Saturdays still get to me

I don’t know how many times I have mentioned that I really hate going to work on Saturdays and Sundays. One day off per week is not enough and I am usually tired when I reach my desk on the first work day of the week, that is Saturday.

I work from Saturdays-Thursdays. No point in complaining, I know as it won’t change anything. I want to stay home especially now that darling daughter is home for her summer vacation. I want to go home and play with her, sleep with her and cook, arrange the cup board, clean the bathroom, arrange the closet, etc. My mood is not all sunshine today so I better stop.

I hate working on Saturdays but not that I am going to quit this job soon. Just sayin’.

an insect that ruined father’s day

We had no celebration of Father’s day yesterday if celebration means eating out or have something fancy for dinner at home. I came home after going to the gym to find Pristine crying and my husband trying to appease her and putting ice on her palm.

What happened?

He is not sure. They were watching Narnia on DVD when suddenly the babe complained of pain in her hands, particularly her palm, just right below her thumb. It was swollen red and the swelling was massive! M didn’t know what happened, whether suddenly he broke her finger bone or something - by just watching DVD!?

I looked at the troubled hand and know that some insect might have bitten her earlier in the day - in school or at home. When we were in Japan, I would pick her up from daycare, with swollen legs because of mosquito bites. Her skin is highly allergic to insect bites and swells for three days.

morning started earlier than usual

I woke up at 4 am this morning due to painful abdominal cramps that occur once a month (ladies should know what I mean). Whoever said that cramps are gone after childbirth must be lying because in my case, it’s just the same.

What’s a girl to do at 4 am when it’s still dark and silent? Read the news, catch up on blogs - finally I found the time to comment to blogger and wordpress.com blogs. The internet police at the office has loosened the rules and we are allowed to browse but man, what use is that if I can access blogger blogs but can’t open the comment form or can’t access wordpress.com (the free blog platform not the paid ones) blogs at all?

I was able to do what I wanted to do without any interruptions. At 6:00, my mom woke up to cook breakfast but I told her to go back to bed as I will be the kitchen mistress for today. With question mark written all over her face (I could sense she was about to ask me what got into me but she was too sleepy), she went back to bed.

P woke up at 6:30 and seeing so many things I cooked in the kitchen, asked me, “Who’s birthday is it, mom?”

*****

Speaking of birthdays, happy birthday to a dear friend who reads this blog but never leaves a comment thinking I would bite. You know who you are!

I wish you lots of happiness and many and many more birthdays to come.

the free lunch with an agenda

We were invited for a lavish lunch at one of the biggest hotels in Dubai. It was a surprise that I was included in the invitation. M (my hubby) is acquainted with one manager there through his work and he did not expect the manager to tell him to bring his wife.

I have no words to describe the lunch at the Arabian restaurant we were taken to except that is was grand and excessive. The course was about $100 per person. If that is not expensive to you, well, it is for me.

Anyway, the manager, a lady with a good reputation in sales was really nice. She was such a powerful woman, some qualities that could make her qualified to run for president.

We had fun during lunch talking about our lives in this new country. Then she hinted about a position needing to be filled in their hotel group. I won’t mention the hotel chain but it starts with letter H and operating worldwide. Truth is, the lavish lunch was about her wanting to convince my husband to accept the job!

We didn’t see it coming. The job looks promising and challenging and she is confident M will be able to do it. Problem is, M is not up for it yet - he just started working 9 months ago in his present company and it’s just now that he started being comfortable and confident in his work. He don’t want to go through the ropes again, not yet. His stance is, he owed this present company who offered him a job when he thought he won’t be able to work in a foreign country at all (due to language barrier - he speaks Japanese and only very little English when we came to Dubai last year) and his English skills is not enough and afraid he’ll just embarass the person who recommended him.

The manager was not convinced and said over and over that M will manage the new job. She was graceful all throughout the conversation, you won’t even feel the pressure - - maybe just a little. When M excused himself to go to the washroom. The manager told me to persuade my husband using all the powers that I have so he will change his mind and jump into the other fence. I could see desperation in her eyes because they wanted a Japanese staff and Japanese looking for job roaming in the streets of Dubai are almost non-existent.

I could never talk to him about quitting his present job and accepting a new one because I respect his decision. I think it’s up to him to decide because he will be the one to work in the new company, not me. He already said no so I can’t cross that boundary anymore.

I apologized and said no, I can’t do the persuasion no matter how I believe he can do the new job well too. The manager said, ok but when we parted and said our thanks, she patted my shoulder and said “I’ll still be waiting for any positive reply, just in case he changes his mind!”

*sigh*

Do you ever interfere with your husband’s career move?

how do you oreo?

When I was young, I remember eating Oreo or any other cream filled biscuits in a very strange way: I’d lick all the cream filling first and then gobble the biscuit. Yeah, in that exact order.

Yesterday our neighbor came by our house and brought Oreos for Pristine and you know what she did with them? Exactly the same way as I did when I was small! Is this typical behavior or she just inherited that habit from me?

(It was my first time seeing her eating Oreos like that - we hardly buy biscuits or sweets for her.)

I asked her though, why she does that and she just smiled and gave me the black biscuits short of any filling. Now that I am trying to lose weight, I feel less guilty eating Oreos without the cream. She eats the calorie-laden white stuff, I get the boring black biscuits. I have no complaints!

How do you eat your Oreos?

just keep running

After work, my husband and I pass by the nearby park a few blocks away from our apartment so I can run. Sometimes it’s so hard to shove myself past the park gate but mostly after running about an average of 3 kms, I feel so good that I tell myself I was so stupid being so lazy.

Now that the weather is perfect for outdoor activities, people running/walking in the park have increased. You know what is very common among the joggers there? Most of the people exercising inside the park are overweight, almost always, ladies with extra baggage in the mid-section, including myself.

*hide in shame*

In all my three months of jogging at the park, I have never seen someone fit and slim running. Why do people (again, like me) wait till they become too heavy to run or start making healthy choices and living healthy?

I am in constant battle with my weight. Running has helped me gain more energy and take some (not all) excess pounds away. Now if only I can find the strong will to continue doing it everyday!

how would you interpret this?

It’s Saturday once again and time to go back to work. As I’ve said in my previous posts, I only have one day break every week and it’s a Friday. Ok, I appreciate that tsk, tsk, you shaking your head in pity for me. I work on Saturdays and Sundays when normally, most of the people around the world are having fun outside with their families.

Anyway, no other way but to accept my fate, I got up this morning still reeling from a very bad dream, nightmare if you call it. I dreamed of plane crashes - -  with ’s’, that’s plural! And I was in one of the planes that crashed.  Whew, gory. First, I saw a plane crashing at the other side of the hill and I ran to look for it. I saw it lying in an empty field and I saw myself calling 911. Huh? I was in the USA at that time? How can that be? I guess so many things highly improbable in real life happen in dreams. Next scene, I was on board a plane about to crash land! I was desperately trying for my life vest and praying at the same time. I can’t believe God would take me this soon!

The plane skidded on the field but did not catch fire, it crash landed on a nearby river and I had to pinch myself to check I was not really dead. I actually survived and got out of the plane with my baggages. What a very unpleasant way to start the work week! When I took the shower this morning, I found a red patch in my arm, the one I pinched in that dream!

Anyone who’d like to help me find the meaning of this dream? (like I really want to know the meaning — it seems so negative!)

rain, rain go away

It’s been raining again here in desert land. Pristine and I were ready with our sunglasses as we left our basement parking when we were greeted by dark clouds and pitter-patter at the elevated exit. This caught us with surprise as this is the nth time it has rained since the new year began. The news says it has rained much these few days than the previous five years combined.

At the back of the car, I taught her the short song rain, rain go away.

Rain, rain go away. Come again another day. Little Pristine wants to play!

After three repetitions, the babe memorized the lines by heart. She was delighted with the last part and substituted her name with mine and all the members of the family from little papa to little grandma, little auntie, then with all the names of her classmates!

The next rain song was:

It’s raining, raining, raining and all the world is wet. It rained outside and now today, it’s raining, raining yet.

She absolutely loved the two songs and in no time, we were in her school grounds. Rushing to the corridors, she went ahead of me to meet her teacher and proudly sang to her the two new rain songs she learned from mommy.

British in the morning, American at night

Pristine is enrolled in the nearby international school that is following the British curriculum. Her class teacher has a heavy British accent which the kids mimic her without effort. As soon as Pristine arrives from school, she talks like someone we don’t know! Instead of curling the tongue whenever an ‘r’ is pronounced in the word as in the American English we use at home, words such as door, here, are, hair, butter, etc sounds different when spoken from her mouth. The ‘r’ sound seems to be missing at the end.

It’s awesome to hear her like Hermione Granger talking in the Harry Potter films!

My non-Brit mom takes care of my daughter after her classes so they spend the whole afternoon talking and singing so the little girl’s pronunciation transforms back to the usual at the end of the day. It’s amusing.

not the typical winter I expected

It’s another cold morning for us here today. This is our second ‘winter’ but I feel that this year is exceptionally cold. I mean, it should not be like this! Cool mornings at 20C are acceptable but not below that!

Just like any other winter victims, we are finding it hard to wake up everyday. The babe starts school at 8 am and we have to leave the house at 7:20 so computing backwards and including the waking up, cuddling, a little playing on the bed, staring at blank walls, toilet, breakfast and putting clothes on, we really need to wake up at 6 am. But how hard can it be? At 6:30, it is still dark outside and the bed looks so inviting. I always ask myself “is it not Friday yet?”.