A week of gifts

Almost everyday now, for the past few weeks, I came home to find a stuffed toy (the dogs') on my side of the bed, sometimes under my pillow, sometimes tucked behind the bolster.

I think it was most probably Queeni who did it -- she's the one that will carry a toy in her mouth and move it about. Rupert just shakes them and drops them when he's done. I'd like to think that she left me a present everyday because she missed me while I was at work. But I think she was really just leaving a toy to bag a space for herself on the bed for later in the night when we retire.







I took these pictures over the past week. The one time I forgot to close the bedroom door when I was taking a picture, guess who got into the frame and claimed the toy for himself.

Yummy yummy peri peri

I'm not food blogger enough to take pictures of my meals before I start tucking in. But I didn't expect my order to come on a sizzling hot plate. I had to wait for it to stop spitting at me before I could start eating. So while waiting, I took a picture of it. Peri peri chicken with pasta in tomato sauce and mushrooms. At the food court next to the office. Yummy.

While everybody else was at work on Monday

... just desserts for working on Sunday.

Royalty has its privileges

HRH Queeni could have been the model for this T-shirt.

Except that I don't see her offering to help anybody.

Day out

The company I work for has a Family Day outing once every year -- usually to the zoo or bird park or something. I've never gone. Not for the past 10 years. But today, hoo boy, today, the outing was at Universal Studios at Resorts World Sentosa. Getting there was already part of the fun. There's now a boardwalk where you can actually walk across to the resort island (with a travellator for those who don't feel like walking) and a view along the way. Not to mention some cafes and a wine bar if you really need sustenance for that 10 minute walk.



Universal Studios extended their opening hours till 11pm, just to cater to us. Which meant that most of the general public got chased out after their official closing hour at 7pm, only people like us (with special wristbands) could stay on in. And ride the roller coasters without having to queue since the hoi polloi were booted out. The Revenge of the Mummy ride. Battlestar Galatica at SciFi World. Woo hoo! I went round and round and round until my stomach kinda moved up to my mouth. Contents anywhere in between. And I don't get motion sickness ordinarily.



There was a water ride at Jurassic Park, and the staff warned that we could get splashed. Somewhere in the queue, you could buy a rain poncho, but because I was a single rider (L wimped out on anything that would get him upside down or wet), I didn't have to join the general queue and missed that. I didn't mind getting splashed. Wrong. I got soaked. Head to toe soaked. As in dripping wet. I could've won a wet Tshirt contest easily, only I don't think I was Miss Congeniality when I took off my sneakers and wrung out my socks.

And that was my last ride for the night. But it was fun!

Sunday pig out

We went to the Marriott for their dinner buffet as we were nearby for the Aids Candlelight Memorial. We were quite late, but there was 45 minutes left to the buffet seating and we figured we could do enough damage in the remaining time. The staff quite kindly warned us 10 minutes before the buffet officially ended and told us that we should load up on whatever else we wanted before they started clearing the buffet set-up. So L got himself another plate of meat entrees and dessert to share -- a plateful of the petit fours and cakes (one of every variety), a bowl of ice cream (one scoop of every flavour) and made himself a bowl of local shaved ice dessert at the assemble-it-yourself counter. He was very happy with all the food on the table.

Ahhhhh

:)

Door stopper

There is nothing as heart stopping as when you get home and only one dog rushes out to give you a red carpet welcome. It verges onto panic when the missing dog is the mischievous one that gets himself into "uh oh" moments.

Luckily, we soon found out that it was because Rupert somehow got himself into a room that was shut off by a baby gate that closed on him and effectively locked him inside a room that he was supposed to be locked out of.

That's when we realised that he's learnt how to nose the baby gate open if it wasn't properly latched close. The only unfortunate side-effect was that when he barged in after nosing it open a crack, it tended to swing itself shut behind him, gathering enough momentum to swing into the latch and then he couldn't nose it open to let himself out. (That was also when we realised that when we weren't home, he's been patrolling round the house and sticking his nose into things.)

Yesterday, I came home to find this. He's learnt to use a stuffed toy as a door stopper so that the gate won't swing shut behind him. And he's so pleased about it too.

The last word

In the last election, in 2006, the ruling party won, with 66.6% of the votes cast. I remember that percentage well. Who can forget the number of the beast?

Yesterday, it won, with 60.1%.

So from where did the prime minister derive his "clear mandate"?

Finally

A long weekend. I got today off, and it's immensely satisfying to be able to lie in bed till the middle of the afternoon when everyone else is at work.

It also helps that today is Cooling Off Day. No campaigning, no rallies, just some party political broadcasts on TV tonight -- but that can be easily silenced.

Ah, peace.

Until the polls close tomorrow night, that is.

A plague on both your houses

I want to vote for the opposition. But not the way they're asking me to, in the bottom poster. Marking my vote with a tick doesn't mean voting for them, it means spoiling a vote. You're supposed to mark your vote with a cross.

No wonder the opposition never wins an election.

Another long weekend

I was quite happy to be rostered to work on Sunday. I like Sunday shifts -- the top bosses are not around, nobody breathes down your neck, you do your work at your own pace and if you're lucky, you finish early and leave early.

Until I realised that Monday -- I'm working that day too -- is a public holiday. Labour Day. I'd quite forgotten about it. Another long weekend spent at work!

And so it begins

Had a late night last night -- not entirely work related. OK, somewhat work related -- G needed a stiff drink before facing Nomination Day today. So stiff that after we left when the wine bar closed at 3am, he popped into 7-11 for one last beer. Me, I was rostered off on Nomination Day. I offered to work instead and take another day off but the design chief said I could "escape" especially as I worked Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Ah, just desserts.

Which meant that I woke up late today -- well after the noon deadline for nomination papers to be filed, but just in time for the media frenzy to begin.

I think I will switch off the TV and not read newspapers for the next week. I should just read the parties' manifestos. Everything else in the media will be hogwash at best and hysteria at worst.

Close encounters of the lift kind

My pet peeve is a common Singaporean complaint -- people who crowd round train and lift doors, and rush in as soon as they open, without first giving way to those who want to come out. I've never understood this. Surely there would be more room for them inside if they let the others come out first?

Last Wednesday: A Chinese-speaking lady tried to enter the lift as soon as the doors opened, before L could and Queeni could leave it. Queeni snorted. Not barked, not growled. Just snorted in a pig-like way, which is Schnauzer for "ahem". The lady jumped back and exclaimed in Mandarin, "Scared me to death." And then raised one high-heeled foot and made as if to kick Queeni. That was when L stepped in. Ordinarily monolingual, he summoned enough Mandarin to tell her: "Your face also scared me to death." She was all dolled up but looked like "an extra from the Rocky Horror Show", he later told me. I still prefer to have kicked her.

Last Friday: A teenaged girl barged into the lift as soon as the doors opened, only to walk right into us -- two people and two dogs coming out. This time round, the dogs were silent. Not even a polite doggy "ahem". Young Lady promptly burst into tears at the shock of there actually being people (and dogs) wanting to come out of the lift first. When we were well down the path, I turned back to look at her -- she was still standing at the corner of the lift lobby and crying, while her boyfriend held the lift door open and looked helpless. Poor sod. The guy, not the girl. The girl's just what Queeni is biologically termed as.

Happy Easter

L (looking at a printed in Australia calendar): Why isn't Easter Monday isn't a holiday here? (It is a holiday in Australia and Britain.)

Me: Because Easter Sunday isn't a holiday here, so we don't get Monday off to compensate for a Sunday holiday. Good Friday off is supposed to be good enough for us.

And after a moment's thought: This is Singapore. When you resurrect isn't as important as when you die.

The real meaning of just in time delivery

Back in February, the government announced -- as part of Budget 2011 -- several benefits such as utility rebates, tax rebates, growth dividends, education subsidies. This week, a flyer summarising all those goodies arrived at my door step. Two months later. But just in time for the elections.

Pre-election present

I didn't even realise it until the clerk at the counter gave me a quizzical look when I tried to pay my utility bill. Thanks to the utility save handout, this month's bill was a grand total of zero.

And then I went into the office. And found out that Nomination Day is next Wednesday, and Polling Day is May 7.

Do good things come in pairs?

Just before the weekend, two of my colleagues gave me two books, saying that I absolutely have to read them. Have to say that I've never heard of either of the Toms before, but I'll go with my colleagues' recommendations. I don't know if the two of them cahooted to unload two books on me all at once -- especially as I've publicly admitted that a combination of Facebook and cable TV has eaten my brain. If I can't be prised off the couch this weekend, and if the laundry/dirty dishes/dust bunnies pile up, G and P are to be blamed. Wasn't the TV this time round. :)

Night at the museum

Nothing came to life -- most unfortunately.

The only thing that the ArtScience Museum had going for it -- other than it opens till 10pm (which suits night shift folk like me because my days don't start till late afternoon, even on a day off) -- is its beautiful architecture. I'd passed it often enough to know what it looked like on the outside -- a lotus flower -- and now I could prowl inside and try to figure out how the galleries connect. I think the exhibits I spent most time poring over were architect Moshie Safadie's notebook sketches when he conceptualised the building. And they were tucked away in two corners at the landing on the uppermost level, like some kind of afterthought.

The Tate, it is not. What's more galling is that entry to the Tate is free. This one has a S$30 entry fee. It got me into two still exhibitions -- a travelling one on Genghis Khan, and another on Chinese pottery excavated from a shipwreck in the South China Sea. Which really isn't very different from the stuff that the Asian Civilisations Museum has to offer. And frankly, I think the ACM does a better job -- and at one-third the price of admission. The Genghis Khan exhibition had a few interesting items, but it relied heavily on a video narrative -- which I could watch at home on the NatGeo channel.

I guess, with a name like ArtScience, I was expecting a cross between MOMA and the Exploratorium -- both of which I absolutely loved. Nothing like that here. :(

The king of musicals

The Lion King was the reason why I spent one summer in London angsting at the return ticket booth at Leicester Square almost daily when no returns were to be had. So you can imagine how happy I was that the production finally came to Singapore.

Breathtaking staging, wonderful costumes, amazing puppetry.

Loved it.

A Watergate by any other name

The placard that all cabbies have on their dashboard with their names printed on them said that this Chinese youngish 30-something driver's first name was Nixon.

By the end of the trip, I couldn't withhold my curiosity any longer, and had to ask him if that was the name he was given at birth, or a Western first name that he picked for himself. His parents named him Nixon.

You'd think that if you wanted to name your son after an American president, someone more salubrious than Nixon would come to mind. Eisenhower, maybe. Or Roosevelt. Maybe that would be a bit hard for Junior to spell... But Nixon! Hmm, or maybe it was that Nixon in China business.

Out of sync

The problem with working a six-day Sunday-to-Friday week (other than six days! Working on a Sunday!) is you're facing a mid-week slump on Tuesday -- just when other people are recovering from Black Monday. By the time it gets to Wednesday, you're starting to coast downhill for the second half of the week while everyone else is struggling up the mid-week hump.

Hmm

If I said that I wanted to red pencil this, then I would be equally guilty of verbing a noun, right?

Don't get outraged

The poster on the advertising billboard at the bus stop was a collaborative effort between an arts school and the police force to come up with visuals for a campaign advising the public on how to prevent "outrage of modesty" (such a lovely Victorian turn of phrase, if you ask me). That the bus stop is on a road with little traffic and is dark at night, well, that's the sort of thing that would make you look over your shoulder.

The copy includes useful tips on how to avoid being outraged -- avoid dark areas, have someone meet you when you're going home late.

It just doesn't tell you what to do if you've been outraged. I think maybe a good swift kick in the goolies should do it. Pity they didn't illustrate that.

Saturday night out

Working Sundays for the weeks ahead -- and am facing a six-day week ahead on top of that -- so nipped out to the Mosaic Music Festival at the Esplanade to catch Erik Mongrain and to chill a little, while I can. He played mostly acoustic guitar, which he also turned it into a percussion instrument to accompany himself. And then he set the guitar on his lap and played it like I've never seen before, by tapping it -- air tap, it's called. Blew my mind. I think sometimes, it's OK not to pay attention when your music teacher is going on about Proper Fingering. Or learn it all and then turn it all upside down. Or in this case, sideways on your lap.

Mis-prince?

Does this look like Harry or Wills on this royal wedding commemorative mug?

Did they get the wrong prince?

The Singapore government announced a couple of days ago that it was donating $500,000 to Japan, towards aid efforts.

Today, a Singapore woman bested them by giving double, $1 million. No press release, no announcement. The Japanese embassy had to hastily arrange a ceremonial handing over of the cheque for her, and only because the Japanese Association told them of the fat cheque.

Phooey to the government. I hope they at least give the woman a tax break.

My office is organising a charity drive for the Red Cross. Hope it shows the government what-for too.

No friend left behind

I'm used to seeing gory pictures taken at disaster scenes, Katrina, the Burma hurricane, the Indian Ocean tsunami. My first reaction of the pictures coming out of Japan was, oh, another Banda Aceh.

The first time any disaster picture made me teary was this video clip posted on a colleague's Facebook wall.

Ganbatte kudasai

I remember a snippet off the newswires that a colleague showed me, weeks ago, post-Christchurch quake, and the authorities were abandoning hope of finding survivors. The leader of the Japanese rescue team was asked for his comment, and his reply was: You must understand that I rescue people. My business is hope. Ganbatte kudasai

Rock on

As much as I like Santana's music, the two best bits of his concert here actually had nothing to do with him.

The second best bit was when Mrs Santana took over from the resident drummer for a set.

The best bit when Santana introduced his band, and when it came to the guitarist, the guy used the spotlight to launch into the opening stanza of U2's New Year's Day.

That's as close as anybody is going to get to two rock concerts for the price of one.

Spotted something new

They look like and are the size of greengages. But they're exactly like kiwi fruit inside -- tiny kiwi, minus the furry brown skin. Genetically modified kiwi? Kiwi crossed with greengages? They're sweet, juicy, yummy and very expensive (almost $4 for a punnet that held just nine pieces).

Biting my tongue

More on the evilness of Facebook corrupting my soul. It lets you read posts of people whom you do not know at all -- because a friend whom you do know has commented on the post of a stranger whom you don't know. Which was why I was horrified that a bunch of strangers were oohing and aahing over the culinary discovery of another stranger.

Which was: a slice of processed cheese floated over a bowl of instant noodles and stirred up.

I can't be rude to a stranger. But it's terrifying that processed food garnished with processed yuck is getting Facebook "likes". This wiki wisdom of the crowd thing is wrong.

I'm not snobbish. I eat instant noodles too. But I think it's not so hard to throw in a handful of fresh vegetables on top of noodles. Or to stir in a spoonful of miso or Marmite to flavour the soup instead of using the sachet of e-numbers. You don't really need to know how to cook to do that.

Or perhaps people really don't think about what they're putting into their mouths. Only last week, I had the hardest time trying to explain to a friend who had to be off dairy that there is no dairy in salad dressing. He insisted there was milk in it because it was creamy. He couldn't wrap his head round that mayo is emulsified egg, oil and vinegar. That you don't need cream to make things creamy.

I'm beginning to understand the need for Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. Come on over, Jamie. Please.

Saturday night out

Went to the SSO -- only because there was the holy triumvirate of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven on the programme. Couldn't go wrong with any of that.

It was billed as a gala night, so there were none of the usual ticketing concessions. However, $50 bought me a ticket in the fourth row (as opposed to $300 for a seat in the second balcony for THE Berlin Phil -- yes, still harping on that) -- I was so close to the musicians that when a second violinist used his bow to stab down a flyaway page of music, I could hear the thwack as it hit the sheet.

Haydn was Symphony No 44; Mozart was the Prague symphony and Beethoven was his allegedly only violin concerto, with guest violinist Renaud Capucon, but I hadn't heard of him. Liked the Beethoven and Mozart anyway, but I don't know whose version of Prague I've been listening to, thought last night's version didn't have an arresting enough opening.

Facebook ate my brain

It's a deadly combination of social media and newly acquired cable TV -- the cable company (one out of the two here) gave us free access to all their 100+ channels as new subscribers (don't you love competition). It's not a free lunch but a marketing ploy (see, some bits of the brain still works, FB didn't eat it all. Yet). They probably wanted to hook us onto all the channels available so that we'll take them all. Or they probably hope that we forget to opt out after the free access period is over and then bill us for 100+ channels instead of the few dozen or so that come with the package we've taken on.

Anyway, with 100+ channels and getting on FB, I have not read a book in the past two weeks. I'm deeply ashamed. The bookmark left in the volume by my bed hasn't moved in a while. The only reading that I've done is The Economist, and that's because I have a subscription. If I don't finish the current issue, another one will show up on Friday and I don't want them to pile up.

Must. Turn. The. Mac. And. The. TV. Off.

Bye bye, boys

These are Spike and Zoey, a pair of Italian greyhound brothers who live with a friend in Tokyo. I'm fond of them because I first visited Tokyo when they were newly acquired, and slept in the guest room which also served as the dogs' room. So they were a big part of my first Japan experience. That was more than 10 years ago.

Spike died a couple of years ago. Zoey died yesterday. He was getting on in years, but seemed fine. Then he went to bed and never woke up. It is somehow comforting to know that he was a good boy to the end, didn't put anyone through that last trip to the vet, and that he went peacefully in his sleep, on his own bed.

But he will still be missed.

Geographical eats

There's a new(ish) stall at the food court that sells laksa. All sorts of laksa, actually, from around the region: Singapore laksa (of course), Penang laksa, Johor laksa, Kelantan laksa, Sarawak laksa and Myanmar laksa.

Other than Penang laksa, which is popular enough, I'd never even heard of the others. Though I was well educated -- and well fed -- on Sarawak laksa by a Sarawak-born wife of an editor I used to work with. I didn't even know that the Malaysian states all had their own varieties of laksa. I will have to go back and eat my way through the archipelago.

Out of solidarity for Aung San Suu Kyi, I ordered the Myanmar laksa. It was prepared and served by a cook from China. Only in Singapore.

The Myanmar laksa had a broth that was almost scary in its livid yellowness. It was creamy with coconut milk, cut by the tang of freshly squeezed lime on top. No picture. Am not food blogger enough to take pix of things before I put them in my mouth. Just take my word that it was yummy.

Facebook follies and a blast from the past

So I finally got on Facebook. And instantly slid down the slippery slope of perdition. I didn't poke people that much, really. But I swore a lot while trying to navigate round an unfriendly interface and trying to find the "hide" buttons that were hidden. Purposely, I daresay. And then a comment that I posted in response to a friend showed up in another friend's wall, puzzling friend #2 greatly while leaving friend #1 thinking that I was ignoring him. It was enough to make me "unfriend" Facebook. There. I've said the word. Unfriend. I'm deeply ashamed. Every fibre of the professional sub-editor in me is quivering with righteous indignation and demanding that I return all Headline of the Year awards.

The plus side of Facebook is that it didn't take long for an old school friend to find me. And then she got all nostalgic, and ended up posting on her wall, a picture of our old school gang, taken during someone's wedding. I don't even remember the occasion, but it was a calculated guess seeing that one person in the group is in a wedding gown.


The trip back to the 80s was another shock. I'd forgotten that I never used to cut my hair then. And that we wore blouses with big white bibs for collars. OMG, looking at the photo was like stepping into a time warp. I was part of The Breakfast Club.

Don't it turn my brown eyes red

These are Big and Small, an imaginatively named pair of stuffed dogs (the big one is Big, the small one is Small), who are err, pets to our pets. I don't know what possessed us to think along the lines that our dogs would like to have their own dogs when we bought them. Queeni likes to carry Small around in her mouth, and Rupert likes to feel macho by shaking Big, twice his size. Which means that Big and Small got a little stinky with dog saliva.

So L put Big in the wash with some other toys. Small escaped the wash because he was hidden by somedog behind the sofa. And into the wash went some bleach, partly because there was a predominantly white toy that had gone predominantly brown.

Big emerged from the wash with scary blood-shot eyes, the bleach having turned its brown eyes red. I find it scary to look at, but Rupert doesn't seem to notice the difference and is back to being macho with Big. Or maybe he feels even more macho now, to shake up Vampire Dog.

Touche

Somebody made her own pineapple tarts. She said I could post the pix of creations here with a "don't laugh" warning, seeing that this blog is on a pineapple tart roll. Seriously, nobody's laughing. I think they're awesome. Especially when she did everything from scratch, the pastry and the jam filling (which took six hours). The tarts look beautiful. I bet they taste yummy too.

Gongxi facai

I don't know if this was somebody's whimsical Chinese New Year display by the roadside, or it's if an offering/plea to Cai Shen (God of Fortune) -- given the ingot and the playing card (lucky No 8).

Fatt! anyway.

Pineapple tarts, round 2

Sorry, Somebody. Another neighbour, another jar of pineapple tarts. However, these are store bought and factory made. And nothing to shout about. Don't really like them in the pigs-in-a-blanket shape. The home-made ones still win for taste and aesthetics.

Glint in the eye

This pix is for the benefit of somebody, so that she needn't look at a pineapple tart everytime she drops by here. :)
Gongxi facai.

Ready for Chinese New Year

The house has been spring cleaned -- everything horizontal and capable of gathering dust has been wiped down, the floors vacuumed and mopped, the curtains and sofa covers changed, the dogs bathed and the fridge stuffed with fish, prawns and tons of veggies for the Reunion Dinner.


Time for a nice cup of tea with the season's first pineapple tart, a home-baked gift from the Malay neighbour down the corridor. Stands to reason that only in Singapore would my must-have Chinese New Year classic come from a Malay neighbour.

The pix is for the benefit of R (evil grin) -- you gotta appreciate the artistry of this tart. Not the usual filling slapped on a round of pastry thing, but it's made to look like a little lotus flower (artfully arranged by a tea cup with a lotus motif), with the petals holding the filling in place. Almost too pretty to eat, but quite delicious, really.

There's always space for one more

One of my friends has switched to an e-reader because her bookshelves were overflowing. That came to mind after I finished the new-ish Discworld romp (not technically new because I waited a year for the paperback edition so that it could match the other Terry Prachett paperbacks on my shelf) and tried to find a space for it.

So yes, I can understand why people switch to e-books. But no, I don't think I will anytime soon. It's not just missing the old school feeling of turning an actual page. An e-book doesn't give me the satisfaction of putting it away on a shelf of "matching" books, and the delight of adding yet another book to an overcrowded shelf. I suppose it has something to do with hoarding. You get this delicious feeling of having expanded the collection that grew slowly over the years, one book a year (or however fast Prachett is writing -- long may he live).

Ain't that the truth

Seems to me the world would have been a better place had we spent all the money on eradicating this WMD than the non-existent ones in Iraq.

He's back, all is forgiven

I got tickets to Melvyn Tan's recital without even knowing what he was going to play. But I figured that one couldn't go wrong with his repertoire of Beethoven, Mozart and Debussy. Turns out the programme was heavy on Chopin -- possibly a hangover of the bicentennial last year -- but that's OK too.

I figured that if an ex-Singaporean took such pains and so long to finally stage a concert here, then the least I can do is to go to it. Tan was the Singapore-born emigre who stirred up public controversy when he returned five few years ago and was hauled up for evading national service (two years of military service compulsory for all male citizens). Tan had left the country at a young age and never returned to serve NS. When he did come back -- to see an ageing mother -- he was above 40 and no longer eligible for NS. More importantly, he had given up his citizenship in 1978. Still, he got the book thrown at him and was fined. It was a tremendous media circus, which gave rise to some rather voiceful public opinions. Most people (at least, those who told the media so) felt he deserved the fine. Some pointed out there's also a jail term for evading NS. A letter to the press opined that there is no justification at all for NS absconders to be allowed to return at all. I suppose that last person wasn't at the concert last night. I personally think it was a huge case of the Singaporean dog in a manger ethos -- as I have suffered (2 years of NS), so must everybody else.

Now back for his first public performance (there was a private one last year) in the land of his birth, Tan was lauded as a son of Singapore, with a comment in the programme notes going as far as saying that he is "without a doubt the best pianist that Singapore has ever produced". Which is only accurate in as far as he was produced, ie born, in Singapore. But what did Singapore have to do with his success as a concert pianist?
Aside from his first piano teacher in his childhood -- and we all had one of those -- he probably owes his success to his parents who had the foresight to recognise his potential as a pianist, the gumption to acknowledge that he could make a living from the arts (especially 20 years ago), and -- more importantly -- the means to send him overseas for training.

There were more young children than usual in the concert hall. And there were a good many students in school uniform, it was a school day after all. Probably piano students, all. Which probably also means there must have been quite a few piano teachers in the audience too. I wonder what mine would have made of Tan's posture. He slouched between movements, hunched as he played, his spine curving more and more as he progressed through the piece until he ended it, nose almost at the keyboard. The piano teacher I had as a child used to stand behind me, and knee me in the small of my back to make me sit up straight.

But oh, the recital was wonderful. Lyrical, technical mastery. He gave three encores to a standing ovation from almost the entire hall, which even THE Berlin Phil didn't get. The second encore was a finger exercise (Czerny? Scarlatti?) that I remember having to hammer out endlessly. I never would have thought that it could make a recital piece, and such a sweet, charming one too.

Paving a path to heaven

The grass in the field next to the train station is a bit patchy, which was why it got water-logged during the recent monsoon rains. As soon as the sun came out and the mud dried a bit, the works department labourers came and planted more grass in the bald areas, and used some stones and rocks to level up water-logged bits.

And that was when I realised that one of the stones wasn't just a stone. It was a headstone. For (as far as I can make out) Lea Caron Langdon who died in May 1961, aged 7 months.

There's got to be a Singaporean epithet in this. Such as one of those homilies that the labour movement keeps espousing about reinventing oneself, relearning a new skill set so as to find re-employment, etc. Guess finding new work in a new sector doesn't just apply to laid off workers but also to headstones of exhumed graves.

RIP, Baby Langdon.

Short and sweet

Every now and then comes a book so brilliant yet so simple that you could have written it yourself. If only you thought of doing it first. Which is why it's so galling that the writers who beat you two it are two 19-year-old students.

Twitteratureis great literature as told on Twitter. Beat's Cole's Notes.

Emma -- The only way to take care of Knightley is to marry him.

Pride & Prejudice -- I suppose I love Darcy now, after all this.

Wuthering Heights -- Catherine has married the twattling tool across the street.

King Lear -- Nix that. Cordelia dead.

Medea -- Jason very unhappy I murdered the children.

Oedipus -- MILF

Romeo & Juliet -- @Montague, @Capulet: Can't we all just get along?

The Picture of Dorian Gray -- Oops. Grew old all at once.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight -- You think if you cut off someone's head, he'll die, but not in Camelot.

Lady Chatterley's Lover -- I'm def preggers with his baby.

The Tempest (the last bit) -- STAGE DIVE!!! Catch me, please?

Picture this

Went through some text-heavy tomes over Christmas (Jonathan Franzen's Freedom and Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion -- both excellent) so decided to do some light reading over the New Year instead.

There's something delightful about picture books -- whether they're children's books or history of art books -- that can captivate you for hours. And I even had a theme -- I found in the library two picture books on dogs. One's a children's book on a confused dopey dog who wonders if he's a black dog with white spots or a white dog with black spots; the other an art book tracing artwork of dogs through the ages.


So New Year was spent leafing through pictures of dogs, and it's even more satisfying doing so in the company of two sleeping dogs snuggled up. I can't think of a better way to start the year.

Happy 2011 everyone.

It was a very good year

Nine months into my 46th year (and what a year it's been), and now The Economist tells me that the good stuff really begins now.

Well, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, all!

Thicker than the phone book

I finally got my hands on the new Jonathan Franzen and can't wait to start on it. But I can't slip it into my work bag and read it on the train ride to the office, not when it's thicker than the Yellow Pages. I thought the whole point of paperbacks is that they are portable.

Not your usual bored games

I did not expect to see Scrabble and Monopoly on the supermarket shelves. What fun, two classic board games in edible form. And Belgian chocolate too! The only problem with this is it's literally game over after just one play.

Not the usual string quartet

Nope, not when they're the T'ang Quartet. They went from Beethoven and the Boys (their last concert earlier in the year, of really old school quartets by Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart), to DJ Aldrin, Zouk's finest. Classical meets house. I loved it. I could have gotten up and danced. As they did.

Not the usual programme too -- you could fold this one up into a one-inch cube. It sort of matches the cubes the musicians were sitting on. Not very comfortable for them, I don't think. No wonder they got up and danced.

Don't get excited now

Bet you didn't think that hair gel could be X-rated? Wonder why it's only for ladies then.

Happy Thanksgiving

I am thankful that L is home from the hospital. And I am thankful for friends and family who saw us through the scary episode.

I'm not sure if I can go as far as saying that there was a reason for the whole thing. But in a perverse sort of way, if it wasn't for the bleed and the MRI that followed, we wouldn't have known that there was a cyst in the kidney.

Name dropping

Actually, no, for those who asked, the most famous name I ever came across back in the heady student days of stewarding at the Warwick Arts Centre wasn't Simon Rattle. It was when Andre Previn came with the London Symphony Orchestra.

And the stewards who worked front of house (FOH) never really rubbed shoulders with the musirati. It was the back of house (BOH) folks who did. The FOH scum like us merely clipped tickets and then got to watch the concert for free after that.

Anyway, Andre Previn. One of the FOH managers, a dear sweetheart of a man, was having kittens over how to address Andre Previn. "Do I call him Mr Preh-veen? Or is it Mr Prah-vahn?" He worried that the former would seem too uncultured but the latter might be too toffee-nosed.

Why not address him as Maestro, was my suggestion. That way, he skirted the surname altogether.

In the end, it was Masetro Andre Previn himself who solved the problem. He strode into the BOH briefing, stuck out his hand and said: "Hi, I'm Andy."

THE Berlin Phil

I knew I was under-dressed for the Berlin Philharmonic when even their stagehands were wearing black jackets.

The last time I saw conductor Simon Rattle's back was 20 years ago. He's still bouncing those curls as he conducts, only they're all grey now.

And the last time that I saw the back of that curly head, I didn't have to pay $300 for the privilege. Instead, I was paid 3 pounds for my trouble. I was a student, stewarding at the University of Warwick Arts Centre. The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra was the orchestra in residence at the Arts Centre then, and Simon Rattle -- he wasn't Sir Simon back then -- was its conductor.

And that's why it's so hard to see him as the man walking in godlike Herbert von Karajan's footsteps at the Berlin Philarmonic. THE Berlin Phil. Not when you remember Simon Rattle tossing his curls at the old dears in the CBSO Chorus, and the way they tittered everytime he so much as spoke a sentence to them. Does "not C sharp but D flat, Muriel dear," qualify as a sentence?

Anyway, back to THE Berlin Phil. It was a faultless performance (Haydn's Symphony No 99; Brahms' Symphony No 2 on the first night. I skipped the second night because it had Mahler and I cannot do Mahler. Besides I couldn't afford to go both nights). I suppose you could say it was faultless because the audience, having forked out so much (my $300 was but a cheap seat in the second balcony. The gallery seats behind the orchestra went for about the same. Front row VIP seats were close to $600.), were determined that it had to be faultless.

But really, they were good. For a behemoth, they had the softest, gentlest pianisimmo, a smooth caress for the quiet bits in the Brahms. Before erupting into an awesome powerful finish.

The Philistine in me confesses that I don't get Alban Berg. I never could get that second Viennese school. Does a wooden mallet brought crashing down really count as a percussion instrument?

I think the nicest bit actually wasn't in the programme. It was during the intermission, before the orchestra came back on for the Brahms symphony. One of the double bassists lingered onstage as the (jacketed) stagehands moved chairs and music stands about. He started playing very quietly to himself Brahms' Lullabye, and then a fellow musician walked over, pulled up a chair, sat down and listened. An extra recital for the $300.

In an interview with the local daily English broadsheet, Simon -- sorry, Sir Simon now -- justified the high ticket prices by saying that a rock group of just a few people could play to a stadium of thousands, so they could price low. While an orchestra of so many people could only play to a few hundred. So that's why it costs more to listen to a bunch of penguin suits. Which was why I almost choked when I was reading the programme notes where Sir Simon was quoted as saying that "music is no mere luxury, but instead a fundamental need". Excuse me kind knight, but $300-$600 for a ticket IS luxury.

Eric Clapton plays here in February. His most expensive ticket is $300, which is THE Berlin Phil's cheap seat. Both ways, I'm paying the same. The way I see it, Haydn pretty much sounds like Haydn, whether it's done by THE Berlin Phil, the CBSO, or even the Singapore Symphony Orchestra (cheap seats $12). But only Clapton can do Layla like Clapton. I think my money's on Slowhand.

Two tales

I don't normally read historical fiction, but that was what I've been reading lately. Back to back too. The Ohter Bolelyn Girl was given to me by a friend clearing his shelves. He didn't want it any more and I never turn down a free read. I bought Wolf Hall months ago and still hadn't gotten round to reading because of its daunting two-inch thickness. I bought it solely on the review in The Economist, and it only helped that it went on to win the Booker Prize. One of those it'll be good reading books ... if only you got round to it.

And that was why I accepted the novella. I thought it would set me in the mood for the bigger book. Same historical era, same cast, just a different approach. It's more casual, more contemporary, and written in a breezy style. It took me just about three days to get through it.

The other one took me three weeks. But then that was also because I only read it at home, at bed time. At two-inch thick, it's not the sort of book you can slip into your bag to take with you to read on the train to work. It's beautifully written, with a masterly turn of phrase. So yes, it was good reading ... once I got round to it. Not to diss the other book, but it's quite obvious which one won the Booker Prize.

Dance weekend

I had been so out of the loop from the events of the last few weeks that I'd quite forgotten that my Bollywood dance teacher's students from his various classes were staging a charity show on Saturday. Got myself a last-minute ticket and got down to it. It was a lovely evening of various forms of Indian dance -- Bollywood, fusion, kuchipudi, bharatanatyam, bellydancing and also a yoga display. And all amateur too. I also thought it was rather ironical that the kuchipudi troupe was all Chinese, and from Hong Kong too. If these weekend dancers could master kuchipudi then I have hope for tackling Bollywood fusion.

Sunday was the night of the professional. I went to Sree Katha, a bharatanatyam dance performance which depicted three heroines from the Ramayana. Indo-American Mythili Prakash's one-woman show gave me a whole new feminist perspective of the epic, and basically validated me for always having thought that Sita was a bit of a doormat. She also gave a new insight to Shurpanakha, the demoness who was mutilated for daring to make a pass at Rama. Prakash's point was that Shurpanakha was a woman who knew what she wanted and made an attempt to obtain what she wanted, and not bow to societal norms of beauty. So basically, it's better to be a fugly demoness who knows her mind than a longsuffering wife. I hear you, sister. Interestingly, from the post-performance dialogue with the artist, the people who disagreed with her weren't the elderly gentlemen in the predominantly Indian audience, but the elderly ladies.

He's home

The dogs are so happy.
So am I.
:)

Out of the woods

And out of ICU.

Still a long journey ahead, and babysteps too.

Grateful for the love and care every step along the way.

I'm doing OK, and I thank everyone -- people, dogs and angels -- for their love and support. I was just telling my friend, I come from Cantonese peasant ancestry, the sort of women who would have babies and then go back to the fields. I can see how strong my grandma was, how strong my mum was when I walked her through hospital corridors when it was my dad that was in hospital, and now I realise, gosh, I'm one of them.

He's still in ICU and it's been a week today. I would feel more relieved if he were out critical care. But baby steps.

I should add to yesterday's list:
The cleaner who noticed me hanging about the ICU corridor and motioned for me to take the chair at the empty nurse's station.

It wasn't so long ago that I was walking my mother past ICU corridors as she worried about my father. I didn't think that I would now be the one loitering around hospital corridors worrying about my husband.

Acts of kindness

The ambulance crew leader who came out of the ER room to look for me in the waiting area to tell me that L was getting taken care of, and told me to take care.

The nurse who fetched me a cup of hot Milo unasked after she settled L when he was moved from ER to the ward.

The nurse who walked me from the ward to the ICU the next day when L took a turn for the worse, who insisted on taking my bag and L's belongings. The pat on the arm when she left me with the new team.

The doctor who kindly shooed me home because I had not slept for 48 hours.

The brother-in-law who drove me.

The well wishes of the taxi driver who picked me up at the hospital cab stand and in conversation found out that my husband was there in critical care.

Another pat on the arm from another doctor who updated me.

The friends -- here and overseas -- who call and email their love and prayers.

The friends at work who came by the house after work to simply sit up with me and chat because they knew I couldn't sleep.

The colleague who offered to walk the dogs.

The two dogs who, instead of spreading out over the empty space in the bed, take up guarding bookend positions on either side of me.

Queeni who, despite her hatred of bathrooms because wet things take place in there, went in to lie on the floor by the tub when I was in it.

Rupert who stuck his snount over the edge of the tub to check on me (the next bath, the next day).

So much love.

L is not out of the woods but heading in the right direction. Those were the doc's words. It's going to be a long walk. I am grateful to you all for walking with me.

Natural yogi

In yoga's triangle asana, you need to make three triangles between your arms and legs, and with your whole stance when you hold the pose.



In fox terriers, three triangles come naturally.

Seek and ye possibly may find

I'm not sure if an online classified ads portal is the best place to look for a "mistress" (and why is it in inverted commas?) but you can't fault the entrepreneurship. Even Craigslist had to start somewhere.

Playground wars

"Eh. No dogs allowed," said the teenaged boy perching at the top of the playground slide. It wasn't so much directed at me as I walked past with Roop, but he was posturing to his mates.

"My conservancy charges paid for this playground. If you don't want me here, I don't want you here either."

I do not like teenaged boys in the first flush of testosterone.

Exploring gravitational fields

Roop curled up on the couch, fell asleep and turned over on his back, all four paws in the air, still fast asleep. It was almost a good hour later when he woke up, then realised that the room wasn't quite the same way as he left it when he fell asleep. He rolled and twisted and struggled and then shot me a desperate "help me" look in his eyes.

So I rolled him gently on his side, pointed out to him which was up and which way was down, and he set his legs down gingerly and slowly eased himself up. And when he realised that gravity was back to normal, bounded round the room, delighted that the world is back the right way up again.

That's my boyo. Loopy Roopy.

Bye, Jacky

Jacky was one of those pet shop stock Schnauzers that shouldn't have been bred, shouldn't have been bought. She was barely 7 and had kidney failure, and her owner wanted to put her down when he found out.

But his friend, who also had a dog, thought Jacky should be given another chance. And that's when our neighbours took Jacky in. With them, she had 9 months of cuddles, sitting on laps, going on long walks with their resident dog, and play dates with our two.

Jacky died last Tuesday when her kidneys finally gave up. We hope though, that she hadn't given up on people. There're those that will give up a sick dog. But there are those that will take a sick dog in. We hope she's had a great 9 months.

The smells of home

Fresh, almost flowery scent of rice steaming slowly on the stove top.

Oily fried fish wafting from downstairs, meaning that the neighbours' dinner will be better than mine.

Pungent earthy smell as a heavy cloud discharges passing showers. Quick flurry of windows being closed in the block opposite. Now I know who's home at this time of the day and who's not.

Doggy smell on my finger tips after I've scritched Roop's chest.

Eid feast

The nicest thing about being the only Chinese family in a corridor of Malay households is that we feast better during Eid/Hari Raya Aidilfitri than on Chinese New Year.

Weeks before the festival even, the next-door neighbour started the ball rolling with a jar of home-made cookies. Come back for more, she added, when we've finished this.

It's just that there were other things to occupy us. At lunchtime on Hari Raya, the neighbour across the landing had us over for for a meal of longtong, rendang, tahu in sambal, chicken curry with stringhopper pancakes.

At dinner time, the neighbour down the corridor came bearing a tray of more longtong, tahu sambal and chicken in a spicy tomato sauce. More longtong is inaccurate, a different type of longtong is more like it. The lunchtime version was local, the dinnertime version was Indonesian (the neighbour's Indonesian uncle did the cooking, he runs a restaurant there -- which means the food was restaurant-standard yummy).

At supper time, L went across the landing after the neighbour's last guests had left, bearing a food container and offering to be neighbourly with the leftovers -- he wasn't shy and the neighbour did say that she overestimated the amount of food, they had industrial sized pots sitting on their stove and how could you let anyone live with days of leftovers on end? :)

(And why do pictures of perfectly good curry and rendang always turn out like shots of upchuck?)