A maybe firm date in Paris

She's one of those frequent return-visitor friends whom I see year-in, year-out. She enjoys generous hospitality from everyone she looks up. She has, for years, been saying we should come to Paris so she could return hospitality.

The famous day of reckoning approaches. She is here, I am here. I gleefully tell her I shall, incredulous as it may seem to her, be in Paris for 5 days and 4 nights. When would she like to see me?

Now I watch her start to squirm and vacillate. Well, she begins tentatively, that's the weekend she might have to be in the UK to settle her daughter in the university. But she would be back by Monday. Tuesday at the latest. So I helpfully suggested: Shall we settle for dinner on Wednesday then, and I leave for Lyon the next day? Yes, but she isn't totally sure she'd be back by Wednesday. Is there possibly anyway I delay going to Lyon.

No, there is no way I stay on in Paris for a maybe meet-up with her.

We left it as a firm maybe for Wednesday. She will, she promised, let me know as soon as she gets back to Paris and sort things out with husband and daughter. That will be best, I expansively agreed.

Do we have a firm date in Paris finally? So she can return hospitality after all this time?

Yes. Maybe.

August

was the month
- when travel plans finally started to fall in place.

- when we decided to we make a mini trip to Bali for the Paul Ropp sale.

- when we got together with friends to make concrete plans for travel to Paris-Lyon, then cover several towns in Provence.

- when Mother called me twice. Each time she dominated the entire phone conversation prattling on and on about what's happening in the lives of people I don't know.

- when my sister called to let me know she took the parents out to dinner and she never opened her mouth once the entire evening. And the parents never noticed.

- when the sister too has reached the end of her wits in trying to be a dutiful daughter trying to do the right thing with the cranky and crazy old people we call parents.

- when I got to see several friends who were visiting. Some of them I was so happy to see again; others I was not so thrilled but I did it out of a sense of obligation.

- when I was reminded all over again how important it is to have good people to count on and good friends to trust in times of need.

Lousy woman, lousy man

A long, long time ago, this lousy woman fell in love with this lousy man.

They dedicated many years to keeping their relationship a secret from the public through lies and deceit.

Then they got married and he carried on with the lying and the deception while she carried on hiding.

Then, at the funeral of an old man, the lousy man finally admitted to the existence of the lousy woman in his life.

But they are not yet telling the world anything else, especially whether there are children in their lives.

Should I be optimistic and think that one day soon, they will live happily ever after like a normal married couple? Do I even care?

I really do not.

Back to Paul Ropp

I look at the poster. The Paul Ropp vibrancy bekons. How did I find the will power to resist the last two sales in January and April this year.

I mean I am talking Paul Ropp here - the man who designs clothes for "people who want sensual freedom and movement or prefer to be naked".

I think it's time to revisit an old friend...

Can you recommend

... a good pediatrician?
... a good specialist?
... a good restaurant?

... you get the drift. As if, in the first place, I would otherwise recommend someone/something/someplace bad.

Sigh. So I have to ask for basic information before I could even begin somewhere.

- the pediatrician: how old is the patient, what is the medical condition to be looked at.
- the specialist: a specialist in what?
- the restaurant: the list of pertinent information is so long. Occasion, budget, type etc.

I don't bother with the ones looking to me to recommend a good boyfriend/husband.

Other People

Grown children of friends are, in my opinion, just "other people". And frankly speaking, I am not interested in them as people.

So it distresses me greatly to have to listen to my friends in their role as proud mothers telling me glowing stories of their children. Especially when the friends don't live here and we have a small amount of time to catch up during their brief stay.

So when the girlfriend despaired that she had forgotten to bring photos - of her "lovely girls", of course - I was hopeful I was going to be spared the boring stuff about them. I should be so lucky. The woman dove into her super sized tote-bag and whipped out her camera. Then she insisted we sat cheek-to-cheek making me peer into the 4cm X 5cm screen as she scrolled through the thousands of pictures. She stopped at each picture to give me painfully detailed information.

I had to stop her at around 50. I begged to leave her sooner than planned, pleading other pressing errands to run. I made some vague polite noises about seeing her one more time before she leaves.

I don't mean to keep the date. Not if she is going to torture me all over again with stories of her grown children.

Like I said, grown children of friends are just "other people" to me. And I am not interested in them as people.

Should I or should I not?

I am still baffled by the constant question, "What do you do now that you are no longer working?"

I don't seem to be able to give a satisfactory answer.

How do you explain what a luxury it is to be able to take your time reading the papers with your morning coffee. Instead of having only 10 minutes to scan the headlines, gulp down the coffee and rush off to get dressed for work.

How do you explain you really appreciate not having to put up with demanding and unreasonable people who show you no respect in your professional capacity because they are paying for your time? And you still have to be tactful and diplomatic with them? I love not having to handle insensitive and rude people in my private life.

How do you explain it feels so good to have time to pursue your own interests. I like not having to rush through leisure activities.

Put in the most simple way: I love having my life back.

Then it dawned on me how ridiculous that this particular woman keeps carping at me about "not working any more."

She never worked but for maybe 5 years when she first left school! What does she do with her time all these years, I wonder? Besides taking sadistic pleasure in torturing me with her incessant questioning whenever she blows into town?

I should ask her that when I next see her, like maybe one day next week.

Then again, maybe I should not. I just remembered the woman talks non-stop even without a topical point!

I am not in the mood to be at the receiving end of her verbal diarrhoea.

Random conversation

We've not seen the guy for nearly 20 years. It was, needless to say, a joy to catch up with him during his short visit recently.

Everyone in the family is doing well, says he. But his father, he laments, is getting increasingly forgetful in his old age. And he, the caring and filial son, has been giving the old man long lectures on how to cope and be "less forgetful".

The old man must have already realised that his failing mental acuity is irreversible. He finally turned to his son during another of the lectures and said, "Why are you telling me all this? It's going to be your problem."

We will miss the old boy's sharp wit...

The Vanity Fair Split Cover edition

Yes, I made it a point to get the special split cover edition of Vanity Fair 2009.

I love them both, the covers and the personalities.

No, I did not give in to the impulse to grab both.

I agonised for several long minutes.

I finally decided on my selection based on choosing artistic merit over nostalgic sentiment.

It was tough to leave the other on the shelf.

They cannot read, They cannot write

I should have left things well alone. I have located them in FB, now I see their one-liners and the blast of holiday pictures, party pictures, family pictures.

But, for whatever reason, I feel like I short-change them with my silly quiz results (that is about all I ever post in FB). So, I mention my blog to the handful of people from long-ago years.

I got the most stubborn and unnecessarily gruff and ungracious reply: I'm afraid no blogging for me... Let's stick to emails.

My reply: Yes, let's.

My thought: Not only do these people not read nor write, these people probably cannot read or write!

Bread - Home baked

It isn't that we are particularly picky about our dinner rolls. It's just that we have not found any that we like enough to go through the hassle of shopping for it and then having to stand in the long line to pay for one loaf or half a dozen pieces of rolls.
So on a whim, I thought to make our own. The kitchen always has the basic ingredients : flour, yeast, salt, sugar.

It really turned out good for a first attempt. I have not reached the stage of proficiency that I care to identify what kind of bread I baked. It is just bread, with a crust, that came out of the oven in time for dinner.

Happily, we slapped butter on the still warm home-baked bread, and savoured it with our dinner of cold cut beef roast, mash, and slaw - all home cooked and prepared.

The faint smell of yeast and baking still lingering in the kitchen as we sat down to dinner was simply heavenly.

The Pole Dancers at NDP

When I first saw the complaint letter of pole dance making its debut appearance in the NDP this year, I dismissed it as just another silly, uptight and unfounded gripe from an overly concerned but misguided parent of school-age children.

But net chatter picked up momentum, and the opinions got more and more ridiculous. Soon, the leap is made from pole performers to prostitutes and strip dancers.

There seems to be two reasons for objecting to pole performance.

One is its origin - that it is the mainstay of sleaze bars and clubs. That the dance form has moved into mainstream society and that women have taken to it as another fitness and exercise option is ignored. Also ignored is the fact that training at the gyms and studios far exceeds what is required at the bars and clubs.

The other is about "skimpy" outfits.

According to The Straits Times:
Pole dancing - where scantily clad women writhe around a pole on stage - is making an appearance at the National Day Parade (NDP) this evening...
(Thursday, August 9, 2009, Lifestyle, page2)

The performers' explanation about the need for skin contact to grip the pole falls on deaf ears. This court of public opinion has passed the verdict that the girls' outfits are somehow indecent. I happen to think that injecting a little sex appeal into an otherwise strenously demanding acrobatic feat never hurts anybody.

No amount of arguing or debating is going to change any minds. The girls will give their all in the first ever appearance of pole dance at this year's NDP. And I know the loud cheers from the crowd will drown out the nay-sayers.

So you go, girls of Acropolates.

What a low and cheap trick

The pedestrian crossing on Paterson Road between ION Orchard and Wheelock Place is really closed.

An underground pass now links the two buildings. There are temporary signs hastily put up at the entrance to the underpass alongside Wheelock and at the front of ION.

I was in a hurry. I was at Wheelock and needed to get across to Wisma Atria/Ngee Ann City, and back.

Getting into the underpass at Wheelock, then walking through ION underground to emerge at ION exit/entrance is, while not so straightforward for a first attempt, was at least manageable.

Re-tracing that path on the return trip is impossible. Once you enter ION, you are totally lost with escalators and shops disorientating your directional judgement. I gave up after asking shop keepers who directed me to more underground levels and shops. I ended up getting out of ION and walking the upward slope along Patterson to cross at the traffic at Patterson and Orchard Boulevard.

My grouse is this: the underpass is NOT an underground pedestrian crossing. It is a cheap diversonary tactic to direct all pedestrian traffic into ION and detain them there. There were no location maps anywhere to help with navigating within the mall either.

How low can a premier and iconic shopping mall stoop to force shoppers into their premises?

L-O-W, cheap and dirty.

Hosts and visitors

I have a relay of visitors coming into town starting next week. Many I look forward to seeing. A handful I am unsure of and have been agonizing over what to do about them.

I got to thinking of the friends who were ever so considerate, who went out of their way to make sure I am enjoying my time in their country. I also recall the ones who gave me the oh-so-glad-you-made-it-here-let's-meet-up-sometime spiel and I never hear from them again during my entire stay.

And it dawned on me that there is a direct relationship between hosts and guests : lousy guests and visitors make lousy hosts and vice versa.

And suddenly, it is all so clear to me who I will not entertain in town, and who I will not want to look up when next I travel.

I believe I finally see the light. Heh

P.S. I know the rationale is not well put forward, but that's all my tired brain can manage right now.

The lexicon of Michael Jackson

I think this is one of the best commentaries written on the late Michael Jackson.

Then mourn the demise of arts journalism.

When the manager steps in

I was looking to buy a particular CD. I called the vendor to ask if said CD is carried in their store.

The staff who took my call was nice enough even if she couldn't answer my question: "I'm sorry, ma'am, but I am not sure about the CD. I have no update so far and my manager has not yet stepped in right now."

Maybe I am just being prickly and picky, but why do people try to sound too clever with English and end up mangling the language. What does she mean the manager has not yet stepped in? She could have simply said the manager hasn't come in yet. Stepping in implies an sense of casualness, like popping in for a short time only rather than come in to assume the hours of the work shift. (I am not going to tackle the "not sure" and "update" bits in her answer.)

Like I said, the staff was nice enough. She took down my name and phone number, and called me back with the answer soon after, when the manager finally stepped in.

Isn't she lovely?

She really is.

I love the essay for it's stylish writing, research depth and sentimental understanding of an often misunderstood people.

I have met these people; I will never forget their kindness; I will always remember them fondly...

July

was the month

(ang ku kueh)

- The apartment directly below me started renovation work. The noise was unbearable. Luckily, heavy continuous drilling is permitted only from 9am to 2pm Mondays to Fridays. I still have the peaceful weekends.

- I actually miss having an office to go escape the noise.

- I accepted lunch dates from anybody who looked for me. Including all those private banker types who are still flogging dubious structured products. I really need to get to know a better class of people.

- I went to shopping malls which I never thought to go to. So far, I have covered Vivo City and Jurong Point. Both were big enough to occupy me for several hours. But when one is not actually shopping, it makes for a very empty experience. I wondered why I loved gallivanting in my (much) younger days.

- I visited old neighbourhoods that I don't usually go to. Like Joo Chiat and Alexander Village. I got reacquainted with long forgotten snack foods like ang ku kueh.

- Mother is still ominously quiet. Maybe my sister is right - the old woman has really forgotten about us. Or she is too busy consorting with unsavoury Chye-nah people who give her time of day because they have design on her money. Neither possibility is good but I value my peace and sanity too much to find out what's happening.

A tale of Singapore food

We listened to the sweet young thing tell us of her business trips to various cities in China. What she loved about the place, what she hated, what she missed.

Food, she declared. I miss Singapore food! Everything in China came in huge portions and were too oily and too salty.

Yes, we thought! She's one of us! She loves her food. She knows her food!

So, we asked, you headed straight for food the minute you touched down?

Yes! came her gleeful reply, I headed straight to Newton Circus for macaroni!

Newton Circus? Macaroni?

She's supposed to say mee pok dry, char kway tiao, Hainanese chicken rice, something like that. And at any of the many old name hawker centres!

Not macaroni at Newton Circus!

She may love her food, but there is definitely a huge gulf between her idea of real and worthy Singapore food and ours.

ps I never clarified what she meant by macaroni, because what came to mind immediately was macaroni and cheese a la Kraft. It was later that I thought she must mean bak chor macaroni soup. So maybe she is half way to qualifying as a foodie of Singapore food.

Happiness is ...

After reading his very deep discourse on man, materialism and happiness, am I to conclude that:

Early early say so lah!