Ocean Park 

Disneyland -What a trip! 

Wak wak wak! 

My son, the graduate 

Something strange

We've been cleaning up, right? Setting old toys aside. Setting books aside that we no longer want. Clothes. Knick-knacks. It's operation streamline, and the goal is to just de-clutter.

Over the past week and a half, I put my ever reliable book, "What To Expect When Your Expecting" into the donation pile. After all, I will not need it anymore. I put it there three times on three separate days. The first time, I put it in the pile...but the following morning, I found it back on the shelf. So I put it back in the pile, thinking maybe I had Alzheimer's. Two days later, the book was again back on the shelf, so I put it back in the pile. Over the weekend, I had the pile of books put in a big box and we brought it over to the lady who sends things back home to poor communities. Then last night, I was looking for a book, and there it was, back on the shelf. Very very strange...

T says I should ask Melyn whether she's the one who keeps putting it back on the shelf, but I keep forgetting to ask her. Tomorrow I will.

A female tries...

I am truly back at Female, as they've given me a Female Tries assignment. Never boring, this column is almost always fun to do. Today was no exception. I went over to visit Soul Centre, and had a two hour session of Energy Emission Analysis and Colour Threapy, as conducted by Sally Forrest. The premise is that energy emissions, which are most focused and intense from your fingertips and toes, are able to clue a trained therapist into your physical health and emotional well-being. Once the problems and issues are identified via a photograph of those energy emissions, Sally then applies colour or light energy to the body at converter and acupuncture points. Light pushs the flow of energy through the body, re-energises and resets it, restoring balance and health. In fact, every finger and every toe corresponds both to an organ in the body and an emotion. At first, I was skeptical, because it all sounded way too new age-y to me. But I must say I was amazed by what she could tell, and also at what light therapy was able to achieve.

As Forrest explains: "Any emotion, which cannot for whatever reason be expressed verbally, is held in the body and later expressed as a symptom, illness or disturbance of the mind."

Light is a life force; we should all stay lit.

Express yourself! 

The Adobo Factor

No Adobo Factor 

After almost three years in this flat, that's more like a house than an apartment owing to its spacious two levels and its appealing hardwood floors, we are moving. The apartment is after all, a fluke. With old plumbing and none of the spanking, shiny bathroom fixtures upmarket renters in Singapore have a penchant for, we were able to rent it for a song. But sometime this year, it's due to be torn down. And it its place will arise one of those ubiquitous high-rise condominiums with which househunters are all too familiar. So we started a half-hearted hunt for our next home. We knew it need not be lavish nor spanking new. If we could find something with four bedrooms, even if the overall area were to be smaller, that would be fine.

But, among other things, we were of one mind about what we didn't want. We named it--the adobo factor. What we did not want was an apartment with a layout that would allow someone at the front door to clearly see exactly what you're having for dinner. In short, there has to be some sort of foyer or alcove, some sort of architectural pause that will prevent, say your UPS man from exclaiming upon entering, "Ay, adobo! Or "Fried chicken!" Or "Spaghetti!" Either that, or the dining area, if it's not a dining room (which it would rarely be), had to be sufficiently faraway from the front door so that though someone might be able to smell dinner, they ought not have a clear view of the dishes. You'd be surprised how many places we saw that seemed perfectly suitable, except for this idiosyncracy. "That was nice," we might concede to each other. "Kaso, adobo factor..." And we would move on.

Then all of a sudden, like a little bit of magic, there it was. Smaller, certainly, but four bedrooms. And no adobo factor. We move in two weeks...

An epiphany

I have a friend from college, L. She was always someone I felt drawn to, even while recognising how different we were from one another. As it turned out, we had much more in common beneath the surface. After we graduated, she and I went into the same field, had many mutual friends, and despite not being one-on-close, I felt we always had an easy affinity, something that we could easily call upon, whenever the moment or the circumstances arose in which we found ourselves together. As the years passed, we, of course, saw less and less of each other, so as to lose touch almost completely.

Anyway, about a year ago, I heard from a common friend that L. had had a baby. This was indeed news. The all of a sudden kind of news that simply boggles the mind, but only for an instant, as you instinctively know to take it in stride. Creative, intelligent and inspirationally energetic, L is definitely not your garden-variety Pinay, thank goodness for that. Why would she not have a baby, after all is said and done?

When I finally saw a photograph of her beautiful baby, I found myself getting choked up, inexplicably. In a strange, surreal moment, I remembered a story my mother told me when I was all of fourteen.

My Mom told me about one of her closest friends in school, a vibrant, amazing, creative woman named Ching. Apparently, after they all graduated from college, Ching made what was then the brave, difficult and unusual move of leaving the country to find fame and fortune in New York City. She did it shortly after graduation, and soon after, she wrote my Mom less and less, likely because her life was so very different and therefore, much harder to write about.

My Mom married and taught school. And some three years later, she and my Dad moved to New Haven, where my Dad went to get his PhD and where my Mom worked in the University bookstore. It was there that they had me. They lived a long train ride away from New York, but when, by some happenstance, my Mom had word from Ching, she made the trip with me in tow, to visit her old school chum in
the big city.

Ching lived in tiny two-room flat in the theatre district, and she worked and still went on auditions. My Mom recalled climbing up the dark, dingey stairs to Ching's apartment. When they got there, Ching looked at my Mom and said to her, "There's someone I want you to meet." My Mom did not know what to expect. This was the 1960s. Would it be a husband? A boyfriend?

Ching took her into the bedroom and there in an old wooden crib was a sleeping baby, maybe a year old. "This is Micah," she said. Mom told me she took one look at that baby and burst into tears. And the two friends, both of them cried.

My fourteen year old whipper-snapper self piped up, "I don't get it. Why did you cry?" And even as she explained, Mom got teary-eyed.

"Because she was my friend. We were kids together and played in the backfields of my Lola's house. And here we were, after so many years, and after I hadn't seen her for so long. She had come all this way, all by herself, and she had a baby. I had just had you--and had just gone though it all, giving birth away from family, in a strange place. And it turns out, she had done the same thing..."

I remember now how I smirked and shrugged and just didn't have a clue. All I could say was, "I don't get it." But then I saw a picture of L.'s little one, and all of a sudden, everything fell together. I got it.

And what do you know? L is in town and gave me a buzz. It's a good time to catch up and reconnect.

Sunday lovely sunday

sunday morning 

As children, my sisters and I enjoyed reading these illustrated Arch Books, simplified tellings of Bible stories. You may have read them, too.

I still remember that one of my favorites was the one on the Parable Of Talents. It tells the story of a master who has to go on a journey and leave his wealth in the care of three servants. The first gets eight talents, the second gets four and third gets two talents. The first and second invest succesfully, the third is scared and just hides it away. I remember, even as a child, feeling sorry for the third servant. Not being good at math or finances myself, I felt that it was rather harsh punishment to mete out to someone who was merely afraid, after all, of losing his Master's money. It took many years and a number of teachers to set me straight. But even after all that, I've felt a particular fondness for this parable, so much so that when I am called upon to do something that I know I'm likely able to do but am afraid to do, I compell myself to do it because I don't want to be that cowering servant who did not act, because he was afraid to.

Anyway, that parable also happened to be today's Sunday gospel. Apparently, according to Fr. O'Niell SJ at St. Ignatius, who on his good days (which thankfully are still quite frequent) is really such a wonderful homilist, this particular gospel is only read at mass every three years. In his sermon, he preached about making use of the gifts that we are given for His greater glory. He spoke not just of the intellectual, emotional and creative talents, but the gifts we recieve as members of the church--the sacraments. When are we actually spreading the faith to those who are lost and in need of it? When are we actively helping others find His grace, and the tremendous comfort and solace it brings?

It was an eloquent sermon, graceful in its brevity and far reaching in its depth. It made me feel thankful that I shepherded my family into going to the 10:15 mass even though it really was a mad rush through breakfast and there was a measure of whining and dragging of feet. But it was with lightness and gladness of heart that we all went about the rest of our Sunday--doing errands, strolling the river to brunch at Brewerkz, and just hanging out at home. So I nagged at them a little. Sue me. Nagging just happens to be one of my talents, one I'm not particularly fearful of putting to use. It was a good day.

Tripping Back 1: Amsterdam

263 Prinsengracht 

“…Your first seeing of a country is a very valuable one. Probably more valuable to yourself than to anyone else, is the hell of it. But you ought to always write it to try to get it stated. No matter what you do with it.”
Ernest Hemingway
Green Hills of Africa

We stole into the city before light broke, sailing into Central Station on an amazingly rapid train one eerily silent Sunday dawn. The cold, crisp early morning cast a gray white light on the Dam Square. There were no bicycles or trams, no shopkeepers or pedestrians. As we wandered down empty streets, we whispered, not knowing quite why. We wheeled our suitcases across the street to the Victoria Hotel, built very neatly around a single, narrow Dutch house so organic to the design that it remained practically unobtrusive. The story, we heard later, was that the owner of the huis simply refused to sell his property, forcing the developers to build the hotel around his home.

Not able to check into our rooms at that early hour, we trudged back out into the city streets on foot all set to take in the major sights. From the Dam Square, we made our way past postcard pretty canals to Prinsengracht, intending to visit the house of Anne Frank. Armed with a Streetwise Amsterdam map, we walked right by the museum twice, without realising that was what it was.

As it turned out, our timing could not have been more perfect. Once we finally got there, our third stroll down the same stretch of Prinsengracht, we happened upon the tourists. The line was a short one, just beginning to form by the house right next to it, which was gutted and modernised to accomodate the museum’s admission desk, reception, waiting area, gift shop and café.

We mounted the narrow steps up to the third floor of the annex, and stepped thru the bookshelf that was a door, and the space beyond it – if this space in which twelve people spent two years could hardly be called that. We saw the beds and the furniture. The pots and pans upon which they cooked what must have been the same food day in and day out for two years. The faded pictures Anne and her sister taped up on to the wall of their room. These took my breath away. That there ever was this thirteen year old girl with such a spirit who experienced such a prison only to leave it and find there were greater horrors was in store; that one so young and so optomistic could experience such day-to-day fear and still persistently believe in the good of life and the good of people.

Visitors to Amsterdam should not skip The Anne Frank Museum. The experience is by turns, so simple, so horrifying and yet so indelibly moving, for what it stands for and ultimately, for what it is. Of course, you emerge from this unlikely, unconventional museum experience filled with a quiet awe and a malaise that, fortunately, is fleeting. Do not try for a photo op at this moment, for the smiles will be wan. Wait instead till after you've had a cup of coffee or a bit of lemonade. Wait till the breeze blows off the city's picturesque canals, right there on Prinsengracht. Sieze this moment to take embark upon your on-and-off canal tour. Get into the boat and once it makes its way toward Bloemengarten, once you get a glimpse of the tulips… this is the time to take a shot.

When wives get together...

...inevitably, if they chat long enough, that is, one or another (and usually, it's the same one or another) will launch into some lilting, lingering, little story about her husband's sweet gesture (the sweetness of which often has no comparison). It might be an act of selflessness, or a strikingly thoughtful deed, or even something as simple and as concrete as a gift, for no reason at all: a trinket or a handbag or the fashionista's must-have du jour. Somehow, the telling of this tale is like a way of capturing a bit of living, breathing proof of true love in their bare hands, for all to see. It vibrates, perhaps struggling to be set free and yet trapped, caught, caged. Aha. I have you now. Look! I have it.

And the other wives will coo and twitter with marvelling, perhaps even envious tones. For a moment, one or another (and usually, it's the same one or another) will feel, though she may not own it, the finest thread of discontent working it's way into her emotional needle's eye. How wonderful. You're so lucky. That's so sweet. X would never. I can't even imagine. Wow.

It is to the latter one or another that I write, though I am certain, that deep down inside, she already knows it. This bit of knowledge that is, in fact, yet another length of thread, waiting to be taken up for stitching. She knows it takes a certain kind of person to do a certain kind of thing. And were she to imagine, even for a moment, her particular love doing this particular thing, she would soon recognise he would no longer be the person who does all the other things that she cherishes, values and appreciates, in fact loves - that is, if she is fortunate enough to see those things with her own eyes.

Perhaps this is just one item on the long list of amusing discoveries made aboutmarriage. That the person loved cannot always love one in the way one, every now and then (but not always) wants to be loved. And paradoxically, the person who would love her in precisely that way she sometimes (but not always) might want to be loved, is for the most part, someone she never would have fallen in love with in the first place.

Dancing through life 

Five fabulous days...

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday...sniff sniff Thursday came too soon 

Was it only a month ago that Margo and I flew off to Hong Kong to visit Camille and Viboy for much needed r and r? How time flies when you're having fun... Lots of talk, lots of eating, shopping and of course, more talk. I even forgot I was sick! And then all of a sudden, along comes Camille to Singapore to replicate that same five day experience. She landed Sunday and left Thursday, and I managed to see her everyday. (Yes, CelesteF and Margo and maybe Scho got to see her more, but hey, this is not a competition!) Sunday, grand welcome Japanese Barbecue dinner at Kazu--yumyumyum...Monday the Samsons hosted, serving up a lovely mushroom soup with chorizo garnish, osso buco and not just one but two desserts, the mere memory of which makes my mouth water. (Lemon torte! Lemon torte!). Tuesday, coffee and Elvis cupcakes with Leanne, Margo and CelesteS at Toast. Wednesday, lunch at Project Brothers AND dinner at S. Maharani, plus coffee and dessert at Prego. And on her last day, just hours before Camille had to board the plane, we celebrated CelesteF's birthday with Peking Duck and dimsum at the Raffles Hotel. For LUNCH! On a WEEKDAY!
Oh my goodness. Way too much eating, but hey, it was fabulous fun as it always is.

Camille brings out the best in all of us, in the same easy way that she brings us all together. She is light and sweetness, good humour laced with a wise, tacit understanding. Why oh why did she have to move away? Come back soon, dearie. We have to do that again...and again...and again. And next time, bring Viboy! We need more people here who live on our planet. Love ya girl--muwah!

Now what am I going to do? I guess it's back to the diet and exercise journal...

What would you do, if you weren't ...

doing what you're doing?

1. I frequently think I should have gone to med school. I'd be a gynecologist with a specialty in internal medicine. I felt that particularly strongly after reading Natalie Angier. Consider that western medicine is based solely on the male body!

2. I'd be a lounge singer cabaret-style--like Andrea Marcovicci.

3. I'd be a la leche league consultant. Really think I'd be good at that.

4. I'd be a headhunter. Goodness knows I've done it enough--might as well get paid for it.

5. Teach lamazze.

Two Cents On Hollywood Goss

Read over breakfast this morning that Jennifer Aniston is officially seeing Vince Vaughn.

Vince Vaughn??!! Vince Vaughn?!?!

After Brad Pitt? I mean, he's amusing and all, and certainly a er large hunk of a man. But there doesn't seem to be much else there, I'm sorry to say. I mean, we're not even close to the writer-director comic, sardonic psyche of a Ben Stiller or an Owen Wilson--two guys who will fool around in flicks like Starsky and Hutch and Zoolander, but it will be crystal-clear that both are, together and individually, capable of so much more. Vince Vaughn? This is clearly a rebound thing, yes? I agree, Brad Pitt is such a tough act to follow that virtually anyone would pale in comparison. But Aniston should set aside her momentary attractions and her temporary loneliness, and consider the possibilities of teaming up with someone who will do something substantial for her and her public spin. She made great strides with that Vanity Fair cover and interview. She should be content to stay solo for awhile. There is much dignity in solo.

Ultimately, she needs a romantic alliance that is creative and stimulating. The kind of connection that will give people a buzz that surpasses physical. After all, she has a career to focus upon--Friends is long gone. What about someone like Viggo Mortenson--okay, yes, he's married so that poses a problem. But someone with smarts, talent, and quiet assurance. Someone whose looks are evident but not over obviously so. Off the top of my head? I'm thinking Steve Martin. So he's a bit older, but no older than Harrison Ford is for Calista Flockhart. What about George Clooney? You just know he'd go for her--but this would be a two to three year, non-marriage thing. Or why not a brilliant character actor? Someone like Philip Seymour Hoffman if she's so into girth? Hear he's done wonderful work in the new Truman Capote bioepic.

Someone. Not just anyone. Think about it, Jen, please. Let's talk more next time we have lunch...

A Tale Of The Unexpected

The view from Caroline's 

Ordinarily, I'm like a book I've already read--even to myself. I spend a day in Paris; of course, I take the Eiffel Tower photo. I resolve to start exercising and start eating right, and I slip into a bad binge by the third day. I'm asked to do a single on Lindt chocolate; is it any wonder that I succumb to a square or two or three? I am a rerun. I am an old movie after primetime. I've been there, done that and am doing it again.

It's time to try something different. On today's work incident--the second one of the week, I should go with my gut. Push to the extreme. Stick out my neck. It's time to surprise myself and do the unexpected ... not just pretend to. Act deliberately, decisively and have no regrets. It's the only way to go, really.

No more vintage Noelle. It's time to try a new twist on a different melody. And if we don't know the refrain, we'll make it up. After all, anyone can write a new song. The question is can we keep it on the airwaves?

And we keep wanting more

Thrown for a loop 

That's just how it goes. Have to keep making those lists. Have to keep jotting things down. Have to keep finding room in the day, in the week, in the month, for all the things I want to do. And let's not forget the free time I want to have to just sit and think, hmmmm, yes, I
want that too.

Meanwhile absorbed in the third chapter of Russell Shorto's The Island At The Centre of The World: The Untold Story of the Founding Of New York. It's just so gripping, like you're living in the story. And really happy about my new Tiger food container; what a way I've come from my third grade tupperware fwoop containing cold rice and equally cold fried chicken. Today, lunch was a pint of steaming hot corn and mushroom soup and a large slice of sourdough granary bread. Missed badminton today in exchange for two episodes from the 6th season of The West Wing; tried to make up with 50 minutes on the elliptical.

The first day. Yes, that went well enough. Got thrown for a major loop though. It's something unexpected and potentially jarring. I'm still trying to decide whether to get upset or majorly apprehensive. Remember serenity. Breathe, breathe, breathe...

Let's see what will happen first before flying off the handle. Just be like Kaylee and Coby: take it easy, day by day and find lots of reasons to laugh. Remember the way Kaylee starts every prayer when it's her turn: "Thank you for this day, and all the fun we had..."

Which is as it should be.

Once more into the fray

As I start another chapter, help me learn serenity 

On Monday morning, it's back to work. Back to the old company, but it's not the old job. I've always believed that the ability to do a certain thing, even to do it well does not make doing it an imperative. When I resigned from my position as Senior Copywriter at McCann-Erickson in 1996, this was my guiding principle. And yet, here I am about to embark upon similar territory, led as it were by happenstance. And I'm not unhappy. I am quite the opposite, yet puzzled as to why.

Perhaps it is the creativity of it or the challenge of persuading people that this is the way they should take, not that. Maybe it is the potential satisfaction of being able to point to profit that I was responsible for. I'm not sure. At the moment, all I know is that I am a different person now from the person I was a decade ago. I am a writer. I am a mother. And I am more flexible and so much better able to see the big picture now than I ever used to be. I'm taking a deep breath and hoping to master a skill I have only recently begun to learn: serenity.

And so it starts.

Things I do

I direct my kids in trick shots 

1. I never buy wrapping paper. Instead, I buy plain brown packaging paper, wrap my gifts in them and have Kaylee or Coby "decorate." Sometimes, if I have a small-enough gift, I will wrap it up in a colourful page from an old magazine.

2. I watch too much tv. These days, it's reruns of old sitcoms like Frasier and Cheers.

3. My gifts to children, as well as to adults, are usually books.

4. I keep in touch with old employers on the theory that...you never know.

5. I take naps.

6. I can't go a day without opening all my email.

7. I sing to myself. Karaoke, acapella, in cabs, while working. You name it, I sing it.

8. I like to ask people what their average day is like, from the moment they get up to the moment that they go to sleep.

9. I spend a lot of time writing about how I never write.

10. I direct my kids in skits, videos and photographs.