While Ruby takes approximately 52 showers a day to deal with the stifling heat and humidity, I’m left wondering how anyone orders a hot drink around here.
It is like 100 degrees and all I’m doing is trying to get every drink store Auntie and Uncle to “ice” whatever I’m ordering.
“Auntie, give me ice Milo!”
“Uncle, can you put ice in the teh tarik?”
Even the cold drinks are wimps.
I mean, look at this sugarcane juice. It’s cold and it’s sweating.
Dot and Ruby’s bald spot miss you!
Dot and Ruby really miss you!
There always comes a time when I am home that I hit a wall.
An eating wall.
The unholy trinity of the jetlag, humidity, and sheer volume of food I am trying to stuff into my body collide into some sort of sad mess, resulting in a complete shutdown of my eating faculties.
It’s not pretty.
I hit it last night — ironically — at the buffet to beat all local buffets at Straits Kitchen, after a week of merry feasting.
The last thing in my mouth was a popiah, and then I just told my parents, “I am very tired.”
And by the way, does anyone notice that when you ask Singaporeans their favorite foods, the answers (chicken rice, char kway teow, roti prata, chilli crab, laksa, satay, etc.) never include vegetables?
I do.
What does this mean? Do we, as a nation, ever have a bowel movement?
Rubester the Cubester looks like Dot. No, Jay. No, Dot. Wait a minute, it’s Jay’s face but Dot’s eyes. No wait, nose. I think the lips are hers. It’s his eyes though, definitely his eyes.
While friends and family who meet Ruby play the “Match the Body Part with Corresponding Parent” game, strangers who meet her for the first time approach her look with much less tact.
They see me. They see her. Then the reactions pour in — from the subtle to the not so politically correct.
“Er, your husband from where ah?”
“She looks white.”
“Your husband ang moh ah?”
“Her eyes don’t look Chinese.”
“She’s mixed, issit?”
“She’s very fair hor…”
In a world where looks matter (witness the How-Black-Is-Obama Debate), and especially in a place like Singapore that has carefully defined and celebrated each of the “Four Races,” knowing where you come from and which racial stereotype you fit have become a shorthand for dealing with you.
I just wanted to tell everyone, “She’s a baby.”
Removing your stuck hand from under a sleeping baby is like letting go of the handle of a grenade…right after you’ve re-inserted the safety pin.
When you turned and scowled at us as we entered the taxi, I said nothing.
When you took out your nail clipper at traffic stops and started clipping your fingernails, I said nothing.
When you wove in and out of traffic like a disgruntled F1 racer while there was an infant in the vehicle, I said nothing.
You had that certifiable crazy glint in your eye and I didn’t want you to drive to a remote place to beat the crap out of us.
But Mr. X, I memorized your license plate and name, in the event I wanted to send in a complaint or worse, had to testify against you if you subjected future passengers to something even more devious — like cutting your toenails.
I don’t know where Singapore stands in the whole courtesy-in-service-industries thang, but it certainly doesn’t start with taxi drivers.
I am considering writing in to Comfort Cabs, but Mr. X, you know where I live.
The Rubester went to her first hawker center today.
It took a while because we haven’t left the house due to my fears of major meltdowns, as in “Ruby will disintegrate into a puddle of sweat”, compounded by the usual garden variety baby meltdown.
Till now, my family has kindly tar-pao’ed my food cravings home.
But today, I wanted vegetarian noodle breakfast. So on a bus we went. Here Ruby looks shellshocked by the humidity as we step out of the flat.
The air-conditioned bus and a comfortable Mr Whoozit lull the Rubes into a little catnap!
Can I just say — and I’m allowed to — how freaking adorable that is?
Telok Blangah Crescent hawker center! (Also has great carrot cake, but alas my eyes were hungrier than my tummy, so no go on the carrot cake.)
Ruby yelled a little with all the new sounds, smells, and sights around her, but calmed down after some expert jiggling by Grandpa.
All’s well that ends well. In Dot’s Tummy.
Thank you, Sensei Ruby, for showing the way.
When I am flying alone, with Sensei Ruby, from Seattle to Los Angeles to Singapore, I need to know the following:
(1) Pack nothing for yourself. There is no time to brush your teeth, wash your face, or check in the mirror twice. When you do look in the mirror, it’s to see that none of the Sensei’s Explosive Poop got onto your clothes.
(2) Poop happens. And explosive poop will happen when you least expect it — at Sea-Tac Airport even before you get onto the first aircraft, thus forcing you to activate your Extra Emergency Clothing (of which you only brought one set because you thought naively, “Why would Ruby poop explosively when she knows mom is super stressed?”) and wish that there are no more incidents because you still have two flights and 20 hours to go.
(3) Bring half the number of diapers you think you need. Or calculated you will use on any normal day. This is no normal day, and the tiny changing tables and long bathroom queues conspire to make you change her only when it’s close to bursting. Sorry, Sensei!
(4) Exception to Lesson (1), pack lots, and lots, of painkillers for yourself. Tylenol and Exedrin made the pain go away by the second flight.
(5) Nix your jacket and personal purse packed with extra toys and a book. The baby, baby carrier, and diaper bag already outnumber your two hands.
(6) Make sure Sensei charms the pants off other passengers, especially the father of five beside you because he will help hold random things when you run out of hands and the Sensei is crying.
(7) The Sensei will weigh one pound more for each extra block you have to walk from Delta Airlines to the International Terminal. Do not believe the woman who tells you it will “only take five minutes.”
(8) When you expect the worst, and it happens, like 45 minutes of extreme crying onboard a small commuter airplane from Seattle to Los Angeles (Apologies, everyone on DL7779!), accept there is nothing you can do. Let it go.
(9) You will never be able to eat when the meals are served. Only when Sensei Ruby allows you to.
(10) Do not forget to burp Sensei.
The review of the flight and blow-by-blow account of Ruby’s poop-tastrophe at Sea-Tac Airport will have to wait.
The Rubester and the Dotster are jetlagged: Can you say sleep at 3 pm and wake at 3 am?
(And Jay, if you’re reading this, Julia says it’s quite okay you didn’t make it here this time, looking at Ruby’s like looking at you.)
Question: Why choose Singapore Airlines when you have to fly 9,000 non-stop miles with a semi-grouchy clingy infant?
Answer: So when the going gets tough, the (wannabe) tough can say the words, “I’d like a Krispy Kreme donut and a glass of water, please.”
In case that wasn’t clear enough, there’s Krispy Kreme aboard, people. I’d like to give who thought of that a Nobel Peace Prize for averting onboard cabin fights for overhead compartment space.
Coming tomorrow: The review of SQ37 and the Perils of Flying A Long Way With A Little Person.
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