Early in the morning, I alighted at a bus stop opposite Flame Tree Park. Since I was still early, I decided to sit at the bus stop for a while. While I was stoning, a monkey came down from the trees and climbed onto the dustbin. It rummaged in the dustbin, looking for food, but it was too early for any treasures in the rubbish so the monkey left.
I left too as it was almost time to meet up. Mao Mao and I had volunteered ourselves to help weed the non-indigenous plants growing around MacRitchie reservoir. The meeting point was at Venus Drive carpark.
After waiting for a while, I saw small red car slowly chugging along the road leading to the carpark. “Must be Mao Mao,” I thought. And sure enough, she called me a minute later, saying she had reached the carpark.
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There’s a huge fish tank in the office which was provided and maintained by the uncles. It was very impressive, with gravel, plants and driftwood. I thought it was the most interesting thing in office and often stopped by to take a look. Eventually I donated to the fish fund and became a shareholder of the tank.
One day half the fishes died after they changed the water. I stayed back late that day for work matters. Since the uncles had all left, I had to roll up my sleeves and fish out 8 dead fishes from the tank. It was very sad, especially when I saw that some of the fish had grown so big already. While I was trying to get a fish out from a corner and who should walk pass but the new Deputy Director. So I was caught with my right elbow in the water and a bunch of dead fish on the table. Luckily he was on his way home so he did not chat with me for very long. The next morning, the uncles took out another 6-7 dead fish.
After waiting a few days for the tank to settle down and the fish to stop dying, the uncles bought some more fishes to replenish the population. I looked through the bags of fish, I was surprised to find a bag filled with 2 puffer fish, like those that The Voice used to keep. Memories of how The Voice’s puffers killed another fish came to my mind. I don’t think it’s a good idea to keep them in the same tank with the other fishes.
Turned out that someone bought them without knowing that they are carnivores. An hour after they were all released into the tank, Pandi found a fish with a missing tail. So we took the puffer fish out and put them in Mao Mao’s tank which had nothing but sand and moss balls. And she named them Curry Puff and Cream Puff.
But both puffers refused to eat. We tried freeze-dried worms, live worms and even live snails but they refused to eat anything. It got us very worried. I remembered The Voice’s puffer fish would just gobble up everything. There was never any problems getting them to eat. We did not know what was wrong. After a week or so, the puffer fish died. Mao Mao was traumatized and refused to keep any more fish.
Okay, so a couple of people I know were thinking of going out for dinner and drinks after work. I told the organizer that I’m not joining them but it seemed that I am not allowed to give a “no” answer. The organizer kept asking and I had to tell her 3 times that I am not going. On the 3rd time, she asked me for the reason. So I told her that it’s been a tiring week and I preferred to go home early. At first she seemed to accept it but few minutes later, she sms me again, something about me not making an effort to join them after work and even for lunch. It really made my blood boil. I had a thousand and one rude replies I wanted to sms back but I decided show some self restraint and just ignore her. I know if I had replied the way I wanted to, it would be the point of no return. I’m not sure what she hoped to achieve by her “not making an effort” statement but it sure didn’t win her any points with me. In fact, it only confirmed that I most definitely won’t feel like joining them for dinner for a while.
My mother will be back from her holiday tomorrow so I will have to return the kitchen back to her. Since it will be a a long while before I cook again, I decided to go all out and have a good dinner. I finished up the soba and made my usual dipping sauce. Then I cooked the rest of the dishes which would accompany the soba.
First I cut the tomato into chunks and cooked it with a little soya sauce and a dash of plum vinegar. Then I added the egg to make tomato omelet. Then I cooked the marinated chicken and then finally I stir fry shiitake mushrooms and cauliflower.
I enjoyed dinner. Then afterwards it was cleaning up so the house would be neat and clean before my parents return home tomorrow.
I cooked Japanese curry rice today. I added in chicken, carrot, onion and celery. I made sure to cut the carrot and celery into tiny pieces and cook them until they are soft and all the curry flavor had gone into them. Yup, I don’t like them very much.
I also cooked soup. It’s a fridge soup cos I just used whatever ingredients I could find in the fridge. I used a chicken breast (+ bone), tomato, carrot, celery and cauliflower. I let the soup boil and then transfer it into a thermal pot where the residual heat continued to cook it for the next 2 hours or so. It’s so easy and the soup turned out pretty tasty too.
The sun shines
The rain falls
The stars will stay forever
And I must go
Flowers bloom
Sun birds sing
Clouds sailing in the sky
And I must go
The waves crash
The river bends
Water moving incessantly forward
And I must go
I must go
I cannot stay
Must leave
Must go
Away
I learnt that it takes too much time to cook after work. Even when I tried making a simple dinner with minimal cooking, I ended up almost missing my 7pm show. And that’s not a good thing.
I cooked a double helping of soba, some mushrooms and made a simple salad for dinner. Surprise! It’s a vegetarian meal.
I’ve made the soba and salad same as previously. For the mushrooms, I used fresh shiitake mushrooms. Then I simply diced some garlic, drizzled some olive oil and sprinkled some salt and pepper. I wrapped the whole thing up in aluminum foil and put it into the oven to cook. I think the mushrooms needed more salt but it was otherwise nice and juicy.
I cooked dinner for myself. Being too lazy to go out and buy proper ingredients, I improvised and crossed my fingers when the occasion called for it.
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