What My Mama Gave Me

My mum recently learnt the Singlish phrase “half past six” and has taken to dropping it into her conversations. I never thought much about this until Alec mentioned she’d asked him (innocently) if he knew the phrase too, whereupon I remembered its actual etymology and OMIGOD.

Then while writing this up to share with you (yeah I know, you’re all like “Well cheers for the thought Michelle, but any conversation involving your mum talking to your husband about floppy dicks should only be shared with us on a NEED TO KNOW BASIS”) I remembered that I used to record mum quotes here when they particularly amused me, but hadn’t done so for ages. Here’s one that shouldn’t slip through the cracks:

My mum, returning from her church group’s Christmas party a few years back: We exchanged gifts. Look at all my booty!
Me: Er, mum, people use that word a bit differently now.
Mum, preoccupied with all her presents and not really listening: Yay, I have so much booty!

Fighting Words

I picked up this tan belt on sale at Mango recently. I like using belts to cinch my waist and draw attention away from my wide hips and large ass.

I wore it for the first time the other day and asked Alec what he thought.

Me: You didn’t notice my new belt! Do you like it?
Alec: Yeah, it’s a great belt.
Me: *beams happily*
Alec: When you wear it, you can pretend you’re the WWF champion.
Me: *seethes, considers a clothesline followed by jump off the top turnbuckle with sharpshooter to finish*

Unrelated wrestling amusement: Mick Foley reviews The Wrestler for Slate.

Unrelated fashion amusement: Elyse (still my favourite Top Model contestant ever) spots some spectacular fake Coach bag fail (scroll down).

Simile

I lost the draft post for this in the server meltdown so the topic of discussion is obviously yesterday’s “news” by now, but I remembered the incident while listening to the radio today and decided to resurrect this conversational fragment anyway. I’m always amused by the strange things that move Alec to angry pithiness.

Me, reading the news: Henceforth, Beyonce’s new stage name shall be Sasha Fierce.
Alec: WHAT.
Me: It is designed to emphasise a fiercer musical direction.
Alec, looking genuinely aggrieved: She’s about as fierce as a Care Bear’s nipple!

Alecversary

Two conversations from the weekend:

#1

While discussing this recent post (where the comments closed before I found the time to write a proper response to Jol’s comment and I can’t figure out how to turn them back on, argh!), I brought up Jol’s impression that Christian ethics involve the belief that people can be banished to Hell for failing to believe.

Me: It’s definitely not anything I’ve ever been taught in all my years of Catholic education and weekly churchgoing. Did they teach you that in Ireland?
Alec: Of course not!
Me, satisfied: Good, I thought as much.
Alec: In school they taught us we were all going to Hell. For wanking.
Me: ……
Alec: It makes God blind or something.

#2

Alec, sulking: I didn’t have enough time to linger in the library, so I had to just run to the section nearest to the door and grab some books to borrow.
Me: Aw, that’s a pity.
Alec: Yah! So all my authors literally start with B, but because I didn’t even get enough time to go look for Batman, I had to settle for Brecht instead.
Me: Batman is not an author.
Alec: Yes he is. He’s an author OF DESTINY.

I just realized on Sunday night that back on November 6th, our sixth anniversary as a couple came and went and we didn’t even remember it. It’s hard to believe we just forgot a day we used to celebrate quite dutifully, but we weren’t too bothered. I’ll try to remember it next year (any excuse for a nice meal), though in many ways it feels like the importance of that date to us has been overwhelmingly superceded by the new life we now get to enjoy together on a daily basis.

Anyway, just so I can say I did something to celebrate having this lovely man to myself for 6 years now, I hereby rename the sub-category formerly and boringly called just “Alec”, repository of classic Alec stories like Spandex Party Boy and the particularly ugly bird, to “Alecdotes”, with all credit for the name due to James (for coining it in his best man speech at our wedding party).

ATP 2007: Road-tripping

I explained before why I never managed to attend All Tomorrow’s Parties when I lived in England, despite it being my dream festival. But several years on, I’ve brainwashed Alec into liking cacophonous clangy music, Jeremy (long-time music benefactor – see last bit of this post) now lives in London, and Russ finally has more disposable income and better taste in music :P which meant we had a lovely little group for our Butlins chalet. After a seven-year wait, I was finally on my way to ATP!

Our road trip to Minehead was quite enjoyable. I fiddled round with Russ’s iPod to make a playlist for the car journey, asking thought-provoking questions such as “So which is better, the normal version of Mariah’s Breakdown or the Mo Thugs Remix?” and sharing unarguable truths such as “An iPod with only 1 Roxette song is an iPod not worth speaking of.”

Alec and Russ had fun too:-

#1 (Russ mentioned that he sometimes accidentally deleted entire albums from his iPod.)
Me: Just goes to show how much iTunes sucks!
Alec: No, it only goes to show how much Russ sucks!

#2
Russ: I don’t know why, but the last few people I’ve fancied have all been Irish or of Irish descent.
Alec: Wow Russ, I didn’t know I’d made such a significant impression on you.
Russ: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…oh sorry, think I laughed a bit too loud there.

We intended to cook our own food over the weekend so stopped off in ASDA to stock up, where Russ and Alec (our cooks) proceeded to load our cart with about three times the amount of food I’d have thought we needed. I ventured the timid suggestion that we could maybe use dried herb mixes instead of forking much more out for fresh herbs. They looked at me in silent derisory disbelief. We got the fresh herbs.

Continuing on our way, ten minutes away from Butlins the playlist I’d programmed hours before turned out to have been perfectly timed – the song itself started on the car speakers. Yay.

After checking in and a quick spag bol dinner where the boys served me, unsurprisingly, three times more food than I could eat, we rushed off to see The Dirty Three (the curators) do the first big gig of the festival.

My Deer Fiance

We’re trying to choose a videographer for the wedding at the moment, and part of this exercise involves watching a bunch of online samples almost universally soundtracked with From This Moment On. I do actually kinda love that song, but it’s not really us. A conversation on the subject:

Me: How about something by the Pixies, we both like that band.
Alec: [big happy face]
Me: I know what you’re thinking and NO WE CAN’T USE CARIBOU! The song has to be at least vaguely relevant to the topic of love!
Alec: We could change the chorus to “Marry you”.
Me: ……
Alec, singing: MARRY YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUU…

Amuseum

Back in Singapore and a little depressed about not being on holiday any more, we look through various event listings to see if anything interesting is coming up.

Alec, reading IS: We could go to the Maria Theresia exhibition.
Me: The who? What?
Alec: At the National Museum. The only female ruler of the Habsburgs. (takes a deep breath) Maria Theresia Walburga Amalia Christina…Aguilera.
Me: Okay, I wasn’t interested originally but I totally am now.
Alec: It’ll be fascinating to see her journey. From childhood in the Mickey Mouse Club to her adult persona.
Me: An artist and a monarch.
Alec: Exactly.

White Meat Diet

Alec, ranting: Every day, I eat the same ta pao¹ local food as everyone else in the office, or I walk out to somewhere like Lau Pa Sat and eat whatever takes my fancy there. But then there’s ONE day, where I just HAPPEN to be eating McDonald’s in the office pantry, and everyone who comes in says “Oh, you don’t like local food?”

Me: But I thought you talk quite a lot about local food with them?

Alec: I do! But it’s like they refuse to believe! We went for a buffet and I didn’t eat wasabi with my sashimi and everyone’s first remark was “Oh, you can’t take spicy food?” GRAAARGH!

Me: Well, why don’t you explain that your girlfriend is local and you eat everything she eats?

Alec: Oh, that’ll be no use. They probably think you’re some SPG anyway.

Me: Haha, they’ll be all like “Oh, you eat cock?”

¹ Takeaway

Birthday Presence

So there I was, up to my ears in the details of an oil pipeline contract, and then I heard a voice outside the door of my office, asking for Michelle.

My first thought: Wah lau that bloody ________! Always barging into my office without calling first, just assuming I’m free to drop everything and attend to him. Too much!

My second thought: Hang on, that sounded like Alec. Wha??!

Next thing I knew, Alec was in my office with a bunch of lilies. :)

He couldn’t stay long because he had to rush off to work. I walked him down to the taxi point, and we had this conversation while waiting. Sorry if it grosses anyone out, but I thought it might amuse fans of the long-running Alec/Russ war.

Me: Aww, thanks for doing this. It was really sweet of you to bring the flowers yourself.
Alec: My pleasure. Anyway, I totally had to one-up Russ.
Me: Ha! I bet next year Russ will COME FROM ENGLAND to hand-deliver the flowers to me!
Alec: Well then the year after that I’ll FLY TO ENGLAND, BUY THE FLOWERS THERE, AND BRING THEM BACK!
Me: Aw. Okay, there’s your taxi. Bye dear.
Alec: See you later, dear. Happy birthday.

You’ll Laugh! You’ll Cry! You’ll Hurl!

On Saturday afternoon, we headed to the Polo Club to watch the Hurling All Stars Challenge. As you of course know, hurling is…er…um…an Irish sport I have no hope in hell of explaining properly to you. See here for description.

Here are two hurling-related exchanges.

#1 (On the way to the match.)
Me: Traffic is bad, it looks like we might be late.
Alec: Oh, it’s all right. Each half will be 40 minutes long.
Me: But by the time we show up, it might be hurlf time!
Alec: ……

#2 (Shouted conversation in Zouk later that night.)
Me: Pity you couldn’t join us for the hurling.
Jacob: Yeah, pity. It’s got some nostalgic appeal for me.
Me: Oh, why?
Jacob: When I was at boarding school, at end of term there would be this traditional ________ [insert name of Scottish equivalent of hurling, I didn’t catch it] match, and it was between the normal pupils and the prefects.
Me: I WAS A PREFECT YOU ASSHOLE WHAT DID YOU DO???!!
Jacob: Well, my “favourite” prefect lost a tooth.