Galadriel
Possessing a rare combination of wisdom and humility, while serenely dominating your environment you selflessly use your powers to care for others.
Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.
Galadriel is a character in the Middle-Earth universe.
Take the quiz and discover your other self.
I read about it in some travel book and was intrigued by the way the writer raved about it. So when I had an opportunity to visit Valencia, Spain, I was on the look out for this mysterious white drink. At first, it looked like I might be disappointed. This drink is popular served ice-cold in the summer and Valencian’s like their horchata made relatively fresh. I was there in winter which was the wrong season for it. Almost at the end of my stay, I found a couple of places that still kept some from the last summer. Although the thought me mad to request the drink in winter, they obliged and served it to me. I imbibed. It was quite unlike anything I had drunk before. This squirrel was bowled over, which I suppose makes it a four paws-up recommendation.
“Horchata” today, is used in reference to several vegetable beverages made from ground almonds, rice, barley or tiger nuts. The name is believed to be derived from the Valencian “orxata”, which itself may have arose from “ordiata” which means “made from ordi or barley. Mexican and Central American horchata is normally based on rice and may be flavored with almond paste, sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, orange or lime. The version from Ecuador uses ground sesame instead of almonds while the Salvadorean version includes also cocoa and the Morro seed.
It is clear that the drink in the Americas was brought there be the conquering Spanish. The Spanish in turn were introduced to the drink by the Muslim Moors who controlled Valencia from the 8th to 13th Century. The drink in Valencia was derived from tiger nuts.
The practice of making drinks from tiger nuts is actually believed to have started from the region of Chuf, Sudan where tiger nuts or “chufas” were cultivated.
King James I of Aragon (the Conqueror) captured and liberated the city of Valencia from the Moors on the 28th September 1238. Legend says that since capturing cities was a thirsty business, soon after the King sought liquid refreshment and he was offered a milky beverage by an Arab maiden. He asked the name of the drink and the maiden replied that it was the milk of chufas. Impressed by the refreshing qualities of the drink, he is reported to have replied “Això is not llet, això is OR, XATA” (“This is not milk. This is gold, girl.”). Which is how legend explains the name Orxata de xufes (Horchata de Chufas), which is now used to describe the drink made from tiger nuts.
With regards to an earlier post in which I had mentioned horchata, Tai asked me “what were tiger nuts?” I did not know. Well, I looked it up and surprise, surprise, they’re not nuts at all. Tiger nut, Cyperus Sculentus, is a vigorous plant with leafs in rosettes. They are actually a kind of tuber, like a potato. Most of these tubers are grown today under the strict control of the Regulating Council of the Denomination of Origin, Chufa de Valencia. Only a small group of 16 villages produce the tiger nuts and the village of Alboraia is well known for the quality of the tiger nuts.
Why are they called tiger nuts? Well, they do resemble small nuts. I would like to think that they were named “tiger nuts” on account that these small nuts pack an impressive taste with a kick in it. Try it if you have the chance in eastern Spain. See if you would agree with King James I that it is liquid gold.
There is no rest for the wicked. I am being punished for making fun of the most powerful man in the world (see previous post). Claudia has tagged me to do this. Okay, Claudia, YOU asked for it. Here it is......
THE WEIRD ANATOMY OF A MAD SCIENTIST
1. SQUIRRELS: First the obvious. I am obsessive about squirrels in general and grey squirrels in particular. I have not dressed up like a squirrel and climbed trees but it may be just a matter of time.
2. FOOD: I like “white food”. Favorite ice cream flavor is vanilla. Favorite non-alcoholic beverage is soya milk which is white in color. My comfort food includes full cream milk, Ambrosia rice pudding and soya bean curd, all of which are, you guessed it, white. I prefer white chocolates to dark. I even discovered a wonderful exotic white drink in Spain called Horcata which is made from tiger nuts.
3. TV : I think Buffy the Vampire Slayer is one of the best conceived, written and acted shows ever. I know the show has its fans but most of my friends who know me as a mostly serious, semi-over-weight, middle aged guy are flabbergasted when I extol the virtues of the economic use of words in Buffy or even worse when I sing songs from Buffy the musical. I am also reduced to tears by some of the more poignant episodes.
4. GRAVEYARDS : Regular readers will already know about my interest in spooky graveyards, tombs and catacombs. We can’t all be Egyptologists and discover tombs in pyramids. I get my kicks of learning history through the stories of the departed.
5. BANANA : I am a banana. That’s what they call Chinese who cannot speak Chinese or whose English is better than their Chinese mother tongue. i.e. yellow on the outside but white inside. To be fair, I can speak some Cantonese but only to the extent of being able to order food in a restaurant which is something I can do even in French and German. It’s one of my regrets that I did not practice it enough when I was young and now have lost its use.
6. MIRACLE. I’m not sure it qualifies as weird but it is unusual. I used to suffer from recurring lower back spasms and occasional slipped discs. When an episode occurred, I could be incapacitated for a very long time. The problem was that its, frequency had increased over the years from once or twice a year to once every month. After a particularly bad episode that left me paralyzed in pain for 3 hours on a stair landing, an X-ray was done and the doctors told me I had scoliosis. My right hip was an inch higher than my left. Over the years, my spine twisted to the right, resulting in a rounded back, flat feet and chronic pain. The doctors taught me some exercises to help control the pain but warned that it was likely to progressively get worse as I aged. From then on, I lived with chronic back pain with an occasional paralyzing spasm every few months. However, about 5 years later someone from church who has a ministry of praying for the sick had just given a talk and offered to pray for all who were at the meeting. As she prayed for me, God acted despite my own lack of faith and I felt my bones realign and immediately the pain was gone. By the end of the week, my wife noticed that I had developed the small of the back which had been missing for years. Most importantly, I have no pain since then (7 years ago) except one occasion after lifting an extremely heavy weight improperly. Today, I am pain free and no longer have flat feet. Praise God.
I am going to tag dave, le nightowl, squirrel and nancyle.
Dear friends,
It had to happen. I am swamped under with work and there's no way I can spend time blogging these few days. I work,work, work and work and all I get is peanuts. Anyway, when I am in such dire straits, I am so pleased to have my big brother, President Bush to stand in for me. Please treat him with the same kindness you showed to my recent poem and to Rodney the Rat.
Markets are another favorite place to visit when I travel. I feel that a visit to a market is the quickest, easiest and one of the most enjoyable ways of immersing oneself in to the pulse of the daily lives of a city or town. Here you rub shoulders with the local people going about their daily chores and activities of living. Here you get to see them raw, natural and real. You also get to see, smell, touch and if you are lucky, taste some of the local cuisine, specialities and fruits.
Photocredit: travelandtransitions
Global Warming ........and it's getting ugly at the polar caps. Tempers are flaring and mindless voilence is on the increase as captured in this video footage.
"I am a Satire, yes?"
The Wonderful Ms. Ida McBeth
Serendipity is the act of accidentally finding something wonderful. Not too long ago, I found myself with a mixed group of people wandering the streets of Kansas City on a dark, cold autumn night. I have to admit that I did not know much about Kansas City and what little I knew was gleaned from travel books just days before I arrived. I heard they had a Jazz Museum but was disappointed to learn that my group’s itinerary did not enable us to visit the museum. Our group had one night on the town and I was determined to make it a musical one.
The problem was that none of us knew where to go. As we walked, though, we came across an establishment called Jardines. We went in hoping for dinner and music but the place was packed and the waitress told us it was standing room only or an hour wait for a table. The rest of the group did not want to wait and we all left.
After further aimless wanderings and differing opinions and suggestions, I told the group, I wanted to go back to the Jardines and take my chance with the waiting instead of wandering blindly. Only Tracy said she wanted to do the same and so we left the group on the sidewalk still debating their options.
We scurried back to the Jardines and to our surprise, the waitress told us straight off that there was a table for two available for dinner but warned it was a bit loud as it was actually next to the stage and by the loudspeakers. We took it and the position could not be better. These were front row seats. When the guest singer took her seat and started singing, she was practically spitting in our food. It was difficult to hold a conversation except during the interludes but it did not matter as we were here for the music.
They announced that Ms. Ida McBeth was taking the stage. I had no idea who she was at that time but she, her music and the Jardines would be my serendipitous discovery of the trip. She amazed us both with her rich vocals and her range of music genres including jazz, blues, pops, show tunes, R & B and even gospel. We did not at all mind her spitting in our food. Close up we could enjoy the emotions and expressions that lit up her face as she sang. During the intermissions was when the locals, told me that they were very proud of their Ida and many felt she was the best singer in town.
I had a chance to talk to Ms. McBeth, take her photo, and get a signed autographed copy (“Wish You Well! Ida”) of her CD “Special Requests” in which I just love her version of “I can’t make you love me” The Jardines was a warm and friendly place too. The fact that I cannot remember the food merely shows how enraptured I was with the place, people and the music. From now on, Kansas City is music city for me and the lucky place where I got to learn about the wonderful Ida McBeth. The locals say, “Come prepared to be Ida-lized”.
Dear friends,
I know many of you are far more literate , knowledgable and well-read than I am. That is just a statement of fact which I know from reading and learning about the arts and literature from other blogs and even comments posted. Unfortunately, I may have spent my youth unwisely and sought to learn about the world and about the arts from the wrong sources. See below.
This is where I proposed 15 years ago
The accused in the Docks.
His court appointed lawyer tried to protest on grounds of entrapment since a rat trap was used and baited with meat. But the Hanging Judge would hear none of it. Rodney tried to invoke sympathy, using his large round eyes to good effect and twitching his nose whiskers. Finally, the verdict was handed down ……..GUILTY on charges of pooping and stealing and eating junk food.
Rich Gated Community of Bayu Angkasa
Alledged Site of Release of Beady eyed animalMy, my, my. Sometime during the 8th of January 2007, just slightly under three months since this blog opened its pages to the world, it received its 1,000th visitor. Was it you? Did you drop in to find the counter saying “1,000 nuts collected for winter”? Then, it was you!
In Malaysia, such landmark events like being the 100,000th person to sit on the Kuala Lumpur new monorail might be celebrated with the award of a prize to that special person. It might even be a Kancil city car. Before you think that it’s a major windfall, you might want to check the car out.
Well, you know, I have no way of verifying whether you are that person. However, my post title could still be correct. You may already be a winner, having won something somewhere else but…. I cannot help you. Thanks for dropping by.
I am in the position of providing a “reward” to a different visitor. Over the last 2 weeks, my wife and I have laid in bed at night and when I wasn’t typing away on my laptop, we heard the cute sounds of the pitter-patter of little feet. It was when the owner of those “pitter-pattering” feet tried to build a nest behind our water cooler that we decided that this visitor had over-extended his visiting rights.
I refer to Rodney, a fine specimen of the Asian black rat (Rattus rattus domesticus) or the domestic rat. It is so called because it does little household chores like chewing through food containers, rubbish bags and steals tissue paper to tidy up its own nest. This is completely different from the habits of the Malaysian jungle rats, some of which can be as long as 2 feet. Jungle rats are not domesticated. They run wild. The jungle is their realm. They know where to find food in the unforgiving jungle. Of course if they can mug a naïve camper and relieve him of his dehydrated food packet or bags of rice, they have been known not to pass the opportunity by.
Why Rodney? Well, Rodney Rat sounds quite distinguished and I am sure we are not able to pronounce the name Mrs. Rat gave her enterprising son. Anyway, we laughed to ourselves when we evicted Rodney from our water cooler. We giggled when we evicted him from the laundry drawer and we smirked when we kicked him out of the boiler cupboard which he had elaborately padded with stolen tissue papers. However, patience was wearing thin when he began to poop all over the place (obviously not as domesticated as we would like). The last straw was when Rodney chewed his way into my junk food collection.
Question. In a taste choice test, which flavor would a rat chose? Pringle’s Traditional flavor or Pringle’s Sour Cream and Onion? Well Rodney chose the latter twice. This means something and is not just a comment on your personal choice of Pringle’s chips. Maybe Pringle’s could try the slogan, “ Sour Cream and Onions – because rats have more sensitive taste than us!”.
Okay, I told my wife. Rodney has to go. It’s him or me. She says, “That’s nice. It’s good you have a hobby other than blogging.” I begin to think she doesn’t believe I will go hunting for Rodney. Well, I don’t. Using my superior walnut-sized brain, I set a trap and get Rodney to come to me. MuHaHaHaHaHaHaHa! (Mad Scientist laugh, that is taught in the final year at University just before final exams).
Well. Mrs. Rat did not raise a bright one. Rodney is snug in my rat trap/cage contraption even as I type this. As I said earlier, it is time for Rodney to get his just rewards for the crime of pooping and choosing Sour Cream and Onions. Can you imagine the smell of his poop?
The Perp is behind Bars.
It’s been a long while since I’ve had to deal with a rodent like Rodney. Should it be the death penalty? Death by hanging, gassing or drowning. I know it can be humane to kill a lobster by putting it in the freezer but my wife is against the idea for Rodney. Or should we parole him on good behaviour? I’d like to hear your opinion.
Finally, Mr. or Ms. 1,000th visitor, please reveal yourself and I am sure I can find your just rewards too. MuHaHaHaHaHaHaHa!
Photocredit: makeupvixon
I don’t always but at the funeral I attended around New Year’s Day, I cried. At the service, the husband gave a moving speech. He spoke of his special plans to celebrate their 25th wedding Anniversary; a special trip after years of austere living, but they only made it to 23 years of marriage. Nevertheless, he thanked God for the gift of his wife who had been truly his life partner for those years and ended by saying that he was now saying goodbye to his beloved and returning her to the care of her Beloved in heaven. At the end of his speech, there was not a dry eye in the house.
My wife calls me a “sensitive new age guy” after a title of a song because I occasionally shed a tear. I don’t know why she makes such a fuss about this after all we have long left behind the era of the stoic, unemotional male. The way that she goes on, you’d think I fall apart at almost anything. It’s not true. I did not shed a tear for Ali McGraw in Love Story, nor were my eyes damp when Bambi lost his mother.
However, there are certain scenes from the movies and TV shows, that can be relied upon to just open the faucets in my eyes and allow the tears to roll unabated, no matter how many times I have already seen it. You might call this the confessions of a sensitive new age guy but anyway, here are some of those scenes;
“Final farewells between parents and child.” (Scene from the movie, Running on Empty)
River Phoenix’s character and his brother has been on the lam together with their parents, all their lives. The parents are fugitives because they accidentally killed someone in an anti-war protest and have been hunted by the FBI all this time. Although a tightly knit family held together by love, the parents realize that River’s character is becoming a grown man and will miss out on a real chance to study at University, to develop his musical talent and to have girlfriends if he continues to follow them as they hide from place to place. Motivated by love they arrange for his estranged grandparents to take care of him. Finally, the family packs up into the car and is about to leave when he sees them. When he realizes they are leaving, without hesitation he wants to get into the car and leave all the opportunities behind. However in a tearful farewell (at least I will be tearful by this stage), the parents say their goodbyes to him forever from the car windows and offer him back a chance to live his own life. They then drive out of his life. Pass the tissue paper please.
“Tears of a Clown.” (Scene from TV series, M*A*S*H)
Viewers of M*A*S*H which is set around the goings-on in a mobile army surgical hospital in Korea during the war there, will remember Hawkeye as the good, well meaning doctor who kept morale up with his humor and pranks. It was therefore unsettling when in this episode, we find the indefatigable Hawkeye in a psychiatric hospital as a patient. The psychiatrist keeps asking Hawkeye to relate what happened when he and some other doctors took a bus of orphans and refugees for a day at the beach. Hawkeye tells the story again and again and something funny always happens but he does not reach the end of the story. The psychiatrist tells him that he is using humor to avoid facing his pain and until he stops and faces the pain, he will not be cured. Finally, with much coaxing, he finally relates how they were caught out by enemy troop advancements and had hidden the bus –trying to remain undetected from the enemy troops. There was this baby crying and wouldn’t stop. He desperately told the mother to keep the baby quiet, breast feed it, do whatever it takes, cause otherwise its crying would give away their position and they would all be killed. Finally, the baby was quiet and the danger passed. It was then that Hawkeye discovered, that the distraught and panicked mother had smothered the baby and killed it to keep it silent. This was the ending he could not tell. As he remembers this, tears roll from his eyes and mine. There are few things sadder than the tears of a clown.
“Holding on to the Memory, Keeping Them Alive” (Scene from TV series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Willow’s long time girlfriend, Tara, has been killed by this guy, Warren. It’s been awhile and she has been hurting inside. Now it seems like she is moving on and a new girl Kennedy is interested in her. Willow at first tries to push Kennedy’s advances away but eventually in the heat of a moment, they kiss. To their horror, Willow begins to change into Warren. At the end of the episode, we realize that Willow has turned into Warren due to a combination of a spell by a jealous witch and her own guilty feelings. When finally confronted with her suppressed guilty feelings, Willow keeps changing between herself and Warren’s visage. In this state, she asks Tara for forgiveness for killing her (she identified with Tara’s killer, Warren, which is why magically she took on his image). She felt she had killed her, because she had guarded Tara’s memory closely all that time but when Kennedy kissed her, she let slip for a moment and she felt that she had let Tara slip away, she had let Tara die in her memory. At this stage, I would be crying with her. (Okay, I know this might be a bit difficult to follow for those who do not know this show. Suffice to say it was a cult hit and was about vampires, witches, monsters and those that fight them. Also please get over the fact that it is a lesbian relationship and appreciate the very human qualities of trying to hold on to our memories of a loved one).
Well, that is pretty much my soul laid bare for you to see. Please reciprocate and share what gets you sobbing at the movies and TV.
Fort A' Formosa, Melaka
It seems like a statistical impossibility but three ladies (a significant portion of the sample population) whose blogs I read frequently all have had a birthday in the week on either side of the new year. These three ladies are further linked because they all love nature and all have a passion for a particular animal (which strangely has nothing to do with cute squirrels but then there's no accounting for taste).
Anyway, in a celebration of nature's wonders and your birthdays, please accept these simple greetings from your totem animals.
Atlas Moth from Malaysia (World's largest moth)
Elephant Festival (India) 
Canis lupus (Grey Wolf; North America)For josie, to help you decide.
Bali is rich in art, crafts and culture which probably developed due to an abundance of food and hence more leisure time, availability of suitable raw materials such as tropical woods for carving and volcanic pumice rock for sculpturing, and drawing its inspiration from nature and their religious beliefs. Their religion is actually a mix of Hindu and animalist beliefs.
Much of the folklore, dance and theater for example have their roots in Hinduism and in Hindu classical literature such as the Ramayana. However, this is tempered by a unique Balinese perspective. Balinese believe in the forces of good and evil but unlike many modern religious beliefs, they do not believe in good triumphant over evil. Rather, they believe that good and evil occur naturally and that evil is not actually viewed as bad but natural and must exist in balance with good to achieve harmony.
This is reflected in their culture. For example, in the Barong dance, the mythical Barong beast must protect the villagers from the evil witch creature. However, in the story, neither the Barong nor the witch creature is sufficiently powerful to completely defeat the other. Therefore the happy ending of the story is not good triumphing over evil but that evil and good reach a compromise. The symbolic colours of the Balinese is a black and white checkered cloth. Again this symbolizes the balance of evil and good. There colors are worn as sarongs or head-dresses for Balinese warriors and are also found wrapped around the ubiquitous shrines all over Bali. The Barong dance is a regular staple for visiting tourists.
The Barong is in the middle
I recommend the Kecak Dance more than the Barong because the Barong is more sedate as opposed to the vibrancy of the Kecak dance. While the latter is more unique as it uses the rhythmic chant of the male dancers for its music. The Kecak can also be seen performing at an open aired amphitheater at the Ulu Watu Shrine. This is a spectacular location that sits on top of cliffs overlooking the sea with a wonderful view of the sunset. The Kecak also uses fire in its dance choreography so is best seen at dusk and early evening.
The Kecak Dance at the seacliffs of Ulu Watu
Fiery Finale of Kecak Dance
The Balinese build their shrines and temples everywhere and offerings are made daily and as you travel from village to village, you are likely to find a religious ceremony . These are worthwhile as you will be treated to genuine hospitality, culture and food. Their temples are usually built near forests, cliffs, caves, springs and volcanic mountains.
The holy springs at Tirta Empul have been built into bathing pools. Men and women bathe in the two pools at different times and one pool is to give blessings of health and the other blessings of prosperity. President Sukarno of Indonesia built a magnificent palace on the hill immediately adjacent and overlooking the springs. It is gossiped that from his vantage point, he would spy on the women bathing at the springs. The palace is still used for official meetings and to house foreign dignitaries.
When I was visiting Tirta Empul, I stumbled across a magic ceremony being carried out by a female bomoh or witch doctor. In the pictures, she is dressed in black. The ceremony was to cleanse a young married couple of evil spirits because they have been suffering ill health. The ceremony sounded a bit like the Christian baptism in that it refers to a death and resurrection. The bomoh places the woman into a death-like trance in which to observers like myself, she is hardly breathing and completely oblivious to the world. She is laid on a woven mat and rolled up init which symbolizes death. The ceremony is supposed to fool the evil spirits to leave as they believe that their ”host’ is dead. The bomoh will chant over the still and “dead” body and finally reawaken her and give her a drink of blessed medicine.
When I saw this being done, I could not tell if the woman in the trance was breathing or not. It seemed quite convincing. When the ceremony was done with the man however, it was less convincing as he kept scratching his nose!
This theme of being possessed by spirits is also common in Balinese dance. In the Kecak dance for example, the main characters are actually believed to become possessed by the spirits of those they portray. Hence, their will always be a priest or bomoh at one side to pray that they will be protected from harm and the spirits will cease their possession after the dance.
All in all, Balinese culture is rich and very different from what most of us are familiar with. With an open mind, the Balinese culture can be fascinating and exotic and another reason why Bali is a unique Secret Squirrel’s Spot.
Black magic ceremony 
Holy waters of Tirta Empul
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