Venus Is Up

Notes From Venus

My pet project which I've been working on for some time is finally up and running. Check out the link above. Notes From Venus is a women's blog portal covering all aspect of a women's life. We welcome contributions in the form of articles or even participation by giving comments. Please spread the word around and drop by for a visit. Men are also welcomed! :)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a good 2007 ahead.

It was a good Christmas. The eve was spent with the gang, Merv, Fred, Calvin, Chris, Ally, Jules, Wendy, El and Penny. Mervin made turkey which was yummy and I made the rest, my "famous" whipped potato, potato salad and baked vegetables. From the last party, guests didn't really dig the salad so I cooked the vegetables this time. I also made aglio olio and pumpkin soup. It was so funny but 30 seconds into saying lets eat and having people dig into the glorious food, I realized that I forgot to bring out the whipped potato and potato salad! It was kinda cute that people cheered and clapped when they saw the whipped potato being brought out. hahaha.

After dinner, I decided to be cina and put on the Christmas karaoke. Mervin hogged the mike but it was all good fun. Somehow they wanted more and other karaoke classics were brought out. People left quite early somehow, but just as well, I had Christmas day parties to deal with.

On Christmas day, I went home to mommy's, she made HER famous crispy skin roast chicken which was SO yummy! As usual. Her chicken stuffing was also nice, I have to learn the recipe one day. She also bought Christmas pudding which was gorgeous coz it was more like a sticky date pudding. I put it to bake in the oven and when it came out sizzling and steaming, we topped it off with ice cream. BURP!

I decided to hang the Christmas ribbons with the gingerbread Christmas tree on Moose. He was such a well behaved darling, just sat there and waited for me to get it over with. When he finally had a whiff of the gingerbread hanging around his neck, he started to chew on the tree. Amazingly after all that chewing, the tree retained its shape, but with one less deck. Cody then suddenly realize there was nibbles hanging around Moose's neck and he chomped on the gingerbread while growling at Moose! He didn't realize that Moose didn't have a choice, the tree/gingerbread was stuck to him. So cute the furkids were.

For tea, I was at Ann's, now SHE is another superb chef. I turned down two other parties after that, couldn't take any more socializing and food! It was nice catching up with those close to me though.

I hope everyone had as good a Christmas as I did. Oh did I mention how gorgeous the Christmas tree sitting at home looks? I had a purple and silver theme this year, the Christmas presents also took on the same theme, it was quite something especially when lit at night. Think I'll keep the tree up for a little while more...

Quote of the Day

"Don't get even, get everything" - Ivana Trump

Money or Sex Appeal

Katherine Hepburn once said, "If you're given a choice between money and sex appeal, take the money. As you get older, the money will become your sex appeal".

She might just be right! Mom and friends were happily joking that even at their age, they would be choosy about the widowed men wanting to court them. One said that she wouldn't give a second look to an "ah pek", but quickly changed her mind and said "unless he has a lot of money". Although they laughed it off, I think there is a bit of truth to that. Of course if the guy is pleasant looking and makes good company, money is a bonus, but money alone too can be the draw.

I think when parents say they would like our partners to be able to take care of us, they meant financially! So much for them saying that money is not important, even at their age, it is...

**jaded**

Travelling

I live to travel, travelling thrills me, it excites me, I love travelling to new places, having new experiences, I just HAVE to travel. I consider myself lucky, having been to quite a number of places in my lifetime. I just booked myself to Cambodia for January - can't wait!

Came across a nice quote recently, thought I'd share it with everyone:

"We travel initially to lose ourselves, and yet we travel next to find ourselves. We travel leaving home, despite never been home completely, yet we travel and we carry a sense of home with us..."

Double Double Confirm!

Thank goodness I survived last week. I was double confirmed twice! *faints*

I recently bought an OSIM massage chair after years of resistance to the ah lian culture and the chinese in me. It was a compact model and fits very well in the apartment. Finally they called me to confirm delivery and the girl who called said that she wanted to "double confirm" my address....OH GOD, HELP ME.....*gritting teeth* It didn't help that she spoke with the high pitch chinese accent. Charmaine told me that when she asked to double confirm, I should've asked her to say the address twice!! :o please, I couldn't stand another minute of talking to that voice.....sigh.

Just when I thought that was the double confirm dose of the week, a guy called about business and he wanted to "double confirm" my number! eeks, I think its like 10 times worse when a guy uses the word double confirm. It is extremely salah, I can't explain it, it just is. I can double confirm that.

Outrageous!

I was enraged to read in the papers this morning that women in Kelantan working in retail outlets and restaurants have been warned to mind their dressing or face a fine!

Apparently the Kota Baru Municipal Council (MPKB) announced that it would no longer tolerate indecent dressing by women, both Muslim and non-Muslim. Their Public Relations officer Mohd Azman Daham said that under local council by-laws women who “dressed sexily or indecently” could be fined up to RM500. Gee, public relations apparently...I'm sure they have lots of firefighting to do now. Trust these guys to always put the blame on women when it is the women who are in fact the victims of lustful, sex-crazed, horny men.

Perhaps MPKB should also adopt the following ruling:

1. Men who cannot control their urges should stay at home between the hours of 6pm to 8am. They should only leave home to go to work and back to prevent them from falling into sin when its "really not their fault"
2. Men who are "suspected" of having roving/hamsap eyes should be immediately fined on the spot by undercover women spies hired by MPKB. Women as spies because they would know when a fellow woman is being perved on
3. Should some women not obey the above ruling, men who still will bring themselves to look at such shameful and intolerable dressing by women should be equally held responsible and fined for wanting to look. Perhaps they can split amongst themselves the RM500 fine?
4. Fines from men committing such immoral acts of looking at another woman lustfully should be put in a fund to invest in clothing for the orphans. The clothes selected by a "fashion committee" in MPKB along with their PR division will be following guidelines imposed by themselves so as to train the young not to grow up dressing unacceptably (God help us if anyone in the committee is "soft" and has good fashion sense, but that's another story altogether eh).

I'm just concerned that the next announcement MPKB issues would ban women from being of a certain body size, e.g. below a size 10 and less than 150 pounds, if not they might look too sexy for men to "tahan", even with decent clothing. Sigh...

I don't disagree that some women dress too provocatively and have way too little cloth, Mariah Carey has become the poster girl, but for crying out loud, we're all humans with personal rights. Take that away or fine someone for being themselves (within acceptable boundaries of course) and we're back in the days of school uniforms, and the MPKB people Gods. Men should take a good look at themselves before blaming women on such matters...seriously!