Nesting, stick figures and pregnancy half-truths February 17, 2010

I know! We really need to get back to all the things of interest we’re doing and seeing in Singapore. After this post, I promise 3 good (ok, decent) posts on some recent trips and festivals.

But I’m pregnant, so indulge me today.

All my research has said that, yes, nesting is a characteristic of pregnancy. Most of the books, however, say that it doesn’t really set in until the 8th or 9th month. Well, I am fully into my 4th month and nesting like a rabid bird. I can’t put the groceries away or find a shirt to wear without organizing something. Our 15 minute lunch prep the other day turned into an hour-long affair (with Ali doing most of it) because I’d gotten sidetracked reorganizing the cabinet structure. Oh! But it is soo relaxing and therapeutic!!

Another pregnancy half-truth is that you grow to hate skinny women. I don’t hate skinny women. Being an American in an Asian country, you quickly get over feeling like the biggest kid in the sandbox.  And I have this fantasy that post-Winston I too will look like a willowy Asian model (the fact that I didn’t before I got pregnant doesn’t seem to hamper the dream). The women I hate are the skinny pregnant women! Seriously, have some self-respect and let your butt get big like the rest of us. The worst is when they’re obviously several months further along that I and yet look fit and trim. I’m storing fat in the form of cellulite to nurture and feed my unborn child…what are you doing? Why don’t you have bat wings yet? How is it possible that your legs still look decent in shorts? I mean, honestly!

Uncookies January 26, 2010

My friend Kim graciously took me under her wing yesterday and tried to teach me some fundamental baking. First we made soft pretzels. Yum! Though the dough seemed perpetually sticky and they looked more like buns than pretzels, Kim swears they taste just as they should. Score one for me.

While we were waiting for the pretzel dough to rise, I decided to try my hand at making cookies. One of my New Year’s resolutions is to bake better cookies, so why not start small and try some homemade chocolate chip?

Look good, huh? Actually, for reasons Kim and I can’t even begin to understand, the cookies were an abysmal failure. I followed the recipe to a “t” (a recipe Kim used last week to make perfect cookies). Let’s sum it to say the dough was all wrong and even after baking for 15+ minutes the uncookies looked like uncooked Playdough and tasted about as rough. At that point we finally abandoned the project. Apparently, I have horrible cookie karma.

As a consolation prize though, I did get to use Kim’s UT Snuggie while we waited for everything to bake. Trust me on this one…don’t knock ’em till you’ve tried ’em. They are really freaking comfy! And I could hold the remote and the popcorn without leaving the warmth of the blanket :o)

Cozy!

Funny Singapore Man November 30, 2009

After some Chinatown Christmas shopping, Ali and I stop at our blind foot masseurs for a little 20 minute revive. The man who was rubbing Ali’s feet started giving us sex tips right off. This is the same man who, from the shape of Ali’s calves, believes we will have lots boys. His advice this time included a reminded to “mix our hormones” and the suggestion that Ali start with lots of whiskey.

About halfway through our massage we meet “Funny Singapore Man”. He goes up and down the market stall walk tapping on a piece of bamboo-it indicates that’s he’s a noodle courier, he’ll go get “mee” (noodles) from a restaurant and bring it back to the stalls. Ali gets to talking with him, tries out his bamboo, and then FSM settles in to really start entertaining. Apparently he has been videoed and posted on You Tube and said posting was written up in the paper. So we all stand around and watch on my phone and then FSM launches into a highlights reel of his mouth noises and demonstrates umbrella spinning on a pencil top. Truly, the best afternoon break ever!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETsX2-UYSMM

Pay it forward August 24, 2009

KBR’s office here, in prepration for a wellness day, asked employees to sumbit pictures of active lifestyles for a contest. Ali entered a picture of him climbing in a race in Moab. And won 2nd place!! The price for this accomplishment was $150 in grocery vouchers.

Ali have $10 to his assistant. And this is where it pays forward. She gave the vouchers to her mom, who in turn played her luck numbers. And won $500!

Big winner!

Race day

Ali and I both ran the SAFRA Bay Run Army Half Marathon a week ago. We had to be up at for to make the 5:30 start, but boy was it worth it to be 2/3 done with the race before the sun came up! We both finished well, though I had tummy trouble that slowed me down a bit toward the end.

The best part of the day was the feasting that followed. First, we met Karen, Chris and Travis (who also ran and finished well!) for brunch. Karen and Chris had come out to support complete with signs. We missed them at the finish, but proudly displayed our signs at the restaurant.

Support crew

Refueling

After bunch we met up with some other folks who had raced and friends for a late lunch.

 

Refueling part deux

 

 And just in case we hadn’t refueled enough, we met another group of friends out for dinner and a movie. (We saw UP! So precious, I was a wreck through the whole thing!).

Lesson learned: With 13.1 miles I can justify social feeding for an entire day!

 

Would You Like Fries With That? August 11, 2009

 

They have McDonald’s here. Everywhere! (According to Ali they were also voted one of the best employers on the island).  Along with typical McD’s fare, they have supplemented the menu with some Singaporean flair like the Oriental Chicken Sandwich, Wasabi Filet of Fish and Seaweed Shaker Fries.

Ali didn’t love the chicken and we haven’t tried the filet, but there might be something to the fries! They come like regular fries with a little sachet of spice. You combine the two in the paper bag provided, shake, and voila! Seaweed Shaker Fries.

The gear

The shake

A voila!

While we’re on the subject, we picked up these chips at the grocery after I tried a sample. Trust me, when the lady handed me the basket and said “salmon” my expectations were far from positive. I turned away quickly, chip in mouth, ready to discard it as soon as I was out of her eye sight. Which will teach me to be presumptuous…they were great! So were the unagi chips. (Again with unagi, I know.)

 

Super Seat Savers

A few Saturdays ago Ali and I grabbed some lunch at Tangs, a department store with some vendor stands in the basement (and yummy unagi hand rolls!). They don’t have  regular seating so I sharked around until I found a  standing table to park at and waited for Ail to get his order. Not long after three women walk up without a word and camp at the table too. I’m a little taken aback, but I don’t say anything. It was crowed and had they asked to share the small counter I would have certainly agreed.  So I nosh quietly on my hand roll (the mayo iswhat makes it super delish) and try to nonchalantly take up more space as to have room for Ali.  By the time Ali gets his grub and finds me, we were only sharing the table with one other woman who very politely smiles at us while we all eat as if we’d planned to lunch together the whole time.

Many of the food courts and hawker areas get busy around meal times so people are in the habit of saving tables with little packs of tissues. If you see a table with a pack on it, that means it’s taken,so keep on walking.

 

"One unagi hand roll, please"

They have a hilarious campaign to promote friendly behavior on public transpiration. It’s spokespeople are a man and woman with big, shiny hair and bright disco-esque attire. The man has a giant mole on his cheek and sports bright yellow Wellingtons. In addition to a “rap” about courtesy on the subway they also have signs posted all over the buses and trains with comments reminding you to stand back so alighting passengers can exit the train first and reserving handicapped seats for special needs passengers: “Sleeping? Stop Pretending! Give this seat to someone who needs it”.

 

Waiting at the bus stop

We’re not in Texas anymore or What I like about Singapore Part I July 28, 2009

AXS machines. You walk in with your bills, scan the bar code and pay with your card. Any bill you have: phone, utility, etc. Granted, you could use automatic draft or online banking, but that’s not nearly as cool!

Prata. One word: yum. It’s like a doughy tortilla filled with whatever your heart desires and fried up. My current favorite comes from Mr. Prata. One banana and one cheese and mushroom. That has to cover at least 4 food groups!

Chinese medicine. I recently went to an acupuncturist to see if it would help with my migraines. Now, in my opinion, it hurts more than all the stories let on. Some points I don’t even notice aside from the initial prick, but one place in my arm, apparently connected to my head and possibly the migraine pain, truly felt like the needle had been shoved through front to back and then lit on fire. But I could definitely feel some channels opening afterward.  On a bonus, by acupuncturist brought me a list of schools he thought I could look into for teaching positions. Very cool!

Mini  episodes. Perhaps because TV advertising here is not the all-encompassing, overwhelming industry it is in the states, but some cable stations play mini episodes of TV shows at the bottom of the hour to fill in space. Like full shows of “Who’s the Boss”, “Charlie’s Angels” and “Dilbert” they have chopped up to fit into an 3-5 minute segment. 

Other fillers include music videos.  What’s with the Kings of Leon song where the lead singer of Kings of Leon screeches throughout? Won’t be downloading that on Itunes. And random short films from the UK and Australia, usually interesting and always a little obscure.

Masters of the Universe. They had Masters of the Universe on HBO last night. As in the 1987 classic He-Man movie staring  Dolph Lundgren and a very young Courtney Cox. Classic! And I thought of Adam the whole time…wait, that’s an admission that I watched it, isn’t it?

Roadkill. I saw Singaporean roadkill the other day walking home from the park: a 4-foot long lizard.

Andy Warhol. I’m kind of stalking Andy Warhol. While I don’t know if he has a predilection for the arts, this striking Asian man has died his jet hair white, wears skinny jeans, loafers and exceptionally trendy shirts. I’ve seen him three times on the main drag by my house and I find myself following him down the sidewalk pondering who he is and where he’s going. I imagine he’s just wondering why this frizzy, sweaty white girl is walking so close to him.

Weekend Highlights July 25, 2009

Highlight number one:  We went to Red Dot, a steakhouse with great outdoor seating, with Chad last night. On Fridays not only do they have group BINGO, they also have a band. Let me correct that, they have Jeff and Mike (and his mad synthesizer skills). What a duo! To look at, one would never guess Jeff could belt out the soft melodic notes he hit while swooning us with such favorites as “A Englishman in New York”, “Part Time Lover”, Erasure’s “A Little Respect” and numbers by Michael Buble and Robbie Williams. Truly, he should give Singapore Idol a shot. But he’d be nothing with out wicked Mike on his synth keyboard making the beats happen.

They forgot about our credit card…for like 25 minutes, we had 8 servers and the steak was just ok, but I’d go back every weekend for the jams!

 

Highlight number 2: Monkeys! We went on a trail run this morning with a lovely bunch from a running meet-up we’ve recently turned on to. As we’re running through the park and up to another park there are monkeys just hanging out in the trees doing monkey things. Too cool! Now if I could just hug them like the koalas….

Get me on the subway! July 7, 2009

Let’s talk about the joys of public transportation! Granted I miss having a personal closet/valet when I go shopping, but I’m loving the no-parking-no-traffic-no-need-to-stay-awake (that was always a problem driving myself to work) lifestyle.

I’m loving Singapore’s clean, hassle-free, ever-present public transportation options: MRT (subway), taxi or bus.

(Disclosure: so far I’ve only ridden the bus with Ali to guide me. At any given time it’s highly likely that I don’t know geographically where I am or where I’m going…I have the basic concept, i.e. I’m at my house  and I want to go to Ali’s office, I’m just never sure how one would go about navigating that journey using concepts like street names and cardinal directions of which I am currently still highly challenged.  However, I do know that I can take the red line to the green line, get off at Tanjong Pagar and *bladaow* I’m there. Buses-too many numbers and ways to screw things up, like getting on the right bus going in the wrong direction*.) 

*Ali has done this twice when I’ve been with him…he claims those are the only two times it has ever happened.