Monday 28 May 2012

could i live without alcohol

I have wondered about not drinking, about giving up alcohol. 

I have found that when I do (over) indulge,  my asthma seems to get worse.  Being hung over and having trouble breathing..... not a very pleasant experience.  I googled that today, does alcohol affect asthma and it does, because of acid reflux and some acid that gets into the breathing tubes which in turn causes swelling and the production of mucus.  or it could be a sensitivity to Sulfites that are in beer and wine.
I could experiment with different types of alcohol and see if it is only wine that is doing this to me ( I have been drinking more wine lately) or I could just stop drinking.......which brings me back to the question of could I live without alcohol.

I never liked to drink as my ex husband drank alot and he was always violent once he got drunk.  I never enjoyed drinking with him as the night could (and usually did) end up with a fight.  I  drank more after my divorce as I found it helped to knock me out at night and I could actually fall asleep without thinking that me and the kids were fucked as we didn't have a single cent.  I realised quickly that alcohol was not the answer and that I needed to be clear headed to get to work and feed the kids.  I still used to drink on the weekends which was like binge drinking.  After a long week, you crave that one day to let it all hang loose.
Recovery got harder so I stopped the weekly drinking, as the flat was not going to clean itself and me recovering from a hangover was no good to anyone.

So what do I do..... I like drinking sometimes, like yesterday,  the girls and I had a great time in the park with champagne, but today at work I feel like I have been hit by a train and dragged 10 miles.  and I cant breathe, the inhaler is working overtime today.
I should restrict myself to two drinks and not drink wine

So lets see if I can do that, move back to my Gin or Whiskey and  stick to two drinks........


Friday 25 May 2012

you know you are getting old when

1.  sitting on the bus going to work in the morning you are actually wondering if you put on deodorant.

2.  all those hunky football players you loved watching are now white haired football managers.

3.  walking down stairs and you hear a creak and you are horrified to realise its your knees. 

4.   Reading something takes a bit longer as you need to adjust the angle of your head to let those damn bifocals get into focus

5.  you have to get a brazillian because you dont want to see your white pubes

6.  you cant wear that short skirt anymore as your knees look wobbly

7. You agree wholeheartedly when someone says that 50 is the new 40

8.  Justin Bieber annoys you, oh wait that one really isnt a getting old thing, he annoys most people

9.  You keep checking your boobs in the mirror to see how low they are today

10. You keep googling  menopause and are terrified to think that one day your vagina will dry up




Thursday 24 May 2012

whats the etiquette on lingerie

Here's my delimma
 I bought lingerie to wear for him, I loved him but it didn't work so now what do I do with the lingerie.

I like my lingerie but for the life of me don't know if I am allowed to wear it for another man.  Do you talk about the history of the lingerie with another lover?
Do you wear it for another lover?
I don't want to throw it away, it cost me money (yes am tight!) and I think I look nice in my lingerie.
The lack of experience at my age is laughable but true, the only upside of this is that I am still learning and am experiencing new things daily, even if it is about lingerie and relationships.
Will it sully the relationship I had with him, I dont think so but I dont know how men feel.  Do they even think about these things?  Would they look at my lingerie and wonder how many men I have worn it for?  Would he wonder if I was wearing it for other men.  I think women think too much!

All I know is that I have all this lovely lingerie and I dont intend to chuck it away at the bottom of my cupboard to be pulled out only when I have had too much wine and then I will cry  because I have had too much wine and lingerie thats sitting in the bottom of my cupboard being useless while I think of the bloody past.

Wednesday 23 May 2012

different shades of brown

I tan (quite) easily and although not a sun worshipper do like to see myself with a bit of brown.
I recently spent three days in the sun , helping out at one of the events.  I don't usually go onsite for an event but this time they needed a qualified person who understood the safety rules (attending a weeks worth of classes on risk assessment and safety, somehow made me qualified)  anyway
It was an outdoors event and although there were tents and shade, its been rather hot here lately, so i actually have got a tan.
 He used to say I wasn't brown at all and that he was darker than me, which was true actually, even if I hated to admit it, and for a white man to say I was white, well you can imagine how fair of an Indian I am!!  so I am now a darker shade of pale.
However, getting a tan with your clothes on doesn't give you an even colour all over.  My hands and arms are the darkest while the rest of the body seem to be a gradient of different shades.   I am now 5 different shades of brown!

come away with me

I am lucky in that in my line of work I get to schmooze and network with all the major brands of hotels.  We  get invited to cocktails and dinners where they wine and dine us and have lucky draws for  free stays in their luxury brand hotels.  I have got a few of these but I never really used them as they were mostly for romantic getaways to some beach resort in the region.  I only ever used one for a 5 star hotel in Bangkok and that time I took Mum with me.
I used to tell him lets go and he would say ok, but I suspect that was only to shut me up.  He never went away with me, he didnt want to.
So now I have a 2 night stay for 2 at a 5 star luxury resort in Chiang Mai, what do I do with that I wonder.  A romantic get away by myself perhaps or give it away to someone who has a partner?
What do I do with my voucher for lunch for 2 at one of Singapore's top hotels, take the son?
Yes am feeling sorry for myself.  Yes I am mad that he never went away with me and made me believe that he actually considered it.  Yes am mad with myself for being so blind
Next time I will make sure I find a man who will say to me "come away with me"

Friday 18 May 2012

Brazil

I have never been to Brazil and I guess I would like to go one day but what I am talking about isn't the country Brazil, its more of the wax.
When we were kids stepping into our hormonally challenged teenage years, my mother never had the talk with us, so we didn't know anything about sex or grooming down there or as I have heard it referred to as "tending your garden"
As I married the first man that touched me, I didn't really know much about tending my garden and my ex didn't really care (he was too busy shagging everything in sight to bother with my garden!)
After the divorce, I heard about what other women did and I started to experiment.  A trim here, a trim there, a shave here and a shave there. I never took it all off, just trimmed the hedges sort of.  Then I discovered waxing.
I went the whole hog, took it all off but left a landing strip.  It looked like something a porn star would do (how do I know what porn stars do.... well that will be another post)
Waxing your nether regions is not a prolonged affair.  Its actually over within 15 minutes.  They tell you to take off your bottoms and knickers and hop onto a massage looking bed.  You modestly cover up with a small towel and wait for the therapist to come in.  She breezes in and chats cheerily as she whips off the towel and snaps on rubber gloves.  While making small talk she switches on a headlight and directs it at your pubes and starts to, and I can only describe it as, caress your pubes as she  nonchalantly enquires when you last had your pubes waxed!
All this while theres a light shining on your private bits and the therapist is lifting your leg into an impossible yoga position and tells you not to move.  You try very hard not to let the pain in your leg distract you but then she slaps a bit of hot wax and you know you are in for torture!
A Brazilian wax takes it all off, the front the middle, the insides, everywhere you have hair, and yes that means the crack of your bum too.  Yes the therapist gets to see all your gory bits!

After the initial pain and subsequent numbness you feel, or don't feel, you start to touch yourself and are amazed that the skin is softer than a baby's bottom!
I did continue with the Brazilian for awhile until my pain threshold decreased and I couldn't always get the same therapist and I didn't like all the girls wondering how come middle aged women needed to wax as they weren't supposed to have sex, and no sex shouldn't be the only reason you wax, but as i didn't swim what other reason would there be!
so now my little garden is tended to by me and me alone, unless I find some man who has a fetish about trimming garden hedges!


end of the frontier

Thats what he calls himself.
I met him online at the end of August in 2007 on a dating site.  We used to chat online alot, and I finally met him face to face in October that same year.  I was actually dating three men at that time.
A - the frontier
T - Mr NZ
T2 - lets just call him T2.
T2 was a very sweet man, he had recently lost his wife and we went out for dinners but there was no chemistry.  I stopped seeing him after 5 dinner dates.  I wanted to stop seeing him earlier but felt sorry for him.  it was wrong for me to stretch the dates to 5 dates and I will never unwittingly  lead a man on like that again.

Mr NZ - I ended up dating him exclusively for a bit as I had dropped T2 and the Frontier was just a coffee friend.  It didn't work out with Mr NZ, it wasn't the right time for a relationship for me or him.  We only dated exclusively for a few months but it was good and we remain friends to this day. T is like the ex who you will want to date again!

The frontier - What can I say about him.  I knew from the beginning that this one would be trouble.  His icy green eyes, the slow curve of his lips when he smiled, the wicked wit and humour.  When he flicked his zippo lighter, I knew I was done for.  He never wanted a relationship and I thought I could deal with that as I wasn't ready for one either.  We flirted online, we flirted in person, we pushed a few boundaries, we connected on so many levels, music, movies, coffee, motogp!  We only took it to a whole new level at the end of 2009.  From then till recently, we broke our arrangement often, every six months or so he or I would pull back and say "cant do this, its getting heavy"  In the end we should have stopped our arrangement a year ago as I did tell him I was falling too fast for him.  He didn't let me go then and I wish now that I was stronger that I could have walked away from him.  He was giving me mixed signals and I was blinded by hope.
From the beginning of this year we both realised that it wasn't going to work but you know how it is, you try to see how to fix things.. In fact he said I was the one walking away from something....... go figure!

Its finally ended after so many times of us pulling back from each other because I want a full on relationship and he doesn't want things to change from our arrangement.  We couldn't find common ground.  Its sad as I do adore him and I know he does have feelings for me.  I will miss him but I don't think I could remain friends with him.  I don't have the experience on dealing with ex's, I only had the husband and I definitely am not friends with that one and there is I guess Mr NZ but Mr NZ is someone I remained friends with as we didn't have a messy breakup as it hadn't gotten heavy.
But with A I cant be friends as I would always wonder why he didn't want to share my life with me.

Monday 14 May 2012

how could I not write about the gusher

So I came home from work a few weeks ago to find the kitchen a little wet and I asked son no 2 ( who was as usual lying on the sofa channel surfing) about the the wet patch in the kitchen.

Son - its the sink near the bathroom, there's a leak
me - why didn't you call me to tell me there was a leak
son - huh! I thought you knew
me - really??! ( imagine that said laced heavily with sarcasm) and would I have gone to work without fixing the damn leak!
son - how should I know!

as this brilliant conversation went on, the leak got bigger and bigger until this happened
the gusher

Oh and did I mention he tried to "fix" it with scotch tape!

As I live in highrise in Singapore and we all know Singaporeans cant be
trusted to have access to their own water and valves to shut off their
water in times like this....... I couldn't shut off the mains
I ended up calling a 24 hour plumber to come down to change a small
little flexible pipe and I know I could have done it myself but
because we couldn't turn off the mains, we had to get the plumber

3 hours later and $150 poorer, the gusher was contained.

mothers day

I didn't really feel like celebrating mothers day this last weekend, who wants to celebrate when all you think about is the fact that he doesn't want a relationship and I have been alone for  16 fucking years and I was fed up of being alone and no that's not the reason I wanted a relationship in the first place!

But I went for brunch with my mum, my sister and her husband, my brother and his family and son no 2.
I like the lights
It wasn't that bad...... the restaurant was beautifully laid out with all the i's dotted and t's crossed, it was the perfect little place for brunch on a Sunday and it was obvious that everyone else thought so too (serves me right for booking a restaurant that was one of the top places to have brunch!) 
sisters - somehow we both decided to wear polka dots










Mum didn't complain which was unusual but good, which in turn made everyone happy, or was that the alcohol they ordered.
If it wasn't for the fact that the place was crawling with so many children that I felt my vagina cringe, or the fact that there seemed to be more expats than locals there, I am sure I would go back !


                                                                                       
i had eggs
and there was french toast
Anyway....Happy mothers day!

what I would like for my birthday

If I decide to have a party to celebrate 50 years on this planet, is it ok to tell people what presents I want.
like a wedding registry .....
It would save everyone the headache of thinking about what to get me.  And we all know we buy presents based on what we want to get and not what the person actually wants
so here is my list of what I want for my birthday

1.  A Kindle
2.  A six month subscription to a dating website for old men who are millionaires ( I figure in six months I       should be able to find a millionaire old man husband)
3.  Cash - to help with my I must visit Paris trip this year
4.  Entrance fees to the Casino in Singapore - I figure if I cant marry a millionaire, I might as well try to become one!
5.  Pay a taxidermist to stuff my cat after she dies (this would have to be a voucher of sorts, no dates as Tubby may be old but she is still sprightly!)
6.  One of those old lady trolleys - you know the ones, that little old ladies take with them when they go get groceries.


I will be updating this post as I will come up with a lot more ideas, I have till September so be warned....

the good old days

Why do we start hankering for the good old days when we get older.  I hear plenty of people over 45 start a sentence with "when I was young" or "remember when"
Why do we do it.  Why do we sit and reminisce about the past as if things really were better.  We had no cell phones, no Internet, flying to London took us 24 hours instead of the 13 odd hours it now takes.  There was only one screen for everyone to watch one movie on the plane too!  Television was minimal, there were no cable channels, Singapore radio was bad,  it still is bad but at least we have more than one station now, even if they do play similar pop tunes.  There were only a handful of shopping centres, now we have a zillion malls. The buses were rickety, dirty old bone shakers and never came on time.  It took ages to get into town (Orchard Road), now there are highways and an underground train system. 
What is it about days long gone that we fondly remember.  Is it just that we were younger and we weren't in the rat race yet and we viewed the world though innocent eyes.  Do we only remember the good things in our past?
I have been revisiting the old places we used to go and in a fast developing country like Singapore it is hard to find places that haven't been torn down or redeveloped.  I was born and brought up in an area called Serangoon Gardens.  it was developed in the 1950's by the British and my grandfather bought a house there in 1955.  My parents bought a house there in 1971 and that is where I grew up, with cousins living round the corner from us and of course the Grandparents.  I went to primary school there, and the school is right in front of grandparents home.  The school is still there but has had a make over, my mums brother bought the house from my grandfather and he still lives there and my mum still lives in the house Dad and her bought in 1971.  The houses have been re done, the estate keeps getting re done and I look around and things are starting to look unfamiliar.  Is that what we hanker after, the familiarity?
Mum told me a couple of days ago that her old hair salon is going to close down soon, as the landlords are not going to renew the lease as a bank has offered more money.  That's whats been happening to the area, the old mom and pop stores are all gone ( except for one) and the old unique businesses are disappearing.  in its place is the usual banks, fast food places, restaurants and bars.  Gone is the corner shop where I bought second hand books, its where I bought and devoured silly mills & boon romances, gone is the old man who sold just about everything in his store, gone is the stationery shop called Popular store and no it isn't the chain stationery store that you find in every mall now.  There used to be a Garden book shop that sold all the teenage magazines that I used to buy.  Gone is the old man that used to sit in his shop repairing watches and clocks.  In its place are wine shops, restaurants, a mini mall all with cookie cutter stores like   McDonald's, Sushi Te, Cold storage, Harrys, to name just a few.
Its become quite soulless, devoid of character and atmosphere.

I cant find any old pictures of the estate, so I am going to wander around for the next month or so, taking pictures of the old untouched houses, shops and general areas. With this and my kitchen re modelling, so much to do, I just may be able to stop thinking of him and the failed attempt of a relationship.

Tuesday 8 May 2012

letter to me

Its ok to cry.  Its ok to let him walk away
It would never work as you both want different things.  He doesn't want things to change and you know that it can't go back to the way it was.  Some change and progress has to happen or else you will not be happy.  He wont be happy with change.  He doesn't want to hold your hand, he doesn't want to share your life.
Its ok to cry. Its ok to let him walk away

Monday 7 May 2012

my on going battle with patience

the online dictionaries define patience as
1. the bearing of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain, without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like.
2.an ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay.  

Its a virtue, to be patient and not be impetuous or hasty.  It is a virtue I have tried to cultivate and have failed miserably.  I am too passionate in everything I do to be able to sit and meditate and think before I leap and boy has that got me into alot of trouble!  I do try to think before I leap, I do try to patiently wait and let nature take its course...... but I fail, fail to see that only with patience will I be able to achieve peace of mind and body.  I want things to happen now.  I want results now.  I have been told I am task orientated and I don't know if that is what makes me impatient, but  all I know is that I want results now, I want to see the end results asap!


I am calm in times of emergency or highly stressful situations, my 13 odd  years in event management has helped me to focus on thinking of how to get things done rather than panic when something goes wrong, but woe be that person who doesn't think on her/his feet but stares at me like a deer in headlights when I ask for something! 


I wonder if a short stay at an ashram somewhere in India would do me any good.  To sit and meditate and ponder ones existence (and no Eat Pray Love was not one of my favourite books or movie!)  I doubt I would be able to sit still for more than 10 minutes, in  contemplation or in silence.   If they guaranteed that after a few weeks of contemplation, I would be able to be patient and not want immediate gratification, then maybe I would go to India and find an ashram.  Good God listen to me!  Wanting guarantees!
There is no hope for me unless I get therapy !!


I will still try to cultivate patience in my everyday life and in my pursuit of fixing the attempt of a relationship, however  if you do see a woman in the street kicking a lampost or shaking a tree or some plant, you will know that it takes time to cultivate patience and  that is just me taking my frustrations out on something that wont hit back!

Friday 4 May 2012

its hard to give up sex

Sex complicates things.  It does.  After my divorce I didn't have sex for a few years as I just wasn't interested in a man at all.  I of course didn't give up having orgasms, those were easy  but for years I stayed away from the intimacy and touching the opposite sex.  As I settled into becoming a provider and taking over as head of the household, I also became more in tune with my manly side.  No I didn't grow a moustache (hang on,  bad example, I am an Indian woman and I will not discuss my moustache here!) or decide I was going to bat for the other side, what I mean by manly side is that I had to hide my emotions and if I wanted sex, I would just get it.  I did not go out and shag everything in sight, I do have more common sense than that, but I  had an arrangement with a good friend that I could trust.  It wasn't the most ideal scenario but I was getting some.
When I started dating again, I stopped seeing my friend as I was ready to start looking for a more committed and exclusive relationship.
 That's when those bad dates, those one date wonders etc happened.  Then I met someone and it developed into an attempt of a relationship (I am screwed up so anything resembling a real relationship would have sent me running).  So sex became a part of the relationship, and I got used to being touched again.  The intimacy, the touching, the stroking, it was addictive.  Now that we are stepping back and evaluating this whole attempt of a relationship, I am craving all the things I fought so hard to ignore.
 We can't go back to having sex, as it will complicate this stepping back thing, and  I am not the sort of person who will go have random sex with strangers, as it needs to have a meaning.  Seeing him this last week has only made me more aware that I miss him touching me!

And no this itch isnt something BOB (battery operated buddy)  will be able to cure.  Its not about the orgasm, its about the touching and that is one thing BOB cant do!

Thursday 3 May 2012

Barcelona

Another year and another high end event to do.  This one I got involved in the team that came up with the idea and selling it to the client, which was why I ended up going to Barcelona twice in 2009.
La Boqueria
In August we went to do our usual pre event site inspections to choose restaurants, things to do and things to see.  In November we went back to do the actual event. 
a tapas bar
The Food, the people, the place, it was interesting, surreal and better than what I expected from a city.  I am interested in history, anything to do with history  (I did have grand plans to be a history teacher once)  so for me Barcelona (or any old city) would have held my attention.  But Barcelona had the added charm of Gaudi, Tapas and Jamon.  As a culinary virgin I know little of fancy feasts and Michelin restaurants but here in this city I had feasts that made my mouth sing and met chefs that made me giggle like a school girl and stare in amazement at their skills.

the hotel, they filmed Vicki, Christina barcelona here
I loved the old quarter and I wished that I had taken better pictures because the balconies, the cobbled stones, the gothic  church, everything was just breathtaking

the church

the epiphany

Its taken alot for me to admit that I am more screwed up than I originally thought.  I used to think that I was smarter than all the other women and that I knew what made men tick.  Over confidence has led to arrogance and total lack of understanding of how men really think.
I get on my high horse and like all women feel that I am the victim and he is the terrible person who doesn't want the relationship.  I never stopped to ask myself "what made him so reluctant"  I had an epiphany of sorts,  I actually listened to what he was saying and I realised that I was to blame for alot of how and what  he was feeling.  What a revelation!
Will I learn from this, I sure hope so, Will I understand men now, probably not  but I am going to consciously try to understand it from his point of view.  So what does this mean in regards to the attempt of a relationship? well we are stepping back to evaluate.

an adventure in new zealand


This is where I decided that living in a small town would suit me.  This is where I knew that I could be happy operating my own B&B when I retired.  In October 2008 I went to Queenstown, New Zealand.  I had never been to NZ even though my dads brother lived in Auckland, and  I did date a man from NZ too (who is a good friend now and the fact that I dated a man from NZ should have no bearing whatsoever to the fact that I went to NZ!!)
 Anyway, we had an event to do there (we being the colleagues in an event company that I worked in) and as I was on the pre event team I was allowed to go there to help out.  I dont like doing events, strange but true and I am still in event management but just not doing the events ..... thank god for that!   Events are stressful, thankless and tiring, but as it was Queenstown, I jumped at the chance to go.  Even if it meant long hours and sharing a room with the girl that snored.  This was also the event that we got Dame Kiri Te Kanawa to sing during the Gala dinner, in a quaint winery.  It was magical!  After the event we had a day to close accounts and do a bit of sightseeing.  Then I had a week off and headed to Auckland to stay with my uncle and his family.  Funny thing about family, you dont  see them for years, but when you do, it feels like you are home.  My Uncle and Aunt drove me around and down to Rotorua (where they now run a motel) and let me play tourist.  I will go back to New Zealand if I ever get the chance, it is one of those magical places (Peter Jackson was a smart man to film there!) where the landscape, the people, the air, everything is just one beautiful place.

the kitchen

It all started with a visit to a furniture fair with my sister and her husband.  I wanted to look for a new computer desk.  Little did I know that I was going to embark on a stupid course of "hey lets do the kitchen too"  without considering all the consequences.
the current kitchen!
I got all excited about the prospect of actually making some changes to the house and having a new "home office" area for my files, bills, computer, printer and all the odds and ends that end up on the desk and after a week or so usually end up in the bin anyway sort of junk.  I got  3 designers to come look at my place to give me a quote on the desk and at the same time I thought lets do the kitchen!  I got 2 quotes, the 3rd designer seems to have disappeared completely, but so far none of their ideas are interesting enough for me to actually want to do the desk.  Then I was told about the destruction or dismantling of the old kitchen cabinets, the extent of time I would be without a kitchen and it was then only that I realised that I had to take every damn thing out of the cabinets before they actually started work!  What the hell was I thinking!  I didn't have the time to do this!
But the more I thought about new cabinets the more I wanted them.  I really hate my kitchen cabinets, I didn't have the money or time when we first moved in 15 years ago to do any renovations. So I am going to do this, slowly, but the change will happen.
I am negotiating now with the 2 designers, on price and on what I want.  I did want a breakfast bar but the lack of space and originality by the designers is making me think that the breakfast bar will remain in my head only.  Speaking of lack of originality the designers also lack practicality,  none of them have thought about where to put my microwave and ironing board.
The internet has been a very useful tool to go seek out answers to questions in my head about material, price and what to expect from a contractor.  The (non) boyfriend has been extremely useful here too (yes I am still with him and we are attempting to evaluate things).
 So the plan is to get furniture from stores, or those teak stores in Dempsey,  for the computer desk and files and to just do the kitchen cabinets.
It will be hard work to sort the cupboards and throw away all the bits of cutlery, pots and pans, dishes that I haven't used or don't want but I guess its a project that will keep me occupied and out of trouble.