The Whole Tooth

These are Gabe’s baby molars.
They decided to come out a few days apart.

I guess to me they signify the next phase of his growth – into the uncharted
waters of tweenhood.

Has it been 10 years? It was common practice for him to place his fallen
baby teeth under his pillow for the Tooth Angel to leave money the next day
but of late, when he did not find any he would say to me, “you forgot to leave
money under my pillow”.

It’s a well worn cliche but time doth fly like a G6 – and I realise that he’s
grown up so fast that I have to admit that there are some things
I really can’t control anymore.

He’s listening to all the hip stations like Fly FM, Mix, Red and regards Lite
as a boring old fart of a station.

We are constantly flipping between the choice of my or his stations in the car
when we drive(although I still have veto power at times). I’m appalled at
today’s music and the noise that pollutes the airwaves.

Then all of the sudden I realise that….OMG, I’m that old parent complaining
of the noisy music of today that makes no sense! Then I remember that I
did not make sense of any of the lyrics that came out of a Culture Club song.

Sigh.

It’s a common sigh to see kids at the dining table in restaurants busy at their
PSP or DS or iPadhand/phone tapping away furiously at their games and
Gabe is always lamenting that he’s the most unlucky kid in his class who has
neither any of these devices.(ok he does play the simple games on mum’s
handphone sometimes).

We resist getting into that trap but I wonder for how long. Already, since
getting him a Facebook account, he’s chalked up a 100 over friends and
is constantly playing Backyard Monsters, a hugely popular game
amongst his peers. Thankfully, he still loves his evening basketball/cycling
with the neighbourhood kids and we try to encourage his reading habit
with the books that I get at the Big Bad Wolf sale, a fantastic annual event
that I try not to miss as books for kids go for RM5-8 a pop!
The other day at Borders I saw a Horrible Science book I got at the sale
going at RM30 plus!

I have to face the fact that he’s beginning to form his own opinions -
he’s been very fussy about food of late and not wanting to venture into the
unfamiliar. I guess the next ten years will bring new challenges, new trials
and new discoveries.

Meanwhile he’s remarked that his incisors are a bit wobbly…

The Gang’s Old Here

last week some of my former mia classmates decided to meet up and
it was quite a good turn out. some i hadn’t seen since art school in ’83!
we had a great time of reminiscing and exchanging tales.
i guess when one reaches the late forties and early fifties, gatherings
with old friends are something to look forward to and cherish.
it’s good to see the individuals and how life has shaped them after all
these years. yet, i could tell that their inherent character and
personality remained intact.

there was christina, or as we fondly nicknamed her ‘ying char’ who
has dabbled at every imaginable field. from real estate to chinese
painting to massive cross stitching to selling jewellery in laos,

she now plans to do charity work in africa in the coming years!
plus she has a daughter who’s a multi-gold medal swimmer
destined for the uk olympics next year!
chris is ever the mother hen, calling and cajoling everyone to gather,
arranging for fantastic discounts on the beer even!then there’s chee,
now a white haired fine artist and rebel who’ll be having an exhibit
at an abandoned warehouse in penang this coming september.
his art style has somewhat evolved to twisted faces and
distorted features. “a masked political statement”, he retorts,
lamenting about how his art isn’t for everyone.kenneth tan, who has made his ambition out of talking, is a budding
writer and strategist. we used to call him ayam jan-tan after his ability
to literally ‘talk cock’. he was carrying a tummy and experiencing some
hair loss, which made everyone who saw him for the first time remark,
“eh you put on weight!”, not the most flattering of comments,
especially when you are in the late forties.(ok, it’s never a great
comment to begin with!)
i’ve known him since school and one of my most vivid memories was
of the time when i camped over at his home in tiong nam, helping him
draw and do visuals for his interview the next day!
today he’s the proud father of 4 beautiful girls and doing what he
does best. talk.

then there’s hock wah, now a successful amway double diamond.
i remember him as being a quiet, shy,  soft spoken lad back in art
school. now he’s single, balding and rolling in the moolah.
good for him! he also revealed his special side to us that night -
proudly flashing pictures of his beautiful garden on his 1phone.

siew kai, who’s always amiable, always ready to help and never
fails to raise a laugh. he’s like the glue that keeps us together.
he now stays at aman suria with his wife and 3 children -
3 silky terriers!

and of course there’s lok,(who couldn’t join us taht night)
whom i actually started out my working career with.
i remember riding pillion on his beat up motorbike to sentosa
cinema in section 17 to catch a rm1 flick! those days back
at union 45 we were know as ‘lok and loh’, visualisers extraordinaire!
but time has been tough on him, having gone thru(and currently
still entrapped in)a nasty marriage, he’s still the stubborn, always
hilarious lok i hung out with back then.the rest, well, they stayed
pretty much the same as i remember them 20 plus years ago.
a time when we were art students, enamored by the grand illusion
of the bright shiny diamond called advertising.
a time when we struggled with drawing figures, painting with
acrylics, developing photos in the dark room with lethal
chemicals. and i remember the dinners we had some weekends.
where we would share a common purpose and dream.now looking
back, i was the only one who actually am still in advertising in the
purest sense, others have moved on to related fields or even far
better ones. these were the people i identified with most, despite
having spent a little over a year with.
i have attended reunions by my former colleagues of big agencies
but never felt a stronger bond than with my faithful mia mates.

travelling this path into the fifties, it’s an uncertain journey -
people you know and family start to get frail,  fall ill or pass on.

a time where the ‘R’ word stalks in the shadows like a serial
killer awaiting to pounce on his next victim.

it’s not exactly the best time in one’s life. but still, this late
journey brings many comforting  moments like this unexpected
reunion and these are the times i cherish as i witness the
tenacity of my fellow comrades as they weather this great
big storm called life and emerge intact, some better off for
the experience.

here’s to many more gatherings to come!

i’ll drink to that! cheers!

a rather poignant and apt poem from keats that i came across:

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charactry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love; — then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

Loafing on a Lazy Sunday

i buy a big bunch of bananas on sundays for my juices but i usually end up with unfinished bananas that are often over ripe. i chanced upon a banana bread recipe while working on a project and decided to give it a try. a quick trip to bake with yen and got all the ingredients ready. i took the liberty of adding walnuts and used brown sugar instead(in reduced amounts as well)

in the mix: gabe giving a hand in mixing the ingredients

greasing the baking tray makes it easier later on when removing the loaf

into the oven for a good hour, 175 degrees

voila! isn’t she a beaut?
plus the smells coming out of the oven just about an hour was heavenly!

a true work of art!(if i may say so myself….)

had it for lunch with some cheese and a glass of merlot

ok, it was my very first baking experience so excuse the volume of pics, next: wholemeal bread!

here’s the original recipe, nicely illustrated.

Cover Story

yes it has been a while since i last posted, work has been insane.

i recently recommended an ex colleague who was out of work for a bit and she got the job. she was initially, ever so grateful. after two weeks i am not sure any more, judging by the stress lines on her face! oh did i mention that work was insane? plus the fact that my couple of weeks have been turned on it’s head by major events, which are, thankfully slowly and surely returning back to normal.

but having said all this, i still feel incredibly blessed!

a few months back a friend recommended that i call up this person who was looking to fill a position in a japanese company. i did, there were chats and i was pretty sure that i was a shoe-in for the post. at the last minute i got news that they gave the job to a singaporean counterpart. i must say i was a tad disappointed as i was eager for a change, job-wise.

then a month back, jloh was having severe cramps and pains and she finally consulted with the doctors who recommended major surgery. on the 13th of last month she underwent a 2 hr op and stayed at the hospital
for a total of 9 days.

now the company i work for had insurance coverage for spouse and children but i was not really certain how much the ceiling amount was. so you can imagine my trepidation while waiting for the bill. it didn’t help that they took forever to get it out! but when it finally did i breathe a sigh of relief as the insurance covered RM14K and the total was about RM15,600. the best part was that follow-up visits were also covered! a big PHEW!

so jloh is recuperating at home and i got to use the car. and the uncanny thing about it all was that at the very same week that she was going in for the op, a friend was wanting to have someone take over his club membership(he has had the membership for well over 8 years and have never stepped into it! and he dutifully paid the monthly fees for the entire period of time!) the club as just next to the office where i worked and i had wanted to go back to the gym for so long now.

kismet? hmmm.

serendipity? probably not.

divine intervention? bingo!

so looking back, i guess the Big Guy does move in mysterious ways and i am now so glad i did not get the job. sometimes you have to look at everything as a blessing in disguise, no matter how disappointing they may seem at that moment. and when you take time to reflect and connect the dots, you’d realise that things do happen for a reason. you know that silver lining in every cloud they are always talking about?
it really exists.

Heart to Heart Doctor

‘Forgive me father, for I have binged. It’s been 3 days since my last confection. I have indulged in the ways of the flesh and have succumbed to the dangers of excessive Low-density lipoprotein.”

a few weeks long ago i decided to go for the yearly free health check provided by the company. the health check comprised of the usual blood, urine, ecg and x-ray. pretty standard stuff. the results came out a week after that and here’s where it got interesting. i was supposed to complete the health check with a stress test so i had my running shoes on, walked to the hospital and registered myself. a nurse came to take my bp, everything checked out, i was normal. then i waited a bit to see the doc about my results. she took my bp again and remarked that it was high!
suddenly i am hypertensive! while the other results was normal – sugar, uric acid, etc she told me that the ecg readings indicated that i had lvh or Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH)  which is the thickening of the myocardium (muscle) of the left ventricle of the heart. wth! after that she said she did not recommend that i do the stress test as i may keel over and die. all the while i am thinking: i play badminton for 2 hrs twice a week, walk most of the time because i am carless and i can’t take a stress test? seriously?
she then recommended that i consult a cardiologist and made out a letter for the insurance and company.

ordinarily i wouldn’t even consider going but since it was all being paid for by aia, i decided to make the appointment, but with another doctor, not the one she recommended(as i heard bad reviews about). so i was set to see dr hendrick chia at sun med on a friday.

as fate would have it, i had an evening meeting with a client at le meridien at sentral the night before and after the meeting the
client invited us for dinner at prime!

resistance was futile. i practically chucked caution to the wind and ordered a foie gras and wagyu beef! the client ordered a bottle of wine as well so at least there was some health aspect to the whole meal?
i must say, the breads were fantastic, there was a hearty walnut version and another which i could not discern coupled with a lovely selection of assorted butter.

and the foie gras and wagyu was to die for! ok probably not the best combination before seeing a cardio but what can i say, you only live once…
rather, you only get to patronise prime@le meridien once….

so came friday, with much trepidation, fear and trembling i marched on to the cardio’s. freaky as it may sound, i met not one, but two people that i knew there!
is the Big Guy trying to tell me something?
the first was a former church member, he had numbness in his right hand and discovered that he had a mild stroke.
when i asked his wife how old he was, she replied.”41, like you lor”. gasp.
the second was an ex saatchi art director who had brought her mom in for a consult.
the cardio, dr hendrick chia, turned out pretty good. he was soft spoken, took time to explain
and told me that an ecg was not the most accurate indicators of lvh.
it was, however, an indication that the hospital needed to milk more people into going for costly tests! i digress. he recommended an echocardiogram, which is a better and more accurate test. it was quite like an ultrasound, except they look at your ticker in detail, even the blood vessels going to the liver. if i passed the echo then he would have me do a stress test.

i went through the motions and the echo came out good, i did not have lvh after all!
i was primed for the stress test! so the female doc strapped what seemed like a gadzillion wires to my chest and with the bp arm thing and bp tube and ball i hopped on to the treadmill and went through all 5 levels, each level consisting of 3 mins, with a gradual incline at every level. and at each level she would take my bp to see if it was within the normal ranges. at level 4 she was asking me if i could go n, and that she could stop the machine at any time i said so. it was not that taxing really, having gone on the mill before at the gym. so i raced onto level 5, which required some brisk running. finally she said that i had reached a 100% and asked if i wanted to stop. i let out a victory woop which i am sure, echoed throughout the floor.

so 2 hours later i was back in the doc’s office and he took out the ecg from the stress test and declared me healthy – whew! however he did say that my cholesterol level from the health check was high, at 6. he then asked me to monitor my bp for 2 weeks and come back to see him again and let hm know if i want to be on cholesterol meds.
i then bought a bp monitoring gadjet from him for rm150 and have been taking down my bp at various random intervals since.
then last sunday i was at the ss2mall and they had a free blood cholesterol test and mine dropped to 5.58. that’s an improvement, no?

i guess when you are fast approaching the big five-oh there has to be certain life changing decisions that one has to make, especially concerning what you eat and exercise. which is why through divine intervention, i managed to get a membership to the club next door and have started to go back to the gym and swim in between.
gulam also recommended that i try a banana/broccoli/papaya smoothie every morning, which is what i have been consuming for the past 3 days now.
i must admit that there have been times when i was on a death-wish with the types of food i was consuming but nowadays it’s mainly oats and fruit(banana and mangoes) for lunch.
jen’s going for her op this coming monday and i see dr hendrick in a week, i think that’s enough of hospitals for one year.