Shall I blog about my food shopping for the third time this week? I’m on a row, three strikes I’m out; tenuity of their connection stands out with properly-understood context and this is the theme of the park.

In other news, Sister-in-law ceremoniously dumped her kids at mum’s place late last night without any fanfare. Mum will be home for 2 weeks having fractured her arm making her an available ‘sitter’. Nobody had time to ask questions but by threading together bits and bops, fragmented sentences and standalone words, it transpired that the younger son spent $600 almost $800 on games—Not the first time if you count different phones and owners. The elder of the two had his money taken away when he orchestrated a similar heist last year.

Hardly any remorse or understanding of the seriousness of the problem and when prodded, they only just told me that this incident occurred weeks ago. This means, I must trust their sense of time unlike their understanding of the value of money—Nay, I say! It’s not even the important bit. They look too happy playing games on mum’s phone for comfort.

She’ll be back to pick them up this evening; that’s high-grade forbearance—one of her many talents. I hope she gets her money back(She got back a couple of hundreds). The foundations of a building would have collapsed just by being subjected to my screams alone.

Throwback on my last birthday I spent in the zoo. This white tiger, quite a distance away from visitors obviously for our safety, locked eyes with me the moment I entered his line of sight. I dare say it was because it had noticed my T-shirt that had a silhouette of lion on it which incidentally, a real lion plainly ignored because it was bored and wanted to nap. This tiger was egging me on with its eyes, “come closer and tell me to my face that I’m chonky, lion fan girl.”

If I could spend my birthday with them every year, I would. Animals are straightforward: They don’t hide their true intentions, feelings, nature which are predominantly geared towards survival with little to no regard for long-term strategies unlike humans who, albeit been given the ability to describe or exhibit their intentions or feelings with words or actions, don’t always mean what they appear to mean. I’d say humans are scarier.

On the carriage this very moment, gaining momentum and making very public journal entries on this hard seat & non-traditional holiday. Who else is having theirs completely remade to ‘live with Covid’?Rhetorical, of course and it doesn’t even matter that not a mention of any specific day to which mortals on this planet look forward is to be found in this entry—all equally transformed. Happy holidays! Do I hear jiggling bells in a distance?

The train took me again to Vivocity where dried figs are currently in residence which I picked up along with some discounted roasted cashews, beaming bananas, ‘less than 7g of sugar’ muesli bars and a takeaway box packed to the brim with stir-fry dishes and brown rice from my favourite vegetarian food court stall, actually vegan as I just found out today.

E veg – Vegan & halal mixed rice stall at vivocity’s B2 food court – Chinese spinach, long beans & tofu, tempeh, veggie sausage & tofu all stir-fried 3 different styles and on a hot bed of brown rice

Since today is a special day, an effort must made to look festive in order to blend in with the masses looking to bask in that holiday spirit by being amongst strange but bustling company. That means to the trusty black dress paired with my *ahem* highly versatile, ‘swim’ sandals (Birkenstocks’ Eva – cheap, good, no blisters) fitting for Singapore’s wretchedly humid weather and to the pool and back. I smacked some transparent eyebrow gel to fix my eyebrows, some mascara on the eyelashes et voilà! C’est fini, je me sens déjà plus belle.

With age and an increasingly thicker skin, there is no embarrassment connected to wearing that same dress again and again and… the very same one I picked up half price off the rack years ago; It’s the quality that matters; I want them to last a long time just like relationships with friends, pets and cosmic mates as well as furniture, kitchen spatulas, hand-held blenders, blooming red roses named after Edith Piaf, roasted cashews and everything else magnificent.

Nearing now the bottom of the bag of sticky sweet figs, another year and continent away from Patrick who’s busy moving to Geneva with Marley the Puppy before the start of next year. Do I wish that I was with him right now dealing with administrative paperwork such as residence permit, Marley’s immigration papers, customs and such like AND the people who must help fill them up or demand them in perfect order? Not really, No. Patrick is built twice of me in everything good and not, such as apparition within the meaning set in the wizarding world, which would be calamitous if he hadn’t come with double the level of patience; imagine that, twice the havoc, twice the lunacy. Watch out for that beam overhead!

Ringing in my head today is what it means to be living in the present time, not anyone’s exact words, maybe vaguely and general which could go off tangent whether I let it or not. That we make our grand escape through our minds to a place created for safety that no one can come even if invited—in a world or smaller still—just our lives that could be and away from things that hurt and could hurt—-in which we’re in control over our own minds and helplessness—only away from a physical plane where our bodies remain and inside them still, in our imaginations.

We could be in bed by now sharing a cuppa, a movie playing overhead, teaching Marley about testicles and many other infinite possibilities but that would mean saying goodbye to things in the now: The pool I’ve frequented this past year, the best of people I’ve met, my veg food stall, the conveniences of the train carriage and everything else in a small city—when we live in the moment and we seize the day, we do through appreciation and gratitude, recognition and prioritising. For the most important, give rise to them; For the best of here and the present, make shelter out of memories against the worst of times—Learn, grow, flourish, be better than yesterday and the day before, invest in all before it’s gone as it inevitably will.

So on the princely carriage I go on this day, alongside strangers with whom passions overlap. As cosmic mates, our paths converge and connect us always in a not so distant future and closer still, enough to touch what we built in our minds.

What is it now, Day 5 of booster shot? Went swimming again this afternoon which makes it the third day in a row. Just got up this morning and decided a tan for Christmas Eve and swim at the same time; efficiency being the name of the game. I’ll have a roast chicken waiting for me to be slathered liberally with sriracha hot sauce afterwards.

All booster jab recipients have been warned not to engage in anything strenuous for 2 weeks which I protested. The lovely nurse assured me that many people would find it hard not to exercise for 2 weeks but since I know my body best, I must listen to it and stop immediately if tired and do light exercises only. That sounded reasonable to me which I accepted graciously and with gratitude but once I really gave it some thought, was not that different from the government advisory against which I protested just now. One was framed in the negative (don’t do this) and the other in the positive (do this); the psychological whip around and a how-to guide when dealing with a toddler.

whilst stubbornness is a thing too hard to scrub off my hardened back, I’m counting on discipline to keep me in check; well that rhymed, didn’t it? Now, toss me a dime 🥸

So I listened to my body alright; It demanded an activity so as to retain its conditioning—I’ve been swimming 4 to 5 days a week for 10 months now straight—I’ve also been running for years—but I estimate it to be at 60% performance capacity at best after factoring in feelings of navigating through fog and ankle-deep swamp. That means that the right balance pivots on a leisurely swim, akin to a sunset stroll hand in hand with a lover sort of thing—you don’t rush these things, do you? unless you wanted to pee or under attack by a legion of insects). This, I did, under the partly cloudy sky on which the sun peeks to blast my skin a golden brown. The heart pumps only slightly faster—I made sure of this—leaving me feeling thoroughly relaxed and refreshed in the perfectly cool water until the rain came and I had to keep my belongings from getting wet.

Now, I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone who haven’t been exercising regularly for a very long time. Definitely not the time to start a new exercise regime because that will be suicide but for what it’s worth—if anyone will take seriously the words of a lunatic—to tone down an activity tenfolds or until it becomes as easy as resting, might make one fall in love with it proper or all over again.