BloodCafe

It never fails to amaze me how much change we experience on a daily basis just living passively in a place like Singapore. By "living passively" I mean just going to work in an office, going home, going out for some chow, going to the supermarket, checking out the bookshop, just the mundane boring stuff that I'm sure other people do in between more exciting activities like scuba-diving, going on spa holidays, running a marathon... stuff I used to do before I met My Son.

But I digress.

I went to Paragon shopping centre yesterday to get my hair done and almost screamed. The place has completely changed. First, Project Shop Is No More (!!!!!!). It's just gone (!!!!!!). In its place is a lot of blindingly colourful hoarding. BloodCafe didn't go with it - it's now a little patch of concrete and glass on the second floor right next to the up and down escalators. So that hundreds of passers-by can see what you are eating and breathe on your food. Not just the people that walk past on the second floor but the multitudes that are going from the second floor to the third and vice versa.

No more giant magazine rack. No more cool red ceiling lights. No more vast chalkboards full of specials. No more gay (or gay-like) waiters ignoring your every need. The place is now the size of a walk-in wardrobe, the chalkboard now space-savingly wraps around a pillar (I'd like to see how we can read THAT), the waiters look like normal 12 year olds and the diners look as vapid and silly as I've ever seen any other people sitting in any other second-rate cafe serving any other second-rate food next to a busy thoroughfare.

And my poor husband still thinks they serve his favorite key-lime pie. Sweetie, I don't think they even serve 50% of what was in their regular menu anymore. Where's the freaking kitchen? That's what worries me. When you can't see the restaurant kitchen anymore, you just know it's been hidden away somewhere next to the toilets, in a space so obscure that the Building Management couldn't fit a rentable storefront.

Blood Cafe used to be a place where you could sit for hours and read all their cool UK/ US/ European magazines whilst eating (1) the greatest Caesar salad ever; (2) a really funky little bolognaise; and (3) their banana cream pie. No point rushing, since you have to wait at least 10 minutes before you can get the waiter's attention anyway. The kitchen was right there and you could see that it was not filled with children using microwave ovens.

I am very sad.

In other news, there's now a RAOUL for women, Diesel (next to Miss Sixty) and a new Cafe Beviamo (spell that right?) on the top floor plus some rooftop garden that I didn't manage to check out. The place looks very well managed, although with the disappearance of Blood Cafe (and the appearance of its hideous substitute) there really isn't any place to eat at in Paragon anymore.

In the office on my birthday!

There's something vaguely dissatisfying about that. In fact, more than vaguely dissatisfying. I thought if I took a day off I might not know what to do with myself, but on my way to work today, I could think of a bazillion things:

1. Get a massage from Little Snow at Qi Mantra (or Little Bloody Snow, which is how I feel about her when she's viciously grinding the knots out of my back muscles);
2. Splurge on the Christmas edition of Glamour, Cosmopolitan or Instyle (and, most importantly, read it from cover to cover without any wet/sticky little hands trying to touch/ tear/ crumple the pages);
3. Get My Hair Done;
4. Get My Nails Done; and then
5. Spend about 2 hours trying to get my son to say "Newton's Second Law states that the acceleration of an object is dependent upon two variables - the net force acting upon the object and the mass of the object. Therefore Force Equals Mass Times Acceleration." so that he can recite this tomorrow at the Little Gym Class and freak the hell out of all the other parents.

Oh yes. 6. To buy that freaking fantastic new flash for my Canon Digital Rebel so that I can get better photos of my son freaking the hell out of the other parents at tomorrow's gym class.

But I digress. Got into the office today and my boss' secretary had bought me a steaming cup of coffee (latte) from Banoffi downstairs to wish me Happy Birthday! I was extremely touched. Also got a mass e-card from the office. Quite touched (but a little less so). I'm very surprised that they remembered. Especially since I tend not to remember anyone's birthday except my own. And my son's. And my husband's (which I've had to programme into some passwords so that I can remember).

Any birthday songs? Yes! It will increase the cheese factor of this blog 100-fold, but here goes:

1. Dido: Here With Me
2. Tori Amos' version of Landslide by Fleetwood Mac
3. Goodbye My Lover by James Blunt
4. Beth Orton: Sweetest Decline

"What’s the use in regrets
They’re just things we haven’t done yet.
What are regrets?
They’re just lessons we haven’t learned yet."

My Spinach, Your Kitchen?!

So yeah. I've been _ALLOWED_ to make the creamed spinach for Lum's Thanksgiving Dinner this Saturday. So long as I make it in HIS kitchen. Why, I demanded to know. Why can't I make it in my kitchen. My kitchen works, you know. Well, says the ever-tactful Lum, it's so that if you screw it up I can still fix it.

Flour, water, cream, cheese, spinach, salt, pepper and nutmeg. If I can't mix these ingredients together without screwing it up, it'll be a wonder how I manage to get up every day and brush my teeth without wetting the entire bathroom.

Wait. Did that come out right?

Anyway. As I was saying. Do I want to make the creamed spinach still, knowing that I'll have Lum breathing down my neck the whole time ("Is that how you hold your knife? What kind of creamed cheese did you use? Why are you stirring counter-clockwise?") or should I make the stuff at home and in peace, lug it over and incur the displeasure of my host? Hmmm..

Hang on a minute. What am I saying? Other people are bringing food. Are other people supposed to cook in his kitchen as well? Kerry, if you are reading this, please confirm if you will be baking the Tomorrow Cheesecake in Lum's kitchen as well. And please also confirm if you will be baking that cheesecake the day before. If not, then you should. No point telling all and sundry for 2 years in a row that the cheesecake we are eating today will taste better tomorrow.

Anhydrous Benzoyl Copper Sulphate! E = mc2! Force equals Mass times Acceleration!

My son's first words to me in the morning!

I am such a liar.

Exhausted

3 of my most demanding files have just reared their demanding heads. No. Make that 4 - I've just received the instructing email for the 4th. Answers required within the hour. Yet I am bravely blogging.

Have been carrying the stress home and it's seriously affecting my sleep. Not to mention the fat noisy 8-month old baby sleeping in my bed who has now made it a habit to wake up at 3 a.m. every night.

No wonder he has eyebags.

Finally.

Having finally run out of memory cards, I've gone out and put all the baby photos on CD. But I still can't bear to delete them from the card. Deleting pictures of the Son! No way!

He stood up by himself today without any support!! And immediately fell down, of course, and there was much crying and recrimination. But I am so pleased. Maybe he can start on some proof-reading tonight.

Here is my son wearing his little scrunchy sized swimsuit (which cost me S$30, thus making it the most expensive scrunchy in the world).

Happy Belated Halloween, y'all!

This is one of his favourite pacifiers now.

My little chicken bun

Always in a good mood! (well, almost always)

Hello!

It's been ages since I last put in a new entry. I know I should write more often, but I get my kicks now from reading other people's blogs and watching the latest episode of Project Runway.

Sonville can now stand up very easily, but needs to hold on to something. When he wants to stand and he's holding something in his hot little hand, he'll use his mouth to gum on to whatever support is available so he can keep standing. I think this will hold him in good stead as a future President when he's addressing his audience of millions. Of course, he should have stopped drooling by then.

He's going for his third gym class tomorrow. Actually, I get a bigger kick out of the gym class than he does. Where else would I have a captive audience of little babies his age that I can compare him to? For the 45 mins or so when I'm pretending to play wheelbarrow or London Bridge with my son, I'll be watching all the other little babies to see whether they're bigger/ fatter/ less whiny/ better dressed/ better behaved than my son. For all the bigger babies, I sidle up to the parents first chance I get and ask them how old their baby is. No point asking the pre-pubescent gym class teacher who blithely told me at the very first class that "they are all 7 months old". I wonder if she'll be surprised to learn that one of the little baby girls is ALMOST 10 MONTHS OLD. Does she even know where babies come from. At least she doesn't make us sing and clap our hands like trained circus animals, unlike Gymboree.

Have signed The Son up for the new term starting January 2006. Hopefully he'll be walking and talking by that time. Then he can get started with some proofreading.