Oh the agony...

The other day, my parents and I squeezed into a really small and rickety lift with several other strangers. My dad was the last one to step into the already packed lift. Everyone was facing the door, but he was facing the crowd as there wasn't any space for him to turn around. Being the beer lover that he is, there is a sizable pot-belly sticking out in front of him. God truly has a sense of humor, for right in front of my dad was another pot-bellied middle aged guy, so they both sucked it up and tried not to get in each other's way too much.

Somewhere along the way of my dad's ~60 years of existence, he has lost all sense of self-consciousness and is no longer bothered with socially acceptable behaviour. While we were all trying to study our shoes or the ceiling in the cramped conditions of the lift, my dad decided to steal the show by:
1. making obvious sucking noises as he sucked up his beer gut
2. squinting his eyes closed, with the rest of his face contorted into an exaggerated grimace, bared teeth and all
3. raising his arms and crossing it comically at his chest level, with elbows sticking out unnaturally
4. grinning at the rest of the people trying not to stare at him
I was aghast and stared at him in disbelieve, trying to telepath him "STOP! ACT NORMAL! NOW!" but there must've been a wall in between us, intercepting my frantic brain signals to him.

Ok it's not so bad, he's just acting silly, the lift will reach its destination soon enough, I thought. And I rolled my eyes at him when he looked at me with that grin / grimace plastered onto his face. And he grinned back.

And then...

He started chuckling while looking at my mum and I, with the both of us by this time staring studiously at our shoes.

Awkward.

Then he started pointing to my mum and I, commenting to everyone in the lift "These 2 same. Both got big heads."

Dear dad, this is not a good time to point out how much mum and I look alike and that we both have rather large cranial cavities--but that's cos we've got big brains. Really, no. Stop. I know you love us both and you are always amused by how much we look alike, but no, please, not now.

Unbelievably, the commentary continues...
"Heh heh heh. These two same shape, but different contents."
All this while belly to belly with a stranger, arms crossed comically with the grimace / grin plastered on his face.

A heavy silence settles in the lift with no one making a sound, as the crowd decides to fixate further on their shoes / ceiling. You can almost hear me blush.

Dear God, please, let there be a black hole to swallow me up NOW. I'm sorry for all the times I was a brat and threw a tantrum in public, I'm sorry for all the times I talked back to my parents, I'm sorry for the numerous times my parents got summoned to see the teachers for my various misdeeds, but isn't this a tad harsh? A black hole will be most merciful, thank You very much.

And lo, the lift door opens and the people shuffled out quietly. God answers prayers.

The Best I've Ever Had

There is nothing quite like chomping into a juicy strawberry so big that after taking a good, big bite off it, you still have at least half left to enjoy. No extra sugar needed, tis sweet enough as is.

Strawberries provided by my uncle at my house warming.

On My Mind

I've been wanting to blog about several things, but the wind keeps getting knocked out of my sails.

Like for example, I wanted to rant about taking public transport and the pains of waiting endlessly for a bus that doesn't appear on schedule. I also wanted to rant about not being able to afford a car because of rising ERPains, not being able to take taxis at the times you need to most because of the various surcharges with a complexity aimed at matching that of our CPF policies, with the only option of wasting your life away on the buses OR squishing to death on the Best Metro Experience MRT. I was inspired and agitated and totally ready to blast the systems... except that I'm all sapped of energy when I reach home. And when I find the time, I heard from a friend who cheerily told me he's okay except that he nearly went to heaven a few weekends ago ("WHAT?! WHAT HAPPENED?! ARE U OK NOW? OMG HOW???" "oh it's an accident... car's totally totaled but I'm fine, thank God :) ") and so I feel bad for even wanting to complain about something as trivial as the inconveniences of taking public transport.

And then I wanted to take photos of my new place, but the lighting's bad for photo-taking when I'm finally home (i.e., when the sky's dark, cos I was wasting my life away on the bus ride home, see...) and in the mornings I'm in too much of a rush. I'm hardly around during the weekends, and the little time I am at home is spent doing house-keeping to appease the Mother.

Also, if you've been reading the blog for any length of time, you'd know I love talking about food. Recently, with the food crisis all over the papers and in the radio, it's just not right to complain about food anymore. I look at every grain of rice I eat with thankfulness that even though my income has shrunk with rising prices, at least I'm not starving to death. At least I can afford food despite the rising prices... I cannot imagine how it must be for those already struggling to make ends meet, thinking about it saddens me. Buffets look positively sinful-and I mean sinful-now. Don't get me wrong, I'm not an ascetic, not by a long shot, but in the face of impending starvation for many of the poor people in 3rd world nations, gorging on a buffet line is just so wrong. There shouldn't be such an unequal distribution of food--a surfeit here and a deathly lack there. It's just not right.

With all the bad news abounding, I am grateful for a Hope in my life, an eternal Rock to cling on to--Christ Jesus, my salvation.

Reading

Here are two posters I've done for a little library project that Intuition initiated at my company. The idea is to decorate the place with posters to encourage reading and since we're all big on cost cutting, why not DIY rather than buy off the shelf?




(And an aside to Sensei who lurks at my blog: please, O great one, won't you critique my work and let me learn from your wise, illustrious ways. Verily, this post is for you.)

Alive and well

This is inexcusable--i bought me the laptop of my dreams... and then I promptly disappeared from my blog. It's as though I'm not using my mac! Which honestly, I haven't really been maxing... only the usual mindless websurfing and listening to music...

Here is a quick post to show that I AM ALIVE and I've not forgotten my little corner in my www. The move was okay, I'm okay, just that too much time is spent travelling to and fro home and work. Still not used to taking 1 hour to get to work and waking up at 7am every morning. Ugh. I reach home by 830pm usually and get sleepy by 12 midnight, so that doesn't leave much time to blog when you factor in the offline life that I actually have to live.

Here's a little illustration I tried to do for a quote that I like--hey it involves dogs and books, two of my favourite things! how can it be an unlikeable quote! :

"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."
~ Groucho Marx

That's all for now. Doodles, and we'll catch up over my blog SOON. As soon as I catch up on my sleep firszzzz.....