Spotted dick

... that's what his Daddy calls him. Among other things.

Throttled by red tape

The all-in-one process of changing the address on our identity cards when we moved in 2006 meant that all the government agencies were notified.

So efficient, we had thought. It cuts through the red tape of having to inform several different government agencies of the address change.

Famous last words. *hollow laughs*

In December 2006 and 2007, the notice to renew our TV licence arrived and I duly paid up. But it wasn't until the last payment that I realised that while the notices were sent to our new address, the address on the inside of the actual notice itself -- that is, the house for which the TV licence is paid -- was still the old address.

So last month, L made a few attempts to call the MDA to notify them of the discrepancy in the address. Nobody answered the call (not surprisingly -- doncha know, civil servants never answer the phone on the first ring) and he left a voice mail. Which was not returned (again, not surprisingly). [Just don't start me on how many calls it took to the AVA to clear up the fog over renewing Queeni's licence without having to microchip her.]

Yesterday, someone from the MDA showed up. And he had to pick a moment when I was in the shower -- blind without my glasses on but luckily, not wet yet. We did not pay our TV licence, he accused. But we did. And we could show him the notice that now had a little printout at the bottom from the post office where I paid it, showing the amount paid and when it was paid, and thus serving as a receipt of payment.

So why was he here? He didn't know either because quite clearly, he could see for himself that the licence was paid.

Aha! It must be that discrepancy in the address thing. The licence was paid, but in their records, paid for the old address, not the new. L explained to him that he had called but no one returned the call nor did anything about the problem.

So this guy gave us another number to call to inform them of the change in address. Couldn't he just go back to his office and rectify the problem, now that he could see for himself what it is? No. You must call this number, he insisted. I cannot do anything.

So L called. Again. And again. And finally got through. It took many, many tries and much patience (fast running out) before he could make the person at the other end of the line understand the problem -- that while the notice was sent to the correct mailing address, the old and incorrect address was on the inside of the notice and hence when the licence was paid, it was paid for the incorrect address.

And how was the person at the other end of the phone going to solve this besides blaming it on a "system error"? He didn't really know. But he would issue us a receipt saying that we're good and paid up -- at this new address. How about the payment for 2006? Nobody would check on historical records if the current one is OK, he said. Well, I sure hope he's right about that. L got his name down just in case because if that happened, he's going to call this guy to deal with it than to wade through another series of attempts. And then the devil got into L, and he asked the guy on the phone but what if he left his job? Then who would understand our predicament? I guess that was just one variable too many for Mr Civil Servant to deal with in a phone call.

I cannot believe that at this day and age, with Tivo, Internet TV, on-demand TV, cable and satellite TV, we are tied up in knots over a licence for terrestrial TV.

Chip in

Rupert got microchipped yesterday. He was very exhausted from the whole experience and here he is, looking dopey and sleepy. Queeni is on the high ground -- she must exert her alphadom and was kind enough not to jump him and hump him as she normally does. She sniffed him when he came home from the vet and zeroed straight in on the spot where the chip is and then kindly left him alone.

I hate needles and I hate blood but I don't think I'm being particularly over-reactive when I think that when you're bleeding, you're hurting.

Because shortly after the vet injected the chip, Roop started bleeding. Dr P was clearly expecting it and she cleaned it up deftly.

But nobody told me anything about the blood part. Everybody just tells you that it's painless -- apart from that moment that it's injected -- and that the dog doesn't feel anything afterwards.

I don't think so. If it bleeds afterwards, it's certainly feeling something until that stops and the wound heals. The bleeding went on for quite a few hours, not a lot of it but a slow sort of seep. Still, it's blood being lost.

Mandatory microchipping for newly licensed dogs, when introduced last year, was meant to enforce responsible pet ownership more so than to return lost dogs to their owners. It meant that irresponsible owners who abandoned their pets can be traced.

It also means that some poor dog bleeds just in case you turn out to be an irresponsible shit.

I would rather that microchipping be encouraged, but not made mandatory, so owners can make a decision not to subject their pets to bleeding. Queeni is a case in point. She is sedentary and not likely to run out the door and get lost. She also has had more than her fair share of health issues and I would not subject her to the pain and blood-letting of microchipping after all that she has already been through.

I'm not against microchipping. Or I wouldn't have had Roop microchipped. But now I would like to jab that thick steel microchip applicator into the AVA guy who decided that microchipping be made mandatory and the pet accessories suppliers who make/sell/import the chips and those who blithely say that "the dog won't feel a thing" and defy them to look me in the eye as they bleed and tell me they didn't feel that.

Rupert's thought process. Or lack thereof.

The cleaners are here! I haven't seen them since last week! That's seven whole days! Human days! I have to tell them how much I miss them!

If I can see through the gate, I can go through the gate!

*CLUNK*

His nose went through the gate but the iron grilles stopped the rest of his face from going through.

R, the Malay cleaner, was so concerned, she started petting him and feeling his head, never mind the dogs-are-haram rule.

We think ol' hardhead is OK because his tail never stopped wagging.

Sit and eat

Just before Chinese New Year, a colleague remarked that his Reunion Dinner would be in front of the TV. Oh, the family would gather round and eat, but they would be watching TV as they did so.

During a Chinese New Year visit, a niece brought her book to the table where everyone was sitting round having tea and read as she ate.

Just over the weekend at the Japanese family restaurant we go to, a couple came in with their child, ordered their meal and then turned on a portable DVD player and set it in front of the kid. When his food arrived, Junior ate his meal with his eyes glued onto the screen.

Today, at the next table at the food court, a mother was having lunch with her son and the kid was playing Nintendo as he was eating.

Don't people just sit and eat any more? My mother can't be last bastion of what she called table manners. Which meant no eating in front of the TV, no reading at the table. If you're meant to be eating dinner, you just sat there and ate. Granted, we didn't have Nintendo then.

My grandmother had even more finicky table manners. No elbows on the table, and not even forearms -- and that's difficult if you're using a bowl and chopsticks, you tend to need to rest your forearms on the edge of the table for support. And you had to turn your chopsticks round and use the other end when picking food from the communal plates.

My gran's standards are too high for me. But I do agree with my mum, surely the dinner table is for eating and not watching movies. That's the whole point of this Eat With Your Family worklife balance initiative isn't it? Last year, I remember the 9-to-5 shift was exhorted to go home early to have dinner with their family. Not go watch DVDs/play Nintendo with the family.

Pooped

Nah, not the solid equivalent of Roop's liquid habits. Just Queeni knackered out. She looks like she's had a long, hard day. I just don't know from what.

Aha!

The reason why Roop peed up a storm on his birthday was because his boyo friends in KCMO egged him to do so!

Here we go again

Yesterday, the birthday boyo peed inappropriately three times -- twice on the tiled floor (where clean-up was easy, like that's any better) and once in his crate (where we've learnt the hard way to line a peepad on the crate pad and swaddle the whole thing in a towel).

And this was after a week where the mop stayed unused and we were thinking that there's hope now that he's a big boyo and all.

Turning two must have been very stressful for him.

Birthday boyo

Rupert is two today. Officially, that is. We don't know when his birthday is, just that he was born in February.

Last February, he had only been here a few months and we were going crazy trying to housebreak him, we completely overlooked that he had a birthday. And because he took so long to housetrain (he still isn't completely), we still mentally thought of him as a puppy still.

It wasn't until maybe the middle of the year that I finally looked properly at his papers and realised that we'd missed a birthday and that we had an adult year-old dog. Who still peed indiscriminately like a puppy.

C, who has Colin, Rupert's littermate, decided that Valentine's Day was a good day for their official birthday since they are such sweethearts.

And the sweetheart dogs, of course, are the ones with a terrible vice that a dogowner normally wouldn't tolerate.

Oh well, another excuse for bak kwa in the kibble. Rupert also had a butter roll in lieu of a birthday cake.

Happy birthday, my sweetheart boyo. And get with the peeing programme, you're a big boyo now.

It's good to be home

The furkids always know how to make you better after a long day at work.

The joys of bak kwa

My overseas Singaporean friends who are far away from even a whiff of bak kwa this Chinese New Year will hate me for this post ... and that's why I'm not rubbing salt into the wound by posting pix.

I was trying to describe bak kwa (Wiki does it better than I can in this link) and likened it to smoked bacon, Chinese style.

Which then set off a whole string of thought. Why not use it like bacon then? Bak kwa pieces in a caesar salad. Bak kwa in carbonara sauce with pasta. Bak kwa and scrambled eggs. The possibilities are endless. That was when L looked at me strangely.

And that was when I had a bak kwa sandwich for lunch. It was good

Happy birthday

I was only kidding when I blogged yesterday that the dogs don't need feeding till next week. Not when today, the second day of Chinese New Year, is supposed to be the birthday of all dogs -- the way the seventh day is Yen Yat, the birthday of all mankind (fair's fair, if we get a day, the dogs also get theirs).


So not only did they get fed, they got an extra treat -- slices of bak kwa under their kibble for that surprise find when they reach the bottom of the bowl. Bak kwa, for my gentle overseas reader(s), is barbecued marinated sliced pork. It's available year round but has become a must-have delicacy during Chinese New Year. It's sweetish, savoury and very, very greasy. Which is why the furkids love it.

Gongxi Facai

We're back from making our Chinese New Year visits and we're exhausted. The furkids have collapsed into a heap of fur at my feet. And this was just from visiting two houses -- my parents and my in-laws. I don't know how my friends pack in a whole day of visits.

One grandma plied the furkids with bak kwa. The other doled out cream crackers. Between them and the round bellies, I don't think I need to feed the dogs till maybe next week.

All these years living with dogs and I never knew

Spotted in Wikipedia by a friend who duly alerted me:
"On the second day (of Chinese New Year), the Chinese pray to their ancestors as well as to all the gods. They are extra kind to dogs and feed them well as it is believed that the second day is the birthday of all dogs."

That's a lot of missed birthdays! Queeni and Rupert now have a not-to-be-refused reason for bak kwa.

Sychronicity

The difference between The Police in concert last century and The Police Reunion tour this century is that last time, when they launched into Roxanne, Every Breath You Take and all their standard bearers, or when Sting rushed the stage towards where you were, it would be lighted by the pin-prick glow of hundreds of cigarette lighters. Now, it was illuminated by the pin-prick glow of hundreds of LCD screens of digicams. Seriously, I think a significant number of the 10,000 strong audience saw the concert through their digicams/cellphone cameras.

The most fun part of the concert was actually even before The Police came on stage. The support band had left, saying that they "had more fun here than in Australia" (gosh, wonder why), and the roadies were dismantling their kit and setting up Stewart Copeland's and the music in the background -- David Bowie, Fine Young Cannibals -- was played at a low, barely discernible volume. They turned up the volume for the last song before The Police came on -- to Bob Marley's "Stand up, stand up, stand up for your rights". All the ang mohs in the audience rose up. All the Singaporeans had their butts firmly planted down. Yup, Sting had obviously played in Singapore before.

Snack attack

Ooh, Mummy has cookies! *glint in eye*

Mummy hasn't got any more cookies. Mummy polished that batch of cheese biscuits (well, they were meant to be cheese straws but I used a cookie cutter so they aren't the usual stick-like things but little heart shaped cookies). Silly Mummy actually thought that any cookies made a week before Chinese New Year will stay in the jar till then. So it looks like Mummy will have to rustle up some quick sugar cookies real fast before Chinese New Year.

Groundhog Day

It's grey and wet today and if there were groundhogs in Singapore, they'd be telling us that we're still in for 6 weeks of monsoon. Groan.

Enjoying the view

It was very windy yesterday so we threw open the windows to enjoy the cool breeze wafting through the house. Which meant that the furkids' windowTV was further enhanced by Sensaround, Soundaround and most importantly, Smellaround.

Today, however, is a different story. The windows are tightly shut against a raging thunderstorm outside and HRH is back to quaking. Poor thing.

All good things come to those who wait

It's even better when you're the one being waited for. For the past nights and most of the past week, I would get an SMS on my mobile from L as I was on the way home, asking if I was close to home because Rupert was sitting, waiting by the door. Some nights, he would be pacing, almost anxiously, at the door.

Each time those SMS on what Roop was doing came, I was usually just about five minutes away. I don't know how Roop does it, must be some internal radar or something. Maybe that's his hidden autistic talent. You know how some autistic people can't function socially but have some talent that they do marvellously well in? That's Roop. The part of his brain about not peeing in the house still has not kicked in fully but the part that tells him Mummy is on her way home is well developed.

All my dogs have always given me an uproarious welcome the minute I step in through the door. That's a really grand feeling. Schwarz the pug would sometimes sit by the door after I've left the house. What I've never had was a dog which somehow knew when I was close to home and sat by the door waiting in anticipation. How does he know?

Another mouth to feed

We've seen Mama Cat hanging about the garbage dump the past couple of nights so we've been feeding her.

Yesterday, L, the determinedly non-cat person, put down cat food on the grocery list. So here we are, buying cat food when we don't have cats in house but two dogs. I thought it was hilarious. He just doesn't want me to remind him about it.

A new neighbour

It was Rupert's barking that alerted us to the stray cat that hangs around downstairs from time to time. This time, she was climbing laboriously up the tree outside our window with a kitten her mouth. Until then, I didn't even know she had a kitten.

Kitty stayed in the branches of the tree, good as gold, well-hidden by the leaves. L took a picture, but there was only so far the lens could zoom. And I didn't want to go downstairs to take a photo, I didn't want to scare her. Or annoy Mama Cat. The tree was right next to Roop's prefered peeing spot so he had to sacrifice that too.

Later in the evening, another round of barking from Roop brought L to the window. This time, he saw that Kitty had gotten down onto the ground and was hiding in the bushes and there was a group of boys trying to swipe at her with their toys. One of them had a water pistol and was shooting at her. He recognised the boy as part of the bicycle gang that tried to chase Queeni.

Off he went to give them a piece of his mind. The neighbour downstairs, outside whose window all this was happening, also went out and soundly rounded off in Mandarin what L started off in English.

So he thought that they got the message loud and clear. A little while later, they were back. He yelled at them from the window and they answered that it wasn't the kitten this time, it was snails that they were after this time. Like that was any better. L was horrified to see that they were having fun by stamping on snails and crushing their shells.

What's it with little boys and snails and puppy dog tails?

Spring is sprung

The tree outside the window is in full bloom. Hope this means that thunderstorm season is over. Queeni hopes so too.

Thoughtful design

Not surprisingly, one of the two new soft toys had to be sewn up after three days of Rupert's teeth.

Only this time, I didn't have to worry about him swallowing the squeaker -- instead of being stuffed into the toy's body, this one was sewn up within a little cloth bag, like a tea bag, and one end of that was anchored by being sewn into a seam on the toy.

Now that's a well-designed dog toy with the owner's sanity in mind. And that's why I'm paying a bit more for the expensive Japanese toys from now on.

Oh yeah, it was after the toy surgery that I realised I didn't take a photo. There'll be lots of follow-up procedures later on, I'm sure, thanks to Roop.

How do u spal dis?

N dis is y 'chers always cumplain dat studens now cant spal

Witch hunt

So I'm googling for toxic pet toys to find out more and I come across this consumer report which says that a ceramic pet food bowl was analysed and was found to have more than five times the permissible benchmark of lead in the paint on the bottom of the bowl.

And who doesn't have a dog that doesn't lick his dish so clean you don't even have to wash it?

I am going on a witch hunt. Long ago, I threw out the made in China chicken jerky for the dogs. Yesterday, it was the toys. Now, I'm throwing out the utensils -- both dog and human. If dog toys aren't regulated, who's gonna regulate the paint on my pretty chopsticks?

Out went the cheery bowl. The colour (paint?) from the placemat faded, leached, I think, long ago and it was thrown out very early on. That's why I don't have faith in the bowl meeting standards. I have no confidence in China-made goods, least of all the cheap ones and this bowl was like 50 cents or $1 -- something ridiculously cheap.

Now the furkids are eating out of Pyrex bowls.

Toxic toys

A friend of mine forwarded me an e-newsletter which said that following the recall of made-in-China children's toys with lead content, tests were conducted in the US on pet toys and many were also found to have toxic lead content. The brightly coloured latex toys are the chief culprits.

Well, Rupe has a few of these brightly coloured squeaky bouncy toys. I didn't have their labels any longer so I went to the pet shop to check. All were made in China. My heart sank. He not only loves carrying them and shaking them, he also likes chewing on them.

They have since been removed and I went crazy trying to find him subsitutes -- I couldn't find anything that wasn't made in China! Finally, I settled for a couple of Japanese made soft toys. They at least squeaked but they don't bounce.

When I was at the cashier paying for them, the woman behind me was going to buy exactly the same ball that I threw out. L told her what we did, and explained about the possibly of toxicity in China-made toys. Her eyes widened as she thanked him. Behind her, a couple who were chosing toys must have overheard because he heard them muttering: "This one, cannot. It's made in China." "Alamak, this one too."

Poor Rupert. He doesn't have any more squeaky toys nor bouncy balls now. But I think I was more upset to remove his toys than he was. And I'm cross with myself. If the pet food was tainted and the toys for children were toxic, I should have realised about the possibility of pet toys too.

Sharing space

Help, there's a baldy daddy on my pillow.

Locked out

If you like the heat (and the smells, and the bits of dropped ingredients), you should also get out of the kitchen.

It sleeps two

HRH has annexed Rupert's new crate.

Not salacious enough to be controversial?

Now that the Bioethics Advisory Committee has called for public feedback on the issue of using human-animal combinations for research, I expected all the Religiously Righteous, fresh from their victory over retaining Section 377a, to launch into another frenzy.

To my surprise, there was hardly a peep. Not much on the online forum at the REACH site, nothing from the Religiously Righteous anyway, and certainly no call to march Joshua-round-Jericho-like around the site of the public forum to be held on Jan 19 like what they did at the civic district when Section 377a was being debated. I googgled a bit and there also wasn't much discussion on blogs or other online forums. What happened to those people who were so easily offended that they wrote to TNP to complain that condom ads on a bus stop near a school are a bad influence? (And I thought using condoms was supposed to be a good safe sex practice.)

I thought human-animal chimeras would be more fodder for controversy in religious and moral terms. That it held more implications and had more chances of spawning Satan's Own than two consenting same-sex adults.

And if you really think about it, biological chimeras are actually among us today. Technically, they include people who have received blood transfusions or organ transplants. But I haven't heard any objections to that on religious grounds.

I guess there's no outcry because there's no sex involved.

Playing soldiers

L found his NS helmet. Don't you feel really safe now that you know the country is being protected by an army of citizen soldiers with Rasta hair?

Where's the fire?

L had an eventful day at home with the furkids yesterday when I was at work. He heard sirens and looked downstairs to find one Rhino (it's an open vehicle with a mounted water hose, smaller and more manoeuverable than a fire engine but without the ladders and other equipment), two fire engines and one ambulance pulling up.

The former crime reporter in him leapt to the rule-of-thumb action: one Rhino, watch and see what's going on; anything more than two engines, get out fast.

So he harnessed and leashed the dogs and as a quick afterthought, slipped the tupperware of dog treats in his pocket -- because they could be out of the house for a few hours, if not all night, he reasoned.

His second thought when they were downstairs, watching and waiting: he forgot their water bowls. What if they got thirsty during the wait?

Our passports, bank books, money, and all other important stuff were his third thought.

There's dog parents and their priorities for you.

And nothing happened. All the emergency vehicles drove off. But the firemen came over to pat the dogs first.

Queeni was not impressed. But Rupert wants to be a firetruck Dalmatian when he grows up.

Writing

The last few entries were first written with pencil and paper as I was sitting up in bed, and then uploaded onto the blog the next day, with the typing also serving as an editing process. I started to do this because I was too tired and lazy to fire up the computer after having spent 8 hours working on another computer.

One night, L asked me what I was doing. He shook his head after I explained. Only, me, he said, adding that he couldn't write without a keyboard. Only me apparently also meant using wooden pencils -- the type you have to sharpen -- and fountain pens -- the type you have to fill with ink.

I can't write properly with a ball-point, it feels scratchy and makes my handwriting deteriorate. I like the feel of pencil lead on paper, the glide of ink from a fountain pen onto paper, a sort of "proper writing" feeling. And I enjoy the process of unscrewing a bottle of ink, dismantling the bits of a fountain pen to fill it. And when I sharpen a pencil, the smell of the shavings hint at more to follow, like how when you peel an orange, the whift of zest is a preliminary indication of more intense pleasures to follow. Call it writing foreplay.

Typing on a keyboard is fast and efficient, there's no denying that. But writing on paper means that I have to organise my thoughts before I set them down. There is no quick cut and paste option. And it makes me think twice about spelling and not get lazy with the spellcheck underlining my suspect spellings. And if I make a mistake, I just have to cross things out and rewrite that bit again. Having to put in that little extra bit effort makes writing feel more of a craft.

I've just realised, as I cross out bits here and add bits there, that I've forgotten most of the proofreading symbols I used to know. All that's dead. Like hot metal press. And Latin.

And one day, possibly pencils and fountain pens. God forbid.

Back to the grind

I had worked New Year's Eve and New Year's Day but it didn't feel like a hardship since the workflow went smoothly (everyone was eager to get things finished, and go off and party). Then I had two days off on medical, went back to work for a day, followed by a long three-day weekend.

Which meant it wasn't really a full week for me last week. So my work year really started yesterday. And going back to work became a drag. The revelling is all over now. Another full year of work ahead. Groan.

(Normally, I would cheer myself up and say there's always Chinese New Year to look forward to next month. But this year, I'm wondering how to handle that festival, with all its food associations, now with Dad and his feeding tube and all.)

Minutes after I left the house, L called me on my cellphone. Rupert had started to whine as soon as I shut the door and and left -- something he's never done before. He was easily placated by a squeaky toy, L added. But for me, it only made the train ride to work longer and harder as it took me towards the office and away from the furkids.


When I got home, Rupert lay down on my bag which I had left on the floor. Like it'll stop me from going to work tomorrow. If only.

At home with Rupert

I truly was not making disparaging comments about Rupert's brain, or lack thereof, in the previous post. Here, you judge for yourself.

His big new crate opens at one end, along the breadth. It's like a door in a rat cage, you lift it to slide it open. And then you can wiggle it a bit so that it sticks out at an angle so that it remains wedged open, instead of sliding down shut.

It's always open so Roop can go in for a nap whenever he wants to. The idea is that the crate is his personal space. So anyway, when the crate arrived, there was not a lot of room for it. If we placed it with the door on the right, it would stick right into a candlestand next to it. If we placed it with the door on the left, it would stick in the way of opening the front door wide.

No choice. Better to open the front door carefully than to have the crate door burnt by candles. And once the Christmas tree was taken down, we could rearrange the end tables and candlestand to make room for the crate.

That was done on Sunday. That was when the crate was turned round, with the opening on the right, instead of the left. On Monday morning, Rupert decided to go into his crate for a nap. He went to its right side -- where the door was invitingly open -- paused, and considered. Then he went to its left side -- where the door used to be -- and started banging his head against a side of wire. He had always gone in that side, and by golly, he will go in by that side, even if it means trying to walk through wire.

It took a few tries before a smidgeon of a thought took root -- that maybe, just maybe, he would go in from the right side -- where the door is.

There's Roop for you. A dog of Very Little Brain. A lot of heart maybe, affection and devotion clad in fur even, but very little brain.

Rupert and the frog

Rupert had L on the other end of the leash when they encountered a frog on the foot path after a rainy day. Something stirred in the depths of the terrier's murky brain, telling him that this thing was an animal and that some sort of reaction was required. But the brain, its existence already much questioned and hotly debated, stopped short of telling him what to do.

So he looked up at L, who did nothing -- he wanted to see what Roop would do. Which was to stand and stare. And stare.

So there they were, the terrier and the frog, eyeballing each other curiously. Roop held one paw up. It is his one and only trick and he probably reasoned that if offering to shake paw got you somewhere with humans, it may also do something with frogs. Then HRH, unleashed a few yards away, noticed his stance, knew that something was up and saw the frog for herself. The prey instinct that was non-existent in the terrier kicked in in the schnauzer and she came bearing down on the frog and had to be scooped up off the ground.

When it was time to go home, back up the same path, the frog was still there. Again, Roop stood and stared, this time at the back of the frog. If only L had the camera with him, he could have taken a whole series: Terrier and frog (front view); terrier and frog (back view).

Queeni trees a cat

HRH walks off leash most of the time. It is something that we tried at our old flat because her palatial grounds there was a rectangle of grass bordered by footpaths and it was easy to train her not to stray beyond those boundaries.

When we moved to this flat -- chosen mostly because of the expanse of greenery that it looked down to -- the palatial grounds somewhat increased and didn't have easily demarcated borders.

That was when she started testing her off-leash limits. She knew the off-leash route but the stubborn Schnauzer would every now and then try to go off course, playing one sucker parent against the other, depending on who was walking her. "Daddy lets me go there," I could see her thought bubble when she cocked her head at me as I called her back.

Then, last year, when we were in the fright of the mast cell tumour episode, all rules were lifted. We didn't know at first what she would lose with the tumour removal -- a toe, a paw or even a whole leg. She may never run again, so what the hell, we let her run where she pleased.

And when all that was over, and she was finally able to set the bum paw minus one toe on ground and run again, she continued to be given free rein. Because well, she could run.

By now, L never takes her leash along when he walks her. On the other hand, I'm the worrier. I leash her when I go downstairs with her and I unleash her only when I see that there are no children around and when the snappy Japanese Spitz that also walks off leash isn't out at the same time as we are.

All that is a long way to get to the title of this post. The other night, we took the dogs out for their final pee pretty late, at about 1am. Queeni was unleashed and had gone ahead down the stairs -- she never waits for L as he locks the door. And I'm the rear of the entourage with the beta terrier on leash.

By the time we got to the field, we were just in time to see Queeni streak after a cat. The only thing that stopped her was that the cat fled up a tree, with a yowl and a screech. Smart cat. Because if it didn't do that, it would have gone on running to god knows where, with Queeni hot on her heels. That was one close lost-dog call.

Which is yet another long way to say that it's back to the leash for HRH. Or at least until her entourage and security detail ensure that there are no interlopers lurking around the palatial grounds. Then, she gets to go off leash. Sucker Daddy says so. And Worrier Mummy was right.

(Of course I have the last word. This is my blog.)

His and hers

Ya gots yer bone-bolster, ah gots mine.

They both feel asleep chewing their bones on either side of me. I regularly feel like I've got a set of furry book ends.

Birthday girl

Queeni is seven today. Like the Queen of England, she has two birthdays -- the actual one which nobody knows when it is, and the official one. Because Queeni was adopted, I never knew her actual birthday. She had papers, but C didn't manage to get them from the guy who gave her up. So her birthday became the day I took her home from C's house. Anyway, the day of your homecoming makes a nice birthday.

I still remember that day. M had gone with me as driver. C was already back in Tokyo, so only R was at home. We rang the doorbell. Nothing. No barking, no stirring. M called R on his mobile. He had overslept, and struggled to the door minutes later. There was still silence when he opened the door, you would not have guessed that there was a dog in the house. Two dogs, actually, he was babysitting Daiya the MinPin, who has since returned to Japan with her people. I wonder if Queeni still remembers her playmate.

When we took Queeni home, she was the quietest dog I've ever come across. I even wondered if she could bark. It took her a while to find her voice, and now, she rules the roost. No doorbell, no footstep outside the door goes unchallenged.

Queeni is the first dog that I'm seeing grow from puppyhood into middle age. Schwarz was already a senior when he moved in. Spock did not live beyond four.

One dog year being seven human years, Queeni has in one birthday leapt from my age to L's, now joining him at the late-40s. With middle age, her behaviour has changed. She is grumpier and growls more, even at us when we shift her when she's taking up too much space on our bed, well, what she thinks is her bed. A far cry from that quiet, eager to please little dark puppy (she was more black then than salt-and-pepper). It surfaces only when she is corrected, and then she needs reaffirmation that she is still loved.

Typical royal.

Long live the Queen.

On the 9th day of Christmas

... I finally made cookies.

Note to self: when being smart alecky and switching ingredients (molasses for golden syrup because nobody seems to sell the latter anymore), do not expect cookies to come out the right rolling consistency.

But when adding extra ingredients (cinnamon and nutmeg) to ginger cookies, do expect the kitchen to smell wonderful.

Deciphering politicalspeak

"We can more to make public transport a choice mode of travel... In parallel, we need to update our policies on car ownership and usage... We need to enhance the ERP and extend its coverage so that driving costs significantly more, but we will balance that with lower vehicle ownership taxes."

What's that supposed to mean? Please buy a car but please don't drive it?

Auld lang syne and all that

New Year's Day was a normal work day for me but I was done early and got home way earlier than usual. The TV was rubbish so we put on the DVD that came with the Led Zep CD. So I guess you could say the year started on a somewhat retro note.

It still amazes me that all that music, all that energy was created by just four men on stage. No costumes, no backup singers, dancers, definitely no professional choreographer, and no multimedia streams. Let's see you top that, Madonna.

Maybe that's what's lacking in music today -- the side shows have got in the way of the real stuff. U2 started with just four guys, no frills and solid music. Only now, they seem to have acquired the multimedia backdrop in their concerts.

The Police are even better, L pointed out, they're only three guys . Then tell me why, when it's just three guys and no extra trimmings, a ticket to their concert here in February costs $500?

Those were the days when once a band member died, the band died with him because the band simply wasn't a band any more without him. There is no Led Zeppelin without John Bonham, no Queen without Freddie Mercury.

Now, the search for a replacement becomes a reality TV show. And this is an INXS fan moaning.

Such middle-aged thoughts on New Year's Day.
I grow old, I grow old. I shall wear the bottom of my trousers rolled.

One year older

Last year, the New Year crept up on us when we were walking the dogs. I remember that we didn't even realise that it was midnight until we heard the countdown cries wafting down from the windows. And now, having reread that post from a year ago, I realise that things haven't changed. Roop is still a poophead, not to be trusted in the house (not for more than a couple of hours anyway) and now, we can't blame it on him being a puppy any longer.

Not that it wasn't nice seeing the New Year in while walking the furkids, but we planned it a little better this year. I worked yesterday on the eve, but it was extra early hours (I won't go into how I managed to get up and be in the office at a time that was 3 hours before my usual wake-up time), then met L for dinner and we were home by early evening. When it turned 11pm, we walked the furkids, then we came back up and turned the TV on to the channel that was screening the countdown. Is it some protocol or something, that the first Singapore Idol and the current one (although they keep dropping the Singapore Idol title for Asian Idol now that he's won it) cannot be on the same stage together?

And at one minute past midnight, it was all over (for me, that is) and I was quite glad to sip the cup of ginger tea that I had steeping since last year (heh) and finally go to bed.

Happy New Year, everyone.

Big deal

The last time I wrote about Rupert's spacious new crate, I mentioned how he had gone in voluntarily for naps. Well, he's also taken to bringing his toys into the crate.

And then, to Queeni's bewilderment, he went on to bring her toys in there as well.

So much so that HRH couldn't stand it anymore. She too had to go in, and take a nap there, just to see what the big deal was all about. And it sure is big for a little Schnauzer.

Waking up the dead

When a work crew started setting up a sound system, speakers and keyboards at the multi-purpose hall at the corner of our block earlier this week, I thought it was for some sort of Christmas party. After all, the kindergarten two blocks away uses it as a venue for their concerts.

When I was at work, L reported hearing strains of Abba, Cyndi Lauper and the Bee Gees wafting up to our windows -- all in dialect though. You haven't lived till you've heard Saturday Night Fever in dialect, he would like you to know.

So I thought maybe the senior citizens group was having some Christmas/New Year thingy going on. But the next night, the music continued, L reported with some surprise when I was at work. This time, he noticed something odd. Everyone attending was dressed in black and white. If it wasn't a themed singalong, it was a funeral. But that didn't explain the Bee Gees. In dialect or otherwise.

So today, under the guise of taking the dog for a long walk, I went and kaypohed. It was a funeral. Had to be. There was a coffin. And wreaths. And a multi-media display on a screen that flashed old black-and-white pictures of who was presumably the deceased as a child, and at different stages of his life -- the sort of thing that you usually see at weddings, not funerals.

Well, it's one heck of a send-off. Especially with the Bee Gees. In dialect.

And he's half my gene pool

The junior nurse was starting to panic.

She couldn't rouse my Dad. He was sitting up with his eyes shut, as if he was sleeping. He wouldn't respond to her calls, nor to her shaking him by the arm.

Mum was wise to his ways. She calmly told the nurse to take his vital signs -- pulse rate, blood pressure, oxygen level, temperature was all good.

He had done this before. Unused to not having his way, he retreated into a major sulk and pretended basically, to play dead.

The first time he did that, she went into a panic. Now, at the third time, she was an old hand.

But it freaked the junior nurse out, not surprisingly, and she had to fetch the staff nurse. Who was just as experienced as Mum.

"Uncle, would you like an ice cube?" she wheedled.

Immediately, his eyes flew open.

I love my Dad and feel for him, for all that he is going through, all the frustration, all the helplessness. But he is still a blooming butthole.

Christmas spoils

I wasn't kidding when mentally drained (from fathers, feeding tubes and hospitals) and short on shopping time (also from fathers and hospitals), I said I was getting L underwear this Christmas. But at least they are kinda snazzy in a funny way. And aptly labelled 'Private Structure'.

And the shoes are mine. Like all the shoes in the house. :)

Peace on earth

... can be easily achieved with turkey and rice Nylabone Digestibles. Come to think of it, the furkids are the only ones having turkey this Christmas.

They also got squeaky toys -- a furry hedgehog for HRH who prefers soft toys and an orange ball for Rupert who likes bouncy chaseable things. But they both wanted the other one's toy. Furkids.

Merry Christmas!

Fleas navidog.

Ho ho ho

Santa fires Rudolf! And it's all Vivi's fault!

Is it Christmas yet?

Wake us up for Christmas.

I think I'll join them for a nap. I meant to bake gingerbread cookies yesterday. I even bought ground ginger for it at the supermarket. But I forgot the golden syrup. Last night, I even went through my recipe books in search of a cookie recipe that I could make with what I have. But I'm lacking one thing, either the syrup or shortening or molasses. Looks like there'll be no cookies then because I'm not about to fight my way through the supermarket in the last weekend before Christmas.

Three's still a crowd

But at least now we're making room for Daddy.

Reason #4590 why Queeni doesn't like children

We were walking the furkids this morning and HRH, as always, was off leash and had trotted on ahead. There was a group of young boys on their bicycles, and they saw her but not the rest of her entourage and decided to "Let's chase the dog!" and started to make pretend-revving motions on their handlebars.

That was when L stepped up from round the corner and snarled: "Just you try!" Whereupon the bike pack turned round and pedalled off.

And who could blame HRH for not liking children?

Quality of life

Some years ago, when I heard about Living Wills and Advanced Medical Directives, I thought they were a pretty good idea. While you are of sane mind and full capacity, you basically sign a Do Not Resuscitate order that lets your family pull the plug without any guilt on their part.

But now I realise, there's a big component missing that the AMDs do not cover. They all presuppose that you're plugged in.

How much quality of life do you have when you cannot eat nor drink, cannot move about without assistance and cannot hear or see much.

When my old pug reached that stage, I knew that I had to have that little talk with the vet. The day that he couldn't eat was the day we had that talk.

When Dad gradually lost his hearing and his sight, he didn't care that he couldn't watch much television -- he said he wasn't missing much because even before that, he only watched sports because he didn't have to follow a conversation or a plot. By then, he couldn't read for more than a 5-minute stretch. But he delighted in his food. But now, even that is denied him. Worse, it is horrible to deny water to a thirsty person.

While I'm not saying that I am about to put anybody down, it's just so much harder with a person. More strings, more what-ifs, more baggage. I used to think that making the decision to put down a dog was the hardest thing to do. Now, it seems like that was the most straightforward decision. Beats sitting around powerless to do anything to help.

No turkey this Christmas

Why are holidays and family gatherings all about food? Now that Dad has a feeding tube and cannot eat, and is spending Christmas in hospital, I have no idea how to do Christmas for him.

It's not the first time he's had to spend Christmas in hospital. Two years ago, he was in the same step-down care facility after his coronary bypass. Then, we had a picnic in his room and he was delighted by a slice of turkey and stuffing the hospital provided and the Christmas cake we bought.


This year, Christmas food is going to be out of the picture. Luckily, there are always presents. I found a gift towel that's packaged in a wedge shape and decorated to look like a slice of cake, complete with faux icing and soap chocolate-drizzled kumquat. I hope Dad hasn't lost his sense of humour even though he's been quite grumpy the past week.

It's Chinese New Year that I don't want to think about, when Reunion Dinner is the whole point of Chinese New Year's Eve.

Penthouse suite

Rupert's had a crate upgrade, thanks to my colleague. She was going to sell it at a garage sale but decided to give it to me when I asked about it. Roop has grown so tall now that when he stands up in his old crate, his tail sticks out through the top.

It took Roop a night to figure out how to get into the new crate because the door isn't where it is with the old one. But now he loves his roomy new crate. He placed his favourite toys in it and then went in to take a nap -- and now with the luxury of space, can even do his turning round thing before lying down. And stretching out.

Good thing he's comfortable -- jail time for PoopHead might as well be pleasant.

Contemplation

HRH ponders over what's going to fill her stocking -- hanging over the windows (in lieu of a fireplace in these tropical parts) in the background -- I bet she can smell the Nylabone Chewables through their packaging.

Roop the Poop doesn't need to think so hard -- besides, he hasn't much grey matter to work with -- he's getting a lump of coal.

Bah, humbug (again)

This poster was in the window of one of the shops in the suburban mall down the road. It made me feel all Scrooge and Grinch-like and immediately removed all the desire to do my Christmas shopping because it implied (to me, at least) that Christmas joy must come in gift-wrapped packages and that I'd be a horrible unseasonably mean-spirited person if I didn't go buy! buy! buy! lavish presents.

Will L be joyful with carefully chosen socks and undies?

Have I truly gone to the dogs?

A friend sent me this link to an NYT article, with his comment, "An interesting tributary of anthropology" -- Who Invited the Dog?

I have not decided whether I'm to be lumped with the extreme cases of owners who take their dogs everywhere, to the detriment of others. The last time I met this friend, the dog (there was only one then) didn't come because I was buying him dinner at a posh hotel buffet and I'm sure that I didn't insist on going somewhere dog-friendly just so the furkid could tag along.

But when it comes to family stuff, then it's different. They expect the dogs to come along. Because the dogs are family. To the extent that my mother no longer gives me my favourite chocolate cake for my birthday -- because then the dogs can't partake.

And I'm guilty, like the catowner in the NYT article, of wiping my dogs after they do a "stinky bom bom", as he calls it. And why is that over the top? You wipe your own ass when you've been to the loo, don't you?

'Twas the week before Christmas

The cards have been sent. The stockings have been hung up. The tree has been up and decorated for weeks already. We've even switched to Christmas Tea -- scented with orange, cinnamon and clove.

But I'm starting to panic. I have not done any Christmas shopping. I just haven't had the time. Dressing the tree and writing cards you can at least do at 3am and unwinding after a night's work. But shopping, you need to do that during the hours that the rest of the world functions.

Oh wait, I have got some Christmas shopping done -- for the furkids and their cousins. L is pretend-hurt by my priorities. Looks like he'll be getting socks and underwear.

Instant karma

L was very taken in by this Christmas offer at a Converse shop. I think he's excited by the thought that wearing Chuckies immediately puts you on a road to salvation.

Dead Cat Bounce meets Downward Dog

... that just came into my head during yoga class and I had to suppress the giggles. We've just started the second season of the yoga class at the office gym and this time round, there weren't enough takers because a lot of people are going on leave at this time of the year. So the women's class and men's class have been merged into one, and now my class is full of business editors. And also the editor of Singapore's biggest daily. Yes, that one. Intimidating.

World wide food

It strikes me as somewhat ironical that just as consumers are becoming environmentally aware and buying local so that their food doesn't have a giant carbon footprint, a big-time supermarket here is running TV ads that feature animated imported food brands dancing to the song "you've got the whole wide world in your hands".

Cat walk

So where's the one for the dogs?

Paging George Bernard Shaw. Will Mr Shaw please call 999.

Another shaky picture taken with the cellphone -- and thus proving that taking pictures should best be left to cameras.

It's a sign on the train platform telling you how long it will be till the next train. The letters in white at the bottom say: " - George Bernard Shaw - Seen anything suspicious? Inform us or call 999."

Does this mean that GB Shaw has been directed to call the police? Or is GB Shaw suspicious?

Actually, it was the tail-end of the quote for the day (imagine, someone's hired to type in an inspirational quote everyday). It never fits into one line at the bottom of the screen so the quote gets spread across different flashes of the screen, and the attribution just got on the same line as the usual Beware of Terrorists kicker.

Poor Mr Shaw. Things still happen to him when he's long gone.

Sports edition today

All right, sports fans, here's a poser for you: How can a football team that has scored four goals still lose the match when its opponent scores just one goal? Answer: When two of those goals are own goals.

And that's how Singapore beat Vietnam in the SEA Games football match. It's almost embarrassing how the commentators went on and on about the Singapore win when actually the Vietnamese did all the work for them.

Just as in the Asian Games and the Commonwealth Games, Team Singapore is mostly Team Imported From China And Now Naturalised. At least with the South-East Asian Games, you're not going to have the irony of a final that's flying two flags but is really China vs China. The only irony now are the morale-raising trailers on TV sponsored by the Singapore Sports Council -- which feature the racially correct component of Indian, Malay and obviously local-born Chinese athletes (it's quite politically correct too, one of the athlete is disabled). But where are the now-Singaporean China-born ping pong players and the angmoh footballers in Team Singapore?

In other sports developments, L was watching the Lexus Cup golf tournament and raised another interesting question: Why is Australia in Team International and not Team Asia?

Kevin Rudd must be begging to fix that one and must already have an answer. In Mandarin, no less.

I got tagged!

... by Funny the World to do this meme on behalf of Queeni and Rupert.

Queeni and Rupert's top 7 annoyances:

1. Queeni is annoyed by people -- walking down the staircase, on the
common corridor directly outside our flat, outside our window.
2. Queeni is annoyed by children -- running, screaming, anything as long as they are small people.
3. Queeni is annoyed by the neighbours coming home -- even if it's their home, the corridor outside is hers.
4. Queeni is annoyed by plain kibble -- she expects a little garnishing, some meat or liver slivers. She has barely accepted mixed veg because I'm cutting down her protein intake.
5. Queeni is annoyed by L cuddling her in bed when she wants to lie in the aircon draft.
6. Queeni is annoyed by grooming -- brushing her coat and teeth.
7. Queeni is annoyed by Rupert -- when he's shaking her favouritestuffed toy; when he's stretched out in the middle of the bed; when he's on my lap; when L is giving him attention. She's plain annoyed by Rupert's existence.

Rupert is never annoyed. He gets excited, hyped up, even. But happily so. He's the sweetest dog I've ever had.

And I'm tagging:
Vivi -- she's sure to have a lot to say!
Milly's Muse
Compaumeri
The Cat's Whiskers -- nobody said it had to be a dog thing.

Chin up

I'd forgotten all about this picture that I took on my cellphone. It's shaky because it was taken on the bus. It's a sign sponsored by the Civil Defence and hangs on the handrail of the bus at eye level and says: "Chin ups keep you fit for IPPT".

Like it's to make you feel better when you're swaying and keeping your balance as the driver does his Evel Knievel tribute. So all you National Servicemen packed in the buses and hanging on to the handrails as the bus takes a sharp corner, it's all for a good cause.

There's another sign at the exit: "Stand up for Singapore". Actually, I'd rather sit.

Getting neighbourly

When we got the keys to our flat more than a year ago, we found stalactites growing from the ceiling of the kitchen bathroom, which meant that the neighbour upstairs had a leak problem with his bathroom floor.

Which meant that our first introduction to him was to tell him that he had to get his floor fixed. We wondered how that bode for neighbourly relations. And we hadn't even moved in yet.

Actually, it wasn't so bad. It helped that he has a papillion and that we have a schnauzer and later on, also a fox terrier. Even if his papillion humps our terrier that's three time his size.

And now, more than a year later, we got invited to lunch today, to celebrate his newborn son's first month.

Oh, we bitched about HDB workmanship over lunch. Now that's being neighbourly.

Ready for Christmas

The stockings are hanging in anticipation. Rupert kept jumping up and nipping at them and had to be swatted. He was shocked, then sorry. That Dog. If he doesn't watch it, he'll get a lump of coal in his stocking.

Getting cheesey

Is it just me, or don't you think that "fresh" and "aged" is a bit of an oxymoron?

Musical notes

Someone on my dog e-list ventured off topic to post about Raising Sand, the new CD from Robert Plant and Alison Krauss and how good it was. If she didn't do that, I may possibly have missed a good thing. Krauss is a blue grass singer and that's not something I usually listen to, so if I hadn't known, I would have skipped this CD altogether. Although I may probably pick it up because of Plant, the Led Zeppelin vocalist.

When I got it at the CD shop, I noticed that there was a new Best of Led Zep compilation, Mothership. So I got that as well. Now I'm truly stuck in the music of my misspent youth.

It's very interesting listening to the two CDs, one after the other. It is like watching (hmm, well, hearing) a musician evolve. Although the Plant in Mothership would've probably downed another double JD and asked you what you were smoking if you had told him that many, many moons later, he would be collaborating on something like Raising Sand. But I guess, like Brian May and his PhD in astrophysics, this just shows that he has earned the right to wear his hair long and curly, and his jeans tight.

Unbearably cute

Sometimes, I dunno if I have a dog or a teddy bear.

Queen rocks!

Brian May, the lead guitarist from rock band Queen has just completed a doctorate in astrophysics and has been named as the next chancellor to Liverpool John Moores University.

Which goes to show that it is not a bad thing to play guitar, drink Jack Daniels, get tattooed, mousse your hair into big curls and wear tight jeans.

Definitely not time misspent. I should've done that instead of reading Beowulf.

Monster movie

Beowulf is either here or coming soon, judging from the trailers on TV. And also judging from those, I was quite amused to see that Angelina Jolie is being used to sell the movie even though her character doesn't have a name.

And I'm not going to watch it. As much as I like Neil Gaiman (who co-wrote the screenplay), I'm not going to sit through an Anglo-Saxon epic poem. I'm still thanking my lucky stars that Beowulf, in all its original Old English glory, was dropped from the curriculum the year I started uni, because it was too tough for the students and everyone was failing it.

The Scandinavian heroes and monsters, a lot of fighting and even more funerals just don't appeal to me. Not even Angelina
Jolie wearing nothing, even if that was just FX. Grendel's Mother is not exactly the Wife of Bath. Even if she is speaking modern English.

Busy weekend

The bedlinen has been changed and the dogs have been bathed.

It's so nice to slip into fresh, crisp sheets. Unfortunately, Rupert doesn't seem to think so. He bounded happily onto the bed when he knew we were turning in for the night, but appeared uneasy by the lack of smells on the bed. He turned around and around and couldn't settle until we were all in bed.

I'm sure the bedding and the freshly bathed dogs will smell doggy in no time.

Not made in China

This is a cotton placemat. The label says Made In India. All very believable of course, since it's rough Indian weave cotton.

But the bilingual bit in Chinese characters on the label threw me off. Funny, isn't it? I could've accepted Hindi along with the English. Made in India pride, etc.

But Chinese? It's either masquerading to be cover both industrial giants or it was made before the witchhunt over China-made products and thought that would give it consumer cred?

If the throne fits ...

The serf pays homage to HRH Queeni.

And then tries out the throne for himself.

Three's a crowd

Whaddaya mean, we gotta make room for Daddy?

Confessions

M and A came over for dinner last weekend and A brought a bunch of DVDs for our edification. One of them was of Madonna's latest Confessions tour, partly because A thinks we don't get out enough and was shocked to hear we never caught any of the big shows that came to town.

And I can't make him understand that I do not like musicals as a genre and that I do not require spectacle to be entertained -- given a choice between a huge concert with flashy costumes, dance routines, soundscape and fireworks, and a small group of people in penguin suits sawing away at instruments, I'd rather pick the chamber concert. Unless the huge concert is a U2 concert.

And that's only one of the reasons why I cannot get into Madonna -- but dutifully sat down with them to watch. The other reason why I don't like Madonna is that her concerts -- however slick -- are peppered with more plagarisms than a college paper bought off the Internet.

One song morphed into Jimmy Sommerville. Another morphed into an Abba riff. Along the way, she was John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, down to the white suit. Then morphed into a Jimi Hendrix persona. And then took on Pat Benatar. So who's the real Madonna?

And what's the difference between Madonna and say, the Pussycat Dolls? Both still feel the need to dress up to carefully choreographed routines. Although, in the PCD's case, dress down might be more apt.

I honestly don't see the difference between Madonna and say, Rihanna. Both stole songs from other people. L -- who is no Madonna fan himself -- says I should leave off Madonna, that she has paid her dues while Rihanna is a young upstart. What, just because you've been around 20 years, you can steal other people's songs?