John & Belle Have A Blog

Kitchen Confusion

I am helping a friend with her move into a smaller apartment. They will be renovating the kitchen, so I have been looking at various cabinetry, tiles etc. There is this new line of drawers with little servo-motors inside, so that they open fully when triggered by a slight bump, and close as well, like the CD drawer on a DVD player. I can't find the site at the moment; I've just seen ads in print mags and my friend's sister-in-law or someone has them. Does anyone know about these? It sounds like a pointless waste of money to me, but maybe I underestimate the wonderfulness of opening drawers with a mere hip-bump while my hands are covered with raw pork. But then, how am I going to get anything out of the drawer without getting raw pork on the inside stuff? Along the same lines, I am dubious about induction hobs. I've never used them, though, and maybe I just have a misdirected animus more rightly turned against electric stovetops, which are the worst thing ever. So, what say you, readers? Have anyone used an induction hob? How is the temperature control? I hate electric burners because they are so unresponsive compared with gas.

One thing that's interesting about SE Asian homes is that they usually have two kitchens, a "wet" and a "dry". The wet kitchen (usually just a veranda-like area outside the dry kitchen) is for cleaning fish, meat and vegetables, grilling, and frying things on the giant wok burner. We hoped to include this feature in her kitchen by dividing the dry kitchen from the laundry/oven area and back bathroom with glass and glass doors. Unfortunately she's prohibited by condo rules from hanging the laundry out the window (usually Singaporeans hang laundry on bamboo poles, which fit into built-in holders outside the back windows.) Since there will be laundry hanging on racks in that area it can't also be the place where the wok-cooking goes on. Oh, well, the principle is sound and seems like it might have further application in apartment living in the tropics.

Antipodean Ambrosia

One of the interesting things about living in a city with a large and prosperous expat community is that you get to try the packaged snacks of far-off, mystical lands such as Australia. There are grocery stores where the downcast American wife, who never wanted to move out of Ohio, can find the marshmallow Fluff that will salve her soul. Likewise with the downcast French people, who can go to Carrefours. Even the cheerful expats, wives or otherwise, may want Bovril, or marmalade, or poppadum chips (mini chips in a Pringles-like can. Mmmm, tiny poppadums.) Yesterday I discovered one of the tastiest cookies ever: Arnott's Mint Slice. Arnott's is better known to me as the maker of TimTams, which are themselves quite nice, though I'm not just mad about them the way Australian people seem to be. (I have lots of anecdotal evidence that the ship of many an Australian's diet plans have foundered on the rock of...an entire packet of TimTams with tea.) Mint Slice, though, is sooooo good. Crunchy chocolate "biscuit" part, a layer of mint creme, and all dipped in chocolate. They advertise as having real mint oil, which they certainly do.  I think, and I know this is crazy here, and it may just be the equatorial heat talking, but I think they might be better than Girl Scout Thin Mints. John and I polished off the package after dinner, with very modest assistance from the girls (they each had one, and the chocolaty fingers to prove it). If I had these in the house all the time, I actually would start to gain weight. I imagine this is a real problem for bulk shoppers in the states; a packet of Mint Thins is one thing, a case quite another. Now I'll just have to hope I don't find a packaged cookie as good as Girl Scout's Samoas.

Store

OK, MeiMei says it's a 'store', but I still say it's a space station caught in some sort of cosmic storm. I say this is practically ready for prime-time "Heavy Metal" Moebius artwork. (Mei Mei drew the circles and picked the patterns. I showed her different things she could choose. I just made sure the right buttons got pushed.) So Expression is awesome for kids.

The Spanish Non-Prisoner

So this is awesome. The replacement pen for my Graphire drawing tablet arrived. So I was doing some sketching with the kids. Zoë has, once again, outdone herself. I asked her what I should call the file and she said 'Zoe's Masterpiece'. I told her we already had a file called that. Alright, 'The Spanish Woman'. And so she would appear to be.

She really did it herself. I'm teaching her how to use Expression, my drawing application of choice. The download (mac) is still available here. I love this application.

OK, I'm guilty of teaching her how to do the fills in a way that I knew would result in just the sort of result I love best. I coached this "Part-Time Dog"/50's animation style color look by my teaching technique. So sue me. But here's the thing. I was showing her all the different bushes and strokes she could use. For example, you can make the strokes be chain links. 'Like for drawing a prisoner?' she asked. 'I suppose.' 'No.' Very emphatic. 'She is a beautiful and free woman.' Later we used the chain pen to draw a swing.

Mei Mei always wants to 'draw circles', as she puts it. Alas, the poor kid can't draw a circle. (It's not a big deal. She's much better at singing than Zoë was at that age. Mei Mei can sit on my shoulders and really belt out "Clementine".) So I set her up with the circle-drawing tool, to get her over the basic difficulty. And, amazingly, she drew a space station. Then I asked her: Is that a space station? And she gave me the most condescending look. As if.

Dream Home Diaries Update

Ah. let's check in on the Dream Home Diaries, shall we? When last we left them, the bloggers had succeeded in causing steam to come out their readers' ears--indeed, many probably had whirligigs on either side of their heads like those atop a pressure-cooker emitting a steady, flute-like note of outrage. The move to real-time posting has allowed us to learn things like...they started construction without builder's insurance! Commenters have been demanding answers about insurance right from the start. I mean, they're building a house in a barrier island in Florida! Off the west coast, as I understand it, so not just triple-plated insane, but still. Once again the bloggers talk in a way that suggests either precious faux-naievté or colossal, gob-smacking ignorance combined with a truly mystifying lack of interest in one's own personal and financial affairs. Check it out:

For months, people (including readers of this blog) have been asking, “What’s your insurance going to cost?”

Up until yesterday, I always answered: “I assume a lot, since we are right in the middle of hurricane alley. But I’ve been afraid to check.”[??!!11!]

And I would have been willing to put off finding out, but yesterday our bank had other ideas: They made it clear that our builder would not get any more money from our construction loan until we got insurance....[!!11!!1!!!WTF??!!!1]

Like everything else in this saga, getting insurance was a bit more difficult than I would have thought. It turns out, explained Theresa M. Collins of the Dick, Johnson and Jefferson Insurance Agency in Bradenton, Fla., that we need to take out insurance two separate times.

AAAaaaaa!! "More difficult than I would have thought." Did I mention the part where they are building a house on a barrier island off the coast of Florida? OK, but f'reals. I go through periods during which I feel sympathy for the bloggers, who are roundly vituperated by about forty people every time they post on their own blog. But then again, no one's making them, right? And mother of god they are acting crazy. It's the combination of ADD-style boredom, inattention to detail, insouciance about financial reversals, and continuous mock-surprise at the realities of building that does it. I mean, they are somewhat putting us on with the surprise, aren't they? Because sure no one would actually be this flaky etc. on a huge project which they are, just by the way, documenting for the readers of a small local paper we like to call The Palmetto Gazette The New York Frickin' Times? But then, since everyone hates it, why would they be putting it on? I've come to believe this is some sort of experiment in the construction of authorial identity on the internet, and I, for one, am angry that the Princeton sociology department would OK a human-subject study like this without getting informed consent from readers. Have they learned nothing from the Milgram experiment?

Insofar as Nuclear Proliferation is a Bad Thing, Iran's Acquisition of Nukes is Bad

Andrew Sullivan considers retired General Abizaid's contention that we can live with a nuclear Iran:

He can live with it. Matt wonders if this approach doesn't actually help us forestall a nuclear Iran. Not so sure here. I'm obviously a skeptic of the last military resort against the Tehran regime - largely because I've yet to be convinced that it wouldn't actually hurt our long-term interests in the war against Islamism. But that a nuclear Iran would be a terrible blow--not least to Iranians forced to live under a theocracy newly empowered by the Doomsday weapon-- is indisputable.

This is a stupid reason to consider a nuclear Iran a "terrible blow." Having awesome destructive capabilities of this sort doesn't empower the Iranian regime with respect to its own citizenry; are they going to threaten to destroy Qom if the populace becomes restive? To the extent that it bolsters the clerics' hand it's just a side-effect of the fact that the strategy of obtaining nuclear weapons is very popular among ordinary Iranian citizens. A democratic Iran would, in all likelihood, also pursue nuclear weapons. Iranians would be dumb not to have noticed that a nuclear-armed North Korea, although a member of the "Axis of Evil" has remained...totally unmolested. The US would also have much more credibility on this issue if we weren't supporting India's nuke-up policy (and *cough*Israel), and generally giving a convincing impression of not giving a shit about proliferation unless we think it advances our interests, in which case we suddenly start hopping up and down about UN mandates, etc. It's hard to construct a compelling rationale for why it's OK for some Great Powers to have nukes (US, France etc.), and OK for India and Pakistan to inject nuclear weapons into their regional conflict, and OK for Israel to have nuclear weapons, but obviously a horrible nightmare for Iran to have nukes--indeed, such a bad result that we might, on balance, do better by starting a war with Iran! really, that's just a bat-shit crazy thing to think.

Finally, I object to Sullivan's playing the "I just care about the Iranian people" card. I have learned, from the bitter experience of advocating for one of the worst foreign policy blunders in America's history, that arguments of the following form are extraordinarily bad: "If you really cared about the suffering Xians, you'd support an extensive, indiscriminate bombing campaign, followed by a land-invasion of Country X!" Try our new patent falsehoods--delicious morsels of bloody-mindedness dipped in a couverture of moral preening!

Juice

I'm humming the old Sesame Street song: "two of these things belong together/two of these things are kinda the same/but one of these things is doing it's own thing..."

Until his arrest this week in Las Vegas on charges of armed robbery, Mr. Simpson, 60, appeared to live contentedly and, but for a few exceptions, quietly.

“I love my life!” he has been known to exclaim, whether tucking into a meal, receiving a lap dance or watching his children play sports.

Feeling Better

Everyone is feeling better, and wearing the sunglasses to prove it. (Hey, Dave Moles, there's your book on the shelf, off to the right.)

The Love

All the girls in the house are feeling a bit under the weather. Sad. I'm sitting here eating my hawker center dinner and listening to Fang Liu, "The Love of The Wei River". She makes me believe in the power of rock. You'll have to settle for "Moonlight in the Palace" [youtube].

Mad Dogs

Thanks again for all your thoughts, imaginary internet friends. Violet's doing better, well enough to go to the playground this evening for a little while. Zoë now has a fever and is wheezing, because we like to mix it up like that. Due to the extremely popular "sick children can sleep with Mommy" rule, John and I are kind of like the dogs changing places guarding the sheep ("mornin' Ralph") and never see each other except for like 20 minutes when he gets home from work. (You might imagine I could just get up after they fell asleep, but they have crazy mommy-detecting powers which allow them to sleep fine while I'm there but suddenly wake up the second I leave.)

In other Singapore news, I found a place in Tekka wet market that has esoteric items such as fresh oregano, thyme, and Italian-parsley, arugula and baby lettuces, and fennel and portobello mushrooms. Now my life in my new neighborhood is truly complete. I walked through the wet market with a new friend from Scotland and a woman from NC because we were all meeting at a nearby restaurant, and they were both totally grossed out. It does smell, it's true, but all the food is nice and fresh. A Singaporean friend introduced me to her butcher, who can cut beef top round into the most extraordinarily thin, even pieces (as if for sukiyaki.) He wasn't even watching his hands the whole time; he was talking to us while he wielded what has got to be one of the sharpest knives I have ever seen outside an expensive sushi restaurant. SGD8 per kilo, people.

There are huge scales on the floor of the wet-market by the fish stalls, which made me think of Bladerunner ("not fish scale! Snake scale!). Wending your way through all that crud on the concrete floor and the road outside does bring home exactly why it is we're taking our shoes off at the door. Truth is, though, I don't want any of that nasty stuff from the street in DC on my floor either. I think our family has permanently converted to the no-shoes-inside thing. But you'll be prying our toilet paper from...um, anyway, we're sticking with toilet paper. (Asian people quite reasonably contend that actually washing off with water is better than wiping, but I'm still not buying it.)

Finally, I decided to walk home from Little India. It's not that far, maybe 3/4 of a mile. Have I ever mentioned that it's hot in Singapore? Crikey, you'd think we were on the equator or something!