We spent Saturday evening cosying up at home. 

Relaxing by the sofa.  Listening to Michael Buble.  Munching on tidbits.  Sipping on a cup of hot tea.  Father and son playing a little cellphone game.  Mummy reading a bit by the dim lights.  

Just the three of us.  Soaking up the candlelights.  Enjoying a bit of family warmth.

Cos shopping for pretty notepads can make me very happy.  Yeah, more notepads to help this lousymemoryficklemindedperfectionist stay organised.  Heehee…

Now what should I do with the OTHER pile of notepads? 

I have tons to do but I’m not getting much done because I still cannot create that perfect looking TO DO LIST.  

First of all, which type of organiser should I use?  The PDA?  The handphone?  The planner?  The notepad?  Or the post-it notes? 

The PDA was great until I got too lazy to input the information after a while.  Same goes for the handphone.  So now I’m back to basic pen and paper.  The problem is – I can’t decide which notepad to use because I keep getting distracted with new and prettier ones that come along every now and then.   Then there is the problem of size.  How big should my notepad be?   It should not be bulky and I should be able to fit it into my bag to carry around all the time but it must also be able to handle all my lists. 

Ya the LISTS.  Household lists.  Work lists.  Gavin’s lists.  Grocery lists.  How can I properly categorise them without losing track? 

Arrrgh…this is what happens when one is a lousymemoryficklemindedperfectionist.  I need a dummy’s guide to getting all my lists down in one place.  Ideas, anyone?   

More and more I feel that the pediatricians we’ve been bringing Gavin to are just doing what’s best for themselves, but not for him.

I have been trying to avoid a certain clinic in AMK as far as possible because I don’t like the fact that they’re always prescibing the nebuliser to Gavin.  As a matter of fact, we noticed that most of the kids in the clinic are prescribed that and we’ve been wondering if that’s a necessity or a commercial exploit.  Cost is one issue but I am not convinced of its benefits because Gavin never really recovered fully after the last therapy.

Unfortunately, the boy gets ear infection quite frequently and his usual pediatrician is not willing to give him antibiotics.  So the last time he didn’t recover after a week of medication, we had no choice but to bring him back to the AMK clinic.  To our dismay, the doctor said Gavin is asthmatic and this time, the Ventolin Evohaler was given.  

My husband and I were not happy.  Gavin was having a chesty cough indeed but he was not wheezing.   We didn’t feel he needed such a strong treatment which has possible side effects going from what I’ve read.   Why couldn’t the doctor just prescibed the Ventolin syrup instead?  Sure, he did stop coughing after being given the inahler but to me, that’s really just a quick fix.  And a strong one at that.

A colleague whom I spoke to told me she had the same experience herself.  For someone who is hardly ill, she was shocked to learn that she’s asthmatic the last time she had flu and was given the Ventolin Evohaler.  What?  A full grown adult with no past asthma attacks and no family history of that ailment?  Something doesn’t sound right here isn’t it?

Anyway, because my husband isn’t keen on the idea of consulting the Chinese physician, I’ve to turn to other alternative treatments for the time being.  So this week when I went back to Vitakids to replenish his cod liver oil, I also bought Sambucol, a black elderberry extract which is supposedly effective for prevention and treatment of colds, flu and other viral infections.  

I’ve learnt about this product for sometime already but just didn’t get it.  I’m not sure of its effectiveness and am hoping it’ll help to reduce his frequent flu bouts.  But at the least, I’m comforted knowing that this is an all-natural product, not just a quick and harsh fix.

This is Nepali chicken noodle soup my husband made last week.  He picked up the special recipe when we were in Chitwan National Park years ago. 

I remember this was an appetizer but because we both loved it so much, we used to order extra and requested servings in bigger bowls.  The cook even made a special concession by teaching my husband how to make the dish in their kitchen. 

And it’s probably the best noodle soup we ever had in our lives thus far.  The delicate noodle soaked in clear chicken broth with the aromatic fragrance of fried garlics and onions is truly lovely.  Not forgetting everytime I have this dish, I have images of the greater Asian one-horned rhinoceros flashing across my mind. 

Well, besides the wonderlicious chicken noodle soup, Chitwan also brings back memories of the adventure of our lifetime.  One of BEING CHASED ON FOOT BY TWO RAGING RHINOS while we were trekking in the Chitwan National Park!  It was totally unexpected and if our guides had been any less attentive, we both would probably have been trampled to pulp by the charging rhinos.  Actually, the guides were scared shit themselves because it was their first time coming face-to-face with not one, but two charging rhinos. 

The funny thing was that when we started the jungle trek, I was expecting it to be anything but exciting.  I was even sniggering when the guides were laying down the trekking rules and telling us what to do if we chanced upon certain animals like bears, tigers and rhinos.  With rhinos, the rule of the game was to find a tree to climb up.  There was a tree alright.  But it was so miserably small, the rhinos would have toppled it over easily, or the weight of five of us (including the two guides and one other trekker)  would have brought it down anyway.

I still recall sticking out my head to have a good look at the charging rhinos which were about a hundred metres away and feeling blardy amused then.  My thought at that point was “SHIT, IF I AM GOING TO BE KILLED, THEN I BETTER JOLLY WELL HAVE A GOOD LOOK AT MY KILLER!”  

Luckily, one of the guides was quick enough to scare the rhinos away by thumping the ground with the big stick he was holding and shouting away.  I also believe we were lucky to have encountered the younger rhinos which were more easily frightened away.  We probably wouldn’t have lived to tell the story had it been two older, more seasoned rhinos.

It was frightening for sure.  But it was the highlight of our trip and something we’ll live to tell for the rest of our lives.  There is another funny part to our story but I’ll leave that for another time perhaps. 

So now you know why I have images of rhinos flashing when I eat my chicken noodle soup?