To loose the belt of Orion

31 “Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades,
Or loose the belt of Orion?
32 Can you bring out Mazzaroth in its season?
Or can you guide the Great Bear with its cubs?
33 Do you know the ordinances of the heavens?
Can you set their dominion over the earth?

Job 38:31-33

Can you see those 3 stars in a row? That’s Orion’s belt.

I pointed to the sky, at the only constellation I can identify with any degree of certainty. The boys seemed impressed. They ran into the house to get an encyclopedia on stars and we all went up to the roof for a better view. The boys thought that it was funny that Orion was upside down and there was a bright star at where his armpit should be.

GS shared with us how he was taught to navigate using the sun by day and the stars by night. When GPS fails, the sun and stars do not. I thought about how easy it is too forget this when you’re surrounded by buildings that you think were built by human ingenuity.

Frankly, the night sky in Singapore is clearer than it is in Kathmandu. There is far less pollution and even the view from my driveway is pretty amazing. But it has been a long time since I’ve stopped to look up. But seeing a child’s eyes light up because he was able to identify Orion’s belt made me remember the One who can “loose the belt of Orion”.

Chez bar

2 years ago, I wanted to get a nice teak outdoor furniture set and turn the back of my house into a chill spot where I could have a couple of drinks with friends under the evening sky.  God knows I have a substantial enough liquor collection to keep people reasonably entertained for a long time.  And a semi-permanent fixture would save me all the trouble of moving tables and things into the driveway.  Think plants, candles and those beautiful flower fairy lights from Thailand.  I could run wires out from my bedroom window and have some music going.  It would have been perfect.  No one uses the space at the back anyway.

After the party on Friday I remembered what a truly wonderful idea that is.  I shall start hunting for teak furniture again.  🙂

I already had a name for the area:  Chez Bar.  (Geddit?!!)

Christmas cards

Source:  http://www.alamy.com

I’ve been late getting onto the Christmas bandwagon this year.  Too many things on my mind to really get into the festive season and frankly, Christmas preparations can be a pain.  I’m not always big on the presents but my Christmas card list runs into the 100s each year and for some reason, I feel the need to MAKE my cards.  So 1 night early in December, Di and I cut, glue, stamp, paint and cover things in glitter.  We are running a little late this year and I wasn’t really too enthused about the Christmas season.  The last few Christmases have been crap and the last decent Christmas I remember was great for reasons that I would rather forget.  It’s a pity.  It’s supposed to be my favourite season.  I mean people won’t notice if I don’t send out cards this year, right?!

But then a card dropped out from a pile of old Christmas cards:

“… Christmas I suppose is kinda like that – after the insanity and madness of the year, you settle down to a peaceful, reflective period.  You can always count on it to be there, anchoring the days and months around it.  And even it is crazy mad, it’ll always be a merry Christmas on the 25th of December.  You’re a Christmas person because you’re always there for your friends and because you make good cards.”

Maybe I really am a Christmas person.  The kind who will irrationally stamp and hand-paint 100s of Christmas cards.  The kind who thinks through who she’s sending cards to each year and prays over each one as she writes them.  The kind who still believes that because it’s Christmas all will be right with the world, even if it isn’t now.  Maybe I don’t write those 100+ cards for the people they eventually get sent to, but for me.  To remind myself that Christmas is the season for love, joy, gratitude, peace, hope.  An excuse to keep in touch, to reconcile, to say thanks, to remember, to renew, to reflect and to be glad.

So Di and I are FINALLY getting around to making our Christmas cards tomorrow.  Hooray.  It would be a sad tradition to lose.

All kinds of happy

Being back in Australia made me all kinds of happy.  The 9 or so days I was there, I kept having the recurring thought that I am very blessed.  Blessed to pull off a work trip so last minute, it was shocking.  Blessed to be in a place where I’m very comfortable.  Blessed to know the right mix of irreverence and respect that is appropriate and how to get things done (in a professional context).  Blessed to see old friends.  Blessed to make new ones.  Blessed to see that things change and yet remain exactly the same.  Blessed with pancakes and tapas and gelato and coffee and kangaroo!  Blessed to no longer have the same irrational emotional attachment to Melbourne.  Blessed to be able to slip into the old routines of relationships separated by distance but not affection.  It was very nice.

My feelings of blessedness climaxed on Thursday when I flew home.  I started the day, standing outside in the chilly, pre-dawn Melbourne morning waiting for the cab to the airport, with a big bear hug from one of my favourite people.  I’ll miss you, he said.  I’ll miss you too.  I ended the day, at the Esplanade foyer waiting for Avenue Q to start and watching kiddies dance to gamelan, with a big bear hug from one of my favourite people.  I’ve missed you, he said.  I’ve missed you too. 

Blessedness – the feeling of leaving home to come home.  A comfortable sense of belonging both ways.  A girl could be so lucky.

Call the Sabbath a delight…

Today, I walked along Bondi Beach and giant Scrabble tiles reminded me to “imagine”.   🙂

So where the bloody hell are you?

I’m off to Australia in just under 6 hours.  This time tomorrow, I will be watching the sunset over the Harbour Bridge from the Sydney Opera House with a cocktail in my hand.  Life is good.

Scrambling

No prizes for guessing where I'm off to next!

Scrambling to put a work trip together. AGAIN. After a very very successful Amsterdam trip, I’m convinced that taking a little trouble to think through who you want to meet while overseas is so worth the effort.

It’s past midnight, I’m still working, I’m completely exhausted but damn, I’m happy.

20 things that made me very happy at Di’s wedding

Because it was so lovely, here are 20 things that made me very happy at Di’s wedding.

1. The girls. This is pretty self-explanatory. It’s hard to top shared joy amongst old friends. 12 years (or more) is a long time.
2. Family. I guess with the amount of time we girls spend at Di’s, it was so good to be part of her parent’s joy. They have watched us grow up. There was something homely and comforting about eating their microwaved leftover dinner in the kitchen at 11pm the night before the wedding.
3. Getting ready at Di’s in the morning. The chaos of a whole bunch of girls trying to get ready at the same time is just funny. But there is something happy and communal about it. Like some sort of bonding ritual. I now know that Lauren has nice blush and Dawn has nice dark green eyeshadow.
4. Pretty dresses and glittery nail polish. Okay, I’m a girl. So shoot me.
5. Corsages that serendipitously matched my green dress perfectly.
6. Clipboard man. There were times when I really wanted to tell him to chill but he was doing his job and far better at it than I’ll ever be. I really respected that he took the effort to take charge. Gotta love a military man.
7. Kueh Pie Ti. Yum!
8. Fort Canning Park (and the fact that it didn’t rain). I love the outdoors as a general rule. The place were they had the solemnization was perfect. Lovely view with the setting sun.
9. My wonderful co-emcee! Thank God for him. I barely showed up to the wedding on time. Oops.
10. The boys (and my flatmates from Melbourne). Seriously, being surrounded by your dearest friends when it isn’t even your wedding is pretty cool.
11. Personalised vows. Even though they were downloaded from the internet.
12. The sword-bearers. SO COOL!
13. Elderflower cordial. It looks like pink water but tasted divine.
14. Barbecued lamb. A real bitch to eat but I love lamb and I love barbecue. I used my hands.
15. Singing. I always love singing at weddings. Every wedding should have lots of singing. Even if it is a forfeit and the mike doesn’t work.
16. Dancing to the Copacabana. Her name was Lola. There was an old aunty who was having a ball of a time.
17. Evening photos, which I didn’t take. It was so nice to come home and have surprise photos. It’s like seeing the wedding through someone else’s eyes. It turns out that someone else’s eyes frames the images very differently from how I would.
18. Picasa with a new colour-temperature adjustment feature. (When you see some of my original photos, you will understand why.)
19. New friends. Sometimes friendship starts because you love the same person. Very nice.
20. Seeing everyone else have a good time and knowing that the effort put into preparation was worth it. Di’s little attention to details really paid off in the end. The wedding was beautiful!

Anticipation

It’s the night before Di’s wedding and I’m sitting in her dining room.  Pretty much everyone else has gone to bed but I am still up being a workaholic (and now a procrastinator).

Just as well I am completely nocturnal.  There is something about the silence of the house and the quiet anticipation that hangs in the air.  It’s actually kind of nice.  The dresses are ironed.  The flowers and decorations are up.  The gifts are packed.  The house is ready to receive it’s first guests in the morning.

I’m sitting here in my pajamas relishing the moment.  It is a quiet sort of joy.  Anticipation.  The slight hint of a smile that will break into a grin in the morning.  

Can’t wait for tomorrow!

Sunrise over the Rijksmuseum

The Rijksmuseum - taken from my hotel room window

I wasn’t intending to go to the Rijksmuseum. I love art but have a very limited appreciation for the old fashioned stuff. Maybe it’s the Gen Y in me that isn’t particularly impressed with the technical expertise needed to capture the moment in a room-sized painting that takes a year to complete. Add to that the “iNtuitive” tendency to prefer abstraction and concepts over details and really, I’d much prefer modern art.

But I’m staying right next to Museumplein and can see the Rijksmuseum from my window (and can hear its bells chime every 15 minutes) so I figured that not going was doing the museum a great disservice! Anyway, I was free early morning so before breakfast, I zipped around the corner and went to see the masterpieces of the Rijksmuseum.  (They are doing a reno so only it’s mainly the stuff from the Golden Age that is on view.)

I’m so glad I did. I did the whole tourist thing (guidebook and audio tour) and loved every minute of it.  It’s a fantastically curated exhibition.  My dad would have loved the Rijksmuseum too. He loves Rembrandt and ships and there are plenty of both.  As for me, I liked the dolls houses. I always wanted a dolls house as a kid although I think it slightly obscene that the rich would pay the equivalent for a small canal house for one.  I found about about Frans Hals and loved his confident and expressive brushstrokes. I started to appreciate Rembrandt and understand why he is as revered as he is.  When you see enough of his work together, you kinda “get it”.  So many highlights.  Too many to mention.  Suffice it to say, I enjoyed myself much much more than I thought I would.  Good art makes me happy.

As an aside, 2 paintings that I really really really want to see while I’m in Holland, which I’m not going to be able to, are “The Girl with a Pearl Earring” by Johannes Vermeer (it’s in the Hague) and “Cafe Terrace at Night” by Van Gogh (somewhere).  Pity.