Beautiful boy

I have a strange relationship with little kids.  I don't feel a blanket liking for all of them but I very quickly develop a deep adoration for individual little children, particularly those that belong to members of my friends or family and I can spend hours cooing at them and cuddling them.

Recently, my nine-month old nephew stopped by Singapore with his parents and I just about melted from the way he laughed and his precious little seed pearl teeth.

Another baby that I just adore is my good friend's kid, T.  Though Melissa Anne and I met through work, I am offering up a massive prayer of gratitude that we don't work together anymore because we've become much closer since. 

She is the most chillaxed mum I know (I mean that in a good way) and as a result, T is cheerful, friendly, curious and always smiling and laughing.  I love watching them together and seeing how much she cares not only about him, but that he has a fun, comfortable, happy childhood.  She has kept her sense of humour and equanimity throughout his baby days and I thoroughly admire that.

I recently went to visit her at home and was just captivated by T's beautiful masses of ringlets and molten chocolate eyes.  Rebecca once told me that because adults get self conscious when their portraits are taken, she practises on children.  I decided to take some shots of T, who was an exceptional model, and with his mother's permission, I'm posting them here.

And here's a picture of his amazing mother because I love her and I can't wait to see her again.

I know you have no idea who I am yet, T, but I wish you the happiest of days ahead, full of your family, love, cuddles and kisses.  I don't automatically feel that all kids are wonderful, but little buddy, do I ever have a soft spot the size of Texas for you.

First impressions

Beautiful book stitched by Rebecca

I wasn't sure about writing about this initially, but after a couple of people told me they would like to read it, I thought I would chronicle my fledgling experiences with online dating.  Yeah, I said it.  It's a mildly embarrassing topic to broach, but I'm a big fan of honesty, even when it's awkward, so here we are.

I never thought that I would try it out, but I have several friends (two of whom are now married) who have met their other halves online and who have recommended it.  I work in a mostly female environment and I've grown to love spending most of my spare time with my family and friends, so, more out of curiosity than anything, I decided to give it a shot, just to see if there's a chance of stumbling upon like-minded people on the Interwebs.  

To be completely honest, I don't expect to meet someone.  I'm well aware that my coupled friends are the exceptions.  I just want to see what's out there.  I imagined it would be quite a strange process (my many, many friends who have tried it have corroborated this) and decided to treat it as a social experiment.  I'm giving myself at least six months to get a real feel of what it's like, and if nothing else, I'll have done something new and completely out of my comfort zone.

Two weeks into the venture, I haven't physically met anyone but I've communicated with several people and met with a whole bunch of rejection.  And the vibe I'm getting so far is: this is hard.

I've never thought of myself as someone who has particularly high standards and I'm trying to keep an open mind, so my only criteria is that we match on basic values, we communicate well, he doesn't have a kid, and, this is key, he seems fairly normal.  

You'd be surprised just how rare that is.

When I told my friends this they seemed amused because sometimes I'm quite a strange person to be around.  The thing is though, that I don't actually believe that anyone is really "normal".  I love that people are quirky and different.  I'm just looking for someone who's reliable.  Someone who is who he says he is and isn't looking to play pretend or get entangled in weird games.  

My good friend, who started her own online experiment around the same time as me, showed me a message from someone who wanted her to know right off the bat that he was currently "pansexual, sapiosexual and polyamorous" but that it might change at moment's notice and that he had worked (and loved working) in an adult toy store.  I don't think the revelations were quite so strange as the fact that he had chosen to open with them.

My experiences have been somewhat tamer.  One man lied to the system to get "matched" with people and a couple messages in, revealed that he actually had a child.  Lying?  No.  

Another dude, codenamed Harvey, seemed to be interested in nothing but my taste in movies, as if he was judging me completely by what I liked to watch.  Each time I answered, it was as if I had passed another level of a test and was attacked with increasingly nuanced questions, for example, "And what do you think of comic book adaptations of movies in the last decade?".

One guy, whom I'll call Ray, started a perfectly innocuous conversation about books and recommended something he enjoyed.  When I said, "Oh cool, I'll try to get my hands on it," he responded, "And I'll try to get my hands on you!" which was wrong to me on so many levels that I was, at first, completely tongue-tied and then confused about whether I was being overly prudish (instinct says no).  He called me some odd endearments later on and I finally told him that I felt really uncomfortable and that I honestly just wanted to have a simple chat.  His response was that in his experience, everybody liked flattery, flirting and endearments, some people just hid "their blushes" better. 

In general though, it's just been a slow plod through conversation after awkward conversation with people who either don't find me interesting or don't seem to want to talk beyond asking how my day was and what meetings I'd attended.  

I think in some ways, that's been the most weird thing about it.  Without the process of face-to-face meeting at work or in school, there is no slow buildup through friendship.  There are no awkward sidelong glances or outings in large groups that slowly whittle down to two or moments of bonding over projects or long conversations on the phone.  There is barely any time to see what the person looks like without a mask on.  From the get go, everyone knows what everyone is looking for, and that makes the process at once easier and more difficult.  

People that you might get the chance to know slowly in real life are passed on in the click of a mouse, and in the same length of time, pass on you.  Candidates are so inundated with random messages and pop ups that meaningful things can get lost in all that noise.  Those that we would be forced to give a chance in life thanks to the rules of courtesy can be ignored.

And conversation is a rare privilege.  

Today, while attempting to talk to someone who only answered my questions with "Oh, that's nice" or "I see", I felt a sudden pang of longing and I realised that I missed my exes for no other reason than the fact that I could talk with them.

Part of the magic of meeting and slowly falling in love with someone is the long, meandering conversations that you have with them when you're trying to learn each other, when you're slowly unwrapping the layers to reveal something increasingly beautiful.  Each bit of dialogue is something to be remembered and savoured and thought about later on and the talks stack on top of one another, becoming a scaffold for all the things you've survived.  

Here, it's different, guarded, careful.  It's hard to find someone who actually wants to move beyond a couple of lines about where they come from or what they do for a living and the few times that I've attempted to talk about random things that I enjoy or something out of the ordinary, I haven't been greeted with much enthusiasm.  I can't figure out if it's just the people I've been talking to, or if everyone online is equally disinterested.   

I'm trying my best not to write online dating off too quickly and just participate in the process.  Amanda has told me that I should just treat it as something that's happening on the side of my life, which, if it works, great.  If it doesn't, I can just let it slide away.  This, I can do.

At any rate, I'm busy enjoying my friends, family, time alone and time spent on hobbies.  And we have plenty of wonderful conversations and discussions between us.

I'm not so sure about love online, but my faith in communication is not going anywhere.  

Tonight

Enough work!  Tonight it's mango tea, matcha cheesecake, knitting and back-to-back episodes of Dance Academy.

Hipster Saturday part 2: Making a terrarium

I don't know when terrariums went from being science-y projects to hipster-approved decor, but I've always loved them.  Ever since I found out that you could keep reptiles in a terrarium, I desperately wanted one.  (Full disclosure: I am a fan of almost all lizards and snakes.  Tokay geckos freak me out for some reason though, maybe because I've gotten my best glimpses of them in the bottom of rice wine vats.)   I also love the idea that they can be self-sustaining - it's like a kind of magic, isn't it?

Remember that dome in the Science Centre that had an underwater self-sustaining ecosystem in it?  It had what looked like fan corals in it and little aquatic snails and when I was a child, I was absolutely fascinated by the written description, which explained that it would keep itself going for at least twenty years.  The last time I went back, it was still there and everything in it was alive.  

My friend Wei Jing is a botanist and very good with growing plants.  Jono, Mel Sim and I had been wanting to learn how to make terrariums from her for the longest time and we finally managed to get a date to set one up in her house!  

If I've gotten all her instructions right (there weren't many), here's how you make one.

You need: 

1) A terrarium jar with a lid (or an open one if you're willing to water it more often)

2) A couple of good, terrarium-approved plants (they have to be quite a bit smaller than the jar to afford them space to grow)

3) Clay beads

4) Charcoal

5) Soil - she recommended a type of soil whose name I've now forgotten, but soil from the nursery should work.

6) Decor, including plastic figurines, marbles, gravel and coloured bits and pieces.  Nothing that will rot or mould, unless you're willing to remove it later.

7)  Water

We went to my childhood hangout, Far East Flora, to pick out the plants.  

I love walking around in Far East Flora because of the range of plants it contains.  The cold rooms next door house a startling array of flowers.  Jono kept asking if we could stick cut flowers in the terrarium and fertilise them.  Um.

None of these plants were terrarium-suitable (least of all the strawberries!) and we ended up getting some small fittonia, euonymous and starfish plants.  If your jar is relatively small, you might only have space for two types of plants.  We split ours at the roots and put two or three tiny seedlings in each jar.

The starfish plant on the left, for instance, spread too widely to be put with anything else.  So it's wise to check just how much space you have.  The leaves shouldn't be pushing on the top of the jar or spilling out of the sides.

Once you've got your plants, clean your jars out, making sure not to have leave any stray bits of dirt or fungus in.  I love these jars that Wei Jing picked out for us; flat-bottomed and squat, with lids like melting ice.

Once the jars are dry, put in a layer of clay beads and pack some wafers of charcoal over them.  The clay beads provide drainage for the plants so that they don't get damaged, and the charcoal helps to remove toxins and provide an extra layer of drainage.  The layer of beads also helps you to check if there's too much water in the terrarium because you can see it pooling at the bottom.

Put the growth medium in next.  The whole substrate should take up about a third of the terrarium's height.  Even it out gently so that you don't get weird lumps or hillocks.

De-pot your plants (Wei Jing got ferns for herself) and remove the bottom chunk of the soil such that you don't damage too many roots but the plant is not sticking too far out of the top of the terrarium when you put it in.

I put in two good-sized seedlings and one tiny one.  Mel opted for a nice balance of three colours: green, white and pink.  Jono kept begging Wei Jing to let him put in more and she kept yelling, "NO!  NO, THE PLANTS WILL DIE!" 

Lower the plants in on top of the substrate and then, holding them all in the centre of the terrarium with one hand, shovel in more soil and pat it down around the plants, anchoring them.  This part was the hardest.  Because our plants were seedlings with tiny and very shallow roots, they kept falling over and it took me several tries to pack enough soil in and weight it with fragments of gravel so that they would stay up.  At the same time, I had to make sure that they weren't leaning on the sides of the container.

Now is a good time to check that the lid shuts without crushing the top leaves.  If the plants are too tall, just snip them down to size.  They won't mind.

Now the fun part: decorating!  You can line the bottom with gravel, put in plastic toys or decorate with organic material like shells.  I went for a classic black-and-grey colour scheme with a little cluster of shells.  Later, Wei Jing gave me a little plastic raccoon that I nestled below my fittonia.  It looks like it's burrowing in the soil, its ringed tail just peeking out from beneath the leaves.

Boom!  You're done!  Now you can water the terrarium by misting it and washing all the dust and soil off the leaves.  Make sure the soil gets fairly damp - as long as it's not pooling in the bottom, you're good.  Wei Jing's advice is to be overzealous with watering at first because you can easily let it evaporate if it gets waterlogged.

Pop the lid on and watch it carefully for a couple of days.  If the terrarium starts "breathing" and living, the lid will mist up slightly as a sign that the plants are getting their thing done (clearly not a botanist speaking here).  If there's too much water, take the lid off and let it balance out a little bit.  If there's not enough, mist it some more, obviously.

Make sure that the terrarium gets some indirect sunlight in the daytime, for example, by a window.  If it's getting too much light, the leaves will apparently turn yellow.  Mine's been alive for about ten days now and it's looking very healthy.  I haven't had to water or baby it or anything!

There's Wei Jing telling Jonathan off for wanting to put fertiliser in the bottom.

Thank you so much for hosting our terrarium session, we had a lovely time!  Wei Jing is leaving for the United States for a couple of years and every time I look at my terrarium, I'll think of her.  What an awesome farewell gathering.

Here's a last look at it. 

I've named it after Jono - it's called Jia Rong.  Fitting, too.  A little nutty, a little green, but very sweet.

Hipster Saturday: Coffee crawl

Last Saturday, I had a (very enjoyable) massively hipster day.  

For starters, I love coffee.  Probably more than it is reasonable to like a non-alcoholic drink.  Would it be a little creepy to admit that I love the way it looks as much as I love the way it tastes?  I particularly enjoy the way it photographs, something you can probably tell if you've been here for awhile.

Even though I know that not many people want to stare at pictures of lattes, I couldn't help but jump at the chance to photograph (and drink, obvs!) artisanal coffee at the Bettr Week coffee crawl.  

The crawl costs about $48 and for that price, you get to sample drinks at nine different coffee places, none of which I'd ever heard of or visited.

My friend Raqvind and I started the crawl at *SCAPE at Somerset.

You get a "coffee passport", a cotton tote (yes!) and a little badge.  Since one of the recommended cafes is located at *SCAPE, we started there.  The Bettr Barista is a social enterprise that occupies a corner of what looks like the *SCAPE office.  The location and the fluorescent lighting are a little bit odd which is a pity, because the coffee is lovely - smooth, fragrant and not too strong or bitter.

Raqvind and I spent the morning cradling our warm cups and sharing a long, heart-to-heart talk.  It's been ages since we caught up properly and since we've both been going through slightly trying times, we were able to lean on each other for a moment and take a much-needed breather.

Eventually, we staggered to our feet and took the train down to Bugis to try Artistry.  I have to say that in the looks department, this cafe wins hands down.

Rustic wooden benches topped with some of the brightest posies I've ever seen lined the outside wall and we were impressed to see that there was still seating space at 2pm on a Saturday.  There was a photography exhibition going on within and it took us a little while to realise that the artwork was themed; people, out in the rain, wandering in cities across the world.  The rectangles on the walls had the effect of windows, as if we were looking out onto cobbled streets, spit-shined by storms.

The barista was wonderfully friendly and answered all our questions about the coffee and his latte art.

The coffee here was deeper and a lot more complex, but while I appreciated it visually, it was a little too strong for me.  I do, however, prefer my coffee very smooth and milky and I'm quite a coffee wuss so I think it will appeal to lots of people.

This pecan pie, though.  Oh, lawks!  It had all the good, roasty, pecan-nutty crunch that any self-respecting pecan pie should have but the molasses below were an entirely different story.  Rich, velvet-soft and shot through with a flavour so dark that I kept mistaking it for chocolate, it was a real treat.  Raqvind and I quaffed the entire slice before our third musketeer, Evi, joined us.

We had a good chat and then decided to call it a day.  For me, it was a delightfully lazy, voluptuous way to spend the early afternoon and luckily, I get to do it again.  This Saturday, the coffee crawl continues with three cafes in the west!

Till then, I'll be hanging out on this tumblr which makes me want to crawl inside my computer screen and roll around in its glory.  Coffee, tea and books photographed and deliciously laid out in morning light?  Shut up! 

I have no idea who runs it, but I salute them. 

A photo an hour: Lazy Friday

I used to have a different (read: even more embarrassing) blog and one of the things I enjoyed doing was taking a photo an hour over the course of a random day. 

I thought I would start it again on this blog; not because I believe that my days are so supremely interesting that people are agog with curiosity to watch every hour, but simply because it makes me take my camera out and practise even when there doesn't seem to be a subject in particular.  

This time, I cheated a little so the photos aren't evenly spaced out.  Also, all my weekends basically look like this: laid back, simple, routine.  Dayum!  How I cherish them!

Here's what I did last Friday.  

8:00am

I start my day with cod liver oil and the occasional capsule of cinnamon to control my blood sugar and appetite.  My father eats half a teaspoon of cinnamon each morning and his diabetic symptoms have practically disappeared.

9:00am

10:00am

A word on the "The Dark is Rising" sequence.  It's wonderful.  It's mysterious and old school and magical in an ancient, matter-of-fact way without wands or spells or strange, invented creatures.  In light of what's coming out today, it's a breath of fresh air for me.

11:00am

12:00pm

Sometimes I forget that no matter how much I love my dog, he looks like a drowned rat when wet.  To be fair, I will show that he cleans up pretty good, too.

1:00pm

Correspondence done and dusted.

2:00pm

3:00pm

4:00pm

Afternoon snack: mango tea, la vache qui rit cheese in paprika and herb flavours and a pluot.  Pluots are the only fruit that I find myself craving.  When I see them in the supermarket, my mouth starts watering.

5:00pm

Because before this I was basically in pajamas.

6:00pm

That's Jia Min having dinner with me, in case you were wondering.

7:00pm

8:00pm

Who knew Jia Min and I both liked Hairspray?  I'd actually logged this in my filofax a long time ago and was really looking forward to it.  We were talking about musicals we'd watched and the songs we liked as we walked over to the theatre.  Jia Min used to play the trumpet in the school band and talked about band stereotypes as well.

Then, at the entrance of the theatre, they confiscated my camera and put it in a locker.  Yeah.  I hate when that happens.  I'm not one to take videos of performances - I'd rather take in the act than record it - and I'm a little bit possessive of Big.  But eh, what can you do.

The performance was a lot of fun and even though there was a technical difficulty in the beginning and the house lights wouldn't go down, the cast was so plucky and professional about it that I forgot the glitch had ever happened.  Some very memorable dancing, too.

11:00pm

Esplanade artwork.

12:00am

I dropped Jia Min off at home, which involved some very pleasant driving on some dark, winding roads (my favourite kind) then sped over to the airport to get my brother who was coming home after over two years spent abroad!

Yup.  That's the face he gave me as he cleared baggage claim.  Obviously, the crazy runs in the family.