Being neighbourly

L can't manage walking the two dogs together so he takes them out one at a time. Which means that when he meets any of our canine neighbours downstairs, he is very conscious -- guilty, even -- that the dog left at home is missing out on the social niceties of butt sniffing.

His solution? Bring them all home. Last week, he met Harvey (the Papillion from the flat directly upstairs) and Jagger (the giant Jack Russell from the next block) downstairs while walking Queeni. Doggy socials took a while and all this time L was fretting that Rupert would be up to no good home alone.

So that's how doggy social hour ended up at our flat. I was at work and L kindly took pictures so I wouldn't miss out. However, most of them aren't worth posting because they are all of dog butts.

Rupert, he said, was the consummate host, moving about the two visiting dogs, showing them his toys and leading them to the water bowl, where everyone had a communal drink.

A few nights later, I came home to be met at the door by *three* dogs. Ginger the English springer spaniel is from down the corridor, the only other female dog around and fondly referred to as Rupert's girlfriend. He had no niceties with her, no offering of toys, no nothing, they simply chased each other round the room, on and off the couch -- for an hour. Queeni, if you can even see her at all in the above photo, is sulking under the table. The hostess with the mostess she is not. Luckily, Rupert more than makes up.

If Roop, given his lack of brain matter, can represent Clueless Male, then this must be indicative of how Clueless Male -- canine and human -- treat their buddies vs their girlfriends. The buddies get the beer (well, the canine equivalent in the water bowl) and the girl gets the chase.

Home improvement

The kids in the neighbourhood and the dogs are going to be screwed this weekend. The path that runs round the field -- which the kiddie cyclists use as their racetrack -- has been cordoned off.

Along with the paint job the exterior of our blocks received, we are getting the paths redone. That really involves drilling up the existing path, laying cement over it, with a sprinkle of fine gravel that dries into the cement. I guess it's an improvement over the current path, which is paved with a glazed tile that is slippery in wet weather.

But you'd think that estate designers in the first place would have realised that problem with glazed tiles outdoors -- even if they were pretty, and some of them have a fish motif stamped on them, to go along with the nautical theme running through the estate. I guess my tax dollars are still hard at work.

This is the face of desperation

Here's Vivi so desperate to play ball that she ventured into the bathroom and dropped her ball-ball enticingly into the shower stall when her dad was erm, sitting on the throne.
[Here's where my finely trained journo brain races to ask: Why does M have a camera with him when he's on the loo?]

Mine, on the other hand, will never go into the bathroom because they know that it is a place where horrible things involving water and shampoo are done to them.

Rupert though, sweetheart of a mama's boy that he is, will poke his head round and check on me when I've been soaking in the tub for a while. But he'll back out hurriedly once he's sure that I haven't been harmed by soap and water.

Queeni, let's just say that should I die unexpectedly in the tub, when CSI finds my calcified remains, they will find a Schnauzer snoring peacefully in the next room. OK, to be fair, she may wake up. But only because she's hungry.

But then again, I wonder. If I don't get her out of bed and take her downstairs and then serve her lunch after that, I wonder how long she'll sleep before she feels the need to pee and eat.

The possibility of pigs flying

It's National Day season and there're displays of buntings and banners all over with the theme of this year's National Day printed on them: Celebration Singapore, City of Possibilities. You can't run from them. There're a few all over my estate and there's a huge one on the office perimeter fence.

So what sort of possibilities are in store for Singaporeans?

The Penal Code will be revamped to suit the times but there is no possibility of revoking Section 377A that makes homosexuality a criminal act.

There's even less possibility of same sex marriage, and economically active sons and daughters of the country have to move elsewhere to marry the love of their lives.

There's no possibility of a single mother and her children being recognised as a family unit that qualifies them for assisted public housing.

There's no possibility of subsidised antiretrovirals even though the health minister wants to make Aids testing more inclusive, even mandatory. In other words, there's no follow-up help once you're found positive.

There's even less possibility of generic ARVs because we want to be First World and play nice with patents. Thailand, on the other hand, stuck its finger at Big Pharma and went its own way to make generics -- with the surprising possibility that some firms would contribute their formulas rather than to lose a market altogether.

And there's absolutely no possibility that my furkids will be welcome at Bring Your Child To Work Day.

But we did achieve one possibility -- we constructed the world's largest floating platform for the National Day Parade off Marina Bay.

Wow. My tax dollars at work.

Spock

Six years today and still much missed.

I don't know what else to say that I didn't already write this time last year. But now, I have Rupert. And I see bits of his devilry in Roop the Poop. But there's nothing like the old scamp.

Generation gap

I don't feel my age although parts of my body make me painfully aware of it now and then.

Then I got to know one of the interns in the building at work and realise that he's leaving next month for my alma mater. It's been 20 years since I was at Warwick but even so, that wasn't any more than a figure in my head -- even if two decades sound like a scarily long time. But you don't feel like someone's auntie, not when you can yakk about Neil Gaiman with him.

Nice fella that he is, he agreed to keep in touch. And promptly asked me for my MSN and Facebook contacts. I have neither. And that was the only time I felt Old. Was it so long ago that keeping in touch with friends when I was at Warwick meant writing them snail mail. The type that you need to stick a stamp on, post, and then wait maybe a couple of weeks for a reply.

Okay, I don't write snail mail anymore -- even if I do send out Christmas cards that way, there's nothing like a seasonal stamp on an envelope for an olde world festive touch. Oh lord, if I'm going on about the Good Old Days, that can only mean I am Old. But don't call me Auntie.

Internationally mixed up

I've never wondered what made a Swiss roll Swiss until now, when L came home with a vending machine snack that apparently didn't think being Swiss was foreign enough -- this cake (made in Malaysia) felt it had to be London and Swiss to get some consumer cred. Even if it was a very South-East Asian coconut pandan flavour.

Or is this what globalisation is all about?

Lost in translation

I had the Chinese TV station on when the news came on, and there was this fun item about workers abseilling down to clean Big Ben in London. And in Mandarin, the transliteration of Big Ben was da ben zhong -- which for a moment, I thought was big stupid clock.

Clean sweep

I actually woke up early enough this morning (thanks to Rupert's bladder) to see the cleaner sweeping the leaves and the paths of the grounds downstairs.

Can you actually say you've woken up when you've never really slept? Napped for two hours was more like it -- a combination of having a hard time fallling asleep and not being able to stay asleep.

Anyway, the early morning cleaner. She had a pan and broom and was clutching what I thought at first was an inflated plastic bag but I soon realised was a red heart-shaped balloon. I guess she must have found it somewhere in the field and picked it up, saving it to take it to a child who would be surprised later in the day with a red balloon. And who wouldn't want one (other than whoever left it behind)? How nice, working with a balloon in hand. Maybe I should take a balloon in to work with me today.

My food is talking to me

And it has some wacky things to say. I was happily tucking into assorted pastries -- croissants, fruit and chocolate rolls -- and reading the label and ingredients list like the compulsive reader that I am. "Product of France, baked in Singapore", it said. That's a new one to me. I don't know what that really means -- if some of the dough originated in France or the French were laying claim to have invented croissants, even the ones baked in Singapore. It's a whole new take on copyright.

Speaking of food labels, I switched to another brand of chamomile tea. This one isn't just any old chamomile, the label on the tea bag says: "Quietly chamomile". Like it's a little more soothing than one that's just plain chamomile. (Yes, R, it can only be Australian, sort of on the same basis as Cat's Piss wine.)

I'm looking for something that's louder for a morning drink. "Screaming caffeine" would do, I think. Or how about "Loud, in your face green tea"?

"Machine break down"

That's not a sign you want to see on the coffee machine -- the fancy one manned by the Spinelli's barista in the office canteen -- when you're desperately in need of caffeine. I was seriously in need of something to spring my eyelids open because I had been up early. I had been up early because L started a new job and is now out of the house first thing in the morning and I cannot lie in because he's no longer around to take Roop the Poop out. Well, he does, first thing in the morning but Roop needs to go again. And again.

Anyway, I'm rambling. You see why I needed caffeine?

The barista could only handle ice blended drinks (pooh, those are more like desserts than a serious caffeine injection) and the only coffee to be had was the roast of the day, that is, the stuff in the coffee pot. Normal coffee.

That's when I realised that I only drink "normal" coffee at home. When I pay for someone to make my coffee, I want the fancy stuff from the machine -- espressos, cappuccinos and lattes.

I don't know how I became this way. How did I even drink instant coffee not so long ago?

It takes a woman

... to notice that you've got your hair done in the week that you were away from the office (http://snugpug.blogspot.com/2007/07/purple-reign.html). L, who was with me the entire time at the hairdresser's, looked long and hard after it was done and said he couldn't see any difference. While my colleague, at one glance, knew it had been coloured, even if it was subtle compared to all my previous hair colours, and had a trim.

The last but one trip to the hairdresser's, when L was not with me when I went to my usual colour guy, a friend actually texted L when I was on my way home, to tell him what had been done to my hair so that he could notice and compliment accordingly.

Kick start

This stuff looks like it's radioactive and can glow in the dark, doesn't it? I don't know how kids can eat this voluntarily and how parents can feed it to them. I only ate it because I needed a sugar high to kick start my first day back at work after after a week of lounging about at home. And that it came in bright cheerful colours only helped. It might have helped more if it was a little less florescent.

Oh, I don't normally eat sugary cereals. But L gets a hankering for them now and then, so he buys the variety packs, the ones that come in a single serving size. But as he is allergic to some fruit, he is suspicious of the so-called fruit-flavoured cereals. Only I don't think there's any real fruit in this bowl.

Grrrr

I am rapidly going off Cheap Flat-Packaged Furniture Co. Last year, when we bought a couple of thousands of dollars of furniture for our new house, they never told us that what we spent more than qualified us for their privilege card.

So recently, when a magazine coupon let us sign up for the privilege card for spending a tenth of the usual amount needed to qualify, I thought I would finally be able to get it.

Only to find out at the store that the amount had to be spent in the main store, not in the food outlet. A stipulation that wasn't in the small print anywhere on the coupon.

I would have let it pass, had it not been a double whammy of missing out. I really felt cheated out of the card the first time round. So as L suggested, I went on the Net, found their website, contacted them, and expressed my disappointment. Twice over.

And for good measure, added other less than happy experiences. Like the time when we bought the furniture, paid for the assembly, only to find out that delivery and assembly was done by their subcontractors, some of whom had no idea how to assemble certain items. They puzzled over the pictorial wordless instructions. I could have figured out the wordless instructions myself, only I had paid for some professional to do it more expertly. It certainly didn't inspire any confidence in their ability. In fact, one of the workmen flatly said he didn't do shelves, and left our unit half-assembled because it was beyond him. He would come back the next day, bringing along a colleague who knew how to do the job. To his credit, he did. But this was at a time when we hadn't yet moved in, so we had to make arrangements to go back to the new flat to let in the workmen.

Then this Chinese New Year, when we changed the removable couch covers, we found that covers without elastic are hard to get round furniture edges when sewn to exact measurements. It's like an irresistible force meeting an unmovable object. Not impossible but tough. L, getting irritable as he wrestled with the covers, said that he would like to invite Cheap Flat-packed Furniture Co's general manager over to personally change the covers to see how easily he could do it. So in my email to Cheap Flat-packed Furniture Co, I extended the invitation. That was last month. I guess he's not coming.

Life lessons learnt from dogs

Forget all about that sweet homily you've seen often circulated round the Internet, the one that tells you to go through life with your head stuck out the car window, roll in the flowers and welcome home loved ones enthusiastically with a running jump.

The true lesson in life from a dog is what I got off my dog e-list the other day, something which appears to be Rupert's personal motto (C, who owns Rupert's brother, along with another wiry fox terrier, says it's every foxie's motto):

Handle every situation like a dog -- If you can't eat it or screw it, piss on it and walk away.

Hanging up the brushes

Our groomer called and told us that she is giving up her shop unit at the neighbourhood mall in December. Well, she's not exactly giving up the shop per se, she is giving up the dog grooming and pet goods business and will convert the shop into a gaming centre. After December, she will still take grooming clients, but on weekends only, at one of the pet farms on the same road as the dog run which we go to frequently.

So we will probably still see her. Although it might take some explaining to the furkids that when we drive down that road to the dog run (Rupert recognises it), it may not lead to a fun time in a large field but to baths, haircuts and nail trimming. They will be in for a shock.

And possibly the saddest part of it all is that there's more money in computer gaming than dogs.

Vet visit

Rupert was due for his annual vaccination at the end of July, and since I am on leave this week, it seemed like a good time to get it done. Which meant that Murphy's Law kicked in and the car chose this week not to start.

The Chevrolet people came, jumpstarted the car, towed it off and it has been sitting in their garage since Monday because they have not been able to get a check-up/fix-it slot for us yet.

Okay, never mind, let's do Plan B. Leave one dog at home, take the one that needs the shots to the vet in a taxi. Two humans, one fox terrier, we outnumber Roop the Poop two to one, we can handle it.

Which, of course, prompted Murphy's Law to swell up to a double dose. Queeni's Schnauzer Bumps (seriously, that's the name of the itchy, bumpy skin condition Schnauzers are prone to) flares up and she must have been going for her tail because the base of her back and her tail are red and angry. It was really ugly looking, just short of dripping blood.

Called the vet double quick and made an appointment for two dogs. The receptionist is used to us, one dog at a go and wanted to make sure: "Is this for Queeni or Rupert?"
"Both."
"Alamak."

Her response just about summed it up nicely. We called for a cab and as always, we skip the automated booking to talk to a human because it's only fair that the operator/dispatcher indicate to the driver that we have a dog -- in a carrier, we always stress -- so a Muslim cabby wouldn't pick up the booking. Although we've had Muslim cabbies before who didn't mind the dog and non-Muslim cabbies who did.

Couldn't get a cab. Sometimes, it doesn't pay to be honest when you say you have two dogs. In carriers or not. So we got a bit economical with the truth, we just said: "Got dog. In a carrier." Without specifying the number.

So we finally get a cab. And then the next problem was Rupert in the carrier. Grown too big and strong for the soft-sided carrier, he tipped it over and got out of it three times between our front door and the taxi waiting downstairs. But mercifully, he behaved in the taxi because I had one of his bones with me and rammed it into his mouth everytime he as much as lifted his head up. He obligingly gnawed on the bone instead of doing what he always does in cars -- try to cover every window because he can't decide which window to look out of and thinks he's missing something at one window while looking out another.

When we got to the vet, Queeni glowered at everybody while Rupert loved everybody. He loved Dr P, even though he got poked with a needle twice -- once for the vaccination and another for a blood test before starting on heartworm preventive.

Queeni was fairly well behaved, none of that growling and thankfully none of that biting the vet business. Dr P asked if she ever growled at Dr T, the senior vet who took over her care when he removed the mast cell tumour (Queeni was seeing Dr P today since she might as well see both dogs together at one shot). We don't think so. Yeah, there's something about Dr T, said Dr P. Well, we're happy a fellow vet thinks as highly of Dr T as we do.

And boy, do we love our vets. I didn't realise until I got home and looked at the receipts that I realised she charged us very cheaply. Since Rupert was there for a vaccination and annual exam, we paid for that package, which does not have a consultation charge. I expected to pay consultation for Queeni but for that, I was billed for "repeat consultation/short examination for second dog" -- which was considerably less. OK, granted that over the years and many dogs, we have probably paid for Dr T's Lexus, the renovation of the new hospital wing and his kids' college education, but it's nice to know they're making things easier for us when they can.

And the taxi ride home posed less complications. We called and punched in the code for the vet hospital because it was registered on an auto phone-in booking line. We reasoned that there was no need to talk to a dispatcher this time because any cabbie responding to a call from a vet hospital would be prepared to pick up a dog. Or two.

The furkids have passed out from exhaustion. I think I will soon, too.

Basket case

So I'm home on a week's leave and we're not driving up to Kuala Lumpur with A as we first planned on doing a couple of months ago, for a whole bunch of reasons. And if I thought I'd be home with nothing to do, then I was very, very wrong.

The furkids -- well, mostly Rupert, actually -- are doing their part in making sure my time is well occupied by filling the mending basket. Almost all the stuffed toys require surgery.

Most of the cases are straightforward but Turtle on top of the pile has complications. He's not an open and shut limb-stitching case like the others. His problem is that he's so old, his fabric is coming apart in little clumps, with much assistance from Rupert's teeth.

It is probably time to retire Turtle. And that's the bittersweet part. Turtle came with Queeni some six years ago. At that time, when R handed Queeni to me, he put with her in her carrying crate one of his Tshirts and Turtle, saying that Turtle was her favourite toy.

And indeed it was. Turtle helped her settle into her new home, helped her establish playtime with her new family. Then along the way, many, many other toys were added and a few years ago, she stopped playing with Turtle. There were toys that rolled, rattled and squeaked. Turtle's time was up even then.

But I'm not sure if I can throw Turtle out like all the other toys that were damaged beyond repair. Turtle is part of Queeni's history with me, and I suppose he will now join that storage space all dogparents probably have -- the place where they keep the furkids' baby teeth, puppy collars and outgrown toys. It is where I kept a couple of Spock's favourite toys after he died, while the rest were donated to SPCA. Another dog, another time, another keepsake.

Purple reign

Yesterday, the first day of a week's leave from work if you don't count Saturday and Sunday, I went to spoil myself a bit. I went to the hairdresser's and then I got a much-needed neck and shoulder massage at the reflexology place next door.

It didn't actually start that way. L needed a haircut so I went to the mall with him, and since I was there, decided I might as well get a trim anyway, my hair was starting to get wild. It's been maybe five months since my last hair cut -- that's how long that recently uploaded picture taken at the hairdresser's was sitting on the mobile phone because I forgot all about it.

And since I was getting a hair cut, I got talked into getting a colour job. Five months since the last one, my head was now double toned -- black at the roots and a variegated brown six inches down till the ends. Variegated because it bore the history of a series of different toned streaks in different colours.

I am now done with multicoloured hair. While that's fun to have, it means that you really should go back and get the colours touched up every month or so and I'm too lazy to do that. I figured if I dye it to a colour closer to black (not black because why dye your hair the colour it comes in?), then when the black starts growing, the double tone wouldn't be so obvious.

So now the hair's purple. Not very purple though. It's pretty close to black with the purple coming through only in the sunlight. Good enough for me.

More music

Yesterday, we had on TV the four-hour abridged version of the recent 24-hour Live Earth concert (http://snugpug.blogspot.com/2007/07/24-hours-of-rock-n-roll.html). The original was way too much music at one go -- while it was fun staying up till way late to watch it on TV, it was strange going to bed to rock music, waking up to it still in progress and it was still loud and pumping when I got ready to go to work.

And I'm still not sure if it ever got anywhere near what it was meant to achieve. Unlike Live Aid, you don't see visible results like a convoy of trucks rolling off for Africa. You go to a concert, or watch it on TV, feel really good and virtuous that you're part of something, but when the music's turned off, what exactly have you done to save the earth?

Still, the abridged version was nice in that it let me catch up on the bits I missed when I was asleep or at work. And finally, I got to watch The Police. So Stewart Copeland now has to wear glasses. And Sting, who used to be the good looking frontman of the trio, is the only one with significant hair loss. This must be what they call retribution.

Mother of all water bowls

When HRH was the only dog, her water bowl was a cute little bowl from a child's breakfast set. It had a cartoon of a fairy princess and it suited her.

When Rupert came along, the fairy princess had to go. It wasn't that it was too girly for him but that the bowl just plain wasn't big enough. Rupert doesn't so much drink as stick his head into the bowl, displace the water, and then lick some off the floor, then shake his chops and send water spraying everywhere. When I found myself refilling the princess bowl four to five times a day, I switched the vessel to a deep, wide Japanese bowl meant to hold ramen. It was heavy enough so Rupert wouldn't be able to send it flying -- we ruled out plastic dog dishes a long time ago. It was functional, but it wasn't well, pretty. Unlike the princess bowl.

So when I saw this huge, bone-shaped dog dish, I had to get it. It's more like a water trough than a bowl. The biscuits are there for size comparison. The bowl could easily hold a whole bag of biscuits.

And I'm sure it would make Rupert very, very happy. I think Vivi could take a swim in it.

What a big nose you have!

Rupert wins, I think.

"Sharper than a serpent's tooth..."

'King Lear' makes me cry everytime I read it or watch it. And now, it's making me cry without my even starting on Act I, Scene 1. Because I can't get tickets to the Royal Shakespeare Company's production that opens tonight, with Ian McKellen as Lear.

Tickets were sold out weeks ago. And these were at prices that I consider exorbitant -- $200 to $500. Even the RSC doesn't charge so much on home ground. I suppose there's the cost of touring -- Singapore is the only Asian stop on this world tour. It cost the Singapore Repertory Theatre $1 million to bring in the RSC and I suppose they are making good that money.

The most ironical thing is that Sir Ian told our arts reporter in an interview that Shakespeare and Chekhov (he's doing a double bill) is not high brow and that students should come and watch. What student could afford $200 and that's the cheapest seat? Well, there's an even cheaper $80 seat but your view is obstructed, the ticketing site kindly tells you. Even I could ill afford a ticket and I was just going to buy one ticket for myself and leave L at home.

But all that's moot, of course. There are no tickets to be had. I'll just have to read my well-thumbed copy of 'Lear' tonight while those in the $500 seats rattle their jewellery.

My brains are fried

That's why I haven't been updating the blog. Besides, it's kinda nice to let sleeping dogs lie... :p

It has been crazy at work because we're in the midst of switching to a new software and a new system. It's all I could do to keep abreast of things, and it made it all the more harder to come home and turn on yet another computer (and a different OS too) for relaxation purposes.

For the past three weeks, we've been trying to get the hang of the new system. We've got a guy from the ITD helpdesk permanently sitting with us and it was embarrassing how often I had to get him to come over to help me do the simplest things. Up until now, we've had one foot in the new system and another in the old but by tomorrow, we will be switching completely to the new system. And all hell will break lose. And Helpdesk Guy will probably go postal on us.

Oh, the picture. L took it, quite a while ago, using my mobile phone camera and I'd forgotten about it. We were at the hairdresser's and as always, it takes longer to do a woman's hair than a guy's and he was getting bored. I'm getting a steam treatment. It looks like I'm being cooked, doesn't it? I sure felt like I was dim sum.

Sleep ... a pictorial study

This picture is here so that I can have a reference for the picture in My Profile. When I uploaded a picture for it yesterday, and deleted that blog entry after that, the profile pic went away.

Crazy old world

So Paris Hilton's time in jail made the news here. I didn't care much about it. Scooter Libby's indictment and sentencing didn't make the news here but I followed it out of interest after all that business with the NYT reporter going to jail.

Is it just me or doesn't it bug anyone that Paris Hilton did more jail time than Scooter Libby?

24 hours of rock 'n' roll

... and I'm tired just thinking about it. On the wrong side of 40 now, I can't party all night anymore, never mind 24 hours -- even if it's on a couch in front of the TV for the Live Earth concerts.

Actually, I've got some misgivings about this 24-hour worldwide concert. I seriously wonder how much of the earth this song-and-dance routine is going to save. I mean, all those rock stars performing aren't within walking or biking distance of Wembley or the Giants Stadium or wherever they are supposed to show up, and have to be chauffeured in, if not flown in. And think of all the resources needed to rig up for the concerts, and more for the worldwide live telecasts. That's one huge global carbon foot print, isn't it?

The local TV station got into the act by encouraging people to wear green. I just don't know how wearing green and slumping in front of the TV is going to placate Gaia around these parts. And this is the country with the tourism board, ie govt, endorsed month-long Great Singapore Sale. Reducing consumerism is just not on the consciousness of a people whose national pastimes are shopping and eating.

I just can't summon up any enthusiasm for the Live Earth marathon concert. There's no vibe to it, not like what I felt for Live Aid when I was in the UK, oh lord, was it almost 20 years ago? Maybe you just had to be in a place where it's actually happening, watching it on TV just doesn't cut it. Or maybe I'm just more cynical now. Whatever it is, I think you can only pull a Geldorf once.

And just like with the Grammys earlier this year, there's only one act I want to watch -- The Police. The concerts open with Sydney first. I don't know half the acts appearing. For me, Australian music died with Michael Hutchence and when Midnight Oil disbanded. And who knows what Jimmy Barnes is up to now? The Police appear in New Jersey, so probably that's 20 hours into the telethon. I don't think I could last that long and I shouldn't leave the TV on all that time. That's hardly cutting down on electricity. Not very green, is it?

Veni vedi veci vino

I had the day off today and we went to the hypermarket where I found Leonardo last week -- we like going there on a weekday when parking is a breeze and L loves the American-style standalone building surrounded by a free carpark -- as opposed to the usual supermarket inside a shopping centre where you have to jostle with other mall goers for a (paid parking) spot in the basement carpark.

This time, I found Leonardo next to Mona Lisa. OK, this time, it's way too tacky for me. I left her smiling on the shelf.

What I also found were two other chianti brands. That's when Leo got dumped. It was like a goldmine, going from no choice of chianti to a choice of four. And this was at a discount hypermart not known for luxury items.

La vita vino

What's there to do when you were a famous artist and inventor in your lifetime and you've inspired a best-selling page-turner (and less successful movie, despite Tom Hanks in it) after your death? You lend your face and name to wine.

I saw this Leonardo chianti in the supermarket and bought it because I like chianti and up until now, there's only one brand of chianti (Ruffino) that is available at the supermarket. Oh, I'm sure the upmarket wine shops will have a good selection of chianti but I mostly buy my plonk at the supermarket. I was actually very hesitant about Leonardo, I thought it was kind of tacky drinking wine endorsed by a dead white man. But actually, it wasn't half bad. And cheaper than Ruffino.

Comic strip stars

L drew this, inspired by the furkids. I'm not sure if you can make out the writing though, I haven't got a scanner so I took a photo of it. I'm also not sure if there will be further instalments. Genius is hard to predict. :)

Naughty bits

It's an old wives' saying here that a child with two hair whorls on his head is extra naughty. So does it mean that Rupert, with two hair whorls on his rear end, is extra naughty then? Help.

He came aptly named. Depending on whether he has committed transgression No 1 or No 2, his name routinely gets changed to Roop the Poop or RuPee. Usually it's one or the other but today, he surpassed all expectations and managed to do both. In rapid succession. In inappropriate places. Nowhere near the pee pad. That Dog.

Watching paint dry

... is not as boring as it sounds. Especially if the rapt audience includes two dogs. The block directly opposite ours is getting painted and the furkids have a grandstand view from the floor-length window.

Our block will probably get painted sometime next week and the gondola with the painters will be just a yard away from the furkids on the other side of the window. I think the rapt audience will by then will break into vociferous running commentary. Heaven help us. And our neighbours.

Who did it?

Yesterday, before leaving for work, I made sure that entertainment was laid out for the furkids in the form of plenty of bones and toys, scattered about the couch and the rest of the living room. OK, the ones that were scattered over the floor were where they had been left, mostly by Rupert.

When I came home, the couch was bare. All the bones were missing. This time, I knew where to look -- that crevice where Rupert found his missing bone. And there I found three bones, stuffed down, one of top of the other. Like somebody had carefully stashed them away there.

The question is who? Queeni (possibly, she's smart enough), Rupert (less possibly, he's not that smart) or the Borrowers?

It's baaaack!

Missing new expensive much-favoured bone showed up last night at 2am. Rupert found it. We were vegging out on the couch when he suddenly started to dig through the two sections of the couch so I, like the well-trained dog-parent, helpfully reached into the crevice to extract whatever he was after. And there it was.

I can't think how we missed it when we looked behind the cushions and reached down the back of the sofa earlier in our search. L said, in calling off the search party, said that we have Borrowers in the house.

Well, our Borrowers are also returners.

Missing

And the day after I posted about Rupert's lovely new *expensive* bone, it's gone missing. He may have put it down somewhere and forgot about it after his initial excitement with it wore out. But I wouldn't put it past Queeni to hide it somewhere. I just don't know where.

We've looked everywhere. Under the couch and in the crevice of the couch seat where all the missing toys go. Nope. We've looked everywhere floor level -- found one ball behind the shoe rack that I didn't even know was missing but no lovely new expensive bone. We also looked everywhere dog level, in case he left it on a low shelf or dropped it into a waste bin. Nada.

I can't afford to buy Rupert another. All he can do is gaze wistfully yesterday's picture. Luckily we have that for posterity.

Rupert's new bone

I bought Rupert a new bone as all of his are starting to wear out and should be replaced soon. This one cost the princely sum of $17 so I hope it lasts. It's country bacon flavour -- country, as if ordinary bacon isn't good enough.

Queeni is not into chewing so she didn't get anything other than a belly rub when Rupert was presented with his new bone. That mollified her anyway. But later, when Rupert left the bone, she snatched it up and brought it to the bed. You should have seen her expression. It looked really pained as she gnawed away, clearly the bone was too big and too tough for her.

When she gave up and left it, Rupert snatched it up and has been walking around with it since, as if afraid that if he let it go, she would take it away again. He didn't even let go when I put his harness and leash on, ready to go for a walk, and I had to pluck it out of his mouth. I set it in a corner near the door so he would see it straightaway when we came back. And he did, and picked it up and carried it about, not stopping for his leash and harness to be removed.

Well, I'm glad he likes it so much. I just hope the bone lasts.

Little old salesladies

It's been three times last week that little old ladies rang our doorbell, trying to peddle stuff door-to-door -- packaged meat floss, crackers and I can't remember what else. They all used the same approach, they shoved the goods through the gate at your face and launched into how buying the stuff would help them because their husbands were sick and couldn't work. And they were quite aggressive about it too.

Because their stories and methods were the same, L thinks they're part of a syndicate. He felt charitable when the first little old lady showed up and would have bought something but she annoyed him by shoving her product straight at his face and refusing to back down so he decided that he wasn't going to buy anything. He wised up when the second little old lady appeared, suspicious that her story was the same as the first.

I think he's probably right about the syndicate but I think it's more than just peddling stuff. How much are you going to get from selling packets of crackers? I think they make a note of which flats are empty. They all came in the daytime, on work days. We happened to be home since we don't have normal 9 to 5 hours. If they truly wanted to make a sale, they would come round in the evenings, when people are more likely to be home, just like what the Yakult ladies used to do, and they were the genuine stuff, polite and wearing uniforms.

Well, I hope these little old ladies report that this house is protected by two dogs. Well, one, actually. Rupert does not bark at strangers and will welcome anyone into the house. But if you didn't know how friendly he is, he can look fearsome with his black face and huge teeth. Queen looks like a cute teddy bear but she's the one who's a wonderful guard dog with a great vocal alarm. But she stops there, her tiny toothpick-like teeth won't scare anybody off.

Let's play ball!

And what does he do? He sends me another cute Vivi pix.

My two are too tired from running at the dog park (OK, so Queeni mostly stood around) to play ball. When we got there, a fun agility competition was going on so we went into another small fenced-off area which is for small dogs only. I didn't want Rupert running in the way of the agility dogs doing their stuff. But when the competition was over, we went back into the large field and in the crowd of the agility dogs going off and other dogs coming into the field, and more dogs and people milling round the tap and communal water bowl between the two areas, Queeni momentarily lost us. We were watching her from a distance. Poor thing started running frantically around, then went back to the small-dog area where we last were (smart girl) and then Rupert trotted off to fetch her to us. Yep, w'ere a pack.

Pretty girl

M has just got to stop sending me cute pix of Vivi!

It's nice. But what does it do?

The furkids got this for L for Father's Day. Now, if anyone has an idea what good it's for? When I bought it*, it was labelled as a tissue holder. But that's really impossible. There's a slot where the mouth is and another at the bottom and the insides are hollow. The pen shows you just how narrow the bottom slot into the inside cavity is, there is no way you can fit the whole thing over a tissue box, even if it's one of those small square boxes.

*Since I've confessed to L, I can go public with it now. I totally forgot about Father's Day. Even with Mother's Day so well-publicised, it took a colleague's reminder before it reached my consciousness. I had no hope for Father's Day. It just happened that on Saturday, we started the day early because the vet could only see Queeni for her recheck in the morning (clean bill of health, no bumps found and he taught us how to check her lymph node for abnormalities before the next recheck in two months). Otherwise, Saturday would not have started till past lunch time. So that day, because of the early start (see what happens when you actually have a morning?), I was sitting around the house in the mid-afternoon with nothing to do and worse, nothing new to read. So I decided to walk to the mall where the library is to return my books and get new ones. And while I was picking my way through the crowds of Saturday shoppers, I noticed a poster for a Father's Day promotion at one of the restaurants.

Panic attack! I had to SMS that same colleague who gave me advanced warning of Mother's Day to check when Father's Day was. I think I'm going to have to get her to give me reminders every year now. Well, luckily I was at a mall and L was home so I could do some last-minute shopping for him. I had to get something doggish, it was from the furkids after all -- and this was all I could find. It looks more like Bully, J's bull terrier than Queeni or Rupert. But it's kinda cute.

Paint job

The estate is getting a makeover. The exterior of our block used to be a ghastly shade of pink. Pink is a colour I normally like but this shade is just sickly. Now, it's going to be a sickly shade of lemon yellow. The block on the left shows the old colour scheme and the new one is the block on the right. They need to paint over the deeper pink accents but mostly the ledges and details are in lime green.

I usually can't stand the colour yellow, just looking at it gives me a headache. When I was in primary school, I could get out of going to school by forcing on a headache, the vomitty type, just by staring at the yellow cushion covers on the couch. I couldn't decide if I liked the red flowery covers better (because they weren't yellow) or the plain yellow ones because I could make myself sick with them if I wanted to and get out of things like school, tuition classes and piano lessons. Yeah I know, misspent youth.

I suppose L is right, one doesn't look at the exterior wall very much, the minute you get home and close the door, it's the inside you're going to look at all day long. Whew.

I'm awake!

It wasn't so bad, this 9-to-5 thing. At least, on Monday I was able to get up even before the alarm went off, maybe it was the anticipation of something that was different from the normal workweek. It just got slightly more difficult on today and I think it will probably get worse as the week progresses because despite having been up early, I can't fall asleep early -- at 11pm yesterday, I was wide awake even though I was very sleepy earlier on in the evening. I think my body's primed at that time because 11pm is the busiest hour at work.

Still, I'm enjoying the change in hours, wake-up time aside. It is nice to be home in the evenings, to be able to walk the dogs just as the sun is setting. And then go home to cook a nice dinner. And after that, spend the evening on the couch in front of the TV. Is this what normal people, that is, people who work normal hours do? It feels strange and new to me. And very, very enjoyable.

Dogs' day out

Father's Day was completely overshadowed by the dogs today. Actually, Father's Day was completely overshadowed. We had warning of Mother's Day weeks ahead from advertisements by retailers and restaurants but they didn't give any advance warning of Father's Day, guess they couldn't make as much money out of poor old Dad.

Last weekend, M found a dog restaurant, that is, a restaurant that's dog friendly and welcomes the pooches inside. Unleashed. They even had a menu for the dogs. So of course the extended pack had to gather there this weekend. Five people with five dogs and I stupidly forgot to bring a camera.

The restaurant was so new, they didn't have an alcohol licence. There was no beer to be had. L was disappointed, C was plain horrified. We all had coffees and ordered food for the dogs and decided to go somewhere else for the humans' dinner. With wine.

The dog food looked so good, I wouldn't have minded eating it myself. The mains ranged from meat with rice, stews, pies and also a meat-filled dumpling. Our two dogs had already eaten so we got them dessert -- a crepe filled with yogurt, banana slices and apple cubes. They wolfed down the crepe but left the banana and apple -- fruit that they can't get enough of at home. I think they found the meat and rice the others were having a lot more appealing.

Having fed the dogs, the humans went to a wine bar across the road and then to a Thai place for dinner. This time, it was the dogs' turn to watch us eat. Then we gave everybody a lift home because those who walked there were too stuffed to walk back. Five people in a small car with three dogs at the back and another two in front and again, I didn't have a camera.

The only proof I have of a fantastic Sunday are two comatose dogs.

Taking a tour round my house

On Thursday, I stepped out of the flat to take the garbage out and ran into a group of people clustered at the end of the corridor. They said they were looking at the flat on the fourth floor, which apparently is on the resale market, and wanted to know if the neighbourhood was quiet. In particular, they were concerned about noise from the ground floor because the guy who lives there is some kind of religious medium and they wanted to know if there was chanting noise and that kind of thing.

No noise at all, I answered. They also politely asked, since they were outside my door, if they could peek in and take a look at the flat's layout.

Of course they could. They weren't the first. The flats here are rapidly coming up on the resale market and L had previously let a couple in to have a look-see. He ran into them when he was walking Queeni and they had asked him about the neighbourhood. Maybe next time, we should charge entry fees for flat viewing. :)

There were about five or six people and I was mentally trying to sort out who was the flat buyer (easy, the old lady who asked me how much I paid for our flat and when I bought it -- obviously comparing prices) and who was the agent (I think it was the friendly chatty guy who said if I, immediately upstairs from the medium, wasn't bothered by noise, then they, four floors up, shouldn't have any problem). He also recognised a Schnauzer when he saw Queeni despite her lack of the Fu Manchu beard. There were also relatives/friends brought along for their opinion, I think, because one lady kept comparing the layout of our flat to hers.

I think if the agent cinches this sale, he should pay us a royalty. When the would-be buyers asked about amenities, we pointed out the two train stations, both within an easy 5-minute walk and the mall, also within a 5-minute walk, and that it had a supermarket, library, department store and also the requisite Starbucks, Pizza Hut, KFC and McDonald's.

Rupert was very enthusiastic about the visitors. Queeni was less so, especially when they peeked into the bedroom (L was conducting the tour and was explaining to them that the bedroom door is not its original position, that we had knocked down a wall forthat, and pointed out where the original wall was -- see, we work for the entry fees). She gets very protective of the bedroom as our, excuse me, *her* denning place. And so she started barking. And barking. And wouldn't stop barking.

I think we're the noisy ones in this block, not the guy downstairs.

Hmm. So if the agent doesn't close this deal, then it's also our fault.

Does anything rhyme with orange?

D recently e-mailed from Melbourne that mandarins have come into season and how the smell of one peeled by her co-worker instantly transported her home to Singapore and to Chinese New Year. She would buy a bagful on the way home and she would savour every last bit of them, starting right from the smell.

It made me feel guilty, there are mandarins here almost all year round, pale orange ones from China, glossy deep orange ones from Australia and little green ones from Thailand that look like they are unripe but are really so sweet beneath the green skin. I've taken them for granted like I've taken the smell of oranges for granted. I'm guilty of cutting to the chase where I thought enjoying an orange meant eating it and forgetting that enjoying an orange starts from the moment you sink a finger nail into the skin, prise off a bit of it to peel and release the scent. That to fully enjoy an orange means includes appreciating its smell.

Rupert has also reminded me of that lesson of late. I share a bit of whatever fruit I'm eating with the dogs. He has learnt very fast about oranges. The instant I sink a finger nail into the zesty skin and the faintest whiff of an orange is released, he goes into paroxysms of excitement, he starts racing round the room frenetically in the anticipation of a sweet, juicy wedge. Such joy for a piece of fruit. Everything is Disneyland to Rupert, L once said of him. It is a good approach to life, I guess. Another one of those life's lessons you learn from your dog.

Yesterday, the mandarin turned out to be a little sour. Queeni spat her slice out and looked disgusted as only she can. I don't know where HRH picked up her fussy habits from. Must be a royalty thing. Rupert rapidly moved in to clean up what she didn't want. I guess this is why we have two dogs. :)

Getting there

It's interesting what you spot while on the road to work. Today, it's a van belonging to an undertaker, with the company's name painted on it -- Promised Land.

Is that a guarantee of an assured destination for the client?

"Feel as good as you look"

We were driving behind a bus which was painted over with an ad for an all-natural skincare range and that was the slogan.

Erm, what if I don't look good? Even if I used the product, I would just have a very clean face, wouldn't I? I mean, it's not going to do anything in the looks department, it's just going to take dirt off.

I should look as good as I feel, shouldn't I?

In which case, I'm scintillating!

A little less sleep, a little more time

I got up early today because the housekeeping crew comes on Tuesdays, in the late morning. Only to find that almost all the crew are sick today and they had to postpone.

I thought at first I'd go back to bed. But that proved to be impossible. Rupert kept running into the bedroom and taking flying leaps onto the bed to crash-land on me. Queeni wanted to lie in with me but felt the need to defend the bed from Rupert and launched into a series of growls and head butts. Finally, she gave me a pleading get-rid-of-him-please look and that was the end of the attempt to go back to sleep.

I decided to lie on the sofa instead, that was at least shared territory for the two dogs. Amazingly, Rupert settled down straightaway. He's learnt that running around madly is great fun but it's also nice to lie quietly and have your tummy rubbed.

With all that extra time on my hands, I had a long, relaxing soak in the bath and now I'm going to have a leisurely lunch before going to work. OK, I see now what getting up a little earlier can do.

I'm nice and relaxed now but I wonder how long it'll last. Payback time will probably come when I'm at my desk. I just know I'm going to pay for getting up early (and I was up reading till late last night, this morning really, it was 5am when I realised I really should put the book down and turn the light off) and will crash later this evening.

Next week, I'm on a 9 to 5 training session. That's normal hours for most people but insane hours for someone who doesn't start work till 4.30pm. I don't know how I'm going to get up early enough to be in the office by 9am.

Despair

This is Despair. I've never actually met her because she lived in Texas. She died a few days ago. For a dog that I've never skritched behind her ears, never patted her tummy, her death has left me very sad. How do you explain to a dog that they have hearts so big, they can reach right across the other side of the world? Or maybe they know.

Despair was 16 years old when she was given up to the Waco Animal Shelter. Because her people were going on a three-week vacation to Europe. Maybe they really were, maybe they weren't but thought that was a good enough excuse to tell the shelter. Along with other so-called good reasons any rescuer has heard before: new job, new house, new spouse, new baby.

And they would tell you too, it's not easy to rehome a 16-year-old dog. That's when the shelter called round and were given J's name. He has a big, soft heart. He also has like about 12 dogs (I lost count). And yes, he could make room for one more.

And so he took Despair home. He called her that until a name presented itself. And it did. Despair was named Oewyn, after the Lady of Rohan in 'The Lord of the Rings'.

The story should end there, with Despair, now Wyn, living out her days in a home full of love. It didn't. Two days after Despair came home with J, she collapsed and couldn't get up. Maybe it was a stroke. The vet would have some medical answer but J knew the real reason was that Despair was dying of a broken heart. The next day, in his truck as he was taking her on that final ride to the vet, she gave a cry, laid down her head and was gone.

At Rainbow Bridge, a sheltie now waits for her people. They wouldn't let her wait here until they came home from vacation so she has taken her waiting to another place. And when her wait is finally over, doubtless there will be faithfulness in her heart and love in her eyes. That's just the way dogs and people are. Unconditional love for undeserving humans.

Don't shop, won't drop

Not a good time to post this as it's the month-long Great Singapore Sale. Or maybe it's the perfect time, seeing that I'm not much of a shopper.

There's this pact, or "compact" as they call it (http://money.guardian.co.uk/consumernews/story/0,,2094919,00.html) to curb consumerism by pledging to abstain from buying anything new, apart from essentials, for a year. One of those pro-environment, anti-consumerist things.

I think I have unwittingly been a "compacter" for the past four years -- I haven't bought any new clothes since coming back from Hawaii. Also, I haven't bought any new shoes for quite a while (pick your jaw back from off the floor, M). I bought two pairs of Crocs in rapid succession when I discovered they were the next best things to Birkenstocks but that was yoinks ago. I haven't bought any bags either. Or CDs. In fact, I haven't bought anything major since getting furniture, appliances and kitchenware for the house when we moved in. I found great bargains for all the major buys necessary for a new house in the Great Singapore Sale this time last year and obviously the shopping experience was enough to last me for a whole year.

Oh wait, I bought books. Ooh, bad. Books kill trees. Even if I love books. Ooh, I'm a bad-assed shopper.

Fancy that

I came across a brand of cookies at the supermarket that cost twice as much as usual and came in a rustic looking box with hand-drawn illustrations -- like it was meant to give you an impression everything was wholesomely, painstakingly handmade from scratch and worth the money. I picked up the butter cinnamon ones and the cookies were in the shape of butterflies and the box helpfully pointed out that no two looked quite alike, to reinforce that they were handmade, I suppose. The helpful background text tried to set the mood, telling you to imagine you were in the woods, and that there was an English cottage at the edge of it and how lovely baking smells were coming out of the chimney. Ah, traditional English biscuits, I thought, turned the package over and found that they were made in the US of A. Geographically confused now,  I put the box back on the shelf.

But it stayed in my head so much so that I googled it when I got home. They're almost as fanciful in cyberspace. Only on the site, they threw out the English cottage idea and this time, they tell you to picture a lake with water so clear that you couldn't see how deep it was. From my diving experience, you can see exactly how deep it is in clear water, it's silty water where you can't see a thing, let alone the bottom to know how deep it is.

Or maybe the whole point of the fanciful background is to firmly entrench the brand in your memory. It must have worked. I laughed at it too much to buy it and now I still remember it to laugh at it some more. And I still don't know if it tastes any good. And by now, I'm sorely tempted to get it the next time I'm at the supermarket. I might as well now, I suppose.

Damn, that fanciful marketing worked.

Rupert TV

Rupert sneaked into the kitchen where there's a chicken in the oven. He thinks the oven is some kind of marvellous TV with smells instead of sound. There's a cooling mechanism that fans hot air out of it and Rupe was snuffling the chickeny air, inhaling deeply and drooling.

We didn't have the heart to shoo him out, despite the no-dog-in-kitchen rule. Watching him was better than watching actual TV.

Home today

L had a cold last week and despite counter measures, I seem to have caught it. I haven't got it as badly as he did and the worst of it was over the weekend. I slept in yesterday and the clinic was closed by the time I staggered out of bed -- it was Sunday and they open only till lunchtime. No chance of getting an MC so I self-medicated and went to work. The workload wasn't so bad since it was a Sunday and I really wasn't feeling that sick.

I'm no worse today but not entirely better. It's that sort of ill but not really so ill feeling that you can't even summon up a temperature to show to the doctor as she sticks the thermometer in your ear. Still she thought I should stay home and rest. I'm not going to argue, of course, and went home via the supermarket for some ice cream to feed the germs as I'm resting.

When L was snuffling away in the bedroom last week, I decided to sleep on the couch. Rupert stayed with me -- that was no surprise as he's quite the mummy's boy. Besides, the couch is our cuddle time. He's not allowed on the bed (not because I don't want him on it but because Queeni wouldn't stand for it) and in the bedroom, he's confined to his bed in the corner like Cinderella. Queeni went to bed with L -- no surprise either, she's daddy's girl. What was surprising was that as soon as he fell asleep, she came back out to the living room and spent the rest of the night with me. With no climate control -- I don't like the aircon but L and Queeni do. Now that's a great feeling, that the furkids forsook airconditioning to stick it out with me. L woke up feeling very abandoned by his family, he said.

We're going for the lived-in look

As much as I love M and his doghter Vivi, I should stop posting pictures of her in his flat because next to pix of his sparkling all-white immaculately-decorated flat that looks like it came from the pages of an interior decor magazine, my house looks like a dump and my furkids look scruffy. And I can't even get them to pose close together for a nice picture...

Spot the dog

I think M has hit on the answer to dog fur in everything -- have a dog that's the same colour as your house and furnishings.

I love this photo. Vi's head on the couch is counterpoint to the buddha bust on the display shelf. Geez, everything in his perfect house matches, even the dog.

The thing about having a guest star (http://snugpug.blogspot.com/2007/05/todays-special-guest-star.html) is that she is almost certainly going to be a constantly recurring one if she's cute.

Bubbles

Back in 2002, B gave us a bottle of vintage 1990 Dom Perignon as a wedding present. We didn't open it then and thought at first that we'd save it for the first anniversary. When that rolled round, we quite forgot about it as we had a party and there was plenty else on hand to drink. And after that, there didn't seem to be a really great occasion to open it. I mean, it's not just champagne, it's Dom Perignon. And it's not just Dom Perignon, it's vintage Dom Perignon. Meaning, it's not something you open to go with the pizza delivery.

And so it sat around for several years. And then the question arose. Do we age it some more or do we just drink it? See, that's the thing I don't get about collecting wine. It's not like books that you can arrange beautifully and admire. The stuff is meant to be drunk. But once you drink it, there goes your collection.

When we finally bought our flat and moved in last May, that would have been the next great occasion. I don't remember now but L said that I said we should have chilled it and opened it on our first night here. Only of course, we probably didn't know where it was among all our boxes of stuff.

Well now that it's the first anniversary of our moving to our home, L figured it was a good time to open it. We drank it out of the champagne glasses that we, err, took home from the Royal Hawaiian where we honeymooned. You can't exactly say that it was stealing when we told the staff that we intended to take the glasses. And they offered a towel -- see, you also can't say that we stole the hotel towels -- to wrap them in. Now that's aloha.

Gone in 48 hours

On Monday morning, I was so refreshed by having the entire weekend off that I got up early and had loads of time for a nice leisurely start to the workweek. I had a nice lunch, several cups of coffee and even had the time to write some e-mails and add a post to the blog.

By last night, I was exhausted when I got home -- it didn't help that the paper today is a bumper issue and pagination was twice as much as usual.

By today, I could barely crawl out of bed.

That's how sapping work can be. And there're another three days to go to the week...

Move the dog

So we were walking the dogs downstairs yesterday evening at a time when the kids are out to play. One toddler who couldn't have been more than five years old was riding his tricycle on the path. He stopped when he came up behind Queeni. He paused to consider what to do next. Which was: he imperiously told L to "move the dog", so that he could cycle on.

L, of course, got into a snit at being told what to do by a stranger toddler and let Queeni do whatever she wanted -- which really was to take her time and sniff at everything. Toddler back-pedalled back to Mummy and complained loudly. L loudly declaimed about brats. Mummy kept quiet and looked away.

In a couple of years, Toddler will start primary school. Maybe being in a class of 30 will make him realise he's not the only person on earth -- okay, so he's a kid; but I've met really nice kids who knew they were not the centre of the universe. And my taxes will be subsidising his school fees. Maybe then I can tell him to move off the path.

A book by its cover

Another meme, this time from www.funnytheworld.com

So I'm still sort of taking the lazy way to blogging but this one is timely, it's about books and comes at a time when I've nothing new to read. Gasp. I didn't find the time to go to the library last week and the pile of $2 cheap books that I got from the Carrefour bargain bin last month has been exhausted (and some were good finds too, at $2). We were to have gone to the dog park yesterday but the weather changed in the afternoon. Why is it always beautifully sunny on a work-day afternoon when I'm going to work and the rain only comes on the weekends? It has been like this for the past two weeks already, much to Rupert's sorrow (and mine, I like for him to get a good run at least once a week to work the edge off his energy; and Queeni's joy -- she clearly prefers a nap to running at the dog park). The showers didn't last very long but it did mean that the ground would be wet and muddy. Rupert wouldn't have cared but L did, he had just bathed the dogs. So it was a stay-at-home day. With nothing (new) to read.

Do you like to read?
Oh yes. All the time and not just books. L calls me a compulsive reader. If there is a block of text in front of me, I have to read it. I even read cereal boxes at breakfast.

What is your favourite book?
Pride and Prejudice. It is like a comforting old friend. My very tattered copy has accompanied me to every place I've moved to and reading it settles me because it draws me into its neat, self-contained world and people and away from the unfamiliar around me.

Who is your favourite author?
Jane Austen, by virtue of the above. Also, Terry Prachett and Bill Bryson.

Are you the kind of person who peeks at the end of a book to see how it turns out?
Seldom. I'm the sort that is committed to sticking to a book till I finish it but if it gets heavy-going or boring, I will peek at the end just to push myself through it.

Do you hate it when they turn a book into a film?
I'm not a movie person so it doesn't matter to me. There have been good movies made from books (Babe, The Lord of the Rings spring to mind) and horrid ones (Da Vinci Code) and there have been movies that have made me want to go read the book. Mostly though, I've enjoyed the book version more than the movie.

Has a book ever changed your life? How?
I don't think so. Or I would be able to come up with a book now. But if I can add here what I personally consider to be the book that has packed in the most punch within its pages is the simply-written yet containing a deep message to be 'Heather Has Two Mommies'.

Do you tend to borrow books from the library or do you prefer to buy them?
Both. I buy books that are keepers, books from authors that I've enjoyed previously and books that I may have come across in a review and intend to read. It is an expensive habit though, and the library books are the fillers for when I haven't got anything I plan on reading so I just walk into the library and pick something that catches my eye.

Which book are you planning on reading next?
I never plan. I may however, "discover" an author -- usually on the library shelves -- then I'll go back and borrow everything else he/she has written. Or I may get stuck on a theme. The last time was books on book clubs so I ploughed through 'The Jane Austen Book Club' and 'The Reading Group'. Part of the joy of reading is the serendipity of finding a good book. So that's why I don't plan. When I make my choice at the library or the store, I'm really judging the books by their covers.

If I was...

A meme from M, because I'm too tired/lazy to come up with anything and the easiest way out is to answer questions. I realised on Friday when I looked at the blog archives that we've been in this flat a whole year already. That means that I've been blogging for a year. And to think that I was afraid it would peter out. Well, it did the past week -- I spent time watching TV when I got home from work instead of on the Net. And now I'm taking the lazy way out for this entry.

If I was an hour of the day . . . I'd be 7pm, just about dusk
If I was a planet. . . Venus
If I was a direction. . . East
If I was a piece of furniture. . . a couch
If I was a liquid. . . coffee
If I was a sin. . . sloth
If I was a rock . . . slate
If I was a tree. . . silver birch
If I was a fruit. . . kiwi
If I was a flower . . baby's breath
If I was a climate. . . tropical
If I was a musical instrument. . . harp
If I was an element . . . argon
If I was a color. . . fuchsia
If I was an animal. . . dog
If I was a sound . . . waves on the shore
If I was music. . . 80s rock
If I was a music style. . . Baroque
If I was a song . . . Rockin' in the Free World
If I was a feeling. . . happiness
If I was a book. . . Heather Has Two Mommies
If I was a food. . pasta with bolognaise sauce
If I was a place. . . Maui
If I was a flavor. . . tom yam
If I was a scent. . . White Linen
If I was a word. . . aiyo
If I was a verb. . . relax
If I was an object. . . a coffee cup
If I was a part of the body. . . an eye
If I was a facial expression. . . a smile
If I was a cartoon character. . . Earl, in Mutts
If I was a movie. . . Babe
If I was a shape. . . pentagon
If I was a number. . . 30
If I was a season. . . autumn
If I was a sentence. . . Let the weekend begin!__

Aids Candlelight Memorial

The annual memorial wasn't candlelit this year as for the first time, it was held indoors -- in the auditorium at the Singapore Management University. Back in the 80s when the memorial began, it was held in a field where the SMU campus now stands. While it is nice to go back to the old grounds, something was lost by holding it indoors. The organisers made good use of being in an auditorium, so there were song and dance performances. However, the downside was that it became like entertainment. You showed up, you took a seat and you sat back to watch. The fact that there was no silent march -- it was not possible inside an auditorium anyway -- also made this the most passive memorial ever. I hope this doesn't reflect on the fight against Aids and its discrimination.


Also, as it was indoors, we didn't use candles. It wasn't the first time that we had to substitute light-sticks for candles. We did this two years ago when the memorial was held at the Botanic Gardens because they had a no naked flame policy -- although they let us have one memorial candle on stage. I can see Paddy's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paddy_Chew) disgusted reaction -- he'd protest about how unglam a plastic light stick is. Even if we got a pink one for him.

We went for dinner after the memorial and I stuck our light sticks into a glass to take a picture. The wine is libation for Paddy. And for the others. Cheers and love.

Down the garden path

I don't live where this garden is, unfortunately. Or fortunately. This is the rooftop garden in my office building. The fuzzy picture taken by the cellphone doesn't do it justice. The plants on either side of the wooden path were knee-high when they were first planted but are now taller than I am. In the few seconds that I'm walking on the short path, I can actually feel I'm in the middle of somewhere nice and forget that I'm at work.

It also helps that that the canteen -- and some rather good coffee -- is at the end of the path.

Today's special guest star

... is Vivi. With Photoshop wizardry by her daddy.

Hard rockin' ambulance

Either the Hard Rock Cafe isn't the only establishment using "love all, serve all" as its motto or they're running an ambulance service now. (It's painted across the doors, over the windows -- I couldn't get a close-up focus on the cellphone camera.)

You could say L did a little ambulance chasing to get this shot. :)

Pooch pacifier

Apparently, it is possible to fall asleep while chewing a bone, and remain asleep while holding it in your mouth without your jaw aching. Or maybe it's another one of those aberrantly Rupert things.

It's a knockout!

You know the evening will be nice and peaceful when the dogs are knocked out. And it's probably for this that I love the dog park more than they do. Only I didn't think two small dogs could take up so much space on the couch.

Long live the Queeni

I think Annie Leibowitz did a nice portrait of the Queen looking out of her window (http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/art/2007/05/annie_leibowitz_one_of_the_mos.html) but I like L's portrait of our Queen looking out of her window better. And the fur she is wearing is her very own. :)

Before and after Rupert

These are the Galileo range from Nylabone, the toughest chews that they have. "For powerful chewers", the packaging says. Well, Rupert, ever the aberrant, has outpowered their expectations. He just chomped his way through them. The way he goes through the chews, I'll have to replace them almost every week. It's an expensive habit. But I suppose it still works out to be cheaper than replacing shoes and furniture...

Queeni has never been much of a chewer, a thin normal Nylabone lasts her for years. But now that Rupert chews, well, so must she. And she gallantly works away at the tough Galileo and you know her jaws are aching. But she'd rather suffer that than to drop it and have Rupert snatch it. It's a royal attitude.

Gone green

There has been a lot of activity in the field as the flower beds have been dug up. All the lilies are gone. But there's a pile of ixora seedlings left in the corner so I guess there'll be new plants where there now are giant mud patches, I hope.

This morning, the trees were trimmed and the branches temporarily left in piles on the ground. Queeni and Rupert haven't left the window, they were thoroughly entertained -- which at least kept That Dog out of mischief.

When they went down for walkies, they were even more delighted -- piles of tree branches on the ground was like the trees finally being brought down to their level.

There was a sudden movement on the grass and Queeni moved like lightning and pounced. After so many attempts at catching lizards that ended up with her just treeing them as they climbed out of reach, she finally caught a lizard. She had it pinned down with her paw.

However, she hadn't stopped to think through about what she would do with a lizard after having caught one. She just stood there, looking at it almost confusedly until L made her let it go.

Rupe, all this time, just stood staring. So much for the terrier instinct.

What sort of parent would I become?

The playground bully (http://snugpug.blogspot.com/2007/04/dirty-boy.html) got me to thinking: Is it nature or nurture that makes children so horrid? OK, children are not self-aware at this stage. But imparting self-awareness is part of parenting, isn't it? It's what the parents have to do, it's not the maid's job along with babysitting.

You need a licence to own a dog. In this country, you also need a Certificate of Entitlement to own a car (http://www.expatsingapore.com/content/view/1152). I say you also need one to become a parent.

If you adopt a child, you're assessed for suitability and that includes a check on your background and your income. But there's nothing to stop you from having your own kids. That's the scary part.

The other day, on the train, a mother gave her cellphone to her toddler to keep her occupied on the train. So toddler spent a happy half hour gassing with her dad on the phone. I hope she doesn't grow up with her brain cells fried. It will be bad enough for her when she becomes a teenager.

Another day, at the next table at the food court, Junior couldn't decide what he wanted to drink so his parents let him sip from their drinks. One was having coffee, the other, a fizzy, sugary soft drink. I never had coffee until I was 13 and soft drinks were for special occasions only, like Chinese New Year. I remember I was at my cousins' house once and was amazed that they could help themselves to a bottle of soft drink in the fridge whenever they liked. Coffee was for adults only, so my parents used the transition from primary school to secondary school as the cut-off point for when I could have caffeine. When I was 16, I had a friend who still hadn't had coffee before. And our parents certainly weren't Mormons. They were just, well, parents.

And Rupert will never get coffee, no matter how old he is.