Damages

..... a legal drama I had enjoyed tremendously these last three days. A total of 13 episodes (inclusive of the pilot) of seat gripping suspense-filled television series revolving "around a brilliant yet ruthless lawyer (Glenn Close) attempting to win a class-action lawsuit against the former CEO of a corporation (Ted Danson) on behalf of his former workers, by any means necessary." (Read Wikipedia for more).

Remember L.A. Law? I used to follow it almost religiously when it was a hit back in the 80s. One of the very few 'law' shows that I like. When I saw Damages advertised on the huge billboard along the highway, I wasn't the least interested especially since it has Glenn Close acting in it. I don't like her or rather I didn't like the character she portrayed in 101 Dalmatians where she played the wicked Cruella and what a scare she was in Fatal Attraction. So no Glenn Close for me.

But my colleague who watched the whole of Damages Season 1 on DVD in one weekend came back to work on Monday raving about it and I was sold......with absolutely no regrets.

The plot is as twisted as Patty Hewes (the main character of the show) is cunning in her dealings with both her associates and clients. She played her character so well. You hate her for her manipulative ways yet take your hats off to the polish she portrayed on screen. Excellent piece of acting.

Watch it quick if you haven't.

Feeling The Pinch

Little Bkworm takes the bus to school. Since we live in an apartment, the bus picks her up at a designated spot near our home. Papa Bkworm and I would take turns to take her downstairs in the mornings and stay with her until she is safely in the school bus.

While waiting for the bus, she would stand with me and we would chat; deciding what to eat for lunch or what's been happening in school. When the bus arrives, I would give her a quick kiss on her forehead and then she would get on the bus, find her seat and then turn to wave goodbye through the window until the bus turns the corner and we are no longer in each other's line of sight.

Lately, things have been a little different. We still walk down together. When she reaches the waiting place, she would stand by herself, sometimes re-tying her ponytail or fiddling with her shoe laces. And when the bus pulls away, she doesn't turn around to wave goodbye anymore.

Maybe it's not cool to be seen 'hanging on' to 'Mom'.

Maybe she's growing up and she needs her space.

Maybe it's just me feeling the little pinch in the heart places because my baby girl is growing up.

No inspiration

I always look forward to meeting up with my friends, be it for lunch or even just for a cup of coffee. It’s the need for interaction and exchanging of ideas that never fails to get me going each time.

Last weekend, the Bkworms met up with the Board (of what’s left of it) for lunch. This is a group of friends who have been with me through thick and thin and we go back a long way. We don’t see each other very much because everyone is often busy with their own activities but we do try to meet up a few times a year especially when Straus is back in town.

I am not a big fan of Peranakan food especially with this sensitive stomach of mine. But one of the guys kicked up a fuss about eating any other foods OTHER than Asian, so the rest of us just gave in and we ended up at Ah Tuan Ee.

The conversation around the table was good, so, I suppose that was what really mattered. After lunch, we adjourned to Holly’s Coffee at the Curve.

An hour or so later, the gathering ended.

..........And very soon, so will this blog if I don’t get my inspiration back!

*pulls a face, throws up her hands in despair, packs her bags and runs away*

Thank you for being my friend.

Little Bkworm told me happily the other day that the girl she considers to be her best friend (BFF, I believe, is the term the new generation uses) since primary school, is finally appreciating her as a true and loyal friend.

I've had a few best friends in my life. There is Kit from Primary 1 to 6. And then Eve from Sec. 1 to Sec. 5 and Katie from Pre-U days. When I came out to work, I was really tight with Straus. Girlfriends to share the ups and the downs, the joys and the sorrows and burning the phone lines like there was no tomorrow! Having said that, I've had my share of heartbreak when 'best friends' move away or the friendship just waned.

Just before Chinese New Year, BP honored me with the Forever Friends Award. (Thanks, BP, very much!)

It says:
A Ball is a Circle, no beginning, no end.
It keeps us together like a circle of friends.
But the treasure inside for you to see
Is the treasure of friendship you've granted to me.

I am so touched by her award because there are not many people that one can meet and be comfortable with immediately. Okay, we haven't exactly met but I am pretty good with my instincts (a woman's intuition, perhaps) and she's one person, I think I can talk to with ease should we have the privilege to meet in person some day.

I'd like very much to pass on this award to my faithful friends whom I've met on this blog space. If you have been a silent reader, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, for your quiet support and for those who regularly leave me encouraging comments or just simply a comment to let me know that you care enough to share my thoughts, this award is for you too.

We can only be as good a friend as the friend that we are to others.

A Valentine's Day at home

Sucks, ya?

While I should be thinking of what to wear for a cool Valentine's Dinner tonight, I am now propped up in bed with my laptop writing an entry on Valentine's Day. My stomach has been acting up again since last night and I like to credit that to some 'free' lunch from the office yesterday. Now you know why they say there's no such thing as a free lunch! The upside is I am on medical leave, so I got to catch up on reading blogs and such between toilet runs. Which also means, the dinner for two tonight will be postponed. Yep, Papa Bkworm, I am taking a rain check on that one! *winks*

Talking about Valentine's Day brings to mind those days when I was still working in the bank. Valentine's Day has always been a day to look forward to or dread, depending on how one looked at it. There were quite a few ladies in the office and the game of 'Who-are-those-roses-for' would start early in the morning until it was time to go home. Each time, the door to the office buzzed, everyone would look up to see who was coming in and if it was the delivery man/woman/boy/girl from the florist, one could almost feel the electricity in the air. Some would look up in expectancy. Some like me, would carry on with our work, secretly hoping that the man/woman/boy or girl would walk up to our desk with that glorious bouquet of red roses to the envy of the other female population in the office.

So you see, once I stopped working, the flowers stopped coming. Papa Bkworm's take was, "Honey, there's no office to send to. Who's going to see? Let's spend the money on something more worthwhile, yah!" Ok. That's what married people do. *comforts myself* And working part time now, doesn't count as real work. LOL!!

While I would love the attention of receiving a dozen roses from my 'loh koong', the realist in me also know better than have money spent in this manner, knowing fully well, how florists jack up the prices of flowers on this day. He loves me, shows it in all the things he does for me everyday and it's not going to wilt like fallen petals after a week. SAHM said it so well in her Valentine's Day post.

To you out there who loves to ask, "Eh, what did your husband/boyfriend/lover give you this Valentine's?", do remember that love needs no diamonds, flowers, chocolates or expensive Valentine's Day set dinners to make that love anymore real than a husband/boyfriend/lover who is really loving you in a million other intangible ways!

A Holiday That Was Too Short

I am really getting rusty. It's taking me far longer time than before to come up with my first sentence for this entry.

So, how was your Chinese New Year? Mine flew by so fast I barely knew what happened those few days in Singapore! Yes, it was that fast.

Frankly, I never expected to travel so far again after all that has happened these last two years. For those of you who have been with me since 2006, you will probably know what I am referring to. I try never to venture too far from home and if I need to travel, I make sure that I didn't have to be on the road for too long. So you can imagine how hard it was for me to be on a four hour journey from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore this Chinese New Year. Just half an hour into the long drive, I began to feel uneasy. Although I had some reading materials with me as part of my distraction plan, I couldn't stop the panic rising within. I grabbed Papa Bkworm's forearm (he was the driver) and told him I was getting panicky. He kept me talking and after a while, the feeling wore off. At the Ayer Keroh rest stop, I changed places with Little Bkworm and I sat at the back for the rest of the journey. That helped a great deal and I made it to Singapore quite safely.

I love going to Singapore. I love the wide roads, the clean lines. Everything is just so spick and span! My only grouch is their super efficient law enforcers which had us SGD30-00 poorer this Chinese New Year. We got slapped with our first ever summons in Singapore, issued to us in the early hours (at precisely 2.52 am while we were all sound asleep!) of the second day of Chinese New Year for failing to pay for parking at the multi-storey car park near the flats where Lara lives. We were so confident that parking was free during weekends and public holidays until we spied the fine print on the sign board outside the carpark which has this written in brackets below 'Free Parking' - "between 7.00 am to 10.30 pm". Great. Really, we are innocent. Even Lara and her hubby who are both Singaporeans were not aware of the fine print. But the law is the law. Sigh!

Aside from this expensive glitch, the four days were rather quiet for us this time around. We didn't visit Orchard Road where the shopping belt lies. Didn't go to Borders either (which has always been part of our activities whenever we were in Singapore) and we didn't even stop by Breadtalk to get our bread, a thing that we never failed to do on previous trips. Yeah, I know, we have Borders and Breadtalk in KL too but it's just not the same as the ones in Singapore.


But we did discover a new place to shop. Mustafa is located in Little India in Serangoon Road and we were just SO awed by both the quantity and variety of goods for sale there. And they are opened for 24 hours! No kidding. And, no, we didn't shop for 24 hours for the simple reason that everyone were already tired out after an afternoon of window shopping at VivoCity and bowling at the SAFRA, courtesy of Lara's hubby. We were looking for a Turbo Broiler for my mother-in-law at Mustafa and once we bought it, we were out of the place in a jiffy.

Much of our time were spent at home, just eating and watching cable TV. Mostly just catching up with Lara and her hubby while Little Bkworm had a whale of a time, playing soccer and basketball with her cousin at a nearby park. I also had a chance to talk to Stay At Home Mum

(SAHM) over the phone and chatted with this nice lady for a few minutes, knowing that it wouldn't have been possible to meet up in person this time. Next time, SAHM, yah?

Also, Papa Bkworm learnt a new skill this CNY in Singapore.


He is so 'Mat Salleh' in his ways; a total banana (yellow on the outside but white on the inside, mah!) and such a blur when it comes to something so traditionally Chinese as playing mahjong. But the other three players at the table were most patient with him and took pains to explain to him the different characters engraved on the mahjong tiles and how the game is generally played. I was his 'wu so kwan si' - advisor, sitting by his side and trying to teach him the little that I could recall from the three legged mahjong sessions that Lara and I used to have with our mother during our school holidays years ago!

We left Singapore for home on Sunday morning. Traffic was smooth, hitting almost 110 kph until we reached Port Dickson where cars started to slow down and traffic was reduced to a crawl all the way until Nilai. I thought I was going to claw my way out of the car in panic (we were stuck in a jam with no end in sight!) but I was somewhat much calmer than our earlier journey down to Singapore. Maybe it does help to sit at the back.

The short holiday's over and we are all back to our daily routines. Back to work and back to school once again.

Getting Ready For The Year Of The Rat

First thing first.....the office is closed today! Yipppee!!!

There's still 101 things to do at home and also some packing to be done for our trip down south to Singapore tomorrow morning, so the day off is really welcomed. The Bkworms will be celebrating Chinese New Year with my sister, Lara and her family this year!

With that 101 things still left to do before we head back to Papa Bkworm's parents' home for reunion dinner tonight, here's wishing all my friends and readers a very Happy and Prosperous Chinese New Year! May the Year Of The Rat brings much blessings to you and your loved ones.

"Kong Hei Fatt Choy
Man Si Yue Yi"