My morning ride

Went out for a short ride this morning before the kids were up. I expected myself to huff and puff a bit more…it was so long since I’d been regularly biking around and working up a sweat. Maybe 2 months? Or more. Yep, must have been the beginning of all the exams preparation that provided that lame excuse. And then my stamina went down considerably, unfortunately, inversely proportionate to my weight. The ride up Braddell Road leading up to Bartley Road was quite a struggle, compared to my last ride weeks ago. It was quite effortless then.

I’m not an adventurous roadie (biking jargon = riding on the roads). I stick to the pavement as much as possible. So, therein lies the challenge of avoiding pedestrians incessantly, twisting and turning to stay on wheel-able paths while maintaining balance cruising on super-slow speeds.

So, no pics here. It’d be dangerous to bike and shoot at the same time. Also, this country isn’t exactly bike-friendly – hardware and people-ware wise. Or maybe I’m just not savvy enough. But bringing my kids out there on bikes is a no-no – I’d get shot at home.

Back to my morning ride. I was turning round Lorong Chuan towards Braddell Road when I saw 2 kids riding bikes along the pavement with their mother riding behind. All 3 of them are genuine blonds, so I’d gather they’re ‘ang-mohs’*. They’d deftly negotiated past some paths partially blocked by road works on the pavement itself, heading forwards towards the Australian International School just about 100 metres away. Their mother carried one school backpack, so I suppose they’d park the smaller bikes at school when mummy heads back home during school time.

* ang-mohs: local term, referring to Caucasians.

Earlier this year, we somehow caught on the biking craze, and I’d fetch TF from his school, riding to the meeting point on my bike, with a kick scooter strapped behind, so we can both ride home together. His school is less than a kilometre away from home. It was great fun, until I started going to work sometime after, and had to stop this. I liked biking to his school instead of driving – it sure beats the crazy traffic when the 4 car lanes right outside the school get jammed up into 1. The situation can be so bad sometimes the traffic police had to be activated.

So when I had to hand in a document to his school’s office one afternoon some weeks ago, I chose to ride there, and was promptly scolded by the security officer for being ‘dangerous’. Think I really deserved that, since I rode right up to the lobby in front of the general office. I took the chance to ask where the boys could park their bikes if they ride to school, and she (the security officer) immediately retorted, “How can? So dangerous, you know?”

That means, that driving up to the school compounds and then dropping the boys from those metal-shell cocoons would be the best solution for transporting the all-important future generation to and from their molding facilities, whereupon they should be immediately strait-jacketed to think, learn and act the way they’re expected to be by the system.

I’m quite sure the International School pupils & mama I saw this morning don’t have this problem, or see it as a problem. That’s 2 different cultures co-existing along the same stretch of road, one institution training conformists and the other, free-wheeling development.

It’s little wonder why creativity has to be taught here.

TW’s Froggie Doodling

The kids love dining at Pizza Hut. So do I. The lovely thing they have there sometimes, is the kids’ menu on a large colour sheet, with a drawing activity printed on the reverse side. Saves me the trouble of finding my notebook and pen to occupy TW while waiting for the order to be served, though, can’t do without the pen yet.

So the rest of us continue with our catching-up-the-day conversations while TW diligently went on her doodling expedition, and came up with this.

I had that proud-mummy moment when I saw this. Ok, she isn’t an art genius (though she’d won first prize for that art & craft competition in her kindergarten back in HK), but I thought it was a great copy using an un-erasable ball-point pen. Just to show the full-page instructions:

See the Broccolis along the way?

It was a decision made at the spur of the moment (which, incidentally, lasted the whole morning), that I decided to fetch TW earlier from her full-day childcare early today, just before she was to prepare for naptime at school. The load of library books are due for return today, and I think it’s high time I should bring both kids to the library again. (That meant it’s 3 weeks from the last visit – the loan period from Singapore public libraries.)

On the way home on foot from the MRT station, TW & I enjoyed a leisurely walk under the 1pm blazing sun. Ample time to smell the flowers and name flowers along the way. Then, TW pointed to the row of trees by the pavement and exclaimed, “Look, mummy, BROCCOLIS!!!”

Reminds me, that she used to like the broccolis I used to cook for her. How sweet is that…

How to reject the SnS sticker auntie

The 'Shop N Save' supermarket chain in Singapore has this great savings programme - for every $15 spent at the outlets, you'd get 1 sticker, and you'd get $9 to use at the supermarket when you've collected 12 sticker stamps within the calendar month.

I remember a time when I'd look out for aunties to give my Shop N Save sticker to, because I knew I'd probably not be able to finish collecting all the stickers in time for the end of month redemption. That is, until a certain time I realised that there are now 'professional' sticker-collector-aunties waiting in right behind the cashier lines, specially targetted for your wanted or unwanted stickers. I meet them almost 24/7 - everytime I shop at the SnS outlet near my place - and it's getting a tad annoying.

So what do I do? Had been trying to be a bit more creative than nasty during these encounters, until I met one enterprising auntie who tried to befriend me at the tofu counter this afternoon.

Let's call her 'Auntie Tofu'. Auntie Tofu asked, "Missy ah, do you collect the stickers?"

"Yes," I replied. You could almost see that exhilarated glint in her eyes. And I caught that spark and continued excitedly, " Oh! You have stickers to give me?!?"

"Oh, I was only thinking of asking if you are participating in the collection only lah..." The traffic police could issue a ticket for how quickly Auntie Tofu fled from me...it was, like, a nanosecond?

Boy, I'm thinking of printing and donning a T-shirt declaring my stand each time I visit SnS outlets now. That is, until the time when the scheme's (and associated aunties) no longer there.

And there she goes again

For the past few days we’d been quite flustered with the MOM officer’s message that we were supposed to pay the overstaying fine of $300 because this runaway maid has overstayed on Singapore soil. Apparently, the police did not charge her, and MOM said there was no proof that she had done anything wrong under the Penal Code.

We don’t intend to take all this nonsense hands down. However, before any side has taken any action…

I received a call from my maid agency yesterday, telling me they’d intend to repatriate this maid back to Indonesia that day, but our amazing friend has managed to run away from the agency’s boarding house.

Now we wonder. So we were supposed to forfeit the security bond of $5,000 because she went missing from our house, and then the embassy. Then she was found, and the $$ imposed is now changed to ‘overstaying fine’ on her which we had to pay, with whom we should have no relationship whatsoever, after she had unilaterally terminated our employment contract by running away. And now she has gone missing again when under custody of the maid agency, with no contact with us at all. Say if she were to be found again one year later, or 10 years later, are we still liable to pay for the x number of years of overstay she’d done?

I seriously doubt that the issue has been thought through thoroughly by the relevant officials. Someone will have to pay some fine for some anomalies, apparently, as the local system goes, and it’s not the policymakers/implementers’ business to care.

The Maid Saga Continues…

Following the last piece of news that my former maid has run away from the Indonesian embassy after running away from my house one fine afternoon in June, there had been no news of her until last weekend.

I received a call from the Woodlands Police Centre informing me that she has been found. The police officer was rather concerned when he called me, and the first thing he asked me was whether I had forfeited the S$5,000 security bond. Incidentally, I had just drafted and sent an appeal to Ministry of Manpower 2 days before this. MOM was about to take action to demand my insurance company to pay out the sum of money.

Having treated my domestic worker rather well during her employment with us, I do not feel it is fair to me as an innocent employer, who has contributed little to this girl’s decision to venture off elsewhere, not fulfilling her obligations, leaving us worried, anxious, thrown into pandemonium, and still, ultimately, having to pay for what she has done on a whim, financially, emotionally, physically and psychologically. We had been victimized throughout this whole affair, and now I have to shell out more money to pay for someone else’s crime? This just doesn’t make sense.

This morning, I received a call from an officer from MOM, who has read my appeal email. She said I will have to pay up an overstaying fine on behalf of this maid. I think I almost lost it there. I referred her to the maid agency, which has undertaken to repatriate the girl, and would be liaising with the police. Why can’t the police charge her? She was found at the Woodlands checkpoint and detained by the police there. Isn’t this clearly indicative of her criminal intent? She wanted to cross over to JB. How she had survived for almost 2 months here in Singapore is a marvel, and we really wonder how much cash she may have pilfered from us, or she may have an accomplice, or found some other source of income somewhere, somehow.

Why should I, as a innocent employer with proper intention to hire a domestic helper, pay for an ill-intent this employee had? Just because the security bond says so? I believe the security bond was conceived to deter potential maid abusers so that they will have to pay for their wrong-doings when their domestic workers cannot tolerate further abuses. Then, where is the protection for good-intentioned employers? The average citizen who needed a little extra help at home, and has paid for such arrangement fairly?

This girl clearly is a criminal now. So if I will have to be responsible for her own wrongdoing, which I had no part of, i.e. pay overstaying fine or other what-have-you fines or charges for her when she’d decided to run away on her own agenda, does it mean I’ll have to pay bail for her if she were to kill someone, rob a bank, etc etc?

Sometimes I find government policy implementers ridiculous. Just like how we aren’t even allowed to drink any sip of water on MRTs these days. Singapore will probably be world-famous for yet another reason besides the chewing gum issue in time to come.

Free Flower

I was browsing around in the Watsons shop located at the Toa Payoh HDB Hub and a tall young man dressed in a white suit just gave me a single pink flower on a long stalk. I stared suspiciously at him, and he understood my signal.

“It’s free. You don’t have to pay anything, and I’m also giving you this voucher for you to get a free pink pouch when you buy 2 packets of our product.”

Guess what’s the product he’s selling? It’s the Carefree pantiliners – new packaging, new look, new selling approach.

Then I was remarking to the cashier that it’s so funny that you’d get sweet young girls to sell stuff to men, and now a male to sell women’s stuff. She couldn’t restrain a giggle. What’s next? Intriguing.