people I read

We have passed the month where everything in America is inexplicably flavoured with turkey or pumpkin spice. During his Thanksgiving vacation, my spouse asked if I could make a cheese omelet for breakfast. Far be it from me to deny my beloved spouse a meal he specifically asks for, but every time I make an omelet, the gods roll a die. About ninety percent of the time, the omelet will crack and break before I can flip it into a neat fold. Please let's not start on the mild nightmare that is a Japanese-style rolled omelet. I have only been trying and failing for years to make one. I am utterly convinced the League of People Who Hate Omelets have not cursed and poxxed my ability to make a proper omelet. You cannot convince me this League does not exist. Up until I was in my early twenties, I recall folding omelets stuffed with cream fillings. How then, does a thing I learned to make as an adolescent turn into a broken, semi-scrambled egg almost every time? Frying pans that turn out perfectly nice crepes somehow hate my omelets. Iron skillets I have trusted to cook almost anything in and have hate my omelets. 

(Note: The remaining ten percent when the omelet folds, something else will inevitably go wrong--the egg might break a bit at the seams, the omelet is always too browned, something!)

By way of explanation how we got to omelets, I should state that eggs are my very favourite food ever, so imperfectly cooking even one to me is like a small culinary crime. I like bird eggs and fish eggs. Not sea turtle eggs though. Those are weird. You're supposed to suck out the insides--which are the consistency and flavour of the starting slime outside the first town in every RPG--after boring a hole through the shell, which has the equally distressing texture of wet brown paper. This is a delicacy in West Malaysia, where my family comes from. Probably also illegal or endangering sea turtles.

I have otherwise no problem with raw egg. I'm the type who can't truly enjoy sukiyaki without a raw egg to dip my food in. When I was last in Singapore, my husband correctly pointed out the region's "Asian runny egg thing". Along the Straits of Malacca and the Bornean coast, soft-boiled eggs with kaya toast is one of the major breakfast staples. Every time I'm out there, I try to have it as much as I do egg roti, along with a cup of Malaysia's bracingly strong and rich milk tea. "Runny egg" is more than breakfast too. Where I come from, adding an egg to virtually any set meal makes it a premium set meal. If you are familiar with the concept of onsen tamago by way of seeing it in your ramen or donburi, you have seen at least the mechanics of this in action. Bonus eggs show up on everything from fried rice to soup noodles to chicken chop with gravy meals. I personally add bonus poached eggs in my Cantonese-style sweet soups. A fresh egg cracked into your piping hot meal that then semi-cooks in the residual heat is something that feels strangely luxurious. It's what makes a special dish a specialty. 

Outside of eggy goodness, we have at least figured out how to keep a collar on Moggie. We noticed one style of collar we got leaves a large loop of extra cloth when adjusted, which made it easier to snag on branches or get clawed off by a cat. Turns out the Little Black Cat Next Door, eternal frenemy of my cats, has a habit of cornering Moggie so he can't leave the yard next door when he visits. I don't blame the Little Black Cat. My cat is the one who keeps visiting other people's homes to have rude conversations with their cats. So I got the idea that if we were able to pin down that extra loop somehow, the collar would have less chance of accidental removal. My original plan was to sew it shut, but the collar is too thick for my needles. I then thought about tying even lengths of the looped part to the main body of the collar with yarn. I was going to use some nylon thread I had around for re-stringing beads, but nylon string is nigh impossible to tie with bare hands. I ultimately used butcher string. It's the only kind of yarn I have around, since I don't craft. I cannot craft. My sewing skills alone shame my family for seven generations. I just never inherited my maternal side of the family's penchant for creating physical pieces of art. But even a child can tie lengths of butcher string. 

Moggie has now worn the same collar since Thanksgiving week. It stays snugly on. The bell jingles to reassure me that my cat is nearby when he's outside. The day after Thanksgiving, he came home with a sparrow and the collar because I have raised a serial killer. After letting me confirm the bird was dead, I turned to fetch him a distracting treat and he proceeded to tuck the bird safely away in his tummy with an audible, "Monch, monch." First wee lightbulb, get a collar with flashing lights. I saw these on dogs one night while walking home from dinner. They do in fact make glow-in-the-dark collars for cats in solid RGB or disco mode. Problem: my cat goes out primarily during the day. Unlike his older brother, Dorian, who habitually stayed out late and freaked us out by staying out all night a few times, Moggie is actually quite good about coming home for dinner. We've had less need to see if Moggie was pretending to be a bush in the dark, and I reckon a bird won't be helped by a lit collar in broad daylight. Second wee lightbulb, get a cowbell.

Seth: <instantly> No, that's a bad idea.

Yes, well, to be fair, although they do also sell cowbells for dogs and cats, getting one would bump me up from raising a menace towards local wildlife to being a source of noise pollution. Is that worse? A cat kills quietly. I've thought about buying more bells even if not a cowbell. My husband would be the first person to lodge a nuisance complaint. I'm also not trying to chase away ghosts.