Family

Catchup

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Time to play catchup with our TV programs.

Didn’t watch the premier of House and Fringe until last night.  Crazy season!

Heroes is just getting irritating now. But I can’t seem to tear my eyes away from the imbeciles trying to kid themselves into believing that they are really that awesome and smart.

Still missing an episode of Glee from 2 weeks before.

TV dramas down. Now for the animes. Boy oh boy… am I lagging. Just watched last week’s Bleach today.  There’s a new episode tonight.

No wonder I’m four-eyed and in need of sleep. Not because I’m doing something important, but because I can’t get over my addiction and affair with the idiot box.

Hubs seem to think that we don’t have enough storage space for all the megabytes the cartoons are taking up. That’s why we are “working” overtime with the viewing. If only there are more night time hours than day times hours in one day, then our problem will be easily remedied.

We were supposed to go away this weekend. But it will be raining in the tri-state area. I guess we’re either warming the couch or hitting the museums.

Things are also slowly falling into place with travel arrangements for the wedding dinner in KL for December. The three of us finally messed the travel agent up so badly that she got us what we wanted. She couldn’t tell one sister from the other – according to her, we ALL sound alike.  She even mixed up the hubbies and the emails. Last night, I received cheh’s travel itinerary. I had to forward it to her. My younger sister got my itinerary two days ago. I got my new itinerary sent to the correct address today.

So after the circus, my younger sister and I realize that we are traveling on the same flight. At the end of the day, I called the travel agent up to see if it is possible that the four of us sat close to each other.

That would be tomorrow’s mayhem when I tell the agent I want aisle seats while my sister wants the window.  The seating is three rows of three seats in the 777 aircraft.  Good luck finding us our seats!

All good things…

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WEEK 6

Saturday, Sept. 26, 2009

Last weekend with my parents cooking, cleaning, nagging and fussing over us.  This is the last hoo-rah.

Mommy started early prepping for all the meals for the day. There was Hainanese Chicken Rice for lunch and Bak Kut Teh for dinner.  My youngest sister was flying back to NYC from Toronto and coming to Jersey to be with the family.

Lunch was supposed to be at 1pm.  We waited until 2:30 pm.  The buses never came.

Now, we are sharing pictures from the wedding. My uncle, an amateur, did a better job in composition and color than the “professional” photographer did with his unfocused, pixelated, blurry, crooked, non-candid “work.”  Everyone needs to know NOT to hire this scam artist of a wannabe photographer. This guy gives photographers a bad name.

• Doug Walters •

He has no eye for art.  In fact, I think he has NO EYES.  Even the blind can see better.
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Light at the end of the Tunnel

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WEEK 5

Saturday, Sept. 19, 2009

The day started early, and with much on our plates.

am: Meet at headquarters. Flowers to be cut & prepped. Phoas go sailing.

noon: Thai food with the Phoas & Chongs

after lunch: completion of the bouquets

Mommy & Daddy go back to the shit-ting hole to ensure that our things are moved to the right room.

3:30 pm: mani/pedi

5 pm: shower for dinner

7 pm: Japanese food with the Phoas & Chongs

after dinner: last minute to dos

At least that was the plan.  It went more like this.

am: Met at headquarters. Roses were de-thorned, de-leafed, shortened & then fed. That took longer than expected. The Phoas & the Chongs didn’t go sailing.

1 pm: Thai food with some of the Phoas & Chongs was pushed back.  Thai food was edible but not palatable.

after lunch: Jee Ma, Ta Mai, cousin TT, my younger sister and I went back to headquarters to assemble the bouquets – 4 bridesmaids’ and the bride’s.  Cousin TT misses Toronto film fest to hang out with the girls and to be “abused” by us. Had trouble trying to figure out how to tie the bouquet and boutonnière.  But eventually managed it.

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Towards a goal

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WEEK 4

Saturday, Sept. 12, 2009

Headed to work bright and early to set up my computer today.

Then we meet my parents at Garden State mall, Paramus and went for kaiten sushi (carousel sushi) for lunch in Bergenfield. Since mommy doesn’t eat sushi, she ordered grilled salmon which was shared with the entire family.  She ate quite a huge chunk of fish, unlike her usual intake of 2 tbsp of rice and meat.

Mommy then made Hainanese chicken rice for dinner.  Jessie hung around the kitchen the entire time, hopping for something to drop on the floor.  No such luck.  But I did pull a small slice out for her dinner.

She proclaimed that the rice was a “failure.” We thought we struck gold.  Contrary to what she said, she took an extra helping of chicken rice.  She must really be hungry today. Either that, or I must not be feeding her for the pass month.
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To eat is prosperity 能吃是福

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WEEK 3

Saturday, Sept. 5, 2009

Woodbury Common here we come – again! This trip with my parents reminded us of our last trip.  Last Thanksgiving, we decided to “try out” shopping  in Woodbury in the middle of the night aka at 12 am.  Black Friday started mighty early for us.  All was good until we got pass Exit 15, the last exit on Interstate 87 before tolls, then we saw a string of break lights.  That was midnight.  By the time we got to the next exit, Exit 16 – OUR exit, it was FOUR AM.  We literally sat in a 2-mile jam for 4 hours trying to get to Woodbury Common.  We wanted to turn back so many times, but there were no outlets.  We sat through the jam, cursing the bloody Asian people and their extreme need to shop for branded goods in the middle of the night.

Thank goodness we were lucky to have found a parking spot almost immediately after pulling into the lot.  That day, we shopped till we dropped.  Cheh and I bought Coach bags like they were free.  Hubs got suede Puma shoes that were very stylish.  By the time we got home, at 8 am, we were totally beat.  What recession?!  Asian people keep money under their beds in tin cans and somehow it grows, like the much sought after backyard money-bearing-tree.

Lucky for us, there was no such mad rush and the need to buy this time around.  Yet, there was still a little congestion going in.  Mommy had to go to the toilet right away.  Cheh calls it the, “pundi kencing tak berguna” – bladder that doesn’t work.  We split for an hour before meeting for lunch.  During that hour, I got intructions from my younger sister to find a “better attire” for my mom for the wedding.  Trying to outfit my mom with new clothes is like trying to dress the king.  Everything was either too tight, too long, too in-fashion, too old-fashioned, too bright, too expensive or just not what she wants.  I even got an earful from her about why her own “dress” was good enough for the wedding. On top of that, I still had to look for my top for the wedding, one of the reason for going to the outlet in the first place.
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Malaysians bearing gifts

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I haven’t seen my parents for more than a year now, since our wedding in KL last summer.  So, it was with great excitement and haste that we cleaned the house in anticipation of their arrival.  For 4 weekends in a row, we cleaned, scrubbed and dusted the house.  But with Jessie around, our 9/10-year-old cocker spaniel, the dust and the fur balls magically reappeared the moment we unsullied the place.

So on Friday night, after work, we scurried home to start the cleaning.  It was finally at 9 pm that we were done, and had dinner.

WEEK 1

Saturday, Aug. 22, 2009

I woke up a little after 6:30 am.  Boiled gingko biloba with pearl barley in preparation.  Cut up all the vegetables for the week, marinated the chicken to be baked later and then readied a crock-pot for chicken curry.  After checking that everything was pristine, clean and put away, I finally sat down around 9:30 am.  Their plane was scheduled to arrive at 10 in Newark that morning.  We tracked the plane’s flight on-line and it was behind schedule.  We left the house 15 minutes later.

We reached the airport albeit a stall vehicle on the road, and a changed arrival entrance at the airport. We thought we were late.  My parents were later.  They finally came out from US Customs and Border, flustered, around 11:30 am.  Their mooncakes with yolk were confiscated. Mommy, however, managed to “smuggle” a piece of fresh ginger!
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Roots

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First installment of our beginnings.  I managed to squeeze some heart-wrenching stories out from my father. More than a 100 years of history would have been lost if there was no thought of our past.  And this will be passed down to the next generation and the next to reminds us of how lucky we truly are and to be thankful for what we have.

Together with my father, we manage to come up with this – the Chong family history.

My mom doesn’t seem to remember anything.  The Phoas will have to wait a while until I get my aunts to spill their guts.

3 becomes 5…6?

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At first there were three of us.  Three girls.  Three sisters constantly at each other’s throats.  We fought like there was no tomorrow.  We played like there was no regrets.  We entertained each other while our parents were at work.  We watched each other’s backs whilst we tried not to kill the other off. We played with the neighborhood boys – climbing trees, playing tag, racing, scrapping our knees – we WERE one of the boys.  We did not have gameboys, or nintendos, no computers nor was watching the tv 24/7 allowed.  We had nature.  We drew hopscotch lines in the sand.  Played skipping rope using tied up rubber-bands.  When we had run ourselves tired, ragged and dirty, we would head home for dinner and THEN homework.

Slowly, but surely, we all left our safe cocoon we call home.

We each made our ways to America to further our studies, to further our careers.  Through hard work and gritted teeth we finally settled in to our adopted country.  And now we are starting to build nests.  I am no longer one.  But two.  That makes four in the family.

This September 2009 there will be another addition to the siblings.  Three girls, two boys, … and maybe in the near future, the score will be even.