Monday, August 14, 2006
beautiful days
- Yesterday -
had a picnic at a nice quiet spot, opposite fr where i was on friday. armed with 2 trays of freshly homemade spaghetti, went tracking thru mudpiles and construction sites before settling down on a ledge where we dangled our feet above the singapore river. got my birkies totally bathed in mud, but it was worth it. everywhere ard us was totally quiet, but there was a gentle breeze accompanying the companionable silence. then checked out fast and furious at the new picturehouse. got sufficiently tired out to sleep the moment my head hit the pillow which is good. but u're right. rather burnt cheese does taste better on the spaghetti.
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Friday
- Bursts of magic -
was scheduled for the journey on fri but was cancelled. so went off to meet my fren for some shopping and lunch. while at bishan, decided to pop by my ex chinese tuition teacher's place cos i haven't met her in ages. taught me fr pri4 all the way to sec 4, lots of memories tuitioning at her place. amazing tat we still keep in touch.as always, very nice to meet up with her, cos she's so full of life, very free spirited, candid, very unlike singaporeans (abit duh cos she's taiwanese heh). i wonder if i'd ever been half as free spirited as her. doubt so, cos i'm too restrained.. or issit constrained? watever.
but well ended up late meeting the FAGs cos we were gonna picnic at esplanade before watching fireworks. sorry guys heheh!
well we managed to get a spot. got picnic mats, tons of really yummy food (thanks to the dedicated ppl who queued up), lots of waiting and pushing thru crowds to get to the toilet but once the fireworks began, i was jus enthralled and absorbed in the moment of it all. there were threads of gold, spews and specks of colours, and for tat moment, the dark sky was awash and glistening with colour, shimmers and life. and i was simply captivated. fireworks exist for the fleetest of moments, but they are proof tat beautiful things are but transient, and have to be enjoyed while it lasts. cos they never quite come back the same way as they presented itself there and then. it is the moment that matters, and maybe tats how life shld be led. didn't bother video-ing it, cos to me, i find tat 1) it wont do justice to it 2) there is no pt capturing tat moment of time cos u can only truly relive it in the depths of your memory 3) beautiful moments like this just aren't meant to be contained in the form of digital bytes.
went off to dxo after it, cos ladies get in free, with free flow of drinks.
surprisingly it was quite nice. like the place upstairs, tho the singer fr the live band had such an irritating accent. but nice drinks, crowd was quite ok, but somehow the appeal of clubbing seemed to have been lost on us. getting old? maybe.or maybe just tired. or jus the realisation tat maybe, there shld be more to life. *shrug*
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Wednesday
- National Day -
while the nation was out decked in red and white, i was busy in my small pink kitchen baking cookies with my fren. tried a new recipe, and actually decided to bake 3 batches. cool thing abt it was tt the dough requires u to pipe the pastry out. so i had the idea of piping out alphabets.
Cookie Batch 1: no experience, mainly trial and error. some cookies turned out weird, in fact i thot it tasted funny. then some were to brown (ie overbaked), some were too hard. so it was off to Cookie Batch 2.
This time round, we creamed the butter and sugar alot longer. and cos we were tired, we ended up putting in less flour. cos half of it was sifted onto the table whahhaha! so ended up with a consistency which was stickier than the first. Pros? easier to pipe out, but major con was tat it was so sticky it stuck to everywhere cept the baking paper! cos the piping bag burst, we had pastry squeezing out of the real nozzle, and the really unnecessary fake one which couldn't be repaired. SIGH. and it was so tiring piping the alphabets we gave up at Cookie Batch 2. hahah
BUT it was still really fun making alphabets for the ppl who mattered to us. Plus it was fun decorating them, seeing the cookies come out of the oven, choosing nicer ones to pack for the various ppl.
then we tried to coat them with choc. recipe say melt choc, spread on cookie, let it cool. damnit they didn't say tat the choc won't harden! so sorry to those of u who got choc stuck on the baking paper.. cos i jus got too tired of waiting for the damn choc to harden so packed it off and got them delivered. wah i really like open confectionary shop complete with delivery services man.
of course, i had a great companion who accompanied me along my deliveries. who also kindly offered me some nice pig trotters, tofu with prawn and nice cold tiger beer. and it doesn't get better than jus sitting by the pier, with beer, and familiar company.
oh ya it did get better. when i got sms-es and calls saying nice things like they'd eat up my cookies, tat they tasted great and very enthusiastic thanks even tho i had warned tat it didn't taste very good. tat was jus really nice of you guys.
