Countdown to vacation: 10 days

Sometimes...

...you get into a cab and after a minute, you realise something's not quite right with the cabbie. Nothing you can put your finger on. Just something that's not quite right. Something unsettling that you can imagine may quite easily grow into something untoward, unseemly...something that, let's face it, you just don't want any part of.

Then again, you think maybe you're overreacting. Maybe you're wrong. Maybe it's just you and how you tend to be dramatic and jump to conclusions. Maybe...but what if it's not?

Do you get off? Even though you haven't reached your intended destination? Or do you ignore the feeling and hope it passes...because after all, you really do want to get where you want to go?

joke

Two cows are in a field. One says, "Moo."
The other cow says, "Hey - I was going to say that!"

Family Tip: 7 The Shouting Can

T and I strive to be contemporary and progressive in are parenting. The result is we have very raised unique individuals. They have a sense of humor. They feel free to share their point-of-view. In turn, we try to be honest with them. As much as we can, we explain the way things are. They are creative and expressive. Perhaps too expressive. With a flair for the dramatic, which I am afraid they have inherited from their mother. All this is good for the most part, but sometimes, it's not. Sometimes, when such children don't get their way, they go into histrionics - rabble-rousing rage at the top of their voices. And what's particularly discomfitting for parents who believe themselves contemporary and progressive - is hearing echoes of themselves in these temper tantrums.

So this evening, we came up with The Shouting Can. Essentially, we're talking about a receptacle for penalty tithes. Children who are caught shouting in anger or in an uncontrollable rage will (after they have calmed down sufficiently) be asked to give up 20 cents of their own pocket money. Adults will be tithed a dollar.

Yes, I will own: The Shouting Can - is as much for the mother as it is for the children.

JollyBBQ

There's no reason why this shouldn't work - the right location, across from Novena Church - to capture the throngs of yayas and indays looking for a good old Pinoy lunch. At the same time, it's got parking and is fairly close to the Newton MRT for those who don't have the time or the wherewithall to cook their own liempo, pork barbecue or salpicao. Why, when all it costs for a satisfying plate is $4.50? The name is genius - mining the brand recall and equity of the giant at home. And then there's the food itself. The serving of rice is more than generous, if a tad on the moist side. It's true though that I am of the extreme prediliction, preferring rice on the drier, more mabuhaghag side. Also, I found I would have preferred the pusit more inihaw than pusit -- drier -- more like Cafe Ilonggo, all blackened and toasty on the edges. But maybe that's just me. There also ought to be a fish dish - if not danggit or bangus, maybe inihaw na tilapia?

I wish the Atenean entreps more power and great success. It's clear that Pinoy cuisine must work it's way up, rather than down, at least in this particular market - but there's certainly no reason why JollyBBQ shouldn't be phenomenal.

Sunday night blues

The tummy feels nervy. Am not sure how to play this day, nor the next. And am hoping I'll be able to get up for the track. In the meantime, every fibre of my being is saying - can't I just stay home?

I may as well be in fifth grade again.

Where do they get it?

At last Sunday's picnic, I introduced K to M's mother.
K: Hello! (then under her breath almost as if to herself) The resemblance is amazing...

Today, at the Singapore Children's Choir concert, C settled down in his seat, leaned back and closed his eyes. Then he murmured:
C: Music soothes the savage beast...

These kids are just marvelous - and they're mine.

Now, that's a superhero movie

Next with Nicolas Cage, Julianne Moore and Jessica Biel, written by Philip K. Dick is a modern superhero tale, and very much worth its 1 hour and 30 minutes. At once fresh and inventive, the flick is a great casting of Cage - in fact, I can't think of another actor who could have done it as well as he did. Like all superheroes, Cage's Chris Thompson has that slightly tortured, manic look that should, if you think about it, be on all superheroes' faces - if superheroes were real people, that is.
It's also a pretty clever super power, when you think about it...a two minutes' headstart after all has great potential in what can be achieved...

It's been awhile since I've had the pleasures of sheer storytelling alone - but I did during Next. Even before I was halfway through the movie, I wanted to clap my hands. Clearly, it has been too long.

Another loop

I am thrown by...
Why is it that if it isn't one thing, it's another. Why does it seem like other people live placid, pleasant lives in their day to day, where their ebb and flow is regular without these jolts and jerks. Emphasis on the latter. Must treat it like yoga. Breathe through it. Accept it and try to move on...

Speaking of which, next week is the week that I must get to yoga.

Great Books To Read Children aged 7-10

• The Voyages of Dr. Dolittle by Hugh Lofting
• The Story of Dr. Dolittle by Hugh Lofting
  
• Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis
• The Magician's Nephew by CS Lewis
• Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery
• Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume
• Superfudge by Judy Blume
  

Raising a girl

When I found out I was pregnant with a girl, the very first thought that occured to me was that I could read her all my favourite books. When K turned nine, I started her off with Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher. And just recently, we finished the Canadian classic LM Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, which is still just as good as it ever was. We finished the book yesterday, me reading aloud and K oohing and aahing and gasping beside me. And tonight, we're watching the mini-series.

If only it were that easy to find a book to read for to C...

Weird sensation

It started over the weekend, and unfortunately, has continued on to today, possibly to tomorrow. Exhaustion like a pile of rocks. Energy in the negatives. Fatigue that comes from nothing but more fatigue. And not even the strength to do the most elementary of tasks. What is this?

Non-sequitur: got a call from one of my oldest friends over the weekend. It's amazing that despite great distance, gaps in time and psyche...it is still possible to laugh at just precisely those kinds of things you used to laugh at together.

Recollecting that weekend moment was a comfort in all this wretched hormonal weirdness.

Two books

We popped by Page One at Vivo City, and I succumbed to a book purchase - actually two.

I was first acquainted with Jamaica Kincaid's work back in Bowling Green. One of my dearest friends there JM was doing her dissertation on women expatriate writers - Jean Rhys and Jamaica Kincaid. She introduced me to Lucy. Not many people I know like Kincaid - she's rather an acquired taste, apparently, but I did. And I do. When she writes, it's like she doesn't care about what the readers might think - like she is writing to please herself first, and the reader, a distant second. It seems to me that this is a good thing - a freeing thing - to be able to just put it out there - bahala na. And she has a very unusual way of expressing herself - it's both modern and antiquated at the same time.

During the first six months of my marriage, I was living in Ann Arbor, and JM, who was still plugging along on her Phd back in BG, an hour and a half away, called me and said Jamaica was coming to the UofM and we must see her. So we did. We heard her read in the Hopwood Room in Rackham Hall. And it was just wonderful. She was wonderful. It was a wonderful day.

Back in my twenties, I couldn't put my finger on all of this, but now it seems I understand it more - she just goes on her own with sentences that sort of go slowly slowly slowly and then build to so much more than the thought she initially wanted to express. Today I bought Among Flowers: A Wlak in the Himalaya, a memoir about how she and two botanists went seed gathering in the Himalayas.

And the second book? The second book seems like it's going to be a lark An 84-year old woman has written about the best summer of her life back in 1944 in New York. I am hoping that Summer at Tiffany by Marjorie Hart will be just what it promises: easy reading pleasure.

Italian tuna

M called for a picnic tomorrow at Botanic Gardens. Am bringing the ubiquitous cheese sticks...but also lots of triangle sandwiches. For some reason, I've come to see picnic sandwiches as triangle sandwiches, not square. And I'm thinking not about the usual tuna and mayo, but something that I learned about in New York in the early nineties: Italian tuna.

Back then, I was what they call an executive floater - an adminstrative assistant working on the very top floor of 1 Dag Hammerskjold Plaza, I occupied a little corner room the size of a small closet in the office of the President, where I was the second in command, working for a genial man named Spencer P-, whose main secretary, a lovely woman named Judy H- is still the best boss I've ever had in all my 17 jobs - mostly because she was always sending me home. "Go home, there's nothing to do. Enjoy the day". "Go home. It's not rocket science. Do it tomorrow." The words were music to my ears.

My job consisted of doing any typing and correspondence Judy gave me to do. I was also in charge of keeping Mrs. P informed of her husband's daily and weekly itinerary. And then I was in charge of running down to Market Street, the wonderful deli across the street to pick up lunch. I have vivid memories of Mr. P concocting his lunchtime sandwich on the fly, seemingly random and off the top of his head...

"I'll have tuna...with... hmmm....sun-dried tomatoes...maybe a slice of provolone cheese. Oh and onions and some romaine... on a white, no...an Italian roll," he would say. By the time he got to the end, my mouth would be watering. I'd say, "That sounds delicious." He'd say, "Get yourself one , too, Noelle." And then later in the afternoon, I'd receive word to put the whole thing on his expense account. Naks...

When I moved to SMP, I worked for a man named Ed S- and we worked in the Flatiron building. I would also get him his lunch. He was much less imaginative. He always got tuna. And I would get sick of it for him. So one day, I gave him Mr. P's tuna - which I noticed was already premixed in the deli nearby. Italian tuna, it said. Complete with the bits of sun-dried tomatoes although sadly, no provolone.

"My tuna was different today. What was that?" Ed S- asked me.
"Italian tuna." I told him, half-afraid he would scold me for doing the switch.
"Great. Loved it."

So tomorrow, we're going to have Italian tuna... after all, what's not to love?

Kiddie adventures in food

In an effort to get the kids away from their "regulars" of burgers and pizza, we have designated Friday evenings as food adventure night. The idea is on these evenings, we acquaint the children with other cuisines in an effort to broaden their food landscape. In the last few weeks, we have taken them for Turkish food, Japanese food that's not sushi. And last night, Friday, we took them for an Indian dinner. It was quite a ruse, because the kids have been resisting Indian food from the beginning - for reasons we are not quite clear about. So I simply didn't tell them where we were going. When we got there, we ordered according to their likes: fish tikka, butter chicken, dhal, nan bread, white rice and papadums - forgoing the curry and the vindaloo that T and I usually favour.

Today, after the Bishan run, we went to Graffiti Cafe for the Malaysian Pontian wanton mee. If I had to describe it, it's sort of like spaghetti. The noodles are in this tomato based sauce, topped with barbecue char shiew pork, three fried wantons, dark green qing tsai veggies, chicharon and chili with steaming bowl of wanton soup on the side. Yoda from the office introduced me to this, and I had taken T to previously. But I thought the kids might like it. How could they not like $2 pork noodles with fried wanton?

In the end, we asked them to rank which adventures they liked best, in order of preference:

K - Turkish, Japanese, Malaysian wanton mee, Indian
C- Japanese, Turkey, Indian, Malaysian wanton mee

Next week, we take them either to Boat Quay for Nasi Padang on banana leaves. Or to the Waterloo street hawker centre for Nasi Padang. Let the adventure continue...

BishRUN park

You can get a good run at Bishan Park even though you might start out too late in the morning. It can be a sunny morning, but the trees and the green give you a lot of shade, and you can actually make it round the 2.5 km stretch, which takes you winding about green patches, fields, and groves of trees. Yes, even at the scorching hot hour of 10:30. We rented bycicles for K and C, and T and I set off a good deal behind them, zipping away on nothing but sneaker power. The goal was modest - just to keep running without stopping for the entire park. And I would have made it too, except I had to stop to untangle C's bike chains. Next time, we will start out earlier.

Out of the mouths of babes

K: C, don't be so aggressive. Mom, C is being aggresive!
C: I'm not being aggressive; I'm being fun-loving.

A good day

I had worked through lunch in the office for the past four days, so it was nice to be able to step out. Went for Nasi Padang at the hawker centre on Waterloo Street and learned that Nepalese food is just like Nasi Padang, minus the sweet viands and about two times more chili. Then we even had time to go to Ngee Ann for Japanese gelato, which I know doesn't sound good, but it is.

The nicest thing about that spate of eating with the designers in the office is that they keep turning up yummy things to eat. The other day, someone went to get He Mee (Hokkien for prawn noodles) for all of us. It was just two dollars per bowl but boy, was it to die for. Prawns, some greens, noodles and lots of chili. The other specialty of this stall was laksa, but I only eat that once a year. Some amazing people actually had both - he mee to start, and laksa as the main course. Scary.

Left the office at the decent hour of 6:30, and treated myself to a wander-about through the shops of Paragon, while waiting for T. Had forgotten all about Giordano Ladies. But I was sensible and refrained from knee-jerk impulse buys.

Tomorrow the merry-go-round starts again. It's idea-churning time.

Production

In gradeschool, we put out this three page leaflet in dark and heavy newsprint via the cranky old mimeograph machine. It was called The Montessori Voice and I recall being asked to draw directly on the stencil to "fill the white space". As a highschool freshman, I joined and then, we worked with an actual press. But they did all the hard stuff. The typesetting, the blueprints. All we really had to do was proofread, and a literary magazine stuffed with adolescent poetry, 200-word personal essays that we would call short stories and half a dozen illustrations done meticulously with a 1.2 tech pen - this is easy proofreading. In my senior year, I was editor for The Theresian, which we combined with the senior year book. I forget whose brilliant idea that was. But the results, as I recall them, were less than impressive as all the pictures were in black and white, and the press failed to get the contrast. We made dozens of penned corrections on the blueprint - and as an echo of my childhood, I did a small, impromptu illustration to fill up some rather awkward white space.

My one-off freshman year at the University of Michigan exposed me to The Daily. A university paper that actually came out every day - it boggled my mind. How did the editors study? Returning to the Ateneo, I joined the The Guidon. Back then, I was just a writer and I recall feeling tremendously relieved even then that I did not have to do anything but file my story. Yes, one was enough for a rather thin, bimonthly newspaper. Of course, calling it a newspaper was putting it kindly. And production - or rather "press work" - consisted of my merely dropping by to "help" check blueprints - and that consisted of rather cursory proofreading as the entire exercise was merely an occasion to hang out and flirt.

These days, we do production inhouse. We line-edit, copy-edit and manipulate both the texts and the visuals onscreen. Oddly enough, we still encounter the problems of awkward white space but there are any number of ways to address these in the suite of items called design. Because it's all computerised on In Design, a powerful programme devised and customised for the magazine business, there is no longer any typesetting. Instead we copy-edit by cutting and fitting text and controlling its shape on the page. And we give the files directly to the printer in batches of four pages called "signatures". All that's left for them to do is the final art on photos and getting the colours right. The physical shaping of the text - literally the way words and sentences are lined up on the page - that's all done inhouse.

My preference is to imitate the old-fashioned typewriter. I hate right-justified text and the ugly, irregular spaces it causes. Not to mention, I hate the way I have to try to fill those spaces with short words, or rewrite the sentence in such a way that everything fits nicely. What's wrong with the hyphen, I have been known to whine plaintively. Why does the hyphen have to be edited out of existence when it has a real purpose?

And then there are those beastly orphans and widows - the copyeditor's work is all about killing the orphans and widows. I keep forgetting which is which. But there should be no single word at the bottom of any paragraph - there should be at least two words, ideally three. And there should be final line of a paragraph starting a new column leg. Likewise no first line of a paragraph on the last line of a column leg. Who decided these rules, I'd like to know.

The work of a sub-editor is thankless. In the end, nobody is going to care about orphans or widows - they can all go live together in a paper house for all you care. Nobody will see how you magically rewrote an eight word sentence containing three three-syllable words so that it would not cause a blasted orphan or widow. Nobody counts the seconds it took you to copyfit a four page story so that it still offered the essence. And even an error - which will be pointed out to you by many of course, no fear, and for which you will feel badly about for a disproportionately long time - will very quickly pass into oblivion.

But in the late hours of the night, when it's just you and a designer and maybe an obliging writer who offered to help process a seemingly insurmountable amount of pages before the next working day, there is a joyful sense of cameraderie that lends some ease and some much needed hilarity. In fact, there is likely too much hilarity ensuing likely from too much coffee, coca-cola, chocolate, cigarettes because everything seems funny.

But as much as the work is tedious and painstaking, it's also pleasurable in a strange way. There are moments, especially at night, when you feel a kind of brilliance. When all that shoddy overmatter is cleared and spanking new pages emerge, neat as pins and gleaming like jewels.

Of course, it could just be lack of sleep.

Sleeping with the kids

Letting the kids camp in my room while T is away, and my only thought is, Why didn't I do this before?

Bee Gees Night with the Idols

Two good choice songs from Melinda. Only one from Jordin in Run to Me - Woman in Love isn't what I would consider a great Bee Gees song. If I had to pick from the Streisand album, I would have gone with Starting Over but of course, it's a duet. What about Emotion by Samantha Sang? I would have picked (naks, kaps...) Words and How Deep Is Your Love, which I still can't believe nobody sang. That's the all time greatest Bee Gees song.

What would you have chosen?

Prior to flying solo for the week...

...we managed to have a full weekend anyway. Friday night, we scooted home for dinner with K and C - homemade burgers, the can't-be-beat beet coleslaw with lignan oil and lemon, plus oven crisp fries. We hung out with them long enough to find out what happened in school that day and read them a couple of stories, something they still enjoy, although they have long been able to read by themselves. Then we hied off to Vivo City to see Spiderman 3 with the Fs.

Aside: I though Spiderman 3 was terrible, by the way: long and unwieldy and all-over-the-place plotwise. Its flaw lies primarily in the screenplay which felt like a very, very rough draft - actually, it felt like it was being written by the actors as they went along. I felt like the screenwriter was passing off outright telling as characterisation - in fact, it was all telling, no showing at all. Then halfway through, they tried to go campy - and seemed to be striking flat notes all the way through. If you're camp, you're camp - and you have no business going into a moral - unless the moral is also camp. It was surreal. Plus Kristen Dunst - I'm sorry, but I really feel she peaked at Interview with a Vampire. Toby McGuire has fared better, but no great shakes here, either. They even looked like they were floundering. Exasperated and fatigued, I allowed myself to nap - not once but multiple times - and each time, I was like Are we still here? But enough of this rant. Maybe I'm pushing 4o and I'm too old for superheroes. Then again, I loved the X-men.

Saturday morning, T showed us his new digs at One Raffles Place, then we took the MRT to City Hall and ambled through Citilink to Suntec to eat Turkish food - doner lamb kebab and pide bread...taking a nice long amble back. When we finally got home, there was just enough time to get dressed for Catechism and Choir practice for 6pm mass. Choir was lots of fun...and if J and A have anything to do with it, it will be fun for a long time. On the agenda: at least one Pinoy English song from JMM for each mass that we sing. Should be good. Then it was home for calamares cooked two ways - adobo and prito, layguls and fruity agar agar. Lots of episodes from House 3.

Sunday, bright and early, we crammed our vocabulary words for Mandarin, right before Lao Shi appeared. Then lunch at my old haunt Bongout - an eating spot that was hotly contested by the kids, and then later they were pleased by it. K had the pan-fried beef, and C had shoyu ramen with pork and they gobbled it up like greedy goblins. Then there was nothing left but errands at Great World and then home to help T pack, or in my case, whine and mope. He left at 6:30...and we had pizza to cheer ourselves up.

For the week ahead - we're closing, so likely there will be late nights. I'm also letting the kiddies camp in our room, in the hope that I will be able to sleep better. Tomorrow, a girls' night out then dinner with M from Ann Arbor on Tuesday. Mandarin on Thursday and maybe I'll take the kiddies to see a movie Friday night at Great World, if there's something appropriate.

We shall see.

You gotta love em...

Parenthood

The hardest job I've ever had.

May Day

Everyone was game about breakfast out - so after some expected dilly-dallying, we were off for eggs, bacon, rosti and pancakes courtesy of Cedele. Then it was to Borders, to Cross Com, the school bag store at Forum. Then all the way to Marina Square, where K finally settled on the same more affordable school bag that C got. We were home by 12:30, and each went to his or her own puttering. T surfing and prepping for the trip. Me with the paper and Tom Plate's Confessions of an American Media Man, which is surprisingly engaging. C switched on Ninja Turtles and K played Penguin. Must confess that there was a bit of napping taking place, too, at least where T and I were concerned. At 3:30. we had a shamefully late lunch of tuna dressed with lignan oil, onions and sun-dried tomatoes in toasted wholemeal pita pockets, lettuce, pickles, coleslaw with beats, and a lovely bean soup. Then we were off to L for a long awaited massage - while K and C did Kumon in the reading room. When we emerged at six, there was time to toss the frisbee and kick the ball before heading home for baths and bistek dinner.Unfortunately, no exercise, but tomorrow is another day.

The Travelling T

After more than a decade of work in one place with travel taking place, at most, only two or three times a year, T is finding a change of pace in his current job, and by extension, so am I. Contrary to what it might seem, I am very much the ninny, unfortunately, when it comes to temporary marital separations. Apart from the accompanying anxiousness and missing, this is also largely due to the fact that I have an exceedingly difficult time sleeping alone.

But there's nothing to do except make the best of it.

Last week, T had a week-long three city trip through Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok. Next week, it's to be seven days in London. I, on the other hand, have bought Elizabeth Gaskell's Wives & Daughters and am saving Rome and House 3 for next week's daily evening viewing. And it's also closing week at the office. Onward ho.

Italian playboy and bombshell

That was the theme of tonight's party - la dolce vita. It's hard to go bombshell though, when you're pushing 4o and have two kids aged nine and eight, and you don't really want to make any statements, not any that call significant attention to yourself, anyway. I opted to go with a vintage halter top floral dress and strappy red heels. It seemed like the right balance and still, in keeping with the person I am.

That's probably the best thing right now. To keep to the person I am but low-key. Easier said then done, but I am trying.