Tuesday, February 19, 2008,4:16 PM
people can be really good at counting money, counting time, counting possessions and material goods, but they just cant seem to count their own blessings, can they?
me, for one, prob cant.
i admit.
i am pretty lucky.
not those "damn bloody heng", walk-every-few-steps-also-can-pick-up-money-on-the-streets-kind (excuse the crude language), but i didnt have to worry much from young.
not about food, clothes, education or wateva it is that constitutes "basic necessities".
prob the things i worry about were "will there be pple playing with me today?" (before pri sch), "do i have enough frens to go recess with me and talk to me during class?" (pri sch), "am i cool enough? does so-and-so like me? can i pass the exam?" (sec sch), "where to go pa-toh later ah? how to improve my bowling?" (in JC), and so on.
dad & mum always made sure there was food in the house everytime we were hungry (it doesnt matter whether the food was wat we wanted or not, as long there must be food).
they made sure we had new clothes for occasions and dragged us out to buy clothes if there isn't.
they tried to let us learn wateva we wanted to as long as it is not harmful, which resulted in me picking up tennis, drama & speech, organ, guitar, swimming, badminton, volleyball, soccer, bowling, cycling, blading and dunno wat else, but ended up being half-bucket-of-water in most of them.
education was sumthing they ranked high on their "Important for Kids" list, and something they made sure they will scrimp and save for, at least until a degree.
resenting as i may seem, over their countless naggings, punishments for not doing homework or poor test results, not letting me go out and play 2 days before an exam, and now STILL trying to coax me to consider taking a 2nd degree or further studies with a Masters (but this time with my own $ though), i am finally starting to count my blessings one-by-one.
i do forget them occasionally, i will.
but i know eventually, they will come back.
i know even if one day, i may be down-and-out, with no money, no friends, i know there will always be food at home for me.
so people, learn to count your blessings.
even if u think u dun have much of it from young, just count the few blessings you have, because at least you are better than those who don't have any.
ok, on a happier note, heres how i spent Valentines Day.
rented a car, and met the OH for dinner after work.
and nearly half of Singapore was out lah, the roads started to get crowded after 6pm (i could have beat the congesting crowds and parked my car by 6pm, but due to plain old boo-boo me, i ended up going round and round the west and central areas before i finally parked my car close to 7pm!).
anyway, had dinner at Harry's @ Chjimes, coz they had this Valentines Day set dinner @ only $35nett per pax, inclusive of 1 complimentary champagne. quite cheap for a dinner at Chjimes rite?
so we happily went to look for the restaurant, and realised its in the basement level, which is away from the romantic centre stage!!!
so ok, fine, at least STILL in Chjimes lah, high class place leh, so juz enjoy our "er ren shi jie" loh.
den when the menu came, it was a 3-course dinner, appetizers were a choice of either Fresh Tasmanian Oysters or Lobster Bisque, mains were choice of Beef Wellington or Grilled Ocean Trout, and dessert was a normal brownie with ice cream.
so we were thinking "ok lah, not bad ah, $35 got champagne still got lobster or oysters, okok".
so i had the oysters and the beef, OH had lobster and beef.
when the food arrived, it still looked ok, maybe coz its quite dark there so cant really see much of the food lah. but the 5 shells of oysters i had were quite pathetic lah! the meat was quite flat and scrawny, not the "fei mei" kind loh (those who like raw oysters will understand)! but lucky it wasn't very fishy in a bad way, so the 2 pathetic lemon slices were enough for me.
but the lobster bisque that the OH had was REALLY BAD. it smelled AND tasted fishy, so i suspected that the lobster (or whatever they used) was not fresh. I just had 2 mouthfuls and i gave up. urgh. poor OH tried to finish nearly half of it before no more could go in. if it wasnt a happy occasion, i would have half a mind to call the manager over and ask for an explanation. but oh well, its Valentines Day mah.
after dat came the Beef Wellington. for those wondering wat the hell is that, its actually beef tenderloin steak pan-fried with enoki (i think) mushrooms and wrapped in a filo pastry over a bed of potato mash. this was pretty average, but defintely better den the appetizers. the filo was so-so only, but the bottom part soacked up some of the juices from the meat and the mash and tasted abit like roti-prata in sauce. lol. the beef was pretty ok, at least i see blood in it, so its prob done medium-rare (i tried to tell the waiter how i wanted our beef to be done when ordering, but he answered me "so sorry, our beef is all pre-fried already" lol). the jaw gets abit sore from chewing meat towards the end, but other den dat its ok. mash n mushrooms are ok too, so generally the dish is pretty ok.
den came the dessert. when the waiter served ONE plate of dessert for the both of us to share, i thought he got it wrong, until he placed two forks down. and i thought i ordered TWO sets? but anyway, we were both quite full already, so we just let it be lah. anyway its just a normal heart-shaped chocolate brownie with chocolate sauce and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. normal stuff too.
oh, and the champagne! I happily drank a few sips before I was reminded of the "sad" fact that I was supposed to be the driver for the whole nite! so i left the rest of it sitting prettily in the champagne glass in front of me and asked for ice water (and it took nearly an hr for 2 glasses of water to come lah!!) instead. urgh.
after dat nite, i decided, if we were to go Chijmes again, it better be in a much better restaurant, or at least on the 1st floor lah! and hopefully i dun have to drive there?? :p
after dinner, went to pick a friend and went clubbing together with the usual grp of pple.
after clubbing, went for dim sum supper at Geylang (PL gang, muz go there tog if we can 1 day leh, the dim sum not bad de! den after dat can play tong xiao MJ at someone's hse!), fetched fren home, played the car awhile den went home. End of Valentines Day!
-shagged-
