We went back last weekend to Washington DC and surprised to find three melons hung there. Ms. Ling already took three. There are four additional ones there. Not bad for remote green thumbs.
The bitter melons are from our apartment patio in Aiken, SC. Not bad at all too.
Our intrepid investment banker friend, Susan reports in from Heathrow airport. I hope she won’t mind sharing…
At the counter, the lady didn’t even question why I was checking in so early. I showed her all the things I wanted to take with me, my wallet, my passport, a 7 page document I wanted to review and a pen to write comments on this document. She gives me a clear plastic bag and points me to security. Another very long line despite that it was moving faster that usual because no one had all the carry-ons to deal with. I make it through security and then they take my pen away – so much for trying to do anything work related on my 15+ hour crusade of trying to get back home.
When I saw Kate in her hotel room right before she left, she had a huge suitcase full of stuff that she wanted to give away and since it had a bunch of neet-o things in it, I took the whole suitcase.
The best thing that was in the suitcase was this fabulous remote control car that Vince loves! It drives really well and fast too.
Vince is somehow picking up a Southern accent here in Singapore. The only thing we can come up with is the Dixie Chicks and Iris Dement on the CD player in the car. It’s pretty funny. Maybe it’s his way of telling us we should go back to Texas.
My friend Kate is going back home. We both came to Singapore the same week and she’s leaving tomorrow. I will miss her terribly. I have many friends all over the world, but during this stressful year, she was the one here in Singapore who I’d see every week. When I was down in the dumps, Jeremy would kick me out of the house and tell me to go see Kate. Kate and I would hang out and I would always have a good laugh and feel better when I came home. Thank you! I miss her already and she’s not even gone yet.
Today is National Day in Singapore. Everyone had the day off of work and school. We wore our patriotic colors (red shirt) and did our patriotic duty (went shopping). We got a therapy ball for Edda and Vince got a craft book.
Donald left today for Malaysia, he’ll be back soon.
In the middle of the afternoon today, I took one look at Donald and asked if he needed some “alone time”. He had picked up Vince from school at 10 am and watched him ransack the house and then took him swimming. By the time I got home with Edda at 12:45 or so and had made lunch for all of us, Donald looked a bit weary. I now have had 4 years of parenthood experience and I have slowly built up my tolerance to all things children, but he is suddenly plopped down in the middle of chaos, well, it’s a bit like being plucked out of your neighborhood and put onto Mt Everest without any mittens. A bit of shock to one’s system. Donald put himself in time out in his own room behind his closed door.
I got some of my own “alone time” at Edda’s school today – I hid out in an unused speech therapy room. I knit for the first time in a while.
I finished a sock for Vince a while ago, my first attempt at short row toes and heels, it’s working out OK, but I wish I had a local SnB to hang with, I think I’m doing something a bit wrong and I want someone to eyeball what I’m doing. But I have no pals around – so trial and error..
And finally we went to the Night Safari! And even though it was past everyone’s bedtime, no one cried or flipped out! And we had ice cream too.
Since we had no appointments this afternoon, we needed to get out of the house or else we’d all get H-A-G (house-aided-grumpiness). Our adventure was to go bowling. We got to the bowling alley which was empty except for a school group out for bowling lessons. We got the bumper bowling set up, got the rental shoes on and we bowled. At some point Edda was beating the pants off of all of us. Vince was more interested in the ball return system and video games than the actual bowling, but I’m please we all left the house.
I didn’t even hear the doorbell ring at 1:30 am last night, but thank goodness someone did, because when I woke up, I saw my dear brother having breakfast at my kitchen table! Hooray for uncle Donald! Jeremy and Donald love to talk about computers (boring) and cars (even more boring), but we did manage to stick a rendition of the Singapore National Day cheer in the middle of random breakfast chatter.
We showed him the wonders of our neighborhood – the sand park (which has lots of sand). Vince finds friends. Edda eats sand and drives a firetruck.
For lunch we went to a hawker center filled with a million people selling a million things and got into the longest lines figuring that everyone else knew what was good.
Jeremy showed off his fruit prep skills. He’s enamored by the fruit lady at his work, he’s trying to be as skillful as she is with a knife. This spiral cut allows you to cut off all the spines without losing a lot of the fruity goodness. (God, Jeremy looks a lot like Vince in this picture.)
Busy day at the park.
It was hot, hot, hot in the sun today, but we stayed out for almost 3 hours in the morning. Pretty much a record for us.