blue steel
Anybody got the contact for GQ magazine? I think one of their hottest new commodities is sitting in my living room.
Be still, my beating heart.
Please tell me these have not been the most insanely sweltering days we’ve ever had. It’s so hot that I can’t think straight and I can feel my brain cells being massacred.
Tru’s words of the week are hot and sunny because that’s the only safe-for-children words I can say all day. The moment he gets into the car, he starts shouting for “air con, air con” and it’s only because he’s my son that I’m even sharing my cool air with him. All you other folks, stop hogging my air, you are killing me.
On my way back from my *elitist* luncheon yesterday, I had to swing by Subway to get a sandwich for Kelvin as wages for taking care of the kids while I attacked my mini cheeseburgers and pretended to look thoughtful and contemplative for two hours. It was all terribly intense so it’s not like I had a lot of spare brain cells lying around by the late afternoon.
In my experience, most respectable car parks have a cashcard top up machine located near the entrance or lobby area so that people don’t have to run helter skelter scrambling to find an ATM machine. Naturally when I saw a little device with the cashcard logo on it, it was perfectly understandable to assume it was in fact, able to top up my cashcard.
worst cashcard machine EVER
Ok, upon closer inspection, it does look rather shambolic and there isn’t even a keypad to type in my pin but between the heat and all that mental exertion earlier, I was totally on autopilot by that point. So I shoved in my cashcard and jabbed furiously at the giant button in the centre because the heat makes me daft and impatient – not a good combination at all.
Next thing I knew, water started gushing out from a tap sticking out from the wall. Directly at my shoes. Did I already say gushing? Because the sheer force of it was causing water to ricochet up my jeans all the way to my knees. I jumped back several steps but then the floor was all wet and slippery and I almost fell backwards on my ass but thanks to my incredible sense of balance, I managed to regain my composure after doing a few deadly arm-flailing moves.
Of course, I chose to do it at a very busy carpark because a sizeable crowd was starting to gather around my immediate vicinity. And of course the machine had to dispense gushing water for 40 seconds while my cashcard got lodged inside and I couldn’t even grab it and run. It was a very long 40 seconds as I tried to *look* like I was enjoying an afternoon shower fully-clothed in public.
Seriously, it’s like this heat is trying to destroy me. You win this round.
Apparently today is International Women’s Day, a day that we’re supposed to celebrate women, whatever that means. I usually don’t keep track of things like that unless it involves me getting a little bling from Tiffany’s.
Somehow I got invited by Nanzinc to go for a little get together with a group of women at Overeasy, right by One Fullerton. I was expecting like 50 or so women having cocktails and I was hoping to slip in unnoticed at the back and kind of like blend in, you know, because I’m socially retarded at these kind of events. Also, it suddenly occurred to me that Motherinc is awkwardly similar to Nanzinc, which is like showing up to a party thrown by Angelina Jolie wearing the exact same dress as her. Awkward.
And unlike Nanzinc, whose name was inspired by Cindy Inc and is supposed to connote wonderful things like personal branding, female entrepreneurship and a strong positive mindset, Motherinc was solely derived because Monsters Inc was my favorite Pixar animation of all time. Stop judging me.
So as it turned out, I had to reach fashionably late because I have 2 kids to settle and I walked in to find 12 women all seated at a long table chatting over nachos. Which was right about the time I started to panic because you can’t blend in when there are only 12 and all of them turns to look at you. Then I got closer and I realised that these were some of the most successful women in the entire country. Women who win awards and give important speeches and sip bubbly at chichi events. Like Nanz Chong, Theresa Tan and Elim Chew. Sweet.
hang on a minute while I try to blend in
I made my grand entrance and as I looked around the table at all these over-achieving women, all I could think of was “I’m pretty sure they invited the wrong person. I’m going to have to pretend to be whoever it is. Play it cool. Breathe, come on.”
Turns out, they actually meant to invite me but I’m guessing the only reason why that is so is because I represent the bourgeoisie. Except that I have no job and no actual skills to contribute at the meeting so I’m still a little fuzzy on what I was supposed to do there besides actually having lunch.
It is exactly at critical moments like these that I suddenly freak out because I couldn’t be sure if part of my bra was peeking out because it would be monumentally embarrassing if I sat through the entire lunch flashing my bra at these ladies. I thought of fiddling with it or checking discreetly but it would then draw unnecessary attention to it, which would be counterproductive.
So there I was, trying to furrow my brow and look intelligent and as they talked about important stuff like helping women to do better and giving back to society. I think I did my part by eating the killer mac and cheese. But I wasn’t sure if that was enough so I went back home to burn a bra for good measure.
Still, happy International Women’s Day, ladies. Flash a bra or something. It’s your right.
I’m one of those people who never win anything. Like ever. And it’s not for a lack of trying. I fill up every lucky draw form I can get my hands on and I join all sorts of crazy contests, even if it’s to win a half-eaten box of chocolates because it’s not just the prize, it’s the principle. I mean, what are the odds that I go through my entire life not winning a single prize after entering 385,000 contests right?
Practically zero, but then again, my teacher used to say that my math abilities were also practically zero, so that probably figures.
So I see all these awesome blogs that I spend hours swooning over and they win all these cool awards like “best blog in the history of mankind” and I secretly wish that I could abduct them and keep them in my basement so I could maybe be half as cool just by proximity and then maybe I could win an award for the best “psychopathic basement abductor”. But then I realised that heck, I don’t even have a basement, just a crummy void deck where folks hold funerals from time to time.
That’s just messed up, really.
And I figured, you know what this blog needs? An award. You know, to recognize my literary efforts on this corner of the Internet.
Screw the fact that I’ve probably got all of 3 readers, and that’s only because I read it ALOUD to my kids everyday so that totally counts as 2 readers. Then I make my husband read it every night (even though he’s probably surfing Arsenal blogs instead) and I quiz him on it after, so I know I’ve got at least 3 readers.
Also, probably only half the folks that stumble in here understand what I’m writing, but screw all that.
Because today, my dreams have come true. I’m officially the recipient of this little baby, courtesy of the bloggess.
That it is the deepest badass award I’ve ever received is one thing. But this is a big moment for me, because Jenny the bloggess is right up there in my list of top 10 people I need to meet before I die. Neil Gaiman is one of them and so is Tilda Swinton. I’m still working on the rest because I had to remove David Carradine unless I somehow find a way to connect with the other side.
Thanks Jenny, you just saved this blog from oblivion.
Eternally grateful.
I don’t usually talk about stuff like this but it’s something worth telling so here it is.
Ever since Tru started school, I make it a point to spend my mornings doing fun stuff with Kirsten. Stuff that makes her smile. Those 3 hours are our girly time and I guard it religiously. That means I try not to spend it with her strapped into the car seat while I drive all around town dropping cheques and picking up dry cleaning.
huh... errands again?!
Remember when Tru was hospitalized last month? I left my iPhone charger in the hospital and when I went back the next day, they told me that somebody found it but it got chucked somewhere and lost again.
So today, I figured I’d clear all my errands and swing by to pick it up at the same time. Already feeling bummed that baby girl would be spending the better part of her morning in the car seat, we sprinted up to the ward to do a grab-and-go. Except that it had mysteriously disappeared again and I was told that I would have to make a third trip down.
Under normal circumstances, this would have been the point where I made the poor nurse very sorry she took the shift where the crazy chick went ballistic. And if she had been rude or snappy, I probably would have raised hell like she had never seen before.
Only she wasn’t.
She was nice. She smiled. She said she was really sorry and she looked genuinely appalled that I would have to go back a third time. She also spent 10 minutes rummaging through every drawer she could find. Then she fussed over baby girl, gave her a lollipop and asked if she could hold her for a while.
Today could have been the day that we wasted running around in a frenzy. But instead, it was the day we met a nice lady who gave Kirsten her first piece of candy.
Sometimes, we need to be reminded that a little niceness goes a long way. Spread a little love, will you?
When I was young they told me that no man is an island
I laughed at the metaphor, mostly because I was sure I’d make a fantastic island
“I don’t need anybody“, I said
Needing people makes you weak
Especially if they don’t need you back the same
Or when they leave and never come back
I made my heart smaller so there would only be room for me
Then one day he managed to squeeze his way in
“I need you too, and I’m not going anywhere“, he said
Grabbing a stool, he made himself comfortable
“Although it is a little cramped in here“, he murmured
Slowly he taught me how to make my heart bigger and bigger and bigger
Some days it gets crowded and I learn how to make a little more room
Now I realize that needing people can make you look weak
But it what it really does is make you strong
Truth is, I don’t even care about that anymore
Because it makes me happy, which is way better than before
One of my life’s goals is to have as little contact with poop as possible. That’s why I do the number 2 about once every couple of days. Too much information, I know. And I do apologize, but it’s for the purpose of illustrating how much I go out of my way to avoid having to deal with poop.
So you would think that when baby girl stopped producing poop for a week, I’d be jumping for joy. But as I’ve come to realize, being a mother screws up your brain’s hard wiring. It makes you do things you would never otherwise do in a million years. Crazy things. Things like letting someone throw up in your mouth or digging out poop from their ass.
For 6 days, baby girl has been trying to defecate. And I say trying because several times a day, she scrunches up her face and grunts. Then her face turns red, beads of sweat start forming at her temples and she huffs and puffs like the big bad wolf. Finally, she takes in a sharp breath from pain and whimpers in a way that shatters your heart to pieces. She’s been unable to eat or sleep and she just sits around looking miserable.
We took her to the doctor, who prescribed some meds to soften the poop. We coated her ass with nappy cream. We tried grunting in sync with her, hoping that it would somehow help to induce it.
Six days went by and nothing but gas.
Until yesterday. She was trying unsuccessfully to poop for the 42nd time and it was one of those moments where you know you have to do something drastic. So I grabbed her by the thighs and propped her up over the sink in what I like to call the “seh kia” (giving birth) pose and started grunting. We were like “come on Kirsten, push, PUSH!!!”
And the most incredibly bizarre thing happened. The poop started coming out of her butt in slow motion, then suddenly retract back in. A couple of times in, Kelvin decided to scrape it out with his finger. Which actually made it worse because it broke and the rest went back in. The next time we tried, he gently pressed the top and with a pop, (I swear it sounds exactly like when you uncork a bottle of bubbly) the whole piece flew out.
The whole time, she was screaming like I did when I was giving birth. What can I say? 7 months and already a trooper.
Over the next 12 hours, baby girl produced 6 large packs of poop (one for each day) and I have never been happier to see them. But of course, there’s none happier than my little girl, who has since been grinning away goofily like she just took the biggest crap of her life.
Something tells me she’ll have no problem giving birth sans epidural next time.
I feel good
Chrystal on I’m entitled to be blindingly biased
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Kelly on Cashcard machines that don’t top up cashcards are oxymorons. Or just morons. Either way.
