the laptop new toy. and a new quote...

Been having this baby dell for 2 weeks now and this is the first burb. Hope it'll get me started on something else more serious... (I hope...)

Anyways.

I can't get this out of my head - the phrasing is poetic, lightly pedantic and resonates with just the right tension:

There is no mystery to happiness.

Unhappy men are all alike. Some wound they suffered long ago, some wish denied, some blow to pride, some kindling spark of love put out by scorn - or worse, indifference - cleaves to them, or they to it, and so they live each day within a shroud of yesterdays. The happy man does not look back. He doesn't look ahead. He lives in the present.

But there's the rub. The present can never deliver one thing: meaning. The ways of happiness and meaning are not the same. To find happiness, a man need only live in the moment; he need only live for the moment. But if he wants meaning - the meaning of his dreams, his secrets, his life - a man must reinhabit his past, however dark, and live for the future, however uncertain. Thus nature dangles happiness and meaning before us all, insisting only that we choose between them.


-- The Interpretation of Murder, Jeb Rubenfeld

A new dictum to mull over...

my kakak's **th birthday, a backdated blog... :o\

Am on 2 miserable days' well deserved and much earned annual leave yesterday and today and just plain tired out meself window shopping and walking and snacking like every 20 mins literally at any place that sells decent food and munchies from Bishan to Alexandra Village to Ikea and finally to VivoCity the whole day yesterday.

Now, trying to recover from the exhausting recovery. Duh.

Anyway. That's that.

Last Saturday night was an unforgettable and cosy birthday bash affair.

There were few choice peeps, lots of food to feed an African state, strong brews of coffee and tea and plenty of deep thoughts and talk going around.

The brightly coloured and flowered dress theme and dinner setting, some lost JC schoolmates' reconnection (so sad, almost everyone's migrating or moving to the Eastern Seaboard...), the catered cuisine with appetisers from heaven that never seem to end and the sumptuous 4 course dinner meal done by the pretty chef on the spot for us in our midst, the sedapest desserts, the thoughfullest birthday guest mementoes from the birthday girl and hubby host and most of all.

That feeling and realisation of a blink of an eye. The loose pinafores and baggy pants and smelly ties and folded sleeves and then I look at us, in our age with our package (pun intended, I don't mean baggage), kids, families, job woes, aims, pains, worldviews, choices, points in life.

As Hilary Swank said, we have come a looong way...

Cosy affair ended half past midnight, and could have gone on. Don't deceive ourselves, we don't have all the time in the world. You could get hit by a bus. But don't use up all the good times in 1 night.

There will be times for more coffee and tea.

Came away with a very nice feeling. And some cool posh pics for posterity.

1 2 3 4

1 Paul, Shai's hubby, speaks Singlish like nobody's business, a great lensman, and a greater Brit than any other I've ever met (other than my Irish Lit lecturer, of course, but he'll disagree cos he's Irish, he'll feel affronted but nevermind lah...), next to moi. Fatma, la pretty chef du nuit, looks gracious in green. Next to her is Siti, nursing scholar who's migrating to Canada. Carol, the sole femme at my row, litigates and speaks Chinese, Italian, French, Hokkien, Cantonese, Malay, Tamil, Tibetan, Tahitian (just joking) and god knows whaaat other cave language you can find...

2 Moi, with Inface [cool backdrop there, yeh, thanks to Paul ;o) ]

3 Moi, without Inface [hyak hyak hyak...]

4 Birthday girl and my dearest kakak!! The one who brought us all together again.

Voila.

:o)