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Thursday, February 13, 2003

 
Thursday noon Ritsu came over for lunch and brought some nice indian Roti's (kinda like the indian counterpart to hamburgers: Curry wrapped in pancake style bread. Very nice and quite cheap).

Later I started watching one of my all time favorite Bond movies: On her Majesty's Secret Service. Not only being highly entertaining, this Bond movie had a couple of unique things to it:

  • An instrumental only title theme (according to the IMDB trivia section, lyrics where written, but it was decided to have the Louis Armstrong song "We have all the time in the World" to be the more prominent song. Would wonder if those lyrics are floating around anywhere and who they thought should be singing it)
  • First Bond movie not starring Sean Connery as Bond, and only movie so far that had an actor who would not reprise his role as Bond. (Casino Royale does not really count)
  • Nobody gets killed in the pre-credit sequence
  • Bond gets married
  • M calls him "James"
  • Bond kisses Moneypenny (who ever came up with THAT name ???)

I also enjoy the mountain top setting, the "clichee" exotic girl line up, Frl. Bunts bad english, Teddy's earlobes and the several chase scenes (with skis through a bob sled track !) ... actually, this is the movie that made me want to learn skiing.

It is said it is a common misperception that this movie was a flop: Yes, it made less money than previous Bond flicks, but at its time it led the box office for 4 weeks and made double the money than the closest contender .. maybe at that time people were not much into going to the movies (it was 1969, being a hippie was cooler than going to the movies maybe)

Later that night Wayne came over and I did the Mango Margaritas again (recipe see below) and we chatted and enjoyed the outdoor setting.




Dinner was red roasted chicken over rice with cucumber salad. For this strips of chicken are being marrinaded in a fragrant and VERY red sauce, the longer the better. It just turned out a bit dry, I guess using pork, which has some fat in it, makes it juicier.



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Wednesday, February 12, 2003

 
Misha (our cat) is recovering nicely !!! I stayed up some time during tuesday - wednesday night to check on her .. but everything is fine .. yesterday I kinda had to confine her to one room, since the cleaning lady was around, but she just wanted to sleep anyway ... around midday she woke up and actually ate a bit ... she wanted to get out it seems, but was not powerful enough .. and so she keept on sleeping ...

Lunch was chicken pasta bake :) Ritsu and Marama liked it very much. Dinner I kinda skipped since I was sleeping and Ritsu made noodles for herself ... later I made us mango margaritas, very yummy ,... let's see if I get the recipe together:
For one serving you need:

  • 1/3 cup of cubed mango flesh
  • 1.5 oz of silver tequila
  • 1 oz of Contreau
  • 1.5 oz fresh lemon juice
  • 0.5 oz fresh lime juice
  • 0.5 oz sugar syrup

Put in blender with 1.5 cups of ice, blend until you have a nice slushy conconction. Serve in wine goblet with sugar/salt rim. Enjoy !



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Tuesday, February 11, 2003

 
Hello and BIG news in the "how is the cat" department.

Yesterday (Tuesday) was some UN observed holiday so Ritsu stayed home and we had decided the day before that we want to take Misha to the vet, to have her checked up ... only 2 days before that she let us touch her enough that we noticed that a) she is indeed a girl b) her tummy was quite big .. (mind you, Misha came to us merely a week ago)

So, we lured her in around 8 AM and played with her till 10 AM .. and then put her in a very nice and bright laundry hamper (where we had put her in before, trying on for size, giving her some treats, so it would be less threatening)

She naturally freaked out a bit during the car ride, but was overall a very well behaving cat .. and so at 10:15 we arrived at the SPCA animal clinic here in Suva, and a bit later we were called in. The vet is a young indian lady who appeared very nice and professional, with her was a big guy who must be some kind of assistant and his main job was to hold the cat ... initially it was ok, but Misha succeeded twice in getting away, but gladly all doors and windows were closed ...

Our first question was about the age ... I had somewhat thought "maybe 5 - 8 months" ... being that skinny and tiny, she looked very young to me. Well, when the doctor answered "Five" ... I started to be very proud of my accuracy ... but then me and Ritsu asked ..."months ?? " .. well .. turns out that Misha is probably around five YEARS old !!! (can be seen by looking at her teeth so I learned) ...

The next burning questions was "Is she pregnant?" and I had ruled that out, since I believed she was too young for that ... well, the vet says "let's first see if it is a girl" .. and ta daa .. 8 nipples = girl ... and TA DAAA ... heavily pregnant !!! (I think I actually caught a glance from the vet expressing "are you kidding? that is SO obvious")

Well, good that we came and the vet took care of it ... Misha stayed there to get spayed (having ovaries and uterus removed, called "neutered" on male cats, a very normal surgery done on pets, well, should be done very early) and that took also care of potential procreation issues ... we went home and were both quite excited / nervous





At 4:30 PM we went to pick her up. She was sleeping in a little cage and nearly too drugged up to get out and back into the laundry basket. We paid the bill (65.60 FJ$ .. can anyone tell me what spaying costs in NY these days ? I recall a 75US$ price tag from 13 years ago) and went home ... we made a nice bed for her and bought a litter box (she had never stayed a night inside our house before) and took care of her ... at some point she tried to get up (really funny to watch a drugged up cat trying to walk straight) and was looking for a way out ... we later found out why .. she needed to puke ... gladly (and smart) she went out of bed for that and did it on a nice, easy to clean, tile floor ... twice actually .. we were very surprised how much it was .. since we had not fed her that morning ..

She also tried to find a place to pee .. but she probably did not realize the litterbox yet .. so she went to some old towel that we keep for our kitchen floor .. again, great choice .. She then tried to find some more hidden place to sleep (all in slow motion of course) and ended up in some corner .. Ritsu had the great idea of bringing in our sneakers .. on which we had found her sleeping before .. and shortly after she was actually on them and slept ...

She woke up again at night, trying to find a place to pee, this time it was that bed we made for her ... now she is sleeping again, on the floor .. and slowly recovering ... It will be interesting, once she is fully awake and wants to get out .. we are supposed to keep her in for the next several days ...

Oh, for the food critics .. for lunch I made a fish dish (premade supermarket food .. but good) with veggies and a cucumber salad .. for dinner Ritsu prepared a very yummy japanese eggplant dish. Using eggplant, green peppers and minced pork.





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Monday, February 10, 2003

 
ok .. what is worse that bad online connection ?? NO connection at all .. we lost phone communication for all sunday night and who knows how much of monday ..

and the joke of the day: the one and only ISP on the island is now offering ISDN ... which they call "highspeed" ... cough cough ... and the pricing is just ridiculous .. something like 700 US$ just for start up fees .. and then something like 220 USD to the ISP and local telecom (connect is a daughter of telecom .. go figure) per month .. but the biggest joke .. you are restricted to 500 MB of download per month !!! .. let's see .. in my times in NY i uploaded and downloaded 2 GB in a weekend ... this is another joke, a bad one .. this monoploy is aiming for the money of wealthy companies .. and they are taking away Fiji's chance of being on par with the world (though the technology is there) ... very very sad ...



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