Dora's Eggs

Reading a book to the boy about a hen named Dora and her clutch of eggs...

YY, do you eat eggs?
>>Yes!
Oh, you see, Dora's eggs became little chicks!
>> *hng*
Do you think when you eat the eggs, Dora will be sad?
>> No.
Why?
>> Our eggs don't have chicks inside.

OHhhhhhh.... I see!


****I wonder what he will say if I asked him, how about eating the chicks up when they grow into chickens? Do you think he will say that Dora most probably will have been eaten by then so she won't feel sad anymore when we do go after her grown up chicks? ..... eh, think better not sc*ew up his young mind.

Like wolves in a hyena feast

I just coined this out of a moment inspired by pure disbelief. Protocol has been upheld to highest level and wolves, instead of governing themselves and pursuing the higher purpose, are gathering themselves around the carrion of scavengers to salivate.

Passages ...

"How do we forgive ourselves? Our parents watch us so carefully when we're children, desperate not to miss a first scream, a first step, a first word, never taking their eyes off us. Yet we do not watch them. They near the end in solitude-even those who live beside us die in solitude-and rarely do we catch their own milestones: the last scream before the morphine settles in, last step before they cannot walk, last word before the throat seals."

.... from the book "The confessions of Max Tivoli" by Andrew Sean Greer.

Ethan's Turducken Song

This turducken thingy is growing more absurb by the year. Basically, somebody decided to stuff a chicken into the duck and stuff that same duck into a turkey and serve the 3 musketeers up for christmas. Get it?

Sick on a day off.

I slept, from 10pm the previous day to 8am, then from 9am to 1pm, 2-5pm and then 9pm till 8am this morning. Sure feels good being sick on a day off.

A pot or a cup

Wondering, if you made a pot of tea with a teabag, versus making a cup of tea with the same teabag, whether you'd get less caffeine drinking the one cup versus the one pot?

No school...

...for the next few days. Been battling his cough for the last few days. Doctor ordered an x-ray and a blood test for him today. It's a chest infection. We escaped admission by the skin of our teeth. Again, we are reminded to pull our act together and get it right. It takes so little to tip him off the edge. *sigh*

HCMC

Arrived in Ho Chi Minh City. Will be having meetings here over the next 3 days. Can't remember when was the last time I was here... 2 years ago maybe? Changes? New airport, more vehicles ( cars, not motocycles) on the road, strangely less soot in the air, more buildings... this place is really developing quickly and that's only the observation from the airport to the hotel. Hope I will get the chance to go out for a bit of a walkabout later.

Super Long weekend... (4days)

Asked. What did we do on Thursday? Blank on Big One's face... Took a full minute before I remember what we did.

We went to the Airport! By MRT! Together with the boy, thinking T3 was open. It was not. So we walked around the other two terminals, ate and came back by train again. The boy puked. Twice. I think we gave him a neb that evening.

Friday. Gave the boy another neb in the morning and off we went to the beach. Boy fussed when we refused to let him ride his own bike but stopped when we showed him the tandem bike with a child seat in front. He rode while we peddled. Think he must have enjoyed it very much, kept shouting, " Faster Mummy! Faster Papa! Faster!" We had to tell him to "SHUT UP!". Because he was getting breathless screaming his lungs out whilst we ( maybe just I ) were peddling like crazy. While we rested at the beach near the hawker centre, the boy found an almost new plastic pipe, the type people use for plumbing, twice his height in length and had a fantastic time dragging, digging, hitting and piping (sand) with it; something not possible ever to play with in our tiny flat.

Saturday. The boy went for his violin lesson. He's better this week. I promised him a hamburger if he behaved. He did and I bought a S$1.85 cheeseburger from Macdonalds. Was a bit shocked at how miserly it was; the boy ate the whole thing.

Today... went to Jacob Ballas Childrens Garden. Thought the installation at the entrance was quite cool. The boy had fun. He enjoyed throwing a couple of pebbles into the 'river' whilst balacing on a tree trunk, wreaking havoc on a patch of mimosa plants, climbing up the tree house and sliding down the tubes; 'chopping' a hollow tree truck with a stick, navigating the maze bush and working the excavator on the playground. Refused to nap in the afternoon.

He must know too that the looong weekend is coming to an end.

* I managed to finish a book called INTO THE WILD by JON KRAKAUER.

ERP & VBL

I was asked to remove one of my post and that was the only post which had the words "Sex" and "Condoms" in 1 sentence! Anyway, today's post is about ERP and VBLs and I am hoping nobody will ask me to take this one out.

So, ERP prices has gone up 3 times this year did you know that? I didn't. Heard it in the news and went oh no!!! I really don't care much about it. I only hear a beep. The Big One however, hears notes and coins flying out together with THE BEEP. And so, he gets irritated when I don't leave the house before 7:30am to avoid THE BEEPS and gives me THE FACE. Right! So now that a new gantry has been installed that operates between 6-8pm at night, if I am to avoid THAT BEEP, I need to either leave on the dot or work 12-hour shifts. Failing which THAT BEEP will go off!

Anyway, not wishing to get THE FACE, I took the train to work today. It costs less than A BEEP. On the way, I was considering the consequence of this action - could having less BEEPS recorded mean that the BEEPS are effective and therefore give rise to more or louder BEEPS in the future? SHIT... and then I noticed something. It is impossible to spot VBLs... "Visible Brief Lines".

How do the man get this one right? Started looking at every male butt on the train and on the way to work to try to spot one. Didn't see any.

Hmmm....wondering if this VBL spotting activity of mine will convince the Big One to become BEEP-DEAF.

Shoot an arrow at them and it comes right back...

That's how it is with kids. Was reading a book to the small one yesterday. Wanted it to be interactive so paused to let him complete the sentences. After the 2nd pause, he went, "I tell you! You read by yourself ok? Don't ask me!" ... the exact same thing I told him a couple of nights ago when I was too tired to read him his 10 books.