Saturday, March 28, 2009

Bird Day picnic

So, I turned 30 on 21 March, Sat. I thought it was going to be really scary, but I went through it without much fuss, and with lots of lurrve. The CS gang (Shar and belle, you were missed!) gathered at the Botanic Gardens for a wonderful Bird Day picnic. Ben turned 32 the same day, so I dragged him into my birthday celebration. The day was perfect, and the greenery was wonderful!


Everyone brought a little something for the special day. DSD cooked pasta salad, Kartaly made beef stew and baked cookies, HJ bought Don Pie, Ben got sausages and chicken, ethan mummy brought apple pie and ice-cream, kb (despite his whining) carried ice and some juice, and and and Yuen Lin our food editor cooked sausages and lugged her office stash - bottles of beer - all the way home and to the gardens. Bravo!!! Our garang woman with her heavy box below...while kb, the errr...MAN, walks past, sweating. :)

We were so very happy to finally get to eat Kartaly's yummy beef stew, after the lid got stuck due to the hot steam (I don't know the science behind it). Here's ben trying to yank the lid off. HAHA. (Kartaly there's one of you and him huffing and puffing, really funny, but I must maintain your glam image, so the photo is not here. Hahahaha.)
This is a bunch of friends who treasure sleeping in on Saturdays, and who willingly cooked the night before or chose to wake up really early to prepare/buy stuff. Thank you so much for the thought and love. I'm glad you guys enjoyed the piknik. We should do it again. Yes, even kb is a convert now - learning to be a man at pikniks. Heh heh.

Oh before I forget, Kaiser made a special appearance too, knocking down our half-drunk beer bottles with Ruff :)

Posted by at 2 comments:
Labels:

Thursday, March 19, 2009

People live and people die, this is life

People live and people die, this is life.

So says S, a 15-year-old boy I know. He called me at 7.45am today to tell me that his father had died suddenly of a heart attack. That level-headed statement made me cry, because it held so much truth, yet it was just too adult a remark to be made.

Right at that same time he called, I was holding my bible in my hands, trying to craft an sms reply with a bible verse to a sweet friend, who'd texted me while I was sleeping through the night. In short, she told me she was going mad.

Just a few days ago, I was at ethan mummy's home on a Monday night, visiting four-year-old ethan who was recovering from four stitches to a cut on his forehead. He had fallen and hit his head on the table. But the brave boy was so good, "enthralling" me with his description of what happened that fateful night, telling me that the stitching was "Aunty D, you know, it's like a mouse nibbling....tzi tzi tzi tzi...like a mouse nibbling on cheese you know..." Oh I haven't said how I got the news in the first place - when I saw his daddy's sms after a dizzying Mosaic Festival performance.

And then in the midst of all this, a dear friend's beloved grandmother undergoes an operation for ovarian cancer. And around the same time, my big boss' brother dies from cancer of the muscles, on top of a 30-year battle with kidney disease. Cancer of the muscles, whoever heard of that.

The weirdest part for me, is that while I'm hearing all these news, I know of three pregnancies of good friends. That is life, a celebration well-deserved, for sure.

But I feel totally overwhelmed. And I'm thinking, S is uncannily right - people live and people die, this is life.

***
I didn't know what to make of all this, until a sister-in-Christ texted me her prayer for me - "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you..." (John 14:27)

Later in the evening as I sat on the sofa with a load on my chest, I thought about God's peace, and it welled up within me.
Posted by at 1 comment:

Sunday, March 01, 2009

There's something about turning 30

I feel funny about turning 30, which is soon. Well, make that turning 30, having yet to find a partner and still having my clothes washed by mom. I suddenly feel like a teenager all again, struggling between finding independence and wanting - still - that connection with a parent. Then again, maybe struggling is not the right word to use, because I don't think I really struggle. It's more like, there's a funny kind of tension. It makes me feel like I want to pack my bags and leave for another country, yet I'm thinking how is that independence when my heart still loves being right here at home. It would be so much easier and normal to step out of home because I need to start life anew with another person, with whom I would build a new home. So how do people like me find a balance between these two seemingly opposing forces? Or can they co-exist? Well, for starters, in a weird sort of way, learning to cook from mom seems to make me feel all grown-up. Appreciating the weekly trips to the wet market in Pasir Ris, memorising the shapes of leafy vegetables there, trying to understand what chia bah (lean pork) is, and recognising this particular uncle at Kovan market who sells the cheapest chicken wings in town.... They are all strangely therapeutic, and for some reason, help me to find some balance.
Posted by at 4 comments:
Labels:

家常便飯

On the menu:
- Fried egg with chai por
- Diced chicken marinated in sauces, stir-fried with onions, ginger and chilli
- Assam fish
- Sweet potato leaves, fried with sambal chilli and dried shrimp

I had some colleagues over for dinner (and me bro joined us too). Was a bit stressed out over cooking for all of them, but I managed to pull it off, tho the sweet potato leaves could have been more moist. Help from mother came unexpectedly in the morning, when I woke up to see all the chopping done, and the ingredients separated neatly for me so that I wouldn't get all confused. And, she left me alone after that. I'm proud of myself. :)
Posted by at 6 comments:
Labels:
Subscribe to: Comments (Atom)