The Final Solution

I certainly love my neighbourhood but many of my neighbours like to keep cats as pets. I don't really mind those furry creatures roaming around since they control the population of mice and rats in the area. However, these cats have this very annoying habit of using my garden as their personal litter box. I know I have blogged about it before - twice, in fact - which goes to show how annoyed I am at their toilet habits, but it's difficult to catch the cat in the act since it can somehow sense that I would strongly disapprove and would probably catch hold of it and wring its little neck if I could. 


A recent incident that made me blow my top was when a certain cat left something sticky and smelly... right.on.my.doorstep!! There was urine on my slippers and poo next to my doormat! 


This called for drastic measures to make sure kitty doesn't do what it did again...ever!

I bought pieces of sticky fly paper from Giant hypermart. Then I proceeded to cut them into little squares and placed them on my porch, sticky side up.

And whaddaya know...the next morning there was a piece of sticky paper with some white fur stuck to it. Needless to say, that particular kitty decided use someone else's porch for its toilet needs after that experience.


But that didn't stop other cats from dirtying my garden. So I left sticky pieces of fly paper all over the grass too. This seemed to work but I worried that the wind might blow those little pieces over to my next door neighbour's laundry or car...and my next door neighbours do not own a single cat, so it might be wise to be on good terms with them.


So as a last resort, and with a great big sigh, my front gate is now 'wired'...

Not a pretty sight...but it's either this or more poop-scooping. 

Amazing English

Most people, especially typists, would know that this sentence contains all the 26 letters of the alphabet:


THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG


But did you know that there are also numerous other sentences? I didn't, until I did some research on the internet:


Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs. 


Crazy Fredericka bought many very equisite opal jewels.

Amazingly few discotheques provide jukeboxes.



Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow!


Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz.


A quick movement of the enemy will jeopardize six gunboats.


Wafting zephyrs quickly vexed Jumbo.


Today, a cousin of mine posted this on Facebook and I found it so amazing that I just had to share it:


"I do not know where family doctors acquired illegibly perplexing handwriting; nevertheless, extraordinary pharmaceutical intellectuality counterbalancing indecipherability transcendentalizes intercommunication's incomprehensibleness." 
(found in MedicalHumour on Facebook)


This is a sentence where the first word is 1 letter long, the second word is 2 letters long....the eighth word is 8 letters long and so on... and the twentieth word is twenty letters long! The person who made this sentence must be a vocabulary genius!

Lately, I have been enjoying the funny "Oh My English!" advertisement clips aired on TV. Here's one mistake that my kids and I frequently (and intentionally) make when we speak to each other at home:

A Short Break

Went on a short 3 day-2 night trip to Cameron Highlands with some church friends. Booked 2 apartments at the Equatorial as there were 10 of us. This is the first time hubby and I have gone on a trip without our kids. CoolTeen and SweetTeen went over to their grandparents' place for a bit of pampering from grandpa and grandma.

Fried bitter gourd with salted egg-yolk
at Old Frenz Restaurant in Tringkap

On the first day, we left KL around 8.30am and arrived at Cameron Highlands via the new Simpang Pulai route in time for lunch. We ate at the Old Frenz Restaurant in Tringkap. Food was ok but the service was rather slow.


Checked into the apartments. Hubby and I stayed at the 3-bedroom apartment with 4 others. Since it was a 3-bedroom apartment, we had expected a kitchenette but besides the bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, there was the living room with a sofa set, a tiny TV, a small fridge and a dining table with an electric kettle. So whenever we needed to wash a cup or cutlery we had to enter a bedroom to go to the adjoining bathroom, which was rather inconvenient. Other than that, the apartment was comfortable and most importantly...clean.

The charming OMF bungalow owned by the
Lutheran Mission, built in 1933

Had dinner in Brinchang and visited the pasar malam. The weather is not as cold as it used to be a few years back and I didn't need to wear a sweater at all. Most of the friends in our group have not been to Cameron Highlands in a number of years so it was fun to show them around as hubby is quite familiar with the towns, having been born in Tanah Rata himself.

Tried the strawberry strudel at
Strawberry Moments Cafe in Brinchang

The next morning we went to the local market in Brinchang and had breakfast at a coffee shop. My friends bought pau, kuih and siew mai from the market since the coffee shop had limited choice of food available. 

View of the tea plantation from the viewing
point near the Tea Shop

The smell of fresh tea leaves was just heavenly
at the tea factory

In the afternoon we visited the Sungai Palas Boh Tea Plantation. It was a real challenge to drive through the very narrow, winding road to the plantation and then having to climb up some steep steps to the Boh Tea Shop located on top of a small hill. The view from the top is splendid and the air is chilly with a cool breeze blowing constantly, so the journey was well worth it.


Had steamboat dinner at the Chinese restaurant in Equatorial. Although a little pricey at RM48++, it is an all-you-can-eat kind of buffet. There was a large selection of raw food for the steamboat as well as a section for dessert, but the section which was our favourite was where 2 chefs with a hot wok each would pan-fry (with a choice of 4 kinds of seasoning) anything that is laid out on the buffet tables...and I mean anything. We got them to fry prawns, meat, mushrooms, eggs and even noodles!

The next morning we visited the morning market near our apartments and bought vegetables before checking out and heading for home.

So many species of cactus available at the
cactus farm

I just had to buy some to replace the cactus
on my kitchen window sill that have recently died

It certainly is different not having the kids with us but I suppose a mother's heart is always with her children and I find myself thinking about them even in the midst of all my activities. I'm really appreciative of modern technology that allows me to phone my children every night and see them face to face through video-call. My children can never understand how life was like back in the days before the invention of the mobile phone. My daughter once asked, "How would anyone be able to contact you when you weren't at home?" I told her that they couldn't. How the world has changed in the last decade or so.

Golden Anniversary

Drawn by my nephew using the iPad

My parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on the 26th of May last week. They weren't too keen on a big celebration so my brother and I with our respective spouse and kids took them out to dinner for a simple celebration.


From young I have heard my mom tell the story of how my parents met. My father was studying at the University of Melbourne and my mother was also in Melbourne, training to be a nurse. They both play badminton well and that was how they met - at some inter-college games.

My mom could not stand the dreary Melbourne weather and decided to come home to Malaysia. At that time my dad had one more year of study before he graduated. After graduation, he came back to Malaysia and my parents got married. My dad took over a business owned by his father, selling lamps and electrical household appliances. My mom helped my dad at the shop and together they built up the business.

Flowers for mom and chocolates for dad :)

It has now been 50 years since they got married, and they still adore each other. I'm thankful that my parents are still healthy and look young for their age, and sometimes I wonder how hubby and I will be  when our 50th anniversary comes along - will we be wearing dentures and walking with the aid of a tongkat?