Although our place is just 10 minutes away, we finally stepped foot into Terminal 3 this evening. It felt like there were more locals roaming around than travellers flying in and out of Singapore. In fact, it's almost like what some people have commented, the terminal looked more like a heartland mall than an airport.
Dinner was at Popeye's - my first time having it. Not impressed at all, much prefer Carl's Junior any other day, although I'm no big fan of fast food. And it took me a while to realise what my dear husband was trying to pose as......
Now I'm nervous about tomorrow. Got roped in, somehow, to be one of the judges for the Citibank-YMCA Youth for Causes. Nervous because I've never been a judge (?!) before, but definitely excited and looking forward to what's in store!
On Radio 91.3FM this morning, Petrina "declared" today as "Appreciate your husband" day, to which The Husband turned to me and asked how was I going to show my appreciation for him on this "special" day.
"Give you some housework to do tonight," I said.
Anyway, I always love these little moments of making fun at each other. Coming from him especially, cos I'm the more "serious" (read: boring) one.
Just like the email he sent to me below, he never fails to put a smile on my face. Not by his sweet, romantic gestures, but by his endearing sense of humour.
Hi Miss Lim,
I’m Jeremy from XXX. I believe we met at your wedding. I was your groom. Hope you remember me.
I would like to request for your advice on making a reservation for a conference room.
Also your advice on how to curb online shopping spending habits.
Best Regards,
By the way, his colleague was copied on this email.
Since the iPhone is not available in Singapore yet, those lovely casings are naturally not sold here as well.
In the end, after much surfing around on the net and after-lunch walking around town, a "chance" visit to KS had me ended up with this:
If only they have it in red, but no. But I like the striking green as well, and the black kind of "balances" it, making it serious enough for sitting on a meeting table.
Not too bad at all, with my VIP discount, and The Boy's Taka vouchers, I ended up paying only 7 bucks for it.
Speaking of the Taka vouchers, The Boy had earned them through his long hours of hard work put in for their company's D&D. It was the company's token of appreciation for a job well done. Only to have the wife spend them on her KS pouch. But hey, he gave them to me with love what!!!
I'm not that into the pop music culture and all. Ask me if the song is nice, I'll tell you yes. Ask me if I've heard it before, I'll say yes.
But ask me who is it by, ask me what the title is, I start having difficulty. It has always been this way - I recognise tunes for those that I'm attracted to, but I seldom remember the creators/performers behind them.
I mean, come on, I used to think that Queen, Nat King Cole and Prince all belong to the same era, the same royalty.
And most times, for the songs I enjoy listening to, it's because of The Boy. He loves them, he plays them over and over again. In turn, I love listening to them, cos they remind me of him, they make me feel closer to him. Especially when he goes overseas, and I have the car, I'll be playing the songs he always plays over and over.
And so, the last day came and went. It has been an emotional last few days. It could be a good thing that I've been so sick with flu and a bad cough, that I had lesser energy to feel the sadness in its entirety.
It's a good thing too, that the BMW Popiah Party has been postponed, cos I definitely wouldn't want to pass my sickness on to some of the brides-to-be, and new mummy! ;)
And for one more, possibly last, time, we were in coordinated dressing again, at the Padang yesterday! The atmosphere was so electrifying when they were about to announce the results of the Youth Olympic Games bid. As if we didn't know the answer already!
And there was the farewell lunch today, with all the department heads and my team as well.
Oh, and I had a little farewell gift from the dept heads. On the pretext of wanting to borrow to "take a look", the BBs later added on this charmer as a surprise. Absolutely love it, will always be reminded of how much we love to shop during lunch hours!
Saying goodbye to some of the greatest people I've come to love has been really hard. Even these chefs call me "Mama".
A lot has happened in the last couple of years I've been here. There were highs and there were lows. There were difficult periods we had to deal with, we overcame them all. And we did it as a team.
I don't need a report card from anyone to tell me how I've fared during this tenure. Because having the following validation is good enough for me. One email from Matt, one ST article of "the Mandarin girls". I think I've done what I first set out to do.
知道他们有我的心， 我就心满意足了。 Ok I don't know which "zhu" or "zu".
Dear all luppies,
The only piece of work that I am proud to present to mama (my dear boss) got to be the poster that I did for her birthday cum farewell. 40% that I wanna show her how far I had improved on my creativity, another 60% got to be from my heart to thank her for being patient, kind and most importantly giving chance for me to improve my CS skills.
As she said, change boss doesn't mean change job, I totally agree with both legs and hands. Though Marina Mandarin to Meritus Mandarin is just a stone throw away, we must make sure our friendship is as strong as stone and no one can thrown us apart.
We must keep in touch, email and stay tune with gossip.
LUP, Matt
Fark, this is machiam like breakup, crying for days on end. But the beauty of it - we have built a lasting, meaningful friendship.
Since I do not have many days left in this office, thought I might as well hang around a little longer. It's quiet here now, cos I'm the only one around.
But the laughter, the screaming, the shrieking, the use of colourful language that the four of us shared still rings in my ears, most deeply in my heart.
Came back to the office today after a couple of days off, and the sweet darlings gave me a birthday surprise late in the afternoon. Even though Matt was on leave, he came back as well.
Apart from my all-time favourite Lana Cake (which BBE's beloved collected and sent all the way here), there was a huge poster too. It was a collage of all our moments together, it was an expression of the highest level of creativity (and LUP) that I've ever seen from Matt. I totally, absolutely love it.
I even hugged him although he was all sweaty and stinky from all that running over to the office!!!
By the way, this dude RUNS. He really can run. He would run from City Plaza to City Hall (from sending his teenage son to school, to come to work) 3 times a week, in the morning. As he puts it, he would run from one city to another. And you wouldn't believe how old he is, despite how he looks!
Here's some close ups of the ingenius creativity as well - doesn't it resemble the Business Times masthead? :)
Oh, and isn't my cake pretty? First time I've got a cake in the name of a Mama!
Ok, I'm not gonna let my emotions get the better of me again. I'm truly blessed to have known them.
On this day 3 years ago, The Boy (then boyfriend) arranged an unforgettable birthday party for me, with some of our dearest friends and loved ones. He spent all his time prior, making me this very special birthday video, which reduced me to tears by the end of it.
(By the way, you can see that I was quite chubby at that time. Ha.)
Little would I have expected that on this day 1 year later, we would be exchanging vows at Flutes At The Fort.
Now, on this day, today, we revisited Flutes for lunch. Thanks to Chef Francois, thanks to Eileen, we had an extremely lovely lunch. This was a treat from them, in return for letting them use some of our ROM photos on their website.
Took a shot with Francois as well, from whom I had learnt a number of French classic dishes. The 5-course lunch he prepared thereafter was simply amazing, from the appetizers of fresh scallop, to the Boston lobster, pan-fried foie gras, to our mains of cod and rack of lamb.
The ultimate treat was the desserts. You know how you always look at the dessert menu and can't decide which to have, and would love to have them all - we had that on our platter. Warm chocolate fondant (I know this one!), carrot and apple cake, tiramisu and lemon tart - simply decadent!
Great food, great wines, great conversations, great time reminiscing. Even though I wasn't actually feeling in the best of health (think I caught a chill from Bintan and was feeling feverish), we ended off the afternoon very gleeful.
Oh, and for the records, he said since I didn't feel well today, he would give me another day to be my "birthday" - where I get 110% of his attention. Now, shouldn't that be every other day?!
Even though I'm not into celebrating Valentine's the "commercial" way, decided to do a little something for The Boy and the BBs on this romance-filled day.
Made each of them I Love You egg-mayo toast, coupled with an apple, to mean that each is "the apple of my eye". Yah, I can be quite cheesy at times, heh.
In the office, the BBs and I got very busy taking photos with the toasts and apples. Matt put his graphic designer skills to good use, coming up with this nice pic. He even gave his interpretation to "Apple of my eye" - he said it can become "Apple of my 爱“. Haha.
Realisation is slowly seeping in. Realisation that next week will be the final week that I'll be officially working with my BBs.
I've done pretty well not succumbing to the emotional heartache so far, not wanting to think too much about it. In that way, I won't cry. But I'm not sure how long more I can keep up with this. It does get more unbearable with the days.
While most of us had one thing or the other to do during the busy CNY holidays, mostly visitations, The Boy had something else up his sleeves. Or rather, socks.
He was busy practising the sleek dance moves that Justin Timberlake did in his DVD, Justified, which was a compilation of his music videos.
I must say it was really funny, watching him in his socks at home, gliding about in front of the TV. He woke up the next day with aching legs. Definitely not as young and nimble like he used to be!
Sometimes, my husband sure knows how to tug at my heartstrings. It was totally endearing, seeing him help me clean my floor in the process like that.
We celebrated her special day last night after our cousin's wedding dinner, at her favourite Attica. Cheongster r@e joined us too.
The last time I was at Attica, the last time I went clubbing with my sista was a year ago, also her birthday at Attica. Haha. And it was funny how she kept introducing me to her friends saying "this is my real sister". I felt like some sort of chaperone, haha.
And we didn't leave till wee hours of the morning. Today, I slept the day away, overcome by exhaustion. I can't do this anymore. Age is catching up on me!
And here's one with the precious brother - he used to shy away from cameras. Now at least this is a good first step!
It's really very heartwarming and sweet when you see that the love of your life has been greatly influenced and inspired by the other love of your life.
It was 10plus last evening when The Boy called me, and insisted that I go down to his work place, to check out what he has been up to the whole evening. Together with the BBs (we were all working late on a Friday evening, how sad!), I walked into the lobby of his office building, only to be completed bowled over by his "guerilla marketing efforts".
I gasped and gasped and gasped at the beauty of the creation, that of course, I had to take a picture with it. If not for the agency people that were standing around me (who were complete strangers yet they have long heard of my shoe addiction), I would have sat in the shoe and be "the old woman". Or I could have even thrown my arms around it and embraced it with fervour!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Boy then said that there were more, and went on to show us around. I kept wondering if he would be leading me to a REAL pair eventually, but haiz.... no such luck leh.
Anyway, I love the rest of the applications as well. Very very proud of him. He's always been the creative (and thus the less tidy of the 2) one in our relationship, and I guess it's because of this, he never fails to bring colours into our lives.
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