aDrenais' Book of Shadows

The first 7 days in the year of the Tiger were spent in a most fruitful manner, hopefully this sets the pace for the rest of the year.

初一 Woke late because of late night TV, all thanks to SCV and the wondrous Smart TV function. I wasn't given much advance notice before Tan summoned me place to join him for a round of visiting. A small logistic hiccup involving his sister's old dress masquerading as my CNY outfit threw me into a hissy fit, but it was all good as she apparently didn't remember throwing the dress, or owning it at all. We visited 2 families, the second a stone throw from Josh's place. Josh met us for a quick chat, and like all the previous times we met they spent the entire time discussing the merits of Josh's current squeezes. Getting abit old there. After that Tan drove FF, BB and me to Holland Road, but not before Von came around to do her angpow run. This year, Tan actually stayed on to the end, and even sent my parents back instead of heading for Zouk shortly after dinner like in previous years. Sex sells.

初二 Managed to help out abit with lunch preparation before heading for Tan's 大舅's place as usual. The spread provided by his auntie was staggering in scale, sumptous to say the least. After that I made my way to Sengkang, and did a mini tour of Anchorvale Drive and Road and Way, Compassvale Walk and Drive and Way and what not on foot before finally caving in and taking the LRT to Rivervale Drive. SS and I were uber grumpy from lack of sleep, and had planned to leave early before the muah chee made its appearance. We were halfway to the door when accosted to dish out the muah chee, a role that we've undertaken for the last few years together with a cousin. By the time everybody had their muah chee, our moods were darker than the murky depths of hell, and we quickly left in a cab with FF. I went on to Tan's place to deliver muah chee, and say hi to his friends gathered at his place. God only knows how I lasted until half three, when I imperiously demanded to be sent home.

初三 Gathered an astonishing number of old classmates with catty SMS that went "Ok ppl CNY third day invitation at my place agn, pls rsvp. pls spare me the 'who's going' nonsense, at our age u want to come u come, dun wan nvm. Gong Xi Fa Call all" (Should have been all snarly long time ago, had I known everybody 吃硬不吃软) A great number of them replied to ask what time they should arrive, to which I replied "Whatever time I say, ppl will still come at any time they damn please, what's the point! any time after 10 ba" AList queen has the honour of proving my point perfectly, when she replied to the previous SMS "Why dun we fix in the afternoon? Say 130 or 2pm? Anyway i will be there ard tt time la..." !)@(*!#^!$! So, of course the first people who deigned to grace the occasion arrived at 1050hrs; everyone eventually turned up by noon. Note to self: Give Loo hell in future for living the closest but arriving the latest. I put up a crappy Big Spender routine for all the wusim kias who bothered to attend as promised ( Note to self: Give AList Queen hell in future for flying kite yet again), and everybody ooohed and aahhed at all the suitably impressive parts of the 2-min routine. We then adjourned to the kitchen for the lo hei that FF most kindly prepared on my behalf, since I was too lazy to wake up in the morning to do it myself. Love the Prawn clan.

初四 Got a chance to finally have abit of a lie-in, and woke at almost 11am to make an angpow run with Von to Ting's. Von came by to pick me up, and we arrived at the Yeos' alittle before noon. It was ultimate weirdness, because only Ahgong and Ahma were around when we arrived. We entertained ourselves by trying to make conversation in our broken Hokkien with Ahma, gorging on homemade pineapple tarts, and doing our best to get Xiaoxiong to give us the time of his day. Mr and Mrs Yeo came back with a carload of yummy food, and before we knew it scores of Ting's old neighbours from the Bedok flat started arriving for the buffet lunch. Initially, Von and I had planned to excuse ourselves as soon as decently possible, but we enjoyed ourselves so much that we ended up staying until 5ish, it was that fun! We gossiped with Mrs Yeo about the hired help, Mr Yeo about the merits of joining the PAP, and looked through the wedding photos and video of ZQ and his wife with genuine interest. The Yeos are by far the most pleasant of rich people I've had the privilege of meeting.

初五 Jumped out of bed late at 0815hrs, again due to late night TV. The itinerary of the day was to help out at my uncle/auntie's stall at NIE, as their regular helper was still on vacation in her home country. I arrived at about 11am, and in all honesty helped out only for 3-4 hours max. That was enough for me to develop a massive backache from the dishwashing, and to realise how very blessed I am not to have to do this for a living. My respect for my uncle and auntie, already skyhigh, increased ten fold. The day ended unexpectedly early for me, with me dozing off at the aisle behind their stall the first chance I got. Weak!

初六 Started the day bright and early with 2 driving lessons at Ubi, greatly troubled by my slow progress. Maybe I should stop chatting the driving instructors up during the 100-min sessions, there must be better ways of brushing up my dating skills. After that, I made a mad dash to Bloodbank at SGH to try to make my first-ever apheresis donation, unfortunately rejected again due to low iron count. I hate it when good intentions are snubbed! I was due to meet DM and XM immediately after that, but I knew I was too disgruntled to be of good company, so I headed home to sleep off my ill humour. Not remotely refreshed after an hour's sleep, I headed out again to meet DM and XM for dinner before work. My mood vastly improved upon the sight of them, and it was another excellent girlie session at 店小二 with good food and lovely company. Can't wait for XM to be based permanently back in SIN again, so that we can do it more often. Then off to work. Pfftt.

初七 Dragged myself to Cong's new flat in Hougang after sleeping a mere few hours following my midnight shift, but boy was I glad I went. The 2A gang is keeping well; everybody is at least as full-figured, if not more so, as the last I saw of them during the National Day weekend last year. Cong and E prepared a steamboat feast for us, angpows too (which were accepted unabashedly). E's a veritable trove of household tips - I learnt heaps from her about renovation works, financial planning and other handy tricks. 偶像级的省钱王，我要向她看起! Entertainment came in the form of their $200 karaoke system, in addition to the Wii which has been a permanent fixture at the gatherings for as long as I can remember. Tommy and Choo were kind enough to oblige my Aaron Kwok's song requests, when they were not belting out 草蜢 hits. We ended the night with yusheng I supplied (prepared again by FF, I really really need to give him a big treat), with Choo getting so excited he stuck his hand together with his chopsticks into the yusheng platter and tossed the yusheng all over the table and floor. We all agreed we've never gotten so sesame-covered during a lo hei session.

Legend: FF = Fabulous Father. MM = Marvellous Mother. SS = Superb Sister. BB = Brilliant Brother.


Random:
Something that came up on a local variety show - 爱思球思米 美爱虾儿咖啡? = Excuse me, may I have a coffee?

球 and 虾 read in Hokkien for the above to make any sense at all.