Orangeous Dailies

*turns on the webcam*

Me : “New bag?”

Jessie : “Ya.”

Me : “How much?”

Jessie : “Erm, $1.2k. Mum says advanced birthday present. She says no more asking for presents.”

Me : “…what…”

Everytime Jessie buys a bag, I make noise. No, I won’t pay 1.2k for a bag unless it has an onboard finger-print matching system, climate-control system, built-in microwave oven or is tough enough to withstand a nuclear disaster.

I tell her that she already has a bag the same color as this, she tells me about the difference in size.

I tell her that she already has something the same color and size, she tells me about the difference in pattern.

Girls want everything under the sun, and they don’t always have a very big cupboard. Why can’t they just simply buy a super-duper-fuckin expensive bag, one that goes well with everything and use that one and only bag for 10 years? I have a pair of 6-year old brown Crocodile shoes which I got for $60 at Chinatown. It’s still in good condition and I hope I can still use it for another 4 years.

Had a discussion with Jessie today. We were thinking of donating blood.

But the thought of the huge needle kinda discouraged us… for… the time being. Moreover, Jessie fainted (probably out of fear) after donating blood in secondary school, so she’s pretty nervous about the whole thing.

We’ll go in the first week of April instead. And if it all goes well, we’ll be regular blood donors.

I have had a bad habit.

I’ve been biting my nails for the past 22 years. As such, my nails have never been long enough to clean my nose / ear in one single scrape. Sometimes, I’m so good at biting, that they bleed because the nail bed is exposed.

My primary school English teacher, Mdm Lim, got so sick and tired of my incessant chewing that she threatened to make me wear a glove if she caught me again. But of course, I continued, behind her back. Jessie would sometimes snap at me, because of the noise. Nothing deterred me from the good-old-chewing. I would start from the edge, then slowly work my way round the nail.

A couple of weeks back, Jessie helped me apply a layer of clear varnish over my nails. The pungent freshly-varnished odor did turn me off for the first day or so when I raised my finger to my lips. After the odor went away, I brought it back up again, this time, and chewed off a tiny edge of the nail. It tasted weird, and chewing that tiny bit brought out a small amount of the odor, again. I spat out that tiny nail bit, and somehow stopped chewing for the entire week.

After a while, the old habit just died.

Congratulations to Audrey and Derrick on their wedding, held at Traders Hotel @ Cuscaden Road.

(From left) Jessie, Audrey, Derrick and I.

Going to help out Jessie’s good friend, Audrey with her wedding tomorrow. The dinner will be held at Trader’s Hotel, but we’ve got to be at Woodlands by 8 am, to tag along and help out as much as we can. Pretty long, packed day and we won’t be home till 1 am, earliest.

I’ve never been behind the scenes, so tomorrow’s going to be an interesting experience.

11 more working days to the end of my National Service Fulltime (NSF) life.

Abso-fuckin-lutely looking forward to it. Especially the meet-up on the night of 10 March 08 with my old BMT mates.

Too many things to blog about in the last few days. CJ7 was a pretty cute show. Jessie brought me for a surprise Valentines Day lunch buffet at Carousel, Royal Plaza Hotel, which I’ll add to my Valentines Day post when I have the time.

New Year visiting hasn’t even been done yet. So far, we’ve only been to Waikian’s place. I’m trying to consolidate all the photos, current and upcoming before coughing up a grand-slam post.

It was my first day back in office after a 6-week long MC. With 12 working days (3 weeks) left to ORD, nobody really bothered about my existence and I thank God for that. Boss had a short meeting with us this morning regarding our tasks. She turned to me and said in Hokkien, “Chris ha, er…for you… you kio tau kio bueh can already.” In English, it means, I clear up before I leave. In lay-fuckin-man terms, it means doing nothing. I was so god-damned happy when I heard that. And I roamed the office the entire morning and afternoon, chatting with the rest, shredding a few documents and calling it a day.

Joined Jessie, her mum, dad and colleagues for Chinese New Year get-together dinner at Paramount Hotel, in the evening. It was the exact place that I met Jessie for the first time, 2 years ago. Just that it wasn’t the same table this time round. Dad proudly proclaimed to everyone that we exchanged numbers by hand signals under the table. When I accompanied Jessie to the toilet, we walked down a long narrow corridor.

2 years ago, when we just met, I tactically (fuckin cunning of me) planned a toilet trip so that I could bump into her along the corridor as she returned to the table. She looked up at me and smiled, when we walked past each other. And I smiled back too.

Pure 100% natural nostalgia, no preservatives added.

I thought about something from my younger days. And that thought made me chuckle.

When Michelle (my sis) and I were young, we used to gather in my parents bedroom to play “Sampan”. A sampan is a small chinese wooden boat. We would both carry a mattress over (the sampan), and place it on the floor. The floor represents water. How deep? Very. Rules onboard were simple :

1. If you go overboard, touch the floor with one or both feet, you have at most five seconds to get back on. You’re in deep deep water.

2. Or else… hmm… no idea. You drown? Maybe? So far we’ve had no drowning cases because we were pretty quick and nimble.

3. We are NOT allowed to climb onto our parent’s bed (located right NEXT to the Sampan), unless clear instructions were received from me, the honorable Captain, that we have docked. The bed usually becomes an imaginary market of all sorts, where Michelle would disembark to “buy” stuff and I would ride my motorcycle.

Once the game started, we would load all our stuff onboard that little sampan. Michelle would bring her toy stove and her toy ingredients onboard. And I would bring on the weapons, just in case we were attacked. I had this mini Lego airfield with lots of fighter craft on board. They had UNLIMITED lasers, bombs and health. And oh yes, how could I forget, my Ninja-Turtle grey sword. Our architectural skills were legendary, we placed pillows and bolsters at the side of the sampan to act as railings. The TV across the room provided on-board entertainment for the crew.

My roles on board the ship were :

1. Captain – I steer the ship. And my word is final. Usually we’d travel to Malaysia, sometimes Indonesia.

2. Pilot of the planes – When I was flying the planes around, I was so-called ALLOWED to walk on water, until they landed. And while the planes were firing, I would yell “tew-tew-tew-tew-tew-bish-a-boom” very loudly. No enemy was too difficult for my planes. Sometimes we suffered a few losses (just to be realistic, crashing into mountains..etc), but new planes would almost instantly emerge from the airfield. Everybody would go hungry after the battle, so Michelle had to cook for the Lego men. Funny, because the plastic eggs were nearly 20 times the size of Lego men.

3. Lookout - I would lookout for imaginary enemies, usually the kangaroo soft toy was the main culprit.

4. Motorcyclist – At the marketplace, I would always have a motorcycle to ride on. It was very fast and went “vrooooooooooooom”. Take a pretty stiff pillow, put it horizontally on the bed, grab the pillow between your legs, sit, and lean forward. There, you have a motorcycle. Michelle would sit at the back. And we would turn together, an amazing 30 degrees from the floor. The motorcycle would never skid.

5. Swordsman – Sometimes when the planes were out of fuel, I would leap out with my sword towards the target. Give it few hard smacks on the head. Threat eliminated. After the fight I would be very hungry, and Michelle would cook. And the Lego men would cheer for their new-found hero.

6. Lifeguard – Michelle would sometimes ignore the 5-second rule and I had to reinforce it by counting loudly, yelling, then pulling her back. There, I’m the hero again.

Michelle’s roles were simple :

Cook (always plastic eggs inside the plastic burgers)…

..and cook somemore. Sometimes she played lookout and called “enemy”. Mostly she played with her dolls onboard. If we needed to use the toilet, we would leap from the sampan into the toilet (toilet floor tiles were safe to step on). And we did our business in hurry, because the sampan would leave without us. I remember being yelled at by Mum for pissing all over the toilet seat when I had to return to the sampan in a hurry.

Time passed really fast when we’re playing, and as we grow older, start to miss those days when we were young, stupidly creative and carefree.

We spent Valentines Day in class. Geesh. And throughout the lesson, we spent our time furiously denying that we bought anything for one another. “No,no, I didn’t buy you anything. Don’t be so cocky to keep asking. I really didn’t buy you anything!” she declared.

So I sent her home, and out came her present from my car boot when she least expected it. And I went upstairs, my presents were there as well. We both lied to each other on Valentines day.

Thank you my girl for the really smart-looking shirt, the delicious jelly beans and the cute little card with the red car. Happy Valentines Day my dear Jessie. I love you!

Happy Valentines Day to you too, reading this.

[ Update : 250208 ]

Jessie gave me a post-Valentines-Day surprise lunch buffet at Carousel @ Royal Plaza On Scotts. She told me she needed to get some clothes from Far East Shopping Centre, and as we walked past Royal Plaza On Scotts, she dragged me in, and calmly told the Carousel staff that she had a reservation for two. Awesome.

Dear Human,

Hope you all had a Happy Chinese New Year… Dad figured out that it was not really nice to be showing our privates to everyone visiting, so there…

Gabbie

Carlos

Us with Grandma

Haha-Woof-Ha-Woof-Haha-Woof-Woof!

With love,

Carlos and Gabbie

At a traffic junction, I spotted Dad’s car waiting behind a line of 5 cars, on the next lane. There were no cars behind mine.. and the lights were a long way from green.

Me : We reverse all the way, right next to Dad’s car and say hi. Alright?

Jessie : Don’t! You crazy ah! So many cars around. He’ll sure scream.

Me : Won’t. I think he’ll laugh.

I reversed the car for about 20metres…..

Jessie : Crazy! Everybody’s staring!

And pulled up right next to Dad’s car. I waved to him.

He didn’t find it funny. He wound down his window and started screaming.

Caught sight of this terrible mess under Jessie’s block in Bedok as I was escorting her upstairs.

How fucked up and inconsiderate can people get nowadays?

Had our reunion dinner at Banana Leaf Restaurant near KK Hospital.

Padang.

Headed down to Padang to watch the fireworks with Jessie and Pang before midnight.

After which, we joined Jessie’s mum at Waterloo Street to pray at the temple.

Waterloo Street.

I told God that success wasn’t important at all. I prayed for peace, and that everyone around me would stay healthy. And that includes you too.

Video : Final few minutes of the fireworks show.

Related : Chinese New Year Eve 2008.

Final few minutes of the 8-minute fireworks show.

Carlos just sat there. He sat still, except for a few sharp turnings where he lost his balance momentarily. Curious people at Holland Village who got too close to the window got barked at. Otherwise, he’s pretty much satisfied just watching the cars and trees go by. At the end of the 20-minute journey, he refused to get out of the car.

Met up with Cousin Ling and her family last Saturday evening for dinner at Sun with Moon Japanese Restaurant, Central Mall. They took a short one-day trip over here from JB. I haven’t seen her for years and look who they brought along…

The little one, Cheng Yong at 15-months. Simply adorable.

Little CY refused to sit on the baby chair, ate all the food that grown ups ate. He wanted to be treated like an adult! Haha. And the hyperactive little boy was constantly looking around for interesting places to explore.

And Ling told me that his behaviour was exactly like mine, when I was young.