KP in KL

Well, the 20th of August marked our 100th day since we boarded the flight to KL! We’re making progress and adjusting still, as you may or may not have noticed from the past blog posts, and we’re realizing that KL is really where we will be living for the next 600 something days at least. This isn’t just a vacation! I’ve been staying busy turning the past 23 blog posts into a book through blurb.com which is coming together very nicely. This will be the last post for this book and I’ll have it printed since they only allow 160 pages. This post will make 155! Who knew I had that many words? If I was crazy I’d say this could very well rival my sister’s vocal abilities, but I’m not crazy. I’ve got nothing on her. So, once my book is printed it will be a hardback, with the dust jacket, layout, photos, and text by yours truly. If nothing else it will be fun to take a look at 20 years down the road. A KL yearbook so to speak. And at this rate, I’m going to have to start a savings account to pay for the dozens of volumes to follow because we all know the mishaps I get myself into are not over just because I’ve reached day 100. I’ve concluded the initiation is ongoing. So, for a 100 day summary and insight into a few things I may have left out, (in list form because I love to make a list for anything), here is my interpretation of the top 11 (10+1 for good measure) good, bad, and ugly of KL.

1.The Good: Swimming year round! I love the sunshine, and since I we don’t have a car for me to defrost in after it’s been baking in the heat with non-tinted windows like I’m used to, I lay out by the pool instead. And I can even do that in December!
The Bad: Sunshine=heat=sweating. All the time. The end
The Ugly: I have to dress like winter’s going to blow in any day with sleeves and shorts to my knees and turtlenecks practically. It’s a little difficult to enjoy the latest fashion trends this way. And while I’m complaining, there are a gazillion women wearing berkas everyday.

2.The Good: This place is animal friendly!
The Bad: The only animals I’ve seen around residences are wild cats, wild dogs, and nasty rats.
The Ugly: The rats like to cross the streets in groups, and if you’re lucky like Paul, you’ll catch a glimpse of a rat with a tail the diameter of a quarter that’s large enough to eat one of those wild cats.

3.The Good: They’ve not forgotten to indulge your sense of smell when submersing you into the culture. Sometimes that’s done by food like tasty Chinese dumplings.
The Bad: Lots of the time that food is durian, in which case your gag reflux is immediately triggered.
The Ugly: Most of the time it’s from smells coming through the gutter grates that are all over the sidewalks, in which case your gag reflux is immediately triggered again, unless you’ve been here 100 days and have learned to hold your breath before you cross over a gutter grate.

4.The Good: KL people work to live, not live to work. This is extremely convenient when needing a holiday since there are at least a few every month.
The Bad: Things move a lot slower, and sometimes you have to light a fire under their seat.
The Ugly: On occasion, they will move so slowly that your house floods. And then it floods again.

5.The Good: Local food is very inexpensive and pretty tasty.
The Bad: There’s a good chance you’ll end up with anchovies or guppies in your food.
The Ugly: 30 consecutive days of Chicken rice.

6.The Good: Sometimes public restrooms have western style toilets.
The Bad: Most of the time they have squatters.
The Ugly: Squatters, toilets, doesn’t make a difference. It always looks like someone took a bath while standing on the toilet. Good luck finding toilet paper.

7.The Good: KL is in the perfect location to travel anywhere in Asia Pac.
The Bad: Sometimes you go to the wrong place and happen to get sick on the trip.
The Ugly: Other times you plan a trip and then you find out there might be pirates or bombers.

8.The Good: It’s a multicultural city, where many languages are spoken.
The Bad: You make no attempt to learn the local language.
The Ugly: Instead, you decide to learn Spanish once you’ve left Houston.

9.The Good: Lots of things are smaller in Asia. People, appliances, beds, etc. This is ergonomically great for short people like me.
The Bad: I have to do lots of laundry because the washer is so small.
The Ugly: Paul sleeps diagonally in the bed squishing me to one corner because his feet hang off the end.

10.The Good: Taxis are all over the place honking and eager to pick you up.
The Bad: Sometimes they don’t know where they are going, so you have to give them directions.
The Ugly: Sometimes neither you nor the driver knows where you’re going, but the driver says they do know, so they drive you all around town and you’re an hour late to your destination.

11.The Good: People here are really nice and sometimes you’re blessed with wonderful neighbors.
The Bad: Or you’re given overbearing neighbors who think they live with you and won’t leave you alone.
The Ugly: Your neighbor turns out to be a money launderer.

I came up with the bright idea that while Ewan was still in town without Barry, his partner in crime, that it might be fun if we went to a Malaysian cooking class, since aside from Chicken Rice neither Paul nor I have really indulged too much in what we’ve heard is true Malay spicy goodness. I thought I might have to twist a few arms, but was delighted when I got a quick confirmation via email that both Paul and Ewan would be happy to test their knife skills in the kitchen.

Now to introduce two more characters in this story of Malaysian living, Paul works with Murray, who I think I may have mentioned before. His wife’s name is Ellen, who I’ve been having coffee with on occasion. Their story is a little confusing, but I’m going to attempt to get it right. They are from Australia originally, so I’ve heard that makes them called Kiwi’s, after the bird not the fruit I’m guessing. Murray and Ellen lived in the UK for the past 30 years or so, and were transferred to Singapore just about a year ago. Now they have been transferred to KL thankfully, because we really enjoy their company. Ellen had originally mentioned the cooking classes, so I jumped the gun a little getting all this together and we invited Ellen and Murray along as well. Murray took a little arm twisting, but in the end the five of us ended up signed up with nametags labeled and ready to go at the LaZat cooking classes.

None of us really knew what to expect from a Malaysian cooking class, especially after the incident at our neighbors with the little guppies in my rice, but it turned out the menu was online for us to see. Saturday’s menu consisted of Potato Samosas, Dhall Curry, Fried Mackerel, Tomato and Mint Salad, and Fruit and Nut pudding, so at least we knew we were making something with an Indian flair.

Murray volunteered to drive us, so we packed into the Asian version of the Civic with almost no idea of where to go. Murray handed Ewan a giant book of a map and told Ewan the general direction we would be going through several pages on the map, and we were off. This is where we realized that the funny thing about Malaysian road signs/maps/intersections/toll plazas and anything else that you might need to get somewhere without getting lost, is it seems that none of it makes sense. The street numbers are not in any particular order in the neighborhoods, the signs on the freeway are actually right above the exits instead of before, so by the time you realize you need to exit, it’s too late. The street signs and labels on the freeway are not on the maps either. As you can imagine this created a bit of a problem for Ewan the navigator, who has only been here a few weeks. He had no help from Paul and I who have never really needed to know where we were going since we’ve always relied on taxi’s, and Murray and Ellen said they get lost every time they attempt to go in the direction of this cooking school. So after a few U-turns and mostly cluelessness, we realized we were actually in the right place the whole time we just didn’t know it thanks to a gas station we saw that was actually labeled on the map. In the end of it all we made it to the LaZat cooking school in time to get started around 10:00.

The school is actually in a traditional Malaysian house, right in the middle of a neighborhood. We walked through the front yard to get there which had all sorts of herbs growing and a large curry leaf tree. It’s run by three Malaysian women who appeared to have been cooking these dishes for years. Two of them wore their traditional Malay outfit including the head scarves while they cooked. We were joined by six other people who were just in town to visit. We started of the morning with a light taste of mangosteen and another little fruit, along with some tortilla like stuff called Roti and two curry dipping sauces. The mangosteen was a very slimy fruit and there’s nothing that I can think to compare it to. All I know is I don’t care for it too much. I was about to eat my whole plate of Roti with curry sauce but it was taken away when I went back inside to get my camera. We were served very very sweet tea as we sat out on the patio waiting for the events of the day to begin.

We were called inside to start the classes and sat around the demonstration area with our aprons and nametags on and took notes on our small cookbook they gave us. The first item was the potato Samosa. I would say this is the closest thing to an empanada I’ve seen here. The difference is it’s stuffed with potatoes and peas and the dough is folded into a triangle instead of a half moon. It all seemed like a synch to me. After all, I’m a veteran in the kitchen so I thought. There was nothing to it. Little did I know my husband would show me up.

We each had our own cooking station that had one burner and the smallest little bronze pot you’ve ever seen to fry things in. My first mistake was I bumped the spoon that was sitting in the potatoes and pea mixture, so of course it flies behind me and potatoes and peas are all over the floor. That of course was no surprise to the two of us given my reputation for spilling, and especially spilling foods that stain when I’m wearing my sister’s clothes. Well, I got over that and was on to the next mistake. My pastry dough must have been dryer than the rest, because my triangles were cracking open and all the peas were rolling out. After fixing this issue, I realized that this little tiny burner we were given apparently heats up very fast. As soon as I threw the samosas in the oil they basically turned black instead of a nice golden color. All the while, my husband who has a daily habit of sitting on the couch while I slave away in the kitchen is chopping away very meticulously, making sure everything is just right.

I think he must have had some sort of grid placed over his food in his head with the precise engineering formula and strategy to make all the filling fit just perfectly in these perfectly formed triangles with perfectly pointy corners. He probably just whipped out the perfect boiling point of the oil we were using and calculated a few things to be sure these samosas would be picture perfect. Because they were. He very nicely and concernedly looked at my dark brown, bent cornered, halfway opened samosas that I had clearly failed at and asked, “What happened to the corners?” That’s when I decided it’s time to let Paul work in the kitchen a little more at home! I think he’s been playing dumb, or else surprised himself with his samosa victory too. Either way, I’m passing my torch of knives onto this guy whose engineering approach to things seems to make everything that he does a success, including cooking. I wonder what else I could get him to do for me? I bet he’d get perfect corners folded on the laundry as well!

I must have really made an impression on the head cooks because one came over to me after seeing all the mistakes I made and repeated herself three times telling me not to grab the hot pot of boiling oil with my bare hands. First of all, why would I do that, and why am I the only one she’s saying that to? I guess my pile of mistakes made me look inexperienced in the kitchen, thus making the cooks assume I was very young. She said to me, “It happens all the time! Teenagers like you forget and grab the pot and it’s just too hot!” So there you have it. I failed at my samosas and she thought I was a teenager. A wonderful start to the day of cooking. Later on the same woman gave me a hug when I said she needed to be patient with me, and I guess like it was some sort of conciliation she assured me, “But! You are very pretty!” According to her I guess I should rely on my looks instead of my cooking skills to get me through life. At that point it would have been nice to have a mimosa to go along with that samosa. I probably would have been carded for that request.

We took lessons and cooked until 2:00 in the afternoon, taking breaks to wash the chili pepper off our hands and step outside into the breeze. The house had only one a/c wall unit which doesn’t do a whole lot of good when there are 11 people frying food in one room. But, we managed, and most things went without a hitch, besides that Paul and I chopped up our red and green chili for one sauce and didn’t for the other sauce which was completely backwards. I think it turned out better that way though because the curry wasn’t as spicy as it should have been.

Afterwards we all sat down to eat our food which turned out pretty good actually. I think we were all impressed with ourselves, except for Ellen because she could probably teach the class with her eyes closed. The fried Mackerel was actually really good I think because it was drenched in so many spices they almost overtook the fish flavor. In the end, the cooking class was a success and we learned a few things. The most important thing I took from it is that Paul can cook! What was I thinking this whole time?

We got back into the car with plans to follow the directions backwards. Really any plan we had would have been the best one I guess because again we ended lost and turned around. We were trying to keep our eyes on the Petronas towers the whole time, but we never got any closer. After a detour through a museum area, up a hill with a very windey road which closely resembled the drive in Taipei from my first blog post, and an hour drive later, we got back home. After a day of cooking and quite a scenic drive, I think we were all ready for a nap.

That evening we all went over to Ellen and Murray’s place for a wonderfully western feast of a dinner Ellen cooked. After that I decided I am quite partial to western food over Malaysian.

(You asked for more pictures. I've got you covered on this one!)

In an effort to capture the essence of Malaysia as much as possible in the short few weeks Barry van Helsing and Ewy Lewis and the News, (as they’ve asked to be called) are here, they decided to take a trip to Malacca this past weekend and asked Paul and I to join them. Malacca is a town two hours south of KL that used to be the biggest port city in the region. Now it’s mostly a historical tourist attraction with lots of museums and old buildings to tour.

This sounded like a fun little history lesson for me, but I questioned whether or not the guys would like that. When asking if they knew it was basically just a bunch of old stuff I was quickly informed that they are “quite the culture vultures” and were all over this trip seeing that they are “very adept at fitting into a plethora of multicultural societies”. So we took a blue taxi to be sure we had working a/c and adequate leg room for the four of us for the two hour ride south. Our taxi driver, Mr. Saiful, was a fairly small man looking very cool with his mini rat tail haircut and a giant black dome, sorcerer-like ring on his right ring finger. Of course we were fully prepared with cameras in hand, plenty of water, and essential nutrients: chocolate chip cookies.

We passed miles of palm tree covered hills while listening to Paul, Barry, and Ewan crack jokes for most of the ride, and I learned a few things. 1. The large gas tanks in the trunks of all the cars are actually for natural gas. I didn’t even know it was possible for cars to run off natural gas. 2. Palm tree oil is actually used in one type of gas which explains all the palm tree plantations. and 3. Muslim people actually do not use toilet paper ever because wiping isn’t clean. Instead they take a mini shower every single time they use the restroom. This would explain the lack of toilet paper in the restrooms, the presence of water hoses in every restroom, the inevitable abundance of water on the floors, toilet seat, and walls in public restrooms, and the reason for the drains and step down in our bathrooms in the apartment! I think I slept better last night having a logical explanation for those drains.

For those of you needing a picture of exactly what these two Scottish jokesters and Paul look like in front of the camera to give you a better picture of our trip, Barry was happy to oblige you.


Ewan claimed he doesn’t do pictures, but his true colors came out later in the afternoon,

and Paul pretty much has to be forced to even look at the camera. If my shutter speed is fast enough to get a shot of a half smile from him, I’m lucky. This one's a keeper.

We arrived at Malacca with the weather overcast luckily, so melting from the heat might only happen halfway through instead of half a minute into the trip. The town looked old and run down with vacant buildings scattered on the streets and people were eating their lunches under the lean-to’s built next to the vacant buildings.

Traffic was jammed bumper to bumper and side mirror to side mirror with tourist getting into the town so close that I could clearly see the small bobble head Chinese tiger waving at me from the dash of the car next to us. Still the dirt bike riders managed to finagle their way through the cars, barely skimming ours. When we finally got to the town square, Mr. Saiful parked the car right in the center of town without a designated parking place and we agreed to meet back in two hours.
We clearly had no idea where we were going or what to do first, so we followed the crowd into what we learned was the literature museum, but turned out having all sorts of interesting artifacts like guns, knives, antique furniture, and lots of history about the colonization of Malacca and the British forces taking over after WWII. This particularly peaked Barry’s interest because his grandfather had been stationed in Malacca. So after being patriotically pumped up, the rest of the afternoon was accented with outbursts of “Rule Britania!” with his fist on his chest and “let’s take this place back!” After making it all the way through the many British flags and models of British soldiers, they decided the three of them would fight to take the place back while I cooked for them to keep them energized. What a plan.

We walked around the square and were passed by many rickshaw/tuk tuk like modes of transportation that were made from a full bicycle on one side, and a half bicycle on the other, that had radios tied to the back blaring music by Elvis Presley and the like with an umbrella on top and mercedez benz hood ornaments on their cash boxes that doubled as dashboards.

We made it up the hill in the center of town to St. Paul’s catholic church, where only the shell of the building had withstood time, and was now filled with large gravestones.

We walked down to the canal that ran through the town and down the street that would become a busy china town district at night. There was a narrow sidewalk only on one side of the street, so foot traffic was coming and going in a chaotic mess, and cars, mopeds, and trucks were trying to push their way through the crowds of people.

We came across some guy lip-singing for a music video that was being filmed, and if you’ve never seen someone mouthing the words very passionately while there is no music to be heard, it’s pretty funny looking. Hawker stalls were sprinkled along the street.

There’s a particular dessert that is very common wrapped in banana leaves which I probably should have tried after I took the picture, but I had to run to catch up with the guys who were already across the intersection planning their next point of interest. I think Paul spent most of the day looking behind him because I kept stopping for pictures everywhere and the three of them were subconsciously determined to keep up a good pace. My short legs didn’t help the situation.

Then back in the town center we came across two very large pythons that you could have you picture taken with for 10 ringit. The three guys were too chicken.

Ewan was stopped by two Malaysian girls who wanted their picture with him, and low and behold, Ewan who doesn’t do pictures started posing for the photos like it was America’s next top model. The girls claimed they were students and the picture was for their assignment, but I’m pretty sure the girls blushing in the picture proves otherwise.

Back in the car, Mr. Saiful suggested we see the crocodile habitat, so we went. This place ended up being the worst theme park you’ve ever seen in your life, and as a result we were the only people in the place. We passed the haunted house hut and coconut selling guy to find a few dozen crocidles who might as well have been dead, because they were all motionless. There was no Malaysian version of Steve Erwin trying to stick his head in the croc’s mouth, which was really what the four of us had in mind. We attempted a pit stop at the restrooms on the way out before getting back on the road for the two hour drive home, only to realize those were the worst restrooms I’ve ever seen in my life. I won’t go into details. Mr. Saiful asked how the crocodile habitat was, and to very accurately describe it so perfectly, Barry’s response was, “Mr. Saiful, that was rubbish!” So on the road Mr. Saiful put in a Celine Dion video which automatically put Barry and Ewan to sleep. Paul and I sat in silence.

When we returned, Ewan and Barry planned on taking Paul and I to High Tea Sunday afternoon to show us what real High Tea was. Being newbie’s to the whole idea of drinking hot tea in scorching weather as opposed to iced sweet tea, we got the whole explanation on how as a generalization it’s for the hoity toity basically, and you eat little finger foods and desserts while you have your hot tea. I was then told that you have to dress like Jackie O. and a hat and gloves are common. Ewan would be in his tux, and Barry and Paul in suites. Most of the women wear hats apparently, which I do not have. Oh, and the hot pink dress I have that’s the closest to Jackie O. in my closet, would probably not be an appropriate color for high tea. Hmmm. Who knew tea drinking was such a formal event? After hours of trying to come up with a solution for the appropriate attire to wear to drink tea, I came to grips with the fact that I would have to wear my hot pink dress and just look like the life of the party instead of blending in with all those tea drinkers who looked like they had come from a funeral. I had it all planned out, made sure Paul had his suit and white shirt cleaned and ironed, and was mentally preparing myself for this high tea drinking with apparently high fashion people. It all seemed a bit overdone if you asked me, but I was going to be a good sport about it all and play dress up while we have tea and scones or crumpets or biscotti’s or whatever else they serve.

I should have known better that to succumb to the stories these boys put together so thoughtfully. A few hours before we were set to leave for High Tea, Paul sent an email saying it was all a joke and I could wear whatever I want. So, I did just that. I wore exactly what I wanted which was almost the nicest dress I own with the biggest bow you’ve ever seen around the waist, complete with pearl and crystal earrings and heals. While they might have expected me in shorts, I tried my very hardest to give them the closest thing to Jackie O I could. With Barry and Ewan in shorts and jeans, and Paul making an effort to dress with his bright orange fishing shirt and boots, I will gladly accept the award for best dressed. So we sipped our Moroccan Mint tea and ate egg sandwiches and biscuits with clotted cream and I tried to capture the true essence of High Tea.

No sooner had I unpacked my bags upon my return, I found myself jumping into a weekend full of activities KL style. For those of you unfamiliar with KL style, I've coined that term myself just now as a way to describe pretty much everything that goes on here in KL and how it's always just a little different that you would expect it. Take all the mishaps in my previous posts for example.

We started off the weekend by going out with a group of people from Paul's office after work. Paul and I were the only Americans, which is just fine except that we all know my ability to understand any accent other than Texan is about as good as my ability to speak Spanish. Es no bueno. This would have been a very normal outing, except that some random guy from South Africa complete with the South African accent, who I'm not sure if his name was Chris or Buddy, decided he would join our table before I got there since he was by himself, and no one ever really figured out who he was or what he did. I talked to him, or really he talked mine and everyone else’s ears off most of the evening, and the majority of the time I thought he was with Paul's company, seeing he just inserted himself into every conversation and wasn't afraid to give a South African history lesson to change the subject. I was confused about this guy for most of the night because I couldn't quite figure out how he fit into the Subsea 7 picture. When I finally realized he didn't fit in the picture at all, I think that left me even more confused. He made his way out of the group just as easily as he did in, and left everyone scratching their heads saying, who was that guy? Aside from the Chris/Buddy confusion and over talkative nature, we had a good time and I actually managed to understand at least 50% of the conversations, so I think I'm improving. Right before we left I literally ran into a guy walking around a corner, and it turned out he was an Aggie from Cypress, Texas. Small world! I had no problem understanding his accent.

Afterwards we went to the open-air Indian restaurant with Barry and Ewan, two guys from the Houston office who are here for a few weeks, so they are getting to experience KL style with us. All we really wanted was the nan/crepe type thing in the shape of a large birthday hat. Now, ordering with that description in English from an Indian guy who doesn't speak any English doesn't really work so well. The waiter seemed to be trying hard to get us the big hats, but in the end they said they were out and we settled for garlic buttered naan and some chicken with black sauce. For your stomach's sake, I would not recommend the black sauce chicken.

Saturday Paul and I both went to get haircuts at the Pavilion. This was my first experience at the Andy Ho Salon with Chris, the silent hairdresser. I came out with a good haircut I think, but I have never sat to get my haircut that long in my life. I was in the chair with the plastic apron thing choking my neck for a total of about 3 hours. And the way he worked went something like this: wash my hair, cut my bangs, cut someone else's hair while I sit, dry my hair, cut my hair some more, cut someone else's hair while I sit, dry my hair some more, cut some more, cut someone else's hair, cut another someone else's hair, finish cutting my hair, and then dry my hair again even though it was already dry two hours before. While all this went on, the gay hairdresser working behind me was yelling at the other gay hair dresser, "Moses! Moses! Mirror!" This was rather hilarious because he sounded as gay as he made himself look, and I never pictured a very small girly-looking Asian guy to have the name Moses. That was my entertainment to get me through the three hour cut. Really what made the waiting so bad was that each time they dried my hair, I had someone on either side of me, pulling my head in both directions so I looked like a bobble head, all the while the heat from the dueling hairdryers was being caught and magnified under my apron causing my back to stick to the leather chair. By the end of it all I just wanted to claw off the apron that left a red ring around my neck. And to really add to this sob story, we were supposed to meet Barry and Ewan at Din Tai Fung, only the most delicious dumpling restaurant of my life, but since they insisted on drying my hair for three hours, the guys were forced to eat without me. And I digress...

We decided to show the Barry and Ewan the electronics super store and afterwards stopped into Lot 10 mall for a Siew Bao since I missed out on the dumplings. No sooner had we stepped in Lot 10 a monsoon/typhoon/hurricane like rainstorm came so it seemed like a logical idea to buy umbrellas and forge the streets since it was likely the rain could last a few hours. The four of us were the only ones with this logical idea and realized we were the lone forgers probably because it turned out being not so logical. The water in the streets was up to our ankles, and the umbrellas were so small they weren't really keeping us very dry. The rain was coming down so hard it was bouncing from the streets back up onto our legs. As you can imagine we were all drenched. We finally squished ourselves and ten gallons of water dripping off us into the small taxi and headed for home. See what I mean when I say KL style? Every story, without fail...KL style.

With the combination of dreary weather and soaked shoes, it seemed like the perfect time to make chili and cornbread that evening for the four of us. By the way, cornbread, cinnamon rolls, and Chili are things that Malaysians and Singaporeans have had to ask me what in the world it is. They are seriously missing out! Anyway, I had purchased Chili Powder from the store, and assumed that even though it said Hot Chili Powder on the label, that it had to be the same as Chili Powder I'm used to. Isn't Chili Powder hot anyway? So I dumped the entire 3/4 cups of Hot Chili Powder in the chili along with the Cayenne pepper and Tabasco sauce that the recipe called for. It was smelling like home in no time and I was so looking forward to helping myself at least to seconds and possibly thirds. Then a bad thing happened. I tasted the finished product and realized that Hot chili powder really meant hotter than kick your ass hot sauce chili powder as my lips and tongue and throat were screaming in the heat of that small spoonful of what should have been deliciousness. What was I to do for Barry and Ewan, who's better halves are thousands of miles away and who have been eating black sauce Indian chicken and who knows what else for two weeks? The only thing to do was hope they can take the heat! The good news was I did find cornmeal at the grocery store, so the cornbread turned out to be delicious, but I don't think it helped the Burn Your Mouth Like Fire Chili issue because the cornbread was loaded with jalapenos. In the end, I'm hoping the peach cobbler and ice cream helped sooth the heart burn that was inevitable with this meal. So a little tip to those of you inexperienced with foreign spices like myself: test it before dumping in the full 3/4 cups of hot chili powder.

After all of these shenanigans, we went to Sunday brunch at the Westin with Paul's boss. Magically we ended up in the non-smoking section, and over-indulged in the all you can eat buffet of everything Italian. With stomachs full to the brim, Paul and I left and went to show the two guys from the Houston office China Town. Of course it was an experience in the heat of the afternoon, but we managed to come out with all the new release movies for $2 each from our friend Ugu Ugu.

As I read my own writing here, I'm beginning to wonder if all these things are really happening KL style, or do I, Katherine Stern get myself into these usually frustrating sometimes humorous situations on my own? Perhaps I should call it KS style.

Oh and lastly, all is quiet on my neighbor's side of the hall! No word from Lynn, aka Leen, aka Jane Smith, aka the money launderer.