tell me about it

It’s been a crazy week.

Puppy wrenched his wrist and I’ve been a real nag trying to get him to stop cracking it.

I finished all my teaching lessons with my pupils. Now that I don’t have to teach them anymore, I miss my Sec 3s and Sec 1s terribly. Bah.

I haven’t finished marking my 80 scripts. Blah.

I had the shittiest migraine last Friday but still managed to have fantastic Thai food for dinner.

We watched Stella and her man tie the knot in the prettiest Catholic church I’ve ever seen (and the second most amusing wedding sermon I’ve ever heard).

We sated our mahjong craving but it wasn’t enough, so we’ll be pulling out the tiles again on Labor Day.

Puppy finished his reservist and we spent a happy Monday afternoon together. (Weirdo :D)

And I want more of that bacon bak kwa, if you please.

I loves me puppy :)

Yes, and me kitty too!

I made tomato salsa noodles for lunch – I mixed in a nice tablespoonful of orange jam into the sauce for an interesting twist to the taste. Was pretty good :)

And now it’s rainy, and quiet; there’s nobody at home and I can’t bring myself to start marking. I feel like standing at my window with a huge sign saying: SAVE ME. SAVE ME PLEASE.

Tired and terribly lonely.

I miss you, baby.

Come home.

IM SITTEN ON MUH BUTT
EATIN MUH TOEZ

TOEZ R TASTEH
OM NOM NOM NOM

I pad quietly into my parents’ room. My sister doesn’t have to go to school this week on account of her drama performances this weekend (hearts and luck, baby girl, I’m sorry I can’t make it) so Dad didn’t have to wake up to drive her to school.

This morning, however, it was bucketing down with heavy, heavy rain (why can’t it rain like this on Saturday mornings so that the construction can’t go on and I can get a good sleep in??), and I couldn’t bear to drag myself out of bed, let alone into the rain and to school. So there I was standing next to my parents’ bed, putting on my most woebegone look (useless, though, in the pitch dark).

I tap Daddy’s knee gently. He sits up blearily. “Wuh? Huh? Hanna?”

My pitiful look becomes a bit affronted. “No. It’s ME. Can you send me to school? It’s raining.

He lies back down with a groan. “It’s my only day to sleep innnnnn,” he groans. “But it’s waining,” I moan sadly.

My mother rolls over. “I’ll send you. Let Daddy sleep.”

“Heehee yay!” I bounce and gambol out of the room in delight. Thankfully school is near home and it’ll be a scant 10 minute drive in the rain for Mommy, avoiding a 30 minute struggle on public transport for me. Thank God for loving mothers.

Later, in the car, as we near school, I tell Mommy: “Just drop me at the bus stop, don’t drive me into school. When it’s raining there’s always a long line because a lot of parents drop their kids off.”

She turns to look at me. “Yes, and I’m still a parent dropping my kid off at school, aren’t I?”

I laugh in chagrined amusement as I kiss her cheek, thank her, and get out of the car.

“What’s that noise in the background?” Puppy asks over the phone from camp. “Oh,” I reply, “it’s the construction.”

“At this time?” He’s incredulous and not a little pissed on my behalf, and it’s not hard to see why – it’s 11.45pm and they’re still going at it. If I remember correctly (based on many irate calls my parents have put in to our neighborhood police post, complaining about Hokkien auctions and their like going on at night), all noise-generating activities are supposed to end by 10.30pm.

In fact, for HDB, contractors are supposed to end all noise-generating activities after 6pm.

Apparently my dad has the direct number of the project manager of the construction site (which is located directly outside my window). He SMSed the project manager, informing him that the construction was still going on and asking if they could cease the noise, please.

“Thanks for the feedback,” the SMS reply came. “Will look into it.”

I don’t know what he did, but he sure didn’t stop the noise. We ended up calling the neighborhood police post, but just as we began dialling, we saw a squad car pull up at the entrance of the construction site. I cheered.

This is the view from my bedroom window:

That orange blurry thing is the excavator. They were digging around this large cement column and making a hell of a clanky racket. The little blue light on the right, hidden within the trees, is the squad car. (Apologies for crappy night-time photography, couldn’t get long enough exposure.)

The men walked over to the entrance to talk to the police officers, who I assume asked them to stop working and stop the noise. There was some gesticulation and the discussion took quite awhile (and the excavator was happily still clanking away in the background) but eventually the excavator was shut off, a crane pulled the cement column out of the ground, and the lights went off.

The construction site is owned by Simlian (which, incidentally, I keep accidentally reading as “SIMIAN” or “SIMI LAN”, depending on my mood). Apparently they are building a 39-storey condominium, “offering panoramic views of Bishan Park and the city skyline”, and also effectively “completely destroying HDB homeowners’ panoramic view of Bishan Park and the city skyline”, and “removing one of the biggest reasons we moved here in the first place because there was a great beautiful empty field separating my block from the next”, and “creating an eyesore in the middle of the street”, and “ruining every single bloody Saturday morning that I try to sleep in”, and “creating a main push factor for us to quickly evacuate the area and move away”.

Rafa Benitez will consult his lawyers after claims made by Neil Warnock over his team selection.

Benitez was speaking after his much-changed Liverpool side beat relegation strugglers Fulham 2-0, almost exactly a year after he fielded a weakened team against the same side.

On that occasion Fulham won, leaving Warnock furious that Benitez had disrespected his Sheffield United side, who were eventually relegated.

Warnock brought up last year’s game again in Saturday’s Daily Mail, saying he hoped Liverpool would never win another trophy under Benitez.

He said: “My advice to Reading, Bolton and the rest would be, if you’re expecting any favours, don’t hold your breath. They will have to do it themselves.

“The fact of the matter is that if Liverpool were already out of the Champions League and needed to win to get fourth spot, they would play their strongest side.

“Instead, I fully expect them to play a weakened team at Fulham.

“It’s part of a big club’s mentality. They look after themselves and they don’t bother about anyone else. The whole story that Sheffield United were going down and me having a pop at them afterwards was just treated like fish-and-chip paper by them. Liverpool didn’t care because they weren’t the ones getting hurt by it all.

“I’m still very bitter about it and personally I hope Liverpool never win another trophy under Benitez. I like them as a club but I would be very pleased to see them win nothing.”

Honestly – of course it’s a club mentality to look after themselves. When has the English Premier League become a charity cause for the lower-ranked clubs? All’s fair in love and soccer – you can’t expect any club at all to take pity on you because you’re fighting relegation. Benitez got it right when he said there are 38 games to play, and if you can’t yank yourselves out of relegation in 38 games of protracted play over almost six months of games, and if you have to blame another team and one single game for your own descent into the Coca-cola Championship, you’ve got to be one heck of a shitty manager. Seriously.

Wake up, Neil Warnock, would any other team play any different? It’s not about not giving the other team respect. It’s about selecting the team that will suit the game best – should Liverpool flub their chances of winning the Champions League to ensure your team don’t get relegated? We didn’t play our second-string team last season because we wanted to lose – in fact, I was pissed that our second-string team couldn’t win against Fulham. We should be better than that. You can’t possibly think we went out there to lose. We didn’t. So your argument holds no water – just sit down and swallow your sour grapes quietly.

Don’t you just hate it when the toilet seat you’re sitting on is cracked, so that it pinches your bum flesh when you get up? And not just cracked in one place, either, cracked on both sides, so that you get pinched on both butt cheeks.

We need a new toilet seat in the staff loo!

:(

Dream #1:
A few nights ago, I dreamed that I was growing fuzz on my cheeks and beneath my nose. At first it was just a little bit, but my erstwhile stubble soon blossomed into a full mustache and beard. In my dream I was looking in the mirror, frowning and fingering my new facial hair, and wondering if it made me look a bit too masculine. Strangely enough, in the dream, Puppy wasn’t too concerned about the caveman growth on my face and was quite cavalier about the whole thing.

Interpretation: I won’t have to worry that my boyfriend will leave me if things get too…hairy.

Dream #2
And the next night I dreamed that we were on a tour bus rambling around somewhere – me and Puppy and Matthew. I was carrying a backpack with $2 million wrapped up in brown paper envelopes stashed inside (interpretation: I want money). All of a sudden, one of our tour-mates whipped out a gun and pointed it at me. Feeling more relieved that he would shoot me and not my two boys than feeling afraid for my life, I calmly asked him what he wanted while somehow taking out the envelopes of cash from my bag and passing them discreetly to Matthew (how I did this without the gunman noticing, I have no idea). He demanded I empty my bag, but by this time I only had my wallet in it, and the gunman took $20 from me. However, he then swung the gun towards Matthew, and this time I got really upset because 1) he was threatening a little boy (haha) and 2) Matthew had all my money now! Oh noes!

Of course just at that moment, the gunman fumbled his own backpack and another gun spilled out from it. I promptly snatched it up and pointed the gun at him. I distinctly remember that in my dream at this point I triumphantly said, “HA!” (So much for witty dialog.) The gunman pointed the gun back at me, and while he was deliberating about shooting, I shot him first – but the report of the gun made him squeeze the trigger too, and I got shot in the chest.

I remember a dull thwop in my chest and thinking that I was going to die, but when I realized I wasn’t bleeding out, we all discovered that the gun he had been holding had miraculously been loaded with…blanks.

Interpretation: Matthew, you owe me $2 million.

Dream #3:
Last night I dreamt we lived in this place which looked very old-school American, with cast-iron railings, newsboy caps and pageboy haircuts. A war was raging between people and these dark bat-like creatures which attacked everyone by divebombing them and raking their claws on their scalps.

Then my dad discovered an alternative world which we got to by diving into a fountain, where the bottom was a portal into the other world. This alternative world was peaceful and happy except sometimes one of those bat-like creatures would accidentally find its way through the fountain – so when we spotted bits of wings or claws coming through the portal in the sky we would shoot lightning at them from our fingertips. I could fly in this new peaceful world, and it was so calm and happy and peaceful and everyone who lived in this world was pretty. And there was a M.A.C. counter (!!) and an Anna Sui counter where I bought…hairclips.

Interpretation: I need hairclips.

I have the weirdest dreams ever.

My Puppy’s going for reservist for the next two weeks.

Wails.

:(

Grandchild #22

<3