Red Tie & Underwear

We are supposed to write a story. Honestly, I don’t even know where to begin. I was late getting out of the house this morning after Maggie caught me online. My nasi lemak bungkus was all gone by the time I got to Devi’s. The stupid waiter messed up my roti canai order. I still have not eaten anything. My brain is still sedated. I am cranky. And I have to start writing a story.

I am hoping that the moving of my fingers will somehow help with the circulation of blood to my brain.


I caught up with Elaine a few days back. We haven’t really chatted since she joined this new ‘china man’ company of hers and I couldn’t wait to hear the stories. The company she joined was one people like us swore to stay away from. This, was after, a company renowned for conducting meeting in Chinese.

I always thought she would somehow survive that ultra chauvinistic culture by charming the ‘ah peks’ with all her innovative hokkien foul words and phrases.

It sounded like she is adapting fine in her new job. She was relating or the quirky ‘ah pek’ habits she has encountered. They were so hilarious

The CFO who had a room full of pigs. Pig pictures, pig figurines, pig cushions, pig pens. Pig was apparently his lucky animal.

Then there was the HOD presentation to the chairman. She thought she used to had it bad, when these nervous heads of departments would insist on rehearsing their presentations as a group and ‘role played’ the Q&As. In this companuy, they rehearsed 5 times. For a woman who had no qualms to ask her boss to shut up, this was a dreadful chore. This group of people were highly payed executives, and they were behaving like high school kids. Well, she was the new kid on the block, it was wise to play along, she thought. The day before the presentation, after 8 hours of bad grammar, badly rehearsed scripts and cheesy jokes, she was just about ready to go home when she was asked to stay back to make an important decision. Elaine obliged, sat up and geared herself to participate in the discussion.

Mr Wong quiet down the room and said, “OK, what are we going to wear tomorrow?”

Elaine almost dropped off her chair. “Oh my God” she thought.

Before she could say anything, someone added “ I think we should wear red. According to the charts, red is a lucky colour tomorrow.”

To this, Mr Wong said “OK, so everyone…tomorrow…. red tie and red underwear”. Someone else asked, “what kind of red?”

“Make sure it’s blood red ah” said Mr Wong.

Elaine, who has been holding her breath, could not bear it anymore. She shut her eyes tight to control, but a giggle slipped. It was a relief and she looked up and was about to let out a louder laugh. That’s when she realized, no on else was laughing.

Everyone else in the room was starring at her, solemn.

Alex nudged her elbow and sushed her. She looked down and whispered, “are they serious?”

“Yes, very. Shhh.”

I wonder if one can get away with murders if they wear red on that day.

I’ve always wondered how feng shui have made people so blind. It’s like a religion on its own. You part your money in exchange for hopes and blind faith.

Just like the silly religions. Everything is good is a result of feng shui or helping hand from God. But after you have heeded all instructions, everything bad is either a lesson from God, or you have placed your fountain at the wrong degree to the floor.

Retirement

It’s the 4th day of my five-day break. I have been enjoying every moment of it. I spend my days cleaning, napping, swimming, reading; doing things without much purpose. Most times, I just move from one space to another in my home, without purpose. It’s a lazy hermit break, and it has been decadent.

Oftentimes, I have wondered what I would do when I hit retirement age. I’m in a job now that I can’t bear to leave. It doesn’t pay well, but hell, I love it. I love what my job represents, I love how my job touch lives, I love the people I work with. I know I won’t be able to find another job like this. The trick now is to keep it.

I have thought about retiring to Australia. I have always wanted to get a small little condo on Coogee Beach, Sydney. The sunrise there has captured my heart.

Minneapolis was always an option those I have not figured out how to deal with the icy winters. But like every Minneapolian, I believe the springs, summers and falls makes it all worthwhile.

Another option would be Bali, the Ubud area. I liked the place, it’s quaint. It’s artsy and folksy at the same time. Not a metro, but near enough.

Or just stay put here in my cuddly home. A little bird was perching on my lanai yesterday. It’s such a sweet though that in this busy city, bustling with activity and pollution, I can find a bird on my window. I do hear them every day and night, and I love it.

What can I do when I retire? Open that little coffee shop that I have always wanted to? Share my joy of coffee and my job of books. I can have book readings there. I would write, I would teach (which reminds me I should check out the TESOL course), I could paint. Ah yes, I think I could be as happy as a toad just doing some of those.

The Man Who Stopped the Bus

For every man we women curse and swear about, for every time they display their aloof and careless antics, there is always one of those exceptions.

And Chong is one.

There was one time that Carol was going to catch a bus to KL. The bus was scheduled to depart at 9:30. At about 9:00, she called for a cab. Cabs in Singapore take about 5 minutes to respond to a call and reach your doorstep, so that still leave a good 25 minutes, quite good.

Chong called and was horrified to find that she had just called the cab. She was cutting it really tight. There was no room for the usual things Singaporeans worry about, traffic jam (which by their definition, is a queue of more than 10 cars at the red lights), accident (which rarely happens in Singapore), and other catastrophes.

Carol assured Chong it will be fine, but frankly, if she were to be so lucky to be caught in any one of those hold-ups, there wouldn’t be much she could do at this hour. Well, I can’t do much now, and nothing you can do too. What could you do? Stop the bus for me?” she joked and laughed off the worry-wart.

She bade her goodbyes and went downstairs to wait for her cab. Well, as she had guessed, it was all just worrying over nothing, she got there on time. The cab stopped right next to the bus, so she could conveniently just board it. She settled comfortably into a seat, and decided to call Chong to let him know that she’s fine.

He answered and asked, “Where are you?” She said she was on the bus.

“I am here”

“What do you mean you are here?”’ Carol retorted.

“I am here at the bus station. You told me to stop the bus in case you’re late mah”

Henceforth, Chong was known as 'The Man Who Stopped The Bus'.

Carol was upset and touched at the same time; upset at his stupidity, touched by his display of care and affection.

We, the bitching girlfriends, were all green with envy.

The Festive Bug

Flo and I were just discussion over lunch a few days ago, that how I wished people will just stopped inviting me to their homes for the festivities. You hate to turn down their good intentions, but really, I know I won’t show up.

Flo reminded me that a staff feels very proud to have your presence in their home, that I should at least ‘show face’.

But holidays are my private time. I cringe at the thought of giving up my precious ‘me’ time to engage in small talk and fake giggles. Small talk is hard work, even harder than 4 hours at the gym or a having to come up with a full proposal. You really need to put your brain on overdrive to come up with topics that others can relate to. And not to mention the frustration of trying to locate house in areas that are totally foreign to me.

The only time I do any ‘festive visiting’ these days is during Chinese New Year, and that is also only because I have to chauffeur mom around.

So far, I have not gone to any weddings, kids’ birthday parties or festive open houses invitations. I have never invited anyone but close friends to my home – the thought of the work involved is already too daunting. The only one thing I do attend, or at least “show face” is funeral. I know it weird, but I think a friend in grief will need me more that a friend at merrier times.

When I was a little kid, visiting was always fun. You see old friends, and you get ang pows. Even right up to high school, visiting was still fun. The whole scout group will go from one house to another on a biking entourage.

I wonder when the festive bug left me. I think it kinda stopped when I went to college, there wasn’t the need to. Friends were all back at their hometowns. And that habit stuck on since.

I told Flo that I don’t believe that my staffs don’t need me to visit their homes to know that I think highly of them.

Don't Know Much

We were in the car yesterday heading out for breakfast - Mark, Russ and me. It was one of those awkward silent moments, where the earlier conversations has ended and no one has anything new to say. We had stopped at the lights at SS2, waiting for it to turn green. I was looking out the driver’s window aimlessly.

In the silence, suddenly the chorus for the song on the radio became very clear, every word of it. And the lyrics went:

I don't know much but I know I love you.
That may be all I need to know.

Just as this chorus ended, I felt an incline from the back of my neck. I turned my head to the left and found Mark staring at me. And he met my eyes, he did not bulge.

The stare hit me, as if he is trying to tell me those three words. I was just taken aback. Out of not knowing what to say or do, I asked him “What?” It was supposed to mean “What are you looking at?” He just blinked him eyes slowly and gave me this knowing look.

I found myself in uncharted territory. I wasn’t sure if he really mean “I do love you” or he was just staring, which he do off and on and it is one of his ways of saying “he likes me” I did not dare to make that assumption. God knows what kind of damage it will to my heart, all the discipline and self-pep-talk about controlling expectations. No, no, there was too much to risk. Plus, Russ was sitting right behind.

So I did the one thing I could control – change to subject to a ‘matter-of-fact’ statement about the ESH warehouse.

Technology... hate it or love it?

I can still remember the good old days before technology… when you didn’t feel handicap without your notebook, and lonely without your explorer and stressed without your email.

I remember the days in Seaport where I learned to use WordStar, the days of the 8” floppy disk that incubates moles. [1988]

I remember the days of graphic designing when illustration and FA was manual – no adobe photoshop (in exchange for birthday presents, I asked for an airbrush); no scanners (the light box was my favorite tool , I would place a torch light under mom’s white wooden glass table to make a mock light box); no fonts (everything had to be typesetted). [1989]. The days in Grey when the entire company shared one Mac and the Mac had its own room, as big as the CDs. [1990]

And the days at Inti when we migrated to the 3 ½” mini disk…. the days when my reports were typed on WordPerfect and printed by the dot matrix printer. [1991]

I remember the days of emailing and chatting on DOS with Rudy, mom and dad from the CBA lab. My house was the first in SS3 to have Jaring. [1993]

Oh, the sweet joy of my first Microsoft Word document. My heart melted. And the great joy of Outlook. [1994]

I remember when I started my first workday at Parkson and I couldn’t find the mouse (they didn’t have one, they were still using WordPerfect). [1996] Yes, the year is right and the company is right. It was true and it was ridiculous.

I also remember my first mobile phone – no not the huge ‘tumbler’ phone, but the Ericsson phone with LED screen and a huge, long antenna.

Wow, what a journey is a short span of time. You wonder what happened in the 80s before technology.

There are a lot of things I don’t remember though. I don’t remember when I forgot how to write.

I forgot when I first got Skype and bosses started calling everyday. I don’t remember when the 3 ½” disk became passé and I no longer has a disk drive. Files are transfer via pen drive, skype or Bluetooth.

Or when I started getting 200 emails a day, and mails became so big that without daily downloading, they would have max out my mailbox limit of 15GB.

I forgot when I used my phone for sms-es more than phone calls.

Moments

I haven’t looked at this picture for a while. We were in Utah, on the way to Yellowstone.

I think that must have been one of Dad’s happiest moments. It was the first time he saw snowfall. Come to think of it, it was more than a snowfall, it was a snow storm. We have stopped the car on the side of the road, so we could get out and feel the snow paltering against our face. I remember the force of that wind. We could barely open our eyes. We had to shout at each other. It was wild.

My dad was cute. He’s a little on the chubby side, with the little round pot belly. Not the “obesed-ly” ugly kind, but a small cute one. I always thought he would have made a great Santa Claus. He has these small almond-shape eyes, the same one I have. His face was so young, despite his age at that time, probably from all the laughter and kindness. That’s my dad – always a helpful friend, always a happy man.

Sometimes I wonder how dad would look like if he were still alive today. He would have been 64. I think he would have still been equally jolly.

I remember his funeral and the scores of people that came. They came to pay their last respects. But they also came to relive my dad, to remember the joyful moments they had with my dad. It’s amazing how many lives my dad had touched.

That trip we made across the US was one of the best times I ever spent with mom and dad. They came for my graduation. I remember how proud dad was. I was sitting on the lower floor, and he was on the upper deck. He was so far away, his face was just a speck. But even from that distance, I saw his beaming. He was all excited, running around the Bob Devaney Center deck, snapping picture of me as my name was called and I walked up to the Chancellor to be bestowed my degree. I remember how he put his hand over my shoulder, gave me a pat and said “my daughter”.

I remember the day he died. I was still in bed that morning. It was a Monday morning. It was Thaipusam, a public holiday and I was sleeping in late. Mom was at working, overtime. He opened my room door and asked if I had wanted breakfast. My eyes could barely open. Through those small slits, I had a glimpse of him hovering at my room door. I grumbled “no”, agitated that I was jolted from my peaceful slumber. That was the last time I saw my dad. I was the last person he talked to.

That whole day was like a horrible movie. I remembered that sound – the furious clanging of our padlock against the metal grill. I jumped out of bed to check out the commotion. This kind Samaritan had found dad’s IC, followed the address and found our house. He informed us that dad had fainted in the pool’s shower room. I drove over with Rudy immediately, still in our peejays.

When I got there, I saw him lying still on the stretcher. The lifeguard told me he had called the ambulance about 20 minutes earlier, but no sign of it. To someone in vain, that news was ridiculous, totally unacceptable. I got impatient. I tried to call, but none of the phone in that complex was working. Hopeless public amenities. I had to do something. I told Rudy to stay with dad while I drove home to call for help.

I did find help. I informed Mom and gathered all the things that I thought I would need at the hospital – credit card, money, my driver’s license. By the time I got back to the pool, I was told that the ambulance has taken my dad to University Hospital.

I drove over as fast as I could, dashed into the emergency room. “Things are under control”, I kept assuring myself. “It’s just a concussion. They just had to revive him”. I wasn’t sure where to go. Then I saw Rudy walked out of into the corridors. He was mopping tears off his face. I walked up to him. Between sobs, I heard him say “Dee died, Dee died”.

Those words didn’t sink in at first. I thought it was a sick joke, I thought my brother just got too worried and nervous. Dad had just fainted from a minor fall. He was not sick. He was more than healthy.

Then I saw him. He was still on the stretcher. I called him, “Dee”. I shook him. “Dee” I called again, louder this time. “Wake up”. He didn’t. “Wake up, say something”. I went numb. This was not real, I thought. I was confused. I didn’t know what to do. I always made things happened, but now, I couldn’t make my Dad wake up. I stumbled out of the room. There has to be something that the medics have not been done. Some mistake some where.

I saw Mom walked in. She asked me how Dad was. I didn’t know what to say. I just muttered that he was inside the room. Rudy saw her. He was still sobbing. She asked him what was wrong and he continue to utter the only words he could managed, “Dee died” and broke down again.

I called Vincent. Vincent had special powers. He could tell me something. He answered. I whispered “my dad died”. The line was bad. He went “huh?”. I repeated myself, louder “my dad died”. I think he was shocked, he went “huh?” again. By this time, after myself said the words twice, it sunk in, it really did. “My dad died”. This time I was screaming, and I repeatedly screamed out the same words over phone, as if by getting the words out, the pressure would reduce. Tears gushed out of my skulls and eyes so hard. “My dad died”, I cried. I remember the people in the ward looking at me going hysterical. I don’t remember their faces. My mind had no room for them, it was too welled up with pain. I sunk into the hospital floor and cried.

I had many times wonder what ran through Dad’s mind the moment when he felt his heart cramped, his lungs contracted and his vision blacked out. What were his last thoughts? What did it feel like?

I will never know until it’s my turn. Time and time again, I wished I could turn back the clock to that moment when he opened my room door. Had I known it would be the last time I was seeing him, my last word would never have been “no”. I would have told him how much I loved him, hugged him, kissed him and would never have let him go for his swim.

Every time I think of that moment, it breaks my heart. I still miss my dad. After 8 years, the pain in not one bit lesser. It still makes me cry. Whoever said time will heel a broken heart. It doesn’t always.

The Forbidden Word

Between us, a thousands words we have said
Yet, a thousand more unsaid.

That is the only way I can describe what I have for him. And I am sure he loves me in his own little ways too. But we can never speak of it. The words that bond us are the very words that will tear us apart.

Song of the Dawn

Beautiful sunrise at Gem Isle

My Romantic Sex-capade

I am in Singapore. Cranky and tired as usual. I think I am starting to have problems walking. The short walk from Paya Lebar station to the office has actually stiffened my knee.

Oh, I must write down my most romantic holiday before I forget everything.

We went out to Gem Island over the weekend. It was a birthday getaway and he was just so nice throughout the trip. Well, he has always been nice to me, in his aloof ways, he is definitely someone who knows how to spoil his women if he wants to.

I drove for the trip. We started out in the morning after the rush hour and slowly made our way to Marang, where the jetty was. Too slow I guess, and we actually arrived 2 hours past the last boat at three. But they waited for us. Well, it was only a 10 minutes bot ride out, the island is not too far from the shore.

The resort was nice. It was the only resort on the island (there wasn’t much space on that tiny island for another one) and it had this exclusive air about it. Definitely not a family or children friendly place, which was good – there was no screaming kids. The room we got was a perfect lovers’ nest. The chalet in built over the rocks along the shoreline, so the entire day, you can hears the waves rush in and make music on the rocks. The room had was furnished in modern Balinese style, slate tiles on the bathroom walls, teak wood bed with mozzie net hanging from the top, and a big, comfy daybed.

Since we got in quite late on Friday, we really didn’t do much. Just relaxed, unpacked and had dinner. We sat out at the jeti for a bit, chatted and watched the stars. When we got back into the room, I changed into my secret weapon - the sexy lingerie I got. He could not resist ofcourse. It felt so good to feel him again after 2 long months. When he came, the sound of his moan was like music to my heart.

After breakfast on Saturday morning, we explored the tiny little island. We went back to the room and spent the entire day reading. I was so tired, I was just dozing off most times. But it was great to just be able to relax and be lazy. There was no house to clean, no gym to go to. It felt great.

Sunday was what he called “pamper him” day. I made mid-morning love to him. Kissed, nibbled and licked him from head to toe. Gave him a slow blowjob. I licked and massgae his testicales. He like thats I could tell. I straddled him. Made slow and long erotic moves. He felt obligated to reciprocate. I told him he didn't have to, I just wanted to make him feel good. We had session two later. I gave a hom full body scrub. It was so sexy to have your man standing there naked while you, naked as well, move around him and clean every nook of his body. I massaged him with my BodyShop Strawberry body exfoliator. He smelled like a fruit tart and it was cute.

On Monday, I woke him up to watch sunrise with me. It was beautiful. After the sun broke, we went back to bed. But I wouldn’t let him sleep, no, I was too horny. I don’t think we ever made love as good as that morning. I took him slowly, no rush. And god, after a while, he could not longer just watched me take him body. He went wild. He sucked my breasts so hard, oh it was good. We always have different climax positions, and usually he would make me come first. That night, we came together - same position, same time. I cannot describe how the burst of emotion felt. But it was really good.

I love him so much.

Famine & Obesity

The DJs and Francessca Peters are on the radio going on and on about this 30-hour famine event organized by World Vision. The whole idea is so we could appreciate what famine is.

Interesting considering it was just 2 weeks ago when news broke around the world that there are more people dying of obesity than hunger across the world. If this is not irony, I don’t know what is.

Sexy Lingerie and Elipses

Spent more then three hundred bucks yesterday on a lingerie set. ]It’s a top in beautiful black lace netting and matching pants. It’s almost good as not wearing anything. The material is pretty much translucent. You could see my big nipples peeping through the fabric.

But I don’t know what is it about lingerie, but that black lace outfit is extremely sexy. I swear, each time I try on the outfit and look at myself in the mirror, my pussy get juicy. I know, it’s crazy. I have never had that feeling before. But I thought if it could have that effect on me, it will drive the men up the roof.

Started art class over the weekend.

I had an easel to myself. I have never drawn standing upright. It was always a seated setting. It felt weird at first, I wasn’t sure where to rest my elbow and my wrist. Plus my back and feet were getting tired. But it does give you a sense of space and freedom.

The style that the teacher taught me was quite interesting. We started with a circle, then shrunk the circle to an elipse (the last time I came across this word, it was in the book Punctuation Power and elipese meant "...'), and then lines. And pretty much, every item can be broken down to there three basic concept. Thus, when you draw, you look at the object and breakdown it into circles, lines and elipses. Instead is drawing an over, you imagine yourself transferring the shapes from a 3D environment into 2D environment. And drawing became so surprisingly easy.