He turned 70

It is difficult to think the uncle turned 70 on Christmas Eve. He is every child's favourite uncle - always cheerful, always kind, always happy to take the child to the playground, always ready with a handy treat.

There has been many stumbling blocks to happiness in his life that included an irrationally critical sister-in-law (Mother), a demanding older brother (Father). Mostly, it was having to live with, deal with, and in later years, care for, a strict and old fashioned father who demanded absolutely obedience.

Whatever the hardships, the uncle kept his peace and silence. Today, the old patriarch is gone. The uncle's own children are grown, married and have children of their own. The nephews and nieces he so fondly helped to care for are mostly married with grown children.

The uncle looked content. Happy. At peace. Proud of his brood. Still looking after the family's young children whenever they needed babysitting.

He will forever be my favourite uncle. And I am very, very happy for him on this, his special day which he celebrated with all every family member who could come.

I wish him many more happy and good years ahead.

Unnecessary and Irksome

Like that engrish sign over Orchard Road, she continued to irk me. Even a whole week after she left. Her card arrived soon after, like 3 days later.

We did meet; I let her speechify and preachify, All the people she criticised as irresponsible and self-centred I still cannot help but like. Deep down, I guess I even admire them.

On her last day, she messaged me to say she will be back at 6pm to begin packing and I could call her if I liked (oh thank you). I waited a decent 15 minutes past the assigned time and called, and of course she has not made it back yet. I did not bother to try again because by then she would have really been frantically packing, and I got to being busy in the kitchen.

I messaged her the following day wishing her a good flight and safe arrival. Nothing came back. I sms'ed a Christmas greeting to her. Nothing came back.

Yesterday, she texted me in the late afternoon announcing she was free to talk. Well, I was not.

Today, she rang while I was busy tucking into my favourite lunch of dim sum. I did not pick up.

Did she really think I would be free and available to tend to her at any time? Especially this time of the year?

Well, she'd be wrong.

Just like the engrish sign is wrong.

And because neither is necessary in the first place, I find them unforgiveably irksome.

Another year over

So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun

John Lennon
Happy Christmas, 1971

A lot actually.

I got rid of useless emotional baggage and feel no guilt. And after an appropriate grieving period, I feel no pain.

And because my load is lighter, I now have the luxury of giving more time and care to the things/people that matter.

I am happier than I have been for a long time.

That is a lot I have done, actually.

The sweet Christmas season

The approach of Christmas brings harassment and dread to many excellent people. They have to buy a cart-load of presents, and they never know what to buy to hit the various tastes; they put in three weeks of hard and anxious work, and when Christmas morning comes they are so dissatisfied with the result, and so disappointed that they want to sit down and cry. Then they give thanks that Christmas comes but once a year.

Mark Twain
Following the Equator, 1897

I have been on baking duty for the past week. I have been doing little of anything else except bake and getting the cakes, brownies and cookies delivered to the people who have made this a wonderful year for me.

And in the hours that I am in the kitchen, the mind wanders to Christmases past. The lovely friends I had spent this special season with. Each of us busy with the cooking to come together for a special dinner, each bearing the dish we specially requested of each other because she does the best this or that. I know all is well with them, even as many of them are living elsewhere these past 10 years. And if things go according to plan, I will see a few of them again next month in the old hometown.

I am happy to have spent the days leading up to Christmas in the kitchen instead of joining the shopping crowd at the malls. And more happy to know that the people who matter will have the confectionery of their choice at the end of their dinner tonight.

A nice sweet start to the holiday season. I like that.

I don't even really care anymore

I don't get it. And I don't even really care anymore.

Do people still send postcards instead of sms or email? Especially when time is of the essence? And to send postcard from an inefficient European country where there is a strike every other week?

Anyway, so the woman shows up here and phones me asking to meet up. I had exactly the one afternoon free for lunch, take it or leave it. And at a location near my home, not somewhere on Orchard Road with the mad Christmas crowd.

We did manage to meet. And it was a couple of hours of torture, listening to her preachifying to me about the waywardness of today's youth, criticising our peers who are under-achievers, and praising her own endeavours at making a meaningful life.

Sigh. Alright. I let her speak her mind. I don't really bother to counter the falsehoods she belabours.

Because her mind is made up. And like the unthinking youth, the life-long bum-abouts and the rest of us who try to live meaningfully, we will each carry on doing exactly what we set our minds to do.

Only one thought stayed with me: this woman who thinks she is the paragon of everything righteous and proper, does she even realise she is the only one who does not sms or email (or even phone), but chooses to send postcards? In this day and age? When time is of the essence?

She will never admit she cannot handle sms or email. But that's neither here nor there. She is above all shortcomings.

Whatever her problem is with the world today, I don't even really care anymore.

Aches and Pains

Of late, I find myself whinging to friends in my age group about various aches and pains in my body. The knees creak, cackle and pop when I get up from a sitting position. My shoulders stiffen if I slept in an awkward position. Nowadays I even wake up with pain in my wrist and finger joints.

Some of these are from sports injury of long ago. Others are from present day lifestyle. The rest are I guess just part and parcel of growing older.

And most of the friends feel the aches and pains too, just in different places and in varying degrees of severity. We have a grand time discussing what to do and what to take to minimise the trauma of living with pain.

Mr Chubby who has been listening in all this time finally puffed up his chest and cheerily said, "You know, everybody who were sports jocks in their younger days seem to live with some sort of injury. I, on the other hand, was always a couch potato. I must be the only one among us with no chronic pain problem from sports injury. I must be in the best of physical condition compared to the rest of you. Heh!"

You know, Mr Chubby Couch Potato has a point there. But shaddup already. I am in pain here, okay?

Dancers and Dance on Us

The place is Azzucar. The school is Dance on Us.

The performers are students and instructors. Some are professional dancers. Most are still finding their place in the world of dance.

But for this one night, every dancer came together as equals to strut their stuff in front of their peers, friends and family.

I love dance school recitals. There is always the nervousness and excitement among the dancers. And after they finished their turn, there is the applause and approval from the crowd.

Above all, there is honesty and pride in their delivery that never fails to touch a special place in my soul.

An evening at Shiraz

It has been a while since I was at Shiraz.

The review about the food continues to be mixed. Diners tend to be hung up on whether the restaurant serves authentic Persian fare rather than Middle-Eastern. Does it truly matter? My input is that the food is definitely good, whether one thinks it's Persian or Middle-Eastern.

The review about the bellydance performance continues to be generally unkind. Similarly, comments tend to focus on whether the performers dance Arabic or Persian. Again, does it truly matter? The performers are entertainers, and they do the best they can with a less than ideal stage.
The bellydance show changes every few months.

The current dancers are Fatema (a winner of several bellydance competitions) and Angelina (a favourite with local media and events).

Shiraz is located at:
Blk3A, #01-06 Clarke Quay
Tel: 6334 2282

It really is always about the the food

Like my blogger friend put it in a recent post, it is always about the food. Really. And it makes for a happier world.

I enjoy baking. I enjoy making extra to pass them on to people I know who enjoy them: friends, the cleaning crew at the condo, the dance aunties at the cc...

Then there is this small staff of three who work extremely long hours in a neighbourhood mall. I have been bringing them cookies, brownies and cakes. Each time, I'd watch with amazement as they put away the entire tray within minutes. Without any drinks. Without any hesitation. Without any more critical review beyond "Thank you. This very good" between their mouthfuls.

Then the man decided to be really nice to them. He made a huge plate of woh tieh (pot stickers), taking care to arrange the 30 pieces in perfect nautilus-fan pattern, and rushed it over to the crew. He expected them to go oooh and aaah over the fancy arrangement, to ask how he got only one side of the woh tieh fried perfectly brown and the other side remained a steamed white, to show curiosity as to what the filling was, to wonder how we managed to make the perfect pleated folds.

The three grinned at us, thanked us as usual, grabbed their forks and started to dig into the food. Between "Thank you. This very good" and shoving the pot stickers into their mouths, the platter was cleaned out within minutes.

As we left them, the man turned to me and said, "They never noticed the perfect fan arrangement. They never realised the woh tieh were handmade. They didn't even wonder how come the woh tieh were still warm!"

And I said, "They are hungry. They are happy to see us, they are happy about the sale they make off us. But in the end, it is always about the food."

And we are happy if it makes their long day just that little bit brighter.

Coco and Coco

We felt like watching a movie at home. We dropped in at the nearby video store, and to my delight, I saw Coco Chanel on the shelf. We had missed the movie completely when it was playing in town.

We popped the dvd into the player. We quickly went through all the set-up options and settled in to what we expect would be a delightful evening of further expanding our experience of all things French.

First we were puzzled the voice-over at the start of the movie was in English. But, what do we know? Maybe Coco is a Hollywood flick after all. So we went back into set-up to remove the English subtitling. And quickly forgot all the incongruency between what we've heard and read about the movie and what we were watching.

The movie was thoroughly enjoyable. There was the august Shirley MacLaine as a festy older Chanel and someone I didn't recognise as the younger Chanel. But two and a half hours later in the wee hours of the morning, we were struggling to stay awake; the movie did not look like it was anywhere near ending! We soldiered on till the end, some near four hours later!

I only figured out today, after checking around with friends and imdb.com that there is the big-screen Coco avant Chanel, and there is the made-for-mylifetime-TV Coco Chanel.

Now I have to get my hot little hands on the French movie version...

November

was the month
- It began to look a lot like Christmas everywhere.

- Orchard Road got all glitzed and lit with Christmas kitsch. I am particularly tortured and haunted by the huge banner straddling the road at Patterson that reads "A Christmas all decked out". Where is the signage police team when you need them?

- I finally got my head around the fact that when our venerable national newspaper announces any grand plan to better look after the senior citizens, third-agers, retirees who might outlive their savings and should consider returning to work now, it is talking about me. And I shudder to think of the fate that awaits me.

- I started baking for the festive season ahead. Suji cookies is my favourite confectionery to make this year.

- I started making a list of the parties that await me in the weeks ahead; I am carefully checking it twice to make sure I don't get trapped into going to the dud ones.

- I knew everthing was going to be alright.