Mundane existence

I haven't blogged lately and this entry has got nothing terribly interesting to say -- it's really just about how a new underground line opened on Thursday; so now, my daily commute to work has gone from a train and bus combination to a weather-proof all-train combination involving a switch on three lines, shaving about 15-20 minutes of travel time.

Like that is really rivetting and like that really matters to you.

I need to get a life.

In a pickle

But in a good way. I once posted about a hard to find British delight that I'm quite partial to. I could only get it at an upscale supermarket downtown, which catered mostly to expatriates.

Then the supermarket down the road that I go to remodelled, and has expanded its range of offerings to include a lot more British and Australian foods. That must say quite a bit about the changing tastes of Singaporeans.

At first, it was a bit frustrating to shop there as they were remodelling while still open for business, and shelves were being shifted about so the whole layout of the place has changed. It's disconcerting because you thought you know where to find everything in your regular supermarket but now nothing's where it used to be.

But today, something made up for the confusion -- Branston pickle, in three sizes.

Dying profession

A couple of years ago, we were shocked that B, a friend of ours, in his mid-40s then, was hospitalised for a heart attack and had to have a quadruple bypass. He worked in public relations.

Last year, E, another friend, never regained consciousness after a massive heart attack. He was barely 40. He worked in public relations.

Last night, we met up with M, who said that he'd quit his job and was taking a break. He then told us that he had a minor stroke last year, and he's only in his mid-30s. He realised that there was more to life than work. His job? Public relations.

Not that hard to see the thread running through these three individuals. And that's why L isn't going back into PR. Not that he hasn't tried. I just won't let him. He used to clock in 14, 15-hour days and his blood pressure would soar like a kite.

L mildly tried to remonstrate with me for putting my foot down. "Who are you to tell me what to do?"

"Your wife. The one who has to bury your corpse."

End of argument. Wife wins. As always.

Pink party

There was no issue finding the place at all. We just followed the river of pink out of the tube station as soon as we got off the train.



Even the dogs came in pink.



L said I should get patented the slogan I had crayoned on our T-shirts. And then mass-produce them for sale. We had so many people coming up and asking if they could take photos of us. Must be what being a celebrity feels like.







Better, ie pro, pix here.

In the pink

We're ready for Pink Dot.

I'm actually a little disappointed by the reactions of some people, friends even, to the event which would actually be to their benefit. Some are so caught up in the bitching in the community that they can't pull together for a common good. Others are so embittered and angst-ridden from years of injustice and unfairness that they're just plain cynical. Nobody ever helped them, so why help the cause?

It's the same Singaporean self-focused blinkered psyche that doesn't see the person behind, that lets them slam the door in the face of the person behind them instead of holding it open.

We've had years of courtesy campaigns, but it's less to do with good manners and more to do with the inability to look beyond our own noses.

Sometimes I wonder why I bothered to the extent of getting a pink Tshirt for the pink dress code and even personalising it. I mean, this shouldn't even be my battle.

But if nobody cared beyond their own noses, people would still be slaves, women still wouldn't be able to vote, and a black man wouldn't be the leader of the free world.

If not me, who? And if not now, when?

Infamous

There was some pop concert thing on the TV and a guy I didn't recognise was doing his stuff onstage.

"Who's he?" I asked L, who was watching.

"Chris Brown."

"Who's he?" Obviously, I don't follow latter-day pop.

"The guy who beat up Rihanna."

So he can sing, he can dance, he can do it all but that's what he's going to be remembered for. Serves him right. And it's not even like I like Rihanna's music. I still think she cribbed from New Order.

Mother's Day

I had to work today but was sent off fortified by cinnamon french toast with a heart-shaped centre.


Yup, it was a happy day.

Curtain protection

Over the weekend, the swine flu alert went up one notch. And practically the whole country switched into the SARS mode of a few years ago and put up the ring fences.

At work, we prepared to split our operations into two separate locations. Visitors had their temperatures taken and their contact numbers noted. That also applied to visitors at the hospital where my dad is. It is a facility for step-down care. It doesn't have an accident and emergency unit, so it does not take in unreferred outpatients, least of all sick Mexican tourists. But it stuck to the policies that the other fully fledged hospitals were implementing. Which also included a strict policy of one named visitor per patient was enforced.

Today, dad had to leave the facility to return to the hospital where his cardiologist is, for a follow-up appointment. When he returned to the step-down facility, he was considered as a readmitted patient. Simply because he had busted the ringfence. He had to be quarantined.

He was put back in the same bed, in the same room, with the same people.

So how was he isolated?

By having the curtains drawn round his bed.

And all because he breathed the air outside the ringfence.

And swine flu isn't even in the country.

The health minister called a press conference today and said that if nothing deteriorates, he will lower the flu alert one level, and this means no temperature taking and lifting the one-visitor rule at hospitals.

However, quarantine still applies to visitors entering the country from affected areas.

He didn't say if it applied to an old man who left one hospital for a few hours to see his doctor at another hospital.

And if a curtain round a bed can stave off germs like a N95 mask.

Gourmet dinner

L got inspired after watching Emeril Lagasse do a spot of guest cooking on the Martha Stewart Show. I don't know what the recipe is actually called, but it's best described as chicken layered with stuffing. As opposed to chicken stuffed with stuffing.

You basically cook up the "holy trinity", as the celebrity chef called it, of onions, carrots and celery in white wine and stock. Then you line a baking tray with pieces of bread, layer the veg over it, then layer some chicken fillet over that, then bung the whole thing in the oven.

And BAM, as Lagasse would say, chicken and stuffing. Without having to stuff anything. Easy as pie.

Sad story

The cement floor in front of the rubbish collection centre at the ground floor of our block of flats is always stained. That's where the central rubbish chute that runs down the whole block empties into a dumpster, and in the morning, the garbage truck pulls up, backs in, the louvre door is slid up and the dumpster emptied into the truck. There are always brown stains on the floor after the truck pulls away.

Sometimes, the stray cats hang about there, and we feed them there when we see them. Usually, they would have torn into plastic bags of garbage left there by the ground floor residents, who don't have access to the chute like those on the higher floors. So there'd be garbage scattered about after the cats are done.

Last night, somebody ended his life at the spot.

We heard a thump as we were entering our flat after walking the dogs. I thought a car hit something. L said he'd pop out again and check, as he wanted a smoke (he smokes outside the flat when I'm home). It wasn't a car, it was a person. Someone had jumped

We called the police. Everything else that happened after that was like CSI. The police tape. The flashes as the police photographer did his job. I wouldn't have been surprised if Gil Grissom stepped out from one of the police vehicles that pulled up.

Except that things don't end neatly like a TV series, after the credits roll.

Today, there's a wake at the pavilion across the block.

And instead of the little stains, there's a noticeably big, dark one.

And the garbage truck pulled up, backed over the spot, took its load and left.

Working boy

I sent off for a dog haversack as the furkids have eaten enough dogfood and accumulated enough coupons to redeem it.

Rupert was proud and happy to be given a job (Queeni just looked askance from her perch on the sofa).


L thinks he can now have beer on walks with the dogs.


But I'm really thinking that Rupert can now help to carry the groceries home from the supermarket.

Fracas at the vet

It's not good when it's your dog causing the drama. That is to say, Queeni, back at the vet's yet again, this time to remove stitches, decided that enough was enough and decided to eat a husky for breakfast. She leapt out of her carrier and went for a dog five times her size, lip curled back, teeth bared and snarling.

The husky tried to hide from her, under a chair. It couldn't even fit under the chair. But anything was better than nothing against the wrath of a fed-up schnauzer. It would have been funny if Queeni's behaviour wasn't so shocking.

And then a guy with a mastiff type dog walked in. He saw the schnauzer trying to eat a husky and decided that it was safer for the mastiff to wait outside in the carpark.

Never get in the way of a Queen who's not amused.

Stuck fast

If there's one thing more annoying than getting an earworm of a song stuck in replay mode in your head, it's getting an earworm of a Hindi song (or maybe it's Telegu, I really don't know, because the dance master used to act in Telegu movies) -- you don't even understand the words and can't really sing along.

This, I've discovered, is the latest side-effect of taking that Bollywood dance class -- and it lasts longer than the aching knees.

Up until now, I hadn't really stopped to listen to the music, I was too preoccupied with the counts -- I was stepping to the counts, not dancing to the music. But 3 weeks of repetition -- of moves and music -- have produced a muscle memory that's taken over so now I'm actually starting to listen to what I'm moving to.

The supposed cure for an earworm is singing. You sing it out of your system, so to speak. I don't even know how to start searching for this song on YouTube. It's destined to wind its way through my head forever. I'm struck by the Bollywood curse again.

Romeo + Juliet

In this day and age, the latter-day story of the star-crossed lovers would involve a same-sex couple. Because they are not legally permitted to love whom they choose, and marry whom they love, the only way that Romeo can live with Juliet in her country is to get a job there and hold an employment pass.

And then hardship fell across the land, and Romeo's employer went into financial difficulties. In an attempt to save $50 in fees, it did not renew Romeo's employment pass. And with it, went his right to stay. And so, Romeo was forced to leave the country.

He did try to get an extension, but the government official told him that he couldn't grant that as Romeo's been illegal for the past six months because the pass wasn't renewed that long. He did tell Romeo that it wasn't his fault, but his ex-employer's fault. But all that was not of much comfort to Romeo, Juliet or Romeo's dog.

Whenever Romeo wasn't home at night, the little daschund would refuse to settle in bed with Juliet or her dog, even though he loved them both. He loved his daddy more. He would pace the house in the dark, searching for his daddy because he just wasn't used to not being able to cuddle up with him.

When Romeo packed his bag to leave, he left it open and went to the kitchen to do some laundry. When he came back, the little dog had crept into his bag and snuggled into it, as if willing his daddy to take him along.

And Juliet's heart broke twice. Once to have Romeo leave. And again to see the little dog pine for Romeo.

All this is a true story. Juliet is one of my closest friends. And Romeo left this morning.

All for saving $50, three lives are wrecked in a little family, not to mention their circle of friends.

OK, so the ex-employer is in a lot of financial trouble and is being sued for a whole lot more than $50. But if they'd even said something before things fell apart, Romeo would have gladly paid the money out of his own pocket. That would have at least given him some time to stay on in the country, some time to find another job.

Hell, I'd be the first one there with a $50 bill. But I want to stuff it up the nose of their CFO. And then get the daschund to pee on the friggin bastard.

T-shirt model

The red carpet welcome has gone back to a two-dog duty. HRH is coming out of her sulk. It's not so much pain or discomfort, but the T-shirt that she's been forced to wear. She just doesn't like wearing stuff.

The doggy T-shirt a gift sent from our KCMO friends years ago. It was meant for Spock, the Jack Russell in residence before Queeni came into the picture.

So royalty's basically reduced to wearing hand-me-downs.

Signs of the times, ain't it?

Still out of it

(The T-shirt was the vet's suggestion, to protect her stitches from being scratched out. It's a more pleasant alternative than getting her to wear a satellite dish on her head.)

One of the joys of dogs is the way they drop everything when you step through the door and come racing up, jumping at you, pawing at you and covering you with slobber in their delight to welcome you back.

I only got the half treatment last night. Rupert poured out his usual enthusiasm and then went on to do his happy bounds round the living room, on the couch and off the couch. I guess he now qualifies as the Emergency Back-up Dog.

Queeni, usually the more vocal of the two, was absent. She was in bed, under the covers, between L's legs, and she wasn't going to move. When I peeled back the covers, all she did was to give me a Look.

I'm being punished for leaving her at the vet's and subjecting her to all sorts of horrors.

L was being punished too. He couldn't move his legs for as long as she was lying between them.

Operation

Queeni's favourite stuffed toy is getting a neurological patch-up while HRH herself had surgery to remove a lipoma. The vet is 99% certain it's a benign fatty lump but will send it for histopathology just to be on the safe side, given her mast cell tumour history.

Meanwhile, she is carried everywhere, spoonfed, and gets the most comfortable cushions.

Every inch a queen.

No place like home

It was nice to have taken last week off and spending the time just being home. You know that I had such a great time away from the office when I totally forgot my password when I got in to work today and tried to log on.

Possibly the worst job in the world

Foreign Bank Incorporated in Singapore must be worried about losing customers. I, for one, had withdrawn quite a bit from my savings account, leaving just the sum that was covered by the deposit guarantee scheme. On top of that, I had also cancelled my credit card.

Now, printed across the bottom of the monthly statement of account, is a gentle reminder that deposits are covered by the guarantee scheme. I have a a feeling that more than quite a few people withdrew their money.

One of their reps called me, introducing himself as my new personal banker, exhorted me to call on him if I needed any of his services, and left me a whole string of numbers at which I can reach him, short of giving me his mother's home phone number and maiden name. I suppose dog walking doesn't count as a service I can call him for.

I had gone through 4 or 5 personal bankers in as many years. The last but one was an analyst in his former job and must've seen the end coming because a good year before the financial crisis broke, he quit to set up a business in Vietnam manufacturing souvenirs. Anything but banking.

So the new guy kept reiterating: "Please give me a call, I'll be glad to be of service."

"So you just joined the bank?"

"Yes."

"You poor, stupid bastard."

And I really felt sorry for him.

"It don't matter if you're black or white"

Although I would imagine that the cover which lists Neil Gaiman's name first would be black, in line with his all-black wardrobe.


The 1991 edition, which is the one I have, has a technicolour, action-packed movie-style-poster sort of cover. Were things always like this back then?

If there is one thing I would like to thank Terry Pratchett for, other than the pleasures of Discworld, it is for introducing me to Neil Gaiman through this book.

My mother banned me from reading comics when I was a kid, she felt that I should read "proper books", ie publications that had proper sentences running into paragraphs instead of coming out of balloons from mouths.

That's why I never got into Marvel and DC superheroes, and also couldn't care less when years later, they emerged on film.

By missing out on comics entirely when I was a kid, I also missed out on graphic novels when I was much older. I made good on this much later in life. But I'm still left with an impairment when it comes to comics. I still like Gaiman more for his books than his graphic novels. And you can blame my mother for this.