Bah, humbug

I was a bit flabbergasted when I stepped into the suburban mall down the road from where we live on Friday. It was decked with boughs of holly and all things Christmassy.

Which meant that it was probably already decorated that way, for the shoppers on the public holiday the day before -- Deepavali. If I was Hindu, I'd feel dreadfully affronted, like my festival had been skipped over.

Is it just me, or does Christmas seem to come earlier every year? The Americans haven't even had their Thanksgiving yet. (I don't think the Canadians have either, but I'm not really sure when theirs is, except that it's earlier on their side of the border.) Or maybe our problem is that we haven't got Thanksgiving so we haven't got a last Thursday of November demarcation before which Christmas just isn't allowed to start.

I like Bing Crosby but I can't bear White Christmas in November. The poor cashiers at the supermarket, they're going to be subjected to two months of Christmas carols.

I was most intrigued to hear a cover verision of Feed the World/Do They Know it's Christmas. Whoever attempted to cover Geldorf & Co sure has got some nerve.

Got hustled again

Is it my face or something? Barely a week after a kid asked me for bus fare home, I got somebody else telling me a long story of how he got stranded without his wallet and farecard and can't get home. It was barely 10am and it was in the grounds of the hospital -- I was hurrying to the hospital where Dad has been warded two weeks, to catch his doctors as they go on rounds.

This guy, an old retiree, started telling me in Mandarin how he had just taken an even older neighbour to hospital, how the 80-year-old was alone with no one to fend for him, how he rushed the guy to A&E, and was now stuck at the hospital having left his wallet and everything else at home. I was terribly rushed and answered in English (no time for mental translation): "So what do you really want?" and knowing the answer of course.

And then came the English version of the long story. Are all hustlers bilingual? He even went as far as to tell me he used to drive an ambulance before he retired. So go find his former colleagues and friends, I told him. Oh, not to this hospital, he said. Complete BS. And how did he pay for the taxi fare to take his elderly neighbour to hospital if he didn't have his wallet? Oh, he just had enough money in his pocket. So why not call the neighbour's relatives? Surely they would thank him enough to send him home. Oh, the guy's alone, remember. No one to depend on. Not even to take him to hospital.

Now I was really running late and very irritable. I opened my wallet, meaning to give him $2, the smallest note, for trainfare. Just to get the damn monkey off my back. But I didn't have any thing smaller than a $10 note. So I gave it to him. Oh sure, he thanked me very nicely but while making fast tracks away from me. I shouted after him, I want his handphone number and IC number. "No need, no need," he answered and picked up speed. So I yelled down the road -- it was busy enough at the start of the working day as the staff poured in -- "Nobody give him any money! He's fleeced enough out of me!"

I was cross because I could have handled it better if I wasn't so rushed. I know where the medical social workers' office in the hospital is, I would have brought him there and handled him over to them. If I had the time. I was also cross because I made the effort to get up early and get to the hospital by train, instead of calling a cab -- mostly because I couldn't account for traffic on the highway. And now the money I saved on a cab has gone to some con man.

But later, in retrospect, if he was so desperate for $10, he might as well have it. It's not like I can ill spare $10. And most of all, I hope that $10 will buy my Dad some good karma.

Woud ma'am desire a coffee?

Today is a public holiday -- Deepavali -- and L is home, so he left me a cup of wake-up coffee on my nightstand.

I was asleep when he brought it in, and woke up only when a cold nose nudged my hand which was hanging over the edge of the bed. I opened my eyes to a very enthusiastic foxie with the thought bubble : "Look! Coffee!! You have coffee!! You have to wake up for it!! How exciting!!!"

Like he brought in the coffee himself.

Wish I had a picture.

Towards world conquest

First, we take the bed. Then we take the couch.

You take one end, I'll take the other. Divide and conquer.

Completing the circle

The other night, Rupert went to bed on the living room sofa and had a good hour's sleep there as I was reading the paper. When I finally turned off the lights to go into the bedroom, he wouldn't even budge. So I left him out there and went to bed.

And then I couldn't sleep. It felt funny not to have him in the room. So I went out and poked him a bit and he sleepily tottered into the bedroom. And headed for his now seldom used bed in his Cinderella corner. I think he was enjoying all the space he had to himself on the couch and didn't want to join the already crowded bed. Also, getting up on the bed also means tackling Queeni, who grants bed rights to him on a nightly basis, depending on HRH's whim.

I still couldn't sleep. Never mind that I already had one dog in bed with me. The other missing component meant that it just didn't feel complete. So I got out of bed again and got Rupert. Who promptly turned a few circles and pressed up against me, his butt to my face.

Now I could sleep.

Happy Halloween

I don't quite get the illustration on this banner advertising a Malay food stall. It's giving me the impression that Freaky Freddie is in the kitchen doing the cooking (and slashing away with his knives).

But then, it's a nice entry for today. Happy Halloween y'all.

They're starting young

"Can you give me $1 so I can take a bus home?" the sweaty kid with wet hair plastered flat on his head asked me as I walked past the playground between the flats on my way to the office.

He asked me that in Mandarin at first and I thought I understood but I wanted to be sure so I asked him "What?" in English and he deftly translated. So he's bilingual. And smart too.

I said I didn't have a dollar (actually I did but I reacted on what I was taught, that you don't give money to homeless people in case they booze themselves out with it but buy them food instead) but I could walk with him to the bus-stop, see him up the bus and pay for his fare with my ez-link card (stored value smart card for use on public transport). He said no need to bother me so much and that he could walk.

The bus fare would have been less than $1, he was maybe 9 or 10 years old and definitely would be charged student fare. You wanna bet Hot, Sweaty Kid was hustling me for $1 for a can of Coke or something?

A prisoner of his own device

Rupert gets jail time in his crate* for peeing transgressions. He also gets crated here when we leave the house for more than a couple of hours -- which is everyday when we go to work.

So I used to worry that he would hate his crate after all the enforced time in it. But it has now become his own little spot**, so much so that he will go into it voluntarily for a nap. Whew.

*It is a crate to anyone who sees it as a wire crate. Throw a nice print over it and dog people with several of these in the house will tell you it's an end table/occasional table/coffee table. See, not all furniture in this house comes from Ikea.

** Heh heh, ES, hadda work in Spot again.

*** Enough words, YH?

**** Picture courtesy of L, assistant photographer to blogger.

The Bean Bros, part 2

L left the TV on and it was a while before I realised that it was showing The Importance of Being Earnest starring Rupert Everett and Colin Firth -- the two actors that C named the foxie brothers after. At that time, he said that he picked those two names because he wanted something very British for the pair of English fox terriers. I didn't know the two made a movie together and I don't know if C realised that either but the Oscar Wilde connection now seems quite apt.

And I think my Rupert is a lot more handsome than Rupert Everett. Even if he is Prince Charming.

Canine camouflage

Let's play spot the doggie...

Writing about dogs is a lot more fun than writing about gods

So the furkids are taking over the blog again. And why not? They've already taken over the bed.

I'm not pro-gay. I'm anti-discriminatory.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

The Prime Minister Has Spoken. Section 377a stays. Covering Parliament the last two days was more riveting than watching Desperate Housewives.

The only thing that surprised me was that 3771 was not sold out for the 4D lottery over the weekend. Which only goes to show how unimportant this issue was to heartlanders. They're more concerned about the hike in bus fares than what people do in their bedrooms.

Say religious extremist and my instant mental picture used to be that of swarthy bearded men in dark robes and turbans, the ones who want to implement syariah laws and cut off hands of thieves and stone adulterers.

Now, I think the robes are white, with hoods and burning crosses. That religious extremists are the ones who say everybody cannot do what their god says they cannot do.

I remember writing years ago that I stopped going to church because I can no longer find in there the carpenter's son who broke bread with tax-collectors and hung out with prostitutes. I still can't find him there.

And now they will say I'm as mad, bad and dangerous and will march around the Civil District and pray for my soul.

Remember those WWJD wristbands? Nowadays, it wouldn't be for "What would Jesus do?", it would be "Who would Jesus discriminate?"

Another Rupert tail

There is nothing as sorry looking as a dog with its tail down -- especially when it is usually a jaunty little upright exclamation mark.

Roop wasn't feeling very good yesterday, he was hacking and trying to cough up something but didn't manage more than a little frothy puddle. Whatever it was he was trying to cough up still wasn't out of him and he was miserable about it.

He went to bed, huddled at the foot of the bed under the duvet, hacked quietly a few more times and went to sleep.

He's much better today, and back to his normal self. I'm happy to see his exclamation point waving about.

[Are you sure, ES, that you want me to blog twice a day? It will be about things coming out of either end of Roop.]


HRH says: Get that exclamation point out of my face!

Close encounters with Rupert

Scene: Orange stray cat lies curled up squarely in the middle of the corridor leading to the field.

Fox terrier, on his way to his peeing spot, stops dead in his tracks. He doesn't know what to make of the cat. Or how to handle a situation where a cat blocks his path.

Cat narrows his eyes at the terrier, daring him to continue on his path -- which would require the cat to move.

Fox terrier sets his ears back in thinking mode. But the brain, seldom used as it is, has never processed such a situation before. Completely flummoxed, he lifts a paw and looks up to the human. If life was a comic strip, the thought bubble over his head would say: "What is the heck is that Thing?"

Human winds up the slack in the leash so that terrier is on a tight lead and urges him past the cat.

Terrier walks past hesitantly at first, then picks up speed and walks straight past. He still can't work out what this creature is. He still has quite a bit to go before he realises that traditionally, dogs chase cats.

Cat continues his nap, unmolested.

I have a blog entry.

Everybody wins.

The cat, especially.

The Bean Brothers

I was off on Tuesday and had time on my hands after my physiotherapy session, so L and I went over to C's house since he lives just a short walk from the hospital. Actually, I had an ulterior motive: I wanted to see Colin, Rupert's brother. I like comparing the two from time to time, to see the difference and similarities in two dogs from the same litter. I've never been able to do that before and even now, long after Spock died way too young, keep wondering about how his brother is doing, whether he had the same health problems and why didn't I keep in touch with the woman who had him.

Colin shares the same sweet disposition as Rupert, and is just as cuddly. That's where the similarities end. Physically, they could be night and day. Rupert is broad-shouldered and barrel-chested while Colin is lean and slender. Perhaps this is the part where there is some truth that dogs resemble their owners (or the other way round). You can tell that Rupert is our dog and Colin is C's.

Yeah, this post requires a photo of what M calls the Bean Brothers (imagine two Mr Bean characters bumbling around) together. Ok, I will get round to that. Some day.

And Toby, the older dog, is still the Young Master of the Universe, requisitioning my lap as soon as I sat down. When I got on the papa-san sofa, both he and Colin were like a well-synchronised tag team, instantly taking up positions on either side of me for a cuddle. I was surprised at first because last time I was there, the papa-san sofa was for humans only, and the dogs could only get on it by special invitation. (There's another sofa in the room which is the dogs'.) It was only when M caught us in the middle of the cuddlefest that I was told the special invitation rule still stands. Busted.

Busted again when we got home. There was hell to pay when HRH smelt the scent of the two dogs on us. Me, especially. I was the chief cuddler culprit.

Watching the watcher

Lsaid that he mentioned "Mummy" when I was at work and he was home with the furkids -- whereupon Rupert promptly went to wait by the door for me. And when Mummy did not materialise and the floor got a bit hard, he got on to the couch but sat at the corner nearest the door and kept staring at it, and waiting.

I came home to a red carpet welcome, of course. But then again, I always do. :)

And where was HRH while Roop was mounting guard by the front door? Lying in state on our bed. Her bed. But to give her credit, L added, her nose was pointed towards the door. Hmmphf.

Life's ironies

While the UN spent the weekend working out a new set of sanctions against Burma, the Sunday paper here runs a fashion feature on how to choose Burmese gemstones.

*bangs head against wall*

In which I actually went shopping

I don't shop a lot nor very often, but when I shop, *I shop*. I had a day off on Friday, and met L downtown after he was done with work for dinner. It was actually so that we could stop by for groceries after the meal, so that we wouldn't have to battle the weekend supermarket crowds. I usually get the shopping when I have a weekday off but this time, I didn't think my back would let me carry the groceries home alone (although it's much better, thank you).

Proof that I don't go downtown enough: I didn't know that there's an underground traffic tunnel at the Stamford Road/Fort Canning bottleneck. Not that it's necessary knowledge: traffic still slowed to a bottleneck after emerging from the tunnel.

So since I was downtown, I shopped. Marks & Sparks for tea bags -- nobody does extra strong malty tea like they do. Prestat for chocolates -- nobody charges for chocolate like they do, purveyors of fine chocolates to HM the Queen not withstanding. It's $22 for 100g, which amounts to about 20 pieces. Still, I regard the expense as medicinal. I have given up eating mass brand chocolate from the supermarket because they induce migraines. This is not a snooty statement. I actually experimented, after the last incapacitating migraine, which did not fit in the hormone cycle and came on after eating cheap(er) chocolate.


And then I wandered into Birkenstocks. And noted that they have a new shoe model out (which may not be that new, given that I'm so fashionably behind time) -- it is not open-toed and has a strap round the back of the foot so it doesn't look like a slip-on sandal. In fact, it looks like a pair of Mary Janes. A far cry from the brown "nun" sandals, eh, ES? I remember showing you my pinkish lavender pair the last time I bought one -- and that's how long ago, so that's how often I shop. Behold, my new pair of work shoes. And it also helps that it comes in happy colours. Black Monday's not so dark today.

When you don't feel much like doing anything, playing with the dogs takes up a lot of time.

And posting their pictures on the blog means you don't have to think of something to write.

Told you my life is going to the dogs.

One world

And just when you think the world's a sorry place, you come across a food court that has representations from China, Thailand, Japan, Korea, Italy, Singapore and the US. I think this place (next to the office) qualifies for UN Security Council membership.

As the world turns

... Gays in Australia are recognised for their achievements.

... But gays in the US are beat up

... And gays in Singapore are fighting for their legal rights.

... Wanna bet that monks in Burma were shot by bullets made in Singapore?

I have been too dispirited to write and post since the last entry. The above are links sent to me by friends or were posted in their blogs in recent days. And that's why I'm dispirited. One world, indeed.

Meanwhile, ordinary folk go to work, cook dinner, call their mums, tell their gay friends they love them, walk their dogs. And hope they make a difference.

Act now

Repeal Section 377a
The deadline is Oct 19, I wish I'd known about this site earlier. But it's not too late... yet... act now!

We love our humans, just like our cousins Vivi, Toby and Colin love their humans. Only instead of having a mummy and daddy like us, they have two daddies. And that's the only difference. Their daddies lavish love and attention and many, many T*R*E*A*T*S and spoil them rotten. Just like what our mummy and daddy do. Their daddies work hard at their jobs. Just like our mummy and daddy. Their daddies pay their taxes and contribute to the community. Just like our mummy and daddy.

But the law here makes it a criminal offence for their daddies to love each other. However, the penal code may be rewritten. Please help us repeal Section 377a. And help us to help them love each other.

Queeni and Rupert

Bag lady

I read about people queueing for hours for this Anya Hindmarch designer bag, how it was snapped up within hours of its launch in the UK, is now sold out in the US and how the company has now closed the waiting list for new orders.

I really didn't understand the hype over it. It isn't even fabulously pretty. Honestly, I've got prettier non-designer bags. Not that I have any designer anything, by the way. I certainly wasn't going to get it, I don't shop, I don't follow fashion and I don't join queues. For saying that, I expect my Singaporean nationality to be revoked anytime now.

And now I have an Anya Hindmarch. Because I can. Without queueing or waiting. Or even jostling or punching -- which I gather occurred among tai-tais queueing up outside the flashy boutiques, so much so that the company is withdrawing launches across Asia for customer safety.

It's excess stock. Somebody had a bunch of them and I was asked if I wanted one. So I bought one. Admittedly, this designer bag is designed not to come with a designer price tag. Still, does this make me hip and happenin' now?

Further adventures in subbing

Back when George W Shrub stole the US presidency, the departing Democrat administration reportedly pried off the letter 'w' from the White House computer keyboards. In the spirit of things at the time, I wrote a column without using the letter 'w'. It turned out to be easier and much more fun than writing verse. The byline presented a bit of problem since my surname starts with 'w' but I thought maybe I could circumvent that with two v's set close together. In any case, in the spirit of not having to sub my own work, I left that to the sub to worry about. In the end, the column was spiked but I enjoyed the literary exercise anyway.

Now here's more literary gymnastics. How do you sub/layout a page without hyphens? And it's not ragged-right so you have to break words at some point. You could maybe force some line breaks but imagine doing this for every line of every column. And it's not a frivolous literary exercise this time but damn serious. There's a sponsor who doesn't want hyphens on his page (!) and the poor sub (not me, thank goD) is tearing her hair out.

Mid-life crisis

You know you're on the wrong side of 40 when *getting off the couch* results in a sprained back muscle.

I honestly don't know how I did it. I was lying on the chaise longue and getting out of it has always meant scooting your bum to the edge before you could swing your legs on the floor and haul yourself up. I was doing that but my feet were not solidly grounded on the floor because there were two dogs under my legs when I leaned forward and that did it. I already have a bad back, what I did just aggravated it.

I didn't realise how bad it was. Well, there was a momentary flash of pain that made me want to spit out the coffee I just swallowed. But after that, I didn't feel anything. I could even walk the two dogs and bend down and pick Queeni up out of the neighbour mak cik's way when she was sweeping the corridor when we went past.

Never underestimate adrenaline until it wears off. One hour later, I was immobile in the shower. It took me 20 minutes to get my pants on.

The doctor proclaimed it to be a bad sprain which would take a week to heal. But he only gave me 3 days' MC. What, doctors think that there are only 3 days in a week?

Now for part 2 of the sorry story. Doc also gave me muscle relaxants and heavy duty painkillers that had to be taken with an antacid. I took them on a full stomach but still, the medication churned my stomach so much that I spent all night and most of this morning puking.

Moral of the story: Never ever get off your couch. Stay on it. Wallow. Getting off the couch results in Bad Things.

About last night...

I check my junk mail folder once in a while just to make sure that no legitimate email slips in there (you know who you are, who sends L emails with .doc attachments to my email account, which go straight into the Junk folder because of the said attachments, which cannot be read anyway because this Mac does not have, *will never have* MS Office, dammit.).

But I digress. Back to the Junk folder. Where I saw mail from:
Sender: Mohammad
Subject: I won't forget last night
That sure stood out from the crowd offering replica watches, discount medication, software and performance enhancers, especially during Ramadan. Even so, it cannot be The Mohammad. Although Jesus did send me email once. And he had a Latino surname and was selling medication. Siddartha Gautama does not have email yet, I think.

Last night. Last night I went to the office party for the paper's 31st anniversary. Where I got sabo-ed by the deputy chief sub who was prowling around with a wireless mike ... after having been slapped on the wrist by him the previous night for a subbing infringement.

I'd rather forget last night. If that's okay with Mohammad.

Spooky story

You know all these real ghost stories that happened to a friend of a friend of a friend? This is the only one I can tell, and it happened to a friend of my friend and I swear it's true. Sumpah.

A woman who works for her friend recently adopted a rescue dog, an Aussie mix. She calls him Curley and he is deaf.  He is an older dog found wandering around. The rescue group people noticed that Curley goes crazy when older men come around so they surmised that he must have belonged to an older man who may have either passed away or had to go to a nursing home or hospital.
 
One night, the woman woke up and saw a spirit standing by her bed. It was an older man and Curley sat up in bed, staring at him and wagging his tail. When the woman finally got the courage to speak, she asked the spirit if he was Curley's owner, and then it faded away.

Curley had been having some issues and his owner is working them through with him. But since the man appeared, he has been a much better dog, she said.

What spooks me out isn't so much that the woman saw the spirit, but that the dog also saw it, and sat up. *And wagged.*

But I guess maybe Curley needed some closure from his former owner, that he needed to be told that his former owner couldn't take care of him, so the new owner would. And maybe the former owner also needed to know that Curley is being taken care of. Hence the visit. So maybe this is a good sort of spooky story.

Clean bill of health

HRH went for her six-month check-up following the amputation, following that nasty mast cell tumour episode. She's got the all clear. We are happy.

What wasn't a happy start this morning was trying to get a cab. It still doesn't pay to be honest. We could have used the automated booking, but as always, bypassed that to tell the operator to indicate to the driver taking the booking that we have a dog in a carrier, especially as this is the Ramadan month and we don't want to screw up a Muslim driver. We ended up getting screwed. It took more than 45 minutes to get a cab and that was after lost tempers and indifferent operators. We were late for the vet appointment, but they were very nice, as always. They even called a cab for us, for the trip home.

That time round, we got a driver who was very concerned about Queeni -- since he picked us up at the vet, he thought she must be ill. He used to have a dog, a Pomeranian. He talked about it all the way back, how it used to run around naughtily but became quiet and still when it was ill, how it used to wait by the door for him when he went out, and how it leapt and jumped with joy when he came home. He was smiling as he recounted all that he loved about a dog, now long gone. It made our day too.

There's something about dogs.

The perils of subbing, part 2

I thought it was too good to be true when the copy subbing workflow slowed to a trickle at 11pm last night, with an hour to go before offstone. Damn right it was too good to be true.

One innocuous foreign page, assigned at 4.30pm and with the line-up ready at 5pm, was forgotten until 11.30pm, with half an hour left on the clock on a die-die-must-meet-offstone night because there was a supplement insert to go with the regular paper.

No one had the heart to blame the page sub for forgetting about it. She had two early pages, one of which was killed in a pagination rejig -- after she had finished the page. Then as the night progressed, she had to switch her focus to the VIP front and prime pages.

But it did mean half-an-hour of frenzy for the rest of us. And I guess there's no such thing as a full-page house ad.

The perils of subbing

... trying not to get teary eyed while going through the pictures and wire copy coming out of Myanmar.

The White House of course has already made its statement; the UN Security Council is convening (probably already has by now); even China, the junta's only friend, has had a discreet word. Only Asean, with Singapore in the chair, hasn't said anything. What goes on in the neighbour's backyard is the neighbour's problem. Typical.

[Update late on Thursday night: Reuters has photos of the AFP photog moments after he was shot. I don't think anyone could use those photos.]

The morning after

... Mid-Autumn Festival and the lanterns are still hanging prettily on the trees. What's not so pretty is the new footpath splattered with wax and scorch marks. And what's more insidious is that someone strung a line between two trees in the field, presumably to hang lanterns on last night. I hope no late night dog walker got decapitated.

Signs and wonders

One morning, this sign appeared at the edge of the field outside our house. I wonder what it's going to achieve. The people who already pick up their dogs don't need it and the people who don't aren't going to be cowered into submission by a wordless sign.

As it is, we already differentiate the dog people in this estate into those who pick up and those who don't. Those who don't are usually also the ones who keep their charges on a tight leash and won't let them socialise even though their dog and mine are madly wagging their tails at each other.

So not surprisingly, those are the dogs whose names we don't know so we've formed our own: Devil Dog for the aggro Japanese Spitz; The Schnauzer With the Tail, to differentiate him from the rest of the Schnauzer crowd, most of whom we know by name anyway; Ugly Shihtzu, but then L thinks all Shihtzus are ugly -- and we say this having had a pug once so we've nothing against adorably ugly dogs. Actually, we finally found out Ugly's name. It is Yogurt. As in dairy product. He was better off as Ugly.

Once, one of the the non-picker-uppers' dogs was in the middle of a squat when I was out walking mine so I walked over and offered the woman a sheet of newspaper. I don't read English, she said in Mandarin. In my limited Mandarin, I told her it wasn't for reading, it was for picking up her dog's poop. She looked clueless.

I wonder what excuse she'll use for not understanding this pictorial sign.

Sleep positions

Now that Rupert has won bed privileges, the two dogs start the night like this, mirror images of sleep, with HRH Boss taking the top of the bed, of course.

Then when we get in, Rupert tries to move to the top of the bed. Some nights, HRH gets grumpy and growls at him, so he hops off to sleep in his dog bed in his Cinderella corner of the room. On the nights he gets to stay on the bed -- and that's usually only if she is too sleepy to budge herself or him -- he puts his head on the pillow, and his bottom half is under the duvet. By the morning, he has shifted so that his head buried under the duvet (I don't know how he breathes) and his ass is next to my face. That's phase #1 of my morning wake-up.

Once, just at about dawn, I stirred because there was a weight on my pillow. I opened my eyes to find HRH sitting on the pillow, perched on the highest ground she could find, looking down at Roop in consternation: how the hell did he get up on the bed? Didn't I push him off?

Rupert gets up when L does, and is taken out for a quick pee. I don't trust him on the bed when he has a full bladder. Then he jumps back up on the bed for round #2 of a lie-in. My phase #2 wake-up finds a dog on either side of my legs, lying sphinx-like alongside me and facing the door, like two sentries guarding me since L has by that time left the house. It's a great, safe, warm feeling to wake up to. Much better than a dog's bottom in your face.

Breaking the jinx

You know how there's always one person in a group that always -- and repeatedly -- gets the full brunt of Murphy's Law? It used to be me. This January, when I started doing layout, I was always the one calling Help Desk. Pages hung on me, and unexplainable e-hiccups happened to me. Only me. Once, my page froze and was so messed up that Helpless Desk couldn't fix it. They had to go to Pre-Press to get them to delete the page and then create a new one so we could start all over again.

At another time, another job at a small outfit where the tech guy was outsourced, I had to call him so often that soon, he started his day by calling me to see if I needed him to come in. L, who at that time worked for a computer firm, was even going to get me one of those anti-static wrist bands their assembly-line workers wore, just so I wouldn't zap and fry my nth computer.

Anyway, all the tearing of hair over doing layout on an antiquated software (it was so user-unfriendly it had no 'undo' option, which forced me to re-do a lot of things over and made me slower than I already am) stopped for a merciful two months when we switched to a new layout software and the senior subs had more serious technical fish to fry than helping out someone new to layout. I went back gratefully to copy subbing -- something I'm used to and something I'm so much better at.

But a sub must draw pages and so after the dust of the new software settled, I'm back to drawing pages again. This time, I can at least blame all the knotty bits on new software.

Only, I'm not the jinx anymore. The other new-to-layout sub has been the one struggling with the page rejigs (one hour before offstone), the change in line-ups (and nobody told her until she had to send a message begging the copyeds to clear the story and then one of them told her nobody touched it because it was being held over) and a printout with fonts all gone wrong although they looked fine onscreen while my pages breeze through with plenty of time to spare.

Last night, the only thing holding up my page was waiting: For Production to enhance a picture. They forgot. For Foreign Desk to update one of the stories. They forgot. For the proofreader to okay the page. He forgot. Frustrating and time-wasting but at least not as panic-inducing as a line-up change, a page rejig and a printout that didn't match what was on the screen.

I feel for my colleague. And I just know that as soon as I set this down in writing, I'm tempting fate and the jinx will be mine to carry again.

Good enough to eat

In answer to an enquiring mind, the "flavoured" dog shampoos mentioned in the last post include: "Banana Oatmeal -- a rich, banana delight blended with moisturising oatmeal oils" and "Tropical Twist -- a fruity, citrus zest enhanced with a kick of wild cherries".

The first sounds like breakfast and the second a cocktail. Who comes up with this stuff? And did they consult a dog? I think dogs would prefer flavours like Fresh Roadkill, Yesterday's Ditchwater, Pungent Puke and that classic favourite, Eau de Skunk.

Rawhide!

This is Rupert's first rawhide. He's more than a year-and-a-half old and he's never experienced a rawhide chew. I just simply don't trust him with them, he's the sort of dog that gulps his food and I'm leery that he'll try to swallow the softened end of a rawhide chew and choke himself. As it was, this chew had to be removed after 15 minutes. HRH of course, was an old hand. Err, paw. Err, expert.

So rawhide here is more of a special occasion treat. The occasion this time is a bath -- which shows you how often they get baths. The rawhide was free from the pet supply store -- which must really like us for the amount of dog food two dogs can plough through. So since I had some on hand, I gave it to them as a post-bath treat. I thought that Rupert needed to experience rawhide, otherwise it would be like arrested dog development or something.

These rawhide chews are tiny -- after all, they were free. I've got a monster-sized one that's a foot long, presented to HRH as royal tribute from J's Bully. It's been in the store room all this while because HRH just isn't interested in chewing. Maybe it's time to give it Rupert now that he hasn't done any rawhide damage to himself.

Also in the store room are several bottles of dog shampoo in different "flavours". Several times, the pet supply place has also given me a free bottle of shampoo with a bag of dog food. All those bottles in the store room also goes to show how often the dogs get baths.

Doggone it!

We have two ceramic dogs -- those little gegaws you find in novelty gift shops -- outside the front door on a plant stand. We didn't have anywhere to put them inside the house, mostly to do with Rupert and breakage reasons. When we put them outside months and months ago, I had at first wondered if the Muslim neighbours directly across would be offended by not just graven images, but of haram dogs. The wife's reaction was; "Oh, so cute!"

So they stayed out there. Besides, they wore little plaques that say "Welcome" around their necks, they looked better outside the front door than inside the house. In any case, they were too cheap to steal, I thought.

Well, not to somebody. Early yesterday morning, they were still there when L walked Roop. By mid-morning, when HRH was ready for her constitutional, they were gorn.

And a fat lot of good the two real dogs in the house were.

Lost in space

I got home early enough last night to catch the opening episode of the seventh season of The West Wing. I tried to follow it but was hopelessly lost.

At first I thought it was because I hadn't followed the series chronologically. I started watching it when it was maybe the third or fourth season -- you miss a lot of prime-time TV when you work nights -- and then found it so good, I caught the missed earlier seasons on late night repeats. Which meant that every time I caught it on TV, I had to first take a few minutes to mentally place what season I'm at, caught between a rerun/prime-time sort of warp.

So I thought that was the source of my confusion yesterday. Then, some full 15 minutes into the show, I realised that I was confused because I was mentally placing the characters in a different White House. All this time, I was trying to relate the goings-on to Commander-in-Chief. Different series (which I also enjoyed), different president, different staff, different characters.

Just one same old muddled brain.

Music, part 2

The place where I go to get the cricks massaged out of my neck and shoulders started off as a foot reflexology place. Somewhere along the way, they threw in a couple of massage chairs like an afterthought and now the back massage business is taking off and pulling ahead of the foot reflexology portion.

Which means it's now full of younger office workers now (instead of the uncle, aunty foot reflexology crowd), all facing the same problems like me, as a result of eight hours hunched in front of a computer. And that's only for work. We spend more hours hunched in front of another computer for fun after that.

But the staff all come from the foot reflexology era, ie all older uncles. Which means what they play on their sound system reflects their taste (well, you can't fault them, they get to chose the music if they have to listen to it all day) -- soothing music, instrumentals (mostly piano) of ballads from a bygone era. I can recognise Elvis Presley (if only because he is king) and Patti Page (from my Dad's records, I quickly add before someone puts a time stamp on me) and once, something I vaguely identified as Chinese evergreens.

And then last week, the music changed. It appeared to be a compilation of boy band songs. I think that must be their effort to stay ahead with the clientele. But that was when I realised there's a fine line between soothing and annoying.

The earth moved

A friend of mine who's into astrology said a few days ago that there's an eclipse on Tuesday and wondered what would happen. It would be like having the rug pulled out from under your feet, she said.

I'm not much into astrology but neither do I disbelieve it. Let's just say I'm aware that there are a lot of things beyond my understanding and I remain happy in my ignorance.

So I wondered what would be disrupting thing in my day. At first I thought it had to do with having to do page layout (instead of copy subbing, my usual duties) for the first time on new software -- it was actually quite bad, I had so much trouble fitting things, I took four hours to do a smallish page with a biggish ad and just two stories.

Then the quake struck in Indonesia. And I didn't even recognise a tremor when it shook the chair I was sitting on. I thought I had swivelled my chair absent-mindedly. I was also momentarily dizzy. But I thought it was just me.

Thanks to the news wires, we quickly realised it was two earthquakes in succession and a tsunami warning.

Back in March when a quake struck off Indonesia with reports of tremors felt in Singapore, E in San Francisco -- where you're more likely to find an earthquake supplies shop in your street corner than a 7-11 -- asked if I had felt anything. The quake then took place around noon and I was ashamed to say that I had slept through it. But it made me feel better as I added that the dogs were with me in the bedroom and also slept through it.

This time, L reported from home that they were all antsy and growly. The curtains were drawn and the windows shut with the airconditioning on so he didn't think it was any passing dog outside that sparked it. He himself felt nothing.

Just five minutes down the road from our house, some housing blocks in Potong Pasir and Serangoon were evacuated, as were some office buildings in the commercial district. I bet the RCs in Potong Pasir and Serangoon were really "on". All those SCDF disaster mock-up exercises were finally being put to good use! I bet they were raring for the chance to go do a real one.

It also didn't escape me that this quake took place on the night before Ramadan. Let the Islamist who said that the Boxing Day tsunami was a punishment for Christian infidels -- never mind that it killed quite a lot of Muslim natives along with the Christian tourists -- make what he will of this quake. The gods are fair.

Stolen music

I don't know who Rihanna is, I only became aware of her when I watched the Live Earth concerts on telly in July. I don't follow current music anymore, I don't require singers to dance, strip or do whatever they now do. Instead of singing. Or even songwriting.

Anyway, this Rihanna. I keep hearing her Shut Up and Drive on the radio and the only thing I like about it is the bass riff. And it isn't just this old fogey thinking that it sounds familiar. Itt's stolen from New Order's Blue Monday isn't it? L is no help, he thinks that all modern music is stolen since, oh I dunno, Vanilla Ice.

So to exorcise Rihanna, I had to play New Order. Very loud. And then of course, I had to dance to it -- to Queeni's disapproval (there's no amusing these royals) and Rupert's delight. I should take up canine freestyle with him.

9/11

There is something about Sept 11 that has been imprinted on the global psyche. A couple of weekends ago at the supermarket, L picked up a carton of our usual brand of milk but put it back because the use-by date was Sept 11. He just didn't want to buy something with that date on it, he said it "felt weird", so for that one time, we switched to another brand of milk with a different use-by date.

But here's somebody who doesn't feel any bad karma to Sept 11...

Escalating observations

Much has been said about Ugly Singaporeans. I think some of them don't set out to be ugly (and we're not just talking about the looks department) but they become boorish to other people because they haven't/don't/can't/won't realise that they, as individuals, have to share space with other people.

They are the ones who won't hold the lift doors; stand in front of the bus and train doors and block people from getting on or off; walk upstream from you and steal the next taxi; and the gaggle of four teenagers who must walk four abreast across the footpath and expect you to give way, even though you're loaded down with heavy grocery bags, because it would just so kill them to break formation and interrupt their chatter.

And Ugly is not just a Singaporean thing. One day I will tell you about an Ugly Whitey on the train, but preferably face-to-face and not just because of R(A) language (not all mine) but because you can then buy me a drink after.

Anyway, this Ugliness by unthinking osmosis came to mind when I had to get on a peak hour train a couple of days ago. (I work nights, I usually avoid the world when it needs to commute.) Everyone got on the escalator (which I usually avoid because there's a lemming-like bottleneck of commuters automatically headed to the escalators while the stairs are empty but that day, I got off the train right at where the escalator was) and as per standard commuter practice here, stood on the left side of the step, leaving the right side as a passing lane for people in a hurry. Except for one person. Everyone who was walking up had to sidle round her before they could continue walking up. They all tsked at her when they had to get past her. She was clueless, she had absolutely no idea that she was in the way. Because she continued to stand on the "walking lane" on all the three escalators it took to get from the platform to the street level.

Later, on another escalator -- but a much narrower one that wasn't designed for standers on the left and walkers on the right -- I heard someone come up behind me, and so pressed against the side so that she could get past me. She continued on her way, wordlessly. "You're welcome," I called out after her. She looked back puzzledly. I bet she's a nice girl, great to her friends, polite to company, respectful of her parents, pays her taxes. But she was Ugly at that one instant.

This just in

Chip implants have been linked to tumours in animals. Microchipping is a requirement now, for a dog licence. I'm nervous. To microchip or not to microchip?

[You techies will laugh. But this e-challenged person will buy 4D today because I managed to do a hyperlink on my posts at last! With html coding, okay, because Blogspot does not have a tab for the hyperlink function when you post in Safari.]

Watching what you eat is not for dieters anymore

M is in China. For business -- there's no pleasure in a trip to China nowadays, he moaned.

Over the years, I've given him all sorts of wishes for all his trips -- a safe flight when he went back to the US, a great trip when he went to Bangkok, and always "drive safe" for all his commutes to KL.

This time round, I said something I've never said before. "Eat safe," I told him.

Crowded bed

Since Rupert moved in last September (my goD! it's been a year), HRH has never let him on the bed. Our bed. Her bed. That is the holy of holies in this den and she once famously head-butted Toby, twice her size, off it when he stayed over. She also religiously defends it from the housekeepers when they try to straighten the covers or dust around it.

So all this time, Rupert has been sleeping in the dog bed in the corner of the bedroom, like some outcast Cinderella. The only time he ever jumped up on the bed was months ago when Queeni was overnight at the vet's for her biopsy and again for a subsequent operation.

But last week, he has been testing the waters, nosing the edge of the bed, hopping up and hopping down. I think it was a combination of factors. L had been working late, which meant that Rupert had been crated for eight or so hours, instead the usual four hours -- the interval between when I leave for work and L returns. One night to my horror, I came home to find that L wasn't even home yet.

So I felt really bad for Roop and I didn't shoo him off the bed when he clambered up -- probably in search of company but really I bet to see how much sympathy he could milk. To my surprise, Queeni didn't chase him off as she usually does. Instead, she moved down to the edge of the bed to lie next to him. Then he got off and went to his Cinderella corner.

Last night, he jumped up on the bed again. This time, he wedged himself between my legs, curled up and went to sleep. Queeni didn't bat an eyelid. Since she let him up, I would too. That was when L came in and found that there was very little room left on the bed. He's lucky we have small dogs.

So now the bed sleeps four. That's another reason not to get another dog.

Lives will be lost!

That's a lot of nice trees that are going to come down when this proposed commercial and residential development comes up. Sigh.

I think I'd rather have the trees.

Making tracks

Nice path isn't it? If they had this in commercial floor tiles, it would be on my floor. Oh wait, I have two dogs. All I need now is cement...

Back to work

I've been home the past week, clearing leave. How did you think I managed to post daily for the past week? I have much admiration for http://funnytheworld.com/ -- daily journal entries for seven years -- how do you do it, along with the foster puppies?

So after spending much time watching the trees outside the window grow and providing a lap-top nap-spot for the furkids, how to go back to work today?

Talking back

Overheard on the bus, from a couple of seats behind me.

Mother, remonstrating misbehaving child: "Naughty boy."

Her son begged to differ: "Good boy."

She disagreed: "Naughty boy!"

"Good boy!" rising in volume.

"Naughty boy!"

"GOOD BOY! GOOD BOY!" And it went on for the rest of the bus ride.

Thank god Rupert doesn't talk back like human children.

Would you pay $12.50 for this?

L jokingly threatens Rupert (at least I hope it's a joke) that we would sell him, especially when he had made transgressions involving inappropriate peeing.

We're not the only ones issuing parental bogeyman threats. C regularly threatens Colin, Rupert's brother, with dumping him at the SPCA, mostly also after transgressions involving wrongful discharge of body waste.

Anyway, the last offer we've had since L put Roop the Poop on the market was $12.50, from I. But I think it will come to nothing since she is probably going to adopt Chester. For free. (Chester is a wiry fox terrier that C is helping to rehome because there's a new baby who's allergic. L and I agree with C that since the dog was in the house first, it should stay and the baby should be the one to be put up for adoption but just try telling breeding humans that.)

Now M is thinking of getting a second dog because Vivi is so needy. Seperately, E is also wondering about a second dog because he thinks Sophie is lonely when she's alone at home when he and his wife are at work.

Getting a second dog to entertain/be a companion to the first dog doesn't always work out the way you hope. So that's when I offered them Rupert as a test drive. He's good with other dogs and other people. He's just not so good about the peeing thing.

So maybe we could hire Rupert out, I told L. He has a better idea. We should just loan him out at no cost. Then when M and E get so sick of mopping up pee, they would pay us to take Roop back, he reasoned. And if we can foist Roop onto other people and they would pay us to return him, then we can make more than $12.50 and still have our capital. Like a Nigerian scam that can regenerate itself. Whaddaya think? I mean, it's time Roop earns his keep.

Bottle to go and the cups also came

We had dinner at a Korean restaurant a couple of days ago and L ordered a bottle of Korean sake to go with it. I didn't know Koreans had sake. I didn't like it. It was like drinking neat alcohol, there was no flavour nor fragrance to it. We couldn't finish it, so L screwed the cap back on and asked the waitress for a plastic bag to take the bottle away with us. To our surprise, she also put into the bag two sake cups, carefully wrapped up in paper napkins. That was nice. Wish I could say the same of the sake.

Holding paws

Last night, L was scrupulously wiping Queeni's paws after the last walk of the night and she was fussing. He remonstrated with her: "It was muddy outside and Daddy must wipe you clean so later we can hold paws in bed."

It's our fifth anniversary of being Properly Married tomorrow and what happened to holding hands with the wife?

Water, water everywhere

Along with the new paths, we seem also to have got canals and a swimming pool when a monsoonal downpour hit us yesterday.

When the path was relaid, the excess cement powder was swept off the path onto the grass, which meant that the grass at the edge of the path died and created a ditch-like depression which filled up with water when it rained.

If that gives us a mosquito problem next, who do we offer as a blood sacrifice? The town council people, the workers who did the path or their supervisor who came and gave them directions and then retreated into the shade?

Schwarz

Nine years today and missed as much as ever.

Schwarz belongs to that era before my camera went digital and I've realised I haven't any e-pictures of him. I have tons of olde worlde physical photos -- matt and glossy, remember even that? -- and I know some people helped me scan them but that was about two hard disks ago. Which means I haven't got any in this iBook.

This picture, I got off a cobwebby geocities site that I'm surprised is still around.

It's nice to think of the two boys together still like that.

Going home

At work the other day, a colleague was using the office's night transport booking system for the first time and asked me to check if her booking was done correctly because my name was the only one on the booking list at that point in time.

Quite a lot of people take the office transport home, it's just that most of my colleagues book it just before they leave as you only need to book your ride home 30 minutes in advance. Me, I book it the minute I arrive at the office. That was why at the start of the work day, only my name showed up on the booking list.

"You mean you think of going home the minute you come in?" my colleague asked, quite incredulously.

I do, actually. How can I not? Look at these two sad faces. It's a guilt trip every time I leave.


Is it so wrong to want to go home the minute I reach the office?

Don't play that again

There's a Malay wedding going on downstairs, complete with DJ and karaoke. Which means that we're hearing some pretty okay music (from the DJ) alternating with caterwauling (from the karaoke singers -- and why are tone-deaf people so damn fond of karaoke?)

So far, the only song I can recognise, ie the only English number, is a Roxette song -- the one in 'Pretty Woman' with the chorus "it must've been love, but it's over now" ...

Erm, isn't that a little inappropriate for a wedding?

Where are we, really?

"What place is this?" demanded the caller when I picked up the phone.

This was the place where minutes ago, I had just woken up to a mopping job -- left directly outside the bedroom door by a foxie protesting that I was sleeping in too long. And as if that wasn't enough, That Dog stepped into his own pee and tracked it round, leaving a trail of paw prints in pee. And just after I finished rinsing the mop, That Dog produced a follow-up job -- a neat little pile of poop. On exactly the same spot.

The sixth level of hell, my pre-caffeinated being was sorely tempted to tell the caller. But I don't think that was the answer he was looking for.

It turned out that he was returning a missed call on his mobile. L must have called him earlier in the morning from the home phone before he left for work. "He's a lawyer," he explained later, "they all talk like that." Brusquely, I think he means, not existentially.

Insert your preferred lawyer joke here.

Goodbye Riley

Riley (with his sister Hannah on the left in this lovely picture) was diagnosed with epilepsy when he was 2 years old and with Cushing's Disease when he was 4. Two months ago, at age 6, he had a brain tumour. That's a lot to bear for a little guy.

He isn't one of mine but lives in Texas. Funny how a little dog at the other side of the world can take a little piece of your heart when he leaves.

International infamy

ES writes from Sydney that Sera "has been doing Ruperts" on their balcony. Wow, my lean, mean pee 'n' poop machine has coined a new word. OED, here he comes!

Scary stuff

Nowadays, there's nothing scarier than a label like this.

Oh wait, there is. Like applying for permission to reincarnate. (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article2194682.ece) Hey, that's a China thing too! Don't you just feel for the lamas? I mean, imagine having to fill out an application in triplicate before even deciding how and who you want to come back as.

The chicken jerky dog treats the dogs love is an American brand, and when it ran out, I got another bag, only this time, I noticed the little scary label that just because it's American, it's not necessarily made in the US of A.

The brand checks out okay, it's not on the list of recalled pet food. But now Wal-Mart has taken its chicken jerky off its shelves (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070821/ap_on_bi_ge/wal_mart_dog_treats) on customer concerns and before any testing even shows any nasties. Just in case.

Well last night, we threw out the bag of jerky. Just in case. We're scared of all China-made pet food now.

On the news the other night, the Chinese authorities defended the safety of their food, saying that 85% of it passes muster. For something that you consume into your body, 85% doesn't sound like a high passing grade, you'd expect something no less than 98%.

The last time I was buying toothpaste, I looked long and hard for where it was made -- in Malaysia. Ah, good stuff, said L, as he plonked it into the supermarket trolley. Not so long ago, when I was a kid (of course it's not that long ago), my mum used to scorn Malaysia-made goods because it was local and must therefore be inferior to imported goods.

How times have changed. Now, if it's local, you at least know where to go to sic your dogs on the erring manufacturer. First you brush his teeth, then the lapdogs can lick him to death.

Remembering a friend

I don't think any one dwells on Paddy's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paddy_Chew) death anniversary much, I think he's more thought of during the Candlelight Memorial in May.

I only remember the August date because this is a difficult month -- both my furboys left me in August, and Paddy's death anniversary is just a week before Schwarz's.

Also, one of the August associations with Paddy is how much he loved the National Day Parades. Every year when National Day comes round, I remember watching his last parade with him in the hospital room where his sister had rigged up a portable TV. He would have loved this year's parade on water at the new Marina Bay location.

It's also apt to remember Paddy now. MediaCorp has a locally filmed biographical series called 'Life Story' which reenacts the lives of local heroes. Judging from the trailers of the new second season (http://ch5.mediacorptv.com/shows/drama/view/1550/1/.html), Paddy's life story is deemed inspiring enough to be told. How nice, that finally the Establishment gives a nod to an Aids activist. And an out gay man at that. Only the MediaCorp site refers to him as an "Aids sufferer", which sounds so passive and well, so unPaddy. And judging from the trailer, the actor who portrays him is completely unPaddy too. I just know Paddy's going to bitch about how it wasn't glam enough.

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?