I was so inspired after visiting Great Aunt at the nursing home where she now lives after her fall. Rarely is there such a fiesty and beautiful 89-year-old as my great aunt. In her younger days, she was a raving beauty. I’ve seen her black and white photo, taken wa-ay wa-ay before Photoshop, that bears testimony to her movie star looks.

Even at her age now, she sports a tuft of white punk hair and is slim and trim. As if her looks aren’t enough, she speaks fluent English (she’s English-educated like most of our family) and has the brains to go along with it.

She was her usual chatty self, thrilled at the sight of my kids and asking each in turn how they’re doing in school. She likes to keep herself updated and she usually has some motivational advice to dish out after hearing us out.

Of course, me being the proud mommy, I couldn’t help boasting about Steev being a good public speaker. Moms have a license to boast, okay ? Great Aunt was positively beaming with pride. After all, she watched my kids grow from the time they were babies.

Eager to dish out some public speaking tips to Steev, she leapt to her feet in a single bound from her sitting position on her bed and holding onto her walker, she proceeded to demonstrate how he should stand and make eye contact with his audience. I was like man, just look at her , she’s simply amazing!

Then she noticed Steev was wearing a t-shirt with words on it. She signaled him to lean closer and she rattled off the words on his shirt - I make everything look easy! Hahaha, I really salute this grand old lady. She’s somethin’ else. She’s truly inspirational. She’s an 89-year-old that everyone would be proud to be!

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My bestest girl friend in the world swears she’ll never date someone who’s a vegetarian. Not even if he’s tall, dark and good-looking and has a house on a ranch in the San Fernando Valley which he built with his own two hands?

Me: No? Wait a minute, what are you saying? He’s a really nice guy and I can see he really likes you.

She: Uh-uh, I gotta have my meat, meat, MEAT *growl*! If I don’t have meat, I might just kill somebody, gawd! You know how I love to go out and have a nice filet mignon once in a while.

At any rate, we drove up to see his house one weekend. Beautiful ranch, beautiful house, beautiful view… until he started serving us bowls of salad and bird seed for lunch.

My poor girl friend took one look at “lunch” and turned to me with her evil eye when he wasn’t looking.

And I don’t blame her. To be completely honest, I can’t say I’m into bird seed either ! I mean, just looking at them makes me wonder how much I’d have to eat to get my growling tummy to shut up!

So yeah, I can totally see her going, um, I think I’ll have the grilled bird seed with mushroom sauce, medium rare please!! If she were to ever date him, she’d never, ever need anything that even vaguely resembles an appetite suppressant ever, that’s for sure! Just the sight of those bird seeds will make her thin .

I’ve just had my breakfast of homemade kopitiam kaya toast (coconut jam toast served in traditional coffee shops) except mine is butter toast. No kaya since it contains eggs which isn’t vegetarian.

Ah, that feels so good, I’m feeling all fat and buttery now ! Hopefully that’ll help make up for the 1.5kg (3.3 lbs) I lost from staying off meat for just one week. And this is only the first week! Dang, I was hoping not to lose any weight… honestly !

I guess this is what makes the world go round. Those who want to lose weight can’t seem to keep the pounds off. Those who have dark hair want to be blond. When you need to get some place quick, all the lights are red .

I’ve just had my very simple lunch and I’m happy. But that happiness is only temporary and will only last till I’m hungry again . While munching my lunch, I was watching a video by Ajahn Brahm, my favorite Buddhist monk, about how to overcome suffering and find true happiness.

He’s an amazing speaker with lots of humorous and insightful stories to tell, that’s why I love going to his talks when he comes to town. He gives talks all over the world so it’s hard to catch him. Well, in this video, he says happiness can be found not in your ancestry dna or by having carloads of money, but in places where many people never think to look.

I’m watching this video for the second time because I find it very enlightening. This is not a religious video, though Ajahn Brahm is a Buddhist monk, so even if you’re not a Buddhist, this video is still safe to watch, I promise .

The beauty of Buddhism is that it offers practical views that can be applied to our everyday lives and modern lifestyles. I think this is the main attraction for many people in the West, including celebs like Richard Gere, Tina Turner, Orlando Bloom, Steven Seagal, Keanu Reeves and Tiger Woods, who are embracing Buddhism. My kids think it’s really cool that so many of their favorite rock and movie stars are Buddhists too .

Although I’m a bit of a bag freak here, for some strange reason, I’ve never owned a straw bag. I see them and I go wow but I’m not sure I’ve ever stopped long enough to buy one for myself. Maybe it’s just not the kind of bag you bring to Corporate Tower so I guess that’s why I’ve always stuck with black leather bag after black leather bag.

But hey, I’m no longer a prisoner in Corporate Tower. I’m free as a bird and I sure can have a Straw Studios Handbag Anabella Swirl Tote if I want to. And in turquoise too, so sue me!

This tote boasts a wheatstraw braid with cotton lining inside and a snap closure bordered with very pretty swirls all round. The double handles are long enough to comfortably sling the shoulder. Mother’s Day is indeed barely a week away and counting… and if someone reads my mind and gets one of these for a present, I’m laughing .

Can’t believe it’s Monday again. I’ll be heading into the city to meet up with my Scottish friend who is an expat wife. I met her at an English teaching course we both attended. Neither of us were teachers when we met, but now we’re both old qualified and seasoned English as a Second Language teachers, hahaha.

Learning to teach English was a blast. The course was so gruelling that she and I grew closer as we worked on those head-wracking assignments together day after day, night after night. People think teaching is just bla-bla-bla, and you just reel off from a book, then go home and sleep. Well, yes if you’re my kids’ teachers .

We’re not that kind of teacher. For each class that we teach, we painstakingly prepare our class materials till late into the night to make sure we’ve got everything covered. We research everything before we go to class so we’re very clear in our heads how we’re going to present the grammar, etc in a fun way that will generate interest in our students. Well, we went through a lot during the course but we both did great.

And now, she’ll be moving to Vietnam soon *sobs*. It’s a shame expats don’t stay long in one place. I don’t have many friends who are on the same wavelength with me, who will laugh at my sometimes cynical humor and laugh with me when I make a complete fool of myself. I sure am going to miss her, big time! Maybe one of these days, I’ll visit her in Scotland and we can rent an rv and she can show me Scotland.

Some friends of ours were passing through on their way back to their hometown. I remember years ago making a trip with them to their family home. At the time we thought it’d be fun to bring the kids, ours and theirs, on this grand holiday away from the city.

My kids were much younger then and they can only recall being awakened by the cockerel crowing right under our window and spending the day breathing in the aroma of chicken poop. And it wasn’t even a farmhouse though it did boast those chicken enclosures and a couple of farmhouse sinks. Well, thank goodness it had a decent bathroom.

Our friends had a ball. I didn’t. That weekend felt like two years to me. Time seemed to tick on by even more slowly the more eager I was to get out of there. There was nothing to do! I was bored out of my wits. While our friends feasted and raved about their mother’s cooking, I just smiled a lot and ate very little.

While our friends lazed around on the floor all day, the men chatting, the kids playing, the women knitting and reading, I was perched on the edge of the sofa swiping the mosquito repellent roll-on over my kids’ limbs and faking interest in the women’s chatter while checking the second hand of my watch every other second . I’m such a boring city kid!

I’m bored. I’m listless. I’m driving a tin can of a car which isn’t even mine! Driving it makes me feel like I’m sitting on the floor. The darned car is so low it makes me feel short.

And I don’t like feeling short. I’m not even that short to begin with. My head is in the clouds. I wanna be far away. I wanna go to sleep. I wanna be left alone. I just wanna eat my Oreos with milk.

Okay, just ignore me, I’m not myself… and don’t wait up!