Yay, I’ve secured my first real invitation to someone’s house for dinner 
Met a (british) expat here at IBM, she’s young and blonde and smart and interested in technology … so we’re very different but are trying to get along 
I’m in charge of bringing dessert, which I will be buying somewhere.
There will be a few other people there as well (not from IBM) — so looking forward to eating and laughing with some friendly faces! (Saturday night … here I come!)
Well, I’m not in China, but I am in opposite day!!
… and the piece de resistance…
… especially when moms put the whole non-perishable aisle into a box and spend way too much money to ship it to all the way to Singapore so their daughter feels a little closer to home.
Love you mom!
… and when dads build a whole DVD slideshow about an adventure trip they took to your city while you were away and then sneak that into the box too just to make sure you get really good and homesick and realize exactly what you’re missing, you realize Dads are pretty great too.
Love you too Dad!
I am developing 3 morning routines …
So … I’m only allowed coconut milk two times a week — and that’s HARD. The realization I’ve come to is that Atkins never broke in to this market. They eat rice for breakfast. Indians put their curry rice into a pita pocket. Fried rice comes with sauteed pepper potatoes. Dinner is noodle soup. Well … it’s tasty, but Conrad, it’s not doing anything for my waist line!
Well, I am on the quest for after-work company. I also have a personal mission while in Singapore to learn how to play mahjong. Seems like a good combination, right? Not necessarily.
Thanks to Shelly I have a set of tiles, but no one to join in a game and no knowledge to teach new players. I know, I know .. there are 8,000 Web sites that are more than happy to provide me the rules, but I want to learn by doing, not by reading and trying to teach myself the intricacies of strategy. So … here I am. Asking around to see if people a.) know how to play and b.) want to teach me.
Finding #1. Lots of people “know” how to play.
Finding #2. Even more don’t or don’t remember or don’t want to admit it.
Finding #3. Other people want to learn.
Finding #4. NO ONE (this is an absolute in my research) plays for fun. It is played for money. Only for money. And your grandmother, aunt, elderly neighbor, officemate, housekeeper, etc. will have no problem cleaning me out .. I mean “teaching” me how to play.
Finding #5. No one wants to teach you. Especially in a friendly, open-hand, no money-down game. No one. (See above finding #4 about how people typically “learn.”)
Finding #6. I am now more determined then ever to learn this game. None of these results dissuades me. None. Sorry. Try again.
Ok … so, after exhausting friendly banter with people from work, I decided to try a new route … the bridge between an Internet chat-room and meeting real, live people. It’s called “meetup.com” and it’s a listing (organized by city) of people with various interests and activities, and events they arrange. Conrad and I have explored the NYC Hikers meetup, so I thought to myself, self, maybe this is a good way to kill 2 birds with 1 stone … find a MahJong meetup in Singapore, and meet some new people.
Well, strike #2. There isn’t one. Sure, there are people interested in playing (for money) who throw out all kinds of words with definitions I don’t know (like “kaki” or “3/6 5/1″).
No worries. Meetup had a suggestion. How about the Boardgamers group? Apparently some people there have similar interests as I do (says the search engine). Hmm. I’m reluctant but willing. You say “Let’s meet and play boardgames” and I see visions of costumed 40 year-old basement-dorks playing dungeons & dragons until their mom calls and tells them to come home for dinner. But, on the other hand … Odds of there being people there? Very high. Odds of people there who know how to play? High. Odds I have something in common with said people? Well, I can be a dork, so we’ll give it a “highly-likely there may be one or two.”
That was enough for me. So after a few e-mail exchanges I got the information for Sunday and off I went. There’s an area of Singapore called “Holland Village” or “The Village” for those in the know (also seen as “HV” but I think that’s a bit too dorky to be said out loud). Well, this was “behind” that. Now, “behind” is generally a good direction if you know which part is the front. [Note to self: never tell visitors to NYC that we are meeting in a restaurant "behind" the East Village. It's just plain silly.]
So…. after walking around for 20 minutes on one of the sunniest, blazing hot, humid days we’ve had here, I finally get lost enough to find the place (really). I started the day looking kind of cute, but ended up dragging into the place like a wet dog. Oh well. I’m not sure how good you need to look in a Boardgaming Coffee Shop anyway.
And that’s where we were. 100s of boardgames everywhere. Ok, if we were still living in Raleigh, I would drag our friends here at least twice a year — it’s a good business model. You rent a table like you do at a pool hall. The cafe owns a few hundred games and serves food and soda. It’s very wholesome. (Plus I loved the cafe’s marketing … the menu was printed on a monopoly board, very clever.)
We didn’t play Mahjong, but I did meet people who could. And though no one was dying to teach the American blonde how to play, there were some half-hearted “maybes” that I might be able to exploit.
So … moral of the story. It was fun. The people were nice. And I *may* go to another one (though for the record 5 hrs of boardgames played with people who take this as serious sport can be draining).
Now, I know you want to know what the people were like. I’m saying they were nice and fun first so this doesn’t come out wrong. But … the world-ranked (really) #7 Scrabble champion was there, just returning from the 2007 play-offs in Mumbai; apparently a guy who normally comes wasn’t there — but he owns something like 3,000 board games; and there was a 10 year-old who was beating everyone at some of the most strategic games I’ve ever seen. About 40 people in total. What did we play? This was no monopoly or Cranium crowd folks. They played games I’ve never heard of: blokus*, cartagena*, niagara, ticket to ride*, cleopatra, ingenious*, … and so many more. Anyway. It was fun. It was full of characters — but good ones. And hey, it’s fun to exercise that dork muscle every once in a while, right? (But no worries, I’ve no plans to attend any meetings to study the Elvish Language or reminisce about Elvis , a girl has her limits.)
(*Note: These games would make interesting Christmas gifts for the gamer in your family. But warning, many of these games have small parts and may not be good if you have small children.)
Ok, so I see things differently now that I’m living in Asia. For example, there’s a poster in the office advertising an upcoming family day for employees. The very colorful headline reads:
Funtasia
Only, my brain does not see “Fun .. Asia” it reads “Funt|Asia” … and methinks, what is a “Funt” anyway and why is that a good pun? Well, dictionary.com tells me that “funt” is Polish for “pound” (as in “that weighs 2 lbs” not the verb). … So, it’s an unintentional bad pun I’m sure. Still, it’s what I see now. Sorry Mickey (ref to “Fantasia” which I think they were trying to play off except with “fun” instead of “fan” … just didn’t work for me.)
In other “word” play … a colleague passed me this Web site today. It’s a good way to waste time, I mean exercise your brain: www.freerice.com. The point? Correctly define the word displayed on the screen and 10 grains of rice are donated via the sponsors to the UN’s World Food Programme. Oh, and they score your vocab prowess — just what all of us Type A’s need, a score. So .. enter with caution. And if you must know, Conrad scored higher than I did … but we all know he’s in study-mode right now, so once we get him back to TV his brain should shrink down to a governmentally accepted size.
I am so excited to grow old with Conrad. Ok — not excited to “grow old,” but if I have to do it, I have found my life witness and partner to do it with, and that is an awesome feeling. Being here, alone, only reinforces that feeling — especially when I find myself suddenly wide a-freaking-wake at 4am. Why? Because he is on a shopping errand buying a new-baby gift for me (from us) and they don’t have what I told him to get and he wishes he could call me. See … we’re still hard-wired and close, even though we’re like some-thousand-odd miles apart.
I still point and get that little teary-eyed grin when I see a wrinkly, old couple walking hand-in-hand down the street and hope someday Conrad and I will have achieved that — that indelible mark of battle-tested, machine-washable lifetime achievement. I don’t know what a lifetime of love like that feels like, but I do know what it looks like.
That is why tears were rolling unabashedly down my cheeks at breakfast in the lobby this morning. Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s husband has Alzheimers. And he’s got a girlfriend. And Justice O’Connor thinks it’s great … because he’s happy.
Wow. Mark my words — that will either show up in Hollywood or the Hallmark channel.
The New York Times did a good job with this one — we are well indoctrinated to “new love” — that heart-pounding, roller-coaster ride of teenage love and angst. But what is old love like?
You can read the full story here: Still many-splendored love in the time of Dementia.
I don’t know what I would do if in that situation, I don’t know if anyone could unless they’re there. But it certainly made me think more about old love and what it could have in store. Still, despite the bumps and the unknown road ahead, I am so happy to be out on that drive, and happy I have a navigator sitting right there beside me.
Oh.
Right. You can drive honey, I’ll stay in the co-pilot’s seat
Having lunch with some girls at work today — one just returned from a trip to Thailand with her boyfriend. While there, they went to a friend’s restaurant for lunch. He was very busy but waved them into the kitchen for a quick talk. She shared this story with us… we’ll call my friend “A” for the purpose of Internet privacy.
While they were there, the chef was shouting orders at his staff.
Chef: “Hey scooter, cook that up, add that in. Make this good, it’s for her.”
A: “Why do you call him ‘Scooter,’ is that his name?”
Chef: “No! He goes everywhere on his scooter, all over town, so we just call him that and he answers.”
Chef: “Hey pay-me-more, add some more chilies there.”
A: “Why do you call her ‘Pay-me-more’ then?”
Chef: “Because everytime I talk to her, that’s all she says, ‘pay me more,’ ‘pay me more!’”
Ok .. if you didn’t find that funny, read it again with a strong non-english accent. It’s just funny. Well, it made us laugh any way
Well, The Rock* said it best when he came.
Interviewer: “So, how did you think of Singapore?”
The Rock: (Looking at his PR advisor off camera) “I had a great time. Oh, and the food was great.”
Interviewer: (Now very excited as even ‘The Rock’ realized the culinary dynamo that is S’pore) “Oh really?!! So, what did you eat?”
The Rock: “Um. Right. Oh! I remember! (See how good and memorable it was) The Chicken Rice.” (Yup, tricky on the prounciation, but he got it.)
Not being crass. But really, food is not central, it’s pivotal to the country of Singapore. If you don’t appreciate the food, you might as well not appreciate the people. And I have to admit it, as a westerner w. a western palette on her first ever trip to Asia, it’s a little daunting to go it alone. So some of the food I’ve had was great, and some wasn’t (and I’m still not sure I can tell you which is which, mostly because when I order, I just point at the pictures on the menu).
Tonight however was different. Tonight I was invited to join a big group of coworkers for the dinner I’ve been waiting for. We went to a tiny little place in a strip mall about 15 miles from the office. It was a going-away party of sorts for someone leaving IBM. Really, it was a nice excuse to dine out together. No spouses were invited and kids were left at home. Dinner for 14 started at 7. And by the time we got there someone had already ordered for the table (yay, no menu!… but I’m still not exactly sure what we got!).
Restaurant was Thai and the food was great. Among the dishes were …
If you’re ever in Singapore, the place is on Upper East Coast Road in a part of town called Siglap. It’s called A-Roy Thai and it gets a Reyes two-thumbs up!
* If you’re not in the know, “The Rock” is actor Dwayne Johnson. This University of Miami alum made is name in WWF wrestling and is now making it big on the silver screen. He was recently in Singapore to promote his new film, Game Plan.
Well, I’m official. My business cards arrived in the mail this week, and I’m now in the 1-bedroom loft apartment I’ll be calling home through February. I could complain that the beautiful 2-story giant windows are on the 1st floor and so overlook the bus stop (as its waiting passengers look over me), but I’m not going to. Instead I’m going to be happy that I can *finally* unpack my suitcases and begin to feel a little more settled in this temporary home.
But I miss my Conrad! I miss NYC! I miss our friends and family. So that whole “absence makes the heart grow fonder” thing is totally true. I’m happy to be here and have this work experience, but I’ll be even happier to go Home when the time comes.
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