First, some happy news that has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of this entry. I finally heard back from my company and the cell phones are not required for us consultants! Yes! Happy dance! I will not be forced to carry a horrible icky cell phone! I can keep my cute little pager!

Okay, I’ll quite gushing. Back to your regularly scheduled entry.

Last Tuesday the manager of this project I’m on took me aside to tell me that there was going to be some reorganizing within the IT system.

This is not necessarily news. Reorganization has been the name of the game since we started this project – the company for whom I am consulting has recently split from their parent company and they are still going through growing pains, so we’ve all learned that in order to survive in this project, one must be flexible. Very flexible. So I nodded and figured that he was going to tell me that I was going to be reassigned – either to another piece of the project, or to the position I’ve been filling temporarily.

What I did not expect, however, was for him to tell me that his boss is moving to a new position, he is moving to a new position, and both he and his boss figured that I would be the best choice to replace him. Very big gulp.

With this project I’ve been wearing hats that I’ve really never worn before…or thought I would be able to handle. I’m a coder. When people ask what I do for a living, I tell them I play with databases. Really big databases. Sometimes I’m assigned to a project by myself, sometimes as part of a team. Sometimes I’m fixing an existing system, cleaning up the performance, tuning and tweaking. Other times I’m developing an entirely new piece of the puzzle…but regardless, I am a code nerd.

Not so on this project. I sort of volunteered to be the lead for analyzing all the requirements that we’re gathering…only out of default since no one else wanted the position. Then I was pulled into working directly with the customer themselves, collecting the requirements, acting as the IT techno-geek representative to the business team. And yes, in a way I’ve been sort of doing some administrative things, by deflecting and directing questions and tasks for the development team. So I suppose that this new position is merely an extension of what I have already been doing all along. That doesn’t make it any less mind-boggling though, because I just don’t think of myself as manager-type material.

Ever since Tuesday, I’ve been holding my breath, wondering if, like lots of things on this project, the decision would change to something entirely different. Wondering whether I could really do this. Wondering when it was that the project manager and his boss would wake up and suddenly realize “Have we lost our minds? We actually think *Jennifer* can do this? What *were* we thinking?” But they announced it to the rest of the team on Friday, and…well…here I am. I’m not sure exactly what my title is (if anything), and I’m not sure exactly what all this position will entail (except lots more of the same thing I’ve been doing), and I am finding it kind of amusing that despite always being a code nerd, I’m getting further and further away from the database as this project continues. All I know right now is that – despite the long hours and frustration over last minute changes and unreasonable requirement requests and scope creep and gentle reminders from my friends and family that gee, they’d really like to see me sometime and am I still alive out there – that I like this project. I am having *fun* on this project. I’m more than a bit flattered that these people think I’m capable of doing what it is that they have asked me to do. Now if I could only convince myself…

Picture the following scene. It is mid-afternoon, on a truly gorgeous sunny day in San Francisco. Friends have gathered because one woman has flown in from out of town, and they have all decided to play tourist for her sake. “Let’s go to Coit Tower,” says the woman who has flown in, and the rest of them agreed. So they set off in two cars. They are all Having Fun. The first car is a convertible. The second is not. The three woman in the second car are feeling smug. They have air conditioning. They have the radio on and can actually hear it. They are looking forward to this. The two cars have approached a hill. It is a steep hill. No. That is putting it mildly. It’s a NASTY hill. The driver of the second car is not worried though. Oh no. This is a nearly new car. This is an automatic transmission. Ha. She had nothing to fear.

She pulls her foot off the brake, preparing to move forward as another car leaves the stop sign way, way up the hill. And promptly rolls backwards. Say *what*? She is not supposed to roll backwards! She is driving an automatic! This is why *she* is driving and not one of the others in the car with her, who all own cars with manual transmissions. She stomps on the gas too hard in response, and screeches her tires.

Her friends reassure her. Yes, even on this ugly hill that now appears to go up completely straight and is getting steeper by the minute, every car will roll backwards.

The driver gulps. Okay. She can handle this. No sweat. Brake. Foot off brake and over to gas. Roll back, roll forward. No problem….hey! Why is the jerk behind her trying to climb into her back seat? What part of ‘cars roll backwards on this hill’ does he not understand?

Hands grip the steering wheel. The driver gets a set look on her face. She is Not Having Fun. She is resorting to saying Decidedly Unkind Things about the person in the little grey car behind her. Her friends try to reassure her. If you hit him, they say, he is at fault. On this hill, if he is stupid enough to tail that close, then he should know better. But, the driver whimpers, this is her nearly new car. She does not *want* to hit him. No. Scratch that. She would gladly hit him. But that would involve stopping on this truly horrible hill and getting out and exchanging insurance paperwork and trying to keep from decking the idiot driver who does not seem to grasp the concept that everyone else on this hill has understood – that when you drive on this hill, you roll backwards.

The top is finally reached. The car no longer rolls backwards. Now they get to drive down the windy brick road that is Lombard street, and the driver is once again Having Fun. No more rolling backwards. Of course, she makes a mental note to *never* go up that hill again if she can help it.

Or at least make someone else do the driving next time. So that she can sit in the passenger seat and do the reassuring.

It’s official. I’ve been too busy for far too long.

I wandered around my house today and, for the first time, realized that the philedendrons are all shriveled and looking pathetic, and chock full of dry brown leaves. They’re not dead. Nothing, I have determined, will kill a philedendron. Which is precisely why they are the only plant in my house, because with my crazy mixed up schedule (ah, the glamorous life of a consultant. Or something), any plant that lives with me must be very forgiving if it doesn’t get watered more than once every other month or so when I walk by and remember.

When I noticed the poor water-deprived little plants (and yes, I promptly watered them *and* apologized profusely, and we really do not need to go into the psychological implications of Jennifer talking to her plants), it struck me that I might be missing other things as well. The cats are impossible to ignore – besides the fact that they have me completely and utterly trained to do their every bidding (well, almost), I do head counts every day before I leave work. This means that I usually have to find Zuchinni’s latest hiding place, but at least I know he’s still alive because otherwise I’m lucky to see more than a darting blurred furry shape at night, or as a nervous face peering around the corner to watch me with that faintly panicked look that always seems to me to indicate that he is certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that even though in the entire four years of his life that he has lived with me I have been nothing but kind and loving towards him, any day now I will suddenly turn on him, eyes shooting out the Evil Ray Of Death. I often ponder why it is that he can watch the other cats swarm me, purring happily, thus proving that I am not a maniacal cat murderer, but yet he still won’t trust me. I realize it’s psychological with him, and after all, this paranoia of his is why no one would ever adopt him, and I ended up keeping him anyway, and amazingly enough, this is actual *improvement* over the years, but even so sometimes I almost feel insulted.

But I digress. I was going somewhere with this, wasn’t I? After taking care of the green things inside it occurred to me that I ought to poke my head outside to see how the backyard was doing too. It’s something I do once a season, whether it needs it or not. Yes, I have a postage stamp of a backyard and this incredibly huge deck that I never, ever use. I hire a gardener to come and take care of the front and back, simply because 1. I’m not home often enough to keep it up, 2. The landlord lives across the street so there’s more of an incentive to keep it up, and 3. I despise yard work. Anyway, I noticed to my astonishment that the viney thing that has been taking over the deck roof the past few years has bloomed – beautiful purple flowers that sort of hang down (and will eventually turn into gnarled bean sort of things. So I didn’t take botany. I’m sure the viney thing has a name. Heck if I know what it is though.). It took me by surprise because I guess it’s just another indication that it’s actually spring here in California…and when did that happen?

My rescued onion is also still alive. I did mention I’m gone a lot, right? A few months ago I purchased an onion and it sat very patiently in a dark corner of the kitchen counter waiting for me to do something with it….or perhaps it wasn’t quite so patient because after an indeterminate amount of time I suddenly realized that there was a rather large green sprout emanating from the onion bag, and gee, maybe this onion was wayyyyy past its prime. Okay, call this a misplaced guilt complex, but I just couldn’t throw the poor thing out. Not after it had expended so much time and energy to produce such a strong and healthy looking shoot. I took it outside and planted it in this huge flower box that lines one side of the deck in the backyard I never go into. This garnered a laugh from the friend who was there at the time because my shovel was a soup spoon (hey, it worked!), but anyway, it’s still alive and getting very tall. I suppose at some point this summer I ought to check to see if it produced more onions…..but knowing me and my schedule it will probably get a chance to spawn even more of its little oniony buddies before I ever get back to it again.

I suppose the most important thing from this little walk around the house to check on plants was that I realized that I’m starting to neglect things and that I’m starting to let work get to me far more than I ought to. Lately it’s been getting harder to leave work at the office….and considering recent developments I’ll discuss in greater depth soon, I have a feeling it may get even more intense…..and so I need to remind myself that there are other things that need my attention too. Like family members whose birthdays are being missed because I haven’t had time to go shopping, nor have I been home to visit them. And friends who, I’m sure, are beginning to think that I’m mad at them because I rarely see them anymore.

And unlike the philedendrons and onions, whose forgiveness can be obtained in trade for a mere cup of water or a tiny patch of dirt in which to root, these other aspects of my life may not be so resilient.

I’ve been gone for a while – out of the country. And I don’t get my email from work very often anyway because, as a consultant, I’m not often in my office, and the current project site only has one dial-up line to access outside networks, and quite frankly, I hate Lotus Notes and so maybe this is my passive way of rebelling against having to use this horrible new email system that my new company oh so graciously bestowed on us during the merger.

So when I swung by the office on the way home tonight to get my email there was quite a bit of it. Nearly two weeks worth of messages, most of which I promptly deleted after merely reading the header, since they fell into the ‘doesn’t apply to me’ rule. Then I saw a message that filled me with dread.

It was a cheerful message. In bright red letters, it announced that all of us consultants are just soooo lucky because (insert cries of happy joy and astonishment here), we’re getting cellular phones. We’re all to call the number listed, and sign up for cellular phones, and turn in our pagers.

Perhaps I am an oddity (I’m sure there are some people who would say there’s no ‘perhaps’ about it), but I don’t want a cellular phone. I don’t like them. I can’t stand them. They are annoying, irritating devices that somehow seem to convince the average rational human being that they are slightly more important than the rest of us and therefore more entitled to be rude. The idiotic things go off during movies. They go off at dinner. They go off during meetings. People talk far too loud on them. I’m not sure I’ve yet heard anyone talking on a cellular phone who doesn’t end up shouting. And you don’t want to get me started on the subject of people using them in the car. It could get really ugly. Trust me.

I know that there are those of you out there who just love your little phones and can’t imagine life without them. And I’m sure that you’re reading this, shaking your head with dismay at how I can actually not like them. You’re also all saying under your breath “but I’m a good phone user. I never annoy people. I always turn my phone on vibrate when I’m at the movies. I don’t let it rule my life. I know how where the ‘off’ button is. And besides, it’s only for emergencies.”

Uh huh. Okay. Yeah. I believe you. Really. Not. Whether you want to admit it or not, you’re tied to the things. You can’t escape it. Oh sure, it’s convenient, but deep, deep down, don’t you really wish some times that people really weren’t able to contact you *anywhere*?

This is not the first time I’ve dug in my heels and tried to avoid enforced telecommunication improvements. I didn’t want the pager either. I successfully avoided that for over a year, til my company at the time was purchased by another one, and then presto, the pager arrived and I had to carry the darn thing because they all knew how to get ahold of me. I’ll admit that I actually have grown to like the darn thing. It’s a handy way for people to get ahold of me. Friends and family can send me little text messages letting me know they’re on their way, or that I should call them, or asking what time we’re meeting. Coworkers can get ahold of me when we’re working on projects over the weekend.

So you might think that, by virtue of the fact that I have grown to tolerate, and yes, even *like* the pager, that I might do the same for a cellular phone. However. There is one big difference between the two. With a pager, I know someone is trying to contact me. But it is still up to my discretion when and how I return that page. If I’m nowhere near a phone, well they’re basically stuck. I have the perfect excuse for taking extra time to return a call. With a phone I have no excuse. And I have a sneaky feeling I’ll only be able to use the ‘I had the phone turned off’ excuse for so many times before people start glaring at me.

Sigh.

Besides, I think I see a trend forming here. With each merger/acquisition my company goes through, the tracking methods get worse. I shudder to think of what might happen if this current incarnation of my company is ever acquired by a larger fish. I can see it now – all of us consultants trapped and radio-tagged. If they want us, they just transmit a mild electric shock. In a meeting, if you ever see the consultants flinch, or suffer from some odd muscle twitch, well, just assume they’ve been contacted by the home office.

I sent an email back to the business office asking if this cellular phone thing is a requirement or a choice. I have a sinking suspicion that it falls into the requirement category. I’m sure they’ll get a good laugh at my email. “Hey George, check this out. This woman doesn’t *want* one. Can you believe it? She actually said she’d rather hang by her toes than carry one. Whatta ya know.”

It’s progress. Gotta love it. Right?

Whimper.

On the flight to Singapore, I used my numerous frequent flier miles to upgrade to business class. There is something vaguely snobbish about flying in business or first. You get to board before the rest of the plane. You are seated in comfortable chairs being plied with drinks by friendly flight attendants while the rest of the unwashed masses file sullenly past to their tiny, cramped little seats in the back of the plane. There is a foot rest. The chair reclines back more than two inches – back enough so you might actually get comfortable. In business class on the international flights you have your own personal little TV screen to watch the movies so that you don’t strain your neck trying to see the fuzzy little screen hanging from the ceiling. They bring you food on a real plate and you don’t have to glue your elbows to your side while eating. They give you noise-reduction headphones. And in general, even when on an international flight that is 14 hours long, it is comfortable.

On the flight home on Saturday, I was not so lucky. The plane was full and (sob) I had to *be* one of those unwashed masses in coach. While I did not have an obnoxious child kicking the seat behind me, there was a screaming baby two rows ahead who was possessed with lung strong enough to clear the wax from one’s ears. Even for someone short, like me, there is no possible way you can ever get comfortable in those seats, and forget about getting any sleep.

I think that the people who design airline seats for coach should be forced to fly in them weekly, across the country (I’m so nice – I’m not even requesting international flights. Heck, 4 hours across the US should do it, right?). Stick them in the middle seat between two burly linebackers who refuse to give up an armrest, have the person in front of them recline the seat into their lap, and then sit an obnoxious, seat-kicking child behind them. Then lets see how long it takes before those people start figuring out a way to make flying more comfortable.

But anyway, I’m home now. The cats are all thrilled to see me. I had dinner with a small group of friends and we all laughed until we were practically crying. Yes, I had sea-dwelling creature for dinner, but I knew what spices were used, there weren’t any tentacles or other odd accessories, and all eyes, fins, and anything else that would have given any clue as to its appearance when still alive had been removed. Outside the sun is shining and the air is blessedly dry.

It’s good to be home.

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.