Chilli Godzilli

Remember my chilli plants which were hit by the plague then recovered from their affliction? They have gone from strength to strength and have been removing the lining of everyone’s tummies (except mine and The Big Sister’s, we don’t like spicy food much). Our family thinks that these chillies can take paint off, but my Pediatrician’s nurse, Aunty Jeanie, sniffed and said they are placebos. Aunty Jeanie’s tummy must be lined with cement!

These Chilli Godzillies are still in their original small pot with a few mealies! Here is a birds-eye view of birds-eye Thai chillies:

And just to show you how monstrous they are, here is a close-up shot:

The Big Sister has recently become a movie buff, because her exams are over so she has Too Much Free Time. She went to watch Godzilla with her friend who is a boy (you know what I mean??). Can you believe she picked the movie? This is the same Big Sister whose all-time favourite movie is Tangled and who watched Frozen 100 times. Anyway she was very cross when the movie started and Godzilla appeared. Apparently she got confused between Godzilla and King Kong, and was looking forward to a movie about gorillas.

Now you understand why she isn’t ready for her driving test even thogh she’s been having lessons for a year? Anyway her medical school friends were very kind to her and brought her to some shop and taught her the differences between King Kong and Godzilla. The simplest one is King Kong has fur. Godzilla does not. Just in case The Big Sister forgets, her friends made her take a photo of both Godzilla and King Kong.

 

Spider?

In the last year I have developed a red spot on my cheek. My friends ask me if it is a pimple. My elderly grandaunts all wail that mosquitoes love me because my blood is sweet (it isn’t, I licked some once). My Pediatrician used a blurry magnifying glass from my CSI kit and had a close look. Guess what it is?

It is a spider nevi. That means a collection of burst blood vessels! I wonder why I am exploding? I might outgrow it and if I don’t, I guess someone can zap it away. Alcoholics have lots of these. I am not an alcoholic. I’m not even allowed coffee!

Anyway, take out your CSI kit. Have a look at this. What do you think it is?

I thought it was a spider, but it wasn’t. It was a nasty crunchy beetle. I tried to catch it but it hurried away!

 

A Tale of Two Papayas

Have you played the game QuizUp? It’s a game you can play on your iPad or iPhone. You play against a random person and answer 7 questions on a topic of your choice. I like Medicine, Name the Candy and Name the Animal best. Mummy plays Literature (Classics and Children’s Literature), Classical Music and Food. She is also very good at Name the Candy but is a bit embarrassed to tell people that.

Anyway QuizUp is the ONLY game Mummy has on her iPad. My Pediatrician says she does not know why Mummy cannot instal mindless games like she does. Mummy rolls her eyes when my Pediatrician says things like that. It is because Mummy is a Tiger Mum (Godma too) and my Pediatrician is a Meow Mum.

In Literature, there is a very long book by Charles Dickens called A Tale of Two Cities. It is very boring. Even when Mummy tells me just the exciting bits, it is still boring. Today I have a tale of Two Papayas (actually papaya plants). It is not at all boring.

You already know about my first papaya plant, right? I’ve posted about it here, and here, and here, and here. When I came back from the holidays, I was very happy to see how it had been busy!

The photo below was taken from below, sometimes it’s useful to be short. I know not all the papayas look perfect, but that’s just fine.

OK so that was one papaya. The second papaya is a different type – not a Hawaiian pawpaw like the first papaya. Even though the second plant is not even 3 feet tall, look what it has! A Lone Ranger Papaya!

Banana Bounty

Today is a Very Important Day. One of our bananas turned a pale, delicate, yellow. Grandpa’s rule is as long as ONE banana turns yellow, the whole bunch is ready. So the Paid Gardener came and cut off the entire bunch! We got 8 hands from it. The total weight was just about 15kg, but the Paid Gardener said something was wrong with our scales because he thought it weighed at least 20kg. He claimed he was an experienced banana man.

I labelled almost every single hand with a recipient’s name. The biggest is Godma’s, and it was almost 3kg! See the yellow banana on the right? That was our signal banana.

Just so you can admire more bananas, the next biggest hand is for my Pediatrician’s husband. He only eats bananas. I mean, the only fruit he eats is banana.

Then next on the bunch came our kind neighbour’s bananas. See? It says #12. We are at #10. Like Downing Street, you know.

This was a GOOD JOB WELL DONE!!

The Theory of Relativity

The Big Sister occasionally mentions this theory. It seems a bit confused. Or maybe I mean The Big Sister seems confused. She usually is. She has just started driving lessons and her instructor seems to spend a lot of time exclaiming “ALAMAK!!!”. That is not a good sign.

Anyway. We have a new pot of long beans because the old ones are not so productive. The new bean plants have impressive leaves! Look!

Mummy said that no one would know how big the leaf is, what with photoshop and all those fancy things. So I took another photo with my hand on the leaf:

Then Mummy said since no one knew how big my hand is, how would they have any idea how big the leaf is? So I will tell you. I am 9 years old, 136cm tall and 32kg. That is a good sized 9 year old. I cannot remember what percentile I am on (a percentile means that the doctor compares you to all other 9 year olds in the universe) but I will ask my Pediatrician and post later. My Pediatrician knows all about these things and has a fat file in her clinic where she writes stuff down so she doesn’t forget.

Anyway, then I had a bright idea. Here is a leaf next to my slipper!

OK. I am a size 35 European. I mean my shoe size, not me. I am Chinese. In case you want to know, my foot and The Big Sister’s foot are the same size. This means we are European size 35 and British size 2.5. Strangely, I am American boys size 3, but The Big Sister is American ladies size 5! You can have a look at this chart if you don’t believe me. http://www.dancesport.uk.com/shoes/conchart.htm. If you don’t have a size 35 shoe at home, maybe you could go to a shoe shop and have a look? Then you would know pretty accurately how big the long bean’s leaves are!

More Spots

Just like me. My angled luffas have gotten all spotty!

On top:

And on the underside too:

Anyone wants to dx? Dx means diagnose. I learned this from my Pediatrician. Rx means prescription. Trx means transaction (this I learned from Mummy).

Chillies Willies

From 3 very healthy chilli plants, which even Novice Gardener praised, we now have defoliated leaves as if someone has sprayed Agent Orange on them:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have a look at the close up:

And yet there is new growth (below) and even some flowers (left):

 

 

 

 

Grandpa says it is because Mummy squashed 3 plants into a pot so the roots are choking each other. My trusty book from KL (Grow Your Own Vegetables by Lee Chew Kang) says it could be a chilli veinal mottle virus or a mite infestation! It doesn’t look very mottled to me though.

I look mottled though – this week I caught either an unidentified virus or chikungunya! I had a temperature of 40.2C and my skin looked all spotty and mottly. I wouldn’t let my Pediatrician take my blood so I am not sure what EXACTLY I had. What a waste of my school holidays!

Girlnanas and Boynanas

Girlnanas become nice fat edible bananas and they grow up first and higher up on the stem. The Big Sister says there is something I should learn from this.

See the sterile flowers? They look and rustle like paper. They will fall off and make a mess on the ground.

 

 

 

 

Boynanas come up later and they never develop. Growers chop them off so the girls get more nutrition. Luckily Mummy didn’t practice banana methods with her kids, hahaha! Anyway, have a look at these boynanas. At least, I think they are boynanas. Because they are much smaller than the girlnanas further up.

Mummy made me use a black permie marker to write names on each hand of bananas. By the way, what I thought was a bunch (like the one you buy from Kevin our fruit man at Ghim Moh) is actually called a hand. A bunch means all the hands along the stem!! Back to my story. Mummy accused me of promising bananas to more people than we have bananas. So now we are labelling each hand of bananas. So far we have reserved bananas for Godma, my Pediatrician’s husband, The Big Sister’s godpa, our neighbours and my dentist. Luckily I don’t like bananas so I don’t mind giving all of them away.

Twins

Mummy has 2 twins, a Day Evil Twin (called Day ET) who is my Godma, and a Night Evil Twin who is my Pediatrician. All of them look very different. My Godma’s hair is shorter than mine and sometimes when she plays golf, she gets mistaken for the boy caddy. My Pediatrician looks more patient than Godma and Mummy. Actually I can spot other differences but Mummy says no need to discuss those!

We have twin purple long beans. The flowers came out at the same time, but somehow one grew faster than the other when they became beans. See?

Pediatric Okra

My Pediatrician bought an Australian okra plant from me, and it is now fruiting, see? I don’t know why it looks so yellow? I also don’t know why it is in a cup. Last of all, I don’t know why my Pediatrician calls it the $2 okra when she only paid me $1 for it (that’s my usual seedling price). I asked her all these questions but she has not replied.

STOP PRESS!! My Pediatrician replied but somehow she could not post it. Here is her reply: Dear Weed, The okra looks yellow because of the flash needed to take the photo. It was dark. Actually it is very green with envy because it cannot match your okra plant in terms of abundance. The cup is its skirt. She’s a lady(‘s) finger after all.
Like wine, with age it appreciates. From a dollar to 2.
Mummy said rudely that my Pediatrician is like the okra – doubled in value because she has appreciably aged. I think my Pediatrician is very valuable, especially when she does not give me shots.