blessing

the chinese supermarket here attracts a diverse foreign born group.

the east asian cashier chatters to her colleague in an unrecognizable dialect as her latina customer swipes her card to pay. i see the cashier's brittle blasé expression alter and she looks her customer in the eye for the first time. money not enough, she says quietly gently and with a thick accent. it is a pocket of compassion that acknowledges our common humanity.

importunity

J2 has a birthmark on her leg in full public view.

at the mall parking lot, a stranger accosts us and says, i'm a doctor. if you want to fix that mark, i can do it. his card says, aphrodite advance [sic] esthetic [sic] & skin care clinic.

this deeply offends me. where i come from, a professional person does not solicit. and a salesman, i'm thinking, should hesitate to peddle his wares without an invitation. in some circles we call this spam.

deepwater horizon 2

on april 20, 2010 the macondo well explodes, killing eleven.

5.2 million barrels one CEO one senior government official much finger pointing and many dire predictions later, we get this. essentially, the 1.2 million barrels we successfully siphon skim or burn are in the landfills or in the air. 4 million barrels are missing, hopefully due to gulf microbe action.

two glaring conclusions:

1. we know infinitely less about stuff than we imagine.

2. we must stop managing disasters by rhetoric and drama.

the girls' guide to chick lit 2

i like:
jane austen
helen fielding
imogen parker
adele parks
jane green

the girls' guide to chick lit

genre fiction / women / issues / humor

here's what i look for:
1. hardcover if possible
2. "b" format paperback
3. funky matte cover
4. brit before american
5. heroine in her thirties or forties

these are deal breakers:
1. vulgarity
2. adultery
3. weak writing

rite of parentage

these days J1 drives himself around some.

the pro:
i no longer play chauffeur at unearthly hours.

the con:
my nerves are shot to bits.

mental pain

it is easier to say "my tooth is aching" than to say "my heart is broken".  r havard, m.d. (the problem of pain, 1962)

feeding one generation a steady diet of tabloids oprah and therapy means that these days we know of more publicly shattered psyches than overtly carious teeth.

the problem of pain - c s lewis (1962)

this is the most elegant response i know to the question, why does an all loving all powerful God allow pain? and quite unlike the trend of modern writers the exposition is lucid and fresh to the last chapter.

writers like lewis affirm that faith entails a hope in wonderful things unseen, and not in snake oil.

life lesson

being fresh from our visit to singapore, where grouchy complaints rule the day, and freshly from the american pharmacy today, i make one observation:

indifferent service is a cross cultural prerogative.

hey, i want to say, it's okay if you don't smile. but please look at me!

hoppin' mad 2

whaddaya know?

our record setting heat wave breaks into a golden blue summer's day with a drowsy breeze blowing through it. it is the sort of day that makes it into poems.

unfortunately it is not the sort of day that will dry our poor rug.

hoppin' mad

Dog goes to the bathroom on this rug. fortunately we have a heat wave in which to launder it.

what i like about the u.s.

1. central air conditioning,
2. food labels are de rigueur, and
3. my hair looks better here, which i admit is totally shallow of me.

quantitative research

Dog returns from the pet hotel with a bag of medications. he is on:

famotidine bd p.o.
cefpodoxime od p.o.
sucralfate bd p.o.

ung gentamicin/betamethasone/clotrimazole

if this is not suspiciously like triple therapy and triderm i don't know what is.

on reflection i'm thinking that rct's involving animals are what human researchers call animal studies. which makes me wonder, do we copy them, or do they copy us?

debrief

highlights from our home trip:

tenants move out

kitchen tiles pop up

wood floor breathes its last

door lock expires with us outside
Dog gets admitted with bleeding GIT
organize vet long distance

meet the locksmith

meet contractors

meet realtors

haunt mindef

in addition to the round of reunion visits short trips and pigging out.

not quite the usual junket. this must be why HOM and i are:

1. hazy in our recent memories, and

2. so glad to be home.

today

passes in a blur of dyspepsia sleepiness five mountains of laundry and a to-do list a mile long. J2 rescues me from part of the laundry and i put off the to-do to a better day but that still leaves the first two.

AND IT'S STILL TOO EARLY TO SLEEP.

business class

i have my best long haul flight ever, thanks to HOM's mileage upgrade. my salad days when i carelessly fly ny-frankfurt-sgp cattle class and head to work from the airport are totally over. these days i can no longer take space comfort and the possibility of sleep for granted.

in any case, we're home!

final sgp notes

what this place needs:
cheap accessible self service laundromats, currently non existent,
a second orchard road, to absorb half the mass currently on the original,
more frequent subway trains with actual available seating,
real garage sales instead of commercial masquerades, &
larger public trash cans.

we go home to Dog tonight.

notes from sgp 4

surviving tropical mugginess:

a/c 24/7. i wish.

2 hourly showers.

minimal clothing.

this stickiness is getting unbearable.

notes from sgp 3

here is a delightful fact.

there is a core of sincere gruff friendliness extending even to a stranger, lurking just below the surface of the distant looking older gentleman or lady. it pops out readily if you return their frosty look with a cheery greeting or two.

our famous sgp chinese reserve is not so impenetrable after all.

homeward bound

i miss my washer and my dryer and the oven and dishwasher and vacuum cleaner. i miss the piano and the music. i miss not having to tussle with HOM and J1 for laptop privileges. i miss broadband. i miss my bland home cooking. i miss having ready access to a refrigerator. to top it off, i abet J2 when she accosts strangers just to talk to their dogs.

it is perhaps time to return home.

floor show

in the rush hour train, from in between many bodies, we all become privy to a woman's cellphone conversation. it is a clearly enunciated obviously private exchange involving much offering of solace and advice. it is in fact rather fascinating.

perhaps by avoiding eye contact and forgoing courtesies we are able to forget that a crowd is made up of other sentient beings, who nonetheless remain unapologetically happy to listen in on us.

current affairs

16 june 2010

25 june 2010

17 july 2010

these days when you google singapore and flood you get a choice of dates to refer to.

la vogue

in tanjong pagar, walking past a row of shopfronts parading the newest in wedding fashions, a realization dawns.

in this chinese majority confucius slanting aggressively westernizing metropolis, black is the new red. her grandmother may turn in her grave, but today's blushing bride likes her little black dress.

tsukiji market

the zion of fish aficionados. we finally succeed in re-locating our favorite sushi joint in tsukiji (6). getting there is always a hit or miss affair, given that we navigate on instinctive feel alone. the sashimi here is as good as our memory of it.

tokyo thoughts 2

we are back from kawaii land.

the cute as a button concept has an irresistible magic that permeates design execution packaging and presentation and spans time. it only fails where nature's ugliness is insurmountable, as with the inebriate carelessly vomiting on the subway track, or with the ubiquitously ambulant cigarette.

even their construction sites are pretty.

tokyo thoughts

what i like about the JR line:

1. wide fabric covered seats,
2. clear unfussy announcements, and
3. that people don't use their cellphones on the train.

i also like that i am not told to mind that gap at every station.

notes from sgp 2

we are a nation of strangers.

we avoid acknowledging our fellows' existence with religious fervor. no eye contact no smile no friendly greeting no passing comment and heaven forbid no casual compliment.

we are not so bad inside really. we smother our children parents relatives and friends with overpowering care. it's the people we meet in elevators stores or along corridors who get the crustiness.

it may be nice, i think, if we guard our insides less zealously.

mars & venus

men, i observe, drive off, belt up, and attempt to figure out how they are getting where.

women tend to do the above in reverse order.

psalm 42:8

at night his song is with me - a prayer to the God of my life.

in the dark places of my soul the sounds i hear when i cannot see make up a song that is more lovely than anything i can sing; it is a song to my God when i no longer have my own words. God remains when my heart fails.

o joy that seekest me through pain, i cannot close my heart to thee;
- george matheson                  

world cup 2010

quite unfortunately for soccer enthusiasts and idealistic sporting people, this year's match is really not spain versus the netherlands. in every heartland conversation i overhear it is the sotong versus the parrot.

postscript. the sotong triumphs.

fire hazard

J2 and i take the train to orchard road for some girl time. this proves to be an error. on sunday afternoons, half the population takes the train to orchard road while the other half shops at wisma atria.

midas

we chance upon a tiny shop housing antediluvian equipment

which successfully gold plates our u.s. quarters.

physical fitness test

J1 clears his napfa* test with sufficient merit to shave two months off military training. i guess you may say that the years of careful toning of that washboard finally pay off in more than just admiring female glances.

*national physical fitness award

food diary - malacca 2010

best in class:

itik tim from ole sayang

otah otah from ole sayang
dry wantan noodles from midway down jonker street

kaya puffs from baker's cottage in dataran pahlawan

ridiculously cheap 7542 menghai pu'er tea from hang kasturi

i wouldn't bother:

oyster meesua from lorong hang jebat

san shu gong dessert store

makko* nonya restaurant

pergola** hotel

*go to ole sayang across the road instead.

**try hotel puri in the historic part of the city.

notes from malacca 2

there are three types of businesses where we are:
1. hotels,
2. eateries, and
3. foot reflexology places.

notes from malacca

we venture on foot onto the streets of malacca. this is an exercise in audacity litheness and sheer good fortune as we maneuver ourselves on the edge of the asphalt between oncoming traffic and the drain.

what i say is, in malacca, you get closer to nature.

malaysian traffic

our rental car swims into the getting-out-of-school traffic on our way to downtown malacca, as the two lane road swells into five lanes of intercalating vehicles that do little more than jiggle sideways on the spot and motorcycles and bicycles weave tauntingly in between us.

on the other hand we get a nice and long close-up view of historic houses.

for this part of the world, this is the order of increasing lawlessness on the roads:

1. singapore

2. malaysia

3. thailand

top of the food chain

3 room hdb flat

tanjong pagar, sgp

it doesn't get much better 

home incendiary device

my hairdryer is history. my confusion over voltage requirements incinerates the innards as i attempt to primp myself and i am left holding a carcass emitting a strange smoky smell.

honeymoon over

we put up at a bijou apartment whose cozy charm rapidly evaporates when i encounter my first cockroach.

notes from sgp

it raineth and raineth and it raineth again.

and not your soft rains upon the fields type of precipitation either but the full blown tropical storms complete with foreboding clouds and thunderous proclamations.

i'm here four days and wet three of them.

J1

beach trip 3

black bod n. the progression of a sunburn to the stage where the affected skin turns necrotic. [f. colloq. n. for body]