I leave Singapore tomorrow morning, bright and early, and fly home to California. And I have to admit that I’m looking forward to it. Oh, don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I haven’t enjoyed this trip. It’s just that I miss things. I miss food that I can not only recognize, but has names I can pronounce. I miss cars driving on the right side of the road instead of the left. I miss the nice, dry air. I miss my cats piling onto my bed at night and purring me to sleep. I miss being in relatively the same time zone as my friends and family. I miss electrical outlets that work without converters or little ‘on’ switches. Heck, I just miss *home*.

I took advantage of my current location today, however. After all, how could I justify passing up the opportunity for excessive pampering when there was such a wonderful spa on the first floor of the hotel? I got a massage. Oooh….

I’ve had a massage before….well, sort of. When I was planning the bachelorette party for a good friend, she made me promise (albeit VERY reluctantly. Sniffle) that there would be no male stripper. So I did the next best thing. I hired a male masseuse. Get your mind outta the gutter, folks, he really *was* a masseuse. Throughout the party everyone had the opportunity to get a 20-minute massage. He remained fully clothed, as did all us ladies. While the massaging was going on, the rest of us had fun with party games (can I just say that I was rather proud of my ‘special’ list of words that I came up with for the X-rated Pictionary we played? And then there was the lovely cake that another friend made that was…um….anatomically correct). But anyway, I digress. That’s been the only time I’ve ever had a ‘real’ massage.

So, after spending quite a few hours walking around downtown Singapore, shopping, the massage today was wonderful. I walked out almost purring, completely relaxed, and retired to my room for some overpriced room service (and, of course, the nightly truffle).

There are some things I wish I could take home with me from this trip. The bathroom, for example. Tomorrow before I leave, I’m going to take a picture of the bathroom so that if I *do* decide to build my house, I can just show the contractor the snapshot and say “see this? I want it just like this!” And having access to pampering like that on a regular basis would be quite lovely too.

I didn’t wake up at 3am this morning. I suppose that should be a relief. But I’m not so sure I liked the alternative. Frankly, after last night, I think I would have much rather woken up at 3am again.

I know that I dream. It’s a natural thing to do, and there are times when I wake up with just the faint flavor of a dream on my tongue, which then quickly dissipates, because I rarely, if ever, remember my dreams.

Not so last night. I dreamt that some people very close to me were dead. When I woke up it took me quite a while to recover because I was shaking from the intensity of it. It was that real. Even now, if I close my eyes, the images are still much too vivid.

I don’t like dreams like that. I’ve only had them three times in my life, and not once were they ever pleasant. I know there’s such things as portents and premonitions but I don’t even want to contemplate that in connection with this dream. I am just not willing to handle that.

I’m not sure what could have triggered the dream. I went out and had Thai food last night for dinner. Prior to that I consumed large handfuls of peanuts and a few Singapore Slings (well, I drank the nonalcoholic variety, so they were really just fancy glasses of some kind of fruit juice. In neon pink) at a bar where you toss the shells on the floor. Perhaps there was something in one of those. Who knows.

All I know is that if this is the type of dream I am going to remember, perhaps I shouldn’t wish so hard that I could remember my dreams. Maybe more of them are like this. Maybe I’m better off not knowing. I hear other people talk about bizarre dreams they have and wonder sometimes if mine are like that too. But after waking up this morning, I think I think I’d be much happier with the lack of memory than this .

I was wide awake at 3am today. Yesterday it was 5am. The day before, 5am. The day before that, 6am. No matter how late I force my poor exhausted brain to stay awake, it doesn’t matter. I am waking up earlier and earlier. Granted, the view outside my hotel window is spectacular with all the city lights. But at three in the morning I’m not necessarily thrilled to see it. I can see this spectacular view in the evening. That early in the morning I’d much rather be sleeping.

I suppose on the one hand this might not be so bad. After all, when I fly home on Saturday, I won’t have quite as bad a time with jet lag because hey, I’m already adjusting backwards while still here in Singapore. On the other hand, I’m not getting to bed any earlier, so I’m not so sure that this little tactic is going to work.

I found a Starbucks this morning. Somehow it seems a bit odd to be drinking coffee when the temperature is so warm, but it was just something familiar again. Since it was a different route than I normally take to the meetings, I got lost. Oh, it wasn’t a major thing – I just ended up backtracking back to the hotel. But on the way I found cats. Yay! Cats in Singapore! They were strays, of course, but not the common housecat that you would think about as a stray in the states. These were delicate, thin-featured felines with fawn coats and ticked fur. I think perhaps there was Abysinnian in their parentage at some point. Anyway. I had to stop and take a picture. I’m so pathetic. Finding live cats just made my day. They were curious, and as normal cats do, did not want to pose for me or be any friendlier than a hesitant sniff of my fingers from the safety of beneath a bench, whiskers quivering. I’m sure that I made at least a few of the locals laugh, crouching down between empty tables to take a picture of cats.

This evening we had a group dinner in a Chinese restaurant next to the world’s largest fountain. I think it’s the world’s largest…..there was a sign saying something like that. It’s rather impressive. This huge metal tripod with a fountain in the middle. Every once in a while the water does spectacular leaps and sprays into the air, and apparently in the evening there are laser light shows with accompanying music. All in the middle of a shopping mall. I can now add abalone and crawfish to the list of things I’ve had the opportunity to try while in Singapore. Oh yes, and boiled peanuts (which, in my opinion, is rather low on the list of things I would recommend doing to a peanut. But eating them with chopsticks was amusing).

They served us another version of shark fin soup than what we had Sunday night. It was a very odd consistency. And it made me grin. See, when I was in college and high school, I was in synchronized swimming (Trust me, there *is* a correlation here.). In synchro, when you do routines, you have to put your hair up – usually in a bun on top of your head – and you need to make it stay. Normal gel and hairspray won’t do the trick because when in the water, it all just eventually washes off. Bobby pins also just don’t hold it all in. So we would use unflavored Knox gelatin. We’d heat it up, extra-thick, and then glop the stuff onto our hair to create a spiffy little gelatin-based ‘helmet’. It sounds icky, but it’s quite effective (although washing that all out again was always a challenge). So I giggled quietly into my soup and tried to ignore the fact that it was the same consistency as stuff I used to glop onto my head years ago to hold my hair in place. Same color and everything.

When I checked into the hotel on Friday night, along with my fun with lights, I also noticed that there was a little rock sitting on the bedside table. It was carefully placed on a tiny glass thing that resembles a plate broken in half, with a little indentation for the rock to rest in. I didn’t think much of it at the time. Nor did I really pay attention to it on Saturday. I figured maybe it was a decoration. Some sort of local custom to have a little gray speckly rock in the room.

Until, of course, I picked it up and sniffed. Hey. Truffle!!

When I got back to my hotel room tonight there was another one sitting there. This time it looked more like chocolate – the first had been rolled in powdered sugar. Or maybe it was that now I knew what it was.

We went to the Hard Rock Cafe, Singapore for dinner tonight.

I know that when in a foreign country one should make sure to partake of local foods and such. However, Sunday night’s Chinese 8-course dinner, while mostly good, was of the variety of ‘you don’t ask what it is before you eat it because you really don’t want to know’. Today’s lunch was the same, although I did recognize some of the things at lunch from the things on Sunday night. I know that certain sea-dwelling creatures are edible, and in some cultures considered quite the delicacy but, let’s face it, I’m an American, and while I consider myself to be at least open enough to try things, I have an issue with tentacles.

Food with obvious tentacles just really bothers me. Whole little squids or octopus just really unnerve me. If I must eat tentacled things, I would much rather they were chopped into smaller pieces so I don’t actually *see* them. I might know that they are there. I just don’t want to see them.

Does this make me a major food wimp? Hey, I ate the jellyfish. I tasted the sharkfin soup. I downed the clams. I even ate snails at that French restaurant we went to Saturday night. I ate one of the little octopuses. But it was hard. Trust me.

Anyway, back to the Hard Rock. We walked inside. It was like being back home. Not, mind you, that I frequent Hard Rock Cafe’s with any great regularity. I went to the one in Sacramento once, just to see what all the hubbub was about, and frankly I wasn’t impressed. But here in Singapore, the ability to sit down at a table, listen to familiar music, and consume burgers and club sandwiches and chocolate malts was just so nice.

And finding another rock in my room tonight only made it better. Feed me dark chocolate and I don’t care if the food has tentacles or eyeballs (well…..I may be going too far with the eyeballs there). I’m happy.

I’m in this incredible hotel, sitting next to a giant picture window. Outside, I have this incredible view of Singapore and part of the marina……well, I could see the water if it wasn’t still pitch dark outside. It’s kind of fun to idly watch the cars go by……and realize belatedly that they’re driving on the opposite sides of the road than what I’m used to.

This room is very nice. I have decided I just want to take the entire bathroom home with me – garden tub and huge shower included. However, I could do without the whole electricity set up here.

When you walk into the room, you have to stick your room key in a little slot by the door. Or else you don’t have any lights. Nor do any of the plugs work. This is fine and dandy if you know to do this. However, when I checked in at about 1am in the morning, half dead from 16 hours on the plane, I did not immediately think to look for a little slot by the door so I could turn on the lights. I just automatically fumbled for light switches.

I should mention here that the switches are opposite as well. What I’m used to as ‘on’ is really ‘off’. So by the time I figured out the whole ‘card in the slot = light’ thing, I still had to go around and whap at switches some more. I also discovered that the handy plug adapter I brought with me didn’t work for these outlets…..luckily the hotel had them to borrow.

It’s humid. Very much so. And the fact that the hotel gives you an umbrella should, I suppose, have been a really good clue, since most of my group here has been caught out in the daily rainstorm at one time or another by now. However. Watching these nightly thunderstorms from the window of an 18th floor hotel room is pretty spectacular.

And now for a quick scan of the past few days. Going shopping and being amazed by the sheer volume of eyewear stores, travel agents, and electronics stores. The sheer volume of shopping malls, period! The grouchy guy in the gold turban (I am not kidding) who was directing the taxi line we stood in for nearly 45 minutes the last time we got stuck in the thunderstorms, and who kept blowing his whistle every other minute. Eating dinner at the top of a hotel in this restaurant that spun very slowly so we had this incredible view of the city. The surreal moment when we were serenaded by a Chinese mariachi band singing John Denver tunes while eating French food in Singapore.

There ya go.

My friend pointed me to a new toy, called the eBook while we were chatting this morning, and I went to take a look. Basically it’s a little electronic thing you can hold in your hand, and it holds books. Up to 10 books in the basic package, and then you can get a bigger memory chip and hold lots and lots more books (up to 190, they say, although I have to wonder how big those books really are. Are we talking Harlequin romance length, or weighty tombs like Steven King’s “It”)

I’ll admit it looks really neat. Hey, the ability to carry that many books around in your pocket without throwing your back out *is*, indeed, quite tempting. But it reminds me of a short story I read, many many years ago. I don’t remember the title, or the author (although it might have been Asimov), but the jist of it was that a little boy found a ‘real’ book in his attic. And he and his friend, a little girl, got very excited….but then were disappointed because, unlike their computer screen on which they read all their books now, it didn’t change stories. It just stayed the same, no matter what.

An electronic copy of a book would definitely be very nice. It’s lightweight, much more portable, and takes up significantly less room on a bookshelf. It wouldn’t have that annoying habit of turning brittle and crumbling after a few decades (see note on moldering below). Of course, this is assuming that you can store these on a hard drive somewhere that doesn’t crash, but I’m being optimistic here.

However, there is just nothing quite like a real book. The smell of the pages – crisp and sharp when first purchased, and then that older, musty smell when it’s been moldering on some shelf in a dusty old library. The sound a book makes when you first crack it open. The feel of the pages as you turn them. I can’t imagine taking an eBook and curling up on a comfy overstuffed chair some Saturday morning with a cat and a cup of steaming coffee….or hunkering down amid fluffy pillows (with, of course, a cat or three) in your bed late one night while it storms outside. No, with an eBook, I see harried business executives scanning documents while waiting for planes, or clumps of nerds checking the actual wording of some obscure gaming rule (Yes, I game. Therefore I’m entitled to poke fun at it. So there). But this gadget does not inspire visions of comfort and relaxation.

I dunno. Maybe I’m just old-fashioned. But I don’t think I’ll be buying one of these new toys. I’ll stick with real books. Even if they *don’t* fit in my back pocket.

A while ago I sent away for the estimated costs to build the house that I really like. Archway Press will, for a minimal fee, do a rough estimate of how much it would cost to build your chosen house in the area you specify. The results came yesterday. I can afford it. Of course, I don’t know how much the land might cost – that might be the clincher, and this *is* just an estimate – but I can probably afford it.

I’m not sure whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. I think part of me wanted it to come back and say it was much too expensive and so it wouldn’t even be an option……but now it is. Right now I’m hanging onto this little piece of paper with numbers on it that state in black and white that my dream house is actually within reach….and I’m just not sure what to do anymore.

I want this house. I fell in love with it from the first time I saw the plans. And that is part of the problem. Because that’s all I’ve seen – the plans. I’ve never actually seen the house itself – just a drawing of how it might look. On the one hand, I have houses that are already built – whether it be a new community or a previously owned house. And I can walk through and visualize myself in those rooms, decorating those walls, walking down those stairs. On the other hand, I have this set of blueprints. With everything that I want in them. Stairs. Bay windows everywhere. A screened in back porch that I know the cats will adore. Window seats in the guest room and a nice big extra room for my office. A huge laundry room and a kitchen with actual counter space (dreamy sigh). And I have, in the past year or two, walked through enough houses so that I at least have a fair idea of what the dimensions represent in terms of room size and space. It’s not like I’m walking into this blind.

I’ve been told that I should just get a starter home. Something I can live in and sell a few years down the road when I get ‘more settled’. I know what that means. People still think it odd that a single woman might want to buy a house. Because inevitably the question arises – well, what if you meet someone? What are you going to do with your house then? And I honestly can’t answer that question. But why should I let some nebulous maybe-man deter me from owning my own home? And the next question is: why should I buy instead of build? What is so wrong with building? Besides the fact that just the thought is unnerving, I couldn’t blame any little annoying idiocyncracies on someone else’s choice of design. I would have to make the final decision on whether I wanted light or dark wood cabinets in the kitchen. If the bathroom tile looked hideous, I would have to accept full responsibility for it.

I dunno. I think I’ll go back and stare at those little numbers. Plenty of time to dither about this later.

I was chatting with a friend recently, who was telling about another friend of his, and somehow it came up that he (the friend being discussed) was married to a cat. No, it was that he was married to the microwave and having an affair with the cat. I don’t have the full details of this myself, but he was using this as a method of explaining weirdness. And I said that I’m used to weird. Because after all I come from a family that names most household appliances (including microwaves – single or otherwise romantically attached), and we have a troll in the hall closet.

Yes, I said troll.

I don’t remember what brought about the presence of the troll. He has been there for as long as I can remember. My dad was military, so we did more than our fair share of moving around. And each time we would move, someone would have to remember to put a box in the closet for the troll to climb into. When we got to the new place, the box would be put into the new hall closet, in the farthest, darkest corner, so that the troll could come out when he was ready.

He’s a shy troll. No one has ever sees him, of course. But he doesn’t like to be trapped, so the hall closet door stands slightly ajar. It’s been this way for years, throughout too many moves to count. No one in the family shuts that door whenever we are at my parents’ house, we all know without even thinking about it that that door cannot be closed all the way. Or else someone will jump up and open it again to let the troll breathe.

I suppose every family has its quirks and oddities; some of us more than others. But I’m the only one I know who has a family troll. Even my brother-in-law knows about the troll, and at one point asked my sister what they had to do to get a troll of their own.

Sometimes there are things you have to take on faith, without questioning them too closely. Sometimes there are things that you may never be able to explain because they just *are*. He’s not a bad troll. He’s very harmless, quiet and shy. He doesn’t speak to anyone. I don’t recall that he ever did. It’s not like this was some imaginary friend of us kids that the family incorporated into a ‘real’ creature.

He just….is.

I have a new toy.

It’s a digital camera. I ordered it two weeks ago and waited impatiently, hoping it would come before I left for this last business trip. Of course, this meant that it didn’t show up til Monday, since I flew away on Sunday and didn’t return until really late tonight. Might I emphasize the really late part? But anyway. I’m home now, and it is here. All nice and pretty and fancy with little cords and things to plug it into my computer, and rechargeable batteries, and spiffy graphics on the camera itself to set it up.

This is, of course, assuming that I can figure it out. Now bear in mind that it is currently after midnight and the last entry should have given you a really good idea of why it is that my brain went away on vacation a few days ago and hasn’t come back yet so it’s not that I’m really this clueless, it’s just that….well, okay, so maybe I am this clueless..um..never mind.

It has directions. Of course it does. And normally I would have been a good little consumer and sat down with the book and muddled through all the umpteen steps required to make it all work nicely, but the little book has small print and I’m soooo tired and well, how hard can this be? After all, I figured out how to put in the batteries. That was a no-brainer (good thing too). Then there was this little memory card that had to go into a slot. Hey. No problem here. It only fits one way. In it goes! Um. Gee. Maybe at some point here I should actually read the directions to figure out what to do and not to do. And maybe, just maybe, this little card really has more than one way to fit.

Um. How do I get the little card *out* again?

Another reminder to the sleepy/tired/no functioning brain thing. I decided that perhaps tweezers would do it. It’s skinny. Tweezers are skinny. Hey. It seems quite rational. However, this little card is in there for good. It’s not budging. No. I take that back. It jiggles just enough to suggest that it *might* budge, just maybe, if I beg it nicely. Ha.

Of course once I found the little eject button and the card flew out of the camera and skidded across the bathroom floor (tweezers, remember? Where the heck do you keep *yours*?), then I felt really stupid. But at least now I know that this camera has a secret weapon. Oh yes. I have no fear now of being accosted, because all I have to do is open the tiny flap over the little card, wave the camera in the face of Evil Mugger Person, and exclaim “Stand back, or you’ll be hit by my projectile memory card!”

Hey. It could work.

6am: The alarm clock goes off. The only radio station I was able to get to come in reliably was the gospel channel. Call it a really good incentive to wake up and turn it off quick. The phone rings almost immediately. Do I know that there is a conference call at 7am? Um….no. I guess I do now. Half awake, I’m pulling things out of my suitcase. I grab the shoes that go with my outfit and hear bells. Tangled in the shoelaces are two bright pink pompoms tied together with a short length of leather and a bell in the middle. It’s Azrael’s favorite toy, and just picturing my little black puffball wrestling with toy and shoe makes me laugh.

7am: Conference call. Those of us in the room together are bleary-eyed and half-awake. We go over issues that were already closed. Mmm. Productive.

8am: I fire off urgent messages to the DBA back home. Someone escalated an issue that never should have *been* an issue in the first place, and so on top of everything else I have been doing this week I was dragged into long and painful discussions of why it was that IT made this decision. The DBA replies. Our decision stands as we recommended. I admit I’m feeling smug. I don’t doubt the issue will resurface again. I don’t doubt that it will get any less time consuming to discuss it either.

10am: Groups are separating to deal with final design issues for this project. How did my name get dumped into the globalization group? Was anyone going to tell me, because seeing my name on that list was the first I’d heard of it. I’m scheduled to go to Singapore to babysit a database next week. Now they’re debating whether I should go. Call me cynical – I hadn’t bought tickets yet.

1pm: Back to normal meetings. How many times will one thing come up and have to be explained? We’re all tired. Eyes are glazed. People are repeating themselves. We’re supposed to be in meetings til 7pm Friday, but people are on the phone, changing reservations, figuring out how to escape early.

2pm: Singapore is on again. Yes, I can buy tickets and be certain.

4pm: Ah, it resurfaces. Yes. This time to a different group. Was this a good decision? Is this the best approach? It is done. It is over. The poor horse is dead. Why do we keep beating it?

5:30pm: I reconvene with my fellow coworkers from IT. There’s something comforting about the fact that they, too, are bleary-eyed and drained. Tired to the point of being punchy. Our manager tells us that we’re getting more work, and at the same time, people are being temporarily reassigned to work with other things. It’s funny. No, really. We’re all giggling so hard we’re practically in tears. People walk by and give us odd looks.

7pm: Escape. Dinner. We eat Thai food and avoid discussing work. We pretend we’re not exhausted. We decide to go shopping. Baby stores are too much fun to avoid when you’re an aunt.

9:30 pm: Back to the hotel. Check email. Stare blankly at the screen and ponder attempting to decipher the notes from the day.

10pm: Give up. Go to sleep