Mother's {Day|Birthday}

Pingu
Swiped from elewa.

Every year, my mum celebrates her birthday on the 5th of May. Extremely easy to remember. And as we all know, the month of May is also the season for Mother's Day. One can always tell from the sudden burst in advertising for everything from massage chairs (thank God Amber Chia's "swollen tongue" radio ad was not reused this time round), jewellery, crystal to spas. My mother is a very difficult person to shop for. She is very fickle (I can blame her for this trait in me, :P), so there is a high possibility that she might not like the gift and not use it altogether. So we usually get her to choose it herself, but there's no surprise in that.

Past years had seen gifts like silver accessories, spa packages and family trips... so this year, I'm a little stumped. Then it came to me:

Air Conditioner

A very unconventional gift. But it is out of necessity. After menopause, my mother has become very sensitive to heat. She would complain of "flames at her back"-- I guess those what are termed as hot flashes (and sometimes, when she gets those, I get "burnt" too!). She had always hinted that it would be nice to have her room air-- conditioned, but I was kinda concerned about utility bills, so I kinda shrugged it off. Now that I find the idea more feasible (it is undenably freaking hot these days), I roped in my siblings and they agreed to my idea.

So, I started shopping for an air-conditioner. Concerned with power usage, of course I was interested to find out more about the one's that use the "inverter" technology that supposedly cuts power consumption by half. From my research, I found that the savings were quite misleading. The money you save on utilities is transferred to the yearly maintenance. The gas is more than double the price and the installation fees are nearly triple that of the usual units. Teruk. I guess there is no perfect solution. Finally decided on a conventional Mitsubishi. Can finally say hello to cooler times ahead.