wedding

on sunday night i went to my cousin's wedding dinner. my cousins were not christians so there was no church wedding before. and because there was no church wedding they could afford to splurge more on their wedding dinner. there were a few novel ideas i saw at the wedding. firstly, you know how some couples give a table or door gift to every guest and they place it on the table where they're supposed to be seated? well, my sisters and i got to out seats and there to greet us was a teddy bear. this is the first time i see a teddy bear as a gift. usually it's potpourri or chocs. a full size small teddy bear actually gives you a more warm and fuzzy feeling to receive. well, perhaps just to the lady guests. ayesha benefitted from the gift.

the next surprise was when the couple entered the ballroom. they entered to their theme song "if we hold on together" by diana ross. but the first to enter before them were 6 little ballerinas between the ages of 5 to 8, complete with tutus and flowers and dancing. it was very pretty. when the couple reached their main table, the ballerinas danced to the stage and presented a whole dance. it was very pleasant and quite befitting a wedding actually.

then of course was the big food entry and presentation, usually done to horribly rousing music like "the final countdown" or kitaro's "hot hit". theirs was simply done to a song of their choice which was just the first song of their night's repertoire. i think it was one of those big band jazz classics called "l.o.v.e". pleasant. not cheesy. in fact most of the night they played michael buble's classic big band numbers, which are my favorites anyway. so i like.

one more thing i liked was that although they had a couple of mcs - a girl and a guy, they hardly said much. they just welcomed the guests and people just started eating. and when it was time to run slide and photo presentations they just started running them unannounced and people naturally turned their attention to the stage. it was nice without having to hear the mc's voice cutting through our dinner announcing this and that. they just did the necessary minimal and let the guests enjoy their dinner and mingle with friends and the couple.

that's all, i think. well, since we seem to be about the business of weddings a lot this year, and next year, perhaps our young couples can learn from these ideas?

walter's wine bar

walter's wine bar is, well, not just a wine bar. it's basically a snazzy restaurant, with a wine bar, by the yarra river at southgate. it's a nice place and it's sentimentally special to us because it was the restaurant we went to to have a celebratory dinner on the day we found out that i was pregnant with ayesha. actually we didn't choose the place but rather it was husband's business counterpart in melbourne who picked the place to meet for dinner. in fact he sprang a surprise on us when he offered my husband a position for work right here in melbourne. honestly, if i wasn't pregnant i think we would be there today. that was 2001. we sadly turned it down quite easily as we felt we couldn't handle a pregnancy and moving to another country at the same time. God really has his wisdom in his timing. i've always wondered especially when life and work back here sucked, how it would be like if we had made the move. turns out in this trip God answered my questions. my friends who had moved here all said that it was so tough moving here and having to bring up a family (babies) without any family to help or affordable childcare. the women folk had no chance of working at all. i think that would have driven me over the balcony. also my cousin who had been here many years said that it was good that we didn't take the job cos when 9/11 hit, the i.t. industry in australia got hit bad and many lost their jobs, migrants being the first to go. and in fact that's what happened to my friend's husband.

phew, that would have been bad. so God proved his ways and thoughts higher than mine once again. finally i found myself able to close this door of "if only". no regrets.

anyway, so i decided to go have breakfast one morning at walters. i chose a seat out at their lovely balcony. look at my simple but yummy breakfast of thick cut raisin toast and an awful looking but wonderful tasting health drink called green power. it looks like grass juice but tastes like banana milk shake. no kidding.

it was a pleasant morning already.

blessed

i must say that while the day has been unpleasant on the front of me being ill, it's also been pleasant in the form of various ones who have been a help to me today:

1. doc friend who explained to me what was happening and calmed my fears of a stroke.

2. bro in law's girlfriend who sacrificed her sleep in to take me to hospital.

3. super mum in law who took care of the kids during her weekend day off.

4. pat who was a listening ear to me who was miserable to be ill and coming home to an empty house.

5. see lian who brought lunch for me.

6. ai may who checked up on me thrice and was also a listening ear while husband wasn't around today.

7. lei wah who came just to be with me while i rested, just in case if i should spin out of control again, and who came bearing loads of gifts like she usually does, and who even fixed up my dinner complete with fruit for dessert before she left and while i was sleeping. talking about serving others, she wins the prize.

well, you can tell that i'm feeling much better with hours of sleep. perhaps the lack of sleep was what triggered the vertigo. thank God for no further episodes. however still feeling a little miserable being alone in the house, just waiting for my kiddies to get home. then it will be cheerful and distracting again. being miserable is not common with me. usually i would welcome spending time alone at home. perhaps not when i'm ill. well, i'm allowing myself to be childlike again so, every child is miserable when they are ill, right?

anyway, the point is, i feel loved by God and loved by people.

vertigo. blah.

i'm sitting here in my lounge alone moaning to myself. i'm stuck at home alone on a saturday with vertigo. i already had plans for today to bring my kids and my mum in law out for breakfast and then shopping at tesco, lunch and then visit some friends who's had a new baby. by strangely at 6am this morning i woke up from sleep and without even opening my eyes i felt very dizzy. i managed to go back to sleep but when my daughter came into my room at 7am i woke up, opened my eyes and the whole room started spinning and i felt very very nauseus. i picked myself up to go throw up but of course waking up with an empty stomach meant that there was nothing to throw up. i started breaking cold sweat. i started to panic and called a doctor friend. was i having stroke? (cos i have a problem with high blood pressure, you see). told him the problem, he said there's only 1 thing in the world that will cause the room to spin, a problem to the middle ear.

i had no flu, no fever, no pain, what caused it? i scrambled to get a hold of someone to bring me to the hospital. my little was brilliant. she helped me by bringing everything i needed and then just did not disturb me but went to do some coloring. finally bro in law's girlfriend came to bring me to the hospital. and before leaving the house my girl gave me a cup of water to drink. she has such a sweet and sensitive spirit. then grandma came to get them since i couldn't take care of them today, what with everything spinning and all.

got a jab, which is helping me till now. i'm just praying that the spinning sensation won't come back again when the jab wears off. it was a very awful feeling. u can't do anything at all when the room spins, you lose all sense of balance and you feel like puking your insides out. but now i'm feeling miserable sitting all alone at home, feeling generally ill and without any appetite to eat. trying blogging just to distract my mind off the discomfort. not sure if it's working. husband's down south for a speaking engagement. feeling bad that i can't have a nice day with my kids. getting a little sleepy. going to try sleeping again.

royal botanical gardens

i love parks and gardens, particularly the ones with lakes or water features. so i went on my own to the famous royal botanical gardens. it was huge! and beautiful. probably because it was autumn. of course there was lots of trees, bushes and shrubs everywhere but the only recognisable trees to me were oaks and willows. there was a huge oaks lawn where families picnic-ed under their spreading branches and leaves. there were some trees with totally orange or yellow leaves. they were beautiful. there was a herb garden with parsley, coriander, thyme, lemongrass, chilies and other herbs. there was a glass house with tropical plants inside so everything looked quite familiar. the temperature in the glass house was adjusted to hot tropical temperature too. it was quite unpleasant to me. i left in a hurry. they even had a special garden dedicated to kids alone and it had a lot of water features and special patches where children can get their hands on gardening and learning about plants and such. unfortunately because australia was facing a serious drought situation, all the water features were closed. there were also several lakes with swans, ducks and birds, and there was a lake by the cafe so i had my lunch there.

aahh, i had yummy wholemeal tuna sandwiches and just-fried chips and i journaled while i enjoyed my lunch and the view of the lake. i remember sitting back and thinking, life at this present moment, is so good. and i prayed that i will not lose that feeling of peace and joy even when i go home and there's not always a lake view and gardens to enjoy. in fact there will be times when the going may get rough. but i'm happy to say that till this day, and i've been back home for a month and a half, i still have not lost the inner peace i feared losing when my holiday was over. as geoff oliver so wisely advised, i won't lose what God has recreated in me, and that my prayer should be that God will continue to grow what he's recreated in me and increase that, and that i will live in awareness of that. it's working out well so far.

after lunch i continued my walk and came across a nice patch with a bench to sit on and enjoy the view. so i approached the bench and on the bench was a sign that said "rejoice in the present" in memory of a lady called cheryle. thank you cheryle, for the wise reminder. and thank you God, for a word to encourage my soul. i was given permission not to worry about the future, but instead to rejoice in the present. such synchronicity.

unfortunately that was the end of the pleasantries of my visit to the RBG. i continued walking and i hit a quiet stretch and i encountered trouble in the form of an elderly greek man. he approached me from behind and started chatting with me and would not leave me alone even after i told him that i preferred to walk alone. he continued to walk with me and because there was no one around i didn't want to cause a scene with him in fear that he might turn violent. so we kept walking, me nervously, hoping that i will quickly reach a public area again. thank God we saw some people ahead and that's when he started behaving a little strangely. he asked me to meet with him again and when i said no he asked me to go with to nearby bushes and said. the good thing was that they replied promptly and would look into the matter seriously.

well, no more wandering parks alone for me.

one a day

finally, a complete post today. today's my off day for the week and day at home. gosh i've been online since 8am this morning and it's almost 1pm now. and only 1 post! well it's because i've been at emails, facebooks, and other people's blogs. and i'm beginning to starve now so i must go cook some lunch. aah, it's nice to be alone at home, with the jazz channel playing. it's playing one of my favorites "the way you look tonight". beautiful. i think i can only manage 1 post today cos i still want to do other things today like read, journal, vocal training, read the Bible and catch a nap. no chance for a painting. in fact, what are the chances of me doing the rest of the 5 things before 5pm today? very slim i think. 5pm is when we need to get ready to go collect our cutie pie kids.

miss saigon

ok, a few people have asked me what's happened to my posting since i got back. and i've gone to see the queen and back and still nothing. unlike a lot of people who temporarily stop blogging because they don't want to just put something there for the sake of blogging while they have nothing much to write about (which i feel is a good way of doing it anyway), i in fact have lots to write about from my travels and my journeying so far, but unfortunately don't have much time and don't always have the laptop around. so, since today my husband has graciously let me have his laptop for the day, i'll fire away. well, it's not going to be about london yet. i'm still on melbourne. while i like spontaneity, there's still this side of me who strangely likes chronological order sometimes. besides, it's a nice way to recall good times in the past in the form of my time in melbourne.

i'm doing this listening to channel 111, the jazz channel of astro, and each time i do i'm trasnported back in my mind to the time i went to my first proper jazz club in melbourne, Bennet's Lane. that little place was situated literally in a small, dark lane somewhere in melbourne city. it's got 2 jazz rooms. we were a group of 5 in the smaller and more intimate room. i had southern comfort on the rocks. one of my favorite hard-liquor type drinks which i haven't had for a long long time. since i left the advertising industry actually. gosh, 10 years. it was worth the long wait when local jazz artist yvette johannsen appeared and gave us 3 hrs worth of jazz. loved her singing. strong vocals and quite a natural at performing, dancing and interacting with the audience. i had a great time. that was may 31st.

the night before, i went for my 1st of the 4 stage productions that i saw in melbourne. Miss Saigon! i had forgotten that i had seen it with pat in sydney when we visited way back in 1995, but i didn't mind watching it again. the production in sydney had a an actual life size helicopter (a mock i'm sure) in the helicopter scene, which was very impressive. this one in melbourne, had a holographic helicopter in that scene. i was a little disappointed at first when i heard of that, but it turned out impressive actually. it was a hologram but somehow when they had the soldiers enter the helicopter they sort of disappeared inside, and it looked very real.i appreciated the storyline more this time. the songs were very good. but there was a lot of loin-gyrating dancing from all the prostitutes, including 1 male prostitute. i guess what else can you expect from dancing prostitutes? but unfortunately we see a lot of that nowadays in a lot of music videos as well.

i thought the direction did a good job also in portraying the painful circumstances through which the prostitutes of the viet war turned to prostitution, and also the pain of the viet commonfolk who were caught in the middle of the war. it also shed, to me, a very bad light on all the american soldiers who immorally spilled their seeds everywhere and produced a whole lot of eligitimate children and then just abandoned them anyway when they left for home! although later, according to the story there was a move started by one of the american soldiers to bring help to the abandoned children of the war. that scene with the slide show of the children really broke my heart.

even in the central storyline, which was the love story between this american g.i. and this viet girl, pushed my justice button. basically he was her first client, then they fell in love, wed, he promised to bring her with him but due to difficult circumstances eventually she was left behind. he went back to his wife (!), she bears him a son, they travel to reconcile with daddy, he and his wife meets her halfway and he tells her she can't have him. she begs them to take care of their son and then kills herself! poor victimised girl. i know it was just a story but surely it's reflective of what would have taken place during the war.

but anyway, i did love the production, and my favorite scene was when the last helicopter had to leave saigon and they had this scene of the helicopter taking off in slo-mo and all the vietnamese commonfolk who had their visas approved to leave saigon scrambling over the gate and fencing and yelling to not be left behind, all in slo-mo! such effect, and very emotionally provoking as well. and then the scene reverts to normal speed again into a culmination of their hope and desperation crushed into devastation and fury...