And well, drinking while we're at it.
Thursday's 'let's meet for a drink while we wait for Nips!" turned into a very happy hour in the form of a jug of mango magarita shared between Karish and me. Happy chatter, banter about boys and all things girly while we go progressively more tipsy and crazy and made our way to Tanjong Pagar to meet Nips (she sang the national anthem on the train, that kind of tipsy). Onward to the mozzarella cheese bar for more wine, cheese and bread, and maybe a few not-so-happy exchanges about anger and life and marriage and so on. But it was a great night for me, and as I tipsy-ly hugged her goodbye in the cab, it dawned on me again, that I am quite blessed to have these few precious girlfriends in my life :)
Friday brought forth a much overdue catch up with Sufen after a two year hiatus. After laughing about IT geeks with low EQs over overpriced and underdelivered Korean food, we strolled our way into the Night Festival and were duly entertained by some weird Amazonian dance troupe, KoFlow and his jazzy voiced singer friend, funny lights on the building facades and some friend of a friend DJ dude at Loof. That kiwi martini was definitely interesting, and probably kept me going through the 45 minute ordeal thereafter to get a cab home :| But something Sufen said to me that night struck a chord: 'Yeah I had a lot of guy friends when I was younger, but as you grow up you kind of realise that girlfriends are more reliable?' So true.
And then came the crazyawesomeunpredicted Saturday. Celine's beautiful wedding at church in the morning made me tear up every 5 mins, together with the goosebump-inducing church boy vocals and sermon about how love is a choice that we make everyday, and that marriage and relationships don't come with guarantees of any sort. A hurried lunch wolfed down and the continued taxi ordeal which ended up in a wait for 45 minutes and me rocking up 20 minutes late at Buona Vista CC..
.. only to be told I was the VIP they were waiting for and then escorted to the VIP table in the middle of the room.
Total OMG moment.
So between making small talk with the other VIPs, freaking out on the inside about having to recite the pledge and sing the national anthem on stage, and just being overall flustered, I somehow was also the 3rd person so go up on stage, then wait for 200 odd people to do so after me, and then be sent up as VIP#4 (it didn't help that #3 was a no show) with the other two unsuspecting victims to say this pledge. While my guest Karishma whooped at the back and bounded to the front to cheer me on...
Memories are made of this stuff..
Anyways after visibly faking the singing of the national anthem, it pretty much was done (they did also produce instant photographic evidence of the uncomfortable moments on stage)- we ate way too much pizza and samosa after, painted batiks and traipsed our way home on the bus.
A nap and a not-so-quick chat with les parents later, I headed out to meet Stephan and Sidra for the champagne birthday do at Bella Pasta. Between weird clams, couple arguments and probably too much bubbly and wine, it was a really nice chilled out dinner, complete with the birthday song and tiramisu on the house! And then, at dinner, the text message from Hoey Lit out of the blue telling me I was on TV. And another one from Daphne a few minutes later... Turns out my oath taking skills were so good Channel News Asia decided to run it on the news.. *cringe*
Total OMG moment.. Again.
After chugging down more bubbly, Karlin (who is ridiculously funny and awesome btw) joined us on the walk to CQ, and after a Fenix 50 bucks for house fail, we ended up at.. *drumroll*.. ChinaOne. No points for that one. But between the jagerbombs, rum and tequila shots, it was an insane night on the dancefloor. So many drunken funnies and losing it completely to the RnB, hip hop and even some of the live band music- we danced till we literally dropped (I definitely did the next day) and then limped out to the taxi stand at 4am :P It felt good to dance (and headbang) so hard, and I couldn't have asked for more fun dance buddies and better music :)
Come Sunday (and September!), the bed called for attention till about noon and I finally watched myself on the news, after which fika with Quig became more of a reason to get out of bed. Happiness in the form of bryggcafe, kanelbulle, meatballs, elderflower cupcakes and dark chocolate cake.. And well, catching up with Quig. The missed birthday and hunt for knives and hangers made for a fun afternoon out, followed by curry puffs and much needed me-time doing absolutely nothing- Suits, Me Talk Pretty One Day, and well, sleep.
All in all, one heck of a weekend to remember :)
[And here's the link to the horrendous news item on CNA: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/video/new-citizens-urged-to/797678.html]
