Growth spurt

Rupert seems to have had a sudden spurt of growth almost overnight. He's so chesty now, I've had to let out his harness and collar. So macho and such a far cry from the thin puppy with the spindle legs when he first arrived. Now, he's more like a little horse. Trots around like one, too.

HRH does not care that he is now much more bigger than she is. She still humps him. As every good monarch must.

Ready to rule

I don't know how HRH got herself into this human baby-like sitting position on our bed but she sat there that way for quite a while. Like a little teddy bear on the bed. OK, OK, like a little queen on her throne, that she is. Funny girl.

Rest and recuperation

HRH is recuperating, I am resting -- from cleaning up her vomitty bouts, the poor thing is having a hard time post-op. And Rupert is just being Rupert.

It will be a long two weeks' wait for the biopsy results and I'm scared half to death already. We went back for a dressing change today and the vet is very kind and trying not to scare us by saying let's not talk options until the pathology results are in or we'll only get stressed. But we are already stressed!

The bump is a definitely a growth, she discovered as she debulked it, and not a callous in my clutching-at-straws hopes. So the only issue now is what sort of growth. And even if it is benign but growing at a fast pace, it would probably still need to be removed or it would impair Queeni's walking once it grows into the paw pad. And being sited in that awkward position, the vet fears that Queeni may lose a toe. But she will still be able to walk, the vet was quick to reassure us. But that still feels so drastic. And given her less than happy camper post-op recovery, I hate to think that she needs to go through it again. Poor little thing.

Medical supplies

We need to keep the bandage on HRH's paw dry as it has to stay on for 3-5 days till we bring her back to the vet for a follow-up. And then they'll either change the dressing or remove it entirely, depending on how the site is healing.

We've been having thunderstorms most afternoons and even if it's not raining, the grass is wet and somtimes muddy. How to keep the paw dry during HRH's constitutional? We found the solution in clingwrap. You think it should be an item in every first aid kit? With a roll of bright blue bandages.

Back from the wars

Here's HRH come home, all wrapped up in matching blue bandages. At least the colour suits her, though I think she'd be prettier in pink. Hey, they do come in pink. Spock was wrapped up nicely in pink once, and the vet then apologised for dressing a spunky boy Jack Russell in that shade.

The bandage on the front paw has been removed since. It held the catheter for her IV drip. The bandage round her abdomen was to hold a painkiller patch against her flank (which had been shaved for that) but didn't do its job very well as she has worked the bandage off and I found the patch folded into itself and hanging by a corner onto some hair so I don't know how much benefit she got from it.

In any case, she is on oral painkillers and is mostly walking normally on the affected hind paw, lifting weight off it only when she changes her pace. And she's not whining so hopefully, her paw does not hurt her much.

Rupert tried to welcome her home by wrestling but she is growled at him to tell him that she's not ready for that yet. I hope he got the message. She is still very drowsy and will probably need another day to sleep things off.

Waiting, again

This time, it is Queeni who is at the vet. She's just had surgery -- which she went through very well, the vet called to tell us when it was over. There's a bump on her paw and the vet wanted to take some tissue for a biopsy. And since she was removing tissue, she debulked the bump as much as she could without going into the paw pad, which would hurt.

The biopsy results will take about two weeks. The worst case scenario is to have a toe amputated. But that sounds so drastic. I'm hoping it won't come to that. Queeni's only turned six years old, which is still very young for her breed, way too young for these old dog lumps and bumps -- which was why this one caught me by surprise. And then her groomer scared the beejezus out of me because she felt that it was gianormous whereas to me, it was so small, I thought it was a callus, especially as there was no fluid.

Queeni's being kept over night just so she can get some rest as she is still rather woozy, without being bothered by Rupert. Or bothering Rupert. He's not wandering round the house or looking out the window the way she was when he stayed at the vet's for his neutering. Instead, he has been following me about the house -- which he usually does anyway -- and when I got into bed for a short nap, promptly leapt up on the bed. He's not allowed on the bed, partly because I don't trust his bladder control fully but mostly because Queeni headbutts him off the bed. That's where she sleeps with us, and if she didn't want him there, then we're merely enforcing Her Majesty's rules.

It will be funny not to have her hogging the duvet and the pillows tonight.

Ideas from spam

Yesterday, Tad Bourgeois sent me some spam. It went straight to the Junk folder but I'll save his name for when I'm asked for a name. Or maybe I'll feminise it. Midge Proletariat, maybe? I usually give a fake name when making restaurant reservations. I almost never give my name but make one up that you just know isn't me. This started from uni days when you (well, my friends and I anyway) made a joke out of everything possible. So I've gone by Enola Gay, Lara Croft and the last time we went to Hard Rock Cafe, we were Evita Peron, party of four. No one batted an eyelid.

Separately, someone else wanted to inform me that there is "no valve in inharmonious". I guess the valves are looking for a bit of peace. Well, aren't we all.

TV, part three

Looks like we're not the only one with TV aerial problems. When we first moved in, my mother gave us the portable TV from her house that nobody was using. We plugged it into the cable point which was supposed to give you free-to-air feed if you didn't subscribe to cable. Only the dinky set wasn't picking up anything. Our contractor said the TV was probably too old and not sensitive enough to pick up the feed. So we left it at that. The TV is 10 to 15 years old so he's probably right. My Dad gave us a set of rabbit-ears antenna to go with the TV. It picked up the signals although it can't receive the news station. But it was enough to watch Desperate Housewives with and along with that, gave the living room a retro look.

Then we realised that there were a lot of TV antenna coat-wire contraptions sticking out of the windows of our block and the surrounding blocks. It can't be that everyone here has 15-year-old portables like ours!

This morning, I saw the makcik downstairs pottering around the grass outside her ground-floor flat with a portable aerial fixed on top of a laundry bamboo pole, while someone in the house directed her where to plant it. Instructions were first given verbally, then as she moved into the distance, the mode of communication became visual -- move to the right, up, down gestures through the window. And then a cellphone on makcik rang. It was command centre inside the house calling. Much easier directing her on the phone than to yell out the window. How modern communications have eased our life -- even when cable connections fail.

Sleep

I guess you could call this a triptych composition. And the first one could easily be subtitled: no room for me on the couch.

When she's not comfortably hogging the couch and covers, Queeni sometimes likes to perch on the back rest of the sofa. It's just one of her many cat-like habits. I keep worrying she'll fall off. But she looks so comfortable, especially with her legs dangling down.

The last pic is of a bench next to the car park in the office building where the smokers hang out. I wonder how many people have been caught sleeping here before the bosses decided it needed a sign. Like that'll stop anybody.

TV, part two

To continue from yesterday's post on TV -- I watch a lot of late night TV as I get home from work at about 1am. Since I don't have cable, I'm stuck with free-to-air TV, which at that time of the night, are mostly reruns of drama series and reality shows, several seasons behind.

Which is not a bad thing. Because I work nights, I never got to watch them when they were aired "fresh" on prime time. And the great thing is that you don't have to wait a week for the next episode, they broadcast the whole series nightly at the same time slot and and when that runs out, move on to another series.

From 1am to 2am daily on weeknights, I've finally caught up with CSI, CSI Miami and now, am on to Las Vegas (the second season). The 2am to 3am slot was taken up by The Apprentice (the second season, the one that was won by Kelly, the West Pointer) until that recently ended and it's now showing Gray's Anatomy.

I've watched most of the CSI, Las Vegas, The Apprentice and Gray's Anatomy episodes when they were first aired on prime time, this was from when I worked 9am to 5pm for a brief five months two years ago -- so that's how behind these reruns are.

I don't care much for Las Vegas (the series and the town) but I enjoy watching it because it brings to mind the great holiday I had in Vegas when T got married and the Dogtalkers met up. And it's kinda boggling to see that casino hosts apparently never wear the same dress to work more than once.

From 3am to 5am, we get two talk shows: The Ellen Degeneres Show, followed by The Tyra Banks Show. Ellen's funny and witty and a warm and wonderful talk show host, plus her DJ plays some good music, but Tyra should have stuck to modelling and kept her mouth shut because nothing interesting comes out of it. Her function as host seems to be solely reliant on empathy. But that only gets you so far and it makes her eyebrows look very overworked. We used to get Oprah. Bring her back, I say.

Afternoon TV is just as interesting. I catch about an hour before I leave for work and managed to watch a season of Joan of Arcadia, until it ended and now it's on to Remington Steele. It's kinda fun watching a retro series like that. We all know Pierce Brosnan went on to become James Bond but whatever happened to Stephanie Zimbalist? Poor woman, elbowed aside by Mr Steele once again.

Joan of Arcadia caught my attention when it was first screened because it had an interesting premise -- God appearing to a teenager in the form of ordinary people around her. It was first shown on Saturday afternoons and I missed most of it because I was either bathing dogs or grocery shopping at that time. The opening credits flash still pictures of Bob Dylan, Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama to theme song, Joan Osbourne's What If God Was One of Us (I wonder what happened to her, she had that one great hit and then seemingly disappeared) and I guess it's left to you to infer what you will of the association. Interesting that other than the Dalai Lama, there's no other picture of a religious leader. The Pope must be sore that he wasn't considered godlike enough. And no Beatle either, despite being more famous than Jesus.

TV

One thing about free-to-air TV programming on public holidays here is that you're subjected to variety and award shows -- repeats and sometimes from a year ago.

But yesterday, it was good. I finally got to watch the recent Grammy awards. It was telecast live on Monday morning but I slept through it -- 9am really is too early for me. There was an encore telecast at prime time later that night but I worked through that.

What I really wanted to watch wasn't so much the award presentation or the stars, I just wanted to watch the Police open the show. I wanted to know what they look like now. Quite interestingly, Sting, the good looker of the trio 20 years ago is now the baldy guy. The others still have full heads of hair. Must be retribution.

I wondered why of all their hits, they chose to come back with Roxanne. That rather brings to mind a Sting concert in Australia. He had performed all his solo hits, all the Police hits, came back for encore after encore and still the crowd wanted more. What else hadn't he done, he asked the crowd. And in one voice, they sang: "Roxanne..." And Sting started to beat his head against the microphone and groaned: "Every single f***king day of my life..."

New sofa covers

This stuffed dog is Queeni's favourite toy and Rupert likes to rile her by grabbing it and shaking it -- it has a rattle in it. Wedging it against the sofa backrest must be her way of hiding it from him.

And if you notice, we changed the sofa covers for Chinese New Year. We did it on the eve, after my parents went home after reunion dinner. We didn't want to do it any earlier for fear of Rupert peeing on the sofa. The last time my parents were here a fortnight ago, he was so excited that he leaked all over the house.

In fact, as we were struggling with the tight-fitting covers (Ikea designers should incorporate the use of elastic, like how fitted sheets have elastic in the corners -- L was so exasperated he wanted to e-mail the Ikea president and invite him over to change sofa covers and see if he can do it), we heard our downstairs neighbours counting down to shouts of "xingnian quaile". I've never had a Chinese New Year countdown before, I thought it was only a Dec 31/Jan 1 thing.

I guess this portends a lot. We missed the English New Year countdown because we were walking the dogs. We missed the Chinese New Year countdown because we were changing sofa covers because somepuppy peed on the other set.

When we bought this second set of covers as a spare set, I picked this pied beige colour because it looked like sand, and I thought that went so well with the picnic table, surfboard and sky-painted ceiling.

We still don't trust Rupert fully, that's why there's a towel draped on the sofa seat -- in the vain hopes that it'll soak up most of what he might decide to leave. At best, we say it's a decorative touch -- a beach towel on sand effect.

Now that Rupert has moved it, I've discovered another nice thing about this pied colour -- it beautifully camouflages shed fur.

Hongbao deficit

You know you're going to go into hongbao deficit every Chinese New Year because you have to fork them out now that you're married but have no kids to reap in return hongbao.

Last year, we thought the tide might turn because Queeni got hongbao from Mum and from the neighbour. This year, we thought, we might even do better, now that Rupert's onboard and we're a two furkid household.

Nope. Not a single hongbao came their way. By the end of today, the pile of hongbao that we packed with crisp new notes diminished sharply.

What's funny though is that although we're in hongbao deficit, we're in mandarin orange surplus. I don't know how it happened, we brought the customary two oranges to every visit but came back with more oranges than we left.

Gongxi facai

HRH Queeni wishes all her loyal subjects, devoted servants and gentle readers a Happy Chinese New Year.

The Year of the Dog may have trotted out but she wants you to know that she has got the Year of the Pig covered, especially as she snorts like a pig when excited. And you know how bak kwa excites a dog.

Queeni's press secretary would like to point out that this is a file photo, from two Chinese New Years ago. HRH has had a hair cut since.

Sound effects

Every Friday, I look forward to picking up from the subbing pool the food stories for the weekend edition. Especially today, after last night's killer nine-pager on the Budget following Parliament.

Only today, someone else got the choice food story first. But she was so taken in by what she was subbing, she messaged excerpts as she went along. Heston Blumenthal has a new take on fine dining. And it comes with iPods. The idea is to have a sound accompaniment to what you're eating.

His new menu features seafood -- shellfish served on a bed of edible sand, which is Japanese breadcrumbs fried with something I now forget. It is to be washed down by "sea water" in a martini glass, which is some seaweed infusion. And all this time, you're plugged into an iPod, listening to the sound of the sea.

He wanted to explore the sense of sound together with the sense of taste. It's not illogical, I suppose. It's like beautifully presented Japanese meals which cater to the the sense of sight along with taste.

Only I don't think Bray is by the sea and I sure hope his inspiration isn't the British seaside because I can tell you that my experience of Blackpool Tower, Brighton Promenade and Dover didn't inspire me to want to drink the sea water. Or maybe I had been to the wrong places. I had an involuntary tasting of the sea at Lyme Regis, it sprayed me in the face along that wall structure when I was pretending to be The French Lieutenant's Woman.

And when you reach dessert and opt for Blumenthal's famed bacon and eggs foam, the iPod plays you the sound of sizzling bacon.

The bit that the sub incredulously copied and sent: when you're eating chicken, you get to hear the clucking barnyard sounds.


That's where it started to go horribly wrong for me. When I'm eating chicken, I do not want to think that it was once alive and had a mother. So I don't really want to hear its voice when I'm eating it. As it is, I only eat meat that comes in fillets. I can't eat wings or thighs or bits that are recognisably limbs or part of an animal. I would like to not think that my dinner was once a sentient animal, I prefer to have an ostrich mentality and think that it comes on a styrofoam tray and think no further back. Or I would have a problem eating at all.

It's like that bit in Douglas Adams' The Restaurant at the End of the Universe where the talking cow points to his various bits and recommends Arthur Dent the choicest cuts before trotting off to the kitchen to become dinner.

At least Adams was being sarky. Blumenthal wasn't.

I suppose it's a good thing Blumenthal hasn't explored the sense of smell. Imagine, barnyard smells with your chicken chop.

No rhinoceros in sanhedrin

That's the subject of a spam e-mail I got. Maybe there's something wrong with the water in Sanhedrin. But first, I have to find out where it is.

And the spam next to had the subject: No by malaysia. So I guess the rhinos are bypassing Malaysia too. But they're definitely in the neighbourhood somewhere.

What rubbish!

Nowadays, new HDB blocks have just one centralised rubbish chute. That's just one chute for the whole block, usually located off the lift lobby. As opposed to the old design where every kitchen had a chute. Which is still better than a Hong Kong block (a Happy Valley condo, no less) I once lived in which had no chute at all, and the residents just left their bags of garbage on the back stairs for the cleaners to dispose of.

But this one central chute means that every bag of garbage thrown down by every household in the whole block goes down that way. And when the garbage truck is late or doesn't come (as was the case yesterday), the garbage thrown out by everyone stacks up to more than two floors high.

That's what I found out when I took out the garbage -- when I stepped on the pedal to open the chute flap and tossed in my bag, I wondered why it wouldn't go down. Then I peeked in and realised that it was blocked by a towering mound of garbage bags that reached up to the second floor where we were. I should have gone up one floor to see if the mound reached the third floor.

That's how full of garbage my block is. :)

Dog park

We took the furkids to the dog park in Pasir Ris this afternoon. Rupert had the time of his life running off leash. Curiously, he didn't shoot straight off to join the welcoming band of golden retrievers (why is it that every dog park we go to, every dog cafe, has a resident bunch of golden retriever greeters at the door/gate?) or terriers that were trotting around.

I thought he would be off like a shot now that he had off-leash freedom. Instead, he stuck to us and only ventured to run when we threw a tennis ball for him. And when we sat down, he stuck around us, never venturing more than a few feet away and then coming back. The good side to this, I suppose, is that this puppy has established a bond with us. And he's probably not going to be the sort of dog that would take off the instant he could. That's nice to know.

HRH, of course, stuck close and wouldn't mix around. That's why she's at the corner of the top photo, seeking solace between Daddy's legs while Rupert mingled.

And now, the two dogs are comatose again. Another peaceful evening. :)

Early reunion dinner

The humans are having their Chinese New Year reunion dinner next Saturday so it stands to reason that the dogs will have theirs first, today. Only two canine cousins didn't come because their daddies decided they wanted a stress-free evening. Or maybe they wanted to go out after dinner? It is Saturday night after all and some dog parents do have a life. Even if we don't. :)

And of course, as in every photo, Vivi the terrorist Jack Russell has brimstone eyes. She also left her pawprints on our bathroom mat. Haha, Vi's a dirty little girl.

The furkids are unconscious now so that means it must have been a great evening.

Lucky numbers

Eight is supposed to be a lucky number for the Chinese, it's a synonym for for prosperity. 1888 is supposed to be a lucky combination, it sounds like "prosper straightaway".

So that's why the supermarket cashier was astounded when she totalled our shopping yesterday. It came up to $188.88. She thinks we should buy that number for the 4D lottery, especially with Chinese New Year round the corner.

Casualties

This blog last week has been a casualty of work. After wrestling with layouts and that dreaded MTX program, I wasn't in a mood to come home and fire up another computer.

I've had to call HelpDesk almost every other day and of course they're stumped by my problems. Only me. Yesterday, it was so unsolvable, they had to get Prepress to delete the page and create a whole new one in its stead.

I'm having this recurring nightmare where I know I'm in a dream state and cannot break away from it until I save my story but the MTX Monster will not let me save.




Other casualties here are wrecked by the fox terrier weapon of mass destruction. The wicker basket is HRH's, given to her a few Christmasses ago by her godma who called it her day bed, knowing full well that her night bed is the double bed the humans in the house so foolishly think is theirs. That Dog has been chewing on it and bitter spray did nothing except to probably enhance the flavour for him. He's aberrant, remember? He started throwing up from the ratan but that didn't deter him either. Then I freaked when I saw ratan pieces in his poop. The idiot hadn't just been chewing it, he's been eating it. He's lucky he didn't get an obstruction with a sharp piece. So out goes the basket into the recycling. I don't know how to make up to HRH for this one.

Both hands full

You can't see my right hand, L didn't get it into the frame but it's holding a needle pulling thread, that's why my right arm is all stretched out. I'm very right bodied, I can only kick with my right foot, carry a bag on my right shoulder. But HRH is training me to be ambidextrous. I have to sew her favourite toy with my right hand while fending her from it with my left.

Tearing up toys for Mummy to sew appear to be the dogs' new hobby.

Spot the puppy

I missed a couple of cute pix yesterday -- nothing to do with the dogs this time, though. I drew back the curtains when I got up and found a pair of pantyhose dangling from the ledge on top of the window. I've had undergarments land on the kitchen window before, they probably blew down from somebody's kitchen window laundry rack upstairs. But the bedroom window? Hmm, all I could think of was somebody upstairs must've had a wild night. By the time I got the camera, the pantyhose had dislodged itself.

Then we walked the dogs in the field downstairs in what was the first sunny window we've had this monsoon. And there in the outdoors fitness centre, the newly built one which took the place of a few killed trees, somebody had laid out pillows and bolsters across the sit-up ramp and parallel bars to sun. L said we should take a picture of that to show the town council that we appreciated their killing the trees and we're putting the fitness centre to good use. Only by the time we walked the dogs, got them upstairs and wiped off and fed and watered, the sunshine was fast fading. I was about to go downstairs with the camera when I saw from the window that the pillows were being gathered.

Maybe when the monsoon goes away, we'll have another chance at getting this pix. Maybe, maybe. There was no sunshine today but at least there was a rain-free period where we took the dogs out for a long walk to get cabin fever out of their system. And a good thing too, it's starting to pour again.

No need no-knead

The latest in bread-making, according to a colleague, is no-knead bread. There're a bunch of recipes on the Net, all you do is stir the ingredients together, leave it to proof for as long as 12 to 18 hours, stick it in the oven and there you have it -- no-knead, no-fuss bread.

And she's had good results -- after some experimenting with ingredients and proofing time and definitely no elbow grease. And if you have to wait almost all day for the dough to rise, then it's a lesson in patience. All good things come to those who wait, etc. I'm dubious. To me, zero elbow grease takes the joy out of breadmaking. It's the kneading and pounding and thumping that does it for me. I find it therapeutic and in a good session, you can really whack the blues out of your system. If all I needed to do was to stir things together and wait, I might as well make yogurt. Or use a bread machine. Or just get a store-bought ready-sliced loaf.

Jeez

There's this supermarket near the office I go to now and then. It has a section where they display goods imported from different countries, so there's a Japanese section, Australian section and US section where the goods are arranged not in order of genre but by countries of origin. That's where in the US (section), God rules above tampons.

Gone to the dogs

You know you're in danger of being called that crazy dog lady when you realise you have on hand two sizes of Elizabethan collars and three sizes of pee pads.

Only the puppy doesn't need both -- good on the part of the e-collar, since he isn't going at his nether bits; bad on the part of the pee pads because it means he's going where he isn't supposed to. And he's on antibiotics. It's Housebreaking 101 all over again.

He's home

A sleepy fox terrier is a good fox terrier. The vet decided to keep Rupert overnight, not because of any complications but because she wanted to keep him quiet and away from Queeni.

Queeni spent the afternoon waiting at the window, and also scratched to be let into all the rooms -- I guess she was looking for Rupert. She missed him for sure when he wasn't here but I can't say if she's happy to have him back. Unless a welcome home hump is happiness for her.

I must've been more worried about Rupe than I thought. The minute we got him home, I collapsed onto the couch and needed a restorative nap. And so did he.

Waiting

That Dog is at the vet's and we're waiting by the phone and HRH by the window. Wanna bet that despite the humping, thumping and growling, she is actually missing him and watching for him?

It looks dark outside the window but it's only past 1pm. That's what two continuous days of rain does. Along with flooding the field and footpaths outside. We may have our own pool soon.


L took this picture of Rupert's dangly bits for posterity. Must be a guy thing. He actually wondered if you could preserve it the way the Chinese court eunuchs kept theirs.

Ve haf vays of making you zmile

Rupert has a snaggle tooth, which shows vampire-like against his black muzzle. L said if we had to rename him, he would call him Vlad. Which is a whole lot better than his joking suggestion of PAP -- for the little white lightning streak on his forehead. Mama C calls him Bao Qingtian -- Justice Bao, because of the white mark on a black face.

He gets neutered tomorrow and should be home by the evening. Please hold him in your thoughts. It's a routine op but I worry and don't want my little aberrant puppy to be the one that tests the odds.

Boo!

Sponge Bob is hanging out in the kitchen. Because That Dog peed on it.

At the beach

This was Rupert's first visit to the beach and he wasn't at all impressed. He wanted nothing to do with the water, wouldn't even go near it. Perhaps he thinks it's just one giant bath. Queeni at least went to the edge of the water and sniffed it but daintily skipped away as the waves lapped up so her paws wouldn't get wet. As you can see here, Rupert was more interested in sniffing her butt than sniffing around. Sigh.


Then he decided to see if sand was worth eating -- maybe because there was so much of it -- so he stuck his snout in the sand and got his nose and tongue all covered with the stuff. That Dog.

Back to normal programming

Christmas, the New Year and the holiday season are over. The Christmas tree (I'm calling it what I've known it to be all my life, "holiday tree" indeed) is put away and in its place in the corner, the deck chair is back, facing the window. Maybe this is wishful thinking also that the monsoon will go away and the sunshine will come back.

Is it just me? Every year, for the past two or three years already, I put away the Christmas stuff only to find that I've forgotten about an ornament on the shelf or door or somewhere and it's too troublesome to untie the dust bag (well, garbage bag really) that all the Christmas stuff has been stowed away in. So I either leave those forgotten remnants out for the rest of the year till Christmas catches up again or put them away somewhere and hope to remember where when December rolls round.

My mother has drilled in me the necessity to remove the Christmas tree and decorations by Epiphany. Or it'll bring bad luck for the year, she says. I honestly don't know how much of this is true and how much of it was invented so you wouldn't still have the tree up and gathering dust in July.

It's the same with the superstition that you cannot sweep the floor during Chinese New Year or you would be sweeping away bad luck. I bet you a housemaid came up with this to get some time off.

With the holidays over, it's a dreary trudge back to work after so much time off. And it doesn't help that I'm going to have to do things I'm neither prepared nor equipped to do, and which take me out of the comfort zone of familiarity.

This morning, I made bread and whacked all the doubt and uncertainties out of my system. Tomorrow and the work it brings will be another day.

And there'll be more holidays next month with Chinese New Year. Ah, that's some consolation in living here. The Year of the Dog has brought us a new puppy, I wonder what the Year of the Pig will bring.

Book ends

And when they're good, they're very, very good.

That Dog!

This was what L came home today, having left the dogs alone for about four hours. HRH, he said, had slunk under the dining table, having none of this.

Rupert is incarcerated in his time-out in the crate in the corner -- which, in peace time, actually makes a very pretty occassional table with a bright lime green throw over it.



Sometimes, I don't know what to make of Rupert. He gets a time-out when he's done something naughty -- usually, a housetraining violation that involves peeing anywhere other than the pee pad. The last few times he did this, he put his tail down and slunk into his crate to time-out himself. If he knew he had been naughty, why did he do it in the first place?

Happy birthday

Like the Queen of England, HRH Queeni has two birthdays -- the actual birthday which nobody really knows when it is, and the official celebratory birthday.

Because she was adopted, I never knew when Queeni's real birthday was. She had papers but they got lost in transition. I know who her original owner is, and he should never have gotten a dog and by now probably would have forgotten he even had one, let alone know what he did with her papers.

C and the vet estimated her to be around a year old when I got her five years ago from him in January, so I decided to make January 4, the date I adopted her, her birthday.

The Queen is six years old today. She celebrated with a slice of cheesecake. Which she had to share with the puppy, much to her consternation. He couldn't stay still to pose for the picture, that's why you only see his butt. Which is so Rupert, anyway.

The times, they are a'changin'

This blog has started to change. I first started it simply because I could. I had just ditched my dinosaur Mac that had been upgraded to its limit and still had a browser so old, it wouldn't support the requirements necessary for most blog sites. So when I got the iBook, I started to do all the things that Safari let me do that Netscape (a rickety v 3, it was, I think) wouldn't and one of them was to start a blog.

The blog at first was great for sticking all the pictures of our new flat as we were renovating it at the time, thus saving my friends' inboxes from being swamped with jpgs.

Then it became a place to put pictures of the new puppy and talk poopy.

Now, the puppy pictures have decreased (even though the puppy is still poopy) and the blog entries are in danger of lapsing into ranting at worst, and navel-gazing at best. Ah well, it's my blog and I'll soapbox if I want to.

This entry has been ruminating for a long time and like the World Aids Day entry (http://snugpug.blogspot.com/search?q=world+aids+day), it took a while to fester. Maybe it was the no-man's-land period in the week between Christmas and New Year, when it's been monsooning for days non-stop and it's cold and wet outside, the turkey has been digested and you're wondering about the year ahead and the one left behind that festering thoughts start to take shape as you start to write.

In end-November, the Ministry of Law quietly said through a late evening release faxed to the press that it was updating the Penal Code to move with the times. By that they meant including regulations for cyberspace and updating fines and penalties to match today's disposable income. But Section 377A is non-negotiable and remains in place. That means that "unnatural" sex between same-sex couples is a criminal offence.

December rolled round with World Aids Day and all the angst that came with it. Dec 1 was also the day that the South African parliament signed into law same-sex marriages.

This was the government, that back in the 80s, was subject to a student economic boycott in the redbrick university I went to in the UK. We didn't bank with Barclays (I think it was) and we didn't buy South African oranges in Sainsbury.

That was also when a classmate of one of my friends had her boyfriend visit her and we put together a wedding for the couple in less than a week. They were South African, she was black and he was white and they couldn't marry in their country. I'm no longer in touch with any of them but I still remember the wedding. It was at the Chaplaincy, which is off a busy path running through the centre of the campus. There was a lot of people using the path and all were invited to join in the wedding celebrations. Complete strangers came in to wish the bride and groom joy and rejoiced with them that they could finally marry. It was one of the best weddings I'd ever been to.

Here, we've had the "regardless of race, language or religion" drummed into us since we started reciting the the Pledge at primary school and we pride ourselves on being multi-racial and all-inclusive.

But are we, really? Not when friends -- people born and bred here and would probably have stayed -- have to leave the country to get married because they can't do so here.

They are ordinary people, and all they wanted to do was to live like other ordinary people. To marry and to live their lives together. I don't know which part of that is mad, bad and dangerous and threatens the fabric of (straight) marriage.

It would be a crazy full circle if somebody went to South Africa to get married.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Happy New Year

2007 crept up on us when we were walking the dogs. I guess that's kinda apt, it encapsulates what we'll be doing a lot this year until SomePuppy is reliable around the house.

We knew it was midnight when a burst of merriment escaped from all the flats around us. We went back upstairs, had a glass of wine and turned on the TV to the countdown show. Which was pretty boring, full of strangely-styled TV artistes and the MC/host's idea of whipping up a party mood was to shriek "Somebody scream" and everybody did. I wonder what he would have done if nobody did.

By 12.30am, I was wondering if that was too early to go to bed on New Year's Day.

Happy 2007, everybody.

Another meme

I don't think I'm quick enough to be the second one to respond to http://www.funnytheworld.com/2006/Dec/29.htm but I'll do it all the same. These are rather interesting questions.

1. Do you think the world will be a better or a worse place 100 years from now?

Some things would be worse but some things may be better. So I guess that means things stay the same. I don't think human nature changes very much. We will still have natural disasters, disease and terrorism. There will be people who will still hate each other, but there will be people who will find love. The standard of living should get better with a higher per capita income new medication and better medical care. The only problem is how to get the resources to those who need it most.

2. Would you accept $1 million to leave the country and never set foot in it again?

Yes, please! I would leave it anyway and I could sure use the $1 million.

3. If you could wake up tomorrow having one ability or quality, what would it be?

Patience. I'm very short on that.

4.  Would you be willing to murder an innocent person if it would end hunger in the world?

I don't think I could bring myself to do that.

5. If you could choose the manner of your death, what would it be?

Going gently in my sleep. Without knowing in advance I was going. I'd rather know when I get there. And I hope to live a life of no unfinished business. So that the people I love know they are loved, the people who matter know that they matter, and the people I don't like, heck, they probably already know.

6. How do you feel if people sing "Happy Birthday" to you in a restaurant?

I'd cringe with embarrassment. And that had better be a very good chocolate cake.

7.  If you found a good friend has AIDS, would avoid him?

Absolutely not. Things like that make me very, very angry. The reason why I got involved with Action for Aids years ago was when their executive director, who was fast becoming a good friend, got a call from the CDC asking if he would sign out the body of a patient who had died from Aids. Even in death, this man's family did not want to have anything to do with him and a stranger had to do the last things for him. No one should walk a difficult path alone.

8. If you walked out of the house and found a bird with a broken wing lying in the bushes, what would you do?

I'd take it to my vet.

9.  Would you be willing to spend a month of solitude in a beautiful natural setting?  Food and shelter would be provided, but you would not see another person.

Yes. I would miss L and the furkids but I think I could also use a month of solitude. I might even look forward to it. I'm an only child, I'm used to being alone. Sometimes now, there are days I can't have even have a minute to myself, not even in the bathroom.

10. How do you picture your funeral?  Is it important that people mourn your death?

It would be very small and I would want everyone to bring their dogs and there will probably be more dogs than people. I wouldn't want them to mourn. I'm not as flamboyant as Paddy who left instructions that people should dress glam but I wouldn't want them in sober black. I would be upset to think that they would be upset. My motto is: let the dead bury the dead, and let the living get on with living. It has gotten me into falling-outs before, when a friend and ex-colleague killed himself many years ago. Everyone was lamenting the waste -- RL actually wrote about it in his column and I couldn't let it sit, I had to write him and tell him to let the dead be. But I thought if this person felt so deeply that he needed to go, he might as well go and I hoped he found peace in going. As long as anyone thinks of me, I'm not really gone.

Your turn now.

Christmas spoils

Not ours, the furkids'. The corn on the cob and spare ribs are actually Nylabone chews. Rupert has claimed both and Queeni has given up. They're both already well-chewed. Queeni never was much of a chewer, she's only taken to chewing lately if only because she must do what Rupert is doing.

The treat jar is from C, one of those rare finds that only a consummate shopper like him will know it even exists. He said there're only a few pieces of this item here. I guess that makes it a designer thing, although I don't know what designer it is. After all, this is the guy who bought a Gucci chew-bone for Toby. There's a pseudo dog collar that goes round the middle of the jar and a little bone-shaped dog tag on it that says "Two please!" Took the words right out of Queeni's mouth.

Only thing is, the jar isn't at all air tight and the cover is very loose, so dog biscuits will go soft in the humidity if they are stored in it. So it's now filled with Japanese rice crackers, the individually sealed type that will stay crispy till it's opened. The humans need a treat jar too.

Surprise!

I went back to work on Boxing Day to find that I'd be laying out the op-ed pages. Now. Today. You start this very moment.

Eeek! A few weeks ago, when the January roster was out, I was given advance warning that come January, I would be doing page layout. As opposed to text subbing -- which I'm doing now. And which I would like to continue with. So starting right after Christmas was the last thing I expected. Or maybe catching me unaware could be a good thing, it saved me from the sword of Damocles hanging over my head over New Year.

Because as sure as heck, it was hanging over me when I went back to work yesterday. In fact, I had an anxiety attack so bad, I was nauseous. I didn't think I could manage a proper lunch so L fed me cookies, cake, ice cream and hot cocoa. The dear. Nutrition be damned, the wife needed the sugar to get through the day.

It has to be age. I'm less flexible than I used to be. And I don't mean just physically. So I tried to be philosophical about switching to layout. It would be a useful -- probably even necessary -- skill to have and it's about time I learn something new for myself. Only thing is, I hate the dinosaur MTX system that I have to use to learn the skill. And the fact that you know it is so outdated that we're switching to a brand new system in the next quarter doesn't help. Only, apparently, the new system is so full of bugs, ironing them out is taking longer than expected, and the switch has been delayed, oh, six months already.

I guess sometimes, you don't want surprises.

Bones would rain from the sky*

Well, it got pretty close to that from HRH's point of view. We were lounging around C's house in the evening of Christmas Day. He had cooked a turkey and various other yummy stuff and all the food was laid out on the table for people to help themselves whenever they fancied. By the evening, most of the turkey had gone, leaving just the carcass and G took it into the kitchen to cut off the remaining remnants of meat. All the dogs, two resident and two visiting, lined up at the kitchen door, tails wagging. C, the well-trained dog dad, took the hint. He rinsed off the morsels of meat and all of them got a piece.

HRH couldn't be bothered to join the riff-raff at the kitchen door. She was lying down on her back, enjoying a tummy rub from L. So C took a piece of turkey to her, special delivery so she wouldn't miss out. Her eyes widened but she wasn't going to question this bounty. She ate the turkey while she was still lying belly up and L, being another well-trained dog dad, didn't stop the belly rubs. Up until now, I didn't know a dog could eat while lying belly up. It must have been the canine version of reclining to someone peeling grapes for you.

Think about it from her point of view. Why jostle with the plebeians when you're enjoying a belly rub? When you're royalty, turkey slices will naturally rain from the sky for you.

*a great book by Suzanne Clothier

Housewife vision

That's the term the optician used when fitting me for the progressive lenses -- I meant to write about this in the post on the new spectacles (http://snugpug.blogspot.com/search?q=all+the+better+to+see+you+with) but forgot.

Housewife vision was the term he used for wide-ranged peripheral vision, adding the analogy of a housewife who can instantly scan all of a room when she walks into it.

Oh boy. Talk about a male-centric definition. I would call this woman vision -- the natural ability to walk from point A to B and see that the puppy has left a puddle at point C, which is nowhere in relation to A and B.

As opposed to man vision that kicks in only when L walks into what the puppy has left at point D, and only when pointed out to him that he has tracked it to point E.

Six weird things

OK, so http://www.funnytheworld.com/2006/Dec/20.htm (hello! Safari is still missing the hyperlink option) did not actually tag me but she said any three people who'd care to do it and I might as well -- I need content anyway. Besides, this meme is actually quite fun. You need to actually think for a bit, unlike the types of a what's-your-favourite-beverage/food/smell/colour nature.

First, the rules and explanations:
So if you get tagged, here are the rules: Each player of this game starts with the 6 Weird Things About You. People who get tagged need to write a blog entry of their own 6 Weird Things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave a comment that says you are tagged in their comments and tell them to read your blog.

1. I'm a what L calls a compulsive reader. When I see a paragraph of text in front of me, I need to read it. This means that I read the cereal box on a daily basis and when I'm done, I start on the jam jar labels and so on, until I leave the breakfast table. Oh yes, I read instruction manuals too. And catalogues. And Tshirts (not many people do here).

2. I like Bon Jovi. They have memorable riffs, thumping bass and sing-along lyrics at the chorus. I'll even forgive them for the 80s moussed big hair.

3. I talk to my dogs. And I don't mean just saying things in English. Queeni and I have this thing, particularly at bedtime, when she croons to me. And I croon back. I imitate her in tone, pitch and rhythm and we have a conversation back and forth until she falls asleep.

4. I buy melamine children's dishware because I like the bright colours, and use the dishes as bread plates and the little bowls as dessert bowls and the little cups as tea cups. But the designs have to be really nifty and no Disney characters. And when I use the plate, the little fairy or teddy bear has to be upright facing me.

5. My bottles of shampoo and conditioner have to be at the same level and the same "flavour". If I run out of one and there's still an inch left of the other, I need to start two new full bottles, I simply can't start a full bottle and use the dregs of the other bottle. L inherits the bottle-ends. Besides, I reason it's his fault because if he borrows one or the other, he made the levels go wonky. It's not me, I carefully pour out as much shampoo as conditioner so the levels remain the same.

6. Same with the bottles of facial cleanser and toner.

That's not really six things, is it? #6 goes with #5. So I don't feel qualified to tag six people. Actually, I daren't. I don't want to impose on six people who may not want to do this. So as long as I've already broken one rule, I'll break another. I'm not tagging six people but if you are reading this, feel free to feel tagged and join in.

Mr Bean

If you haven't seen much of Mr Bean on TV lately, it's because he works for Transit Security here . Really. I've been going to work by train instead of bus recently despite a longer route because it's more monsoon-proof and also because the train goes through the shopping district and I can stop off for a few quick purchases when I have time to do so (how do you think I managed to get the Christmas shopping done?).

And that's when I noticed that Mr Bean three times in a week on the North-South line platform at Dhoby Ghaut interchange. He has the same haircut, the same walk, with one arm stuck out akimbo and shirt-tail falling out of his trousers. Seriously, this guy out-Mr-Beans Rowan Atkinson. Mr Bean is looking after the safety of transit passengers. That'll scare any would-be transit terrorists.

Christ-mas

While politically correct people elsewhere have banned religion from Christmas and generalised it to a secular Solstice festival or whatever the term of the day is now (Winterval appears to be catching on in the UK), a group of Christian charities here have put the Christ back in Christmas. And in the heart of Mammon -- the shopping shopping artery of Orchard Road -- no less.

Maybe that's permissible in Singapore if only because it's only fair to let the Christians have their turn after Hari Raya and Deepavali. Hari Raya and Deepavali may not be your "thing" but everyone joins in the celebrations anyway by festive food osmosis. And having a day off, of course. Besides, Winterval in Singapore would only be ridiculous. Maybe Monsoonval would work. Unless it got rained out. Hur hur. Cabin fever shows in fox terriers after three days of continuous rain.

Anyway, back to the Christmas Nativity Village along the Orchard Road pedestrian mall. It has tableaux of the inn with no room with a life-sized paper-mache Joseph and Mary (who looks outsized rather than preggers and looks like she's having fun swinging her legs on a fairground donkey ride); Herod's palace; three life-sized fibreglass gift-bearing magi and their camels; and the traditional nativity creche scene with a really ugly pink, bald, plastic swaddled Baby Jesus and placards on the side in Singapore's four official languages explaining the scenes if you aren't familiar with the Bethlehem story. And you're welcome to pose for photos in front of them. People actually did. At regular intervals throughout the day, a group of actors moves down the tableaux, enacting the Christmas story. In different languages as well.

Makes you feel really churlish for getting short-tempered while caught in the crowds at the mall just metres away (yes! I finished the Christmas shopping!).

Closer look

Here's a close-up of the stockings for those who couldn't read the cross-stitching from the photo in the previous post. The one on the far right is Spock's. I turned it the other way round so you can see the fabric on the back.

Actually, I hang it that way round too, I started doing this the first Christmas without Spock, each time I saw his name on the stocking and the ornaments turned me into a weepy wreck. The stockings are made by A in Ohio in my dog e-list who cross-stitches as a hobby. Her sister D in California helped her out by rushing out Rupert's this year. I met them both in Las Vegas when we went to T's wedding, they're wonderful folks.

I'm not sure if Rupert deserves a lump of coal in his stocking. The weather outside is frightful, it's been pouring almost non-stop for almost two days because of the monsoon and that has destroyed regular walks and along with it, housetraining. HRH is very good, she baulks at going outside in the wet but comes home to do it on the pee pad. She prefers to go outside but will use the peed pad for urgent emergencies. With Rupert, the pee pad is a hit and miss. Last night, he held his pee only to let go on the common corridor outside -- the walkway that is shared by all the flats on this floor, of which three are Muslim households. We're only on nod-and-smile basis with the neighbours, they don't seem to want to mix much and I don't know if it's because of the haram dogs so I'm very careful not to cause any offence, particularly as I'm actually one dog over the HDB limit. So we doused the corridor with enzymatic cleaner or Harvey the papillion upstairs would feel the need to contribute when he runs down the stairs and past the corridor to the field.

I know what to use as a stocking filler for Rupert. A rolled-up pee pad. I will even decorate it with a festive bow.

Bah, humbug

Aaaugh.

Christmas is a week away and I am Not Ready.

So I had the tree up in November because I was excited about the first Christmas in the new house (http://snugpug.blogspot.com/2006/11/ready-for-christmas.html). I even got my Christmas cards written and mailed -- the post office didn't have Christmas edition stamps this year, rats.

And then I did Nothing. Now, Christmas is a week away and I haven't done my Christmas shopping. L has been home a lot and it's hard to get away from him to go shopping, especially when he's been giving me a ride to work most days. I guess this means he will get socks for Christmas from heartland pasar malams. Ha. And friends may end up getting bottles of wine. From the usual bin ends picked up during the weekly supermarket run. I also picked up a duck yesterday, thinking that I'd cook it this weekend and then I realised we won't be home for dinner tonight as it's E's wedding banquet. So L popped the duck in the freezer and we'll have it for Christmas. Looks like this year's Christmas vittles and presents are all by default, it's almost Grinch-like. Who was I fooling when I bought cookie cutters in readiness for making Christmas cookies?


The only shopping I've completed is for the dogs. Our two and all their canine cousins. You think this speaks volumes for priorities, huh? The dogs' gifts fit nicely into their stockings. A and D (thank you!) rushed Rupert's because a puppy must have his own stocking with his name on it, especially as it's his first Christmas. Said puppy will not hold still and pose with his stocking so HRH stands in from her palace.

Reading

I have http://www.marginalrevolution.com/ bookmarked on my computer at work. It's a blogged maintained by some smart guys (academics and economists, you know, *that* type) and I must've bookmarked it for work-related edification. I read it now and then, ie during occasional down periods at work.

There was an entry on reading (http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2006/12/how_to_read_fas.html) where the boffin says to read more, one must read fast. And that he has a high discard rate, just so he can read more -- he starts 10 or so books for every one he finishes.

That must be why I never get anywhere. I tend to stick to a book to finish it, even if it means hard-going ploughing through it. I'm not sure if it's a leave-no-stone-unturned mentality or a disposition to finish things once started since I'm not known to always apply these principles to other things.

It's like why I still feel cheap and dirty buying songs one track at a time. Somebody took the trouble to make a whole CD, chose the order of songs (not so long ago, you even had to decide A-sides and B-sides) and even the cover artwork. I feel you need to acknowledge the whole process and listen to the whole CD in order of song appearance.

And read the whole book. In fact, I can count on the fingers of one hand the books I've had to abandoned ashamedly because the going was too tough -- and I still have them, with bookmarks sticking where I left off: Ulysses (and that was double guilt because James Joyce was part of my English Literature curriculum), The Tao of Physics (you cannot blame an Eng Lit student for this one) and Goethe's Italian Journey (chosen to accompany me on a trip to Italy; I thought it was apt at the time but then I was young and distracted -- I thought at first that being stuck on long train and coach trips means that you're forced to read what you've on hand but I forgot that this only works on airplanes. On trains and coaches, scenery is more inviting than dead Germans).

And now, the way it's gathering dust on the bedside table, maybe I can add Harold Bloom to that unfinished list.

And I'm not sure about speed reading techniques. I think that when you read, you need to absorb the language, style and plot. So why speed read? You might as well not read.

Incidentally, L abandoned the Margaret Lawrence period novel mentioned in the previous post. He was thinking of Margaret Laurence (The Diviners) when he stumbled on the novel in the library's sale of discarded books and got the wrong one.

Hmm

If eavesdropping is what you do when you listen in on somebody's conversation, what is it called when you read over their shoulders? Actually, on the train today, it wasn't reading over anyone's shoulder, it was reading the front and back pages of the newspaper the guy directly across from me was holding up.

And next to him, a tall gangly youth's reading material of choice was a thin book of Emily Dickinson's poetry. Wow. I can only read Dickinson when I sit properly and concentrate, there's no way I can read her in a train commute.

And that's why Harold Bloom is still on the bedside table since November's post (http://snugpug.blogspot.com/2006/11/read-any-good-books-lately.html), he's been abandoned for a Margaret Lawrence period novel which L picked up from the National Library sale of used books.

Eavesdropping

You know how it is when you're on a train and someone is talking loudly on his mobile phone and you can't help but overhear? Only today, it was in stereo. Mismatched stereo -- Hokkien to the left and Tamil to the right. What's worse, being forced to listen in or being forced to sit between two conversations you can't understand? Only in Singapore.

Error

The first error in Beta Blogger has arrived. This picture was uploaded here, and meant to go into the profile as snugpug's little icon picture. However, it just won't load. I just get a error message saying: We're sorry but we're unable to complete your request. Help.

On a good hair day, you can watch forever

I am wicked, wicked. I was having lunch at the food court when a young lady sat at the next table and you could tell that she was fresh from the hairdresser's -- her hair was immaculately styled and she was carrying a plastic bag of high-end hair products, the type that they sell only at salons.

She was about to tuck into a bowl of noodle soup and I watched with interest how she would eat it. When you have immaculately styled hair that hangs straight down the side of your face, it also hangs straight down into a bowl of noodles.

She first tucked her hair behind her ears -- which is also what I have to do when I eat. But that interfered with the immaculately straight hair style. So she pushed her bowl away from her and ate in a contorted fashion, her arms having to negotiate her spoon and chopsticks away from her hair but still reaching her mouth. You know how you play choo-choo-trains-into-the-tunnel-now-open-up when you're feeding a kid? It was like she was playing that with herself combined with a slapstick gag of someone in arm casts trying to feed herself.

It is as I thought. Models with immaculate hair and tight fitting little black dresses can only stand and pose, and not sit and eat.

Give me a choice between immaculate hair and noodle soup, I'll take the noodles any day.

All the better to see you with

A big youngish wave to y'all who said that 50 is the new 40 and that middle age doesn't start till 50. One even said that middle age doesn't start till 60.

Only thing is, how come everyone who said that is younger than me? Like a mass denial: if Adi isn't middle aged, then we're a long way off too.

The ones who are older than me and are (or maybe not) middle aged are the wise silent ones.

As if you prove y'all wrong, a couple of things propelled towards the middle aged camp today. The mini-bus driver called me aunty. He wasn't the regular one but was standing in for his uncle and was moaning about how young men shouldn't be driving all night but should be at ZoukOut instead.

The other is my new pair of specs -- with progressive lenses (which cost another several thousand pretty pennies). I hadn't been able to read with my normal glasses for quite a while now. The last time I saw the optician, she very kindly said she would give me a year and then reassess me for progressive lenses. For the past few months, my eyes have been telling me that I don't need her reassessment, it's reading glasses that I need.

But heck, as long as I'm getting granny glasses, I might as well have them in hot pink frames with a touch of lime green. And the case for the specs looks kinda fun too, it looks more like a gift package than a spectacle case.

I guess today's progressive lenses are a far cry from my Dad's bifocals. And there's no obvious line like in bifocals that tell you old fogey eyes are behind the lenses. But the principle is the same. And if I need what my Dad needs, I must be old.

Tight squeeze

I've got a silly thing that I do with the dogs. It's something that I started since the Spock days and now L has picked up the habit too -- I hug the dogs tight and squeal in that silly playing-with-dogs-and/or-kids voice: "'Gotta squeeeeze ya!"

Only now, squeeze has taken a new meaning. Gotta get a bigger couch, ya think?

Labels

... and not the ones on the bottles of bath essence.

It's bad enough having to think of a punchy headline for stuff you sub at work, it's worse when you have to think of one for every blog entry because you're writing for fun but having to think of a nice hed makes it lose a bit of the fun and it becomes work-like. Now, there're labels at the bottom of the post to think of.

Yup, it's there now that I've upgraded to Blogger Beta. And with the labels, Blogger has pretty much what WordPress has. So there.

I took the longest time to upgrade because it involves switching your log-in. I was deeply suspicious that something would go wrong and then I would be locked out of my blog. And the warning that once you've switched, you can't turn back didn't reassure me. Maybe it had to do with how I handle change.

The impulsive Aries in me used to embrace change. Change took you out of the norm, brought you new experiences. Now, change makes you want to reach back for the comfort of the familiar. Aries on the cusp of Middle Age.

Good enough to eat

"This is not a food. Do not swallow." I was quite amused to find those instructions on a bottle of bath essence. The new range from Marks and Sparks comes in fruity flavours like tangy citrus and even comfort-food flavours like vanilla and exotic flavours like lemongrass and pomegranate, in bottles that looked like they belonged in the kitchen. I'm pretty sure that if I had left them there, the unhousetrained husband would probably think they are cordials, try to make a drink from them and put them in the fridge.

It's simple yet eye-catching packaging. A few years ago, there was a brand of toiletries from the UK called Lush which sadly now is no longer available here. They were like the Body Shop, only they marketed their toiletries like food items and their shops looked like greengrocers. Blocks of soap were displayed on carts, looking like cheese wheels and were sold by weight. The assistant cut out how much you want and wrapped the wedge of soap in greaseproof paper like a slice of cheese. They also had bath bombs (which I'd very much like to get now that I finally have a tub but of course can't find any) piled like fruit displays. Lovely to look at, but I think they didn't get much sales. And however good the displays looked, they were hopelessly impractical in this humid climate which could melt or sweat the yummy looking blocks of soap. Which is probably why they pulled out of Singapore very rapidly.

Gone along with them were the days when toiletries just smelled like flowers. You could maybe pick lavender for relaxation and maybe at the most jasmine for a pick-me-up. Now there's vanilla for comfort, lemongrass for rejuvenation (guess what works in your tom yom soup will work in your bath water) and pomegranate to soothe.

As long as you wash in them, not eat them.

Asian Games

I'm forced to watch sports on TV now that regular late-night programming has given way to live coverage of the Asian Games in Doha. It's almost refreshing to see Chinese athletes represent China. As opposed to the recent Commonwealth Games where China -- not a Commonwealth country -- showed up, representing Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, the UK and even Fiji. It was really weird then, you'd see Chinese badminton players competing against each other like a China vs China final only they weren't China flag-bearers.

Textiles, consumer goods and cheap factory knock-offs be danged, I think China's biggest exports are badminton and table tennis players.

World Aids Day

I didn't write an entry on World Aids Day on Dec 1. I cannot name friends* who have died of Aids or are living with HIV because here, I cannot out them and have them oustracised by a disease that will claim them. But not before I do whatever I can to stop it, so help me goD.

*Except for Paddy, that is. I was quite amused to see that he has an entry in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paddy_Chew
The English is a little stilted and in some places, it's a little hard to understand. But Paddy would have loved it. But I don't think he's resting in peace, though. He's probably bitching away at how utterly useless we are, having been left to carry the Aids advocacy torch but achieving little. Actually, with the exception of the 24-hour cremation after an Aids death rule lifted, I can't think of anything that has changed since he died. Oh yes, maybe a hundred or so dollars more a year you can use from Medisave to pay for antiretrovirals that can cost up to $1,000 a month.

Every May and December, every Candlelight Memorial and World Aids Day, I hold in my heart those that have gone, those that remain, those whose names I cannot say.

And every May and December, something ticks me off and I remember Anita Roddick's words about how it's actually good to get angry because it fans the fire in your belly to go do something about it. And then feel like I'm beating my head against a brick wall after listening or reading to some minister say something really mind-boggling. All this time, it has been a junior health minister doing the talking, and now, he's not even holding the health portfolio. I still haven't heard the health minister address the issue.

On World Aids Day, the broadsheet ran a full page interview with the no-longer junior health minister who said the mistake made was not treating HIV like any other disease and apply public health principles. It took him three years after SARS to say what Action for Aids had been saying then.

And his answer to the suggestion that the reporter put to him that HIV should get more resources because of its potential of becoming an epidemic owing to its exponential spread (hugely loaded question because I am so aware that every cent Action for Aids raises is wrestled from the Cancer Society, the National Kidney Foundation, etc): "So because the cancer patient cannot go and spread it to somebody but the HIV patient can, we should give it to him so he can go and spread it to somebody? I don't see the logic. The question is this: Antiretroviral medication doesn't stop the numbers from growing... In fact, if you look at it the other way round, it's the opposite. If we give you antiretroviral medication, you are well, you have more sex, you spread more..."

What is he saying? That if you have HIV, you might as well crawl into a corner and die? Hello? Aids education? Condoms? Safe sex? And what about paediatric Aids? So the growing segment of new infections are from hetero men who get the virus through unsafe sex but that's not to say that virgins and nuns have a biological immunity to the virus too. The virus does not discriminate. People, unfortunately, do. Antiretrovirals stop the virus from reproducing, it allows an HIV+ person to live a normal life, hold down a job, support his family, raise his children and pay his taxes. Which part of that is draining state coffers?

Brick wall. And it's not just the ministers. Even the retailers are against us. What really sparked this entry was that today, I tried to buy a Red Edition iPod. I had been dithering about buying an iPod since getting this iBook and getting hooked on iTunes. I didn't need an iPod. But since I found out about Red Edition products (www.joinred.com), I thought I might as well buy one of those. I can afford it and someone can benefit from it.

And was told that I couldn't. It's a USA-only thing, the salesman (sorry, Mac evangelists, they are called) at the Apple shop said. Actually, that's not true. The UK newspaper, The Independent, has a Red Edition. If a newspaper can do it, I don't see why it's so hard to get Apple/Motorola/Armani to import Red Edition products, it can't cost more than their normal products, I mean everything's imported anyway. I'm not a shopper. I don't care about labels and brands. But if I'm going to buy something, I might as well make my consumer dollar work extra and buy a Red Edition product. I was quite set to buy Red Edition gifts this Christmas. I thought it was quite the Christmas spirit. Your friends get your gift and someone who needs Aids medication also benefits from what you've bought.

But noooo, not in Singapore.

Brick wall.

All my children

Aren't they gorgeous?


There's plenty of room on the couch but of course they had to scrunch up in the corner with Mummy.

New cushions

We put the old floor cushions out with the recycling yesterday as we have got two new ones. The old ones never recovered from Rupert. There's only so much odour remover can do. And anyway, the fabric of the inner lining has given way and attempts to mend it only ripped it further so every time I changed the cover (which has been quite frequent because you-know-who did you-know-what), a flurry of sponge filling came spilling out.

This is one of the two new cushions. It's firm and more like a mini mattress than the previous bean-bag-style ones. We got it specially made and there's a PVC inner cover between the sponge and the outer cover that's liquid-proof -- you know why because of you-know-who. Two cushions, two inner covers and four outer covers (one set to wear and one spare to change when you-know-what happens) cost us a pretty penny. Several pretty pennies by the thousand. I think we got fleeced. A said we should have bargained.

The cushions are designed to do double duty. They are three feet by three feet and can be put together, with a single-bed sized fitted sheet over them to hold them together, and they turn into a mattress for anyone foolish enough to stay overnight with a fox terrier trampling on his/her face. And that's why we probably won't ever get the sofa bed we first intended to get. No more $$$ left.