I am now obsessed with army stew. I ordered it yesterday for dinner. I used to eat that a lot with my baby cousin!! So the shopping centre near where I stay no longer has halal (😜) Korean. Wait. It does. It has the food court one. Oh yeah and 4fingers. And Jinjja. I don’t like the food court one cause it’s always watered down but still spicy la for my stomach. There’s some shopping arena near where I used to work with the watered down Korean food too. I would go to the food court though to get yong tau foo (my favourite!!). Then I would put thick bee hoon and choose tom yam soup and eat at my desk at work.

But the Jinjja army stew has tteokbokki.. 2 slices of luncheon.. maybe a hotdog.. yesterday for some reason it had beans… I don’t eat nuts or beans in general because I don’t like the taste or texture… though I am OK with hazelnut (noisette). I don’t think they have the beef version but I’ve never really looked carefully.

Anyway Michael if you are reading this please email me at myname.mydadsname@gmail.com I would like to talk to you.

I think that qualifies as comfort food for me. I like broths or clear soups. Like the drinkable type. The other time I was with L and we were having hot pot. We both like to sip on soups and broths. So it cannot be oily! Then she said when she used to live with a Malay woman the woman would make soup for them but she cooked with so much oil that L would just take some to put over her rice. She wouldn’t drink the soup. I could imagine. I like Malay food.

When I was a kid we went to Sumatra. I was maybe 8? So background is my mom was Javanese so whatever she cooked was Malay food by a Javanese woman haha! She once bought food with tempeh (the fermented soy) for me and I asked if I could give my boyfriend (non-Malay) cause I didn’t want to eat it before work and he was downstairs to take me to work. She said OK go for it. My bf ate everything including the tempeh. So after that when he called me (he lived in another country) they would speak on the phone lah. All because he ate tempeh and I didn’t. I don’t like it!!! Anyway if it sounds confusing. My former bf lived in another country. I was about to vacation in his country so he flew to Singapore to stay for a couple of days then we’d fly together to where he lived for Christmas. People always teased me he’s so white and pink and I just O_O and told them he’s a millionaire (he was and am sure still is) so they would shut up after they said you know how to find boyfriends. I don’t la! I just like to pick the ones with resources and who are foodies!! Cause I like to eat this and that.

So when we went to Sumatra I really liked the nasi goreng (fried rice) and I asked my mom why she never made it like that. It’s one of the reasons I don’t ever want children. It’s the shit they (including me!) say. My mom was shocked.. she’s like you know right Indonesian fried rice is kecap with kecap.. mine is with bumbu (spice mix). Now when I think back it reminds me of that Desperate Housewives episode where Bree Van de Kamp spent hours making ossobuco then her kids were telling her their friends had leftovers or those TV dinners.

I think food is food la. Whatever suits your fancy!

So I clipped some recipes. My cousin gave me hers for roti boyan. My cousin is the kind to cook her sambal for 4 hours. I can’t do that shit I think. Her food is always yummy. My birthday cake (same recipe since I was born) has always been made by her! A few days ago she said for Raya there will be rendang (I play cheat use the premix when I made that) and sambal goreng pengantin. It’s how we Malays (am pretty sure she is full Javanese though..) talk. Well how theyyy talk. I don’t talk like that. She’s basically saying my ass had better be there for Raya. I do go to my uncle’s house (my mom’s older brother) every year without fail but frankly since my dad died I am lazy to ‘celebrate’!! Hehe.

OK lah that’s all la for today I need to go downstairs to have some tea.

I am recruiting people (mostly my relatives) to come on vacation with me. I know it sounds sooo unlikely because I am mostly a solo traveler but two weeks ago I told my cousin and cousin-in-law the sweet spot for people like me is either alone or 3-4 pax. I am mostly YOLO. I am OK doing cheap or somewhat expensive but I just don’t like babysitting people’s asses and having to feel responsible for them. Those with anxiety are worse. (And I have anxiety sometimes but it never shows on my face!) My sister is 50-50 (told her she had to be there because if I died during the holiday she’d be around to still bring my body home in 56D.. (was a joke am sure they’d stick me in cargo) I don’t want to be cremated.. morbid I know but it’s how the Sagittarius live!). My 23 year old niece (actually in anglo they call this ‘first cousin once removed’) is game. We’re similar to each other. We sleep a lot. She has her doudou from when she was a baby which she brings on vacation… the doudou is no longer a doudou it’s just scraps of fabric by now. LET ME FIND A PICTURE.

There we go. Hahaha!!

I didn’t have a doudou growing up because my sleeping pattern was more about having a body (alive) beside me. It’s not the case now. I don’t mind my cats on me while I sleep. I have a few doudous now (I think after my dad died I was just lost so I hung on to my doudous for comfort when I went out).

They are the Monoprix ones! Let me find a photo to give you an idea. So Aurore gave me two for Christmas 2022. I flew with one in my suitcase and one on my person from Paris back home. I lost one in Don Meuang in 2023 which Chappy said in Malay, no less, it was already prostituted (dilacurkan).

I know it sounds bratty of me but this thing ‘just’ costs maybe €9.90 to €15.90 each and I didn’t want the taobao version. And it’s not easy to find in Monoprix stores. It’s made in China of course. Let me look. So last year S sent me 2 new ones via FedEx hahahah. Got to get the French la to buy. You ask any Asian to go Monoprix they’re always like where where which Monoprix. Paris one got? You’re there you lah look for it!

So anyway back to vacation. I think flying is the part I dislike the most. I try to break my flights into 2 legs because of because haahah. Some routes I just don’t like and there is no explanation for it. Example I prefer to go from Singapore to the Middle East then a 3-hour layover then fly to North America or Europe, rather than Singapore straight to Europe to N. America. I flew once to Paris 13 hours direct from Singapore. It was not fun. Then my French driver’s car battery died before he got to the airport to fetch me but I got to have a quick breakfast at CDG and shop a bit even got my phone sorted. The next time I flew to Paris someone asked if I had gotten a driver. I said I’d just take the taxi or Uber to my destination. Like whatever it was it would be €200 thereabouts. She’s like you’re crazy. So she got me a driver. I didn’t like him as much as I liked the first driver. But the second dude was more used to driving important men so he probably didn’t know what to do with a woman in a faux fur winter jacket.. plus I landed at night. It was €170.

Gulf airlines for me are better than my national carrier though my national carrier has a fresh smelling cabin. It smells sterilised. My friends lose their minds when I appear off grid but when you’re flying over restricted areas/territories I’m sure even biz class doesn’t get WiFi lah. I don’t understand them sometimes. You talk to me all the time! Let me go and vacation.

Aside from recipes I clip places I want to visit. There’s even a folder on my Google Drive for it. One of my relatives wants to do a train ride somewhere in Northern Europe but because of the Ukraine war that’s out of the question now. I haven’t found my dream vacation but I like very old cities, buildings, museums, bookstores, and trying new food so most of my holidays are planned around those. Nothing too strenuous. Nothing ever too serious.

I had rabbit in a restaurant about 40 miles southeast of France. Then people would ask did you eat snails did you eat snails. Pshh. I like snails even in Singapore.. but if you’re talking like the French style escargots with butter and a bit of parsley yes, those too. Both in a restaurant and I had some frozen ones from Franprix. Just popped them in the oven. The difference was minor. So maybe should have gotten them from Picard. Hehe.

One time I was having dinner in an Italian restaurant in France with friends and I said my drink was a virgin mojito. The restaurant gave me actual mojito and I said you need to change cause there’s alcohol in it. The guy was like you need it, darling.. so if God ever asks me this in future I will ask him to rewind the tape ar!!

I hated Chinese tea when I was a kid but on a trip to Shanghai they were coming out of winter and the weather was still very cold so when I drank that it was refreshing. I drink pu er now in Chinese restaurants.

Anyway I am telling you all these because apparently some people think I spend my time talking about them. I don’t. I have no interest in other people’s lives aside from my own.. my family’s.. my cousins’… my own friends’. I like celebrity gossip (but don’t care for Blake Lively drama) but I don’t like gossip about some random people I know. You’re not interesting! We are on earth for a limited time. I refuse to spend it thinking and talking about people I dislike. If I know any information about you it’s because people talk at and to me. Then I just hmm and haw la. But your shit isn’t something to write home about la. Get a life.

It’ll be a short one today. I am excited because they have Dodgeball (Ben Stiller) on Netflix so I will watch it before bed. I liked watching that in my late teens and 20s.

Today’s post title is ‘Pergi La Mampos’. That’s my mother tongue. Malay. It just means go and die. But I must emphasise on either the ‘gi’ or ‘la’ part of the phrase.

The other day while talking to someone I realised or believed more and more we just have to trust our bodies. If we don’t feel comfortable with the person there is no amount of cajoling ourselves we can do. I have always disliked this person but I thought okay maybe I was just being oversensitive. So I’ve never really talked to them. Sometimes they would tease me. I never found those instances funny though I recognised that was their attempt to also not dislike me so much. Frankly? I don’t really care. So when this person was talking to me I realised they should just pergi la mampos! cause one thing I dislike them already and the other thing is every time they talk I get irritated but thank God I am not related to them in any shape or form.

Some stuff don’t require much thinking la. Don’t like means don’t like la. Really don’t want you in my orbit I also don’t want to be in yours.

Move on! Vamos. Let’s go!

Am not big on people’s recommendations for books and movies but I indulged my sister’s for Materialists. I quite enjoyed it although I think they should have expanded on Lucy and John’s former relationship. But I like Dakota Johnson when she gives interviews. She is funny like her mom. My sister said the Pedro Pascal (ay Papi!!) character Harry doesn’t know how to love. Which I think isn’t that true because maybe his love language is gifts.. I think for myself while gifts are great I prefer someone I can talk to and be myself with without any (or little) judgment.

Of course I watched White Collar again and again! I would want to meet a real life version of Neal Caffrey. I am sure these people exist. Maybe not as good looking as Matt Bomer, but I’m sure they are interesting people nonetheless. I like when bad guys do bad things because of an itch they need to scratch..those people who scam solely for money.. ehh not so interesting.

I watched the latest episode of High Potential (something like a procedural show). This is the English language version. It was originally French. I think this show, while the premise is good, just lacks a punch. I still haven’t figured that out.

As a kid because my folks read and my sister also read I of course picked up the same habit. So as a kid (around 8 years old?) I liked Judy Blume books! I think only when I was an older teenager they had like series of books for young children WIDELY available. My secret actually is because I am cheapskate I don’t buy magazines on my own..I have a ‘broker’ who ships these and I just pay a fraction of what I would have paid if I shipped directly. Mainly because they ship in ‘bulk’. They’re not individuals. I have been doing this since I was a teenager! I don’t read newsstand magazines.

I stopped reading fiction in my 20s but this past year I tried it again and liked some.

I remember alllll the Judy Blume books I read as a kid. Apparently her most popular was Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. I read that maybe 4 times as a tween. Judy Blume is Jewish. I think a lot of the authors I read when I was a kid were Jewish, so because I paid attention I knew some of the traditions and food they wrote about. As this juncture I must caution please don’t bring politics into stuff.. if you’re upset with the Jews, don’t consume anyyyy media then. So I only found out maybe yesterday they had a movie adaptation of the book released in 2023. Rachel McAdams plays the mother. I love her work! It was a nice movie!! I am glad I watched it. Though the casting was a bit off. Cause in the book Gretchen (one of the minor characters and new friend of Margaret) is the daughter of a doctor so when you read the description in the book you would imagine her as very Jewish and a bitttt more sophisticated than her age (at least it’s what I would!). Just a bit. But the movie has her looking bookish.

In New York City there is a cafe (or appetiser store) I like called Russ & Daughters. My friend who was completing her Master in NYU brought me for brunch. We had some bagels with lox and matzo ball soup.

Have a great weekend. I hope you enjoyed reading this.

Went to my cousin’s house to eat noodles she made hahaha! I love it!!

I’m not sure if Erin Meyer still works in INSEAD but I started reading this book in maybe 2021 and never got around to finishing it. I had read the No Rules Rules (also by her) in 2024.

I am ⅓ of the way through.

Now I need to Google what the difference is between para and por in Spanish. If you know can you tell me? Thanks!

I love plants and flowers. Yesterday my sister and I went to Far East Flora at Clementi Road to look at some and we had hoped to bring some home.

Anyway, in the past I would go to Joan Road (Thomson). NTUC Fairprice everywhere (Singapore supermarket) usually has a selection of JM flowers for sale. While a bit pricier it’s still affordable. But because Clementi Road is easy for me to get to I think I will make more trips there instead.

Here is my small orchid for home. Each of us got a small bunch of flowers (roses for me, gerbera for my sister) and my sister also bought a cactus arrangement.

We then called it a night after a Korean dinner.

My sister’s cactus arrangement:

Have a good one y’all!

I am a day late but I would like to wish you a Happy New Year!

2025 was weird for me but I hope I will do better in 2026!

Chat soon.

This is my second go at this entry but let’s get one thing out of the way: I would like to wish you happy holidays! Hope you will get to spend it with your loved ones and that you will be giving and receiving amazing presents.

This blog entry has a lot of moving parts, so if you have recently gone through a challenging time I hope you will find some comfort. It has a lot to do with grief.

So the different parts:

– my parents and my relationship(s) with them prior to their deaths
– how their deaths affect (still do) me
– my personality and the way I manage difficulties
– things that happened out there in the world that compelled me to write this

I had a pretty solid relationship with my folks although with that kind of trust we placed on one another there was some enabling or co-dependence and a bit of toxicity (nothing like outright abuse or anything). While I spent a chunk of my 20s out and about learning about myself and the world, I made a lot of time getting to know my parents too. We would hang out in karaoke places, Starbucks, talk about the books we’re reading, TV shows we’re watching and digging. We talked about how they grew up, who they had beef with and gossiped about their relatives and family friends. I saw how they treated their relatives and close friends and I hope I can be a bit like that (highly unlikely but okay we can try).

Haha I have to pause a bit here. I have a girl cat (her name is Odette) and her spot has always been on top of my piano. Because S sent me a bunch of stationery and huge books in April, for months now they took up space on my piano. I finally cleared those and my girl cat is back on top of the piano looking all pleased! Hehe!

OK back to my story!

When my parents each died the pain I felt was more about not being able to make memories with them and missing them.

My mom died in 2018 and my dad died in 2022.

I am talking about it now because I never realised it. I only realised it quite recently and they’ve been dead years now.

I am single (by choice) and child free (by choice). I have been living alone after my dad passed away. I have two siblings who are married with children. Well, my sister no longer is as she lost her husband last year but her kids are still alive. Because we are the way we are, nobody is fighting for my parents’ house because it would mean I’d have to sell the house and move. And I hadn’t lived with them in a decade so no thanks for living even temporarily with them.

My personality is.. I prefer to do things privately. I don’t really wanna tell people stuff about what I’ve been up to. It’s not out of fear of judgment. I simply live in my own world. I see crying as a sign of weakness and an inability to manage emotions. I see weakness as something negative and wrong and you should schedule therapy for or find the root cause. I didn’t cry at either parent’s funeral. In fact I flew to Paris for work 2 days after my dad died. I worked (brought my helper to work!) 3 hours after my relatives left my house after my dad died in the morning. I didn’t understand why people were eager to come to my house to give me a hug and offer their condolences. I had my siblings deal with all that while I went to buy 12 pairs of underwear in case I didn’t have access to a laundromat in France.

Before my folks died I was always learning. I’d take sewing lessons. Baking lessons. Writing lessons. Floral arrangement lessons. Language lessons. All sorts of lessons! Anything except sports. I stopped. Perhaps the last class I went to was the basic counselling class which I enjoyed! Other than that I never went for lessons. I blamed it on workload (which was genuinely crazy). I hate the idea of working in an office now!

I also stopped cooking. When my mother was alive I would be granted some access to the kitchen to experiment recipes. I am an OK cook. I would make cakes and cookies and Malay puffs and food and even sent them to my family and friends. With my dad gone I had no reason to cook. It’s not financially sound, I told everyone.

So my life the past three years was about work, socialising (I don’t regret any of these moments but I think a huge part of this was to fill some void) and just making sure my cats were and are fed.

Break time. I need to put on some pants and get water!!

OK I am back.

One time about 2 weeks ago I woke up at 3am freezing because it was a cold, rainy night. I looked around me and I realised it’s not the way I wanted to live. I am stuck in the past. I don’t know if it sounds crazy but the way I am taking my parents’ deaths is as if one day they will come through the front door and I will see, touch, and talk to them again. So I am just waiting. Meanwhile life is just passing me by. And weeks before this, my next door neighbour, who had been going through a rough time herself, cooked in her kitchen for the first time in months. It smelt fabulous. And then I thought my house is really just a house. It’s no longer a home. I merely come home to sleep and shower and play with my cats. I don’t create anything. I don’t sew. I don’t cook. I don’t even watch TV. I don’t have people over. I think a part of me is very grateful I don’t have human children and a husband I have to be responsible for because I think it would be unfair to get just a husk of a mother or wife. I’m sure people can be understanding to a certain point. Also the point of this post is not to say I don’t do ANYTHING. I do lots of stuff. I am just stuck. Kate Beckinsale lost her stepdad and mother last and this year. I find that she is courageous enough to share her struggles, something I am always reluctant to do.

I would like to start cooking again hehe. I don’t care if it’s not financially sound.. or if I suddenly spent $30 on ingredients what I could get $15 dining out for. I liked whatever I made. I don’t have to do it every day.

I also need to figure out how to make my house a home.

I don’t have any advice or parting words for you… except that you will find joy again someday. It may be in a different form. Maybe you will have new rituals and traditions with new people. Don’t give up!

Lots of love,
Monnica