Food Poisoning In Lil Red Dot

It has been a crazy season of Salmonella food poisoning and gastroenteritis at a couple of restaurants in Singapore last couple of weeks.

One person had died from it and the local authorities has shuttered the restaurant for good.

It seems that the kitchen was in poor hygiene health with salmonella bacteria everywhere!

Knives were uncleaned and slotted between kitchen tables.

Raw uncooked food kept in fridge without covering properly.

No handsoap for kitchen staff to use after toilet use or handling food.

I was appalled!

Then a 5 star hotel, Mandarin Orchard had its banquet kitchen shut down too as diners at a charity dinner held there fell ill after eating the food. MR EX was the host of the charity dinner and he had 20 of his guests in hospital.

This is rare in Singapore as hygiene checks are rather stringent.

I guess we never know what really goes on in the kitchens.

What we don’t see does not mean cooked food is 100% germ free.

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Silly Me!

If you are reading this blogsite of mine for the first time, I fractured my little toe and foot plate some 2 weeks ago. Doc says it will take 6 weeks to 3 months for it to heal.

Well, guess what, I banged it again, against a hard stool and boy oh boy, does it hurt!

There is a saying…the more careful you try to be to protect an injured part of your limbs, all the more you will hurt it!

Ahh well, I will live. Afterall this is nothing compared to major surgeries that I have undergone.

I read that a local neurosurgeon who separated the Siamese twins has now performed surgery on a Vietnamese girl who was born with a deformed cranial, whereby a part of the brain is exposed. The brain has pushed so far out that this poor little girl has no facial features and pressure from the brain is causing her eyes to close.

The other person who is doing the next part of the surgery of reconstructing this little girl’s face is a plastic surgeon and used to live in the same building as I. Unfortunately, his wife and he had such a huge fight as each claimed the other had a lover on the side.

I remember the acrimonious fight they had and the same surgeon moved out, leaving the wife (no ex wife) and children behind.

He was particularly snooty as I remember him and he is not at all kind. He does not believe in acknowledging the presence of others and will only speak when he is paid as a doctor. I did not like him.

So, I am surprised he is chipping in. Of course they are both paid handsomely to do the job as the poor mother raised the funds for the operations.

I am disappointed that he was the chosen plastic surgeon as he is not the kindest of man and I am sure he will charge an arm and a leg. I hope the mother of the little girl has deep pockets to get continued care from him.

Perhaps the trouble he encountered with his ex wife has changed him for the better.

Perhaps he has found compassion and know how to give empathy.

I hope so, for the sake of the little girl.

Food For Thought – Or Dirt For Thought!

I received this from Executive Chef William, who is a celebrity Chef in lil red dot. He is a nice fella and used to work with Electrical Lord. He was smart to leave as that was a place that cannot sustain him when Electrical Lord wanted to buy sub standard produce and deliver cheap food.

His text message reads as below,

“One day a farmer’s donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally, he decided the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway; it just wasn’t worth it to retrieve the donkey.

He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone’s amazement he quieted down.

A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well. He was astonished at what he saw. With each shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up.

As the farmer’s neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and happily trotted off!”

MORAL OF THIS STORY which reasonates with me, since I am the expert of dirt being shovelled on most times by past lords!
Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up. Each of our troubles is a steppingstone. We can get out of the deepest wells just by not stopping, never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up.

Remember the five simple rules to be happy:

1. Free your heart from hatred – Forgive. This is the most challenging as I can forgive, but I cannot forget the bad deeds that people do unto me.

2. Free your mind from worries – Most never happens. But truthfully, it is good to always have a Plan B because it is better to be prepared than not to be at all.

3. Live simply and appreciate what you have. I try really hard here and do not have a lavish lifestyle nor designer togs. I do not need Dolce & Gabanna, Giani Versace or Prada. Just Garfield, my inanimate furball and his cartoon T shirts!

4. Give more. Spending time with people who need time is important and I find that the social work I do is meaningful as well as giving the time that my parents’ need. I know it is difficult to give them time and it is draining. I may leave them feeling like crap as they make me feel like crap but hey, they are my only set of parents and they have no one else.

5. Expect less from people but more from yourself. But do not be too hard on yourself. I have been very hard on myself and alot of the physical injury to my body is brought on by hard laborous work during my school going days.

You have two choices… smile and close this page, or pass this along to someone else to share the lesson – I just this by sharing this with my 2,000 plus followers!

I hope you will like this read.

My Next Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Program

I am planning for my next CSR program. Money Bags who tottered along with us to the zoo was so excited that he blurted to me to do things on a large scale!

Easy for him to talk as I am the one many army doing it – just me, myself and I doing the organisation, deliverance and post mortem analysis to find out where we could have done smarter or quicker.

I am aiming for small scale projects as volunteers may not come easily. I also do not want to have a case of volunteer fatigue.

So, I will be proposing for the repair works for a very run down old folks facility in the east. This home has been around since the 1900s and although they have moved into a brick and mortar high rise building, it seems with age, the lifts do not work in the sense that the sensors are faulty.

The tiles are non slip tiles and the toilet doors have no flaps at the end of the door and water is sploshed out onto the common areas of the toilets, causing slips and falls hazardry.

Good news is that we found a contractor to do it for free and now I have to tackle finding the right lift operator to solve the sensors to prevent it from slamming into the seniors using it. I was told that one had a shoulder dislocation as a result of it.

Once all that is done, the upper rungs of my society will then “grace the event” to “eat table” ie sit down and have a banquet 8 to 10 course chinese meal that we will probably sponsor and allow the elderly poor to have a chance to “eat table” – translated literally from Teochew or Hokkien dialects to mean, sit down and have a banquet feast.

The elderly poor hardly have opportunities to eat meals like this and this symbolises the only officious way to celebrate Chinese New Year for them.

Off I shall go and get this going.

Hopefully, I will get more help this time round so that the seniors wil enjoy the fruits of many people’s efforts and not just me, myself and I with the organisation that I support.

 

Zoo Trip With Those With Special Needs – Part 1

Today is our company day for our corporate social responsibility (CSR) program.

I am posting this real time at the zoo.

We are taking 25 beneficiaries with special needs ranging from autism, intellectual disability, down’s and other ailments to the zoo.

Taking care of our beneficiaries is not easy as they are easily excitable and we need time to coax them to be still.

As we have strict laws against posting their photos, I will share my treasures of some animals I saw before my foot acted up in pain.

After 7,000 steps, my foot protested.

These are lemurs! I love lemurs as they can stand on hind legs to paw beg.

The pelikans are a close knit family moving towards us when we got near them. They must we have food for them.

They left when we had nothing for them.

Giraffes! Long time since I last saw them.

Happy Diwali Or Happy Deepavali

Today is a significant celebration for Indians who are Hindus – Festival of Lights or we call Diwali.

To recap, Singapore or I fondly call Lil Red Dot, has 4 major ethnic groups; Chinese, Malays, Indians and others. We have a public holiday for each of the ethnic groups.

Little India, located in Serangoon Road is where the enclave of Indians, including migrant workers will gather for their weekends to eat Indian food, buy Indian spices and visit the superbly big Mustafa Shopping Mall where prices suit the migrant workers.

Alot of tourists visit Mustafa too as well as Little India.

I have not been to Little India as it is a tad too crowded for me and so I avoid it.

But I did drive past is some weeks back and it was gaily lit with lights and the entrance to the road had a towering peacock on one side and the elephant on the other side of the road. Both were decked out in lights that ran through the entire Serangoon Road.

What I love most about Indian food are their Naans (flat breads) or pratas – the curries are just great. Their delectable snacks like murukus (look like pretzels but entire different in taste) are to die for literally and also kill you as it is filled with fats!

Meanwhile Orchard Road is already gearing up for Christmas – this year the merchants on Orchard Road (this is where the major shopping belt is for tourists and locals) used the theme of Disneyland!

Orchard Road needs a makeover as alot of the malls on the road are shuttered as rentals are up and poor merchandise mix. Also the decentralization of malls in heartlands where people live are generally more fun that trotting all the way down to Orchard Road and pay a bomb for Electronic Road Pricing, car park, food and everything else.

I like the way Changi Airport has made the airport such a hub of activity and the foot traffic is huge. Shopping is easy and parking is affordable coupled with free items such as 3 storey slides of children, wide berths walk ways for people with mobile devices (* of course meant for wheelchairs etc but idiots with their e Scooters and what not devices throng the areas too, making it quite dangerous to co-exist with those on medical devices).

Toilets are plentiful and squeaky clean.

Food has such a wide choice – for the man on  the street pricing to the well heeled restaurant pricings.

Yes, in our lil red dot, we have something for everyone and here is wishing all my Indian friends a Happy Diwali and happy visiting your friends and relatives! Save the Murukus for me please haha!

 

 

So How Is My Little Fractured Toe

My little fractured toe has turned from normal color to red and then to purplish blue.

The sides of my left foot following the toe is puffy and still very much swollen.

Putting weight on it is painful and trying to squat and or get up from a sitting position is still very painful.

I for one, will never belittle the importance of the little toe and can empathise with those who lose their toes due to an accident or through diabetic amputations.

If I had not had this experience, I would not know what are the functions of a little toe – the last one.

It allows me to balance and arise from a sitting position to a standing position.

It lets me pick things up with my big toe and second toe – eg a piece of dropped clothing item. I used to do this as my spine sometimes does not work to let me bend. Since the fracture, I cannot do it.

The little toe balances my gait as without the use of it now, I have an antalgic gait – walk pattern to prevent pain when walking.

So, I have now learnt an invaluable lesson from this unfortunate accident – the little digits on my foot are terribly important. They do not just hold toe nails for me to color and show off when wearing open toe shoes but provide me with physical balance and gait.

Please take care of your toes and if you are doing construction work, please wear safety shoes and most accidents or incidents arise and people lose their toes unnecessarily.

Meanwhile hi ho hi ho as I hobble to the clinic…I hope my little toe and side of the foot are ok.

Fingers and workable toes crossed!

This Or That…World News

Plenty of news to share in today’s news.

Sadness…

We lost our own Singaporean in a paragliding event in India. What was ironic about it was that this 51 year old male survived the Sulawesi earthquake last month and was a hero as this ex commando stayed and saved a woman and her child in the rubble they were trapped in.

He now lost his life last Saturday in a paragliding event. His wife and children said he died doing something he loved.

Fate did not give him a second chance.

The disastrous helicopter crash in UK that killed the 61 year old Thai billionaire owner of Leceister City Football club and 5 others stunned me.

These 2 incidents tell me that death spares no one. Heroes or billionaires..their lives can be snuffed out like a candle in the wind!

Drought…..

Cape Town took center spread of our national newspaper, The Sunday Times, sharing with us how they overcame drought by cutting down on wastage of water. They successful did and ground zero did not happen in April 2018.

Toilets do not get flushed the report went. “If it’s yellow, let it mellow” is their tagline.

They shared how every Cape Town resident cut down on wasting water by using gray water for flushing toilets and used hand sanitisers instead of washing hands.

So much so that lil red dot or Singapore is trying to get us to limit water usage to 130 litres a person a day. Just 10 litres off our average per pax use of 140 litres.

We must try our best.

So when I bite into a cruchy Cape Town apple or red plum, I know how much water was spared for them to become fruits for export to our supermarkets here.

Life waits for no man,

To live or die is no man’s stand.

It is up to the Heavenly hand,

That tells us with the wave of its hand.

To live or die…in time or not,

We do our best, making life meaningful and successful by our own stand.

Ashes to ashes,

Dust to dust…

Make not a life of waste.

35.6 Degrees Celsius…Lil Red Dot Is Baking

The balmy, hot and humid weather is tortorous to me. I don’t take heat well and have always loved the cold or winter season, which is why I go fishing in winter months.

Sadly Singapore’s weather is perennially hot, hotter or rainy. No seasons, just a fake Spring when our local “sakura blooms” fall massively onto the road. Actually these are flowers ftom our local Trumpet tree.

Sweltering heat that really makes you sweat even when sitting in the gardens at 7am. Now that is bad hot weather.

Thankfully, our water situation is still “healthy” but I try my best to shower with a slower gush of water then as if, using a spray jet. This way, water is not unduly wasted.

I tend to also wash dishes and kitchen utensils under slower running water, a trickle like stream if you will. I realised it takes a longer time but the cleaning is even of a better quality.

Global warming is what this is. Nature Society sent its members along Rail Corridoor (our nature reserve area) to plant Singapore’s own magnolia trees.

Up till recently this was thought to be quite extinct till a nature conservist aged 18 years found it in the growing in the reserve.

Very quickly these were protected and yesterday 3 new trees were planted along the rail corridor.

I am feeling better and although my left eye has a heaviness in it, I hope it abates or else I need to investigate further.

It is sickening to have to be ill literally as it saps me of my life. Still it was good to be home hugging Garfield and sleeping in.

Also had a chance to catch up on movies and serials in the internet.

Watched a Korean movie called Trip To Busan last night. Creepy in that those bitten by this walking dead turns into a walking dead to kill and turn more into zombies.

Nightmare indeed….😱

Ahh well back to the grind tomorrow🙄. Not something I relish!

Some Thoughts – And So The Story Goes #84

On some days, I get all philosophical, thinking about things, life in general etc. Imagine me thinking that I am an Aristotle wannbe! This is a hilarious thought!

But on a serious note, I was thinking how will anyone know if have left for the skies above?

Being single, no one will know if I am, very well – quite dead!

The morbid thought of having to decay in my unit is quite horrifying.

I have kept 2 good fellas to check in on me once in a while to see if I am alive – Mr Ability To Earn and Mr S Man.

Mr S Man has kept his end of the bargain and has been giving me weekly texts to see if I am well erm very much alive!

Mr S Man and I started out as arch enemies. He was an employee of Scorpion King back then and because he was then the blue eyed boy of Scorpion King, he kinda made my work life a living hell there.

But as fast as winds or tide changes, soon Mr S Man was not on the happy list of Scorpion King and he got so inflammed that his anger rule and he threw in his letter of resignation without finding a job.

During his notice period I have had to stop him from shouting at Scorpion King’s sister (she has since died last year March of Stage 3 Appendix Cancer at age 34 years old). Both had issues and to be frank, Scorpion’s sister was not at all a nice person. She is another story of how I helped find medical treatment, claimed insurances for her treatment but was also tossed out, unappreciated.

Funny how life turns out as after that Mr S Man could not land a job.

I did try my best to help him get a job at Electrical Lord but as usual Electrical Lord drove us all mad.

He left Electrical Lord first and bummed about for a while without a job. To be exact for about 2 years.

Thankfully he is now doing quite well again and I am happy for him.

So, this is how Mr S Man has learnt to appreciate me and I, him.

Mr S Man text me last evening to say he was attending a seminar with MR EX as a speaker. Small world.

I then received a text from MR EX last evening around 10pm, after his thunderous applause seminar according to Mr S Man.

MR EX

“I just had eye surgery this morning but no choice had to speak at this seminar tonight”

ME

“Oh, I thought you had surgery last Saturday”

MR EX

“Complications – I had to go back for more surgery plus I need 2 more ops on my body parts”

ME

“Oh…..what operations?”

MR EX

” Anus restoration”

NOTE1:

I knew his zinger on backside would come back to me! I had to think fast and shut him up.

ME

“HA!”

“More like Penis restoration”

“Anyway, I will not be able to visit you in the hospital if you go for operations as you will be surrounded by Bimbo”

“You take care and all the best for your piles operation”

NOTE2

I assumed Anus Restoration meant removal of piles and hemorrhoids!

Silence then ensued. I know how to get him to shut up!

I then thought about it…if I died no one will know.

If MR EX died, I will also not know.

Ahh well no point pretending to be nice after death as I believe in the present and the now. I need not know, so long as I have done my best in life!

I did apologize and told him that if he did indeed go for operations, I will not be able to visit him as a friend as he is surrounded by his Bimbo.

Sigh…my Saturday thoughts – not nice really 😦