escapades of the elusive kat

oh boy, it's been awhile I am so sorry, but life has been so busy!

I've finally won a war!

I got the building management to fix our common-use exterior drainpipe. Long story short, an exterior drainpipe was blocked... if not 10 years ago then 8 years ago, or around so. At the time when we raised the issue, homeowners association had asked us to "cooperate and work with them and just not wash our varandah for a while, because scaffolding is expensive." But the thing is, it wasn't a private drainpipe, it was common use. The floors above us would have their drains flow through to this drainpipe. We were nice and complied, and never washed our dogs outside anymore, if we needed to wash the varandah then we actually MOPPED the verandah instead of the easy flush with power hose, and we watered the plants with a watering can, being very careful not to spill too much water.

One time another drainpipe had burst and they fixed it immediately, because it burst at a very low level where they could have accessed with just a ladder. Our drainpipe would have to be accessed with a scaffolding.

A few months ago, I noticed a posted notice saying the HOA was going to use X amount of money from the building repair funds to fix another drainpipe that was constantly gushing water out. I asked the management company "what gives?" and he said because someone complained. Huh. The HOA president that told us to "cooperate" 8 years ago has passed away earlier this year. So? I told the family, there's no need to keep that promise anymore, and we just washed the varandah every day, watered the plants with the hose directly. Let the water flow.

The thing is, that other drainpipe they are going to fix? The water flowed to a dead-end area of the building. The drainpipe that was on our side? it's right above the motorcycle parking. Yes. Bikes got wet. I don't know if they know that the water is possibly doggy pee water either, but, I'm past the point of caring.

TODAY they've changed the notice. They are going to erect scaffolding to fix 2 drainpipes. Ha! I win!

Random photo dump with some captions if I feel like it!

My Sai Lup 2.0 Planter is done! And there's an obvious improvedment since my first version. And the phone screen capture is for another announcement...

It was time to upgrade my phone, so, since the new iPhone had an Orange option and I just so happen to have an Orange theme going on (to be fair, I also have a Purple theme and a Blue theme going on in other parts of my life!)

I can't ruin the phone by having some other colored case, so... I just had to get a transparent case, and since recently there's this new fad with those hanging slips that go inside your case and stuff, that was a nice way to make a subtle customization without covering the orange.

Frankie has been visiting very a many different places now. I have to limit his walks to at the very most 1 hour (usually 30 mins or so) as he can't really walk too much. But it's winter right now, so stretching it to an hour is fine on most days as well. Worst case I can just carry him home. BUT HE JUST DOESN'T WANT TO TURN BACK AND HEAD HOME!

Ah, I made a plate thingy. Since my planters are all animals, I use most the browns and beiges and black and white colours. I wanted to make something that I could use the other colours, so I made the plate. ButI didn't expect it to get so bright and sharp after the transparent glaze.

It was the handicraft and art fair the other week. Went ahead and did some small shopping.

These are also shots from the Frankie walks but there be no Frankie here. The right side photo below is actually a flipped image. The lake happened to be quite calm, though you can still see the ripples.

My workplace lunch restaurant has a new menu and the Japanese style curry is great. I really love it, it's cheesy too! Dad also made bread dumplins the other day.

One of the cafes at my work place has made this amazing gingerbread house but why is the Santa so... contorted? And apparently it must be some ready-made bought sugar dolls because a colleague said another hotel has a same style Santa.

I had an artist from China do this needle felting doll thing of Sai-Lup and they said it's being sent. So I shall await its arrival.

The dog and cats are getting pretty comfortable with us LOL. I'm also terrified of Kitty, who now will explore the apartment since Sai Lup is gone. I still think she got a very very bad first impression of Sai Lup that caused her to never come out.

oh, and what have I been so busy with? Chinese class, running and workouts. Preparing for my Mt. Fuji run! I'm still not sure about my gear, but I tested a neck warmer thing and I think it's good to keep it. I should feel more excited about my upcoming trip but I still couldn't quite muster up the right excitement.

I don't really have anything particularly insightful today LOL

The weather has been terrible. This is likely the 6th day I'm wearing rain boots to work. But it's like the curse of the umbrella: you bring the umbrella, it doesn't rain. You forget the umbrella, it pours. I'm having the same curse with the rain boots. I see the skies are dark and cloudy and most definitely going to rain, so I wear the boots. But I get all the way to work and it hasn't rained much.

The irony of it is, just yesterday, when I thought "it's probably gonna pour buckets, but since it's not, I might as well just get to work quickly!" So I don the boots, think about the rain coat for a second and decide "nah!" And off I went. 3 minutes later it pours and while I had rain boots but the wind was crazy and the rain heavy so the umbrella wasn't much use: I got wet all the same.

So today I have the raincoat with me but it's only a light drizzle. Still have my boots though.

Tomorrow. I have no actual plans. But I'd like to do as I've been doing before, go to Starbucks in the morning, sit there with a coffee and do whatever (read a book, work on the finance log for the shelter I volunteer for, or, whatever). And then in the afternoon mosey over to the mall as I need new underthings; it's been a while (try years) since I last got underthings. They're past their prime.

I've also noticed, since the lockdown, as we've been forced to stay home, Sai Lup hasn't been to his physiotherapy, and now the physiotherapy centre has closed down even, so that's one chunk of expense off. The dogs also haven't been to the vet for their monthly cartophren shots, they don't look any worse for wear, and that's another big expense off me. I can't help with the physio if it's closed down, but the dogs should really get back on those shots, so I should probably take them for that too.

Oh, and here's the cats Harley and Nutmeg having fun on my parents' bed. Harley especially loves it when the sheets are being changed and everything's white like him. Don't know why Nutmeg's got her tail puffed up.

So in the family March Birthday Lunch yesterday, the restaurant we went to had an expresso machine and a soft ice cream machine. It's a buffet, and as a self-proclaimed Asian, an Asian doesn't eat at a Buffet to get full, an Asian eats at a Buffet to recover the cost! The amount of cheese I had was unimaginable, probably unhealthy! But proper Gouda cheese, Brie cheese and Blue cheese are like... really expensive here. And then shrimps! Or are they prawns? Whatever. What I call shrimps! A whole plateful. I didn't get any sashimi, because, the sashimi station only serves Salmon. Cherry picked a couple of desserts. They cheated me out of a sacher cake. The SIGN said Sacher cake. But it was the same cake as the Chocolate coffee cake on the other side.

Anyway, back to the expresso machine and soft ice cream machine, I made myself an Affogato type of deal. It was delicious.

Well. I also learned that at my age, I should quit the coffee. I. COULDN'T. SLEEP! Last night. The whole household had lights off at 11.30ish pm. I was in my bed rolling around until 2am. No sleep. Then. The Devil's Reincarnate started messing around my room. Oh, and who is the Devil's Reincarnate? NUTMEG THE CAT! I may just skin that cat alive one day. Slept on my chest. Came up to my face. Licked me with her sandpaper tongue. Then she bit me! So I pushed her away. Then she jumped to my desk and started throwing everything off. I decided to ignore and tried to sleep. She left for a bit. Then she had a case of zoomies and was just running to and from my room to somewhere (maybe my Sis' room).

After much struggling with the cat, I think I kind of managed a short nap at around 4 or 5am, when I heard my Dad taking the 20-year-old dog out to the verandah for pee-pee. At least I had some 3 hours of sleep. I was so tired at work. But I did not touch any coffee.

My friend got me another translation job. So if she passes the tender, I get a little side gig again. She wanted me to do the Portuguese as well, so I said no. She's now found a lady who would wait for my English translation, then use that to translate to Portuguese.

Exciting times.

It's puzzle night.

The dog sits with me for puzzles, LOL

And here's a shot from the iPad haha

Apart from sharing photos... I have nothing else to say... consider this a somewhat Wordless Wednesday that's posted not on a Wednesday and still with some text. Meh.

Pois então, esta fim-de-semana foi agradável. Como na Sexta-feira passada eu fui ao tal Happy Hour com o chefe e colegas, estive de ressaca no Sábado. Mas também tive muita sorte que as dores de cabeça que tive não foram tão mal. De manhã escrevi umas atas do reunião do dia anterior. | So the weekend was ok. Since I went out on Friday night with the Boss and the colleagues, I was hungover on Saturday But I was also lucky that my headache wasn't that bad. In the morning I wrote the minutes for a meeting we had the previous day.

Fui almoçar com os meus pais e depois o empregado da mesa sugeriu-me para a conta para os pais. Para caso, não importava nada e até achei giro que ele teve a coragem para dizer isso. | Then I went for lunch with the parents and the waiter just told me to pay the bill for the parents. I didn't really mind it and even found it amusing that he would suggest that.

À tarde, choveu muito e então fiquei sentada no quarto a ler livros e escrevi duas cartas; uma para uma amiga na Alemanha e outra para uma amiga no Japão. | In the afternoon, e rained, so I stayed in my room reading books and writing letters - I wrote one to a friend in Germany and one in Japan.

Finalmente fiquei na cama a jogar uns jogos. | Finally I stayed in bed and played some games.

Mas no Domingo, foi um pandemónio. Estive a fazer um pouco de limeza no quarto quando notei que algum dos animails mijou num canto do quarto. Por isso, comecei a fazer grande limpeza e consegui me livrar de 6 sacos de lixo! No mesmo tempo, também consegui umas fotografias velhas: | But on Sunday, it got crazy. I was doing some light cleaning in the room when I noticed that some dog had been peeing in a corner of the room. So I started a grand cleaning scheme and I managed to clear out 6 bags of crap from the storage. At the same time, I found some old photos:

O meu pai à 30 anos atrás e a minha cadelinha a Fufu (também chamava-a a Fufa). O meu pai diz que esta foto era para a revista Vanity Fair quando ele trabalhava num hotel novo (à 30 anos atrás). Não sei se creio o que ele disse ou não, mas só posso dizer que já percebo porque a minha mãe casou com ele. Ele foi bastante bonitota! | My Dad some 30 years ago and my dear dog Fufu (also known as Fufa). My Dad says that photo was taken when he was working in a major big hotel and the photo was for Vanity Fair. I don't know if I believe that, but I understand now why my Mom chose to marry him. He indeed is (was?) some eye-candy!

Ten years ago today, on the then-coldest-day-of-the-year-so-far, I was walking my dog Peppie (see my icon!) and he was preparing to do his Big Business, that I sat down on a ledge.

Certainly, a little black dog jumped on me and sat on my lap.

"oh, who are you?" I asked this little dog. The dog did not answer me. She just looked at me and wagged her tail.

( Read more... with dog photos if you are so inclined )

'Twas a tiring day for me today. For some reason, everyone woke up pretty late today. Even the dogs didn't badger us for food, so we were surprised to see 9am when we woke up. It was too hot to walk the dogs in the mountains already, so we did our regular walk.

The Obligatory Sunday Family Lunch (r) was cancelled due to my aunt feeling unwell. So we took the time in cleaning up the apartment and folding the laundry and had a late take out lunch. And we snoozed a bit later, haha.

Come 4pm though, and out I went! Today was the yearly Walk for Animal Welfare thing. I always said I wanted to join but never did. I kept my word this year!


There was quite a lot of people, the organisers estimated some 3000 people showed up (personally I think it's BS)

You'll notice on the bottom left corner of the above photo that... I took my dog there too! It was a pretty good experience for him. I kept him on a muzzle initially because he kept nipping at smaller dogs. Nearing the end of the walk, he was tired and didn't bother anymore with other dogs, and I was worried he couldn't breathe well, so I took the muzzle off, and he didn't even look at other dogs.

That means, he doesn't exercise enough. Argh.

But it was a good chance for him to socialise a bit. At least I now know if I tire him out enough then he's an angel. A drooling angel though.



He can be such a sweet looking dog when he wants to be (don't be fooled by his smile).

The issue this time is that there has been some cases of ludicrous animal abuse news lately. Puppies and a turtle were being thrown off high rise buildings (all died), kitten torturing rampant. And the government is thinking of cutting down the penalty/fine/jail time of animal abuse cases, which is ridiculous.

The walk itself was pretty well organised though it was very Chinese-centric. I understand that the population here is mainly Chinese, but then they wanted the foreigner community to join too, and made their ads and collaterals bilingual, however for the actual talk and on-day communication, it was all in Chinese.

Something for them to think about...

Let's see if I can find the group photo for MASDAW...

This morning we had some 20C and i was fine in my cardigan and a scarf. I heard it's now down to 14C outside so I'm not sure if I could brave the cold/wind/whatever and head on to school. Maybe I'll just head home? I don't know.

Another funny thing is I have again forgotten to put on my glasses. It was the weekend and I had contacts on, so I kept my glasses in the case. This morning as I headed out, I did not see any glasses on the desk, so I just assumed I had my glasses on and left home... and when I reached the casino where I work at, the building has got lots of mirrors on the exterior, I looked at myself and noticed... I had no glasses... so far it's been a tiring day.

I'm at my last 6-7k for NaNoWriMo. I believe I could finish it by Wednesday. But I shouldn't be boasting so much for now... just keep calm, and announce it when I'm done!.

And I went for a haircut yesterday! FINALLY! I asked the guy if he could chop off the remaining dyed hair I had and he did manage to chop them all off. Now my hair is my natural color again! With full of whites... which was another funny thing... when I told the guy to chop off all the colored hair, he said "it should be fine, I see you don't have much white hair anymore". I promised him that "I still have a lot of white hairs"  but he didn't believe me.

After the cut, he looked at me, and said, "You have a lot of sneaky white hair hiding underneath," and my natural response was "see??"

Today I was again going through the course list for the subsidized courses by the Education department here, and still I couldn't find anything that is 1) worth my time, 2) interests me and 3) suits my schedule. My colleague then suggested I learn the piano again, but sadly we don't have a piano anymore. That is when my colleague told me about Digital Pianos... and now, THAT makes me want to learn again, because then I do not have time constraints on when to practice.

When I was learning the piano before, my mom banned me from practicing any time before 10am in the mornings, and any time after 8pm in the evenings. She quoted, "don't annoy the neighbours". Well, given that due to school, activities, and a social life, that just didn't fit my practice times. So... I quit. Actually, that's just reason number 2 why I quit... reason number 1 was... another story to tell....

With the digital piano, since I could practice with the headphones on, I could practice any time of the day i like!

So I started to check out schools, but it seems none or not much of them cater to adult learners. I finally found one, but the lady that answered the phone didn't seem too enthusiastic to answer my questions, so I also don't really want to go to that school. What a bother.

And still I have no target course to go to for those subsidized courses.....

Anyway, it's about time I left. Let me face the cold!