Upgrade!

Woohoo! I've used redemption points to upgrade to biz class! But that means I'll be flying back 2 days later - arriving 15 August now. Still... WOOHOO!!

Small town breezes

Every time I'm here in Santa Cruz and its surrounding towns/counties, I'm reminded of how much of a city dweller I am.

1) I find the stark lack of tall buildings refreshing - almost nothing here is taller than two storeys.

2) I wonder about the 'quaint' variety of nightlife here - mostly just bars and some live bands playing old favourites, and what little dance scene they have doesn't resemble what you'd find in an urban city.

3) Everyone is underdressed - no one seems to look like they're dressed for work, and no male seems to have heard of a shirt. Daily comfy dressing suits me just fine, though.

4) The traffic on the nearest two-lane highway slows down to about 50 km/h during rush hour and drivers start to complain about "bad traffic".

5) Free parking lots exist in abundance. Free outdoor parking lots. Free outdoor, spacious parking lots - you can swing your car door WIDE open and not hit the next car...and super-large SUVs are the norm rather than the exception here.

6) I'm amused by the narrow field of view of local media - the headline on the daily paper is more likely to report on the latest developments on the local dog beach than something like the whole of Eurasia being conquered by one dictator overnight (the latter would probably be relegated to a tiny column on the back page under "Other/International News").

7) A local arts scene that's even less developed than Singapore's - for a supposedly arty farty place like Santa Cruz, I'm amazed to have heard of only one professional theatre company, and none of the locals I've asked seem to have heard of any other. On the other hand, there is no shortage of individual performers doing their thing along the street 'downtown'.

8) The reason why I put 'downtown' in inverted commas - it's a single street of two-storey buildings that are mostly single-unit shops, restaurants and cafes. And no pubs. One bank one street away. Still, it's an interesting place to go view the local fauna.

So yes, I'm a city girl who's guilty of looking upon a small town as 'quaint'. But it's also one reason why I love being here - the laid-back pace of this place where the abundant sun and cool ocean breeze are not one bit out of place.

A very insightful Singaporean playwright once wrote that Singapore is a small town which thinks it's a city. Very catchy, but I beg to differ. I say Singapore is a small city that's bursting at its seams. It's dense, sterile, stuffy and high-strung. Still, it's home and it's what I'm used to.

In/not in

I know what it was (perhaps still is). I wasn't in love...yet. Am still not in love...sort of. And yet I am...almost, notquite.

I've accepted that there'll always be a place in my heart for him as long as he stays an almost-what-if-isn't. (No point trying to erase something that has already made a mark, albeit a gentle one.)

Bet you're asking: what the heck does that mean?

That means that if asked if I am/was in love with him, I can't truthfully say yes. But at the same time, I can't truthfully say no either.

But I must remember to put those in the past tense as well. (Wow, my mind really has cleared up completely during this time here. Like I said - mind clear, heart untroubled.)

That's the nature of a what-if-never-was, I guess.

I hyphenate too much.

So hard to get a moment alone!! Even as I type this, my folks are walking in and out and I have to keep switching tabs so they can't see that I'm bitching about not getting a moment alone. Gaaaah. I think the only times I'm actually alone in a room are when I'm 1) using the bathroom, and 2) on the treadmill (and then again, sometimes someone will wander in).

While I'm grateful to get *some* bit of extra time to work out a little since my parents are here to help with the kids, their presence means that everything we do and say needs care and maintenance. Did I mention everyone in my family is high maintenance? Doesn't help that I'm the lowest in the pecking order.

Just one simple daily example: what to do about lunch.

Sis: What do you all want for lunch?

Me: (Tactfully silent)

Dad: Anything.

Mum: (Frowns) Eh... (frowns somemore) Anything lah.

Sis: ... ... ... OK, how about sandwiches?

Mum: Eee, I don't like sandwiches.

Dad: Feel like a burger.

Sis: I've got a one-for-one lunch coupon at this burger-and-ribs place.

Mum: (Scowls) Ang moh food again ah?

Sis: Then anything else you want?

Mum: Anything, anything!

Sis: Uhm...Mexican food?

Mum: (Scowls) No!

Sis: How about takeaway from Chinese Village?

Dad: Is Burger King nearby?

Sis: Not really...

Mum: What about the boy?

Sis: He'll eat noodles.

Mum: He just had noodles yesterday.

Sis: He likes noodles.

Mum: He shouldn't eat so much noodles. Anything else?

Dad: Why don't we all eat burgers?

Mum: I don't want burgers!

Sis: OK! OK! I'll buy Burger King for Daddy, Chinese rice for Mummy, find hot dogs somewhere for Sean, and Daffy and I will find something.

Dad: Hmm... Maybe a sandwich is better instead.

Mum: I don't want rice, just had rice on the plane last weekend.

Sis: Then what do you want??

Mum: ANYTHING!!

Sis: (Frustrated, silent)

Me: (Tactfully silent)

And so it goes. This should give a general picture of what it's like to have the entire family living under one roof.

Just three more weeks to go. Three more weeks to savour brainlessness while trying to preserve my sanity.

HAP-PEEE

I'll explain the title later.

[I know, two long posts in a row, but this is my last chance at a decent blog posting before The Parents arrive tomorrow (aargh). I won't have as much access to this room (and hence the computer) and will certainly have even less free time to blog and MSN.]

Loved the way the light glowed through the break in the high fog past the hills, reflected on the river.
Adorable enough to be EATEN!
Walked by a resort-side park which overlooks the bay. This view looks north.
Looking south.
Caitlyn turned exactly 6 months old on Monday and had her first meal of solids! Sean hadn't liked his first solids one bit so we were a bit worried about Caitlyn. Boy, were those fears unfounded. She loved it from the first mouthful. Now, she even complains when the spoonfuls don't come fast enough! Like a true Ong (she IS half Ong), she is extremely pleased when she has her grub.
Taking after her mother already - licking the bowl (something my sis likes to do when there's chocolate or yummy sauce left over). Well, actually, she latched onto the bowl! Check out that suction.
As I was feeding her yesterday, she was using a pink bib and wearing a pink outfit. Halfway through, she gave me a great big smile, and I said to her in my talk-to-baby voice, "You look so HAP-PEEE!!" And the next thought that popped uninvited into my head was "And do you know what colour was her bib, Popsie?? PINK!!" That was a YAAAAARRRGGHH moment.

We went wine tasting at Bonny Doon again. I was very pleased to see that the first wine we tasted was called "I, Aurora" (Aurora had always been my online nick before I started using MSN). I love the wine labels at Bonny Doon. I know I've said it before, and I'm saying it again. I LOVE these wine labels!
This middle one in particular caught my eye. It's a new one.
The winding little road that leads to the winery is always lush and pretty.
The Moscow Circus is currently performing free at the Boardwalk. For a free performance, they sure put up some pretty impressive acts, even though one could tell that the wind was a confounding factor for acts like the hanky juggler and a limbo-rocker who was going under a limbo pole that was on fire - that was one SEXY chick who cleared the flaming pole less than a foot from the ground!!

These two kooky brothers were easily the most popular act with their acrobatics and quirky antics.
I just had to take a picture of this drool-a-licious dude. This isn't a very good photo, but he was such a piece of eye candy. His own act involved him wire-walking. Since his acrobatics often had his landing on the wire squarely in his crack, he either wears padded pants, or he has one hell of a butt that I would kill to grab.
Caught sight of this interesting-looking century plant - it's almost two storeys high! And look where it emerges from the base - the towering part of the plant is its flower!
Sean's going to be such a heart breaker.
Venus is a dazzling fixture in the evening sky long before the sun even sets fully. It was in close conjunction with Saturn these few weeks - on 1 July, they appeared the closest they've been in decades. If you saw a star-like object that didn't blink near Venus recently, that would have been Saturn. Too bad my camera resolution isn't enough to capture Saturn well (it's barely a smudge to the right of Venus), but at least I caught Venus against the twilight in this shot.

Sparkles and other things July

Yesterday, I held a young man as he kissed me. Later, we lay on a blanket and he took my arm and put it around him, and I willingly spooned him. He then turned and looked at me with large, gorgeous eyes and I noticed the freckles that dotted his flawless skin. Then he said, "Yee Yee! I want tickle!" Sigh. The only cute young dude who kisses me goodnight every day is my 4-year-old nephew Sean.

Last night, I realised what a bimbo I become whenever I'm here at my sister's. Some things I almost never do in Singapore that I do here:

- Read Us Weekly, a celebrity gossip mag, if only for the pretty dresses
- Watch chick flicks (I ordinarily find knawing off my shins preferable to watching chick flicks)
- Eat LOTS of ice cream. Lots.
- Sing loudly to Erasure covers of ABBA songs during long car rides
- Sun bathe
- *GASP* I sometimes even read one or two of her trash romance novels (but giggle most of the way through)

Conclusion: I leave my brains in Singapore whenever I fly over. Which is perfect right now.

I'm also getting a hyper-dose of Family Life, which has convinced me I'm nowhere near desiring life with kids. Someday perhaps, but certainly not now. But though it's tiring to look after them constantly, I do enjoy a lot of it. Baby Caitlyn is sooooo soft to hold, smells heavenly and smiles/chuckles so easily that you can't help but feel uplifted just being around her. Sean is a pain a lot of the time, but when he's being affectionate, he's irresistible.

Well, at least I still salvage a tiny bit of my brain by reading something fairly respectable (am halfway through The Alchemy of Love and Lust (it's non-fiction) and I jot down notes on things that occur to me as write-worthy - how nerdy is that?

Some memorable sights from the LA/Orange County trip (most which I didn't/couldn't take photos of):

En route to LA last week, it was night time when I looked out the window and saw the pale moonlight reflected on the ocean water - it looked like a thousand sapphires on black satin. When we passed by the same stretch on the way back in the afternoon, I saw the line of oil rigs in the distance. Tom told me that Jimi Hendrix had called them crystal ships, don't know why. Most of LA itself wasn't a beautiful place, though. It was hot, dry, dusty and smoggy, mostly.

Met some of Tom's extended family, some of whom I was meeting for the first time ever. The blonde next to me is an interesting character who makes, erm, daring fashion choices for a woman over seventy. She's quite a character indeedy.

Was shopping in Irvine Spectrum, an outdoor mall in Orange County, when we spotted a looooooooong line of people. By the foldable chairs and picnic spreads, we figured they'd been there a while. It turned out to be a line for the iPhone, which later sold out within the day. Geeks.

Sean was so tired at the end of that shopping trip that at dinner, he kept dozing off while chewing halfway on pizza, his favourite food.

Sean had his first sleepover that trip! The family we stayed with included two boys, the older one, Griffin, is about Sean's age. When we were all saying goodbye, Griffin gave everyone the biggest hugs ever. And man, does that boy give good hugs. Awwwwwww! Another hug from a cute young man.

We visited Tom's uncle Harold and aunt Aline who are this very old-world conservative couple. Harold is an old-fashioned Jewish man who says things like, "It would seem to me that protocol would dictate...". His thank-you email to us included this line: "In closing allow me to truthfully and openly say that your (pl) visit was a memorable event." Yes, he included "(pl)" to indicate that "your" was in the plural. All the same, he was a very nice and hospitable guy.

As Sean was watching some kids play hockey at a skating rink, he kept referring to "the balls". My sister was very tickled when I very enthusiastically corrected him: "They're not balls, they're PUCKS!"

We've seen many Harley gangs scooting around California in their fat, annoyingly noisy bikes (Tom calls them Gnarly Harleys). Harley bikers invariably seem to be overweight, bearded and wearing leather in ANY weather. Oh, and tassels. We mustn't forget the tassels.

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I was looking at Sean and Caitlyn the other day and it struck me again how close the family resemblance is. Those on my side (and my dad's) of the family tend to have very similar features, especially in childhood. If you compare baby and toddler photos of my sis, me, Sean and now Caitlyn, the resemblance is uncanny. Whenever I look at them both, I marvel at the strong resemblance, and how it creates a closer sense of kin, as if we're all part of the same organism somehow.

I'm almost ruddy now after almost a month here, in spite of the cold, foggy weather last weekend through early this week. I also have multiple tan lines, since I can't go everywhere in naught but my bikini.

The Fourth of July was fun. As mentioned in the earlier post, we went for a community parade - small but interesting. All week we had been hearing the odd firework as people geared up for Independence Day, but it was nothing like the actual day. In the evening, even before the sun had set, we could hear people setting off fireworks while we were having dinner. As the sky slowly darkened, we started seeing the colourful sparkles from the nearby houses. We went out to have a better look, and by 9pm, there were fireworks in almost every direction. I'd never experienced home fireworks before and it was amazing. For hours, the entire neighbourhood sounded like a war zone, with booms all over the place. Some people had obviously splurged on their fireworks and there were some impressive and prolific displays. Of course, every now and then, we'd hear the sirens of fire engines. By the end of the night, so many fireworks had gone off that there was a thin but visible layer of smoke-cloud in the night sky. That was a memorable night.

Tom's cousin Danny and his wife Simone came to stay over the weekend. They're the most jovial people I know, and endlessly chatty. I stress on "endless".

Tom and Danny.
Danny laughs all the time. ALL the time, even when he's upset with something, I hear. He's an extremely likable guy with the infamous Ginsburg corny sense of humour, and his claim to fame, other than knowing nine languages (all self-taught), is having the second-largest collection of bottle caps in the world, which makes sense, given that he distributes specialty sodas for a living, almost all bottled. Many of their sodas are really funky, such as XTZ (wink to Candice), Unknown Dred (dedicated to their truck driver who sports dredlocks), and even Kickapoo!

Us with Simone, Danny's Brazilian wife.
Thanks to Simone, I now know how to say "fart" in Portuguese. I also found out that saying that you want to queue for bread in Portugal would mean being gay and getting a blowjob when said in Brazil. Or something like that.

Having an international family rocks.

Sensory remembrance

Have to be up in 5.5 hours, but suddenly felt the need to pen these thoughts and shadows of thoughts that now chase each other through my mind.

I looked at a photo of a him (no mistake: I meant to say "a him"). Then I clicked to zoom in, and suddenly, I was confronted with an almost life-sized view of his face, and he suddenly felt disarmingly close. Every curve of his cheeks and nose, the slight shine of his forehead that my fingers had grazed, the shadows that cling to the edge of his jaw where my lips had been, every spot on his skin that I had looked upon, every imperfection that I remember touching.

And I was hit by sensory remembrance.

I find myself re-experiencing the way he looked close to me, my eyes examining the parts that made him, both the beautiful and the imperfect. How he appeared in warm light and cold. How he looked under covers. Without covers. Under shirts. In a nice outfit and shoes. The almond curve of his eyes and the way they relaxed and widened when we talked in the warmth of an afterglow.

The scent that, as I buried my olfactory senses in the skin of his neck, somehow made me think of water. The way the scent changed slowly as he'd start to sweat. How I was disappointed whenever I'd smell his hair and only smell shampoo.

The confident yet yielding feel of his cheek beneath my fingertips, in my palms, against my own cheek. The slightly stubborn transition between skin and hair when my fingers encountered his hairline. The strange sensation of his chin beneath my thumb. The textures of his skin against my lips. The warm, smooth undulations of his chest and middle, compelling my hands over them, detouring to his sides, tracing the lines of his back before moving down for a firm hold to pull him closer to (and into) me.

The sight of his lips as I'd regard them for a moment before closing my eyes and feeling for them with my own lips. How surprising it was to feel a soft kiss from him for the first time after the hard, detached ones that had come before, the kiss that came unaccompanied and unexpectedly without agenda, and how I'd asked him never to kiss me that way again, only to wordlessly relish the ones that kept coming after.

He didn't taste like very much.

But his voice...

Just a few sniggers

Haven't really felt like blogging these few days. Have some interesting-ish stuff to update, though, so will probably stick in a longer entry sometime soon...before The Parents arrive on Friday (sigh). Meanwhile, just a few things I was sniggering over.

You know the i-whatever phenomenon has gone too far when you find things like this at Walmart. Lookee there - they even have a U2 edition. iRollEyes.
Saw this at Toys R Us. "The Last Airbender"? Who named this?? Maybe it's just my dirty mind again, but there's something about having "bender" in the name of a toy. Moreover, I couldn't help noticing the large black cannon ejecting (what else) air. Wonder if it'd be a bang or a phwoot.
The 4th of July parade at the small town of Aptos (just the next town down) was obviously a laid-back community parade, but it still had a few memorable participants. I didn't get a picture of an extremely weird and extremely pink-clad character who donned a huge wig of pink feathers and a variety of pink sparkly objects attached to a large pink furry costume. And do you know what colour were his shoes?? PINK!! *high pitched giggle* (Sorry, couldn't resist that one.) However, I did manage to scramble a back view of the Princess of Purple (don't ask - I don't know). In spite of what she looks like from this angle, she was very obviously female from the front view, albeit extremely unattractive.

Last night he stepped into one of my dreams. It was a very weird dream.

Reminded me of the languid way he'd say, "Hey sweetie" and, oddly enough, you could hear the smile in his voice.

Tapering...tapering...

Finally, it's coming to a tapering end. Almost at the point where I won't care anymore. What will probably remain is a token interest in his goings-on and a flicker of warmth at the pleasant memories and vague twinges at the few unpleasant ones.

The absence of contact has been instrumental. Who knows, maybe that's the way he wanted it, but I won't speculate - it's not about him anymore. Every action and non-action shows a piece of a person's character somehow, not to mention bolster the out-of-sight-out-of-mind thing of mine.

Decided some years ago that non-responsive friends don't get to stay friends - they become acquaintances. Even as the most casual of friends, replying is the polite thing to do, yes? After I've done my part as a friend, I wait for them to fall behind that invisible line I set. Once they've fallen behind, I know where to place them. Compartmentalise.

I'm a giving person, to friends and to those I love. But I have time limits, and they are very short.

Time limit is The Thing in my relationships with people, I realise. There is an amount of time involved in me figuring out a person. Thereafter, I make a decision as to how I compartmentalise them in my life.

I do this especially quickly with men. (Come to think of it, this is essentially how I got over ex-es - when I figured them out enough to stop wanting them. It gets easier with experience - was very efficient in getting over Kelvin in particular.)

I now know exactly where Kev goes in this scheme of things. Actually I'd always known. But that's the beauty of having time to figure things out on my own - gives my heart time to catch up with my brain. He once said he didn't want to lose me as a friend. I wonder what that meant. Words like that mean different things to different people. But it doesn't really matter. I have everything figured out.

I don't like being the uneven side of an equation, any sort of equation.

If you ramble and no one hears you, yodel...but sometimes, yodelling makes you sound desperate. Besides, I've always been a passive aggressive - I don't yodel. I have too much pride.

Solution: Turn your back on the silence and enjoy the view on the other side.

This is my closure.

[Side note: Some friends are harder to do this to than others, I found out. Like a really old friend-now-acquaintance who keeps thinking that you're one of their closest friends and asks you to sing at their wedding service...and have no idea that you're an atheist who'd rather yodel while dangling nude from the church rafters than be a cantor-for-a-day. That was a ramble.]

South in the Golden (Haired) State

The stereotype is true - southern California probably has the greatest concentration of bleached-blondes in the world.

Just back from a short but tiring trip to LA and Orange County. Didn't get to see much of the places though, since the purpose of the trip was for my sis and Tom to meet relatives and friends.

Thought the rest of you actors out there will get a kick out of this ;)
Back then, I'm sure they didn't mean it the way we see it now.
This neither, but there's no stopping us filthy minds.
Chocolated laxative??
Lots of zipping around on long car rides ranging anywhere from 1 to 7 hours, me sandwiched between the baby and Sean. Hence, I got stereo whining. Add in kicking and fingernail swipes from the baby, plus pushing and "no", "I don't wanna", "you CAN'T" (and more such) from Sean...and you get one grouchy aunt whose sister owes her BIG TIME.

Caitlyn is absolutely adorable, as usual, when she's not kicking me, digging her fingernails into my arm or yelling to be held.
She's also very orally fixated. She'll lick anything, and she's got a long tongue. She's going to make some guy very happy one day.
NOOOOOOO paparazzi!!
For anyone who pictures California as this beautiful state blooming with lush crops and flowers, this is what is looks like most of the year - brown. Same reason they call it the 'Golden' State.
LA was hot, and not in the good way. Disappointing lack of eye candy, though there was an unnatural abundance of blondes and visibly silicon boobs. Orange County was prettier, but too manicured looking, much like its residents. The hilly terrain of Southern California ensured great views from certain vantage points though, and since Tom's relatives are sprinkled across the slopes of LA, we got a few decent views.

The family we stayed with had two gorgeous cats and an extremely friendly and energetic dog. To the owner's surprise, I was apparently one of the very rare few whom the two cats came up to at first sight. I guess it's true what they say about cats being able to identify a cat lover in a snap. Didn't manage to get a picture of Hero, the affectionate black-and-orange girl, but managed to snap the magnificent Che - he shed copious amounts of red fur on me, but it was worth it.
This is Diva with her deep voice and eyes the colour of the summer sky.
Oh lordy, check out that mirror. I wish I were descending those stairs in a gown rather than my tank and shorts.
Visited Tom's very old uncle and aunt - couldn't place her accent at first, which was mixed with a Jewish-American warble, thanks to 59 years of marriage to her Jewish hubby (Tom's side of the family are mostly of Russian-Jewish descent), till I heard her pronounce "cat": she's French. They have this very cool old-world TV set. To get an idea how old they are, those are their grandchildren in the framed picture on the TV.
I noticed an interesting and probably unintentional trend in Tom's extended family - Jewish boys marrying Catholic girls. Old French aunt above is Catholic, and I got to hear her speak about the crap she had to take for wanting to marry a Jew boy. My sis is Catholic. Two of his cousins married Brazilian women, which most likely places them as Catholics too. Tom's mum tops them all - she was Catholic AND German AND married his dad not too long after WW2.

Another of Tom's aunts has the coolest home. It sits on a steep hill which she has terraced and turned into a multi-leveled garden with goodness knows how many types of plants, flowers, fruits and a small koi pond. Her home also had a complete view of the LA Basin. Wish it had a better view of the sunset, though. I stood out on her balcony through as much of the twilight as I could. On the way back, we ate at a cowboy-themed diner. Their lamps were all in the shape of cowboy hats and one of their booths was made to resemble a small jail cell - every time the waiter brought them their food, we could hear the clang.

Caitlyn was clearly in a good mood. See those two bottom teeth? They're her first! They popped out when she was about four months old.
Now that's a tall margarita. And in case you're wondering, yes - I've been eating lots and spending lots of time in the sun, not always intentionally.
This is the longest straw I've ever seen. We got to keep the glass and the straw!
Blur attempt to capture the compelling silhouettes of the Californian hills at twilight. Think the bug-splattered windshield also ruined the effect.
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From before the trip:

Had another species of margarita at Chili's. Was just taken by the colours. Tasted wonderful too. Given the amount of babysitting I help with, I deserve alcohol. (I'm this close to swearing off kids.)
My little Canon Ixus is surprisingly good even with daylight moon shots. This was taken in the late afternoon.