be a housewife ar?

Posted at August 22, 2007

The other day I was telling buckie that after I got married, I don’t want to work. Instead I want to stay at home and do nothing. Not that I don’t enjoy working, but I think I would have more fun to not work and stay at home ;)

Then thoughts came barging in. Stay at home and do nothing for a while is fun lah, provided your husband is more than willing to support you. But even in that lucky, lucky situation, then what? Assuming you don’t have kids ( or don’t want any in the near future ), you’d get pretty bored after… say 6 months. Hence the phrase “stay at home and rot” was born ( at least that’s what I think ).

Back in Standard 1, we were told to think of what we want to be when we grow up ( fuwah, ambitions at 7 years old, that’s rich ). Most of my classmates claimed that they wanted to be either doctors or nurses or teachers or singers or whatever a 7 year old at that time could think of. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I wrote that my ambition was to be a housewife. Also I suspect that I wanted to be different from other people ( as knocked into my head by another teacher when I was in Standard 5, “[insert my given name], you ar… always want to be different from other people!” when I asked for gold-coloured cloth for our cross-stitch project instead of the normal blue, red and green. To my defense, I honestly thought it would be a good colour for my cross-stitch project. Besides she didn’t specify the limitation of colours… ).

Anyway when it came to my turn ( one of those things where everyone takes turn to stand up and shout their answers to the entire classroom ), I said, “Cita-cita saya adalah untuk menjadi suri rumahtangga!” ( my ambition is to be a housewife! ). My teacher looked at me and said, “Suri rumahtangga bukan suatu pekerjaaan. Pilih yang lain!” ( a housewife is not a proper occupation. Choose another! ). If I had my 26-years old brains when I was 7, I would have gladly argued with her that yes, a housewife IS a proper full-time occupation, insert women rights debate here. But I was a tiny tot then, and I meekly replied, “Cita-cita saya adalah untuk menjadi guru” ( my ambition is to be a teacher ). My mother was one, and I thought the world of her. I still do.

Being a housewife is a tough job. I mean, if you are a housewife belonging to the middle/lower class, you are expected to cook and clean, and take care of your children if any.You can’t afford a maid anyway, since it makes economical sense for you to DIY and be superwoman. So hiring someone to come clean your house twice a week is also out of the question. So when you say that you stay at home, you aren’t actually doing nothing ( some people would be like, FUWAH YOU STAY AT HOME AR, SO LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY! ). Also have to work one, you know.

Back to me ( yah little surprise, considering that this is MY blog after all ), I don’t really like to clean. Lazy mah. Ask my sister, she’d know. But there’s a priority for these kinds of things. Between cleaning the toilet and sweeping/ mopping floors, I prefer to clean the toilet. Almost static position mah. Between sweeping/ mopping floors and washing the dishes, I prefer to do the dishes. Same reason. Want me to clean cobwebs, sweep dust off shelves and what-not… TOMORROW LAH! If it were up to me, dust and dirt would be non-existent due a supernatural force that is fully sympathetic to beings such as me. Or we could kidnap Merryweather and have her do all the dirty work with just a swish of her wand!

Strike one.

( By the way that Merryweather part just revealed how old I am. Kids these days would be wishing for Mrs. Weasley’s wand )

So I can’t clean. Or rather, I don’t want to clean. Can I cook then?

My sister went back to our hometown for a few days, and I’ve been pretty much left alone at home. The evening before she left, we had home-cooked shabu-shabu. Plenty of leftover cabbage and mushroom and stuff. I didn’t want to waste them ( I can’t stand wasting vegetables ) so I decided to cook my own dinner. Vermicelli with greens and other bits and pieces… sounds easy right?

I called my mother and she didn’t answer her phone. So I called my sister instead, and asked for directions on how to prepare the stock for my bihun sup. She told me to grab a handful of anchovies (”but not too much, else the soup would be bitter”), boil it for about 20 minutes, scoop the anchovies out, add in a bit of fried onions that she’d prepared way before, put in the vege and then the vermicelli. Again, sounds easy right?

My problem, as I found out was estimation, or the lack of it. The vermicelli turned out really, I mean REALLY fluffy and fat and was less than good, let alone awesome. I felt quite miserable after my pathetic dinner, and later at night made more than a few trips to the toilet :(

At least at this stage I am only poisoning myself :(

I read my cousin’s blog and how she prepared baked pasta for her husband. Her only problem was that the dish slipped and fell to the floor, breaking into a million pieces, and she had to do it again. That’s not my problem — with me, dishes break with or without baked pasta. My problem is, how did she bake the pasta in the first place? How do you prepare pasta with all its ingredients to be baked? What goes it, and how is it supposed to come out? Arghhh rocket science!!

So yesterday something came to my mind and I decided to scour the net for baked pasta recipes. I didn’t realise that cooking can be so intimidating. I found this article on the preparation of baked pasta. If that ain’t daunting enough, check out this seemingly simple recipe for baked pasta, Mama’s Italian Bake:

Ingredients:
- 3 lb chicken breast
- 6 Italian sausage links
- 2 jars spaghetti sauce
- 1 lb package penne pasta
- 1 large pkg pizza cheese
- 1 onion
- bell peppers all colors

Method:
1. Cook the chicken cut up, onions, peppers, and sausage cut up. Drain.
2. Boil penne pasta, then drain. Mix the pasta, sausage, onion, peppers, chicken and sauce.
3. Put it in a large, deep dish. Top heavily with cheese.
4. Bake at 325 for about 45 min or until golden and bubbly.

Cook how?!? Pan fry? Boil? Grill?!? Boil pasta for how long?! What do you mean by ‘top heavily’? Define heavy?!?!

All these are words lah. I’m sure if I were in the kitchen doing all this, more questions would come.

Suanie. Can’t even bake pasta.

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