As y'all know, Miki has been taking violin lessons since September and actually enjoys it. Although she can be a total pain in the arse about practicing, there's love in the making.

Per her instructor, her posture is good, Miki pulls the bow confidently, and handles the violin properly.

Her main challenge right now is to read music. Like most kids her age, counting beats and making sense of the notes isn't exactly a piece of cake. Heck, I took piano when I was 13 and I didn't get it. Now that I'm 35, it still don't make sense to me.

(Which is why I'm fascinated by musicians who've managed to take their successes beyond their wildest dreams. The feat alone says a lot to those who have succeeded.)

So the instructor asks me to stay during her lesson and have me transcribe some of things she's trying to teach Mikayla in more creative terms at home. So...it's all about counting beats and establishing differences between eighth and quarter notes.

Hmmm...one's a bit fast than the other. Two eighth notes make a quarter note. I do remember something from piano...I think.

So Miki's a little awkward trying to play "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" with varying speeds in the music. Quite a challenge I must say.

When we left her music school, I explained to her that "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" would sound really messed up if there were too many interruptions and varying speeds. I sang a broken version (it didn't take much which is why I don't do karaoke) and the little one began to giggle. Since it was an old example, I needed to get a bit creative to illustrate her teacher's point.

You'd NEVER guess how I got her to understand the difference between eighth notes and quarter notes. Heh.

Oh, come on. It's too damn obvious.

What better way to demonstrate music...other than to bring out mommy's favorite group.

First I started to sing, "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," to prove my point. But then I realized it was the wrong song. So I switched to "Shout", and boy, oh boy, IT WORKED.

Shout, Shout (2 quarter notes)
Let it all out, (2 eighth notes)
These are the things I can do without, (quarter, eighth, quarter, eighth, quarter, eighth, pause)
Come on, (eighth)
I'm talking to you, (eighth, eighth)
Come on! (eighth, quarter)

My kid picked it up immediately. When I illustrated with my god awful singing, somehow she made the connection. Without the eighth notes, the song was sung too slowly. Due to my horrific vocal stylings, it would easily have the dead cringe in their coffins.

At least my point got across. I whipped my handy dandy Tears For Fears' Songs From The Big Chair songbook I acquired via ebay. I showed her the music and she giggled over it.

I wonder how EWTRW would sound if she played it on the violin?

So I was barely awake that Sunday afternoon when what’s-his-face busted home frazzled. Over the years, I’ve learned never to inquire his status nor show any emotion as it could very well lead to a cataclysmic blowout.

I slumped into the couch with Miki and continued to watch cartoons. As long as I have no caffeine in my system, my sluggish mind and body would melt into my sofa for the rest of the day.

Rich announces his desire to go to a wholesale club to buy up some major stuff. I looked at him blankly and made references about how he was feeling sick and tired all week. After all, I wasn’t the one whining my ass off about being ill - while prescribing meds for these Neolithic birdbrains to get better. Kinda ironic, if you ask me.

Like a dog chasing after his tail, he paces around the floor some more before letting out a massive bleat. Earlier in the morning, he helped move his mother’s belongings from an old shack into a new flat he bought for her. Because the new place wasn’t ready to be moved in on the 1^st of the month, he informed his mother’s landlady that they would be moving on the 9^th. Supposedly (notice the italicized word, supposedly), it was agreed that no additional rent would be remunerated since his mother moved into that dump years ago on the 8^th.

Whatever. None of it concerns me.

Anyway, this somehow did not bode well with the landlady. Apparently she didn’t accept the terms of the so-called agreement and hounded him down for 8 days’ rent.

Whatever, it still didn’t mean anything.

Knowing Rich, he never ties up loose ends and always assume that open issues would eventually resolve on its own – by disappearing into oblivion. This behavior really irks the living shit outta me because no matter what you do, if you sweep a pile of shit under the carpet, it still fecking reeks.

Okay, so why the scarlet face? During the move, the landlady obnoxiously barges into the apartment and launches an all-out attack on Rich about everything under the sun. Horribly so, Rich lost a pissing match to a dense rural rat whose literacy level is next to nothing – either in English or Chinese (and that's HIS specialty).

It is sheer humiliation to be verbally tormented by someone like her. No wonder he felt like an ass.

Not only did the screeching hyena went rampant by being in everyone’s face, she decided to “facilitate” the move by relocating the tenant’s possessions. Rich threatened to call the cops, but the freak didn't even blink. Instead, she DARED him to. So, eh, guess who backed down??

Oh no. Oh no, no. That’s not kosher with me.

The one thing I loathe more than anything else in the world – bullying landlords. My own landlord was breaking every conceivable law trying to get me to move out on my own. By using psychological tactics, it gave me some serious anxiety for months before I finally discovered how they were screwing with me. To multiply my misery exponentially, I ended up with a greedy and piss-poor lawyer who racked up charges for every staple she punched.

I was 24 and being terrorized based on my age and gender. It was an extremely expensive lesson I paid to learn about tenant’s rights and dealing with such disputes.

In the past 10 years, if there was any given opportunity for me to bust my landlord, I have no qualms in doing so. I've gleefully reported them to the City of NY and slapped them with a lawsuit over the gas leak at my mom’s apartment. No leaf is left unturned and I have always advised my peers or friends what to do when their landlords try to screw with them.

Hate them all.

Because the hyena was moving his mother’s stuff around, I was more than obliged to take action. Plus, Rich needed to redeem himself for losing his face and the war on crude words with this freak.

Got dressed and dropped off Mikayla to mum’s. Rich was in disbelief in my reaction to the whole incident…especially since I’ve poo-pooh'ed all matters related to his mother.

When we got there, the screeching hyena eyed me suspiciously…I couldn’t believe it. She was actually one of those irritating patients we’ve been dying to smack due to her stupidity. Although she wasn’t on the “Most Hated” list, her ugly mug was all too familiar. She’d come in unannounced and fully expected us to know her name or she’d insist on having a word with the doctor ‘cuz he knows her (and so do I). Go and kiss my ass.

The screeching hyena threw out three of Rich’s boxes and removed the locks since the keys haven’t been returned to her. Fortunately for me, she was stupid enough to make a boisterous declaration of moving the remainder of the contents and left it out on the street. Excellent.

I promptly dialed 911 on my cell phone. I knew the wimp wasn’t going to do anything except sulk on the street.

While waiting for law enforcement, the fool wouldn’t let us into the house. Even better ‘cuz now I got solid proof of unlawful eviction taking place here. Rich’s sulking reverie was rudely disrupted by a barrage of phone calls from his friends and relatives – all who witnessed this morning’s verbal assault – they pleaded him NOT to call the authorities and let it be.

What? Are you kidding me?!?! %^$T@%!^&!!!!!

This is the one of the few things I despise about my own ethnic culture, for being a bunch of chicken shits. More often than not, they would rather suffer the mental and physical anguish unjustly inflicted on them and call it day. They don’t fight back, instead, they bitch about this crap for the rest of their lives. Even my own mum, when the stove blew up on her face and had to go to hospital for burns, she wouldn't sue. I literally screamed and forced her to. We won a small settlement, but it was better than nothing. As far as I was concerned, it was a point to my landlord that Chinese people aren't easy targets and the educated lot is a force to be reckoned with.

For crying out loud, this isn’t Socialist China where you gotta deal with the woes of society and suck it up quietly. You get arrested for complaining over there...not here. Even pets have rights!

It took me so many years to learn to deal with confrontations and there's no way can’t back down now. Chinese chicken shit isn’t exactly a positive attribute to promote and I want to make sure people understand this.

Everyone’s advising him to abandon the effort and run, far away. OMG, OMG, OMG, it’s not worth it.

Hell, someone got a new asshole this morning. Believe me when I say, it’s NOT okay to walk out of the house with 2 of ‘em.

Damn hyena stuck her face out of the screen door and told me to shut up when a neighbor asked me what was going on. I twisted the entire situation around by declaring how the landlady was harassing a poor elderly woman in her 80’s. I decided to go ghetto and got right into her face when she tried to blow me off by indicating she would only talk to Rich. Excuse me? I ain't no chopped liver you freak.

After only a minute of yelling, I told her to haul her ugly ass back into house and clean the filth inside. Honestly, I wanted her to lock me out so the police could bitchslap her unlawful obstruction.

Rich’s cousin showed up with his mentally disturbed daughter for body count. Oh my freaking gawd. Everyone thought that we would get our asses jumped by these people. This isn’t rural China where feuding farmers unite to reclaim somebody's dignity!

The cops came and she was shocked…she didn’t think I called her bluff. It was apparent that Rich was the easy target to pick on and she made no attempt to initiate a verbal match with me – regardless of my lack of rural fluency.

Suddenly, we morphed into genteel citizens in the presence of the police officers and acted despondent for having our stuff (garbage) thrown out on the curb. The cops didn’t say much, let us in to reclaim the items (even though none of it was worth taking), and I took the opportunity of scouring the area for the hell of it. They demanded to see her identification and she was trying to conceal the look of dread in her face.

The freak was stupid enough to tell them (in her glorified broken English) how she was only trying to help us move because she was cleaning up the place. Furthermore, she ranted over the rent money and complained incessantly over our delinquency. What the stupid hyena didn’t realize was that she got summons for touching our property and locking us out. The issue with the rent money was completely irrelevant.

Best of all, the cops couldn't understand her crap English. I did, but was I gonna translate? HELL NO!

So, if she fails to make a court appearance on the 20^th, there’ll be a warrant out for her arrest. When I heard all of this, I had to cover my mouth because I couldn’t stop grinning from ear to ear. I nearly broke out in a laughing fit but managed to refrain from doing so.

Rich was vindicated. He wanted to exact vengeance for humiliating him but couldn’t do it w/o support (chicken shit). Without any words to persuade me, I decided to get up and reclaim our face value. I didn’t want this freak to start trouble in our office or spew nasty rumors about him because she thinks she can get away with it. His professionalism and credibility could very well be at stake.

The only thing I wonder…how much does the freak have to pay in fines?

I had every intention of spending hours on the puter this weekend catching up on basic internet stuff, bill payment and the usual whatnot.

But of course not.

Yesterday, I wanted to stay in bed and rest up. I hadn't been feeling well and the best remedy is to sleep way into the wee PM hours, uninterrupted - of course.

Not.

My irritating cell phone screeches loudly in the living room and I sprang outta bed to answer it. It's Mikayla (she's at grandma's house).

"MOMMY!! COME QUICK! GRANDMA CUT HERSELF AND SHE'S BLEEDING!"

In 2.5 minutes, I got dressed, combed my hair, gargled with mouthwash, and ran outta the door. Found mum in a bloody mess and tried to stop the bleeding.

You would NEVER guess how she cut herself. And no, it wasn't from a knife or a broken piece of glass.

It isn't from removing the lid from a canned product.

Not from a vegetable peeler (that's me...I did that once a few years ago).

Not from a pair of scissors.

Or broken piece of porcelain or ceramic.

She cut herself trying to break a small piece of a scouring pad. A tiny, thin wire created one heckuva bleed. Of all fecking things in the kitchen, that tiny object took three hours of my afternoon.

So I took mum to the hospital for 2 stitches on her right index finger and dropped Miki off to her Orchestra class. Multi-tasking hardly eludes me.

My beloved momma is prone to FREAKish accidents. This isn't her first one, mind you. With regards to opportunity cost, mum declared that if she had gone to the loo as she had originally intended, she wouldn't have the mind to scour the tea kettle. But she decided to "hold it" and clean up the pot. Aiyah.

One thing I've learned about multi-tasking - just DON'T do it. If you don't have to, then don't exercise it. There's nothing wrong with doing any task methodically or taking on a project and go for the kill. Because I'm accident prone, it's better to do one task at a time.


Well, today...another foul attempt to stay in bed...NOT.


Got up at noon and was feeling awfully drowsy. With my body aching so much, I could hardly function without a proper cup of joe. I was watching cartoons with Mikayla and all of the sudden, Rich comes home flustered. With his face beet red, I knew something major had happened.

I'll give y'all the 411 tomorrow, as it is rather an amusing story.

The bottom line is, I sought vindication for everybody, including myself. I finally nailed a someone who happens to be one of those irritating patients I've loathed and a hwucking landlord. Never, NEVER, EVER dare me to do something - especially when I have to call the cops. You're talking to someone who actually knows a thing or two about landlord/tenant disputes.

My whole day may be atypical, but it's good to know I ain't no wimp.