March 2017 in Pictures

2 March: We had a huge team of vollies, many of them first-timers, for Kedai Jalanan, our pop-up street 'store' for the homeless and urban poor, at the Homeless Assistance Centre (Pusat Bantuan Gelandangan) at Medan Tuanku despite the rain and traffic. So good to see so many young people volunteering!
 
   
 

 4 March: Attended Petra and Junior's joint birthday poolside party and things got a little wild.
 
   
 

5 March: Green Living partnered up with the Turtle Conservation Society of Malaysia for the screening of Racing Extinction. I set up an outreach booth and conducted a quiz for which I had sponsored the prizes in order to encourage attendance and participation. We had a full house.
 
   
 

11 March: Paddleboarding at Putrajaya Lake with the gang on the occasion of Hari's birthday.
 
   
 
   
 

11 March: Attended the overrated and underwhelming hot air balloon fiesta at Desa Park City with Nicole. There were just a handful of balloons and huge crowds. I'll give this a miss next year.
 
   
 

11 March: Fireworks at the hot air balloon fiesta.
 
   
 

12 March: Bath and tickwash time for the dogs at the PAWS Animal Welfare Society shelter.
 
   

15 March: So this sorta kinda happened and I was featured in The Star in conjunction with International Women's Day. They had a series on women activists and I was one of those interviewed: http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2017/03/15/in-giving-we-receive-volunteering-empowers-you-to-be-the-change-you-want-to-see/

 

16 March: This particular week's creative writing and service project for my teens at the Beacon of Hope -- writing postcards to senior citizens.
 
   
 

17 March: My very handy and light bento for St. Patrick's Day. I call this composition "Pot of gold at the end of the rainbow".
 
   
 

17 March: Fair warning. Spit constitutes a weapon of mass destruction.
 
   
 

19 March: Well hey there, cutie-patootie! Spotted this vintage charmer at the parking lot of my friend's apartment.
 
   
 

19 March: Cos sometimes you just feel like baking individual vegan upside-down pineapple cakes at 4 a.m.
 
   
 

19 March: Two big sillies. Lulu is back at the SPCA for boarding. She is a former office dog.
 
   
 

19 March: Many Thanks to Karen Michaela Tan, Ng Geok Chunn, Alicia Ling Horsley and Cindy Yap for the toys, games and preloved books for the Sabah village school adopted by Ecocentric Transitions.
 
   
 

23 March: Meet my latest adoptee, Chantique. Her rescuers -- good friends of mine -- could not keep her due to allergies and health reasons, so I welcomed Chantique into my home two weeks ago as I have experience caring for differently-abled and medically vulnerable animals. Chantique is settling in nicely and not so feral and skittish anymore. I think she likes having me as a mum.
 
   
 

24 March: Friday lunch at my favourite taco place, ThymeOut Sunway, with one of my fave people, Ellen. I had the El Gandhi vegan burrito and it is so, so good! Not easy to find good southwestern food here but dang this place is the ish!
 
   
 

25 March: Doggie-Doos Washing Day at the KL Pooch Rescue.
 
   
 

25 March: Doing two shelter shifts today. Second shift (after KL Pooch Rescue) at the SPCA, cleaning cages and taking care of the Quarantine kittens and cats.
 
   
 

26 March: Shelter sweetheart Soda says "Hi! Notice anything different about me today?" Two of the volunteers took her out for an event at a pet café and painted her nails as a treat.
 
   
 

26 March: Completed the BRT run at 3 a.m. together with LiLi and my friend Ee Koon's partner Chris. We did the charity wave at 2 a.m. to raise funds for the National Cancer Society of Malaysia. The event was very well organised, with the exception of the emcee, who is a blathering halfwit. Chris was super fast, we thought he was going to end up coming home with a trophy, but alas, he didn't.
 
   
 

27 March: Decided to make futomaki at midnight without ever having rolled a sushi in my life, so obviously everything came out oddly-shaped. I used brown rice and quinoa and it was fine and the ingredients (kyuri, sweetcorn, tomato, cucumber, celery and spicy floss) still held together. Vegetarian cupcake on the top right came from my awesome kindergarten teacher Mrs. Balendran because she loves me!
 
   
 

28 March: Still Life with Kitten. (Model: Harriet, 5 months old)
 
   
 

29 March: Logan says: "Hello, I'm here to sit on your apron and prevent you from getting any housework done!"
 
   
 

31 March: My sister Amber is finally discharged after two long weeks at the vet for an infection that took a long time to heal due to her age. Can you tell we were both very glad to be reunited and going home?
 
   
 
 

A Half-Assed Runner's Diary

I make no secret of the fact that I am lazy when it comes to exercise. I love outdoor activities and hard physical labour (housework, gardening, hands-on volunteering and home improvement/DIY projects), but running for running's sake just seems like such a mindless, tedious activity to me. I can't for the life of me see why I loved it so much in my schooldays.

 

This is probably how my friends (who are serious runners) prepare for marathons and road races:

Mon: Slow long distance run

Tues: Speed work

Wed: Recovery run

Thurs: Slow long distance run

Fri: Speed work

Sat: Social / group run

Sun: Sunrise hike up some hill or mountain or the other, where they will take fantastic photos of Broga Hill / Tabur East / Bukit Kutu / Gunung Nuang / Gunung Datuk and post it on Facebook with inspirational quotes about goal-setting.

Repeat every week until the week of the Race. Build up weekly base mileage over a period of 6 months.

Race Week: Carbo-load. Daily tempo run and strength-building exercises.

Night before a race: Get race gear ready, eat well, get plenty of sleep.

 

And this is how I prepare for half-marathons and road races:

Mon: Play silly buggers. 

Tues: Play silly buggers.

Wed: Play silly buggers.

Thurs: Play silly buggers.

Fri: Play silly buggers.

Repeat each day and each week until the week of the Race.

Night before the race: Go through collection of sneakers to locate pair with lowest number of duct tape patches. Download exciting audiobooks into MP3 player to listen to while running. Go to bed 4 hours before the race.

 

In spite of my lack of self-discipline and disinclination for training, however, I signed up to run a half-marathon (21km) for Hospis Malaysia in the Run For A Reason category of the Standard Chartered KL Marathon this year. I am a better fundraiser than I am an athlete, and thanks to the generosity of my friends, I managed to raise RM1,400.00 for Hospis Malaysia.

  

I participated in two road races in July and August, which means I have reached my personal target of running in 3 road races this year (the first one was the Turtle Conservation Run in March). It should have been 3 road races in 3 weeks, but I busted my left ankle during the Standard Chartered KL Marathon and could not participate in the Wild Tiger Run the following Sunday.

 

On 31st July, I participated in the Blood Donor Fun Run, which I had registered for during my last blood donation on 14th May.

 

 

This photo collage was made after my last whole blood donation at the National Blood Bank on 14th May. I had spent the morning observing and making notes on the SPCA's Pet Care Programme, and then went to donate blood during lunch hour. The National Blood Bank has a certain allocation of meatless meals for vegetarian blood donors these days, for which I am grateful. On that particular day, I was given fried kuay teow, a doughnut, an apple and a hot beverage. I then picked up a race form and signed up for the race on my way out of the blood bank.

 

I completed the Blood Donor Fun Run and picked up my Finisher's Medal despite arriving late (couldn't find a parking spot) and getting distracted several times by a flock of Painted Storks, a Greater Racket-Tailed Drongo and some Black-Naped Orioles.

 

 

Painted Storks around the lake at the Bukit Jalil Recreational Park.

 

 

Painted Storks ignoring me while I ignored the fact that I had a run to complete.

 

 

Completed the run and picked up my Finisher's Medal. What a way to reward and celebrate mediocrity. I get a medal for my half-assed effort. You get a medal, I get a medal, she gets a medal, everybody gets a medal. Wheeee.

 

 

Chilling out with Scar the Cat at the SPCA shelter after my run.

 

 

The following Sunday, I ran 21km in the Standard Chartered KL Marathon without getting distracted by birds or wildlife, because we ran in the middle of the city.

 

Truthfully, I hardly felt the boredom or fatigue of running for over 3 hours, since I had some good audiobooks on my little MP3 to keep my mind occupied.

 

I felt quite pleased with my Finisher's Medal, although my finishing time was less than stellar, because I managed to raise quite a tidy sum for a good cause.

 

 

I took the opportunity to have my photo taken at Hospis Malaysia's booth...

 

 

 ... and I received a special souvenir t-shirt for succeeding in raising more than RM500 for my chosen charity. I took this photo at home for the benefit of a friend who wanted to know what our souvenir shirts look like. The scowl, gun show and boxing glove are, of course, gratuitous.

 

 

I  had also registered for the Wild Tiger Run for tiger conservation, which took place last Sunday, 14th August, but found that I was still unable to put any weight on my left ankle on the morning of the run, and sadly had to bail out.

 

However, my ankle wasn't bad enough to stop me from going to the SPCA shelter to bathe and tickwash dogs.

 

 

 And as is my usual fashion, I made myself a lunchbox of little vegan medals on Monday, as a nod to the 2016 Summer Olympics, flawed though it may be, and to my recent small haul of finisher's medals in road races, mediocre though my performance may be.

 

I will probably never win any medals for speed and outstanding performance, but that won't stop me from participating in future road races and running for good causes. I may be a half-assed athlete but at least I know I am all heart when it comes to fundraising and volunteering.

Spring Equinox Weekend

So I hear it is spring in many parts of the world right now. Nope, no change here in my neck of the woods. Hot, humid and hazy as usual. With intermittent rain that leaves dusty streaks all over one's car.
 

The Spring Equinox / Easter weekend had been a rather busy one, even by my standards.

 

'Superman vs Batman: Dawn of Justice' opened in cinemas that week, and I caught the midnight screening on the 23rd and agreed to go again with Angela and Rudhra on the 25th.

 

I am clearly taking sides and making no apology about it.

 

While waiting to enter the cinema, we wandered around the shopping mall late at night after all the shops have closed. Rudhra and I decided to play on the Spun chairs until the kindly security guard came to ask us to leave politely.

 

I watched 'Dawn of Justice' twice only because of Jeremy Irons and Gal Gadot.

Jeremy Irons, oh my.

Cavill is rather attractive and Affleck is charmingly broody, but I would rather have Mr. Classical Actor with the Crisp Manly Voice anytime.

Funnel ferry bubble bath, funnel ferry bubble bath.

If I am ever in a relationship again, I want my partner to whisper that to me. The dialogue was otherwise cringeworthy and the plot illogical and full of gaps. I love Batman but he delivered some of the worst lines to ever come out on the big screen. "That is the smell of fear. You are not brave. Men are brave". What in damnation? Did they get someone's 9-year-old nephew drunk  on Mountain Dew and set him out to write the script with a crayon? Batman, you're just being an asshole. Superman wasn't being a coward, he was dying. Suffocating is not the same thing as chickening out.

Still, watching Gal Gadot make her dramatic entrance made it worth the ticket price. Of both tickets.
 

 

Saturday was spent at the SPCA animal shelter, bathing and tickwashing dogs and Frontlining cats as usual. Here are two of the puppies we had at the shelter that particular weekend, Porsche and Mercedes, both female. They have since been adopted together by a loving and deserving family.

 

After tidying up at the shelter and showering, I barrelled over to KLCC to meet up with Angela and Rudhra for dinner. 

I have always loved KLCC Park especially at sundown, when the lights are switched on but the sky is not completely dark yet. The musical rainbow fountains may be kitschy but I still find them rather captivating.

 

The actual reason we went to KLCC that night was to check out the giant indoor slide for adults at Avenue K, because I had read about it on TimeOutKL and wanted to have a go on it before it was dismantled. Angela declined to have a go, but Rudhra and I went to town on it.

 

Of course I had to do a 'Superman' on it like the big nerd that I am.

 

I should not have stayed out so late on Saturday night knowing that I had a race to participate in on Sunday morning. I had registered for a charity challenge run to benefit the Turtle Conservation Society of Malaysia. The event could have been better managed. There was insufficient information on the run. I didn't even know the distance, the 'challenges' involved, whether it was a proper competition or whether there would be race kits and finisher's medals until I was at the starting line. I did it to support and advance the cause of the Turtle Conservation Society of Malaysia, of which I am a life member and volunteer, and that was all that was important to me.

 

I signed up alone but made friends with the other participants standing to my left and right during the warm-up session. The organisers had run out of race shirts by then but I didn't mind as I didn't really need another shirt. I have given all my race shirts to the homeless through Kedai Jalanan, our pop-up street store, anyway.

 

Well, the participants were split into two groups due to the narrowness of the starting point, so there was no way of getting a fair or accurate assessment of the runners' speed. Good thing the organisers didn't plan on giving out prizes to participants who crossed the finish line first, or they would have started a riot. The event also entailed running up and down the steep speedbumps and hillocks on the mountain bike trail, through a web of old rubber tyres and through a pond made by filling up the bowl at the skate park with water.

 

I crossed the finish line with my 'turtle egg' intact and claimed both my finisher's medal and 'mystery prize' (a keychain) and went to the Turtle Conservation Society booth to chat with my friend, the co-founder, Pelf, and her amiable and supportive mother, who seems to be the most regular volunteer for her daughter's cause.

 

With Pelf and her Mum at the Turtle Conservation Society of Malaysia booth. And yes, I ran in jeans and the previous night's clothes because that's how I roll. Of course the cuffs of my Bermuda jeans got wet while I was wading through the skate-bowl-pond, but it wasn't dirty or uncomfortable to sit in or anything.

 

Went home to do an Easter Egg Hunt for the Rowdies since it was Easter Sunday after all, and my niece is still too little to hunt for eggs.

 

I managed to get flat-bottomed plastic eggs from 7-Eleven to make it easier for the eggs to stand on one end. Then I filled each egg with Greenies and other cat treats and put the lids on loosely so that my cats could still smell the treats within. I shook the treat-filled eggs to get their attention and then hid the eggs all over the house.

 

It was a great success. Classic animal enrichment activity. The Rowdies loved hunting down and opening up their Easter eggs.

These two. Up to no good as usual.

 

What a pawsome Easter for my pawsome little family.