that ensued:

MIL: (glancing into the kitchen sink) Why are you frying two different types of vegetables together?
Me: (looking puzzled) Two vegetables?
MIL: There’s kai lan and choy sum in the sink.  Don’t you know you can’t fry them together because they have different cooking times?

Personally, I couldn’t tell the difference between kai lan and choy sum if you waved them in front of my face.  I usually have to read the labels on the packaging to tell what I’m looking at.  As far as I know they’ve both got yellow flowers.  Secondly, I didn’t know they have different cooking times.

When I related that story to a friend thinking I would receive a sympathetic response, I was surprised to discovered that kai lan and choy sum are also cooked differently.  I forget exactly what she said because it flew over the top of my head the moment she said it but I think it was something like one should be cooked with chinese wine and the other with soy sauce, or something like that.  Don’t quote me on that, I’m sure I remembered it wrong.

Now there are two more reasons why I don’t belong in the kitchen.

When we asked why they were so cheap, we were told they were Crocs rejects.  Well, here’s the scoop – Crocs don’t sell their rejects.  All Crocs rejects get melted down and made into new Crocs.  We were fooled because they look exactly like Crocs with their logo, etc.

How did we discover they were fake Crocs?

1. The sizing was odd.  Crocs usually size their shoes with either even numbers or odd numbers but not one of each.  For example, my Crocs shoe size is 6 – 8, and my SIL’s Crocs shoe size is 7 – 9.  The pair of fake Crocs that I bought was size 6 – 7.
2. Crocs are very grippy.  It is easy to trip over your toes if you don’t lift your feet up properly when you walk because the soles of a real pair of Crocs stick to the ground.  The fake Crocs were not sticky at all.  Considering we only bought the pair just before Chinese New Year, the threads on hubby’s pair is already completely worn while my Hello Kitty Crocs that have seen much more wear are still okay.

The dangers of wearing fake Crocs

Because the threads wear out quickly, it is easy to slip and fall when walking on wet surfaces.

Moral of the story: this is one instance where you really should get the real McCoy.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtsT3PGPHkQ

Considering my current computer has been slowing down a lot these days, do you reckon it’s about time for an upgrade?  And while we’re at it, I reckon it would be even cooler with one of these:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSFh-ME83Bk

I’m not asking for much… :-p

Hubby brought home the DVD and we just finished watching it.  Suffice to say that it was the grossest bastardisation of characters ever.  I should have figured that something like this would have happened when I spied that Robert Downey Jr was playing Holmes.  The new Holmes is typical of the characters that we’ve come to associate him with.

After getting over the initial shock, I must say that as far as entertainment value goes, the movie serves its purpose.  As long as you can put out of your head your expectations of what Holmes and Watson are supposed to be like, you should enjoy the movie.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUQbmFAE5WI

After my first pregnancy, I agreed to have this Malay massage called “urut” done.  The purpose of the massage is to expel the wind in your body which is believed to be the cause of all your ills when you grow old.  There are supposed to be ten sessions and the “urut lady” comes everyday.

I don’t really believe in this stuff but I figured a daily body massage would be a nice treat to have after enduring nine months of pregnancy culminating in a delivery that took some thirty-five hours.  Well, that was before I really understood the purpose of “urut”.  Suffice to say that after my first session, I was ready to tell the “urut lady” to never come back again – ever.  It was the worst torture I had ever willingly agreed to subject myself to.  All through the massage, I was counting the seconds until it would all be over – it was an hour long massage, by the way.

Perhaps I ought to clarify at this point that my idea of a massage is one of those that you can fall asleep during.  Let’s just say that there is absolutely no way you could fall asleep during an urut session.  By the end of the session, I had tears squeezing their way out of my eyes.

So when my MIL proposed the idea of arranging urut sessions for me after my second delivery, I begged her not to.  She seemed disapproving about leaving all that nasty wind inside me but she complied.  Seven weeks after the delivery, I’m wondering whether I should have endured the torture and accepted that gift of “urut”…

I don’t know if it was the urut sessions or because Gavin was a smaller baby and my first, but I do recall having a relatively “flat” stomach by the time Gavin was a month old.  I could wear many of my larger pre-pregnancy clothes and actually looked semi-decent in them.  Now I’m seven weeks post delivery and I still look like I’m at least four months pregnant.  The rest of me looks okay, but my belly is quite a sight.  I have the stretchmarks from hell and the skin folds of a Shar-Pei, not to mention that nothing, absolutely nothing in my wardrobe can hide the fact that I still look pregnant.

I honestly thought I’d stopped caring how I look after I’d discovered that inner confidence in myself but I guess that was back when I didn’t have a four month pregnant belly that could not be attributed to a pregnancy.  Funny how we’re always so keen to show off the bump during the pregnancy and eager to hide what’s left over after the delivery.  Up until the delivery, I was quite happy to wear snug fitting shirts that hugged my belly and told the world what I was.  Now, I’m looking for my baggiest shirts to disguise the fact that my belly still sticks out far enough to hide my feed from view when I look down.

So here’s my advice to the pregnant mothers out there – go get the urut.  It hurts but if you want to look anything like your former self after the delivery, you’d better consider it.