Out shopping

An oldish guy is gingerly clutching a pretty posy of yellow mums as if they would disintegrate at any moment, while checking out a rack of greeting cards. Clearly, he doesn't buy flowers very often.

Equally clearly, someone in his life is having a birthday. 

Lucky lady.

Random things of niceness

Going to work is never a nice thing, however much I like my job. So I try and make the commute nice by taking different routes to work. Sometimes the train, sometimes the bus, sometimes a combination of both.

The bus is the nicest, because it takes me down a road that has old liana-lined trees growing along the road divider. Dappled sunshine filtering through flame trees. Nice.

Lately, double-decker buses have been added to ply the route, which means that the view from an additional few feet up now includes peering over people's garden walls and catching glimpses of sleeping dogs. Nice, too.

Yesterday, as the bus approached a bus-stop, I happened to be looking out of the window while a girl waiting there happened to be looking in my direction as the bus pulled up. Our gazes met, and she smiled a shy half-smile. I smiled back. And then, both suddenly discomfitted that we were smiling at strangers, we broke eye contact. In any case, the bus pulled away. And suddenly, my workday was already getting better.

What I get up to

A meme, courtesy of The Dahn Report

Things you have done during your lifetime:
( ) Gone fishing in the snow
( ) Saw Elvis in Vegas -- saw a lot of things there but Elvis wasn't in the building!
(X) Lived on a barge
( ) Danced on TV
( ) Performed at Disneyland
( ) Gone on a blind date
(X) Skipped school -- who hasn't?
( ) Gone snow-shoeing
(X) Watched someone die
(X) Been to Europe
( ) Been to Canada
( ) Been to Mexico
( ) Been to Florida
(X) Gone White-water rafting
(X) Gone Kyaking
( ) Been to Texas
( ) Been to Pennsylvannia
(X) Been to Hawaii
(X) Been on a plane
( ) Been on a helicopter
( ) Been lost
( ) Gone to Washington, DC
(X) Swam in the ocean
(X) Cried yourself to sleep
(X) Played cops and robbers
(X) Recently colored with crayons
(X) Sang Karaoke
( ) Paid for a meal with coins only
( ) Been to the top of the St. Louis Arch
(X) Done something you told yourself you wouldn't.
(X) Made prank phone calls
( ) Been down Bourbon Street in New Orleans
(X) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose & elsewhere
(X) Caught a snowflake on your tongue
( ) Danced in the rain-naked -- I danced in the rain but not naked!
(X) Written a letter to Santa Claus
(X) Been kissed under the mistletoe
(X) Watched the sunrise with someone
(X) Been bowling
(X) Sailed a boat
(X) Played tennis
(X) Blown bubbles
(X) Gone ice-skating
( ) Drove a dune buggy
(X) Gone roller skating -- fell more than I skate though
(X) Gone to the movies
(X) Been deep sea fishing
( ) Driven across the United States
(X) Been in a hot air balloon
( ) Been sky diving
( ) Gone snowmobiling
(X) Lived in more than one country
(X) Lay down outside at night and admired the stars while listening to the crickets
(X) Seen a falling star and made a wish
( ) Enjoyed the beauty of Old Faithful Geyser in person
( ) Seen the Statue of Liberty in person
( ) Gone to the top of Seattle Space Needle
(X) Been on a cruise
(X) Travelled by train
(X) Travelled by motorcycle
(X) Been horse back riding
(X) Ridden on a San Francisco Cable Car
(X) Been to Disneyland/ Disney World
(X) Truly believe in the power of positive thinking
(X) Been in a rain forest
(X) Seen whales in the ocean
( ) Been to Niagara Falls
(X) Ridden on an elephant
(X) Ridden on a Camel
( ) Swam with dolphins
( ) Been to the Olympics
( ) Walked on the Great Wall of China
( ) Saw and heard a glacier calf
( ) Been spinnaker flying
( ) Been water-skiing
( ) Been snow-skiing
( ) Been snowboading
(X) Been to Westminster Abbey
(X) Been to the Louvre
( ) Swam in the Mediterranean
(X) Been to the Great Pyramid in Egypt
( ) Been to a Major League Baseball game
( ) Been to a National Football League game
( ) Been to Jamaica
( ) climbed a waterfall
(X) Climbed the Eiffel Tower -- I didn't climb, I took the lift

Things that make me smile, #2,310

The aunty seated next to me on the aisle seat of the bus, when I had to interrupt her close reading of a prayer book so that I could get past her and off the bus, told me to have a nice day at work.

Things that make me smile, #2,309

Watching through a bus window a woman walking two fluffy white dogs. The Westie-looking one was straining at its leash, trying to get at a flock of pigeons that were taunting it.

Ankh angst

It was pointed out to me that the confluence of obtaining tickets to a Neil Gaiman event on Halloween evening is a sign from the Endless Ones that I should go in costume as a Gaiman character. Death from his Sandman series was the glaringly obvious choice -- short of the kohl and ankh pendant, I already had most of the get-up.

It shouldn't be that hard to find an ankh, I thought, as I set off to hit all the trendy streetwear shops downtown. I even tried two suburban malls. I was, err, deadly wrong. I found enough skulls to fill the killing fields, enough crosses to ward off a whole other world of vampires. But no ankhs. I also found out that the trendy 'in' pendant now also looks just like my front door padlock, complete with a key -- if I'd only slung that round my neck instead of using it to lock my door, I'd actually be very hip. I also found that Ican be very 'in' if I wore L's car key around my neck.

I just can't find an ankh outside of Egypt. My next choice is dress as Delirium. Also easy enough -- spray colour my hair orange and purple, and mess it up. But then it was pointed out to me that people would just think I'm going as myself on a bad hair day.

I think I'll just use fabric paint to draw an ankh on my black top. Otherwise, ankhless, people will just think I'm going as Neil Gaiman.

Wave motion

... because that's how Fortune rocks you.

First off, the disclaimer is that I work in a place with people whom PR professionals feel the need to make nice to, thus resulting sometimes in free donuts, free concert tickets and travel junkets.

And that's when Fortune starts you on an up and down cycle.

Neil Gaiman appears at the Singapore Writers Festival the coming weekend. Tickets to the event are free. But it's the same collocation of if you need to know how much something costs, you can't afford it: If you need to know where and how to get hold of those free tickets, there won't be any left to get.
Score: -1.

Someone posts on the e-bulletin board at work, hoping for Gaiman tickets. Maybe someone had returns, she hoped. I add my name to the wishlist. If someone can get lucky there, I could try and get lucky too.
Score: Hope springs eternal.

My company is one of the sponsors of the festival. So we received some complimentary tickets. To be divided among 3,000 staff across the group. Of which 2,999 are probably Gaiman fans, 2,990 the rabid variety, especially the graphic artists in various artrooms in the building. Fastest fingers to email corporate communications win.
Score: Improving.

I was off for two days. And came back to find that I've scored tickets to Who Killed Amanda Palmer. There're only single tickets to the Gaiman talk on fantasy novels. But that's OK. Who Killed Amanda Palmer was the event I really wanted, and I could give up my place on the wait list for the other events.
Score: Yay!

I also came back to find an email saying that there're free tickets for the New York Philharmonic. On the night that I was offf. So I could have gone, something I couldn't possibly do on a worknight. The email came on the day that I was off. So I didn't see the email. Missed NY Phil on their Beethoven night. That I was informed that they did the Egmont Overture as an encore didn't help.
Score: Fortune gives with the right hand but raps your knuckles sharply with the left.

My supervisor messages that there's a press trip to Krabi. It's smallish, very exclusive, guests are being flown there by private jet. Over the weekend of the Gaiman events. Do I put myself in the draw for the trip? I felt guilty about not using the tickets that was given to me.
Score: swinging. Fortune is really effing with me today.

Husband practically berates me over the phone. Put your name in the Krabi ballot, he thundered. Neil Gaiman will always write another book. You'll never have the chance to fly to Krabi on a private jet for a spa and sea sports weekend.
Score: still guilty but hopeful. If Fortune had smiled on me for the Gaiman tickets, maybe she'd be even nicer with Krabi.

Only three people are in the ballot for Krabi. That's a one in three chance.
Score: on the upswing

I did not pick the short straw.
Score: I still have Neil Gaiman.

Sad story

The cement floor in front of the rubbish collection centre at the ground floor of our block of flats is always stained. That's where the central rubbish chute that runs down the whole block empties into a dumpster, and in the morning, the garbage truck pulls up, backs in, the louvre door is slid up and the dumpster emptied into the truck. There are always brown stains on the floor after the truck pulls away.

Sometimes, the stray cats hang about there, and we feed them there when we see them. Usually, they would have torn into plastic bags of garbage left there by the ground floor residents, who don't have access to the chute like those on the higher floors. So there'd be garbage scattered about after the cats are done.

Last night, somebody ended his life at the spot.

We heard a thump as we were entering our flat after walking the dogs. I thought a car hit something. L said he'd pop out again and check, as he wanted a smoke (he smokes outside the flat when I'm home). It wasn't a car, it was a person. Someone had jumped

We called the police. Everything else that happened after that was like CSI. The police tape. The flashes as the police photographer did his job. I wouldn't have been surprised if Gil Grissom stepped out from one of the police vehicles that pulled up.

Except that things don't end neatly like a TV series, after the credits roll.

Today, there's a wake at the pavilion across the block.

And instead of the little stains, there's a noticeably big, dark one.

And the garbage truck pulled up, backed over the spot, took its load and left.

Possibly the worst job in the world

Foreign Bank Incorporated in Singapore must be worried about losing customers. I, for one, had withdrawn quite a bit from my savings account, leaving just the sum that was covered by the deposit guarantee scheme. On top of that, I had also cancelled my credit card.

Now, printed across the bottom of the monthly statement of account, is a gentle reminder that deposits are covered by the guarantee scheme. I have a a feeling that more than quite a few people withdrew their money.

One of their reps called me, introducing himself as my new personal banker, exhorted me to call on him if I needed any of his services, and left me a whole string of numbers at which I can reach him, short of giving me his mother's home phone number and maiden name. I suppose dog walking doesn't count as a service I can call him for.

I had gone through 4 or 5 personal bankers in as many years. The last but one was an analyst in his former job and must've seen the end coming because a good year before the financial crisis broke, he quit to set up a business in Vietnam manufacturing souvenirs. Anything but banking.

So the new guy kept reiterating: "Please give me a call, I'll be glad to be of service."

"So you just joined the bank?"

"Yes."

"You poor, stupid bastard."

And I really felt sorry for him.

It's made from a dead tree

No real reason for uploading a picture of something as commonplace as a bus ticket except that I haven't actually had to buy a bus ticket in years, ever since the introduction of the smartcard for use on buses and trains.

I had to buy a bus ticket yesterday because there wasn't enough value left in my fare card for the bus trip and had to pay cash to the bus driver who issued me a bus ticket for my ride.

An actual bus ticket. Made from paper. Part of a dead tree. Maybe bus tickets aren't really so commonplace after all. Was it so long ago when buses had conductors whose job it was to collect bus fares in cash and issue you a ticket for having paid? The ticket had all the different fares printed on it, and the conductor carried a hole puncher which he used to punch out the corresponding fare on the ticket.

There you go, the newly mid-middle-aged person is reminiscing already.

Over the hump of the hill

I'm 45 today. There's no denying it. Even my knees remind me daily. I'm stuck squarely in middle age. I used to be able to skirt round it by saying I'm only in my early 40s. Now I'm in my mid-40s. Ack.

I thought I'd console myself with a grand tuck-in. The Shangri-La Hotel has a brilliant promotion called Flash Your Age where, if you and a party of up to 8 people eat at any of their outlets on your actual birthday, you'd get a discount of exactly how old you are. So a 45-year-old would get 45% off her bill. By that accounting, I wonder if a 100-year-old would get to eat for free. And would they pay a 101-year-old for coming?

I called to make a reservation a whole week ahead -- which is about as far as I can plan anything. To my consternation, I was politely, almost sorrowfully, told that the allotment for the promotion on my birthday was already taken up.

I wasn't told what the allotment was. I hope it wasn't just a handful of people. Either that or a hell of a lot of people share my birthday. Well, happy birthday to you, whoever you are, you forward-thinking advance-planning buggers.

Dicing with ice

L at the food court drinks stall:

"One bandung, one lime juice, no ice, please."

"No ice?" the stall assistant wanted to make sure before she dispensed the drinks into the paper cups.

"No. If you give me a cup full of ice, I won't get to drink anything." It's true, you take two long sips and all the drink's gone and you're left with a cup full of ice and you're still thirsty.

"Hey, ya hor, you're right." And a light bulb goes off in the head of the guy behind L in the queue.

L is now on his way to an iceless drinks revolution and pretty soon, we're going to be banned from the food court.

That's my ringtone story and I'm sticking to it

I never use the electronic beeps that are programmed into the cellphone for you to select as your ringtone. I can never tell which is mine, and I need to use a melody ringtone that I can recognise if I ever hope to answer my phone.

Once, when a new cellphone was still set in the programmed beep that it came with, I ignored it as it rang and a friend who was with me asked me why wasn't I answering my phone. I didn't even recognise that my phone was ringing, I thought it the electronic squiggly noise was his phone going off and was wondering why wasn't he answering his phone!

So for the longest time, my cellphone played the theme from Star Wars when it rang.

Then L got a cellphone that could do sound recordings. I know that most cellphones do that now, along with the ability to carry out DNA testing and various other wonders that come with all the bells and whistles that come with a cellphone, but I like my phone to just let me make and answer calls -- if that's not too much to ask of a phone. So I used his phone to record Queeni barking (easily achieved by getting him to ring the door bell), and then sent it to my phone and Queeni barking became my ringtone.

It stayed that way until one day, I came back to my desk at work and very strange looks from my colleagues. I had left the cellphone on the desk when I wasn't there, and they were wondering why an empty desk was barking.

Time to change the ringtone. So I set the phone to another melody -- Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries.. Then I realised one thing -- sometimes when I was home watching TV, I'd hear the ringtone and then go off to pick up the phone, only to find that there was no call. There wasn't even a missed call, so it was not like I didn't pick it up in time before the caller rang off. But I swore I heard the Ride of the Valkyries go off. Most peculiar.

It wasn't until last week that I realised that Tina Fey's ringtone in 30 Rock was the same tinny Ride of the Valkyries..

Laugh all you want. But when you're prising yourself away from the sofa to answer a phone, you're not paying attention to what's going on on the TV, and you miss the fact that Tina Fey is also answering the phone and that Ride of the Valkyries stopped as soon as she did so.

It's time to change my ringtone again. Now, it plays Guns 'n' Roses' Sweet Child Of Mine for calls from home and Bon Jovi's Livin' On a Prayer for calls from other numbers.

I am unapologetic for my taste in 80s rock.

Sisyphus

Spotted as I walked across the playground on my way to the office today: A young kid was having fun kicking his football up the two levels of the low-incline handicap ramp leading to the playground. He was so pleased at being able to manoeuvre the ball up the incline that when he reached the top, he punched the air in celebration.

What he didn't anticipate was that after the ball rolled to the top, it rounded the landing and started to roll down the stairs next to the ramp. It then gathered momentum and started to roll down the stairs very rapidly as it followed the law of gravity.

The boy's look of joy turned rapidly to one of anguish and he had to run quickly after the ball before it got away from him at the foot of the stairs. And then he started kicking it up the ramp again.

It's confirmed, I'm old

I've been a bit creaky here and there lately but didn't think much of it as I popped glucosamine. Last week, I had the odd feeling that sometimes my right knee downwards wasn't connected to the rest of my body. I'd turn but the lower leg wouldn't turn with me, giving my knee cap a sharp twinge.

The GP thought it could be wear and tear problems, given my age, but insisted that I take an X-ray, just to rule out that I didn't break anything. I couldn't have, I haven't fallen or anything.

So I had an X-ray done last week and popped back into the GP clinic today for the results.

"The good new is," he said, "you haven't broken anything."

"The bad news, hmmm," he hesitated.

So I filled in the blanks for him. "The bad news is that I'm an old lady, right?"

I have the beginning of bone spurs in the joint and am one step along the way to osteo-arthritis. You know, Old People Stuff.

I am now Officially Old.

Friends in high places

A friend of mine emailed me to say that the wife of the new president of the Maldives is someone we knew at university.

The University of Warwick has a reputation for being a hot spot for student activism. Which is one of the reasons why it changed its mind about opening a campus in Singapore.

But I never imagined that my friend's former housemate would turn out to be the First Lady of the Maldives.

She is in illustrious company -- another housemate, a Jordanian, married into the royal family and is now a princess.

I feel like I've achieved nothing with my life!

Life is transient

I left for Hanoi on Monday. Sometime late Sunday night if not Monday morning, my father-in-law died in his sleep.

I came home on Thursday. My father-in-law was already cremated.

And all this while, L never wanted to tell me, didn't want me to cut short my trip. He even told my mother and our friends not to tell me. But then I got one rather odd text message late on Monday by the time I finally turned on my cellphone. L was uncontactable all day, so I called a friend. And that was how I found out.

Everyone, even my mother-in-law, said not to cut short the trip, seeing that it was already a short one. L didn't see the point of my getting off the plane only to turn round and get back on it.

So I went through the motions of Hanoi.

It was a weird trip. When I left home, this old guy was doing his own thing. A few days later when I got home, there was nothing left of his existence on earth. It was like he had never been, especially as I don't see him often. Life is odd.

PlayStation kills

A couple of days ago on the train, two kids sitting opposite me were absorbed in playing on their PSP. I was tempted to take a picture and caption it along the lines of: And this is why we developed opposable thumbs. But I was too shy to take a pix of strangers wiith or without their permission.

In an interesting by the way, PlayStation does shed real blood in its own version of African blood diamonds.

Owww

I wrenched a muscle in my back. Again. This time, I did myself in when I dropped a slippery piece of soap and it skittered into a pail of water that was standing next to the sink. Almost without thinking, I bent over quickly to retrieve it. And that did it.

I'm very cross with myself because I know I should have squatted down instead of bending over -- all that stuff that the physiotherapist taught me.

And I thought I had been so good with the physio and yoga threapy exercises the past 10 months or so. Since the last time I stupidly wrenched my back simply by getting off the sofa. I do them at least three to five times a week and had felt my back getting stronger. Apparently not. Or maybe stronger but not strong, because at least this time round, the muscle pull isn't as bad as last time.

I think my body is telling my mind that I'm middle aged. Ouch. That hurts.

You know it's football season...

I was sitting next to an elderly Malay man on the bus when another elderly Malay chap got on. They obviously knew each other because they did that hand-to-heart handshake and the second guy sat on the next row and the two began a conversation -- none of which I understood.

sdsdfjwerrjkv ... injury time... poiuder werjkjkl; rerwlj kj;jwer ... free kick ... sdfwejk @#!@#!!!

Aah, they were talking about Euro 2008.