Tag Archives: Mouse collection

Rat ~ Air Flown From Australia

Posted on October 25, 2008 | Leave a comment

“No rat?”

Shu has just skyped me last week, asking if I have received the rat she sent from Australia.  No.  … Then I realized I did not check my mail box often, if I received any mail, they were usually parcels delivered to my apartment or the leasing office or left outside my apartment if I am not around.

Shu and I were ex-colleague till last August.  We call her miss-shu for fun, and when it is said faster, it becomes “miss-U“.  When I left the company, she was in Vietnam then, and now she is based in Sydney office.  She had gone to Hunter Valley a couple of weeks back and she came back … with a little mouse for me.  Nice.

~We both love the old fashion bread with bean paste in it. She loves it to a higher degree, I guess.

Thursday ~ I remembered to opened the mailbox, as usual there was a pile of junk mails, my electrical and internet bills, and there it is – an envelop airmailed from Sydney, Australia.  I opened it first thing when I got back to my apartment … just realised the pile of letters and junk mails was still left untouched on my desk.

As I opened the envelop, there were a paper bag and another layer of paper before I saw the Little Mouse.  かわいい! (pronounced ka-wa-ii) … The Japanese would say cuto, and we say cute!…  On the backside of the mouse was printed “Red Gum”, indicating the type of wood it was carved from.  When Shu first skyped me, she hoped I didn’t have the same wooden mouse … What type of wood is it?  She actually emailed the gallery she bought from to check, without looking at the backside where the name of the wood would be printed.  Each addition to my rattie collection comes made with a unique material not already in my collection - I have 6 wooden rats and now another, Yeah!  And they are made from different types of wood.

In her note, she wrote “My dearest Joys, the Australian mouse as promised *smiley*, I have emailed the shop to ask what wood the mouse is made of so I hope they will reply!  I am sure life is fruitful and exciting over there in Houston and I am happy for you.  Things are starting to look rosier for me too … *smiley* … says the mouse looks like a “Marcus” … but up to you to name him.  Hee.  (heart heart, sign) miss shu“.  Oh I have never mentioned to Shu that I don’t name any of my rats … I just love to look and fuss over them.    

I recalled about 10 years back I was in a little wood specialist shop in Hahndorf, Adelaide, South Australia, I gave up a painted wooden boomerang to bring home as a souvenir for 3 wooden rats, believed one rattie was made from aromatic sandalwood and one was a cedar?.  I figured I can always find a boomerang of a design I like in future, but I may not see the same rattie again.  Each new addition never fails to make feel joyful and blessed.

[8:41:53 PM] Joy Joy says: BTW SO かわいい

[8:41:55 PM] Joy Joy says: cuto

[8:42:03 PM] shu says: eh? the mouse?

[8:42:12 PM] Joy Joy says: of course lah

…

[8:42:15 PM] shu says: haha

[8:42:18 PM] shu says: how i know?

[8:42:24 PM] shu says: happy u like it!

[8:42:28 PM] shu says: i love the ears

[8:42:34 PM] Joy Joy says: cheerful too. thank you :*

[8:42:38 PM] shu says: ;)

[8:42:58 PM] Joy Joy says: i love the expectant look

[8:43:30 PM] shu says: har har!

…

[8:43:36 PM] shu says: u are so specific

Indeed, I love to look into the eyes of each rattie, it seems to talk to me, and each time I feel so blessed.  Each reminds me of the special person I share a friendship with … or when I found them myself, it reminds me how blessed I am to travel the places over the world to find them.  Among the different animal figurines I have seen, rattie is the most uncomplicated animal – just simple lines, a tail and a pair of ears.

Suddenly I wonder Why Rat is the first of the 12 Chinese Zodiac?  I have never thought much about zodiac, I do not believe a zodiac sign is predictive of who I am and what I can be.  Anyway, I googled, and …

There is a folk story that describes how the animals were assigned to the cycle of years. A long long time ago, the Lord Buddha summoned all the animals together to assign each of them a year. When the cat heard the news, he let his friend the rat know about it and the two animals decided to go together the next day. However, the next day the rat did not wake the cat who, being a cat and loving to nap, slept through the morning. Therefore, the cat did not make it to the assembly on time and did not get a year. This is why there is no year of the cat and this is why cats hate rats.          

 The rat, on the other hand, made it first there and received the first year. He did not achieve this without trickery either. He knew that a small animal like him would not be able to compete with the others, so he begged the ox to let him ride on its head. The ox consented and they went together. Just when they were about to arrive, the rat jumped off the ox’s head and got through the finish line first. This is why the year of the rat is the first year in the cycle and the year of the ox is the second.  (http://www.logoi.com/notes/chinese_zodiac.html)          

Ha.  I read further on the characteristic of persons born in the year of the Rat, according to mythology. … “The Rat is charming, imaginative, very clever and opportunistic in money. His best role is as a confidential agent to you. He loves things off the beaten track…”  As a Go-Getter, ”The Rat is a go-getter. He’s active and highly strung and hard mental effort attracts him and also relieves him… The Rat respects laws but usually only his own laws, and can be the type that breaks taboos and defies the establishment. … He is also very detached, purposeful and adapts to all the changing circumstances around him. He is full of courage, industrious and hardworking and his brain is keen and alert. Rat people see the goal they want and go for it. He is unafraid of the unforeseen, so can move with whatever changes happen to him in a project or a profession.” … Who love, “Rats are anxious and sometimes aggressive; they would never win a prize for being the easiest to get on with. On the other hand, they are romantic creatures and never boring … The happy Rat is faithful and committed and will always appear to be the great advocate of sincerity. “   (http://www.astrologycom.com/earthrat1.html)

Sounds good huh.  Gosh, enough about Rats.  Time to live my weekend.

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A Play Dough “Mouse” From Pastry Lab

Posted on September 6, 2008 | 9 Comments

Too much to update for last 4 days.  There was something for everyday but I am lagging behind in putting them down.  I decided to update on a new addition to my “mouse” collection , firstly it is my passionate hobby …. secondly it happened during class today … thirdly my level 1 exam is next week if I don’t update now it will be never. 

I was born in the year of the Rat, my age is no secret.  In pastry classes, I am exactly one cycle older than Jillian and I just found out the same for Raffaela too.  Initially it was just a Chinese horoscope to me, every Rat year reminds me I am older in multiples of 12s.  Then in 1997 during my home renovation, when I started packing my stuff – while packing books onto bookshelves, I found 2 rat figurines among my mess…  these were to begin my lifelong hobby … and the bookshelves were never filled with books.  The first rat was a Selangor pewter figurine given to me by Katherine during my 15th birthday, the second was a wooden rat on wheel given to me by my high school friend XX when we passed through Czech during our Europe hols in 1995 … then the obsession, no, it should be fascination, continued.

(continued after I dozed off…)

Every country I visited the must-have souvenir I would attempt to bring back Home is a rat/mouse or more mice.  They must be made of different materials from what I already have, must have a tail and cannot look like Mickey Mouse.  In the last 3 years, I moved out of family home to a rented apartment when I got married and again this March to a home we now have, my rats and mice are still waiting patiently to get out of their plastic bound in the sealed boxes.  When I get home, it is time they get some “air time”.   I have wanted for a long while to photograph each of them, name their country of origin as well as the year I started owning them or from whom I received them as gifts, but 10 great years and more than 170 precious babes later, I really lost track of some of them.

On Tuesday when Sarah, April and I were reviewing through the Level 1 in prep for the exam next week … we had a few recipes left that we skipped through as “not done”.  I came across Bread Decorating Dough and I was thinking of having mice/rats made of bread dough.  The next day, during the Pastry Lab, Chef Sebastien asked us to prep Bread Decorating Dough and Yeastless Dough … I was so excited.  At one point, during shaping of the Bread Decorating Dough after proofing, I must have stared at the dough so hard, Chef came over and looked at what happend.  Ha, nothing happened, I was mentally visualising how my little mice will look and where they would appear on the finished product.  That night, I drew how my mice will look.  I had wanted a standing one wearing an apron, holding to a spatula and a whisk.  On Thursday, we didn’t manage to have sufficient time for it as we completed the mise en place for the Scholarship Gala on Friday and prepared tiramisu for lunch.  That night I had more ideas for the mice.  On Friday morning, I told Sarah it is our last go to have all out fun at the dough before our level 1 final.  While we prepared the petit fours for evening Gala, Chef gave us all the time we have to play our dough.   He  reminded us it must have something to do with Baking.

Time to roll, mold, shape, press, cut, pipe … and lots of serious play and four hours later, our creation was finally completed.  Everyone has a story to their dough – Jill did a cute dragon with skeleton(?), Amanda on Elvis, Jennifer on her favorite record, April with a basket of breads on a checkered table cloth, and Sarah on viola, a musical instrument she played and Elizabeth made a jewellery box.  Some of us chose to have no break during class.  We baked our dough creation and cleaned up to leave for Houston Country Club at 2.  No chance to really take a good look at the final product, I got a quick shot before I left, and will have to take pictures of my classmates’ on Monday.  The play dough session already made my day. 

Some called my creation Ratatouille, I choose to have no name for it.  None of my mouse or rat in my collection has a name, except one which is a fluff on my facebook and it is called Rattarattie-joi.  Naming them would show a different level of complex emotional connection or even favortism, and more importantly my lack of creativity in names.  I love them all equally, though some of them are associated with deeper memories and meaning as they represented the places I travelled or the friendship I have with the friends and families who fed my fascination.

With a layer of vanish to preserve the dough, the play dough “mouse” will travel with me back to Singapore and shall represent a part of my baking & pastry arts journey in Houston.

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Posted in About Me & Stuff, Baking & Pastry Arts, Inspirations, Interesting

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