Spymama @ Mamakshop

I’ve heard of people who comment that living in Singapore has so much restrictions and regulations in the things we do. For me, I don’t really take this as something bad.

We should treat our country, regardless of which country we live in, as our bigger home. At home, our parents advise us not to litter, not to smoke for health reasons, put rubbish where it belongs, flush your toilets after use and adopt other good social habits. So why should one do the opposite when he or she is out of the house. The fines for littering, not flushing toilets, no smoking in many places are there because there are some who just don’t care. Our parents also punish us when we don’t listen, to put us on the right track. Why be selfish and only care for your home and not extend it outside.

Does it make good sense to throw rubbish on the ground, smoke indoors with presence of children nearby when you don’t do it at your own home? It is ridiculous! But apparently, I’ve seen friends who care for their own home and family members and they behave quite the opposite when they are out of their own home.

Spymama is ranting, of course.  I just had to walk away from the playground because of some irresponsible people smoking there and not thinking about the children who were playing nearby. And these people just throw cigarette butts into the drain and walked away.

When these people get caught by officials, they complain about all that fines and punishment acts. That is so selfish of them. Then they complain about the restrictions in Singapore. What about the restrictions at home? Do they complain about it? Not really because they know it is bad. So what is so bad about getting fines from officials when they litter outside their homes?

Look at the full picture, your parents have been teaching you to practice good habits at home. Extend it outside your home perimeters. It is about beingable to tell what is right, and what is wrong.

Chinese New Year, Gong Xi Fatt Choy… these are the very common greetings you will see in many blogs these few days. For the Chinese people, reunion dinner will be held on the eve, which is the 25th this year. Chinese New Year’s official day falls on 26th February 2009. Each year’s Lunar New Year is calculated based on the chinese calender thus, it will fall on a different day for every year.

So I would like to wish all those who celebrate Chinese New Year a very Prosperous Lunar New Year. Year of the Ox will be a year of steady growth. We all have to work hard to see the rewards but it will be worth every effort. Ask any Ox!

A year of health, wealth, prosperity and love for all my readers. And for the non Chinese, have a good holiday.

Every Thursday and Sunday, I hear the horns coming from a little truck who collects old newspapers, cardboards and old clothes. The old man who would climb up every level in the block, not missing any, will sound his hand held horn, shouting ‘Kalang Guni’. in local dialect, ‘Kalang Guni’ is actually the Rag and Bone Man, that collects these things to sell for profit.

I’ve been selling him my newspapers to him for as long as i can remember. In between these days, there would be an occasional Rag and Bone Man that comes to ask for second hand or spoilt hand phone, electrical items like fans and old computers. I once sold 2 old pc hard-disk and my usable CD Player, speakers, sub woofers to him and it only fetched a miserable $20! A friend once told me that they usually dismantle the pc for a small ‘piece of gold’ inside. Had I had known that, I’d have taken out the old video cards inside as now my cousin has an old pc which is in need of the card since his is already giving him problems. Currently, I have 2 old cellphones that had some problem with the lcd display.. now I wonder if I should just keep them for any spare parts.

So at the stroke of midnight on the 25th of January, we shall be welcoming the Year of the Ox in 2009. How about that. This year of the rat has been filled with lots of anguish in the financial sector and ending in job cuts, uncertainty and more.

I hope the Year of the Ox will be different. I was reading up about the chinese zodiac and it says that those born under the Year or the Ox are leaders, dependable, and posseses an innate to achieve great things. They also never lose sight of their objectives and their goals. I believe many business man who are daring enough to start business in the year of the Ox, a time where recession is apparent will not be fearful of anything. The years can only progress more and those who work hard like the Ox will be blessed with many fruitful years ahead. Ox people are also never afraid to work hard. Anyone who is born in the year of Ox here?

I have to confess that I belonged in one of those screaming fan clubs of movie stars and pop artistes way back in the 80’s. We’d gather and chat nothing but about our favourite pop idol. We’d be in a cab or in someone else’s car trailing the star from the airport all the way to the hotel, all the way to the back stage.

We had one shiny and glittering glove each in our hand and a little curl on our forehead. We love moonwalks.

We’d be there with banners, large hand held signage, T-Shirts that read “I LOVE MICHAEL” and we’d be staking out nearby or camping overnight where the stars are putting up, hoping to get a glimpse of our movie star. Erratic, ridiculous, crazy, we are. Tell me about it. That too explains why I had lifesize figures of cardboard displays of my favourite pop star in my room. Mom was horrified. She had a weird teenager. What a mess it was. What fun I had.

Those were the days. Now, you see me cooped at home, with a cuppa in my hand. Raising and giving a toast to that familiar face on TV. Whaaat? How did he get into all that mess? He looks pathetic. What did the media do to him. Poor fella. My heart goes out to him. He did produced good songs, MTVs and he still is the ultimate moonwalker. He is still the King in my heart. Oh.. and I believe in my room at mom’s house, that portrait of Mike in his bright yellow vest is still hanging there.

I have a large collection of audio cds that was collected in the late 80’s and 90’s. During lunch hours, I’d walked to the CD shop to get some nice albums of my favourite artistes for as many as few times a week. That was a weakness I had. I sometimes spend about $50 per visit and in a month I sometimes chaulked up as much as 600- 700 buying CDs. During those times, we used walkman CD players a lot and I’d keep a set of CDs in an album wherever I travel. It is nice to sit on the double decks and listen to my favourite songs on the CD.

Nowadays, many teens and adults do not carry the walkman anymore. They have mp3s or iPods and all that small little gadgets that store musics in small memory cards. How convenient. i’ve not try them and wonder if I should get an iPod too. It so happened that I wanted to check out some audio racks for my DVD players and saw a salesperson demonstrating it’s uses to a lady customer. I stood there listening intently and thought that how convenient it was. But what is going to happen to my CD collection once I get them all in audio file formats? Are they going to die a slow death just like records? I still take my CDs out to listen to.

Decades back when I was in my teens , my aunt used to send some cakes she made to our house. She had learnt baking and was baking almost every weekend trying out new recipes all the time. We became her guinea pigs, of course. She made all types of cakes and they were yummy. However, there was one particular cake that I didin’t know how to appreciate was the Kueh Lapis.

Kueh Lapis is the malay term for Layer Cake. This cake has to be carefully baked, layer by layer without getting the earlier layers burnt. What I didn’t like about the cake was the spices that were used in the ingredient.

That was then, of course. As I grow older, I have learnt to acquired a liking to it and it is one of my favourite cakes of all time. I was delighted when a wonderful friend of mine gave me some for this Chinese New Year just yesterday. Oh it was not just a small piece, it was a whole slab. Now this cake is not cheap and I cannot imagine how much she must have spent on this large cake.

What a pleasant Chinese New Year it will be. Great with a cuppa coffee!

A few years ago, we received a toolbox from my uncle. Apparently, he had too many tools and gadgets that got his wife nagging that it was really messy in the workroom he used. He has a hobby of taking electronic gadgets out and studies them to see how they work. I remembered how he got into an argument with his wife after he tried to dismantle the old dishwasher when it wouldn’t work. His wife insisted that it could have been salvaged in the hands of a proper technician for that product. And the dishwasher was pretty expensive.

When he did some spring cleaning, he put many things in a spare tool box (he had 5 tool boxes!) and gave it to us as a handy tool box. I remembered going through it and asking what they were. There were nails, screwdrivers, bolts, nuts, plugs and even spring plungers! Some of these things are more familiar with my hubby as he likes to be the handyman in the house. So when something needs to be looked at, without any haste, I could always rely on both of them to pair up and start tinkering with their tools.

Are they really such interesting hobby? I can’t even do well with a map!

A friend called me up this morning. I was supposed to visit her to deliver some Chinese New Year goodies but couldn’t reach her because apparently, the residential area had been cordoned off. There was no way I could get to her, nor she come out to meet me up. Apparently from the news, I read that the residences at the area, Stevens were inaccessible because someone had reported about a motorcycle box that was left under a tree. This got into the attention of the security personnel and had police cars lining up the area and closing it off for a total of 3 hours. There were even vehicles that were marked with “chem-bio radiological defence” words. There were those marked “explosive ordinance disposal” too. The items had been seized for further investigation.

Guess what was in? Harmless sachet of perfume and some red beads… wow..

But lucky we have good security.. we never know, it could be something explosive or dangerous..

So I guess I will make a visit again tomorrow…

Last Sunday, I saw a weird earthling. Why was she weird? Well, she was dressed in a green and red costume and giving out flyers. I looked, stared (yeah, I know it’s rude) and I looked for a while. I just couldn’t figure out what this green and red thingy was, actually. If you put me on a quiz with a costume like that, I’d have failed right away. I wasn’t sure what kind of product she was promoting so I went to pick up a flyer from her.

Poor girl! She had on gloves in red so thick that she could not even pick up the ends of her flyers that she carries in a small stack! Trying and trying it was pitiful, she was trying to give out and her gloved fingers couldn’t feel to pick a piece of flyer but ended up giving me 5 sheets at one go. I fanned it open and gave it back to her the other 4 hopefully it will be easier to distribute.

I looked at the flyer info and read. Oh she is actually promoting green life. The flyer encourages us to take more vegetables and the benefits of them. Gosh, I think the person who ‘designed’ her costume, failed to bring out the look of whatever vegetable or fruit it was. Cheh.. Perhaps she couldn’t just sewed her a cabbage or just a bunch of Chye Sim!

Can you tell what vegetable she is? I’m still guessing…