Grow old

Parents-in-law moved into a retirement village close by three weeks ago. They have been contemplating such a move for some time as they found it harder and harder to keep their old house clean and tidy. No doubt they are also thinking ahead into the future. The move was smooth and we ended up with some of their furniture!

They are the 'young' ones in this retiremet village - average age of residents is 86. As family of the residents, we get to use some of the facilities. Lara swam a couple of times with Grand-dad in the indoor heated swimming pool. We had a meal in the dining hall and Simon played snooker.

It was a little depressing to see very old people with sticks walking around or on wheelchairs. It was also strange finding a nurse distributing drugs to the residents at dinnig tables. When I made this comment to Simon, he shrugged and said how lucky these people are to live to this old age. Indeed! Especially after the bad news we heard about next-door's son. Next door's 23-year-old son was diagnosed of stomach cancer 18 months ago. After unsuccessful chemo, his stomach was taken out a few months ago. His mum told us it's like looking after a new-born again as he needs intravenous feeding and help with everything but 'every day he remains with us is a blessing' she added.

It is not sad to get lots of wrinkles and walk with sticks if you put things into perspective. Some people never get the chance. It is indeed lucky to be able to grow old!

Lara's drawings

Family.
The latest drawings have eyebrows too!


Words.
Lara recognises all the numbers. She writes them mostly left-to-write or up-side-down. (ie number "9" can look like letter "b" or "p") She recogises and can write some leters (A, W, S, O, E, L etc). We started playing 'eye-spy' in the car after reading an 'eye-spy' book. She knows "L" for Lara and lion, "B" for blanket, "C" for cat etc.


Monsters. (The figure that looked like a "2" on the left top corner is how Lara writes a 'S")

Books - first half of 2010

My life in France - by Julia Child, Alex Prud'Homme
Julia Child was a very likable person in this book with lovely photos and insights to the makings of her cook books (the first one took years to publish!, the good life (wine and rich food all day but stomach ulcers at the end of their first year in France!) and the setbacks. Very interesting read.

Final exam - by Pauline Chen
A surgeon's reflections on mortality. The author described how doctors were trained (or not trained really) to handle mortality and how that impact the patients. A lot of interesting facts and food for thoughts. For example, both surgeons and hairdressers hold their scissors with the thumb and the forth finger - apparently it gives better control. Or shocking revealation when the author asked for advices just before the end of her internship and received the most useful one - to prepare for "the day she kills one of her patients" because all doctors do(or surgeons) sometime in their life. There are many life lessons in this book. It's good to know some doctors do care.

Reading:
Men's search for meaning - by Viktor E. Frankl
Harry Potter and the order of the phoenix - by J. K. Rowling

Monday night dinner

Chicken pie. I added leek, carrot, beans, sweet potato and peas to the chicken pieces. A good way to use up left-over veggies.

Sambal and Tamasek

I currently have a craving for spicy (Malaysian) food. I love having laksa or stir fried noodles with lots of chilli for work lunches. We seek out Maylaysian restaurants to go on the weekend. We went to two in the last couple of months.

Sambal (North Ryde)
Sambal was close to where we live but hard to find. We missed the entry(via MacDonald's) and had to make two equivalent U-turns on big busy roads to get there. We didn't book and waited sometime for a table. Food also took sometime to arrive. We had salt and pepper squid, prawn laksa and Hainanese chicken rice for Lara. The laksa was very ordinary. I liked the chicken rice but Simon preferrd the squid. The food was quite alright but not memorable.

Tamasek (Parramatta)
Still has the best laksa we know. We went on a Sunday and luckily found a parking almost outside the restaurant. We took a walk along Parramatta river first and arrived at the restaurant around midday. It was not overly busy, we sat down, ordered and food arrived only a few minutes later. We had Hainanes chicken and char kway teow (with chilli on the side) in addition to the prawn laksa. It was a good combination of food with different flavours. Char kway teow was quite sweet and Laksa frequent and spicy. The only complaint was the cold chicken pieces (I would preferred them warm). We also took away two frozen containers of beef rendeng and had one mid-week. Oh it was the most delicious rendeng we have ever had! And we have more in the freezer!