Post Mum's Birthday

What an unusual 14 April 2020 it has been. This must have been one of mum's quietest birthdays by far as we had breakfast, lunch and dinner at home.

For breakfast, we had toasts, hard boiled eggs and coffee with milk. Lunch was soup noodles with baby abalones. Dinner was Popeyes fried chicken with mashed potatoes, fried garlic rice, some fries and a biscuit (American styled - which tasted more muffin like) with strawberry jam.

Morning, I had a zoom meeting with KW to sort out some work matters. Worked through a PowerPoint presentation in the afternoon. After I decided I had done enough work for the day, I took mum out for super-marketing as her birthday treat, before her birthday dinner.

In the morning, mum had Whatsapp voice greetings from her precious grandson J, her eldest daughter, her precious daughter-in-law. She missed out hearing from her son who was grumpily helping out her grandson with his home-based learning, as shown in a pic by B. Somehow, from that pic, one can gather the dynamics of their family - the wife seemed to be domineering, My question is why is she taking a pic of my brother sitting next to my nephew, instead of she herself helping J? Is she less capable of helping my nephew? Perhaps she is being "more manipulative"? In any case, that is my brother's lot since it was his choice of life partner? Also, during 8pm Zoom party which we held in the evening, brother's family missed out as sis-in-law had to deal with work stuff.

I do wonder if my mum feels somewhat disappointed with my brother - no voice greetings from him, no happy birthday greetings, no Zoom appearance. What happened, really? I guess mum took comfort in that they had already visited in person over the weekend. But this year, on her actual birthday, my brother has been quite a disappointment, at least IMHO. Even if mum did not mind at all. Even over Zoom, we had eldest cousin, P&P, Mf & TYY, YH's family and my sis showing up. Mum commented that Aunty J did not call. That is quite true but then again, mum seldom called Aunty J on her birthday too. Haha!

Upon reflection, I ought to cut bro and sis-in-law some slack like mum does. :P If mum does not mind, then I should not mind too. After all, love covers all wrongs.

Start of Circuit Breaker - 7 April

Today is the beginning of the "Circuit Breaker" which the Singapore government has implemented in Singapore where most offices are shut and tomorrow, all schools will be closed. This will be so till 4th May. This is an attempt at a soft lockdown in Singapore so as to arrest the speed of infection of Covid-19.

Everyone from EAST is working from home for a month, but not just EAST, almost everyone in non-essential services in Singapore. This is an unprecedented move by the government but these are unprecedented times in Singapore and around the world. The headlines in world news this morning is the admission of the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to an Intensive Care Unit after more than 10 days of being infected with Covid-19. His symptoms has since worsened which is most unfortunate, as he had previously believed in "herd immunity" for his nation.

Even Donald Trump, the USA President who had in the initial days called Covid-19 a hoax and compared it to a common flu is now facing the realities of the pandemic in his country which has a death toll of over 10,000 in just over two months or so. USA has the widest number of infections in the world now. While China, being the first country that had to deal with the infections is now mostly out of the woods with relatively few cases of infections and very low death rate now. What a topsy-turvy world we live in.

Unusually Emotional Day

Due to the rising cases of infected persons with Covid-19 in Singapore in the recent days, my sis and mum have been getting all the more anxious about me going into the office to work still, up to yesterday. There was an ALT Zoom Meeting Zoom on Friday afternoon and I had requested to work from home, first from J and subsequently from KW. Initially, J had agreed, but had asked me to check with KW. Upon checking with KW, he had requested for me to Zoom from the office instead of home due to the chart that J had submitted to HR which stated that I was supposed to report to the office on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. I felt disappointed to the point of tears but did not express so in my texts communication when I was denied working from home on Friday. Of course, it did not help that both my sis and mum were anxious for me too, due to the pre-existing health conditions I have. Sis wanted to communicate with my direct supervisors, J and KW. She subsequently sent very strongly worded texts to J and J contacted me to have a Zoom video conference on Friday morning.

Friday morning, the Zoom video conference started off okay but ended off with an emotional outburst from me. J pointed out all my sins, not coming to work on time, but at 10.30-11am, making errors at work, being on social media for my own consumption more than for official purposes. It was his reasons for not allowing me to work from home and wanting growth for me as a person. These were the main faults that I can recall him pointing out to me, citing that I lack discipline and that is why I should be working in the office. My outbursts came about after his "truth-telling".

On Friday evening, I managed to apologise for my emotional outburst via whatsapp texts. KW kindly responded but no word from J yet. He probably needs more headspace before he can respond, with the "circuit-breaker" announcement by PM Lee at 4pm to the nation that came out. All non-essential services offices are to be mandatorily closed from next Tuesday, and all schools to be on home-based learning from next Wednesday till 4th May.

As YL said, God has answered my prayer through PM Lee.

Updates about K, one year on

Recently, I came across a group pic taken with K, YL, C and LL outside Universal Studios, over a decade ago. Such a lot have occurred in all our lives over the years but I think, especially so in the past year for K. She had given birth to a baby girl Joyance with abnormalities and the baby passed away in less than half a year I think. But I believe her marriage with her husband Chin Khoon (they just celebrated their 2nd wedding anniversary yesterday) is the stronger for the recent trials they had been through together. God has a mysterious way of working out everything for the good of those who love Him and are called by His name.

Fountain Pen Refills

I spent a good half an hour looking for my fountain pen's refills at 1am last night. Alas, I had no recollection of where I kept them. I pray that I will find them soon as my fountain pen has run dry.

Edit (4 Apr): I went to buy 3 packs of refills in three colours in the end, using a $15 BHG voucher.

Shared Mum's Braised Pork Recipe

I posted mum's cooking on my IG tonight and MeiYen asked for mum's braised pork recipe. Interestingly, mum was ever ready to share her secret recipe with my friend in the US. Therefore, I simply typed up the recipe in my IG post's reply to her. Hopefully, MeiYen gets to try it out and I do too, someday!

Stonewalled

In recent days, I feel that I have been stonewalled by B and D.

The last text response I received from B was, "I am now overseas." Fair enough that I found out he went on a diving trip but he was able to share pics with uncle L and have chats with uncle L but not me. Thinking back, with regards to our online mobile communication, I might have offended him by sending too many pics and clips that his phone memory could not handle and due to the manner in which he communicated/threatened to leave the chat, I left the chat group first. Also, he gave me some discount pamphlet which I had passed on to EK and I do not know if he felt offended by that or not. Perhaps he just need time to sort out his own time and space and emotions. Likewise, I should do that. It is good for me to be detached from him, before any deeper bonds are formed.

Meanwhile, D and I have not been able to meet up regularly for lunch this year anymore. Partly, due to the fact that she is working at her father's office and her hours are no longer as flexible. Also, due to the developing COVID-19 situation since 23 January, I have been going home for lunch. It was due to me calling off an agreed upon evening appointment, due to mum and sis's worries and concerns because of the COVID-19 situation, that left D fuming. Since then, she has ignored my texts. Perhaps, it is also time for me to re-evaluate my friendship with her. Good time for me to detach myself from deeper bonds with her too.

Perhaps it is time in my life to make space for more positive people who will be more up-lifting, inspiring, people I look up to, rather than to be around people whom I know "sorta admire" me for one reason or another. Better yet, I hope to find relationships that are mutually engaging and up-lifting and less one-sided. I guess in life, it may never be quite possible to have relationships without a trace of any abusive traits, partly because I may be triggered to be the abusive party or I may trigger the other person to be abusive. But, I still must try to be Christlike and find people who aspire to be like Jesus to me, so I can be like Jesus to them too. Even if my friends do not aspire to be Christlike, I need to love them still, no? But at certain junctures, I need space, to avoid getting unnecessarily wounded or hurt. I need to learn to be wise with my limited time and energy.

Dec, Jan, Feb

Just realised that I had not a single post since December before my post in March. I missed my usual Birthday Post, Christmas Post, New Year's Post. I wonder what happened?

Nonetheless, I had a very lovely birthday tea at the newly refurbished Raffles Hotel with mum on my actual birthday, my 45th. I met up with V who treated me to a very sumptuous, scrumptious and all round yummillicious Cantonese set lunch for two at Yan, a Cantonese restaurant at the National Gallery. It was an exquisite lunch experience which we both enjoyed tremendously. I shared the experience with C who then went on to give her dad a birthday treat at the same restaurant a couple of weeks later. Even though I was glad she was also able to enjoy a good lunch with her dad, I felt a strange sense of a unique experience being imitated or copied. Perhaps on the positive note, imitation is the highest flattery. Or could it be that God is teaching me to be 1) more big-hearted 2) more discerning who I share my experiences with 3) both.

Well, then V treated me to a baking class at ABC cooking studios near Christmas as a Christmas gift. When I shared pics of the chantilly snow white cake I baked, B requested for the recipe. I was happy to share, although she wanted a PDF version rather than a screenshot of it. Oh well, I try my best to please a good buddy. Also, I felt a bit bad that I got to go for it, but she did not, as she wanted to attend the class with her teenage son but somehow mixed up the dates. I wonder why I feel bad. I should not feel responsible for other people's mistakes but sometimes I do. Too responsible for the wrong things.

During year end, my friend IT and I had a sleepover in JB. Oh, before that, Lu had a sleepover at Meadow Spring and it was really lovely. She read me "The Tailor of Gloucester" by Beatrix Potter as a bedtime story. We were both twinning in Totoro tees as sleepwear as well. It was just wonderful to be able to have heart to heart talk with a dear sister and confidante in Christ. Someone wiser, kinder, more Christlike than me. Someone I look up to. :) Someone I'll pray the best for with all of my heart too. But I digress. The sleepover in JB with IT was great fun too. We had coconut drinks with my mum by a roadside stall near my home and we went to a new mall near my home too. Best part was she was not intimidated by Brownie at all. :)

Jan went by pretty quickly as I recalled. I entered the year 2020 together with G and YL again at Faith Methodist Church's watchnight service. We had New Year's Day lunch at the cafeteria of Seletar Airport. Some local indian muslim cuisine we had. I think G had muturbak for the first time in her life! The kumpung fried rice was so good that both G and YL decided to dapao back that day. Lunch was C+G (Cheap and Good)!

CNY came along in the end of Jan as did the threat of Coronavirus which soon became known as COVID-19. By Feb, I requested to Work From Home for a week, till things calmed down a bit. And it is already the first week of March now! How fast!

Be with someone

I came across this quote, "Be with someone
who will sit with you and say, "Let's fix this" instead of
being a child and ignoring you.

Someone came to mind straightaway. Someone who has been ignoring me.

I really should take this as a sign that this someone is "being a child" and is not someone I should be with.

Malacca Trip

Last Thursday night, mum, sis and I travelled to JB and on Friday we drove to Malacca. Sis and I had dinner at this quaint little cafe called Stolen Cup along Jonker Street while mum rested at Pines Hotel at night. The next morning, I had food poisoning from the buffet breakfast. I got a jab from the nearby clinic to stop my vomitting. Also, I rested in the hotel for the rest of the day, while mum and sis went to visit my 90+ year old aunty. That evening we caught a spectacular performance of Encore Melaka, Impression Series. That was a real visual feast. By Sunday, we had to travel back to JB and on Monday, return to Singapore. I caught up with Ee Leng at Regent Hotel for an afternoon tea to have a belated birthday celebration with her.

In another week's time or so, I am planning to go to Malacca with mum again, to run some errands.

Korea and Shanghai Holidays

Two weeks ago at this time, sis and I have just touched down at Jeju Island for the first time of our lives. It has been a memorable trip to Korea and Shanghai for sis and I. We viewed beautiful autumn colours in the mountains, made kimchi and Ginseng chicken together. We also went to one day Red Ginseng Spa which was loads of fun. At Jeju itself, the most delightful visit was to Joanne Bear Museum. We also visited the theme park called Everland and there were beautiful flowers there. It has been over fifteen years ago since I last visited Shanghai. The cityscape of Shanghai has changed. A lot more skyscrapers have shot up. We even went up to the 100 storeys high Shanghai World Financial Center. The night view was stunning from up there. I'm truly grateful for my friends who prayed for my sis and I during the trip. We got along well enough and had minimal conflicts throughout the trip. Praise God.