Financial Acumen or Pure Dishonesty

I was at Burger King enjoying my mushroom swiss when 3 school boys (think maybe Sec 1) came in and sat down with the woman right at the next table. Apparently, she was one of the boys' mum.

She offered to treat them to lunch and the boys were rather shy and hesitant to accept her offer at first but soon afterwards, they relented. As the "mum" was ordering and waiting for their set meals at the counter, I guess the 2 boys felt bad and took out money from their wallet respectively and passed it to the "son" who then grinned from ear to ear and kept the money in his own wallet sheepishly.

My curiosity (aka KPO-ness) made me stayed around long enough to finish watching the episode. Throughout the meal, the "son" did not mention anything about the payment from his friends nor did the friends. So it was obvious that the "son" pocketed that extra few dollars undetected.

Although it was just a few dollars and perhaps he will come clean with his "mum" when he went home that day but at that very moment... I thought to myself... what if 10, 20 years later this same boy pull the same stunt but in a much larger scale and not to his "mum" but to his own company...

Up went the balloons, Down came the tears

I can't remember the last time I cried at a movie, let alone a cartoon. And I mean really cry, the sort that leaves eyes red and swollen, the sort that is uncontrollable like a spoilt tap, the sort that ends up with a heap of tissue papers.

After exposing my junior to transforming robots and magic spells recently, I thought an innocent cartoon like "UP" would be a nice change. I walked into the theatre expecting a good hearty laugh, like the experiences I had with that of "ICE AGE" and "MONSTER INC".

So I couldn't believe it when I ended up crying through the first part of the movie before the real adventure even started... in fact, I had tears flowing whenever that background music was playing, whenever the camera zoomed in on the Adventure Book and whenever Me Frederickson stared blankly at his house or his wife's photos.

As I walked out of the theatre at the end of the movie, I was still tearing. And just when I thought that was the end of a teary evening, my eyes swelled up again on my way home just by the mentioning one of the scenes. The one which Mr Frederick flipped the adventure book for the last time and saw his wife's farewell note to him, thanking him for the extraordinary adventure he had given her all those years and asking him that it was time that he seek his own.

It must be the most touching and beautiful cartoon I have ever watched but then again, it may be just my preggy hormones taking over and playing tricks on me.

Adieus Eden

This post should have been up on the night before the move but we totally over-estimated what we could achieve over the last 2 days before the move.

So the night before the move, we were still struggling with the last batch of laundry, squeezing the last bit of stuff into whatever holes we managed to create in the already bursting boxes and finally sealing them before going to bed exhausted.

Being preggy, I was of no value and could only get in the way during the move so first thing in the morning, I made myself scarce by soaking in a lengthy brekky downstairs, reading every line published on the Straits Times and going for a full hair cut with wash & blow (when what I really needed was just a 5 min trim of my fringe).

Periodically, I would sms The Man to monitor the progress, anxious to know if everything went smoothly. Then came an unexpected hiccup... somehow, our humongous sofa could not pass through the main door (even though it has been dismantled into 2 separate pieces)! So, the movers had no choice but to leave it outside at the corridor.

My father-in-law wouldn't give up as he adored the piece and has even gotten rid of his old sofa so as to welcome this giant.

Ingeniously, he sawed the wooden legs apart... pushed it through into the house with the help of The Man... and then fixed the legs back again perfectly once it was in the house. This activity alone took up the entire afternoon as it was no easy feat at all!

Then, last night came another hiccup, less dramatic by comparison though. After discarding yet another round of my clothes in the afternoon (already discarded one round before the move), I finally managed to squeeze all my working clothes into the new wardrobe, satisfied with my achievement for the day. Just before retiring to bed after another back-breaking day, the hanging bar in the new wardrobe decided to give way! Too much clothes... overloaded... my father-in-law diagnosed. I could only curse.

Other than that, everything else seemed to work out... so far so good!

Next thing would be to get all those bulky items that don't fit into this house into storage and of course... continue with the never ending unpacking by the next few days! This will be our little nest for the next 3 years so no effort shall be spared to make it nice & comfortable :)