How’s everyone back home?

A few things have happened since we’ve arrived in the rainy city of Redmond, Washington:

1. We’ve discovered that lots of international supermarkets exist. One, called 99 Ranch Market, is, like our friend Alex said, the closest to what a supermarket is like back in Malaysia. The people, the inventory, the SMELL. Really. Like Giant. And the odd thing is, the similarities are comforting, even though I never liked Giant when I was in Malaysia.

Anyway, so we are not exactly deprived of our creature comforts. As I am blogging this, I am enjoying a hot, peppery bowl of pig stomache soup (aka chue tou tong) in what is close to 5 degrees Celcius. Nice.

2. We had our first bite of football fever, just yesterday. As luck would have it, the Seattle Seahawks, our home team (owned and managed by none other than co-founder of Microsoft Paul Allen), played the Carolina Panthers right here in Seattle’s Qwest Field, which Lokes tells me, is built with screaming fans in mind. Apparently, home teams never lose at Qwest because of the way it is built architecturally, so much so fans become “the 12th man” (football teams have 11 players each side) as they cheer our team on.

Sure enough, the Seahawks won their first ever ticket to the Superbowl, happening early next month, in team history. Lokes and I got caught up in the euphoria, especially when we chose game day (last Sunday) to drive the kids and his parents downtown. The city was packed with cars (parking was US$20 per entry!) and everyone had on their Seahawks jerseys. You can’t help but be a part of football fever. We even went home to catch the second half of the game and cheered the Hawks on. Which was nice, particularly when Lokes and I aren’t even that into sports.

3. We visited with Alex and his wife Sharon, and their kids Janine and Shane. Alex is Lokes’ old colleague from MS Malaysia, and man, do they have a beaooootiful home up in the hills in this newly developed suburb called Issaquah Highlands. Their home sits on a street not unlike Wisteria Lane of that famous series Felicity Huffman’s (aka Lynette) mom calls “The Women”, and really, we did not need to visit a model home after that. Why see a fake home when you’ve visited a real one? They must’ve easily spent USD800k on everything. I, for one, felt the pressure when I saw their kids’ play room. I could see Raeven’s eyes light up ‘coz four-year old Janine had a My Little Pony dollhouse and a kid-size kitchen in there. I just thought to myself, “What if she asks for that? We can’t afford that! We don’t have a million dollars like Janine’s dad!”

Lokes isn’t worried. Don’t know if that is hopeful or scary.

4. Losing weight in US. Unbelievable, but maybe it’s the stress of moving. There’s a lovely trail by the river just a stone’s throw away from our home, which I intend to use for walks and jogs. Soon.

5. We bought our car! Finally settled on the Chevy Uplander, a minivan. We had it as a rental when we arrived, so since we really liked the room, we decided it over the HHR, which was narrower than we anticipated. A disappointment, but it’s ok. Got a great deal too. US19k (everything in) for a 2005 minivan is really not bad.

Again, look for pics at Lokes’ blog.

ps. I will be starting on my first ever novel once my PC arrives, hopefully this week. Got the plot all worked out. Just need to do some research. Wish me luck!