Stories from Life: Fruit Bats, Couches, and Going to Bed Early

- There is a fruit bat who decided to live right outside the door of the apartment next to ours. We know he's a fruit bat because ever single night he brings all of his fruit snacks and drops seeds and fruit gunk all over the floor of the hallway in front of the door, which is about 15 feet from ours. I'm very thankful it's not our apartment, but we walk past the mess of fruit stuff every time we need to go to the elevator. Nobody lives in the apartment next to us, so the mess doesn't get cleaned up except on the couple of days a week that the staff that cleans the apartment complex comes through to sweep and mop the hallways. Angel has taken matters into his own hands by going outside with a broom every night at 9 p.m. to shoo away the bat. We're hoping that this habitual disruption of his cozy home will make him decide to find a new home, a little further away. I might also mention that it's rather disconcerting to have to walk right past a large bat hanging on the ceiling and noisily chomping away on fruit every time I walk back to my apartment, if walking home after dark. We've had more than our fair share of bat encounters in our married life: Like this bat in our first house or this bat (btw, it cracks me up that Angel's bizarre bat video has over 6,000 views on youtube when none of the nicely edited videos I've ever made have come close).

- In July, I posted on Facebook that what I really wanted for my birthday were kitchen utensils that wouldn't fall apart every time I used them. It was one of those days when they spatula fell into pieces again and I was like, "Why exactly have I been putting up with this for so long?" My amazing sister-in-law heard my plea and bought me this set of silicone kitchen utensils. They are so cool, and they don't fall into pieces when used. And they look like a rainbow. I've never had silicone cooking utensils before this, but I think they're kind of amazing.

- Speaking of Angel, I needed to have a serious chat with him the other day that the appropriate response when the baby incites me to vomit on the living room floor (in my defense, there was absolutely no warning--I felt fine, I was simply walking across the room), is NOT to take a picture and text it to my father, of all people, who shares my utter horror and distaste for bodily fluids and medical stuff. Like, why? DON'T DO THAT. Also, #reasonswhytilefloorsareawesome

Art day with the little sisters

- We have family from the USA visiting right now--a very rare treat as visitors are an infrequent luxury--which means my two littlest sisters are sleeping at my house due to limited beds at Mom and Dad's house. This definitely has its benefits, particularly when I ask them to take out the trash on their way out in the morning. Many nights, though, we're already asleep by the time they let themselves in, so we've hardly noticed their presence. The 10 year old and 15 year old have more of a nightlife than we do, I suppose.

- For the first time in our marriage, Angel ran a race and I didn't attend. It was a "Banana Relay Race" and they literally had to run with a banana as a baton to pass off to the next runner. He ran two 4k laps at 15:50 and 16:02. His team came in 4th place in the race. I have attended all of his races in the past, but the ultra-early wake up call combined with a few hours of standing around in the heat with likely no clean bathrooms available made me feel I wasn't quite up to it this time. My family went to be his cheerleaders in my stead and I hear that my mom took on my role quite nicely, telling him that he was "too slow!" as is my tradition.

- I've decided that my next major purchase to save up for will be a comfy couch. We always talk about how wonderfully cozy our couch in the USA was--we bought it at a thrift store for $200 with wedding gift money right after we got married, and it was the best ever. Our couch in China was horrible beyond belief: vinyl that was ripping apart at most seams, and if you sat down you sank so low you were practically sitting on the floor. We bought a very inexpensive couch (about $100) when we first moved to Malaysia, and it serves a good purpose for living room seating, but it's too short to stretch out on and it's so firm that it could never really be considered "cozy". My plan is to keep this couch, but save up and hopefully for Christmas get the sort of couch that we always fondly reminisce over, a truly comfy couch perfect for napping. We could do with a bit of additional seating in our home, anyway.

What's going on with you?