Stories beg retelling and photos await uploading *Photog: Irene

It’s barely a week since returning to work and new adventures have begun lining themselves up. Said yes to an awesome opportunity, albeit with trepidation and much wonder still. I suppose it’s good to be a little unsure… there’ll be room for magic to happen. Oh how August will fly! Now, where’s my safety belt?

The Other Sheepgirl: Let’s say there were only you, Oily Boy and a sheep left on planet Earth. Between Oily Boy and the sheep, which would you choose?

Sheepgirl: The sheep. No doubts about it. Me and the sheep, we will build a safe zone and guard it against the Oily Boy.

The Other Sheepgirl: Muaahahahah!

Belated birthday mugshot.
The cartoon voice remains unbroken and Uncle No. 5 said that I’m looking more and more like Mama as I age.

I’m gonna give myself a LOMO LC-A for my birthday this year and resurrect my DSLR fund after the US trip, in time for Christmas. Chiri mo tsumoreba yama to naru…

Two more weeks to a weekend in San Francisco, a road trip down Highway 1, Wicked in LA, a week of havoc with The Chans in San Diego and Feist in concert… a much anticipated adventure with Irene and Huiling! Wooo!
 

Sometimes, following one’s heart feels like the most horrible thing to do.

Love, I hope thou art entertained by the tragicomedy that is me. Sigh.

Pretty lights accompanies a distant dreamer

The Chilean red gleams like liquid ruby in the oddly shaped glass that sits uneasily in my hand. The torrential rain shows no sign of letting up as I watch it play hopscotch on neon signboards and run off highway ramps and zinc rooftops. I wish I could smell stinky tofu in the air rather than the tension that hangs heavily above. Tonight, I wish I was a replicant in this city… dreaming of fluffy cheesecakes from Hakodate. Heh.

………

The harbour looks peaceful in the early morning, enshrouded in the mist. I sat by the hotel room window, pensive thoughts lost in translation as I watch the barge go by and raindrops race across the glass. Somewhere in the water, perhaps a little whale is finding its way home…

My love affair continues with PUMA Prance black coffee-gardenia-brush

I’m lazing in the hall with the apartment all to myself. Songs from The Frames’ The Cost album* rise and fall in full blast. There’s a freshly baked apple cake cooling on the kitchen counter. Spent the lovely morning cycling at East Coast Park with the girls and made rosemary pork patty burger with lots of mustard and garlic fromage for a very late lunch. Chammika came over with a crash course on the drive and sights from San Francisco to San Diego. Hee.. It’s an indulgent Sunday before the mad week ahead in Hong Kong…

*You’re three tracks into The Cost before you find a song, “The Rise,” that opens with anything but singer Glen Hansard’s voice as the first thing you hear. The beauty is, you’re waiting for the voice, with its hints of Cat Stevens’s tonality and its utterly distinct Irish lift. It’s Hansard that provides the Frames with such a rising vibe, the sense of a band always lifting off, pressed higher by Colm Mac An Iomaire’s violin. Mac An Iomaire’s strings slip and slide in the thickets of guitar, playing exceptional cat and mouse both when the guitars are clear and crisp and when they’re crashing furiously. The Frames wouldn’t claim to write epic tunes, but over and over the songs build toward ecstatic sonic events. Witness the hushed open to “People Get Ready” how it morphs into a violin and guitar-grit blast of wind-blown energy or the distortion-scoured hum behind Hansard’s lone voice on “True” launching a languorous, piano-driven backdrop as the singer lets loose a first-class yowl–the stuff of anguished beauty.
Amazon.com editorial review by Andrew Bartlett.

On a Friday morning not too long ago, I felt like I died and went to heaven. This particular heaven was Far East Flora’s refrigerated warehouse in Thompson Road. Fresh flowers of all types, colours and beauty filled the rooms, rows and rows of them… After an initial brainfreeze (hey, we were in a fridge!), we collected ourselves and the shopping begun! Irene was right, all a guy ever had to do to melt a girl’s heart is to bring her here and tell her to choose flowers to her heart’s desire. Forget the expensive bouquets with fancy wrappings, long-stemmed roses in plain plastic or brown corrugated cardboard are simple heart-stealers! Plus, they’re really cheap too! Later in the afternoon, production of the wedding favours went full swing - Huiling, Irene and I made 150 carrot (cup)cakes with Tiffany blue cream cheese icing! With red sugar hearts and flowers to fit Wendy’s wedding colour scheme, the yummy little beauties were almost too adorable to eat!

Wendy and William’s ROM was a riot of fun!

The next morning, as with all wonderful weddings, drama was aplenty. First, an early McDonald’s breakfast was woefully skipped as we were late! Okie, that’s beside the point, heh… then, with only one hour of setup time, it was a mad rush to decorate the place and pack the cupcakes into the mini white take-out boxes, complete with the Thank You sticker notes. The lush surroundings of Halia inspired the at home with junk and the precious decor which included Jo’s birdcages (complete with rust, bird shit and feathers), a sprouting little yam and mud-encrusted boots from Irene’s dad! The wooden deck floor was strewn with rose petals while jars of flowers and wedding favours lined the long dining tables. Huiling saved the day with her Tiffany ballpoint pen and the funny Justice of Peace made everyone laugh and the cupcake tower wobble with his wedding solemnization speech. The wedding setup was a hit with delighted guests and the constant stream of Botanical Garden visitors stopping by to snap photos or capture the wedding on their video cameras. Most importantly, the couple loved it! Wooo… I guess our motley crew of wedding decorators did good! Oh, did I say how much fun it all was? Hee…

When you are doing something you love, purpose and opportunities reveals itself. You find things without seeking and there is always this magical childlike wonder with each serendipitous discovery that keeps you from getting jaded.

The past one year felt like a crazy blessing and growing-up of sorts. At times, it felt like a circus act of fire-eating while crossing a tight rope on a unicycle. Most times, it was some act of bending space and time to emerge at your destination without ageing and with your sense of humour intact. A web of moments and events growing with significance as the world shrinks and your Facebook bunch of friends and acquaintances expands.

I think my heart has finally found synergy with my mind. There’s a quiet kind of happiness along with a renewed capacity to love and to give… but most of all, an amazing new calmness of being as I move forth at my own pace and on my own terms.

Once upon a time, I got really pissed with Mr Engelbert Humperdinck. No, not the geriatric singer and it was in actual fact, today. I was appalled by his actions concerning a mutual friend and I didn’t hold back at giving him a piece of my mind. It turned out that everything was just a misunderstanding and I could have been so much kinder. I would really like to say that he deserved it anyway for annoying me for the past few weeks but I can’t. For all the attitude that he had been giving, I had still accused him of something he was innocent of. Now I have to, however reluctantly, swallow my pride and figure out the best way to apologize. Sigh.

I recounted the entire disaster to Wendy Barney and she laughed so hard, I could imagine a call-out squirming itself out of my mobile phone with these two words: Idiot. You.

The (very embarrasing) End.