Don't call me at home

We don't like being jangled out of our peace and quiet at home. That is the reason we have a private number. We do not give out that number when filling out forms anywhere for any reason. We can easily be contacted on our mobiles. Preferably by sms rather than voice call if it's not anything long-winded or needs immediate response.

We are very annoyed with sales calls to the home phone. We usually give the caller a very rude telling off. And we always stress that this is an unlisted number, so how the f*** did they get our number in the first place. The caller always mumbled something about a data base. That would be true because they always ask for us by name.

That really pisses me off. Enough to finally call the telco to complain. The representative assured me that the telco does not sell subscriber information to anybody. She suggested that someone, possibly a family member, must have given out the information. That's out of the question, because no other family member lives with us.

I told the telco in no uncertain terms - there is a leak somewhere within their organisation. We pay them for our privacy. They will have to find that leak and plug it. Or I will lodge a complaint every time any telemarketer makes a cold call to that number.

Why am I so certain the leak is within the telco? Because I supplied a name that is deliberately spelt wrong. And that's the name the nuisance callers ask for. The trap is called disinformation - something I learned from watching so many spy movies. What's even more brilliant is that the telco still doesn't know about the ruse.

The telco representative assured me the company will look into the matter. It will be interesting to hear any follow up from them.

I don't do gelek

I already don't like her. But I still try (very hard) to appear gracious when she comes calling. But I cannot stop myself from recoiling inwardly.

After this latest short conversation, I will not entertain her social come-on's anymore.

she: Hi. So long never hear from you. How've you been. Still bellydancing?

me (oh stupid me): Oh hi. Yes, been a long time. Yes, still bellydancing. But I am also into folk dance and hula.

she: Oh, I am sure you do so well in hula. You can gelek so well.

me: Gotta go. Goodbye.

Gelek? Me gelek? Gelek-ing, to me, means a no-talent show-off sashaying in obnoxious fashion for the sole purpose of grabbing attention.

This is the same woman who not so long ago asked me to choreograph a bellydance number for her to perform at her son's wedding. I told her to look up professional bellydance performers or instructors. Really, they can do a better job.

Not that I wanted to attend the wedding, but for the record, I was not even on her guest list!

So she wanted me to teach her to gelek?

She should never try to look me up again, under any pretense. Especially for the business of gelek.

I do a lot of things. But I do not do gelek!

A little bit Bellydance, a little bit Hula

I love Middle Eastern Dance.

I love Hawaiian Hula Dance.

I positively hate it when the two are thrown together in the name of fusion.



A little bit of Bellydance, a little bit of Hula. Then call it bellynesian. It still does not make for a good dance; it does not do justice to either dance form.

I generally do not like fusion. After seeing this, I positively hate fusion.

Got something on

She called. I cringed. All cheery, she tells me we have a friend visiting and how about let's all have a drink together. I said thanks, but no thanks, can't make it. Got something on.

I sms'ed the Bibik who has also been similarly subjected to the caller's abusive ways in the past.

me: Hey, the tua pui yeow kwee kiam siap called about getting together for drinks because (so-and-so) in town. Not going.

the Bibik: She already called me twice and I already told her I got something on so not going.

me: I got nothing on and still not going. She looking for me just to have transport and have me pay for food and drinks. (So-and-so) can look for me herself if she wants to see me.

the Bibik: Haha. Never change. Chow.

Got something on. I like that phrase :)

The paper chase

My morning routine: stumble out of bed, walk in half-wake mode to front door, pick up the newspapers, and settle in to read the headline stories with that first cup of coffee. The day starts right. Bliss.

Then.

Everything went awry with the delivery. Last Saturday, I got the Straits Times minus the Business Times Weekend. On Sunday, I got the Sunday Times with other publications I am not familiar with. On Monday, I got the Sunday Times again. Each time, I eventually got the right newspapers after making a call to the vendor who then got somebody to come around to drop off the newspapers later in the day.

The last two days were "normal". The correct papers were dropped off at my front door on the right days. My world is right again.

Until.

I saw the delivery guy dropping off the Sunday papers today (Wednesday) at my neighbour's.

Oh no. I think the paper chase is about to start again...

Sweden in the autumn with friends

I have been following the flurry of email exchanges among the friends about an autumn holiday in Sweden. The arrangement is to stay with the girlfriend who has a summer home which she now lives in year round. The itinerary basically consists of lake fishing, or else berry- and mushroom-picking in the woods, and spending time, lots of time, together.

I have been silent. Images run through my mind. None too appealing.

I never saw fishing as an enjoyable relaxing activity. I'd rather just curl up with a good book for quiet time.In which case, I don't need to go to a summer home in Sweden to do.

I think of cavorting through the woods with these people. Naked like the locals if the mood so moves them, but that is not likely. I think of severe urticaria eruptions on skin that came in contact with nettles, oak vines and poison ivy. I think of the man wearing a waist-pouch full of antihistamine pills and injectables around his otherwise naked body. I think of spending the remainder of the holidays scratching at itches so bad that you just want to rip your skin off.

I think of cooking and eating our haul of wild mushrooms. I think of mushroom poisoning; I shudder at the thought of suffocating to death with my mind still crystal clear to the very end.

I think of long stretches of time spent cooped up with the lot of them. After the first night of excited catching up, I imagine I am ready to part company. Except there would be nowhere to retreat to. I am certain the summer home is many hours' car ride to anywhere. So I will spend the rest of my time counting the days to going home.

I think I will have to see the wonderful people under other circumstances. In other places. Where I can escape company when I feel the need.

So I will remain silent about this great holiday adventure. Until somebody comes up with a prettier picture of holidaying together.

It's a minute steak

I like the Aussie-styled steakhouse for its decent food and casual ambience. I also like the no-fuss efficient service of the wait-staff. Parking is never a problem either.

It came to pass that the man and I took our visitors for a quick lunch there since they were running on a tight workday schedule.

The one guest is always a pain in the proverbial you-know-where. He particularly enjoys talking down to wait-staff with a fake English public school accent trying to impress that he has a most impeccable palate.

We ordered the set lunch, and have selected the minute steak for the main. Now he tells the waitress, Eton accent and all, "Er, y-y e s. I know how you always do steaks overdone in Singapore. Might you be so kind as to tell the chef I want mine very, very rare please?"

We groaned. We protested: Oh, puhleeze. It's a minute steak. It is a thin slice of meat pan-fried for just a moment on each side. It cannot be done very, very rare!

The waitress very graciously said she will check with the chef. She was back very quickly with the answer: The chef says the minute steak is too thin to be pan fried and served very very rare. He can, however, do it to a perfect medium rare.

There. Exactly as we told him when he nevertheless proceeded to make a ass of himself.

Like I said, I like the restaurant for it's decent food and casual ambience. Now I respect it for its straightforwardness and honesty too.

The chamber of horrors

My preferred route in a shopping centre is to ride the lift to the uppermost shopping floor and work my way down by stairs and escalators. Makes sense: I don't have to cover the same grounds twice.

One of my favourite shopping haunts is Far East Plaza on Scotts for fun, quirky and inexpensive clothes and accessories.

But.

Step into the bubble lift of that building, and you enter a chamber of horrors:

- it is tiny; if there are 6 people in there, you feel hemmed in.
- it gets the full sun all day; it always feels like you are walking into a oven that has been set on slow bake mode at 50 degrees C.
- it rides slow; you suffer the crowding and the baking for longer than necessary.
- then, the mother of all horrors: I catch the awfullest reflection in the mirrored panels. Sickly yellow complexion, caked makeup running into every line on my face, hair colour a nasty orange shade of straw, and by the way, is that really the colour of my eye shadow? Even that go-anywhere wear-anytime ensemble of black tank top and gypsy skirt looks like rejects from the salvation army.

By the time I walk out of the chamber of horrors, my ego is deflated like a punctured tyre and my confidence is like shattered glass pieces on the floor deserving to be swept away post haste.

It takes walking around the shops, making a conscious effort to breath deeply and slowly, realising that nobody is scrambling to get away, and babies are not crying at the sight of me that I finally regain my equanimity.

I hate horror chambers that double up as elevators in shopping centres.

May

was the month
- I love. I think of the last of soft spring smells and colours before the full fury of summer heat claims its turn for the year. The antipodean autumn in slow surrender, covering the land in a blanket of golds and reds.

- most ideal for travel. For a brief few days, I considered Prague and Budapest by way of Istanbul. I never got any further than just thinking of it fleetingly.

- I stayed put in equatorial Singapore instead. And ended up having a good time making new friends who I am optimistic will rebuild my fast dwindling social circle as I continue to drop lousy people from my life. (How come there are still so many left?)

- I wrote the most "gripes and swpies" posts of any month since I started blogging. I wish for that to change in the new month.

- my hair has stopped falling out by the handful and is looking less tortured. I am contemplating going back to purple streaks again.So boh kia si (fearless) hor?

- I did not hear from Mother. The sister thinks Mother is totally distracted by Chai-nar (China) people and their tai-chee (problems) and has forgotten about us. I don't doubt it.

night and day

Photos by The Man

All that jazz

Photo by The Man

Choreography and arrangement by Bill Calhoun
Dancers from Dance on Us

Little girls, big girls

Most pictures are already used in previous montage, but I cannot reisit putting this together.

Thank heaven for little girls
For little girls get bigger everyday

Thank heaven for little girls
They grow up in the most delightful way

Showtime

The long hours of practice. Fine-tuning the choreography. More changes. More practice. Until, finally, dancers and dance come together to form a kaleidoscope of glitz and dazzle.

The last minute preparation for body and mind. The final touches to makeup and costume. The pre-show jitters. And then ... it's showtime.

And afterwards, as the dancers made their way back to the changing room to wait for the grand finale, one excited dancer said to her team-mates:"Oh, they applauded! Did you hear that? They applauded!" Another asked, "Did they applaud us the loudest?" "Yes! The longest and loudest. They loved us!"

The applause - that has to be the happiest sound to any dancer's ears.

Sao Kong and Fei Por

First I got an sms from the bridezilla inviting everybody to come party with her at a new cafe/restaurant/bar where there is karaoke all night long. I promptly deleted message and forgot all about it.

Then I bumped into an old acquaintance who still hangs out with the motley crew of washed-up musicians. She has been going to this new watering hole with the guys and now reports to me excitedly that the walking nightmare is there every weekend, hogging the mike and taking centre stage all night long like she is the star performer of the joint.

I had to ask: How are the sao kong (skinny man) and the fei por (fat woman)?

Without a moment's hesitation, she cheerily said, "Aiyoh. So poor thing. Who ask him marry her? Sao kong now so sao. Fei por now so fei. Aiyoh! You cannot believe it, man."

Sure I can. And ya lor, who ask him?

Mean old people

They were already old when we first met them. To our dismay, we realised very quickly that they were mean-spirited people.

They are from two of the most prominent old moneyed families of Singapore. They never had to work a day in their lives; the wealth they inherited could not be used up in 5 lifetimes.

They could have chosen to live nicely and treat people around them with decency. Instead, they delight in vicious gossip about other people's misfortune; they love nothing more than predicting people's downfall be it financial, marital or social. They actually begrudge people who managed to get ahead.

We have stopped seeing them altogether for several years now but we hear occasion news of their slow decline in physical and mental health. The latest is that the old woman is showing signs of senile dementia; she gets confused, forgetful, depressed and angry.

The old man is not supportive. He is of the opinion that her condition is just the latest of fads in clinical diagnosis alongside dyslexia, autism, attention deficit, bi-polarism and all other syndromes and phenomena.

The man and I considered forgetting their vileness towards us. They are just two old people getting older. We were actually very useful to them in many ways, especially when it came to medical issues.

But we know that whatever faculties they might lose in the years ahead - physical and mental - their vile nature will remain to the end. We decided to continue staying away from them.

We should feel bad about leaving them to fuddle through their dotage, but we don't. We can't care about them.

They are just too mean.

Me - Woman of the house

The man does enjoy cooking. And he does turn out excellent dinners. He enjoys having friends and family over to share the food, drinks and company. He also loves to explain in great detail to the guests how the food is cooked.

Me. I am a very good cook too.

Unlike him, I don't bother to promote my skills; the food speaks for itself. Unlike him, I can and prefer to work alone from planning, shopping, cooking to putting the food on the table.

He on the other hand, needs all manner of assistance when he is in the kitchen. I am just as involved and busy when he is doing the cooking.

The word is out that he is a good cook. I generally grin, grit my teeth and bite my tongue when the clueless men in the neighbourhood walk up to him and say, "Hey, I heard you are a good cook". I am willing to let that silly and impossible statement pass because, well, what do the men know about men and cooking anyway.

Then, one silly wife parroted the Hey-I-heard-you-are-a-good-cook chorus. I lost it then. I turned on her and snapped, "If you please, we are all good cooks in our household!"

The show of annoyance was rude and ungracious of me. But I contend that it is totally unforgiveable that this or any other woman can be dumb enough to believe and repeat so preposterous a rumour. I don't regret being sharp with her. There are, after all, two of us in this household and regardless of the distribution of workload around here, she has no right to ignore the importance, usefulness and contribution of one or the other.

Especially me - the woman of the house. So there.

I hate this dress!

I don't remember ever hating a dress so much in my life.

I already hated the material at first sighting. It's a pale tropical print. I don't do pale tropical prints.

I hated the design. It's a fitted muu muu. I don't do muu muu's.

Then there is the tailor with attitude. On the first fitting, 9 out of the 11 dresses were too big everywhere. After alteration, the dresses came back fitting crazy - too tight here, too loose there. Those that were too long (mine included) the tailor took up from the shoulder straps.

I will be wearing this hideous thing on stage.

The friends had a good giggle over my exasperation and dismay. You frighten the dress too big can kah lao (drop off) is it? I frighten dress kah lao and I puak toh (fall down) because dress also too long. The friends exploded into unstoppable and uncontrollable laughter till tears streamed down their faces.

Such sympathy I get from friends.*hmpff*

May hafla by Belinda @ Blu Jaz

(click on image for enlargement)

After a short hiatus in April, Belinda is back with the May hafla at BluJaz this weekend.

The theme is Sultry. Come prepared.

She's a ballroom dancer

The dance performance is mere days away now. There have been many stumbling blocks in all directions, one of which is that we have not had a single practice session with everyone present yet.

At the last practice session, we had the most number of show-ups todate. Things were looking up.

Until.

To our dismay, one of the dancers just had difficulty lining up right after each formation change. A helpful soul tried to explain to the left-fielder how to spot and get back in line.

The spoken-to did not take kindly to the constructive suggestion. She has been a dancer, a ballroom dancer if you please, for 40 years. She knows all about dance - connection, frame, posture, timing, body alignment, proper weight transfer, etc.

And the light came on in my head: the woman, in her 40 years of being led across the ballroom, never ever had to figure out space and place when dancing.

Can die. And the performance is mere days away.

I guess the rest of us will just have to dance around this stubborn obstacle.

Ice Kachang after the snowstorm

The crowd watched in hushed silence as designer Vivienne Westwood appeared on the big screen during the Audi Fashion Festival's closing show last Sunday. In the pre-recorded video, London's grand dame of fashion apologised for her absence at the showing of her Anglomania collection but explained that the reason was that she was watching her carbon footprint.

(BT Weekend, Saturday/Sunday, May 16-17, 2009)

In the same feature story, Sunday Times fashion commentator Colin McDowell went on to describe the designer as "someone who thinks today what we all care about tomorrow."

And I remember why I despise chi-chi events - the shallowness, the hypocrisy, the arrogance of it all, packaged as cutting edge, world changing visions of the future.

And the worshipers - bowing and scraping - lapping up every drivel of rubbish from the lips of self-serving, big-money purveyors of obscene consumerism.

How's this for a little bit of truth in representation: the big-name madame was not at the show because it was not important enough for her to put in an appearance. And that plane she did not get onto took off on schedule, so no need to bluff people about reducing her carbon footprint.

So, it is refreshing to have the notorious Fash Hag of Urban reporting with sarcasm, wit, disdain and humour to bring down self-important characters a peg or two whenever the opportunity presents itself.

For spectacular special effects during a private party, the Tent was blasted with a snowstorm of white down feathers. Everyone was covered with fur-like flecks.

According to Fash Hag: ...one ruffled lion-haired tai-tai entered the Ngee Ann City restroom to clean up, only o have a passer-by exclaim, "Wah, her hair looks like ice kacang."

That last line made my day. *Meow*