I am READY!

Muddy slippers. Patriotic hearts. Overwhelming crowd. Awe-inspiring speech. United spirits. Rain or shine or even thunder. Unstoppable zeal.
Ears that only insist on the truth. Throats that cry for the reality.

I love RALLIES.

The looks of fellow rallies goers, the passions that we shared, the smiles that flashed on our faces.
Though we never met, but, we are no strangers cause we are on the same ship.

It’s been 5 years since I made one of the important decisions in my life.

My courageous warriors lost the battle but not their integrity and dignity. I know they will fight on.

I am no ignoramus. I am ready.

What a Saturday!

It is really extremely rare that Kevin doesn't have to work on a Saturday, and it only happens once in a blue moon. I grabbed the opportunity to drag him out of the house to try out Epicurious. A place that I have been wanting to visit, for brunch. In fact, it is a toil and moil to introduce or sell a brand new brunch location to these two male, that's because, Kevin benchmarked every brunch with Jones, and Ziv on the other hand, is finical about the type of sausage he puts in his mouth.

I love going to Epicurious, and marked it as one of my fave haunt right now, because, those who patronize Epicurious are simple, cause they are mainly dressed in dishabille, very unlike of the crowd at Spruce. So, there is no pressure to put on makeup or dress well to be seen at Epicurious.

Today's brunch exceeded our expectation. Initially, we were pretty cheesed-off by their service attitude, first, they do not allow reservation, second, at the entrance, there was a sign that read something like this, "call Jasmine for a seat" and there was no sign of human standing at the door that looked like 'Jasmine'. I called up upon a male waiter and asked him, "Where is Jasmine?" He replied, "She is not here today."

HUH.

Anyway, he called the manager to get us a seat. The serving of the food was pretty slow, the drinks was served first followed by the food.

Here's what I ordered. Egg Benedicts. For whereever I go, I am sure to order Egg Benedicts because that looked more like a breakfast to me. The surprise that came long with the Egg Benedicts was the thin slice of watermelon. Better than nothing, at least, there was fruit.

I liked how it was cooked, especially the grilled potato with skin.


I specially ordered Choco-Nana for Ziv. It turned out that the finicky boy was more interested in the food on his Daddy's plate. The bread and sausages, as usual!

The Choco-Nana was sinfully delicious. Diced strawberries, banana slices, thick white bread and the generous spread of Nutella, H-E-A-V-E-N!! Since Ziv wasn't a bit interested, I ate it all by myself. I thought I gained a pound after putting this sinful piece in my tummy.

The contented boy, with bread in his mouth.

As usual, Kevin ordered his full breakfast set, completed with 3 slices of bread, 3 tiny sausages, bacon, baked beans, 2 sunny side up eggs, grilled potato and mushroom! I didn't realise that the breakfast had so much varieties until I typed it out. All in all, he was satisfied.

And that means, we can come back again!

Since the agenda was pretty empty for the day, I suggested to walk over to Medi-Ya to stock up my Japanese snacks drawer. I love going to Medi-Ya for obvious reason, I can't get enough of Japanese snacks and there can't be found even in the Japanese section in Cold Storage supermarket.

Ziv loves Japanese snacks too.

Because I wanted to build a pond in the balcony, so I suggested (again) to go Qian Hu. It was my 2nd time to the fish farm and each time, there was a surprise. I still remembered Kevin and I went to the fish spa last year and this time round with Ziv, long kang fishing.

It brought back many of Kevin's memories, he told me.

Anyway, he seemed to be the one who was more interested in the fishing than Ziv.

Ziv tried his luck on fishing...

We had a reasonable amount of fishes.

The fishes are now at home, I wonder how long will they survive in the hands of Ziv.

Today is really a fun-filled Saturday for us. I hope we can do this more often rather than just shopping.

Found a pic!

Free stuff! Must grab!

Here I am, sitting on the couch with my very much heated laptop on my lap since 930pm, with 'Queen of no Marriage' playing on the background. And me, paying no attention to it.

I can't move.
And I am no gork.
I have to gawk at my laptop screen to ensure that nothing is going to happen to my downloads.

And that's because...

I am downloading free stuff from iTunes for my iPhone.

Thanks G for telling me that Lonely Planet is currently having the 'Volcano Relief Sale' whereby they are offering free guidebooks downloads, mainly for Europe region temporary. The free download will end at 11:59PM tonight and so, I vowed to download them all.

About 15 guidebooks and all I have is an erratic dongle. Sucks.

Next, a celebratory news, I managed to abstain myself from sinful lunches (and only lunch) and attended Yoga for four days consecutively! I will take a break tomorrow, to catch up with my colleagues. I know they MISS me.

New Abode and TT Bed

Have been busy lately for obvious reason, the new abode.

I need to:
- Spot and get the defects fixed
- Change the furniture delivery dates because the TOP date was slightly delayed
- See 3D perspective by my interior designer and find other ideas especially sometimes the designer can't really give me what I want
- Start packing, which I dreaded! Who is going to help me pack my clothes??

And the list goes on and on and on...

Too lazy and busy to type more... Here's a photo blog.

And BTW, Kevin fixed the TT bed 2 weeks ago. Here's Ziv, admiring his bed.

Time

Scientists affirmed that ‘Time’ is a non-matter.

I beg to differ.

To me, Time IS a matter.

Time change and we with time. Although Time doesn’t take up space and has no mass, still, the traces that Time has left behind are visibly lucid, especially on the wrinkled faces of my parents, the grey hair on Kevin’s head and the big beer belly spotted on the most handsome guy back in my secondary school (ASS) days.

I get a tad emotional and sensitive lately about Time because for two consecutive days, I brushed shoulders with two of the very gorgeous schoolmates back in ASS. I was even stunned when they sauntered past me and I have to hold on to my astonishment and hurriedly take another peep to confirm they are the ones. And yes, given their age, their pretty faces may still be noticeable but these pretty faces ballooned and so do their bodies.

I don’t know why, very often, ‘weight’ is always the residue of Time.

A few months ago, I bumped into a supposedly hunky ex-classmate at the supermarket towing two kids and his wife, and guess what Time has installed for him? Time, left him a big beer tummy, a bald patch on his head and additional 15kg on his body. He was only 29 years old.

I looked at Kevin and heaved a sigh of relief, turned to the sky and thanked God that Kevin is still in good shape and have substantial hair on top.

So Time is pitiless on everyone of us, Time is callous even to the most good looking people in the world.

I hate Time.

To fight time, I hit True Yoga on average about 3 to 4 times a week, I try to eat like a bird, but to no avail to losing substantial weight.
And perhaps 5 years later, I will hit the aesthetic clinic more often then I visit the gym for some Botox fix.

I must fight Time.

TOP loh!

After the very much anticipation, we finally got the TOP letter from our developer! The next few weeks are going to be full of activity and definitely eventful. We are going to rush on our renovation in order to facilitate early abolishment of our current tenancy agreement. What can I say? It is never too hard to say adieus to our current sojourn, because I have got enough of unsheltered parking lot (even HDB has covered lots), swimming pool that shares the size of the drain along Hwa Chong Institution, the Dracula mosquitoes and the frenetic barking dog right across the road!

Well, the hitch? We have to pay up to 6 months of maintenance fees at one go plus the survey fee.

Well well well, at least we get to move into our very own abode. That’s what we always wanted.

Ziv sleeps on imported bed OK!

About a month ago, Kev and I were surfing Little Tikes website in search of a mini playground for Ziv so that he can have his very own fun corner on the roof terrace. And while browsing, we chanced upon the LT Thomas the Train bed.

Ziv’s eyes lit up instantly and he whined, “I want!! (x100 times)”

To save our ears from the nettlesome chanting, the next minute is all about fishing out our credit cards to purchase the bed online and at the same time, assured the boy that the bed will get to our house ‘in no time’. Bed was selected and credit card information was precisely populated onto the online form, next up, the shipping option. And guess what? There’s no option to choose to deliver to Singapore! What a downer!

A few days after the episode, Ziv tried to convinced us that the bed was available at local toy store and he said we can just go and buy. How I wish it can be this simple, and in fact, TT bed is not available in Singapore! Went to online forum to take part in spree, but the long waiting time is torturous to the boy and to our ears. And luckily, my brother-in-law E is a frequent flyer to USA, SF once every 2 months. So the next option will be for him to bring back the bed for us.

E went to SF 2 weeks ago and he purchased the bed online and it turned out that the size of the bed was too huge that we almost return the bed back to the Amazon. In fact, the package of the bed is way beyond the acceptable luggage size for airplane and the charge for such odd size luggage can be exorbitant especially they are charged by USD and the freight can cause 2 to 3 times more expensive than the bed itself. And to tell Ziv about this complication he doesn’t grok will not help in any way. So, Kev made the decision, to tell E to ship the bed back at ALL cost.

And yesterday was the arrival of the bed, the Heng entourage including a hyper bouncy boy arrived at the T3 Arrival Hall at midnight, waiting for E’s arrival. As we saw E putting the packages on the trolley, the fanatical boy couldn’t contain himself and there goes his chanting again, “Train bed! (x100 times)”

I brainwashed Kev that nothing is ‘more important than seeing your son so happy’ so that he could take the blow on the freight charge, and to our utter astonishment, there was NO CHARGE. I asked E how he did it, he nonchalantly replied, “I argued with the people at the airport.” Anyway, E has the capacity to argue with the people because he flew First Class or Business Class to SF about once every 2 months to meet his girlfriend and eventually he was made a super prestigious customer. Hence, whassup with excess luggage right?

Kev heaved a sigh of relief.

But E said this is the last time he will buy such a big item back to SG because he was perpetually stressed by two of us by msn and by phone! Haha.



What to do?
My life equation is simple,

My son is happy = I am happy

It would probably takes a while for our in-house assembler (aka Kev) to assemble the bed, so here’s a picture of the completed bed frame.

Long Weekend

The long weekend can either make (it enjoyable) or break (bore me to tears) me depending on what is lined up for me. And the most recent long weekend was terrific, especially that would mean one additional day to spend with Ziv.

Thursday:
I was already “intensely involved” in the mood for long weekend that I started to snake around on Wednesday. And needless to say, Thursday was just a very under-utilized working day with long yoga lesson. The eve of the PH embarked on with a lovely alfresco dining at Fish Market located at Bukit Timah, one of my most patronized restaurants and church-visit to 5 churches.

We were served with a very uniquely prepared escargots served in kueh pie ti shell in some sort of cream cheese and corn sauce, and I had the half lobster linguini while Kev ordered the highly recommended fish and chip. Everything was all well and good.

This year, Ziv went church visiting with my in-laws and he went to 6 churches in a tour bus and reached home even later than us.

The eve of PH was just splendid and the night ended young for us.

Day ended extremely pleased and looked forward to rest of the week.

Friday:
The day began late with brunch at Hatched at Evans road with the Yip family, aka, the usual suspects for brunch. Hatched has a smaller place as compared to Spruce, Jones and Jolly Frog and nevertheless, the brunch was slightly more interesting than Jolly Frog and it was pretty much less expensive and perhaps that was the reason for spotting so many local in the measly allocated place. However, I was slightly disgruntled with their incapacity to bring out the ‘Animal Farm’ pancakes for the kids and the reason given to us was ‘kitchen is busy’ and at that point of time, how I wished they can remain idle for the rest of the time when they are in business. Crap excuse! Hatched is also rigid with their menu, they refused to change my fried egg to poach egg with no reason given, and I probably be happier if they tell me, ‘the kitchen is busy’ rather than a straight ‘no’. Other than that, there’s nothing else to complain, the portion of the food was pretty substantial and value for money in the eyes of the local.

Ziv is serious about what he eats, he was making sure he is eating right. Haha.

A shot of the mothers and kids. Pale without minimum makeup for me. Don't tell me its the age.

Next, we went in search of costly Clek Ozzi (http://www.magnaclek.com/us/english/ozzi/index.aspx) booster seat designed by Paul Frank. And just in case you do not know who is Paul Frank, he is the designer who came out with the whimsical monkey character which you can see here http://www.paulfrank.com/about/. It must be the monkey which swept Ziv off his feet and he wants nothing but THE Ozzi booster seat that cost nearly 4 to 5 times more expensive than the normal Kaki Bukit booster seat!


The search for an inspired one was fruitless and we were left with no choice but to drive over to Great World City to buy it and only to realized that Ziv is underweight and age for the seat. Left empty handed from the store. Anyway, we realised that the booster seat was tagged at this price for a reason, the Clek™ LATCH system locks the booster seat into place quickly and easily using your vehicle’s LATCH anchorage system, unlike the rest of the cheaper seats, they can't lock to the car seat and the kids may end up sliding left and right when a car turns sharply.

In the evening, we went to St Joseph Church where most of the Catholic congregate.

Day ended with all of us being lethargic.

Saturday:
Just when the boys were getting more and more comfortable with each other, the brunch ended and so, Emily and I planned a play date cum swimming session for the boys. After Macs for breakie, off they went for the dip. Ziv hasn’t had so much fun in the pool for a very long time, because Kev and I were too lazy to douse in the pool with him.

Here's 2 penguins at large...

Anway, after the half day of fun-filled activities for the boys, I learnt that you can’t put 2 boys together for too long, cause they will start to fight for the slightest things and they can be violent.

After the activities, Ziv had a good nap and by the time he woke up, we were arranging tables for our fave pastime, MJ.

Day ended at 3am and I was $150 poorer and Kevin $80 richer.

Sunday:
Shichida as usual in the afternoon and went to my mum’s place to let Ziv entertain my old parents and thereafter Easter Sunday buffet dinner with my in-laws at the Zhou Kitchen.

Day ended feeling fat and wonder why Monday has to come so soon!

According to J, this is the last long weekend for the year! How sad is that?!