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 :)

Last LaLaLa Lesson

I just had my last vocal lesson before I go pop my junior.  Why call it LaLaLa?  At least that is what I saved as my weekly appointment in my hand phone's calendar.  

It all happened one fine day early this year when The Man came home with a piece of paper and shoved it into my face.

"Look! I have signed you up for vocal lessons :)"

"You what?  Hey, doesn't mean that you are having your mid-life crisis and start learning piano, I also need to go learn something mah..."

"Trust me, you will like it"

And he was right.   

Although it is only an hour weekly, it falls on a weekday and back then, I was worried that I may end up skipping more lessons than attend them due to the hectic and unexpected work schedule. However, the thing is I found out I was pregnant just before the lessons commenced... all the better... since I started my LOA by then and had all the time in the world.

Then came another worry... can pregnant women do vocal trainings?

Innocently, I posted the question to my Gynae.

For a moment, he looked stunned and then chuckled.

"You know what... in all my years of being a gynae, this is the first time I am asked this question!  I get lots of questions like can I do yoga... can I travel etc but not this!"

He paused for another moment in deep thoughts.

"Well, it is mostly about breathing techniques right?"

I nodded.

"And you do enjoy it right?"

I nodded again.

"Well... guess there shouldn't be any problem then!  Maybe you can be my first patient who sings during delivery :)"

I took that as a joke of course.

That was moons ago... and thinking back, I enjoyed the lessons and did it make me a better singer?  Well... perhaps not but it did expose me to different ways to treating a song, sight reading and also understand my own range and tone better.

To sum it up, I will do this over karaoke anytime :)

"Lelong Lelong"

The past weeks saw my first attempt at selling on ebay.  I have always wanted to try doing so just for the fun of it but never felt so compelled to do so until now due to the move.

There are just items around the house which somehow fall into the category of "To Be Sold":

• Items which we adore but are too huge and irrelevant for the next 3 years (hope the new owners will treat them with TLC like we did)
• Items which are just not suitable or have no value-add for the Salvation Army
• Items which are in perfect working condition but we have duplicates or newer versions (I still can't believe we found 3 extra keyboards in the house other than those already connected to the 2 machines we have)

Turned out that it can be a lot of work putting up these items for sale and to follow through (unless you do a really sloppy job) but it was pretty fun and it sure opened my eyes to some ebay buying behaviours:

• Some interested buyers love engaging in lengthy and detailed Q&A (i.e. very kiasi mentality)
• Some interested buyers are really shrewd at bargaining (must learn from them)
• Some interested buyers really don't mind going through a lot of trouble just to get what they want (eg travelling cross country just to view or buy a small item)
• In general, most people are just nice folks...

So far, I have my fair share of successes and failures in this little venture and I was casually updating The Man about it:

Me: So far, we have gotten $XXX for the items but we still have a lot of items to get rid of leh.  Shall I collect all the earnings first and then deposit them back in the joint account?

(Ehem... I approached this venture in a very democratic manner)

The Man: AIya, no need lah... just keep all the $$ from whatever you manage to sell.

Me: Really uh? You mean like doing this for my own pocket money since I am income-less for the moment?

The Man: Ya ya ya... 

Suddenly, it seemed like a lot more items around the house should make their appearances on ebay... hahaha... so much for democracy!

15-course Dinner... Anyone?

After a previously failed attempt to try out 7atenine, we finally made it last night and the famous "Dinner Unlimited"  not only satisfied our curiosity but was also a gastronomically gratifying experience.  In essence, you pay a fixed price in return for a 15-course dinner prepared by the chef on the spot and without any menu, the diners just have to sit back, relax and wait for the show to begin.

There was an interesting combination of tapas, main course and desserts.  Enjoy the visual treats below ;-)

Tuna sashimi with whipped cream

A jar of salad vegetables

Beef rolls on hot stones (I watched them literally cook on the stones)

pan seared scallops (tasted a bit raw though)

Ravioli (we agreed there was a familiar 水饺 taste about this)

Crispy chicken wings (and yes those are wooden clothes pegs... so you can enjoy the wings without dirtying your hands)

Cod fish with white truffle foam (the truffle smell and taste was a tad overpowering)

Risotto with cheese and special sauce (real comfort food)

Crispy pork belly (consisted of 3/4 fats, 1/4 meat)

Mini foie gras burger (we wished the whole piece of patty was made of foie gras though)

Some chilli minced beef with edamame beans (we were told this was braised for 36 hours)

Seared wagyu beef rump with shitake mushrooms & ponzu dressing

Lemon tarts with lime sorbet

Pineapple curry creme brulee (it did confuse the taste buds a bit) 

Vanilla ice-cream with strawberry sorbet and meringue

And guess what... after the last dessert was served, the waitress asked if we would like to repeat ANY of the dishes we had!  You mean we could? Ok... here we go again... (well one of us surrendered though :P)

While photos were the best way to keep count of the 15 dishes but after so many shots of what went into our stomach, we figured that we deserved some shots of ourselves too!

Drinking alone could be lonely... or maybe not if you were with great company 

The two preggy women sipping apple breeze and ray of sunshine

The place was having this special "White Party" inside the dance floor and everyone dressed in all white were entitled to free cocktail... coincidentally, I WAS in ALL WHITE last night (together with a bunch of many other patrons as well as their staff) but with the two huge bumps among the three of us... we just have to give it a miss... for now :)

Pole Dancing Redefined

I came across this little scene over the weekend and can't help but find it amusing and cute :)