Tag Archives: United States

Anxious Wait

13 Jun

It was so stressful waiting to hear from M2. I was tired, anxiety was eating at me and the headache was kicking in. The body was going into reserve mode to stay calm. We arrived at six whilst she’s due to arrive at 8.35am. Two and a half hours of anxiety instead of a leisurely paced four-hours wait before the next flight.

Because she flew domestic from Dublin to Amsterdam, M2 arrived at a different terminal. So when we finally heard from her, we quickly made our way over to the designated departing gate. Relief and happiness took over when we finally saw her.

There was a delay for the connecting flight to Portland. Instead of departing at 10.00am local time, it was retimed to 10.20am. Further delays saw us eventually taking off at 10.50am. Another long journey ahead but this time there’s no night for us as the flight was scheduled to arrive before noon. I’m so messed up by now with time, time zones, day and night.

I decided to take a painkiller to suppress the headache and try to sleep it off. With the cabin lights dimmed to simulate night, I decided to sleep but the crying toddler in front of me was just too disturbing. On top of that, there were occasions of a foul whiff coming from the front. Stinky diaper! Eewww…

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In Transit

12 Jun

We arrived at Schiphol Airport at six local time. The flight took 12 hours. I had a restless night, so ended up watching two movies, ate when I was not supposed to and now, I can feel a headache developing. Uh Oh…

Behind the smile lurks a headache developing

We had to go to the Transfer Hall for further security check, going through a body scan and the carry on luggage scans. And of course, I had to remove my Blundstone boots, all part of the process.

As we are sitting here having a coffee and juice, M2 has flown this morning as scheduled. Yay.

Next flight is in three hours’ time, a slight 20 minutes delay from the original 10.00am local time. Maybe I can sleep better on the next leg.

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Long Long Night

12 Jun

It rained and poured like crazy thus we had to leave home a little bit earlier to beat the traffic to get to the airport. What would normally take slightly under an hour took us an hour and a half.

But we had to leave early because sometimes when the timing is off by a mere five minutes, the consequences are very stressful. In this case, anticipating the traffic heading towards the airport.

But luckily we managed to arrive early despite a 45-minute crawl at one stretch on the highway. Oh well, we didn’t mind. Better early than late. We waited for an hour before the counters opened for check-in. And within a short time, we were checked in and all set!

We then went to the Premium Lounge to have a light dinner and a nice cold Carlsberg, chilling for an hour before heading to the gate. Everything was smooth sailing.

However, departure was slightly delayed because the runway was congested and we took off at 11.48pm, a 28-minute delay. We are finally on our way.

Within a short while, dinner was served! My goodness, talk about a midnight snack, it was a hearty Briyani Chicken rice. I ate whatever I could, which was not much, and tried to sleep. Not easy though.

Throughout the long long night, it was very uncomfortable. The seats were very narrow. I turned left, I turned right and couldn’t find a comfortable position. Needless to say, I hardly slept and we have another ten plus hours journey to go after the transit.

I dozed in and out of sleep. Somehow time went by pretty fast and soon, day was breaking and I couldn’t sleep anymore. My watch showed 7.45am, KL’s local time. And the first thing that came to my mind was my Candy Crush Soda! Hah! Still can’t let go.

The phone and the iPad could register Day 1024 because both are in flight mode and not updated with the time zone that we are in. Heheh… maybe the next leg, I won’t be so lucky.

Next I checked my MiBand2 and I actually only had 40 minutes of deep sleep and five hours and 21 minutes of light sleep. Yeah, I’m tired.

As I am jotting my thoughts now, the screen is showing another 23 minutes to arrival. Yay.

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Be Silly or Be Happy

11 Jun

Today’s the day we leave! But there are worries, silly ones and several of it…

Silly #1: my cocoon is still hanging on the front tree and it’s been seven weeks since the giant caterpillar morphed into it; way overdue from what I checked online to be at this stage. Why is the moth not emerging? Is the constant rain stunting its metamorphosis? Is it even still alive and okay? I dare not climb up the ladder to check because it’s way too high. Whatever it is, looks like we will miss the moth emerging from the cocoon if it does decide to come out during our time away.

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It’s nice in here, I’m not ready for the world

Silly #2: my 1000 and more Days trek on the Daily Bonus for Candy Crush Soda on the retired iPhone5S will be broken because I am not bringing the phone along. And will the iPhone XR and iPad Mini have the trek broken too being in different time zones? I told myself I should stop this obsession but I just can’t shake it off. Silly.

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Day 1016 for the iPhone5S and Day 1023 for both the iPad Mini and iPhone XR

Silly #3: will Rooney, official pet number one miss us?

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Should I chew on it or not? Hmm…

Silly worries aside, there are some happy reasons too…

Happy #1: the pineapple in the garden. It’s been more than two years that hubby’s been taking care of it, and thank goodness it decided to ripen on time before we leave. Harvested last Friday, the fruit of labor and love weighed a whopping two kilos! Needless to say, the juicy and home-grown pineapple was thoroughly enjoyed.

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Juiciest pineapple ever!

Happy #2: the constant rain seems to be good for the habanero plant for it has thrived well and we had a bumper harvest. So much chillies! I ate a little on Wednesday night and oh my goodness, almost died from the fiery burn. This batch is super duper spicy.

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The spicy level of the reds win hands down over the greens

Happy #3: we will be meeting up with M2 in Amsterdam! Yes, our baby will fly tomorrow from Ireland to meet us at Schiphol. And she will miss a few days of Summer classes which unfortunately can’t be helped. I feel it’s important for her to attend her only sister’s Commencement ceremony, hence the plan as such.

Happy #4: we will finally be seeing M1. The last time the family unit was complete was when she came back for Christmas in 2017, so that’s like a year and a half since we last saw our firstborn in person. The weekly Skype video sessions do not count. Can’t wait. A 12 hours and 40 minutes flight for the first leg, then a four-hour transit before the second leg of 10 hours and 17 minutes flight (hopefully no delays) before the family will be whole again. Yay!!!

I guess with the happy reasons outweighing the silly ones, I shouldn’t be too silly and just be happy.

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Have Blundstone Will Travel

10 Jun

I am excited that my Blundstone boots, after being fitted with new soles, will finally be put to good use from tomorrow onwards. We are flying over to the US for M1’s Commencement ceremony as she has completed her undergraduate studies.

Initially when I was doing my research for flights, I wanted to fly Eva Air because of the Hello Kitty-themed aircrafts. Heheheh… I know it’s kinda silly for a dinosaur like me but hey, Hello Kitty IS cute.

But I couldn’t find suitable connecting flights to our final destination upon arrival at LAX, SFO or even SEA. The transit options are all too short to clear immigrations. Oh well, forget Hello Kitty then.

So we are going with KLM via Amsterdam’s Airport Schiphol with a four-hour transit before the next leg directly into PDX which works out perfectly. Stay with me for the next two weeks plus for our exciting journey to the Pacific Northwest!

And yesterday I managed to schedule another body massage at the spa, a last minute little indulgence before flying. This time unlike the last time with no choice at all, I had the granny undies or G-string to choose before the session. I took the G-string thinking since I had to strip down to my bones to be worked on, I might as well wear something without hindrance to the new masseur for her to do her job.

And it was a job well done for she worked out the kinks especially on the legs and feet, in time for me to be ready for the trip!

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March Madness All Over Again, Part 2

4 Apr

The 2019 NCAA Basketball Tournament is drawing to a close soon. The better seeded teams lived up to their billing in the Sweet 16 round of this year’s Women’s Division 1 basketball. Unfortunately, M1’s university did not make it pass this round. Their best performance was in 2016 when they made it to the Final Four.

This year, my prediction picks for the Women’s Division 1 were spot on for three out of the four that qualified for the Final Four. May the best team wins!

And now that M1 has completed her undergrad studies, I am indecisive if I will continue to follow basketball, her alma mater or even the NCAA thereafter. Also because M2 being in Ireland, basketball is not a big thing at her college, the interest in the game may diminish once the NCAA concludes. We shall see. After all, there are still some good teams out there to follow.

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March Madness All Over Again

19 Mar

March is the month for sports that I enjoy. There’s the golf Iron Challenge at my club at the end of the month which I am preparing for and then, there’s the college basketball NCAA Tournament which has started after the regular season ended.

This is the fourth year I am following the March Madness schedule and putting my two cents worth to predict the winners for both the men and women’s games in the draw.

M1’s university has made it to the NCAA Women’s Division 1 bracket again. For the third consecutive year, six Pac-12 teams made it. And of course, I will be rooting for her school. The first round games start this Saturday.

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Before the Reunion Dinner 2019

4 Feb

Last Thursday was our last day at work because Friday was a public holiday. And we left town only on Sunday morning, clocking the drive 15 minutes shy of six-hours. I would say this was not too bad despite a crawl along a stretch that lasted 20 minutes and we even had a quick half-hour lunch stop.

The horrid crawl

A flavorful Nasi Kerabu at the Agromall

And this morning, we actually managed to play a round of golf before the Reunion Dinner tonight.

For us, this year’s Reunion Dinner is simply just another dinner with the family. Both our girls are not here for the first time and it feels funny without them. This is something we both have to get used to. Who knows? Maybe M1 will be back for the next Dinner? But M2 certainly won’t for the next few years… Sniffle.

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What Can We Order?

25 Jan

Eating out is now a problem with M2 away in college. We are small eaters all these years. Even when M1 was around, we always ordered three portions for the four of us to share and you could say there were choices.

When M1 left for her studies, we resolved this predicament by ordering only two for three, less choices but always a mix and match for sharing and it worked out well the last four years.

But now, with M2 away, we certainly cannot use this equation anymore when eating out. Given that there are some things I don’t eat these days to manage my Endometriosis, the options don’t look too appealing – it will either be no choice or too much. Sigh.

It will take some tweaking to arrive at a comfortable balance that both hubby and I will be satisfied when we do eat out. We shall see.

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A New Beginning

15 Jan

M2’s travel to Ireland was more manageable to track, eight hours behind our time compared M1’s travel to the US where the time difference was much more and so hard to keep up, travelling back in time and all.

She had a big send-off entourage which was nice but emotional at the same time. Sad tears flowed among family and friends present at the airport to see her off but there was also happiness for her as she faces a new beginning.

Like her cousins and sister, we are very proud of M2 to bravely go off to college without us having to accompany her – being so young at 17 and a half years old, surpassing even M1. Her taking this path in stride, to see and experience the world and be more independent makes me tear up when I think about it because my baby is all grown up.

M2 may be travelling in a group with other students unlike M1, who travelled solo but the fact remains both girls didn’t need us to go with them. M1 graduates this year while M2 has just begun her exciting journey.

We got home at almost two in the morning and I couldn’t sleep, needing to keep track of her on flightaware.com. This is the best site/app ever to live track the what, where and when status of an aircraft. When morning came, I was like a zombie in the office from the lack of sleep and my eyes still stung and remained puffed from all the tears shed.

By Monday evening our time, she arrived safely. The layover in Dubai wasn’t too long and Emirates is a great airline. I heave a sigh of relief knowing she’s well on her way to greater things in life.

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M2 onwards to her new and exciting beginning!

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