Making Happiness Viral

Somewhere along the way happiness became underrated; consumed by ambition, direction, desire and goals.

Over the last few Mondays, I've been watching Making Australia Happy on the ABC (http://makingaustraliahappy.abc.net.au/)

Random acts of kindness, being grateful for the things in your life, liking your life and yourself. The simplicity of being yourself- without all that tricky anxiety.

A most cordial invitation...

This weekend, my sister and I were invited to assist and partake in the preparation and excess consumption of tarts (the smoked trout and pickled onion & lemon and raspberry kind, not together, of course), cakes (the carrot and black forest variety), tea, watermelon punch, finger sandwiches, chickpea salad, samosas, fairy floss cupcakes and coffee. Some pictures to whet your appetites:

Miss MerryM (below) hosted the marvellous tea party, adorned in traditional dress and attentively re-filling everyone's teacups, heaping more cake on plates and inadvertently forgettng to eat as the soiree went on late into the afternoon.

We liked to think of ourselves as elegant ladies, but as the food hit the stomach and the bulge hit the dress, we couldn't help but imitate ladies carrying babies, because the silhouette was so perfectly pregnant.

[My sister, prim and elegant before the food]:

In honour of the splendid food and exemplary display of eating, I will leave you to salivate over the pictures and yearn for your next meal.

A very romantic Friday...

It was hearts aplenty on Friday morning at my train station.

I like to imagine it was the handy work of a moony-eyed teen professing his love to a gamine hazel-eyed girl with wavy tresses, but regardless of the story behind the random hearts, their happy presence made for an intrigued station full of passengers.

Do the birthday jiggy!

Happpy Birthday Dad!!!! xoxoxo


Check out the massive custard fruit tart my sister made- What a masterpiece!

Streetdance...

You know those times when you inadvertently step into the path of a stranger?

If you're lucky, you do the Sidestep. i.e. you and/or the stranger anticipate the collision a metre in advance and miss one another completely: sidestep!

If your timing's a little off, you do the Side swipe. i.e. Sorry, you mutter, as you cop their shoulder in your bosom (if they're average height) or their sharp elbow in your cheek (if they're a giant): Oww!

If you're both uncoordinated, you do the Stalemate. Stuck in a dance of stopping and starting-- precisely in sync-- apologising in song, and diffusing the drawn out exchange with a sheepish laugh: Oh dear!

Today, I was crossing the street down near World Square when a mighty tall man stalemated me. One minute I was crossing the street talking to Miss DB, the next second I was floored by a wall of light pink business shirt. I started to my left, he started to his right. I started to my right, he started to his left. I tried a big shuffle to the left. He tried a half shuffle to his right.

We both laughed: Hor hor hor! Sorry!

He was that tall that I never did see his face. But when the stalemate ended, we both galloped across the street, free at last, without a backward glance.

Splendour in the Spring...

These flowers remind me of Sting's Fields of Gold:

You'll remember me when the west wind moves

Upon the fields of barley

You'll forget the sun in his jealous sky

As we walk in fields of gold

So she took her love for to gaze awhile

Upon the fields of barley

In his arms she fell as her hair came down

Among the fields of gold

Will you stay with me, will you be my love

Among the fields of barley?

We'll forget the sun in his jealous sky

As we lie in fields of gold

See the west wind move like a lover so

Upon the fields of barley

Feel her body rise when you kiss her mouth

Among the fields of gold

I never made promises lightly

And there have been some that I've broken

But I swear in the days still left

We'll walk in fields of gold

We'll walk in fields of gold

Many years have passed since those summer days

Among the fields of barley
See the children run as the sun goes down

Among the fields of gold

You'll remember me when the west wind moves

Upon the fields of barley

You can tell the sun in his jealous sky

When we walked in fields of gold

When we walked in fields of gold

When we walked in fields of gold

Just a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down!

Howdy. This weekend I was in Melbourne and I had a grand time with Man from Mars-

Friday: I hopped off the plane and was starvin marvin! I haggled, I moaned, I whinged:

Let's go to Maccas. I'm so hungrrrry. I wanna have a cheese burger. I need a cheeseburger.

To his credit, Man from Mars held his cool (and his nerve) as I announced that "this is an emergency, I'm not kidding. If I don't eat, my stomach's gonna eat my legs". Accidentally, he missed the turn off- and as a result, was subjected to my whimpering for an extra ten minutes. What can I say? No risk, no reward-- Man from Mars did a magnificent U-turn that made the tires squeal, and within minutes I was munching, silenced on a cheeseburger and grinning from ear to ear.

Saturday: By day, Man from Mars and I sweated it out at the gym in Melbourne Park and brushed shoulders with (pictures of) the world's tennis greats. The Park is being prepped and revamped for the Aussie Open, and the buzz has already started. Come on!

We had a lazy lunch with Man from Mars' mum, just around the corner from her house and as I navigated a giant club sandwich, Man from Mars chewed daintily on his omelette:

That's not enough food!! I decided-- and lumped half my club sarnie on his plate. He acted unbothered by it, but I think he was secretly relieved, because he must've been so hungry after all that exercise we did!

Afterwards, we went home and had a little nap. Then we had cake and tea on the patio, watched the ants march and played with Kite, the cat:

Watching ants march one by one (Hurrah! Hurrah!)

Man from Mars boasting about his height and his big muscles!

Newspaper stories:

Kite the Cat:

By night, Man from Mars and I watched Mary Poppins. They were the last seats in the entire theatre- at the very back row, where the view can be "partially obstructed" by the sloping roof. Never mind, even though we missed a lot of the scenes where Mary Poppins swoops magically with her opened black umbrella, I loved loved loved the show.

It was a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious weekend :)

It sounds like Maccas!

http://www.stamp.umd.edu/images/mcdonalds.jpg

Today our hard drive crashed at work. Things became so dire that it started doing the beep of death:

Beep . Beep . Beep. Beep.

Then it wouldn't stop.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

For 5 hours.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

"Stop it!" ordered Miss K Kaif- the only person who gets as annoyed by extraneous repetitive noise as me.

"Hey, don't you think the beep reminds you of Macca's?" I suggested tentatively.

"Um, no- how exactly?" (Miss K Kaif squints at me, perplexed)

"It really does! It sounds like when the fries are done and the cooker's beeping, letting the Macca's people know that they have to take the fries out!" I maintained.

But Miss K Kaif just didn't see it: "I dare you to ring everyone in the office and ask them if the beep reminds them of Maccas"

So I did.

Miss DB drew a blank, she considered, she pondered. Then: "Noh I don't get it..."

Jathon didn't appreciate the link: "Huh? What do you mean"

Miss K Kaif grinned half-triumphantly, but gave me this invaluable tip-off: "You know who would know?"

"Who?" I asked, mildly defeated.

"Miss Tiny or Miss Tiny's sister!" she said.

So I dialled Miss Tiny's number.

"Hey Miss Tiny, dontcha reckon the beep sounds like Maccas?" I asked half-heartedly.

Instant wavelength connection: "OMG YES! YES! I THOUGHT THAT FIVE MINUTES AFTER IT STARTED BEEPING!"

Hallelujah!!!! Need I say more? Miss Tiny and I are so freaking cool. We get each other. Especially when it comes to sound association.

Treat those OH&S warnings right...

My left big toe hurt all day today.

Occasionally, it felt like there was a bindi digging into it. The rest of the time it just felt a little bruised.

Finally, just before the clock hit half past six, the curiosity and mild throbbing was killing me and I forced Miss DB to wait while I slipped off my shoes and examined my toe:

A staple lodged in my toe.

Miss DB was incredulous: "Couldn't you feel it???"

Me: I could, but it didn't feel like a staple!!!"

I mean, who knows exactly what a staple will feel like when it's lodged in their foot?

Unfortunately for me, my sense of touch might not have served me too well, but my memory certainly does. I remember the exact moment that staple would've snagged on my stocking, rotated, and found my toe:

Mid morning, shoes discarded to let my feet "breathe", I took a routine trip to the printer in my stockinged feet. OH&S SchmOH&S, I pooh pooh-ed the frequent warnings that circulate about workplace safety and threw caution into the wind.

Serves me damn straight right.

The Grapes of Wrath...

http://tv.nytimes.com/2007/04/04/arts/television/04stew.html

So, even though I'm not your lecturer (or anyone of any authority really) I'm setting you some readings.

Read The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.

Start by reading Chapter 1. The continue on. Don't stop. You won't want to stop. The heavy description, the intense desperation; it frays your nerves to shreds. You'll want the story to continue on and on, if only you could find out what eventually happens to the Joads.

Sculptures by the Sea...

Saturday was the start of a scorching weekend. As temperatures reached 28C, Miss Ebae and I decided to visit the Sculptures by the Sea exhibition. It runs along a walking trail from Bondi Beach to Tamarama and showcases more than 80 amazing sculptures.

It's not unusual for both of us to be slightly tardy when we catch up-- the trend generally is that we'll text each other about 5 minutes beforehand and say:

"I'm running a bit late! Sorry!"

The apology is perfunctory because neither of us expects anything more. I don't anxiously will the train to hurry up as I would for a less familiar friend, because Miss Ebae is laid back as Larry when it comes to times. But this weekend, I'm pretty sure we outdid ourselves. The arranged meeting time was 12:30 pm. We ended up meeting up at-- wait for it-- 2:30 pm.

It started off with Miss Ebae texting me at 12:15:

"We're gonna be a bit late!"

At this stage, I was three quarters of the way to Bondi and told her I'd hang out at Westfields- stay out of the heat and window shop.

Then at 12:50 pm I got a call:

"We're just at Broadway!"

I said that I'd hunt down a bus and start making my way to the Beach. Unfortunately for me, thousands of others had the same idea and the line for the bus was 4 people thick and least 50 people long. I waited a while and then opted for a taxi as bus after bus bypassed my stop: bus drivers raising their arms to the heavens as we waved at them to stop: "What can we do?"

Luckily, my taxi driver was pretty awesome and said:

"I'll take you through the side streets so you don't have to wait in the traffic and pay so much" (insert conspiratorial wink).

I got down to the beach in record time while Miss Ebae, entire family in tow, struggled through the traffic. By this stage it was 1:45pm and I hung around the grassy slopes to the side of the beach, surveying the packed out sands:

As Miss Ebae's dad skilfully parked the car, Miss Ebae hurried up to me decked out in her Jackie O sunnies:

"Sorry sorry sorry!"

We had a lovely lunch at the Trio cafe where Miss Ebae's sweet parents kindly shouted me lunch and I met CJ, Miss Ebae's big sister's brand new baby boy for the first time. What an adorable, feisty little guy:

Following lunch, we started the scenic walk. We went past Bondi Icebergs...

And voila, sculpture number one:

And tonnes of others-

My fave, the squirting paint tube:

Cos I'm a goanna, like:

And... we came upon Miss Tiny and her man, the Bu-brain (because he's really smart):

Meanwhile, you may recall that I dropped my phone in the toilet last month. Well guess what? This morning, all sweaty from my hour walk and rushing for a shower, I dropped my phone- in my shorts-into the wash.

What the f*ck!!!!

Who can explain such tomfoolery? I make absolutely no excuses for myself. For now, my phone is submerged in uncooked rice and has a number of desiccant sachets strapped to its slick little frame. Revive phone, revive!!

Sammy J and Randy in Rickett's Lane...

Tonight my sister, Miss ZabbaDabbaDoo and I cosied up in the Studio at the Opera House to watch Sammy J and Randy in Rickett's Lane. A clever, funny, unapologetically risque play that centres on Sammy J, a disillusioned tax lawyer and his housemate Randy (the purple puppet).

Without giving any of the plot away, I will say that I really liked it. I loved the simplicity of the stage, the clever, economic use of props, the humour-- and the fact that they sang these spot-on witty songs with Sammy J blasting fabulous chords on the keyboard. Plus, the snug vibe of the Studio made us all feel like we were sitting in the audience of Rockwiz.

What can I say? I recommend you go and see it.

[By the way- how cool did Sydney Harbour look ? Here's some photos of my sister, Miss ZabbaDabbaDoo and other icons:]

The Haidillac Pony Express...

This evening, the HP Express and I caught up for some Seabay dumplings, tea and a good old yarn. It's only our 3rd get together for 2010-- the last being in March. Pathetic, yet undeniably impressive. You couldn't boast that many people with whom you could just sit down and pick up right where you left off 8 months ago, now could you?

Of all the people you meet in your lifetime, the majority fall away- move countries, work prevails, points of commonality are buried amongst boastings of "this important matter I'm working on" and you contemplate that it's sad that you can't stay friends with all the people you were so "close" to at a particular point in your life. I have zero primary school friends (reason: moved house and attended different high schools), a couple of high school friends (reason: different unis) and a couple of uni friends (reason: different industries, outlook on career and life generally). And so, as it stands, my centre of friendship currently lies at work.

However floating friendships aside, the HP Express and I have always been united by our Asian-ness, our desire to be done with all that Asian parents enforced conservatism, our awareness that we can both come across rather "blonde" (but damn it we still have brains!), our awesome relationship advice (to each other) and our struggle to find our career feet.

Plus, we pretty well get each other: the HP Express with her hyperbolic recounts of life's happenings which appear to propel day to day at break neck speed. Me with my less descriptive but usually relevant analogies in return. A tad bittersweet, but in the end, I think I've realised that I don't mind that the majority of my friendships stutter off into the abyss- with nothing but fond memories to take me back to younger times.

It's like my mum says: you'll only have a couple of friends who you'll keep for life... and if you have more, then you're pretty damn lucky.

A bit of backtracking...

The last week of October was a week of flooring the pedal--- socialising, babysitting and holidaying. It was that go go mobile that I didn't have a chance to post about it. So, fancy an update? Let's backtrack a little, shall we?

On the Tuesday before last (being the 26th of October, for all of you squinting and scratching your head trying to remember when that was), I met up with Miss Glamela, my super smart, scarily similar and chic friend who's risen like a phoenix from the depths of relationship break-up despair to triumph and snag herself a rock solid (emotionally and physically) Navy Man. Besides our weekly email rendezvous, we haven't actually met up for at least 2 years.

Amongst all the highly constructive girl talk, we shared stories on how we react when her Navy Man and my Man from Mars do/say the wrong thing:

"The window becomes my best friend" Miss Glamela admitted with a sheepish smile

"I examine my finger nails and look everywhere but at Man from Mars!" I declared.

We're such females.

[Miss Glamela:]

The next day, my sister and I baby sat for the grand kids of her previous boss, who's actually a grand old Judge with a wicked sense of humour and a glamorous and musical wife. Two adorable little boys, two years old and five years old respectively-- with so much joyful energy and verve that two hours later, we were completely shattered. I resisted the urge to crawl into bed with them when their bedtime finally rolled around at 7:30 pm. Parents are so underrated.

What I also learnt on that night is that I've completely forgotten how to play Duck Duck Goose. In my mind, I could remember running around a circle and tagging someone and someone else rejoining the circle, and so on. But in practice when it came time to play, I got totally confused and played it all wrong. The two year old toddled over and dropped down on his haunches, his short legs straddling my outstretched leg. He stared into my eyes willing me to understand:

Bath time? I requested hopefully.

[Playing "We're catching the bus to China" with my sister:]

Then on the Friday of that week Man from Mars landed in Sydney at 9:30 pm. In the meantime I had a lovely dinner with Ms CalmFarm at the Winery, Crown Street. We both had sirloin steaks, with fries and a killer (unnecessary, but who can resist) dessert to end. When Man from Mars finally arrived, it was the end of a longggg day and our conversation pretty much went like this:

Man from Mars: I've been running around all day! I ran from the meeting, to the airport for my plane, then when I got off the plane I ran to the station and ran for the train!"

Me: Yeah you're kind of smelly. (Immaturely, I pinch my nose and lean away from him, following which he tries to smother me in a hug.)

The next day we drove up to Port Stephens and enjoyed a three day getaway at the Oaks Pacific Blue Resort in Port Stephens (http://www.oakshotelsresorts.com/Site.aspx?pid=96). I kid you not, this is one of the rare times where the pictures promised on the website were as good as the real thing. Great weather, a fake beach, a fake lagoon that meandered all the way around the resort, excellent food, and everything you could possibly need within 200 metres of your room. You have to go. And a quick word of advice, when you lather on the sunscreen, don't forget to the bit under the edge of your bikini-- I forgot and was left with a bikini outline branding that hurt every time I lay down.

[The fake beach and lagoon:]

The rest of the week has been equally fun. On Tuesday, it was the Melbourne Cup by day (Americain won) and the Twelfth Night by night. My workmates and I went and saw it at the Opera House Playhouse. Incredibly funny, modern and adapted to reflect a 21st Century pop culture slant, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I will concede that I missed bits because of those tricky Shakespearean monologues, but really, unless you're a literary professor wannabe, you won't get every single word.

Yesterday was Sezrah's baby shower and the J-Grad and I hauled our bums down to Jannali for some baby welcoming celebrations. We had a lovely time marvelling at Sezrah's rotund baby bump, chatting with some other young mums and playing with gurgling babies, toddlers and their toys:

CONGRATS SEZRAH! ONLY 2 MONTHS TO GO!

[The J-Grad. She cuts her own hair. I know, it's amazing:]

My sister the Super Chaffeur drove me there and picked me up, and by the time she had to go back into the city a third time, she was, you could say, a little car-red out. We wound our way back into Angel Place and enjoyed the Brandenburg Orchestra showcasing Mozart's greatest love songs (http://www.cityrecitalhall.com/events/id/636/Mozart-Love-and-Paris/). The tenor, a German fellow called Markus Brutscher, swept us all away into a romantic reverie, as he ended the night with a lullaby that he sings to his young daughter when he's halfway across the world. Swoon.

So there we are then, all up to speed.

Have an excellent Sunday, won't you? xx

Reads like poetry...

I'm not particularly good at reading poetry. The rhythm, the metaphors, the symbolism on symbolism- Sometimes I struggle to appreciate all that hoohah imagery. But recently, I came across this, and I think it's beautiful:

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

"He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven"- - - -William Butler Yeats.