Coconut Kong Kong

Our dearest Kong Kong is in hospital again because he is bleeding profusely when he goes to the toilet. He missed my wedding because he had the same problem the last time, and the time before, it was his heart. I'm worried cos we're leaving for France on Monday and Rita Ee n Dor Ee will be away too. I'm praying that he'll recover very quickly.

Luckily he was in good spirits when we visited him last night and today. He was being cheeky and was devising a way to sneak in beer for his "guests"!



"We can hide beer in the fridge then throw the cans away outside the room. The nurse won't know." Ever the thoughtful gent, he was thinking of how to be a good host, even when lying in a hospital bed with a tube stuck up his arm.

Other Kong Kong quips:

Nurse: You're here because you have a bad heart.

Kong Kong: No! My heart is good! It's just weak.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Rita Ee: Daddy, do you know why you're in hospital? U must tell us as soon as U see blood when U go to the toilet.

Kong Kong: But I'm a boy! Only girls have period.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~**~*~~*~*~*~*~*~

It's truly a blessing to have such a good sense of humour when you're 85! I guess these moments of wit and lucidity is God's way of reassuring us that the Kong Kong we love so much is still there even though he has the onset of Alzheimer's.

I noticed the strangest thing when I was in his room....there was a picture of a coconut tree hanging above his bed! Right next to the IV bag. A rather sad-looking bendy tree, my mum pointed out.



BIZARRE. My mum couldn't contain her curiousity and went searching for a nurse to question. We found out it was a "code" for hospital staff to be aware that this patient is prone to falling. EH?! Didn't they already write that on his chart? Does that mean that some hospital staff CAN'T READ? Hmmmm......ponderous. I wonder what their icon is for incontinence.

Last Saturday, Zerline & Leonard (or Nennerd as he is popularly known) invited us cuzzins over to his house for dinner. We had such a great time and it reminded me how lucky I am to have such a close, loving family. And because we're all genetically strange in one or more ways (even the ones who married in! See photos of JF and Zerline below for proof!) topics of conversation ranged from worst food hygiene experiences (Nennerd won hands down - he bit into a piece of chicken from a prata stall, and there were MAGGOTS wriggling inside!!), to the best way to clean your derriere after doing a dump! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH. Dor Ee, STOP BUYING 4-ply toilet paper!!! U ARE CLOGGING THE SEWERS!!

Me n my cuzzins n our Kong Kong!



Betty Ee demonstrates how to kill "kachuak" (cockroaches) the old-fashioned way. Nennerd claims it's how she got him to pass his Chinese exams all those years ago.



Nothing stands between the ZerMonster and her chocolate fondue!



JF as a child



JF last Sunday



Cuzzins again with Barney's goooooooood twin, Puff the Magic Dragon. (No we DIDN'T lah! Melissa & Melanie are minors!) But we do look rather spacey don't we? Peace n Love as JF says!

Off with her head!

I did it. I chopped off my luscious long, curly locks today.

Mainly because:
1. I didn't think they were so luscious anymore. The dry climate in France wreaked havoc and reduced my $950 hair-do to a mess of tangled hay. It literally hurt when I washed my hair.
2. I was fed up and needed a change. (in more ways than one...a woman never chops off her hair "just for the heck of it")
3. Hair will always grow back.
4. I really wanted to shave my head on July 1st in support of the cancer charity.

My hair sensei Shunji-san was supportive, and did a fab job (as always). So that was my happy thing for the day. I've never walked out of his salon feeling unhappy with his work. You don't get to be Cindy Crawford and Donna Karan's personal hairstylist by being crap.

My packing is not going well (I hate packing!). In a week, I leave for France. In a month I leave for Turkey for the next 3 years. Snails have it good. They simply get up n glide along when they need to move to another country with everything already nicely packed on their backs.

As if my anxiety level is not already high enough, at the moment, the MIL is being a pain in the ass..again. Sigh.
And this is the only place I can rant about it. So bear with me.

I guess all MILs will be so at some point in time, no matter how hard the DIL tries to please. Cos they're just wired like that - subconciously, subversively suspicious and displeased, programmed to drive DILs up the wall every now and then. It's been happening since time immemorial. Case in point: decades ago, one of my aunts was so damn mad and frustrated at the MIL that she splashed bottles of nail polish all across the MIL's bedspread. Jackson Pollock's ghost smiled on approvingly.

Note to self: If I ever do become a MIL one someday, I promise I'll try to behave and not be a biatch.

Today I spent 5 hours trying to lay out pages in PowerPoint. Which is quite pathetic considering there were only 7 pages to lay out into a booklet for our French wedding mass. Something I didn't really think was necessary in the first place, but it was just sprung on me last minute by the MIL, ONE WEEK before I leave for FRANCE!!!!!!!!!! ARGGGGGGGGGGGGH. Multiple Hokkien expletives exploding in brain.

But it would make the husband happy, so I did it.

Anyways, it took 5 damn frustrating hours because:
1. All the text kept running whenever I edited something.
2. Text boxes kept disappearing.
3. Mystery symbols and widget like items appeared when I did printouts n I couldn't figure out where the hell they came from.
4. I'm absolute pants at PowerPoint.

At the end of it all, the MIL was still not satisfied. The printers were kind and super efficient (I love Singapore!!) enough to rush out the covers and deliver them to my house WITHIN 4 hours. But guess what? In spite of all this effort, I'm still WAITING for the MIL's final approval before I can proceed to print, photocopy and bind the booklets.

In times like these, I repeat to myself, "I love my husband. I love my husband" all Dorothy-like. (When she closes her eyes, clicks her heels and chants "There's no place like home. There's no place like home", wishing to be transported far far away from the land where she killed the big bad witch and back to Kansas.) If only a bucket of water did the trick for me too.

FedEx a Tank right to your doorstep

Looking at a map, I suddenly had this thought about moving to Turkey.

We will be living next door to........IRAQ!!!! Just over the border. Not to mention IRAN and SYRIA.
Yes, those countries U constantly see on the news with fighting, guns, bombs, beheadings and refugees filling up your screen.



Never in all my life, have I lived so close to the "axis of evil" as Dubya so ironically says. The man who is ignoramusly unaware that he is the single, greatest WMD that America will ever face.

So what better way for a kiasu Singaporean to "BE PREPARED!" (as the Civil Defence Force constantly reminds us) than to buy a TANK off the internet. Imagine me zipping around Istanbul in a TANK. It'll be a HOOT! Judging from what I've read about the traffic and drivers in that city, I may very well need one.

Yup yup, U can BUY A TANK on Amazon.com and have it FedEx'd right to your doorstop! It's going for a trifle US$20,000. Check it out. Budding dictators and revolutionaries all over the world must be thrilled, especially with the FLAME THROWER option (which is unfortunately not available if you live in California, Arizona or New Mexico, but U can still have the land torpedo loaders). Mwaahahahahahaha! I'm laughing so hard now my tummy hurts!



It's name is even funnier! The JL421 Badonkadonk Land Cruiser/Tank

This nifty vehicle:

- Carries cargo or a crew of up to five internally or on the roof.
- Is piloted from within the armored shell or from an exposed standing position through the hatch.
- Fitted with troop benches and LAND TORPEDO LOADERS
- 6hp Tecumseh gasoline engine, top speed 40 mph.
- Includes head/tail and turn signal lights, trim and underbody lighting.
- 400 watt premium sound with PA system, plush interior, and external camera
- Can be fitted with an optional flame thrower, DVD player, GPS and other customisations

WOW. Talk about Pimp My Ride Gone Wild.
BEST OF ALL, U can put this tank on a Bridal Registry. How bloody funny is that?!!?
Ooh yessssss, I want my very own BADONKADONK. WITH flame thrower please...very useful for BBQs.
Hint hint hint, my birthday is in September!

Read the reviews here...they are a SCREAM!

http://www.amazon.com/JL421-Badonkadonk-Land-Cruiser-Tank/dp/B00067F1CE/ref=pd_sbs_gf_1/102-0452450-0392923?ie=UTF8&qid=1179898693&sr=8-1

(BTW can ANYONE teach me how to write the HTML so I can make URLs clickable links??)

And even funnier....the "Customers who viewed this item also viewed..." section
They include:
- 1 Gallon Tuscan whole milk
- Fresh Whole Rabbit at US$29.95 but doesn't look very fresh




Who knew you could buy a Tank, Whole Rabbit and a Gallon of Milk all on Amazon?! Long live Jeff Bezos! The day he figures out how to ship piping hot, fresh A1 curry puffs to me anywhere in the world, I will kiss his feet.

P/S: Looking again at the tank photo, I have this sneaky feeling I've seen it before. YES! It looks like one of the desert thingys in RETURN OF THE JEDI. (U know, the one with Jabba the Hut, where Princess Leia wears this kinky metallic bra n panty get-up??) Guess the designers of the BADONKADONK are major Star Wars geekazoids. But OH DEAR, since I recognised the design, that makes me one too. ;p

Is this still Dawn?

Yesterday evening I got a text from a number which I didn't recognise. It was a Singapore mobile number.

It read: "Hi is this still Dawn?"

I had absolutely no idea who it was, so I msgd back "Yes it is. Who r u?"

And the reply came:

"This is someone from a long time ago. I'm not sure if i can use the word, but we used to be good friends once upon a time. This is someone who never really forgot u (or ur phone number!) and someone who is still sorry he hurt you and never had the guts to face you after. In the years that have passed i dunno how many people have hurt u but if we have any remnants of a connection then you will know who this is."

GOSH. Heavy stuff. I thought it sounded like the start of a short film. I still hadn't a clue who this person was! So I replied that I had no idea and I was leaving Singapore in 2 weeks anyway.

He replied, "Hmmm...just in the nick of time to say a proper goodbye... :) We love music and travelling. We also love Paulo Coelho and Nick Bantock...and i am going for mass soon. Surely that must be enough?"

It was him.

The person who all those years ago ripped my heart out and flushed it down the toilet, bit by bit over a long period of time. And I was the dumb-ass monkey who was in love with him while my relationship with Ian was drawing it's dying breaths.

If my memory serves me well, the essence of my last communication with him was essentially along the lines of "****off and die and don't even try to talk to me again. Ever."

So why him? Why now? WTF!??!? I replied saying I knew who he was, and asked him if he had just read Paulo's new book, The Witch of Portobello, which I just finished reading. I wondered if this was the catalyst that made him get in touch. We both loved and were inspired by Paulo Coelho's work, and often discussed his ideas at length.

He replied,"Nope I didn't read it Dawn. You and your number just flashed across my mind while on my way home. I dunno why the compulsion to contact you was stronger than ever today."

I didn't know what to feel. My heart was beating fast, but I felt no anger, no hate, no sadness, no joy. Just numbness, and maybe nostalgia. I wondered why. This was someone with whom I once had a very close, intense relationship. Yet now, when he pops up out of nowhere, all I felt was numb. Like having 36 flavours of ice-cream placed in front of you, but you just stare, not even wanting to lift the spoon or take a lick.

In the next few SMSes he asked me how I was, what I've been doing etc and I told him about work, how I found my Personal Legend (a concept which Paulo Coelho wrote about, and something he and I always said we'd fulfil) in writing, that I got married and am moving to Turkey.

For some strange reason, I didn't ask him about his life. I didn't feel the need to, although I was curious.

So what next? Do I even want a next? Our messaging ended at: "Be well Dawn. And I'm sorry it took so long for me to touch base."

Paulo Coelho often writes that he doesn't believe in coincidences. He believes that things all happen as part of our journey to help us fulfil our Personal Legend. Signs along the way.

In the car with JF later, we were driving home and I was telling him about what happened. I turned the radio on and a Kenny Loggins song was playing. What are the chances of that? Kenny Loggins songs are not exactly on heavy rotation these days. I was a bit spooked. "He" hero-worshipped Kenny Loggins and we used to listen to his music together all the time.

They say time heals all wounds. I say it brings with it indifference and questions all at once.

The answer is....

For those waiting with baited breath...or just gave up.

The answer to Melanie's riddle is:

STOP IMAGINING.


Like.....DOH!!!! as Homer would say!

Geddit geddit? It began with "Imagine you are in.......

IK(D)EA

I just got back from IKEA and I HAD to post this:



OK call me suaku, but I never noticed it before! (Bearing in mind that this was only my 2nd visit EVER to IKEA Tampines.)
What a brilliant idea! On top of the usual hadicapped parking spaces, this IKEA store had reserved parking lots for families with young babies/kids travelling with a pram. WOW COOL! I wonder if this is also done elsewhere in the world. Does anyone know?

Hmmm....I'm not a Mum yet but already thinking like one...oh dear. Any Mum with a young child will tell you, (and I've seen this happen with my friends) that most parking lots in Singapore are tightly crammed so close to one another that you barely have space to open the door wide enough to put in the baby car seat or pram. The worst of these being the carpark at ISETAN SCOTTS. (My Dad says the people who design carparks in Singapore obviously don't drive cos they don't know how wide the average car is!!)

Usually parents have to drive the car out of the lot to be able to open the doors wide enough to load it with those things. Another great thing which surprised me was that parking was FREE. You'll be hard pressed to find FREE parking 7 days a week at any other commerical location in Singapore. (Even the IKEA outlet in Alexandra Road charges for parking.) Probably because this IKEA outlet in Tampines was located in the middle of nowhere, together with Giant and Courts.

So WELL DONE IKEA! I think more malls should have such family-friendly lots. Another discovery at IKEA today - They've stopped giving out free plastic bags! Many customers didn't know this and were complaining at the till, but in France however, I discovered that this practice was very common in many supermarket chains. You just have to bring your own bag to carry your groceries home. Which is how I ended up with diswashing liquid, pesto sauce and a can of beans in my handbag one day....I didn't know they didn't give plastic bags!!!

(French women, being ever so chic of course, have these cool, hip-looking large trolley bags with wheels which they use for all their grocery shopping. No, these are not the frumpy, ugly type you see homeless people or rickety old grannies wheel about in movies. These French women had trolley bags which looked STYLISH. The nicest ones I've seen look like a cross between a Hermes Birkin bag and expensive wallpaper.)

Anyways, back to IKEA and their new NO PLASTIC BAGS policy. I'm all for it because I think we use WAY too many plastic bags here in Singapore. But I just don't think IKEA has put enough thought into their new policy. First of all, most of the customers I saw were caught by surprise and were unhappy. IKEA could have posted these signs about their new policy at the entrance and throughout the store or even take out a print ad in the main daily broadsheet, Straits Times. (I dunno if they did cos I've been away, but judging by the reactions, not many customers knew about the new "no plastic bag" policy.)

Secondly, plastic bags WERE still available, and at a mere 10 cents for the regular-sized bag, and 20 cents (I think, or 50 cents) for the extra large one. Most of the people I saw paid for the plastic bags anyway. What is 10 cents to the average Singaporean shopper? Which makes me question IKEA's motives. They are STILL handing out as many plastic bags cos people are buying them. How does this help the environment? Just that now, they're collecting revenue from the sale of what used to be free bags. There was also a sturdier re-useable plastic carrier on sale for $1.20. But NO ONE I saw bought that.

What IKEA could do, is to TOTALLY do away with the thin plastic bags (not even sell them for 50 cents each) and just have the sturdy re-useable carrier available for say, $4-$5. I believe that way, more people will remember to bring their own bag every time they shop there cos it costs much more to buy a carrier bag.

What do you think?

I want my chilli!

HOME SWEET HOME!!! It feels SOOOO good to be home! My little Blossom was madly barking with joy when we saw her.
After one whole month of cheese, I finally get my chilli!! SHIOK!

On Sat we had a popiah and cold crab party at home, just of the 7 of us. Everyone worked all day to make the dinner. JF and I went to Tekka to buy the crabs, Mum n Dad bought the veggies n ingredients for the popiah, Muji chopped up and fried stuff, Wendy cleaned and helped kill the crabs with Dad, she also "tumboh" all the garlic the traditional way using a motar n pestle (JF called her "Age Stone woman" heheheh!) JF and I peeled and chopped veggies (you should've seen him, so cute painstakingly grating all that ginger with a tiny grater the size of a mobile phone...of course, he cut his fingers....poor thing!)
It was all worthwhile for the SUPER YUMMY dinner we had, and we overdosed on chilli and garlic! (Our burps were awful for the next 36 hours!!) Topped off with pears poached in red wine that JF made.

Then yesterday, we celebrated Mother's Day by visiting Mama's niche together, going to mass and dinner with Kong Kong. (We've been doing this every year since Mama passed away in 1992). For the dinner, I picked an Indian restaurant which was a nice change from the usual Chinese dinner we always have.

I was so happy being with my family, just sitting there soaking in the joy and loud chatter with my crazy cuzins Mel and Melanie (aka Sasha). I realised how funny they both are (LIKE SUPERFABULOUS FUNNY and they have SUPERFANTASTICKILLER SHOES like me, and we think Leonard is SUPERBOZOWEIRD cos he doesn't like chocolate. I mean, something wrong there lah!) and I really like hanging out with them...WE SHOULD DO IT MORE OFTEN GIRLS! Dinner was a mad frenzy of good food and laughs...... passing platters of curries, tandoori chicken, palak paneer, pulling on fluffy Kashmiri naans which everyone fell in love with. (Wendy declared that it was the first time she enjoyed Indian food, the Kashmiri naan did it for her. Mark was just happy that there was meat....hehehe! The first thing he asked when I said we were going to an Indian restaurant was, "Got meat or not?" Cos quite often we have Indian vegetarian and he doesn't like it ;p My brother is a meat and noodles boy! He loves anything doughy. When we were kids he used to eat 10 roti prata all by himself!) I KNOW YOU ARE PUKING AS U READ THIS WEE KEONG!

My cuzin Melanie (aka Sasha) was SO funny in her usual witty way. I swear that girl was a British comedian in a previous life! She has such dry wit and at the same time tells her Sasha-esque riddles that are so DUH they're funny! And she's only 16!!!!!



For example:
Imagine you are in an enclosed room with no doors or windows. The water level is rising fast and all you have is an umbrella and chair. How do you get out?

Answer: Akan datang...read my next post! hehehehe...c'mon crack ur brains u lot!

At the end of the dinner, the restaurant manager started handing out flowers to the Mums. (which was a really nice touch I thought, plus they re-made a new batch of naans for us cos some were a bit too chao dar...good service and excellent food. DELHI RESTAURANT in Race Course Road....GO THERE!) Anyways, all the crazy Ee Ees told him to give Wendy and I flowers too cos we're "Mums-to-Be"! ALAMAK! Not yet lah! Akan datang. I'm not pregnant yet PEOPLE!!! The cheese in France was just REALLY REALLY GOOD! ;p

We ended the night by striking funny poses and laughing so loudly that the ang mohs at the next table actually stopped drinking their beers, fell silent and stared at us! (You know you're REALLY making a noise when you're louder than a bunch of Pommies swigging their beers!)

Hamming it up with Kong Kong! He's such a sport ;)



The vainpot Lee Sisters and their Dad!



Also, I FINALLY got my wedding day photos from the photographer after SO LONG!!! Thank goodness for pix cos I think I missed half the stuff that was going on. I was in a daze all day, just floating by on my cotton candy cloud. Will put some here and the pix from Italy too :)

Right now I'm off to IKEA to buy a gazillion cardboard boxes to pack all my junk. I HAVE TO PACK MY WHOLE LIFE and ship it across the globe!! YIKES! The shoes alone will take forever!

BTW thanks to Wendy and MelSteph's feedback, I've changed the comments to "Allow anyone". I didn't know it was only restricted to Blogger users before! Sorreeeeee! ;p

Yodelaydeehoooooo, Ciao Bella!

On Tuesday, we had breakfast in France, lunch in Switzerland and dinner in Italy. Wooohoooo!!!
I'm so proud to be Singaporean....there is no distance too great for a true blue Singaporean to travel for good food.
Be it Jurong to East Coast for shiok laksa, or France to Italy for quattro stagioni "the way mama makes it" (U can almost hear me channelling my inner don when I say that. Si, Sono Don Dawn! Now kiss my ring.) Hehe.

It was our first time in La Suisse and Italia too! 32 countries and counting!

It was a public holiday here in France, so we decided to drive to Geneva for the day. My first impression of the city....DULLSVILLE. (The city's pride and joy is a giant jet of water near the lake called Jet d'Eau (it's even on their city logo)

So after a yummy lunch of rillette de saumon, grilled trout and chestnut cream, we decided to drive to Lausanne and Montreaux (where the famous Jazz festival takes place) We wanted cheese fondue and rosti but couldn't find any believe it or not! Or maybe cos we were just too hungry and quit looking after checking out the menu at 3 restaurants.

Salmon rillette with a Spring salad



Clever Swiss invention: Make a piece of trout look like a crab. Ta-dah!



Chestnut cream (the only really Swiss thing we ate that day)



I was hoping to see Heidi chalets, cows with bells and Tolberone mountains along the way. Instead we saw lots of vineyards!! So surprising....who knew? So we decided to drive further into the Swiss countryside until we finally saw the breathtaking snow covered peaks of Mount St Bernard. (We also saw an entire museum dedicated to the St Bernard dog)

I couldn't help but turn towards the mountain and yodel! Or attempt to anyway. A melodious mix of Yodelaydeehoooooooooo and Reeeeee-koh-la! (The Ricola ad was stuck in my brain) I did this numerous times and must have scared the cows. Can U see Heidi running in the distance? ;p




After fulfulling my cliched Swiss fantasies, I said, "Let's have dinner in Italy!" JF looked at me like I was mad, but it didn't take long to persuade him. (Mmmm....think about all that gooood pizza honey, and we'll be in Italy for the first time!)

More n photos coming soon! Have to pack now, we're catching the plane home tonight...yipppeeee! See U in Singapore on Friday!!

COOOOOKEEEEEEE MAWWWWNSTER!

I was just reading my cuzin Mel's blog and laffing out loud! She wrote about her conversation with my belle-soeur Wendy while eating ice cream. My dear lil bro Mark just realised that we are all STRANGE except him! Mel said cos he missed out on all the STRANGE LOUD GENES!! (So did Gerard and Sasha, Mel's lil sis) So Sasha is "in a world of her own" and Mark is "at the other end of that world" MWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA! I LURVE my family!

Good to know that the women in my family (well Mel W. and Mel S. for sure!) like me, LOVE tottering around in high high heels even if it kills us! Hahahahahaha! Mel W. talks about her Four.Fives in her blog. I've been there!! I love my Four.Fives too altho they are stashed somewhere right now....I'm kinda an everyday Three girl.
Altho since I got my Birks I've practically been living in them.....so unglam huh? Sad to say I don't own a pair of Jimmy Choos......YET. Wee Keong and I sauntered into the JC boutique in chi chi Siam Paragon last year and he fainted from the prices. So after much drooling and longing, lustful looks at the fine specimens on display, I tip-toed out of there, towing him away before he fainted again.


Here's something else I discovered via Mel's blog! Couldn't help but put it here!!! Damn accurate!

You Are Cookie Monster

Misunderstood as a primal monster, you're a true hedonist with a huge sweet tooth. You are usually feeling: Hungry. Cookies are preferred, but you'll eat anything if cookies aren't around. You are famous for: Your slightly crazy eyes and usual way of speaking How you live your life: IN THE MOMENT. "Me want COOKIE!"

The Sesame Street Personality Quiz

Lords, Ladies & everything in between

One of my favourite areas in the Lyon is the St Jean/Fourviere district just behind our flat. It's teeming with spooky old buildings, Gothic architecture, boho people & shops, uneven cobble-stoned streets (which are a serious health hazard when you're in heels... as I discovered first hand) and best of all, you never know who you'll meet round the next corner.

Some of the people that I bumped into there on sunny Saturday morning:

The Duke and Duchess waiting for their carriage (umm..taxi) to arrive



A band of travelling minstrels



The Three Musketeers (retired)



Rembrandt's disciple



Extras from Interview with A Vampire



A lady-in-waiting with hair I'd love to have! The 2 robins seemed very happy nestled in her coiffure.



A blur-looking knight with his Frodo-like sidekick. Probably not a Templar. Definitely not my kind of Lancelot!



The Queen Anne's courtiers jivin' away



Baffled and bewildered, I wondered what I'd walked into. I quickly found out that it was a celebration of the Middle Ages, complete with duels, court dancing and a full-scale sit-down feast (no plates, bare hands and all).

It reminded me of something Maarten once told me about but I'd never seen. The Society for Creative Anacronism which "re-creates the arts and skills of pre-17th-century Europe" and "consists of 19 kingdoms, with over 30,000 members residing in countries around the world." Members, dressed in clothing of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, attend events which feature tournaments, arts exhibits, classes, workshops, dancing and feasts. They have different ranks and the "royalty" hold courts at which they honor members for their contributions to the group.

Well shiver me timbers and blow me down. I wanna play dress-up too! Hmmmm....I'd love to be Madame de Pompadour, that stylishly chic, sly old bird who had the king by his balls (literally). But then that wouldn't be historically correct considering that she existed in 1721, which is not exactly the Middle Ages.

Oh well, then I'd be Dante's Beatrice. Not a bad thing being a muse, inducing beatific visions and immortalised forever in The Divine Comedy.

Right now, this Muse is off to Burgundy, then Geneva for the weekend! Woohoo! Will be my 1st time in Swizterland...altho I once knew a Swiss Roll (my Mum coined this nickname not me!) who was well....rather BORING. (Amongst other things, he didn't eat BOTH mushrooms and onions, and picked them ALL right off the pizza, leaving just the crust to eat!!)

What's your word?

If you had to choose a punctuation mark that best describes your life (or how you'd WANT to live it), which would you choose? I think mine would be ! An exclaimation mark :)

JF says he finds it funny that very often, I passionately love or hate something. That when I react to people, objects, ideas, circumstances or carry out tasks, I either do it with the ardent fervour of a saint in prayer, or with such chilling disdain that you'd think it might just kill me. Hmmm...maybe it's true. I don't appreciate mediocrity, and mindless conformity irks me. I HATE when people reply...."that's just the way it is". BECAUSE IT'S NOT. I WILL make it NOT be that way.

I've just finished reading this excellent book:



I really do recommend that you get your hands on a copy at once. From a writer's technical viewpoint, it's a brilliantly crafted piece of writing. Words are skillfully selected to surprise and delight your mind. MORE IMPORTANTLY, the book is so enjoyable, so riveting, simply because it is SO HUMAN.

It's one of those rare books that inspires, shocks and make you laugh out loud (and cry) at the same time. (And I'm one of those people who laughs out loud when I read or see something funny....even when I'm all alone, honestly!)

The book is a work of non-fiction and it's about a year of change that the writer goes through.

In one part of the book, the writer has a discussion with her Italian friend, Giulio about the "WORD of a city". He says that each city has a single word that defines it, that if you could read the thoughts of the people passing you on the street of that city, you'd discover that most of them are thinking the same thought. And he says that the word for Rome (the city which they are in) is SEX. While the word of the Vactican is POWER. The writer thinks that the word for New York is ACHIEVE, for Los Angeles...SUCCEED. Her Swedish friend Sofie says (rather sadly) that the word for her hometown Stockholm is CONFORM.

This gets the writer thinking about her own word and she's stumped. She hasn't found her word yet. (She does later in the book).

And so, it got me thinking, what's my word? I haven't found it yet either. I know my punctuation mark is !

In the politely politically correct "all-inclusive" world we live in today, it may seem limiting to confine the definition of your entire being into one word. We are after all, multi-faceted souls (although I do know some one-dimensional people!) But this is merely an exercise in FUN, something to think about in that quiet moment just before you fall asleep. I also can't help but love the copywriting challenge in this! :)

While I'm pondering, it'd be interesting to know what you guys think my word is. Thank you Maarten for posting all your comments....I really enjoy reading them and it makes me feel that some out there is listening :)
It'd be great to hear from the rest of you who read my blog :) So post away!