No Christmas Traumas

Hello folks, I am back at work after my not-so-long Christmas break. *yawn*

There are about 5 people in the office today. None of them are working. During my ‘keypoh’ walkabout, I saw 2 chitchatting on the phone and the other 2 facebooking. Myself, I have been ‘you-tubing’ it all morning with my headphones on. I watched a series of cooking programs, and my favourite was Gordan Ramsay showing us how to make scrambled eggs on toast (but he burnt the toast). Food for thought: do you know that you cannot add salt to an egg mixture cooking because sodium will break down the enzymes in eggs and make them watery? You only add the salt after the eggs are almost cooked.

So anyway, I just re-read my previous blog entry and I am happy to report that I completed everything that I set out to do last week– in fact, I sailed through the activities without getting drunk at any point. *pat ownself on back*

For example, the Christmas Eve Party went really well. In fact it was one of the most civil parties I have helped organized, largely because none of the guests are below the age of 30, which means we are all OLD & law abiding and none of us wants to be drink driving home. Drinks were xiao-xiao but conversations were easy and roaring as we fill our bellies with the spread of really good stuffs that Toi prepared for us.

There was a bit of a bumpy start just before the party started when Toi called me in a frenzy to tell me that our main highlight dish, the damned corn-fed chicken, is completely sold out in the whole of Singapore. We improvised by getting a sai-fed chicken at the nearest Sheng Siong Supermarket and over-flavoured it with garlic and stuffings. No one knew the difference. We also distracted our guests with party packs filled with candies. The Toe gallantly brought some siew bak and charsiew (we didn’t spare the pig after all) and a lovely home-made trifle cake which was massacred within minutes of it being served.

After food and wine, we all went and test out Toi's $12,000 bed as set out in the party's itinerary. Toi was traumatised to see the five of us rolling in different positions on his bed. Before it turn into a mass sleep-in, we adjourne to watch “Merry Magasdascar” and had a good laugh when one of the penguins fell in love with one of the reindeers to the song of “Two Less Lonely People In the World”. While the rest continue watching another animated movie (Coraline), the 2 party organizers – Toi and myself – promptly fell asleep. Now that’s what I call a OLD PEOPLE party.

The next morning, I had to meet The Toe at church. I stumbled out of bed barely an hour before mass begins, and quickly zoom zoom down to church so that I can ‘chop’ the best seat in the house – woot! I managed to get a pill with CUSHIONS – hah! I texted The Toe to tell her that I am seated at the row with an auntie in a beehive hairdo beside me. When I typed in ‘beehive’, my phone keep auto-correcting it to ‘behave’. I don’t know why I found that so funny because I started guffawing to myself in church. Not a nice sight.

The Toe arrived in a fierce rock chick toga top, and it suddenly dawned on me that we are (again) dressed inappropriately for church this year. I was wearing a bare back dress, completely forgetting that the entire congregation behind me can see my inked back which is not a good thing considering a Christian friend once berated me that I have a “blemished temple”. To our credit, Toe and I really paid quite a lot of attention this year because we are not having a hangover. To our discredit though, I wasn’t mature enough NOT to elbow Toe whenever the pastor say ‘virgin womb’ or ‘union’ which in his context, means sex. When the pastor reminded us to only have ‘union’ when the time is right, the Toe lean over and whispered that the time is usually right for her after 10 drinks. Sigh.

The message of this year’s Christmas mass is the Trauma of Joseph, and if you haven’t already figured out, yes, his trauma is caused by the fact that he is getting married to someone who is already pregnant – and not by him. The pastor stressed that Joseph was a pious and good man, and despite having the option of stoning Mary to death for being unfaithful, he didn’t because he listened to the angels and believed it was an immaculate conception. Joseph also raised Jesus as his own child and never once made him feel unwanted.

Which was more than I can say about some of the children at church that day. It was disturbing that most of them are playing iPhone games during the mass. There was this boy in front of me who was sulking the whole way and refused to stand up. He was playing his PSP the entire time. His mother was seated next to him but did not say a single word to him. She only dragged him away when the last word in the sermon was delivered. What a sad state of affairs.

After mass, we met up with the rest for a celebratory Christmas lunch at House @ Dempsey. It was pouring cats & dogs, and we had a quiet corner, so it was really nice and chilled out so much so that we got ‘nua’ and went home to sleep afterwards (gawd, we ARE old!) When I woke up, it was time for my alibaba romantic dinner date with The Man. We both took a suitably long and painful time dressing up for it. By the time we are ready to leave the house, we were exhausted. I was dressed in garbs that he bought for me – and as all men would have chosen, the skirt was way too short and the heels were way too high. He, on the other hand, was all dressed up in a suit. We pretended we were the Beckhams, and that we look like this all the time when we go out. *saunter.…smirk….flop*

I am going to spare you the details of that date, but we did went and meet Toe and her ex-students for a quick drink after. It has been a while since we last mingle with young adults so The Man and I ended up making a lot of inappropriate remarks. I was telling them to drink more and meet more boys when they are still in school because they won’t have time when they grow up. The Man was educating them on how boys clean up after ‘self-help’. The Toe was utterly appalled at our behavior and said we are banned from meeting any of her other kids.

The next day, I had to wake up at 6plus AM to pick up Toi before heading to the airport for KL. I am taking the budget airline, Firefly for the first time. It was a tiny ATR 72-500 aircraft, about 72 seating capacity. Unfortunately for me, I got a seat right next to the wings and during take-off, I had to cling on to Toi for dear life because the roaring engine was deafening and propeller looks like it can fall off anytime. Anyway, I made it to KL safely in 80 minutes. If you are thinking of a quick trip to KL next time, I recommend that you take Firefly as they arrive at Subang Airport (near the city) instead of LCCT.

The following 30 hours after arriving in KL passed by in a flurry. I was whisked here and there by Phillip – getting ready for his party, partying at his party, catching up with old friends, eating, drinking, flaming lamborghinis, shopping, movies, beer, gossiping… even a couple of hours at the karaoke! It was the most full-on weekend I had for a long time.



Bar Italia where we had (many, many) drinks

The Frou cutting Phillip's birthday cake.

So after all that excitement, I came back to Singapore and was back at work yesterday. As predicted, I had to continue with my work on the damned factory BUT the goods news is, the last of all the documents was done at 3pm sharp yesterday which means, I am DONE with the factory for the rest of this year. Woo hoo! The downside is, I have to moved on to the next on my to do list which is to review Indian sales tax laws. YAWN YAWN.

Gee, look at the time. I successfully passed this morning not doing a single thing at work. How’s that for post-holiday productivity?

I won’t be blogging again until next week when I come back from the Monkey Girls Climbing Trip in Krabi. I suspect I will have lots of stories to tell after….

XOXO,
The Frou