Smuggled 'bak kwa'? Not anymore.

Presenting homemade barbequed sweet pork jerky otherwise better known as ‘long yoke’ or ‘bak kwa’ for Singaporeans (and Malaysians). My nightly fantasies that the US customs and border protection will bring an end to the restriction of imported cured meats will now vaporize; I will never have to listen to other people’s successful but tedious ways of smuggling it past the patrolling sniffer dogs without setting off frenzied barking. Nor will I ever stoop to ask my dear mother to bring it in for me knowing that she will be up several nights plotting out cunning ways to outsmart customs. Sure, the cured meat will taste even more heavenly but at the price of worrying about the potential heavy penalties imposed if caught. I’m good at abiding the law (really), but for most part, I think I'm just desperate to lay hands on decent 'bak kwa', and so I went ahead and made some. And like most foods, it isn’t complicated. Trust me, I wasn’t born with the Martha Stewart silver spoon in my mouth.

Disney's charmed precision

The hubs was curious that our 2-week long vacation didn't win an immediate spot in this blog other than a casual mention that "we had a great time" wrap-up. What can I say? I’m slack! There were obviously far better things to do like grocery runs, cooking, preparing lunches and dinners, wiping the snotty noses of my kids, cracking the whip and making sure their homework gets done, tidying the house, and other equally exciting activities that have me waking at the crack at dawn eager to get a headstart.


Or was it that the thought of having to edit and organize nearly 400 pictures was thwarting my enthusiasm? Or that I really feared that my granny memory might prove too brittle to remember details from every single fun-packed day?


All of the above reasons, if you’d guessed right. Anyway, I present a selected few photos from our trip where you can imagine the fun from the cheery faces.


Quintessential Disney and Pixar at Magic Kingdom

There are 2 kinds of people: ones who go to Disney and love it and ones who haven’t and don’t have any inclination towards it. Then there are people like myself who, as a kid, had badly wanted to go to Disney and listened enviously at that darn annoying kid boasting about her recent Christmas vacation at Disney Land. As the years drew on and Disney’s magic was still no nearer, I’d come to the stark realization that Disney Land was forever a pipe dream and it was best to quash the hopes and dreams along with wishing to see Santa Claus fly over our roof on Christmas eve. That Disney portion in my heart had shriveled over the years and I’d become indifferent to tales of families visiting my one-time love.

Since then, we have visited Disney Land in Anaheim some 5 years ago when my hubs’ work had briefly brought him to California. That virgin trip was a needed shot in my arm to reignite my childhood love for Disney. And like addicts, we have returned but this time to the location in Florida. Needless to say, I now fall into the first category of people who do love Disney and would revisit. It is a place where adults can bring their kids on a pretext to have little Jack and Jane see Mickey and his friends but in reality, they will be pushing past their kids to get to the cool rides. It is the same people who pretend to be sophisticated and poised but cackle like maniacs on the dizzying rides. At least the ones who walk around with huge Mickey Mouse ears on their heads keep true to their spirit. But Disney doesn’t mind if you let down your guard and act like kids in fact, it encourages the stifled kid in you to surface.


The hubs' preferred Animal Kingdom

The magic of Disney World, I believe, is much less the creation of life-size cartoon characters and having them walk around however appealing it is to children but more so the Herculean efforts that Walt and his team have undertaken to turn a make-believe world into, dare I say, Utopia. Comparatively, the rides at Disney are child’s play and for thrill seekers who like their brains to be shaken like a box of marbles would prefer the rides at Universal studios. The most terrifying rides at Disney, are scaled down to allow kids as tall (or short) as Sean to ride on it safely but with some amount of crazy packed in, still enough to make my hubs sick on a few occasions.

But I’m more fascinated by Disney’s attention to the most minute detail implies that nothing is left to chance at this amusement park. The rides are tended with polite efficiency; the foliage is carefully picked to match its surrounding -- bamboo in China and Japan over at Epcot; and leafy tropical trees in the Rainforest Café. And that boulder in the corner wasn’t left by nature’s accidental shoddiness but was intentionally added to the atmosphere.

I also respect the fact that Disney doesn’t try to profit once you step past the ticketing counter. You aren’t obliged to buy their food and drinks; and water fountains are easily found so that folks can refill their water bottles as often as they like. I’m thankful for that. As unlike Sea World where every 10 steps puts you in the way of a booth touting your children more plastic junk and another China-made stuffed toy, Disney doesn’t stoop to being tacky like that.


Hanging out with the local celebrities at Epcot

Disney’s aim to please its pilgrims might be simple but I’ll bet that the work that needed to get done to achieve that German-like precision was not based on serendipity nor magic. It was researched to a perfect pitch by a bunch of mad scientists holed up in the basement, fed from time-to-time on surveys and questionnaires, graphs and various coloured pie-charts of what people liked and what they didn’t. And anything that didn’t make it to perfection had to be remedied – immediately. Watching how the 2 maintenance chaps one day at Hollywood Studios putting up a simple poster proved Disney’s rigid adherence to perfection. Those 2 men did not randomly stick up the poster by eyeballing its position on the bare wall. They fished out a level and a measuring tape; they measured, centered, and checked it twice before finally putting in the staples. And what was laughable was that no one really bothered looking at that wall anyway but yet, it had to go up perfectly.


I was prepared for melt-downs (mine included) and to witness ugly, rowdy families shoving in the heat but it was as if people magically transformed once they stepped past the ticketing counter. Families left unattended strollers stuffed with Disney purchases and their children’s personal needs, and no one seemed worried about having their belongings stolen. I’d let Sophia walk a few steps too far away from me one time when a couple of kind ladies stopped her and started looking for me. Certainly, we did have a few obnoxious foreigners who simply refused to give up their seats to poor mothers carrying small children but those were few and infrequent sights of selfishness. But for most part, visitors to Disney nobly upheld the euphoric state of Utopia that Disney had envisioned.


If you haven’t been to Disney, it isn’t too late to plan a trip. And judging by the throngs of adoring visitors -- both young and old -- willing to brave the heat and crowd, Disney’s magic isn’t a well-kept secret.


We took time to swim with the pirates at our hotel pool. Then a toast on the last night.



Autumn the enchantress

 

Apple picking with Sophia and her classmates in Watkins Glen on Wednesday

  "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core.."
                         Ode to Autumn, by John Keats


Some 22 years back, under the weak rotation of the classroom ceiling fan, 43 sweaty, pleated uniform-wearing 16-year old girls were reciting with lackluster those same lines above, in a feeble attempt to commit to memory Keats’ poem. I was amongst them. It would be doubtful that any one of us had a real sense of the rich visions in the poet’s mind but we did understand that if we didn’t memorize the poem verbatim, then our parents' rich visions of us moving to bigger and greater things would evaporate. So, we droned on, without feeling any love for the poem, in fact, just hoping that reading the Cliff notes would suffice for the exams.

Clearly, reading Keats' prolific piece at the time was like serving out top-rate caviar to a person only wanting a Taco Bell burrito and hence, couldn't be fully appreciated. Tropical Singapore is all about heady heat and oppressive humidity without the golden foliage nor abundant fruit; without the transition from one season to another and without the feeling of joy each season brings. Plus, when poetry needs to be learnt because it hinges on getting the right grade to move on to better things, the message is blindsided and we don’t give the poet the chance to convey his full message to us.

Little did I know that one day I would better understand what Keats had so eloquently put on paper and that I would come to love the same Autumn that he'd written about some 91 years ago.

I don't just love Autumn. I'm in love with Autumn! Autumn turns me into a mushy, happy wimp when she lavishes iridescent hues of gold and auburn before my eyes. It is easy to love her. She makes the nights bearable after about 3-months worth of muggy summer nights batting off gnats; she lines the leaves on the trees and bushes with gold and then when you aren’t paying any attention, she magically transforms the trees the way Rumpelstilktskin had spun the common stacks of hay into golden threads. And if glistening gold isn’t your colour, she knows she’ll have your heads in a spin at the sight of deep auburn trees aflame or cloaked in saffron like the Hindu swamis.

Autumn’s leafy subjects are vain little attention seekers. They mesmerize when they pull away from the branches as they dive and dance to the ground, twinkling and captivating in the sunlight. I could sit and watch, hours on end, the pumpkin-coloured leaves rushing up towards the trail left behind by cars driving by. Even as I struggle to rake the fallen leaves as a result of Autumn’s presence, I don’t get mad at her the way I curse under my breath when I’m shoveling soggy and heavy snow after a storm. Autumn is like the charismatic person that everyone wants to be around, and any apparent flaws are immediately brushed aside, forgiven and attributed to being part of her/his quirky charm.

She comes back each year with the same bag of tricks but even when I’ve seen it all, I’m still gleefully clapping my hands after every known performance and asking for more. I’m that much of a sucker because I know that when all that magic is gone -- and mind you, she only grants us a short performance -- she’ll take with her the ripe and heavy fruits, the gaudy coloured leaves, the crisp fragrance of pine in the air and she’ll leave us with little more than the grave and empty trees, standing silent and tall to brave the next visitor.

Do these colours make your heart sing the way they make mine?

Yes, we did celebrate Mooncake festival this year!

Coming home after a 2-week long vacation is a hard thing to do. There are chores scrambling for my attention – fridges (we have two) needing to be stocked; sheets that need washing, meals to be cooked, floors begging to be vacuumed and kids to scrub to a school-shine clean before returning to their teachers and peers. The thought of facing them sapped all that bouncy Floridian warmth I’d generated during those 14 days when lo and behold, what did I find in my mail box? Nestled amidst junk mail for tractor equipment and lawn fertilizers (is it obvious that we live in the country?) and stacked bills, was a nondescript USPS postbox. Slicing it open, out spilled 4 darling accordion paper lanterns -- each a different colour; 4 ‘pigs-in-a-basket’ (a Chinese pastry only available and eaten during the Mooncake Festival); a boxful of Indonesian-made plastic bubbles with fumes that makes one just a little heady, and a card from the fairy godmother herself – Wendy -- a friend from my secondary school days who I’d recently gotten reacquainted since our meeting in Singapore last year. Soft-spoken, gentle and a mother of 4 home-schooled children, small-town Ohio-living (but still bigger than Corning), mind-reading Wendy, who'd pin-pointed what I’d been missing this season.


Around September or October yearly, was when my Aunts paid homage to my Mom. It was the time when they would come knocking at our gate in Singapore, bearing packages of mooncakes – preferably double yolk – proof that she was valued and loved. My sisters and I would fight over the yolks. I would nibble all the baked soft brown crust, carefully evading the gummy lotus paste middle that more annoyingly, stuck to the roof of my mouth and then, relish the slightly salty yolk. Perhaps, I fed my dog the uneaten lotus portion, but I digress, let's not incriminate myself any further.


Mooncakes were not exactly my thing but what I loved most about the festival were the lanterns. Back then, my Dad would indulge us with our choice of cellophane-made lanterns, usually in shapes of the Chinese zodiac signs. It was the highlight for us kids, especially made more precious when we gathered with our cousins, gingerly holding our candle-lit lanterns -- trying hard not to be distracted by their more elaborate and larger lanterns -- whilst circling my parent’s front lawn. Unfortunately, the cellophane ones were delicate and often melted after one use or a hole would emerge having come too close to the cellophane walls rendering it trash material after one night of "rowdy" display.


Modern day ones have erased nostalgic inefficiencies and now children can manhandle the sterile, tacky plastic molded, battery-operated with screeching pop tunes -- for ever and ever (another friend said she’d bought one with the tune “Lambada” in it and had to dismantle the sound piece) -- or until Mom comes along and throws it out with the other dysfunctional plastic toys.


Being so far away from Singapore makes festivals that I’ve grown up with tons more charming. That coupled by the fact that I wish the same warm fuzzy memories of my childhood growing Singaporean-Chinese, be passed on to my children. I don’t make claims that I know much about all the festivals that I’ve heeded as a pudgy child. I know them as well as what a westerner would understand a plate of Chinese stir-fry – it is Chinese food....stir-fried.


So, even today, as I’m gorging myself with double yolk mooncakes with lotus paste celebrating Mooncake festival with some panache, I have a hazy idea of the true meaning of the festival armed with no more than my primary 5 Chinese textbook memory of a fair Chinese maiden and a rabbit stuck in a moon. Yes, you read right --in the moon. They weren’t the first Chinese astronauts nor did she bring thumper along for the ride. The original message was, however, lost in translation and over time on me.


As it turns out, Wikipedia has saved me from dragging my family name into the ditch and I’m now educated enough to know that the proper term for the popular name of Mooncake festival – in Singapore – is really the mid-autumn festival. It had to do with the farmers in China celebrating the harvest and enjoying the fullness of the glowing, rotund moon whilst stuffing their faces with cakes (mooncakes) and pomelos. The legend of the fair maiden, Chang’e and the Jade rabbit in the moon, is far more convoluted and less Disney happy-ending-esque, but in true stoic Confucius style, is more about sacrifices and kindness.


But, my kids don’t have to be well-versed with Wikipedia’s version of the why’s and how’s of Mooncake festival. I didn’t, and I’m not scarred by my ignorance. So, that’s why Aunty Wendy’s gift to them is all the more precious. She’s simply continuing the tradition our parents have bestowed on to us for years, or until we became too gawky and pimply to bother with holding a lit lantern -- in fear it would cast further light on our blemishes. She is giving them the same delight I had when my Dad bought me my first dragon-shaped cellophane lantern, and when I tried to embrace the thinly-made lantern in my gleeful short arms.


And to that act of kindness and sacrifice on Aunty Wendy’s part, I wish you all Zhong qiu jie kuai le! (translated: Happy mid-Autum festival people!)

They went, "wee wee wee ... all the way to school." And She went Whoo Hoo!

We had an absolutely fabulous 2 weeks in Orlando, really. And I’m pleading you not to judge my use of superlatives in this case!


There weren’t any major nor even minor mishaps; we didn’t lose any kids nor sell any in a fit of exasperation; the weather was fine even if it was roasting hot on many days scalding my lily white children & hubs. Suffice to say, Disney’s magic was enjoyed and appreciated by both young and old.


But all good things do come to a premature halt and we find ourselves marching to the tune of familiarity i.e. our lives in Painted Post.

Hum drum it may be for some of us, but at least for Aidan and Sophia, this week marks new beginnings for them. Aidan started kindergarten on Monday – a week and a half later than the other mates already mostly settled in his class. He is in a class of 18 other children and is already friends with one of his classmates -- Hannah Watkins -- whom he has known from preschool days. His teacher --Mrs Coger -- who was briefly Sean’s form teacher in Kindergarten too, has already pointed out that the two brothers are “complete night and day”. I wouldn’t consider her extremely perceptive on account of this observation because a person of lesser capability would have picked that one up too. But I'm not discounting her based on this revelation because I like Mrs Coger -- she is both firm and nuturing -- a match for my wilful 5-year old. Plus, who would want to mess with someone who towers over me head and shoulders and tells the kids that when she gets upset, "smoke comes out of her nose and ears"? I doubly love this lady!

Sophia skipped off to her first day at preschool on Tuesday, disappointed that she couldn’t join her siblings at their school but thrilled that she gained new companions and a new adoring audience for 2.5 hours twice a week. She has the same teachers who’d taught Aidan last semester. They know her well since she’s followed Aidan to class three times a week at drop-offs and pick-ups. In typical girl fashion, she’s gunning for class president 2011 -- adhering to instructions and even pointing out to her teacher how capable she is at heeding their word; memorizing words to songs in an eye blink with the accompanying arm movements… yessiree, this child is proving that pre-kindy is not a cupcake walk.

As for me, I have now 5 hours of free time a week. Plenty time to hop over to Cancun, Mexico; drink tea in fine china with a lifted pinky finger with other socialites in the area gossiping about the latest hair trends and botox treatments; or I could be realistic and enjoy the peace and quiet whilst I send my car in for servicing and grocery shop --which was what I ended up doing.

The other day, after dropping Sophia off at school, I headed to Wegmans for some groceries. I saw a Dad chasing his lively 2-year old bounding down the aisles while leaving behind the clunky and oversized cart with the attached kiddy car -- driver’s seat still warm from toddler damp.


I nodded sympathetically at the Dad and then raised my hallelujah hands thanking the Lord that I'd been spared, at least just for those 2.5 hours!

Have a Super-lative weekend!

Not very many things annoy me.


Really.


Well, OK, you had me: My kids’ whinging do sap the absolute life out of me; I’ll admit that. But otherwise, I’m fairly tolerant. I throw my head back and laugh in the face of annoyance when my toothpaste tube gets squished in the middle as opposed to my preferred end; I close both eyes to bathroom floors littered with hairs -- lots of it – left behind by the hubs (who, I suspect, has direct lineage to Neanderthal man); I’ve even appeared gracious to visitors trudging on my brazilian hardwood floors in muddy or dusty shoes, beaming in my squinty-eyed Asian demeanour and fighting back the voices chanting, “Kill! Kill! Kill!” in the deep recesses of my stone cold heart.


But when people use superlatives, especially, not one but 3 of them in one breath, my skin starts to twitch involuntarily; my eyes roll back into my head the way Nancy’s did in ‘The Exorcist’ and then my mind switches off perhaps in a desperate attempt to protect itself from self-destructing.


Yesterday, at Aidan’s kindergarten orientation, the school principal managed to use the word “great” to describe the “great elementary school”, that was a “great place for your kids” and that we, parents, will be in “great hands” -- all in one sentence. I was trying really hard not to barf into my own boredom. I wasn’t sure if she knew that she wasn’t doing her school any justice from that poorly thought-out assurance to us, parents.


Not that I doubt her testimony because I am truly fond of this particular elementary public school that works more like a well-oiled private school. My kids have had a few dedicated teachers, and maybe one that was way too loopy to preside over space-cadets like Sean but for all intents and purposes, my kids enjoy school so it must be evident of an enabling and nurturing environment. My only grief is that the cafeteria food could be better but this is America, and pizzas and greasy chicken Frankenstein-nuggets are staples just as carbohydrate-laden but protein-lacking noodles and white rice are in Asia.


But it is so disappointing when the school principal – one of whom you would think would be eloquent enough from having to perform numerous speeches, ad nauseum, in front of glaze-eyed parents and teachers --  is only capable of uttering an all-encompassing “great” to garner our attention and buy our approval? I was more upset that she did not think of better ways of substantiating how truly well this school functioned, or how (most) of her staff knew ways to bring the best out from the children and hence kids, like mine, will skip off to school -- like kids in the style of 1950s clean-cut movies -- eager to learn, see their friends and teachers.


You’d think that in a country like America, superlatives would immediately send people into a catatonic stupor and no one would pay any attention to them.


“How are you today?”


“I’m great!”


How was the movie?”


“It was really great!”


“Are these 4, all your children? How awesome is that?” (really? I get an 'awesome' just by the sheer fact that my eggs are very receptive to boy swimmers? I'm liking superlatives!)


Anyway, it is the weekend. We are off to the “happiest place on earth” claims Disney, for 2 whole weeks. I’m guaranteed a great trip. I leave my family members pictures of the kids since they wouldn’t be hearing from them for a while.


How awesome am I?

Note: Thanks to my witty hubs, I've changed my original title to the more pointed current heading, as he'd suggested. For this contribution, I will eat humble pie and forgive him for shedding like a cat though lacking the licking ability of one.

My spawn -- the mop

An envy amongst Dallas women

Do I need more reasons to point out why this boy is badly in need of a haircut? If my collage of messy cocky-hair isn’t compelling enough, then, I might need a new heart because I fear my evil ways are already plotting to use him as a mop.