gnatweds

We're off to Two Harbors for the weekend to take in the Fall colors which are suppose to be at it's peak right now. Chanced upon this burger place along the way. After having watched Harold and Kumar, who could have resist the chance to bite into a White Castle burger? BTW, they're pretty darn good albeit a little small.

EG

I've just had one of those days.
The type where you wish you didn't bother to get out of bed for because everything that could go wrong went wrong.

Argh.

Summary of events: wanted to go to gym for a swim, found out that I somehow lost my swim gear, went shopping, broke sunglasses, came home, rushed through preparing dinner - fucked up the arribiata sauce. while baking chicken, the damned smoke alarm went off, also managed to set the gawddam pot holder mitten on fire (not serious) but arggggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh.


am sulking with a ciggie at the moment.

So yesterday was suppose to have been the first day of fall.

How the weatherman comes to that conclusion is beyond me.

It so happens that today was a brilliant day. Gorgeously sunny weather and incredibly deep blue skies. What a perfect time to take baby out for a spin. Thus, we made our way to Lanesboro, a hop-skip-and-jump away(45min of hopping skipping and jumping). the pictures follow....

Here's one of the first few trees to turn. Most of the rest are still trying their best to stay green

Strangely, quite a few street post at Lanesboro were draped in corn plus cobs. Don't know what the significance of this is. Probably some end of harvest festival of sorts.

Here's a B&W shot of a bridge I couldn't resist taking.....

Addendum from Nat:
My pictures are obviously not as good - taken by mobile phone and all no less


Gene looking extremely chuffed to have found the Old Village Hall restaurant in Lanesboro - it has a courtyard which is extremely European (think extremly picturesque and chi chi all at the same time), and it helps that they have an excellent selection of wine.


Happiness defined for Gene?

Good grief - all of today, no matter how fast I channel surfed, I kept hearing someone drawl on the Weather Channel (BIG time deal here) "this is the first day of Fall," "Stay with us on this first day of Fall", or "Coming up, the headlines, on the first day of Fall."

Sheeeesh! I'm rolling my eyes here cos everyone has been into fall fever for a few weeks now, the stores are stocking up the woollens, the trees are "turning" (local lingo ie: changing into the russets and golds of the season) and the pumpkins have come out to play at the grocers.

Yes, Pumpkins, (you might have read about them in Eugene's blog entry) and they can get pretttty heavy - as the pictures show, I tried to heft one the other day at the local Hy-Vee (its a supermarket chain, like Cold Storage back at home, and in this small town - there are THREE Hy-Vees, two Walmarts, one super target, etc etc... u get the idea) and it was too heavy to lift.

But there are cute lil uns too: Its about the size of my mobile phone... and yes, that's the palm of my hand...



This one, we just had to buy, erhm, just for the cute factor - 50 cents. No not planning to eat it - though Eugene is plotting something about creating Pumpkin jawi lamps ... yes with kerosene and a wick. I keep telling him that he's going to set something on fire or will have to eat roasted pumpkin for weeks. *sigh*

yes, with a husband like this... who needs kids? Seriously. Spent about five hours cleaning house today, just to clear up the mess made by the two of us in one week! Super boh hua. Bah. And I haven't even finished with the laundry... that reminds me, argh, have to take stuff out of the dryer.

This morning, I went with a friend, Lynette, to an art class. Bloody cheem. Made me take plumb lines, midpoints etc etc with pencil. Basket. And the intructress - think she's from HK or something - was hardly comprehensible. She kept saying, "look at the waist, waist" - and both of us were exchanging seriously confused looks until we realised she was trying to refer to the vase!


Two hours of listening to paper types, and basic sketching later - I have nothing that remotely resembles art... like wha liau...

So, we went and bought:



Yes, a Learn to Draw kit at 8 dollars!!!!! Heh, will update you when I actually start trying out the lessons...

Oh, been staying up into the wee hours of the morning nowadays, totally obsessed with anime on Youtube (free! and no need to download bittorrent!)... the shounen-ai stuff really is eye popping. Sigh, am perving after anime characters... terrible. But Soubi and Iason Mink are *gasp* heart poundingly kawaii and ahem, yes, sexy. Sigh, this is what happens when you have too much time to explore strange new things. Hahahhahahah.

Oh! Fly's coming over tonight for a short stay... her owners are going to somewhere in Wisconsin to go fishing (yes, what did we expect from Yvonne and Vince right?) and though we were supposed to go too, we chickened out of the five hour drive for a mere night's stay. Sooo might find alternative R&R tomorrow, but we'll see. We'll prob spend the day playing with the dog instead.

Okay, gotta go get me some Famous Dave ribs... hungry.

Nat

The "baby" had it's second checkup yesterday. This time we got the timing belt checked and tightened, gear knob fixed and cruise control deactivated(once activated it'll try to send the car into orbit by accelerating till kingdom come). Sounds like it has suicidal tendencies considering the leaking fuel injector we fixed the last time around - fire hazard!!!

Just a few more things to set right now - winter tires, wheel alignment, swapping out an oil filter and perhaps fixing that pesky cruise control proper.

Cost of the car plus all repairs might just come to the same amount as the ford explorer. Not a bad deal if I do say so myself. heh!

Meanwhile, it's covered in an inch of scum/mud thanks to it's over enthusiastic owner(been driving it all over the shop). However, I just realised that the yanks have not discovered the wonders of autoglym polish(mainly a UK/European based brand). Just about the only polish I use on my "babies". Fortunately though, the basic polish can be found on Amazon and I guess I will be buying that soon.

So, things look set for driving the porsche to Chicago except that I have to buy a mini air compressor(the original one seems to be missing) . A little quirk about the car - It has a small "take me home" spare tire(due to space constraints in the boot) which is deflated!!! Hence the need for an aircompressor is powered by sticking it into the cigarette lighter socket. Cute isn't it? Can just imagine the Germans when they designed it - golf bag or inflated spare tire? golf bag.

We had a couple of Homer-esque moments over the last week.

Homer moment no 1: we hear there are really hot buffalo wings to be had in town. We think: "hey, we've done the hottest wings ever at Buckaroos' - formerly at Andrews Ave - how bad can namby pamby wings here taste?"
"Afterall, no one here eats spicy food.''
So we march up to Wild Buffalo Wings - and promptly order a snack of 12 wings (no, not full ones, here one little drumlet is considered a wing) rolled in the hottest possible sauce. They have a range of eight sauces or so... ranging from mild to blazin'... Yup, we took blazin'.
The girl taking my order gave me a startled look. But I nonchalently waved her on..

This by the way was after a pretty full breakfast, so we weren't even hungry anyway.

So we brought them home, and dove straight in... and of course, we were suitably not-impressed at first...
Well, then the slow burn started. When rivulets of sweat started running down gene's nose, we knew we were in trouble. Gene gave up after 5 drumlets, so I whacked 7. And by this time, we were making hissy noises, sucking our teeth and going "hiiiaaam man!"

All said and done. We both had swollen lips for about 30 minutes, and that night, it was quite painful as the wings, er, decided to come out the other end.
Hahahahha. DOH! Homer-moment supremo man.

Homer moment no 2: Since the temperatures are falling here - we've taken to running down the stairs and checking out the outside each time it falls below 8 deg C. Then we bring a little glass of single malt out and see if our breath mists over... in hindsight damned stupid; we not really appropriately dressed most times (pyjama pants and t-shirt) and wah liao, here the flu and pnuemonia no joke. Super Doh.

Apart from that all is well. I had a swimming lesson to try to correct my front crawl stroke. It was a bit humiliating cos the instructress was like geriatric and the students before and after me were kiddies... but at least I learnt that my breathing was off.

Also signing up for personal training - I miss Ann, who used to whip me into shape back in Singapore. Gonna be pretty expensive, but I reckon, aiyah, if I don't do all these things now, when else am I going to?

Will also go for art sketching class this sat... again, I haven't sketched since Secondary School, but wha, when else will I have the time to do all this.

Speaking of artistic ability - remember the paper mache pigs that Ai-Lien, Judith were helping me make for the wedding? The ones which held the ang pows?
Well, of those which did survive (some expired during the manufacturing, one was cut up pretty badly in an attempt to get out the ang pows) - the survivors, which admittedly have bad scars from the ahem extrication process have found a great home. Lauren, Judith's niece, has adopted them and according to reports, she lurves them to bits too.

Here's a super cute photo:

Halloween is round the corner and preparations are underway.

These monster pumpkins popped up at the supermarket round the corner and boy are they huge!!!

TK has promised a halloween party and I've suggested making pumkin jawi lamps(putting a kerosene soaked rag in the pumpkin instead of a wimpy candle). This should be fun.

Unfortunately, I don't recall seeing a burns unit at Mayo. oh well...

I currently have cold feet. Not because I'm embarking on a new project or planning to get married again or anything... its literally cold.

Well, coming from Singapore, its cold.

At the moment its 11 deg C, a nice progression from 9 deg C that we had just yesterday.

Oh, and ps; the locals say its not fall proper yet - its apparently still the laaaasst days of summer.

With the cold snap, Gene finally was galvanised enough to go shopping for his winter coat. We drive about an hour plus to get to the small town of Medford, where there's an outlet mall (great thing about this country - the outlets) and specifically a Columbia Sportwear outlet.
Finally managed to buy him a winter coat that looks like its warm enough for Antartica.
He's happy, we got it at about US$130 when it usually goes for about US$200, but here's the catch: He doesn't have (and thinks he doesn't need) anything else - no thermals, no warm pants etc etc. Hummm. We'll see...

Oh, and yes, we drove to Medford in the Porsche. Yours truely took the 3 plus hour drive to MN and back to pick up the Porsche while Gene slumbered from a truely awful call. He has another one tomorrow and he's currently experiencing the pre-call blues.
(and erhm, you can ask him how much the initiation cost)

I know I haven't updated the blog in the last week - sorry readers, but was a bit uninspired. Plus, I had a nice distraction. The Tays were away last week, so we dogsat Fly, their Border Collie.



Sweet as anything, extremely manja and needed lots of attention. And fixated on her frisbee but fairly smart.

Gene has been losing lotsa weight from all the calls (missed lunches and dinners) and I'm yo-yo-ing. Lost some, was back to 48 kgs - the weight I was in Uni, and then am bouncing back to 49 now. Gah. Too much sweet stuff? You know, I never liked sweet food back home, but I actually enjoy the cookies and cakes they have in the supermarkets here because they are fresh-baked. Gene still doesn't like the stuff so, at least that puts a limit on how much I buy, and hence, eat.

PS; anyone out there has a decent recipe for wanton mee? The dry type? We are both hankering like mad for the stuff. Goes for bak chor mee as well. Hiam Chiou Chuay.

Am getting a bit more settled into the tai tai life -- one of the wives here hit the nail on the head when she said the first three months are the hardest. Now, settling into a bit of a routine; setting up lunches with people, going to do volunteer work and also, I can't tell you how much its helping that we're able to go swimming again. Plus, its nice that we can exercise together you know what I mean?

Of course, it brings back nostalgic memories of swimming at the Tanglin Club on those HOT days - and then jumping onto deck chair and ordering icy cold coconut. ahhhh.

On a more serious note - its 9/10 (yes the Americans use the month first then the date, which causes no end of confusion when i try to qrite cheques and sign stuff here)and the networks here are full on the 9/11 remembrance five years on. It's still very raw in the US pysche and the footage you see on TV brings back lots and lots of emotion.

Vagus also inspired me to think back on what I was doing when the planes hit. It was 9 something back in the office at Times House. I was on the computer, playing a stupid game waiting for Ai-Lien to finish checking her story - we were supposed to go for dinner. And I had a real early start the next day: an assignment at 7.30 am in Tuas, with a big American pharma opening their manufacturing facility. I was whinging at her to hurry up and just hanging around.

Then Dom, my boss, walked in and said: "You guys better come out to see this on TV."
The first tower was smoking from the first plane. And we were just totally shocked. And we kept watching and wondering what the hell was happening. Then, we saw the second plane fly in. And it hit the second tower.

It was tough to assimilate all of this but that signalled that it was battestations at the newsroom. I was promptly sent out to the US embassy with a camera crew and photographer. It was surreal. It was dead quiet... then some military types appeared in a cab - and just yelled as us to stay away. We went to the American Club after, and it was more surreal. They wouldn't let us in, but there were Americans outside just sitting on the pavement and crying. And here I was trying to get all this emotion down.
We were getting bits and pieces of information from the newsroom on the go - another plane; crashed into the Pentagon, there was yet another hijacked, and another... some true, some not so true. It was confusing, exhausting... but it was a story that had to be chased.
Ai-Lien was put to calling the Singapore offices in WTC and NYC - she couldn't get through by that time.
We were done by 3 am... we had to get a story in about the Singapore reaction... and we did.
But the next day, it was even harder - the opening of the facility was definitely muted and security was all over the place.... and it hasn't really stopped. The world felt threatened and that still carries over till today.

Okay. That was what I was doing when IT happened.
What were you doing?

I'll start a tag right here. And its really simple. I'll tag three other bloggers, and the three will tag three other bloggers. And lets see how we were all affected and changed. To start: I'm tagging wy , arti and the Tays . You just leave a note on the taggee's blog to tell them what's going on.

Okay, enough for tonight.
Take care everyone. I suppose the lesson is that things can happen, and appreciate what you have and the people around you everyday.

Little cousin - Jeremy, eh well, he's actually only six years younger, but he'll always be my lil cuz - left a note on the blog, suggesting that I should put up a tagboard.

A few months ago, I'd probably have thought - nah, too hard, no time. Well, what a difference a few tens of days make. Fiddling with the HTML codes on the template, and thanks to multiple free apps on the Internet - tadah! Gnatweds has a tagboard, that actually fits the look of the blog *wow*

It's on the sidebar - just below the search bit.

What say you? (heh, blatant attempt to make sure more pple comment onnit)

Gene, by the way is seriously sulking without his porsche.

Brought the cutie to the Porsche dealer in Minneapolis today to get the sunroof and other small problems fixed only to find out that it had a leaking fuel injector which could potentially set the car alight!

arrrrggggh...

So apparently it costs USD200 just for them to take a look at what's wrong. I shudder to think what my bill will be. On the "upside" they've given us a courtesy car to drive while the porsche is in the garage. Thought this would take the form of a dinky hyundai or the like, but surprise surprise, we got a fat American car called a Pontiac Grand Prix.













It's a pretty big sedan. Drives quiet and smooth. Nice sound system. Possibly faster than the 944. And how exciting is it? Probably as much excitement a gay guy would get watching the pussy cat dolls at a strip club. Enuf said.

It's going to be a looooong week waiting for this one to come home :(

Here's hoping that future intiation rites won't be so expensive

We have a VOIP line - and although used primarily by our parents, occasionally we get calls from friends back home, like just now, I *just* got off the phone with Ai-Lien, my good buddy and colleague.

My gosh, it is good to hear a friendly voice again, and boy, do I miss her and everyone in Sg.

Is this what you call being homesick?

Couple of new things to report:
We just joined a gym here - called the RAC (Rochester Athletic Club), they've got tonnes of classes which may keep me a little busier. Aerobics, step yada yada yada.
We've got a mini gym here at the apartment complex and its brand new, but its a bittty bit tiny. Good for when you need to do a quick hamster-run-on-treadmill thing, but not brilliant when you need more than yourself for motivation.
So, for the first time in keryonks, today me and gene went for a swim - a real lap type swim for 30 mins.

Yaaay. Even if the water is bloody cold. Now cursing that I didn't bring more than one bikini here - aiyah, who would have thought that I'd need more in this climate?

Am hoping that friends back home will want to experience the climate here and come over for a visit (NB: its 16 deg C right now and its ahem... the end of SUMMER, not even Fall proper or... gulps... Winter yet)

Tomorrow, we go up to the cities and see what we can fix on the Porsche - which has rapidly become Eugene's Preeeccccioooouuuus. Yes, exactly like Gollum in LOTR.

We're also trying to recapture bits of Sg with meals like Bak Kut Teh and Laksa (pre-packed mixes of course) and am experimenting with more Asian stuff as well, like from scratch. Found belachan in the Asian store. Stinks to high heaven but heavenly lah. There's also lemongrass and galangal... ooooo...

Oh! Gnatwedding also made it into a local Sg wedding mag - the writers know the photog who did our photos, so he suggested ours as a unique case eg. (yah lah, we had to do things the hard way what; so cookie-cutter it was, erh, not)

Heh, by the way (even if Eugene will kill me for blogging this for the world to see) Mr Gnat was actually in a mag back in 1997. He was featured as one of Singapore's 50 most eligible people in Female Mag. Heheheheheh. So maybe this is actually continuing a family tradition? *sniggers*

PS: that's Ai-lien (who I was speaking to on the ph just now) right in the middle of the page with me.

Oh, also on Singapore - see all these random thoughts running through my head as I blog? - this is kinda weird but funny.

Singapore's abbreviated history a la We Didn't Start The Fire. Great that we're finally able to start making fun of ourselves and govt leaders.