Ata's anniversary

Today was Ata's 1 year death anniversary. Aunty Sarda conducted some prayers at the temple along Kallang Road and quite a number of relatives turned up. I thought it was just among immediate family so it was a pleasant surprise to see the likes of Komathi and Dharmika, and Chitra, who has actually moved to Sydney but happened to be in town. Remind me that we have free accommodation in Sydney now. :-)


Today also happens to be the parents' 33rd wedding anniversary, not that they celebrate it. Don't even think Pa remembered!

She spies

The company held a customer event at Fullerton today and I had to help with registration. It's the first time I've been physically involved in our customer events, but there will be more in time to come. I'm not complaining, got a free buffet lunch in the process...mmm, crab salad, seafood lasagne, lots of pastries...

Registration went smoothly, our door gift was a tin of jellybeans.




Some competitors even sent spies, thankfully they didn't give us any trouble, choosing to observe proceedings from a distance, though they did try to enter the ballroom from a side entrance. One of them even blatantly took a picture of our pull-up banner, so I took a picture of her!


Our IT intern Debbie was roped in to help take photos, and she did a real good job. Unknown to us, she does photography as a hobby and brought her digital SLR camera, instead of using our dinky office idiot-proof one. And when the event was over, she entertained us on the piano with Canon by Pachelbel. So talented!






Remember there was a person in the office who was not very friendly? We seem to have put it in the past now, things are pretty cordial at the moment. In fact, there is a conscious effort to change the culture in the office. Usually everyone sticks to themselves, lunches alone etc but people are coming out of their shells.

Am in the social and recreation committee for the 3rd year running, this time as a volunteer and not full committee member. My role is communications, check out my latest eDMs.



Appraisals are coming up, my new boss seems pretty happy with me so far but I can forget about any increments because of the economic situation. We're still in cost-saving mode so am lucky to even have a job still!

Tag you!

Nat's vocabulary is growing by the day. I could have sworn she said "Thank you" yesterday, although it sounded more like "tag you". Mildred was prompting her to say it, and she responded immediately but didn't say it again despite my pleas.

Ma and Arlyn also claim she said "I don't" in the morning. They caught her throwing toys out of the window and she denied it big time, staring down at them from the cot and proclaiming, "I don't!" But she did, because someone returned her Care Bear at the lift landing!

Have to be very careful when calling her 'clever', she thinks we're mocking her. Just the other day, she wailed uncontrollably when Arlyn said she was clever...she had unexpectedly said "pear" as Arlyn was talking to Mummy whilst holding a pear. Despite me assuring her that clever was a good thing, large tears still streamed down her cheeks. Poor bubba.

There was a scary storm last night, the winds were howling and the doors and windows were rattling. At 9pm plus, we had a lightning show from our balcony, for a moment I thought we were witnessing the Northern Lights phenomenon because it was red flashes in the sky, not streaks.

This morning there were lots of fallen tree branches. I even know of cars that got damaged by fallen trees. We don't get weather like this very often, it was like a typhoon. Freaky!

Monkeying around

Brought Nat and Gigi on their first visit to the zoo yesterday but I don't think they appreciated it much. Plus it was so hot and humid, I was melting before we even reached the first exhibit!

We tried to get to Mandai early but with 2 babies to get ready, we ended up reaching close to 10 am. Because Nat had woken up earlier than usual that morning, she was a tad sleepy and cranky by the time we arrived. Swana was also hesitant to bring Gigi because Kevin wanted to be there for Gigi's first visit but he didn't miss much, she slept most of the time.

Nat didn't seem too impressed with the animals, the only thing that got her excited was some fish. But maybe she was overwhelmed or a little scared? We brought a picture book of animals she has been 'reading' at home and showed her the real versions. She appeared to understand what we were pointing out, recognising the elephants, bears and monkeys.

The white tigers were pretty, and I saw a funky spider...looked like a little bat to me. The giraffes were one of my favourite exhibits. Ma even mistook a tall tree stump for a giraffe when she tried to take a photo of us.

We saved quite a bit on entrance fees thanks to my office's corporate membership so we should be going fairly regularly from now on. It's also hard to cover everything on one trip as the babies get tired fast. Will try again in 6 months!

When Alicia met Giselle

Swana's BFF from Perth (they've known each other since kindergarten) is in town for a visit and she popped over yesterday night to meet Gigi for the first time. Alicia's parents still live in Spottiswoode so we'll be hanging quite a bit while she's in town.

Gigi was amused by her Aunty Duckyboo, she didn't cry or anything. Alicia brought some belated 1st birthday pressies for Nat, who loves her new set of nursery rhyme books.

Oh, and check out my new fringe...sneaked out of office yesterday afternoon to trim it at a $10 shop in Lau Pa Sat, it was bugging me!

After the babies went to sleep, me, Nick, Swana and Alicia went to Tampines for Kavi and Siva's official housewarming. It was great catching up with the cousins, Alicia kept us entertained with stories from the course of her work, she's a psychologist in Perth.

Kavi has converted one of her bedrooms into a mini-spa called Spa Ananya. She recently went to India and learnt some ayurvedic weight loss techniques and she wants to make it a side business. She even has the massage bed and a portable steam bath.

She's supposed to practise on me and Swana...I have fallen off the weight loss bandwagon - haven't been doing sit-ups or badminton or watching what I eat for a couple of months now. I still have about 3kgs to lose by June so I might take Kavi up on her offer.

There's a new drama series on TV called Red Thread that Siva is acting in, I don't think I'll be following the plot and begged Siva to tell me what happens. But of course he didn't!

Nickypoo is such a darling, I had a Punggol Nasi Lemak craving and even though it was late, he drove us there en route home so that I could takeaway a packet. When I saw there was only one piece of luncheon meat left, I turned to Swana and Alicia and said, "That last luncheon meat is mine!" and gave them my fiercest stare, ha ha.

Wipeout

Aaaaarrrgggghhhh! It seems I have a roach infestation in my kitchen. Eew, eew and double eew.

Mummy just called to say she and Arlyn found a motherload in an appliance box sitting in one of my kitchen cabinets. There was another load in a cutlery box and another in a steamboat box! *faints*

I asked for numbers, she estimated they killed more than 50! *doublefaints*

How did it get so bad? I read somewhere a female just needs to get pregnant once to lay eggs for the rest of her life... what if I have several females? What if Mummy's finds were just the tip of the iceberg?

It all started two nights ago when I spotted 2 roaches on a chopping board. I called in the professional a.k.a Mummy to get rid of them. She ruthlessly murdered them (1 caught with bare hands and head snapped off, the other scalded to death with boiling water!). I thought that was it, but no, the next morning she told me she spotted 2 more but didn't manage to get them.

Then last night, I heard some rustling sounds near my basket of garlics and onions. I saw 2 roaches loitering and assumed they were the 2 Ma missed the night before. Out came the Shieldtox and I blitzed them, finding a 3rd roach in the process. Went to bed pretty happy, till the call from Ma came an hour ago.

She said she killed 4 today and realised there was more. She and Arlyn then proceeded to empty our cabinets and started checking boxes. They were shocked with what they found and started exterminating them outside the house, standing by with insecticide and slippers to whack the little buggers when they tried to escape.

I think I need to call the serious professionals in.

Sunset Boulevard

We've been having some really lovely sunsets in the past couple of weeks, I am so grateful for the view from my balcony. These were taken on the 6th and 7th of this month...Pretty right?