moody meanderings

while catching up on friends' blogs, I learned that an IT journal editor I know personally has been caught red-handed in a series of outright plagiarism. This is probably why he has no room to publish the article he purportedly wrote following an interview with one of our executives nearly six months ago. How disappointing.

playing catch up
Went wandering over to check out how my dear virtual friend was doing and discovered his top ten quirks posted a week ago which I found rather amusing. Hmm...I might compile one of my own though I'm a little late in the game. I spend so much time on IM whenever I'm online that I've gotten so behind in catching up on my friends' blogs. Also posted over a week ago is a comment on a Hong Kong Dragonboat competition in Miami come October 11 & 12. If you want a vacation to Hong Kong like Kevin does, sign up for the races in Miami now!

playing house
I've been experimenting in the kitchen and tonight, I threw together odds and ends for fried rice and this is what I learnt:
1. balsamic vinegar does not go well in the making of this dish
2. black olive pesto does
3. expired canadian bacon is best tossed in the garbage
4. a good drizzle of very good quality extra virgin olive oil does wonders to save the dish
5. frozen garden vegetables straight out of the freezer won't cook before the rest of the dish is done
6. halved black olives make a great garnish

and finally, use only overnight rice unless you want a sticky mushy dish. I didn't have enough rice leftover to make the dish so cooked a fresh pot.

playing back
My past few nights' rest have been riddled with some truly bizarre dreams.
In one, my baby nephew was upset that his father would not let him sit in the driver's seat so he ran away from home. On discovering him missing, his anxious parents naturally rang all the car rental companies to find out if they had recently hired out a car of the same make as the boy's father's car. One company had hired out a similar model -- I forget what "UOMO" -- that same day.
"Who was it?" my sister's voice quivered over the phone.
"A young man", the clerk answered in a bored voice.
"A young man?" her voice is raised a pitch.
"OK. A young boy", he returned unfazed.
"A young boy?" she persisted.
"OK. OK. A baby", he admits.
Why did he hire a car to a baby? Because the child brought grown-up friends to pay for the rental.

We got the information from the bored sales clerk and scoured the streets in search of a something-UOMO SUV. After more than an hour, we found the vehicle abandoned in a park or a playground but no child in sight. My eyes trained into the distance, I nearly run over the little boy who, on seeing his frazzled mother, runs crying to her on his stubby legs that somehow managed to reach the peddles. Exhausted, he collapsed quickly into deep sleep. Then I noticed something strange -- there were lions and other wild animals in the park. It was like a wild-life safari. We decided the animals couldn't be real as it didn't make sense to have lions roaming freely at an open park and playground. It must be a holograph. Still we take cover as a lion plodded by. But someone didn't manage to take cover and she was reaching out to grab the lion's mane to see if it was real. A tuft of mane came away. At that point, she made a dash for cover. Fade out.

In another dream, I was upset with Salsa god whom I thought had stood me up again. I discovered later that he had made his way to where I was staying with my sister's family and on finding only my nephew at home, began to teach the boy some Salsa moves. My nephew, who has a very short attention span, surprisingly took to the dance and to his instructor instantly. And then, I find Salsa god and I in a shower. It wasn't sexy or sexual at all. In fact, we were fully clothed and aside from the room being furnished in bathroom tiles, there was nothing else to suggest that we were actually in a shower. I began to draft my resume, putting down names of companies I'd worked for but changing their names slightly. I look up from writing and we're out in the driveway looking up to the second floor balcony. A long rope hung from the balcony. We scaled it and found ourselves in the loft of a potato barn. Salsa god and a bunch of other guys who appeared from nowhere proceeded to shower the potato harvest with their pee. As the weather had been particularly hot and dry, the potato harvest quickly drank up the offensive offering, taking on the pungent flavour. Fade out.

In the last dream, I'd just joined a new company (I guess my resume paid off) and as part of a team building exercise, each department was asked to come up with a name for the team. Desperate to impress, I offered some lacklustre suggestions which were rejected. I was asked to go away and give it more thought. As I was walking away disappointed and embarrassed, I was hit with a flash of brilliance -- "estuary". The word just came to me. Why "estuary"? I thought long and hard. Because the marketing department is the mouth of the company like an estuary is the mouth of a river. Fade out.

I checked the dictionary this afternoon to confirm that an estuary is indeed the mouth of a large river. Bizarre? I think so.

playing dead
I've been wanting to post pictures on my blog since I lost the use of my webhost services. I decided to pay for BlogspotPlus which would give me 25MB of storage space a year. But each time I clicked to upgrade my spot, I got a message that the server was unavailable, please come back later. I tried it again tonight. Same message. Can it be that it is easier to use free blogspot than to use paid blogspotplus? How odd.

I was tired. I closed my IM sessions, shut down my computer and got ready for bed. I showered by candlelight. For some reason, I just keep blowing my light bulbs. Salsa god came to help me fix a new one. For the record, I can change a light bulb. But not if it's out of reach on the ceiling. The ladder I have is not tall enough for me. Anyway, he came by but none of the three bulbs I bought tonight fitted. Hence the candlelit shower. I placed the candle on the shelf over the sink and brushed my teeth. As I finished gargling, I noticed a crackling noise coming from the candle. There were bits of hair in it. I wondered how my eyelash had gotten in the tealight. Just as I was about to blow out the candle, I noticed the smell. A burnt smell. Oh my god!! I had burnt my hair in the flame as I bent over the sink! I touched my hair where I expected to feel a few singed strands. A sizeable bunch fell off at my touch. Luckily, my hair was bunned up and only the ends sticking out was burned. Now I'll go to sleep with a toasted head.

Tomorrow night, (or rather, tonight) we will perform at the Mexican dinner reception at the Renaissance Harbour View Hotel. It will be my first costumed performance. Tried dancing with the costume tonight during rehearsal and kept on stepping on the pant leg! I hope I don't trip and fall, or worse, pull the pants down altogether. To be sure, I tightened the clasp at the hip as the pants was too loose and threatened to fall off several times during rehearsal. I was so excited with the way I looked with the make-up and all, I took a photo with my funky new Nokia 6220 and emailed it to my friends! Such vanity!!! Unfortunately, I haven't got round to finding a new photo host so I can put it up here. Soon....

J will be leaving HK very very soon. I am going to miss him so terribly. We've been spending quite a bit of time together, doing touristy things and not. Saturday we go to Macau. Then he's away early next week and back a week later and off again two days later. This time for good :-( Yes, I will surely miss him.

The way he looks at me, I can believe I am the sexiest, most beautiful and desirable woman he's been with. The truth doesn't really matter because in that moment, that is my truth. In that moment, I am sexy. In that moment, I am beautiful. In that moment, I am desirable. And the passion that that truth evokes is beyond all my imaginings. Wrapped up in his arms and drowning in his eyes, I am in rapture.

I went straight to bed after that last post.

I've been getting a lot of sleep this past week, being ill and working from home. This past weekend was also spent lounging in front of the computer or tele. By Sunday afternoon, I was thoroughly bored. The rain brought some reprieve from the heat but the humidity left me lying languidly on the couch in front of the computer. A loud "ding-dong" roused me from my prone state. It came from the computer. Someone was buzzing me on IM. After a brief chat, I invited him out for ice-cream. He invited me in for ice-cream. I didn't object.

He made some tea after ice-cream. That, combined with the shuttered windows and air-conditioning set on low-cool brought back my languid mood. I stretched out on his couch, my legs propped up on his knee. He was stretched out on the other end of the couch, gazing drowsily at me as I read from a "Learn Cantonese in seconds" booklet.

The conversation turned to his exercise regime, parts of his body he was working on, had I noticed any change in his body? Emmm...not particularly. He still looked scrummy. Can't really tell under the shirt.

He removed his shirt and leaned back again, smiling. The room was getting warmer. He pointed out that his thighs were aching from working them out at the gym. He was trying to make them less skinny. I didn't remember that his thighs were skinny. Were they? I prodded a thigh under a trouser leg but couldn't decide if it was skinny. I needed to look at them again. I said his pants had to come off. He said I should take them off. Something in his tone told me I was about to get lucky...

This is the HKSAR's latest public awareness campaign emblazoned on MTR billboards and prime-time TV. The ads feature a broad-smiling woman who, in the commercial declares, "My love for you is endless. Without you, I couldn't even eat." Sights like these remind me of the many things about Singapore I take for granted, including the basic personal hygiene education taught in our schools for over thirty years.

I remember our daily communal brushing exercise after recess, each child wielding our standard-issue toothbrush and water bottle. All forty students perched over a narrow drain, brushing. Then there was the annual appearance of the mobile dental clinic. How I loathed the sight of it. Painful scaling and brushing. The feel of metal grinding against milk teeth. The taste of blood and calcium. But I loved the nurse. She always complimented me on my beautiful, straight teeth, which, in her opinion, were fit for a toothpaste commercial. *grin*

I still loathe going to the dentist. My last visit was nearly four years ago before I left IBM. I was taking advantage of the dental benefits provided by the company before I left. It must have been seven or more years before that when I sat in a dentist chair to have one of my wisdom teeth extracted. That was the first time I voluntarily visited a dentist since I left secondary school. I was in my early twenties. Thankfully, I have good, strong teeth. I often have nightmares of losing all my teeth. So far, *touch wood*, they've remained intact and unfilled.

Did you brush your teeth today?

Summer wants to make its presence felt before it succumbs to Fall. Temperatures in the last couple of days have gone into the thirties again. That doesn't seem very high to many parts of the world experiencing temperatures soaring in the forties but we've got humidity thrown in as well. I rarely use the air-conditioner but some days the humidity really make me dull. Unfortunately, my air-conditioning unit in the lounge is leaking and my neighbour downstairs has complained about it so I can't turn it on for long. The repair guy may come by this afternoon, hopefully to fix it rather than to just assess the problem, which is more likely as my landlord will want to approve the cost of repairs before they can be done. Grrrr....

Been busy with packing last Wednesday, then performing at the Grand Stage, then flying off early Thursday morning to Singapore, then being stuck with dial-up lines, then falling ill, and now still ill and starting a fever. On top of all that, I'm desperately trying to catch up with work piling up.

Singapore was good until Sunday. Spent a good part of Thursday resting and working while waiting for the kids to finish off their homework. Set off early Friday morning to Pasir Ris Park for a picnic with the four bigger kids. The kids' moms took the day off as well, so that was a relief to me as I was really tired even then. Mom and eldest sis came along for the picnic, too. We had two good hours before it began to pour. We took shelter under a large canopy nearby and I couldn't help remembering typhoon tuesday when the kids ran out into the rain when the grown-ups weren't looking. Saturday morning was spent with the kids I was staying with. First, riding with Abraham at the park nearby until I scraped by shin riding into a park bench (duh!), followed by a card game with a deck we found at the playground. Next up was time with Leticia, which was spent teaching her the fundamentals of music on the piano. I'm hoping she will be motivated enough to pick up the rest on her own....

My mom held a second housewarming party Saturday evening. The first a week earlier was for relatives and old friends. The second was for her dance friends and me, of course. Unfortunately, most of her friends didn't show up but my second sister had invited several friends of her own so that made up the numbers. I had the beginnings of a cold by then but was determined to Salsa, thinking I'd get more action in Singapore than I would in Hong Kong. I was wrong. The regulars were at a different venue from where I was so I made do with my sister's friend, Aaron, and a US navy-man from Puerto Rico who Aaron took to be a rival for my attention. Second sis was happy to be no longer the object of Aaron's fancy as she herself had her eye on a tall French chap.

By Sunday, I was ready to leave Singapore. Second sis was angry with Aaron for checking up on a gossip she had offered during our taxi ride to Salsa. His bit of detective work had gotten back to the woman they were gossing and bitching about and now she was livid at their audacity to interfere in her relationship. She was ranting to me about his stupidity, trying to engage me in Aaron-bashing. I was as unresponsive as I had been during their goss session in the taxi. After three failed attempts to stir my ire for a man I hardly knew nor cared for, she gave up.

There was to be more unrest later that evening as we learnt from my sobbing nephew that third sis and husband had had a row. This, after a family prayer gathering that same afternoon, chanting "Our Father"s and "Hail Mary"s. The emotional tension was too much for me. I called the airline ticketing office and brought forward my flight from the following afternoon to the morning.

I realise, of course, that I'm just running away from what is inevitable in any family relationship - tension. But as I will not be around to deal with it to the end, I would much rather not have any part of it at all. There's nothing worse than watching some horrors unfold, knowing that you can't do much, if anything, about it. Ignorance, afterall, is bliss.

Monday was my father's birthday. I try not to think about it. About anything closely related to my father because it almost always brings on a bout of tears. Monday night, I remembered. And I cried. How I miss him. His smile. His laugh. They started from his eyes, going down to his flashing teeth and back to his eyes. That was my dad.

Today, I called salsa god's little brother to invite him to dinner and Salsa tomorrow night. Just his little brother. It is the weirdest thing. I was bemoaning to salsa god over messenger about missing the opportunity to meet his brother before he returns to the UK Friday and suddenly, I'm inviting the bloke out tomorrow night and big brother isn't going to come along. The guy doesn't know me from Eve and I'm taking him out. He must think me the strangest person his brother calls "friend" or "acquaintance" or "fan" or whatever it is he calls me. As salsa god so delicately put it, too late now.

So I went to Shau Kei Wan to make my statement and the poor police officer laboured over the composition of the statement in a language medium he is not accustomed to. Took him an hour to complete a three page statement which I would have taken one page and ten minutes to complete.

Determined to pin the case on the errant van driver, the police constable prompted me for the appropriate responses.

"What was the distance between the taxi and the van when you saw the van?"
"Errrr...must have been less than a hundred metres..."
"One hundred metres???" he exclaimed with eyebrows raised. "Maybe sixty to eighty metres?" he suggested.
"I don't remember. But you're probably right. Well, it was definitely less than a hundred metres and perhaps even 40-50 metres. I can't judge distance too well" I added sheepishly.
"It's OK. Sometimes it is hard to remember" he consoled.

And later....
"How fast was the taxi going?"
"I'd guess it was about forty or fifty?" I offered uncertainly.
"Fifty? That's the speed limit. Maybe forty to forty-five?" he coaxed.
"Well, I wasn't looking at his speedometer but perhaps you're right. He wasn't going particularly fast for that road."
"OK. Forty to forty-five" he repeated in confirmation.

At the end of the interview, he suggested that I could sue the van driver's insurance company for damages. He suggested psychological injury which could not be countered by the hospital that treated me. Perhaps a terror of taxis as a consequence of the accident, even. He volunteered laughingly that he was afraid of taxis now as a result of losing his tooth to a taxi while on duty. He even flashed the toothless gap to corroborate his story. I was thoroughly amused at the liberties he was taking, dishing out advice on my legal recourse. And then, he reminded me gravely to re-read the statement prior to appearing in court in the event that I was required to serve as material witness. In response to my quizzical look, he offered that it was so I would remember what I wrote, and immediately corrected with a laugh, "No, so you remember what I wrote! Hahaha!"

As we left the interview room, he confided that he was off to get his nicotine fix as his blood nicotine level was dangerously low. I could only laugh.

Less than a week before she leaves for good. I hate to think we would part un-reconciled. But I don't know what more I can do. I will not say anything in my defense lest she thinks them lame excuses. And her response to my apology last week was a tirade of accusations and a parting "I will need time to get over this" line. I leave on Thursday for Singapore. She leaves on Saturday. Time is not on my side.

Been raining all weekend. J is leaving in a few weeks. He has a list of tourist type activities to do before he leaves, so on Friday, we made a trip to Temple Street and scoured the night market stalls for toys and treasures (read: things you have no idea what you're going to do with once you've bought them). I bought a pink wig.

Yesterday, we visited the Museum of History. I highly recommend it. It takes easily three hours or more to get through the galleries made up of full-scale village houses, old shophouses, boats, wedding parade, opera stage, temples, salt harvest, rice harvest, etc, that make up the Hong Kong story. The museum takes you back in time from the arrival of the western traders through the Opium wars, Japanese occupation, ending with the handover of the territory from the British colonial masters back to China.

This afternoon, the zoological gardens was crossed out from his list as another accomplished activity. A relatively small zoo, the highlight is the Jaguar which paced its enclosure coughing out its roar or growl or groan, I'm not sure which. If you're going to the zoo, look out for the overweight orang utan with a face the size of a car tyre. You can't miss the poor fella as he is too overweight to move from the spot by the fence the whole time we were there.

I did not get to Salsa as planned. It's been more than a month since I last danced. My knees are swelling up again and hurting these last couple of days. I skipped dance practice today, too. We perform at the Grand Stage this Wednesday. I hope my knees mend before that. She was going to come see the dance. I don't expect to see her now.

The sky is giving us a little reprieve now. I should make my way to the Shau Kei Wan police station to give my very overdue statement on the traffic accident.

I received an email from a stranger last night with an original poem of encouragement and a Rudyard Kipling piece below. It was beautiful and brought a tear to my eye. He felt compelled to write after reading my posts of recent days. I feel so blessed by the kindness of complete strangers. And I am reminded of the kindnesses of friends.

Typhoon Dujuan was a combination of two typhoon systems coming together. It supposedly makes the resulting one typhoon much more powerful. But all was calm in Central except for the constant drizzle of rain coming down. It didn't feel like a typhoon signal 8 which was issued by the Hong Kong Observatory after two in the afternoon.

I was feeling rather frustrated at everything that had happened in the past couple of days and feeling quite sorry for myself, which often makes me very susceptible to stupid ideas. I needed an adrenaline rush to shake off my melancholy and decided a date with a typhoon was just the thing to do. Tried calling a few friends but the mobile network was jammed. Only one responded and so the date was set.

I got home two hours after the signal 8 was raised. Showered and sat mindessly in front of the tele with Inspector Gadget before falling asleep. By half past six, I was awake and impatient to meet the storm. Still the trees and plants outside my place barely stirred. I called the one and only person whose mobile phone seemed to work during a typhoon and the sound of the winds roaring in the background convinced me it was time to head on down to Wanchai.

Got dressed in a short denim skirt and t-shirt, packed a towel and sports jacket in my backpack and off I went, without umbrella, which would have been useless anyway. Met him along the elevated walkway at Central Plaza and decided we would head for the Convention Centre. But first, we had to return to his apartment on Goucester Road so he could change his sports sandals for more practical shoes. He was dressed in a long trenchcoat. A wuss compared to my minimalist fashion.

On the way there, I was nearly swept off my feet twice as we picked our way through fallen debris and trees littering the sidewalk. At his apartmemt, we discovered that his window and ceiling were leaking big time and put in place some pots and pans to catch the rain. After a light dinner of canape and apple juice with aloe bits, I took the signal 9 announcement as our cue to head out for the harbour. Leaving his flat, we found that another tree had fallen victim to the wrath of the typhoon. I remained undaunted.

As we were walking past a bar at Sun Hung Kai, a beautiful Aussie girl accosted us with an umbrella and persuaded us to have a drink at the only bar open in the vicinity. She had been drinking with her colleague and the bar owner and a press photographer all afternoon and was inviting all passing strangers to join them. We decided to stop for just one drink for courage before heading on to the harbour. We drank, we laughed, we toasted the weather, drank some more, and danced in the rain when salsa music came on. Before we knew it, we'd had more than one drink and decided it was too dangerous to be out in a typhoon under the influence.

On the way home, I hollered to anyone crazy enough to be loitering the ghostly streets of Hong Kong in a typhoon, "happy typhoon!" to which some nodded or smiled, others hollered in return while still others stared blanky as if I was mad or drunk. For a few good hours, I forgot the thing that had robbed me of my smile.

It was a great way to spend a tyhpoon evening and we spent it dancing drunk, drenched and defiant.

I can see why she thinks I seduced him. She wasn't there when he rebutted every "no" I gave. She wasn't there when he became moody. She can't know the struggle I had with that. Should I have pushed him off and risked bruising his ego? What affect would that have had on their work relationship?

I chose the middle path. The one that allowed him to back off without looking like an ass. I gave him the power to choose not to force himself on me. I thought I was clever. But I've lost a friend.

He was very taken with me. His marriage is in trouble. His wife lives in New York. He travels Asia Pacific. He would not take "no" for an answer. In the end, he conceded and offered to send me home. He came in. I did not want him to know I was intimidated. He sat down and almost immediately fell asleep. He moved to my bedroom. I was in the shower. He promised nothing would happen. Nothing did. He left before dawn. We talked later. Agreed to just be friends. It was an honest and trusting dialogue. I felt I gained a friend. It was a good outcome, I thought. But the outcome doesn't matter. I "enabled the situation", she says. I will not deny responsibility. I have lost a dear, dear friend. My heart is torn. Choking on a lump in my throat. Drinking my own tears. Pitiless. Pitiful.

Ashamed.