Think Pink

It all started with that pink wall. Then I found a pink chair pad at Spotlight which very nicely draws the pink into the dining area. And then a pink doorway streamer at Metro that draws the pink into the kitchen. Do you call it a doorway streamer? It's like a bead curtain, but the beads are little plastic cut-outs. Very 60s.

And those pink flowery glasses. SH thought I got them from abroad. Nah, Sengkang suburban mall, my friend. It's an Italian import though. If JW thinks she's the original pink gal, she has to think again. The brand of the glasses is Adie. It literally had my name on it. So of course I had to get it.

And from there, there was no turning back. Take this pink template for the blog. So I'm consistent when it comes to a colour scheme.

The Xelibri gave up the ghost last week. The keypads on the right side refuse to work. Just about the only buttons that did work let me make calls from the address book and answer calls, but I couldn't reply SMSes unless I keyed in only the letters on the left side of the keypad. Which made things rather difficult. Then along came M1, offering me a free phone. So of course I picked the pink one. It has a four-way key -- which was the minus point in the Xelibri; when you have butter fingers like mine (banana fingers, a piano teacher once called them) you tend to punch a little off-kilter and the button registers a left instead of a down. I was thinking of getting a new phone and looked around a bit, but almost every model now has one four-way key instead of four up, down, left, right keys. And this one came free. So I took it. There's no free lunch, of course. I had to sign on for another two years to my mobile plan. But a free pink phone!

Oh, the silver bag that the pink stuff is on, is just for contrast, to show off how pink the pink phone is. I paid $7 for Her World -- when I normally despise women's magazines -- for the free silver bag because I needed a stylish bag to tote my iBook in. I checked out laptop bags at Orchard Road today, they're all ugly and black. Slim deserves more than an ugly plasticky black bag. With this silver one, it'll travel in style. W wants to know when I can test out the wireless connections at Starbucks and McDonald's. Soon. Slim now has something sleek to wear and is ready to go.

Watching paint dry

Seriously, that's what we're doing. The painter came by to do the front gate. He'd forgotten about it when the rest of the house was being painted. It takes two hours to dry, during which, we can't shut the gate nor the front door. That means someone needs to stay home to protect the house from intruders. It would be HRH's job but she's more intent on getting herself a brown muzzle, brown paws, (I would say brown nose too but that would come out sounding like something else). L has gone off to the mall to get himself some socks. He goes back to work tomorrow, and can't find his socks among our boxes of Stuff. He can't go to work in bare ankles. Pity the guys. I would just slip on Birkenstocks and go to work, flashing bare toes. Meanwhile, I have to stay home and watch the door.

There can be no picture for this

... because it's about me enjoying the bath tub. I haven't had a bath tub for the five years we've been in the old flat. On Friday, I went to Marks and Sparks and went berserk in the toiletries shelves. Bath foams, bath oils, bath creams, I bought them all. Couldn't chose between the flavours? Heck, get them all. Then I went to get a $120 steam iron which, as it turns out, I may never use ... story coming up...

Filled up the bath, got in. And refused to get out. Even though the water had turned tepid, the bubbles had all gone and the fingers and toes were turning into little prunes. Halfway through the bath, a thunderstorm started and I briefly wondered about the wisdom of sitting in water with lightning activity outside. Then I sniffed the bath foam aroma some more, busted some bubbles and sank deeper into the water.

It's nice to be hedonistic. Speaking of which, we have a housekeeping service. We hired a cleaning service to clean the flat before we moved in and they did a wonderful job. So when they persuaded us to sign on for their weekly housekeeping service, it was easy for us to say yes. Besides, we felt flush since we don't have to pay rent any more. And that bit of money for the housekeeping service will mean I WILL NEVER HAVE TO IRON, MOP OR SCRUB A LOO BOWL AGAIN. Woo hoo!

And here's where I talk to my friends

I've been spending a lot of time here online lately, and that's because we have no TV. HRH lies in state on her cushion. It's not normally in here, but Sucker Dad placed it there because royalty must be comfortable. Ah, the TV. We haven't bought one yet, because it didn't seem necessary as we don't watch much TV, so spent the money on things like sofas and tables and beds. Then Mum gave us a portable set that no one was using so I plugged it in happily. I'm off work for two weeks and it would be nice to catch up on the prime time TV that I am not normally able to watch when I'm at work in the evenings. We haven't signed up for cable (no TV what) but I thought we'd at least get the free-to-air stations. Nope. 25 channels of static and no Desperate Housewives.

Positioning the Royal Palace

We placed HRH's little house under the surfboard at first. She curled up happily in it. Today, we tried putting it under the shelf where the TV would go (once we get a TV). She was just as happy. I'm sitting on the sofa looking at her and her various sleep positions, and thought to myself: Why get a TV? Watching a dog sleep is just as entertaining.

Who says I don't have clutter?

The new flat looks impeccable because it's, well, new. There's only so much clutter you can accumulate in two days. Now, the old flat, that's a different story altogether. We haven't completely moved out; the books, knick-knacks, gee-gaws are still there. Some time this weekend, we'll probably go round with a sack or something and chuck things in. By now, I'm beyond dusting them off before packing.

Home is where you hang the leash

We've moved! Well, that is to say, we've got our toothbrushes and coffee maker with us. Along with 20 boxes (that's all the movers supplied) of stuff that are being emptied out so that we can take the box back to the old flat only to fill it up with all the stuff that's still there.

I'll also need to go back and get the shoe racks that I thought at first I'd leave behind. Cos I've already filled up the shoe cabinet and there's still a box of sandals that has to go somewhere. Stop laughing, Mel.

The ZZZzzz Room

This may be HRH's favourite room soon. Yesterday, she refused to go into the bedroom because there was nothing in it, preferring to test the sofa in the living room (it had four paws of approval). Today, the bed arrived, the curtains are up, and the room is ready to be slept in. It just needs the HRH inspection.

The thingy over the bed was what M brought back from Bangkok for us. We have a Hawaiian quilt with a breadfruit pattern that we want to hang on that wall. It might be too big for that slim cloth hanger though.

Surf's Up

The living/dining room is taking shape. And it's turning out prettier than I could ever imagine.

When we first met the interior designer, she wanted us to tell her what sort of look we would like. We gave her a blank stare in return and she volunteered: Classic? Zen? Contemporary? Urban? It meant nothing to us. We told her about our ideas for the picnic table and how Les wanted his surfboard on the wall. Ah, Resort, she said. Well, here's the Resort. Looks more like Beach Shack, if you ask me.

It'll be even more beachy when it's done. The carpenter who made the table is going to make us a gate to keep HRH out of the kitchen. It's going to be a garden picket-fence looking sort of gate.

The shelf on the pink wall is are three doll's houses mounted together. Makes a great shelf with cubby holes for all sorts of knick-knacks.

Yup, definitely Beach Shack.

Cue in the music

We have music! In Slim! iTunes rocks!

You know how you may only like one or two songs in a CD and all your favourites are all over the place? Well now, most of them are in Slim. It didn't take more than an hour to import most of my favourite songs from my CDs. Then I looked at the list in iTunes and it struck me: A good three-quarters of them are Australian -- INXS, Midnight Oil, Australian Crawl, Icehouse, Savage Garden, Divinyls, Men At Work... I don't know if this means anything. Hmm, ES, you think it's some kinda insidious Aussie invasion?

Room With a View

The window grilles are fixed and we can now leave the windows open without worrying that anyone would try to climb in. We're on the second floor. I've subbed heaps of fillers on break-ins where people got a leg-up on aircon ledges and broke into second-floor flats so I got a bit paranoid. I guess the grilles also stop the dog from taking off after pigeons.

I like the amount of green I can see through the window. Only thing is, if I can see all this, then people downstairs must be able to see me as well. Gee, that means I'll have to Sit Properly and not sprawl around and scratch.

Reading In Bed

The old way:
1. Locate Schnauzer book rest (pic, right). It usually helps when the bedroom aircon is turned on. She'll be thankful that -- finally! -- someone is ready to go to bed.
2. Place book rest across lap, give it a few pats to settle down.
3. Put book on book rest.
4. May need adjustment if book rest decides to turn over for a belly rub.

The new way:
1. Put Slim on tray-table.
2. Turn it on.
3. Give Schnauzer book rest a few pats anyway.

One. More. Week.

This time next week, Sleeping Beauties from the previous post will be sleeping in our new bed, in our new house.

The delivery of the new furniture has been arranged, the movers have been booked and the cleaners too -- I wanna be able to sit on the loo -- when I walk in there next week, hey, I think that's important, to be able to sit down and do what you need to do comfortably and in a sparkling clean environment.

The only thing to do now is to pack. And that's the biggie thing, left to the last. The movers are supposed to come and leave us 20 boxes. I have a feeling that's not going to be enough. And I have a feeling between now and next Wednesday, I'm going to have a few panic attacks.

A Dog's Life

The transport van makes a three-point turn after dropping off someone and the headlights pick out a yellow lab sleeping at the end of the driveway. It gets up with a start, it must think we are coming straight at it, and starts to bark. The van reverses and the dog relaxes. Ah, barking at them is making them go away. It lets out a few final barks for good measure and settles down to sleep again, on the concrete driveway, pressed up against the gate, as if trying to get as close as possible to a world it couldn't reach because it's people were comfortably tucked inside their house.

And I think of my dogther, and how I will soon be home. And of how she must be asleep in my bed at this moment, snuggled up against her Daddy. She is lucky. And I am lucky too, to have her.

Surfin' in the Kitchen

Nah, L's surfboard is in the kitchen only because the builders put it in a corner, out of the way. It will eventually be mounted on the living room wall. What with the picnic table for the dining suite, the painted clouds "skylight", I only need a whiff of salt air and I'd be at the seaside. Maybe like Snoopy in a comic strip I can't forget, I can slosh water about in the dog dish and pretend it's the lulling sound of waves.

Although, surfing in the kitchen of the Internet kind could be a possibility. AirPort! Bluetooth! FireWire! Slim has them all. Why get tied down by a phone cord?

Singin' in the Rain

Here you go, folks, pix of the aforesaid shower. Complete with shaving mirror so you can look at yourself sing. It's a lot of hardware just for ablutions, isn't it? I mean, if it had any more metallic thingamajigs, it would probably qualify for a surgical instrument. And I would be too scared to take a shower in it. I mean, there you are, all exposed and vulnerable -- and in my case, blind without glasses -- and all these bits are coming at ya.

V (of the hearty bwahahas) wants a pix of L in the shower singing karaoke with that shower/mike. We'll see... Singapore Idol starts this Sunday as it is.

Sengkang geyser

Take one heavy torrential downpour, fill up all the drains on the ground and continue to pour rainwater down the gutters that drain into them. That's how you can create a bubbling geyser that floods the floor outside the lift lobby.

Needless to say, HRH was not happy about lawn conditions during her evening constitutional.

In other environmental developments, Mount Merapi in Java has blown its top and the lead item in the evening news is on the Met Station assuring us that they are monitoring the ash situation and that it is unlikely that it will dip our air quality PSI from good to moderate -- which happened when Pinatubo erupted. I'm sure the Javanese villagers will sleep well tonight, knowing that they are not causing any inconvenience to their neighbours.

Ack. The Blogger spellcheck worked yesterday but gives me an html squiggle today. Ah ha! Slim Macs do have hiccups.

No pictures with this post

Sorry people, Slim Sexy Notebook ate the pictures that I took yesterday of the new house. Well, sorta. OK, it was Slim Sexy Thing's new applications vs Dumb User. Slim Sexy won when Dumb User deleted the uploaded pictures from the iPhoto's library file, not realising that it was the root file, so once it was gone from there, it would also be gone from the folder she *thought* she put them in.

So, no pix of L's new shower. It has two shower heads -- one is a large round overhead shower, with a "rain" effect. There's a slimmer showerhead at torso level. That one looks like a karaoke mike. And I was all ready to caption the photo 'Singin' in the Rain'. And don't ask me why two showerheads in one shower stall. I mean, how much water do you need to wet down a body? Oh wait, L's body. More surface area. :)

Slim sexy thing

Ah, got the picture up.
And to think that my first Mac Classic was considered portable, with it's backpack carrier bag and a sidepocket for the keyboard.

Have finally retired the old dinosaur -- may it rest in peace after years of service -- and got a spiffy new notebook with all the bells and whistles that comes with OS Tiger so I have no excuse to put off blogging.

The next big hurdle is to keep on writing. We'll see. Geez, if I can write for a living, surely I can write for fun.