It has been a maintenance month, this February.
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The relationship maintenance job was done on the 14th with a 24-hour getaway at the Radisson Slavyanskaya by the river. Nice! I finally could hear my voice coming out of my mouth in a quiet conversation with Rahul, when he took his Anjali out for Valentine’s rrrrromantic dinner at Maharaja. Usually I just do lip sync for me Monchies. Well, we do do the monthly maintenance on every 19th. But nothing as maintaining as overnighting. Ehem!
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The last 2 weeks have been a dental maintenance session as well. Cleaning, whitening, filling, filling-replacement, crowning, root-canal. No dentures yet, thanks to Sensodyne. Speaking of filling-replacement, I think it’s also time to update my will. I should leave a specific instructions to whomever survive me of what to do with my teeth. No matter how much surviving me bites.
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By now I should have enough porcelain filled in my molars for my survivors to make a tea set with. And by the time I am 75, if long lives the queen, I shall have enough porcelain to make a dinnerware set for each child of mine. As it is, my dentist bill is already equivalent to a set of Silver Palace all inclusive for me Monchies and me Conchies (Monchies’ cousins).
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In case you have no experience having cavities and having your teeth filled: dentists these days use porcelain (and many other aesthetic materials) instead of amalgam alloy (mercury or silver).
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It has also been a month of maintaining my running activity which I had been running away real far and fast from. On good days (though not very many, due to February being the shortest month this year), I can run 10km in my 100m² bedroom in a breeze. On bad days I can run 100km non-stop in my size 9 Ushanka-capped head in 10 split seconds. And that 10 split seconds have to be split and spilled into 3m³ of diet juice called Axe-Cues Me.
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Now that I have maintained blogging, posting at least 3 entries per week… I should go spank my maintained round behind, put on my 3-year-old runners that still maintain their brand-new look, and do some maintenance job on my weight. Hey, wait a minute… I have an article to edit, don’t I? Yeah, that Super Lynx article for Berita Harian from Mr. Maintain Delicious Heli Pilot old friend of mine.
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I am gone running… away from running.
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Enida, please have a cup of coffee before taking the Monchies to school. The other day, you really made yourself sound like one of those who solo parlano poco Inglés when you spoke to the Dutch lady who introduced her son to Edrick as Dillan and on behalf of Edrick you said, “Hi Villain!” Bad move, Enida, bad move! On mornings when you have not had your caffeine, just let Edrick do the talking.
Just because you brush your teeth twice a day and floss every other day, you are not guaranteed to be safe from cavities. When you are rotting, you’re rotting. Be thankful it’s just your teeth, or maybe later your bones. Not your morality. So two visits to the dentist can buy you that Lattissima Nespresso Machine, so what? If you can’t enjoy your coffee, what can you?
Enida, please remember not to leave the adaptor for the three square prongs on the washing machine. Your helper might think you forgot about it and she might take it home. When you call her to ask if she had removed it from where you put it last, she would say that she would come over to look for it and find it for you – she doesn’t understand what you mean by, “I’ve looked everywhere 12 times and a half!”. And she would come when you are not home and make it look like she had found it and could not explain where she found it 15 minutes after she found it.
My jaw, my teeth, my tied tongue, my soft palate, my hard palate, my premolars, my molars, my whole dentition, my throat, my throat’s child and all my hope to get to the dentist on time dropped to the floor and they all went rolling bergolekdog out of the garage door faster than I could say, “Huh?”
But I just learned that the solution is all in my kitchen. Instead of using alcohol/spirit to neutralize the adhesive, I discovered – actually 5 years ago – that cooking oil is the best. If it works on getah nangka, it works on any glue. Trust me! So for these rice milk plastic bottles, I tried using cooking oil last week. But it proved to be a new challenge as the glue was quite stubborn. So I thought maybe some finer agent would help. I spread some flour (in my case the potato starch was the easiest to reach). Guess what? It worked!
Yes I drive here in Moskva, despite warnings and all cerita seram (horror stories) I heard from expats – white, brown, colored and color-blind alike. While I may not ever come to the Daily-Gallivanting State of Enjoyment during my stay in Russia, I would do anything to keep my freedom of driving around in my own time. Having a driver is a ‘limited freedom’. And to me, limited freedom is no freedom. (How do I know I can trust my driver to keep his mouth shut about Putin and I and that fishy affair broiling in the oven?)
Questa è Enida 