Frogs!

When Maisie was two-and-a-half, we took a very cool farm class, by far the best kid class on the planet. Every week, we'd do something different. One day, for example, we tapped a tree for sugar maple. Inside, we ate maple cookies, read a book about maple trees and then did an art project using maple leaves. Another day, we gathered eggs, ate egg salad, read a book about chickens and did an art project with feathers. 

Today, we did kind of the polar opposite farm visit. We visited a frog farm on the kids' first ever field trip, both decked out in their school uniforms: ugly, yellow, polo shirts.

Maisie was incredibly excited about taking a school bus, but not too happy that I took the 45-minute bus ride with Hudson on the little kid bus while she rode with the big kids and teachers on another bus. In fact, I didn't see Maisie the entire morning until the very end of the visit.

The ride was fascinating, taking us through very native parts of Singapore that I hadn't seen before. We passed fish farms, orchid growers and the places where they park construction vehicles. Finally, my sleeping little man and I arrived at the frog farm.

Here's the dark, ugly truth: the place was pretty disgusting. The farm raises American Bullfrogs for eating. The frogs are not native to Singapore and if they were released into the wild here, they'd totally screw up the food chain. 

We started our tour by watching a television piece shot at the farm and then visiting the breeding pens. The pens were made out of cinder block and corrugated metal and looked a bit like a lean-to you'd see in the worst parts of some really poor country - nothing like the Singapore I've come to know.

What really wigged me out were the similarly made, giant holding tanks. There were zillions of frogs in each one, many climbing on top of another. It made me think of the time I did a story in a bat cave and watched the walls appear to move as the bats wriggled. We should say frog pile instead of dog pile.

Amazingly, they didn't smell. In fact, the guy who owns the farm said he went into frog farming because it doesn't smell like cows or sheep. Hudson kept screaming, "Frog!" pointing furiously at all the hoppers. We got to feed them some dog food-like nuggets.

 

Of course, better than seeing the eggs or the tadpoles or feeding the teeming masses of frogs was TOUCHING the frogs. Hudson wasn't so into it at first, opting instead to sit on the ground. Eventually, he got interested and poked the frog not once, but twice - squealing in delight the second time.

 

The man who held them practically squeezed them in half and told us the male frog has green under the mouth and bigger ears. Who knew?

The topper of the morning was eating the frog legs. Frankly, the place was so icky, I wasn't really into it, but then Maisie walked up. Since I'm always telling her to try new things because they might be her favorite food, I felt like I had no out. Maisie held the meat on a toothpick right to my face until I tried it. She, however, did not. Grrr.

It was not like chicken. Don't believe it when somebody tells you that. I actually thought the meat was a bit like fish. I'm not quite sure what it tasted like, but I won't be having it again. The taste wasn't as nasty as the thought of the taste.

Just as I thought I'd done my duty, they brought out little cups of frog jelly. The server said it was dessert and very good for a woman's skin - to keep wrinkles away. It was a drink with something floating inside it. No wrinkles? I'm in! Turns out frog jelly is a drink and not too nasty. I wish I'd stopped there. Stupid me asked what Stupid, stupid stupid. The drink is made out of the female frog's reproductive organs. Lovely.

I got a phone call today from a woman who assesses kids with issues. She was brilliantly helpful and gave me all sorts of guidance about the schools. What has taken me weeks to figure out on my own, she told me in a half hour. Amazingly, I'm right on track with what I'm thinking would be good for my children. I should apply to either Odyssey or Eton House and then - once Maisie tests out - apply to the American School, not mentioning anything other than the very last assessment she has had. Period. If she doesn't test out by first grade (which I fully expect her to do), she can up til fourth grade at Eton House. That's pretty much her only choice.

Meanwhile, I'm very excited. Tonight we get a free trial of HBO and I FINALLY get to see "Newsroom." I've heard all sorts of things about it from my newsy friends so I'm anxious to see it though I'm afraid it'll send me into a tailspin, missing my career. Let's put those Chinese meds to the test!

Oh hell - I've watched the opening credits and I'm blue already. Sigh. God, I loved working in television news.

Emotions Running High

It's no secret that I took hormones to get pregnant. What you may not know is just how many I took. All told, I went through five rounds of full IVF medications and six more rounds of recipient hormones. That's a heck of a lot of drugs. 

Hormones aren't much fun for anybody, but I seemed to have a much harder time with them than most of my friends. Living with me was worse than living with a house of sorority sisters who all got a visit from their "friend" the same week. I have no idea why Tom stayed with me. If I could have, I would have left myself.

This past March, I had an ELECTIVE full hysterectomy. Simply, all those extra hormones put me at risk for ovarian cancer, one of the most silent and deadly cancers of them all. I didn't want to have gone through all this trouble to have kids only to leave them motherless early in life. So I controversially opted to just take the whole kit and kaboodle out. It's not like I was going to get pregnant again. 

Sadly, my family may prefer me dead to the way I am now. Let's just say if you thought I was nuts on fertility drugs, you ain't seen nothing til you've seen me in sudden, early menopause. Hormone replacement therapy doesn't seem to be doing the trick either. Plus, you can only do HRT for five years without putting yourself at risk for breast cancer. Sprinkle in the stress of our uncertain situation and I'm a cranky mess.

I have now decided in hind sight that I have a harder time on hormones because I have the same sensory disorder that my daughter does. Ironic, isn't it? I've always had it, but there was no diagnosis when I was a kid. My language wasn't behind, but maybe everything else was. My parents aren't here to ask, but I do know a few things. I remember I was the last in my class to learn to write my name. Does that mean my fine motor skills were off? I was really clumsy (still am!). I was never very good at sports. I had extreme tantrums as a child. I hated wearing anything around my neck and ripped apart clothes because they were uncomfortable. As an adult, I still have a bunch of symptoms. I only know this because I read through the list of adult signs looking ahead for Maisie and the light went off. I'm pretty sure I'm right. Don't feel bad for me. This sensory stuff is probably what helped me end up as a feature reporter in life so it isn't all bad. It's just a matter of learning differently and channeling your energy into something positive.

All to say that last night as I sat there regretting yet another time I bit Tom's head off, I emailed the Department of Chinese Medicine at Raffles Hospital. Chinese medicine is supposed to be really great at managing menopause. Heck, the very high-tech doctors who finally got me pregnant had me do accupuncture MINUTES both before and after I was implanted. Doctors I saw in New York had me see a Chinese doctor in conjunction with their treatment. Anyway, I emailed the hospital here just before midnight. At 5AM, they emailed back with a 10:15 appointment today! Can you imagine that efficiency in the US?!

I kind of expected the doctor to have a bunch of vials of weird looking herbs in her room, but the office was like any doctor's office in the US except the exam was far different. First off, her English wasn't all that good so explaining where I am with things took a good 20 minutes. When we finally understood each other, she then took my pulse on each wrist and looked at my tongue. All done. That's the way Chinese doctors diagnose. No need to strip, take my blood pressure or stick a thermometer up my butt. Whew.

When she asked me about my symptoms, I nodded in compliance. Of course, when she asked me if I'm having hot flashes and night sweats, I wanted to say something snarky like, "Beats me. It's hot in Singapore," but I just kept on nodding. I admit, sometimes I wonder if Singapore is really this hot or if maybe I'm having one big hot flash.

I left with enough medicine for five days. If it seems to be working, I'm to come back Saturday for a month's supply and find a Chinese doctor in the US.

What kind of medicine? Well, a tiny little pill it's not. I'm to take SIXTEEN packets per day of dried herbs. Things with names like White Peony Root, Common Yam Rhizome and Spine Date Seed - and those are the ones I can read! I'm supposed to dissolve all sixteen packets at once into a cup of hot water in the morning and drink half. In the afternoon, I reheat the other half and drink it.

As I was leaving, I asked the nurse, "Does it taste good?" She wrinkled up her nose, shook her head vehemently and almost screamed, "NO!" She suggested putting honey in it.

Let me tell you, all the honey in the Pooh's honey pot isn't going to make this stuff taste good. It is just plain nasty. The Chinese could learn a thing or two about grape flavoring! I now recall that I drank something similar when I saw that first Chinese fertility specialist. Man, it must suck to be sick if you're Chinese.

 Almost as shocking as the sixteen packets was the fact that the doctor saw me on time and finished with me in 10 minutes! I had time to kill and since I was so close to Little Arabia, I walked over there and poked around.

My mother-in-law would love this area. There is store after store of gorgeous fabrics as well as all sorts of cute shops in the old shophouses that line the streets.

 

I found the cutest store that sells clothes made of locally-made Peranakin batik called Utopia. The clothes are FAR cuter in person than they are on-line. The local batik is much brighter than most batiks and my dress is a halter dress with a chinese-type tie collar. I've looked everywhere for something similar. Of course, only one thing in the store fit me since the clothes are all made for Asians, but I'm more motivated than ever to lose weight just so I can buy some more clothes there - if we come back! 

I picked the kids up and we went to Tom's office. Maisie told me yesterday she wanted to surprise Tom at his office today. Unfortunately, surprise to her didn't mean that Daddy would come out to the waiting room to get us. Luckily, Marco - Tom's coworker who lives in Shanghai - is here and found some candy to cheer up the sad kiddos.

We all trooped down the street to a HUGE hawker stall, two glorious, city-block size floors of street food. 

I'm not really sure what we ate. Well - Hudson ate goldfish and rice cake left over in his snack box. Maisie did eat some sort of fried chicken and mango drink. She's getting very good about trying things! Most people here eat using a fork and spoon in conjunction. Some use chopsticks and a spoon. The guy next to us today, however, was probably African and used his hands. Maisie's eyes were as wide as pies.

The things about hawker stalls whether they are at Marina Bay Sands or in a parking garage, they're basically the same. Each stall has several pots, each with different broths and flavourings. The cooks add a little of this and a little of that, pours in the required type of noodles or rice and voila - you've got a meal. This is a picture of one from the Marina Bay Sands, the fanciest of all food courts around town.

One cool thing? How they "take away" drinks here. Look at the cool carriers. I keep meaning to take a photo of this.

Anyway, we came home, grabbed the stroller and walked to Hudson's golf lesson. He promptly fell asleep which was my grand plan. The problem is, he was still asleep when it was time for the lesson so Maisie started the lesson and that's where things went downhill. She was all excited - at first - but she was too over tired to really focus. Overtired for Maisie looks like EXTREME hyper activity. She was running around the room, flinging things to the floor and really misbehaving - making raspberries at the teacher - the whole nine yards. She got a time out rather than the promised ice cream if she calmed down. Hudson woke up, cranky. With both of them hysterical, I walked home. Maisie cried for 45 minutes and fell asleep. 

A half-hour later, she woke up worse than ever and cried for another hour or more. Seriously. Two hours of absolutely hysterical crying. Nothing I did or said made a difference. 

But here's the good part: Menopausal Melinda would have reacted badly, yelling or doing everything in my power not to yell. Melinda the Drinker of Really Nasty Tea remained incredibly calm. Maybe it was the herbs - or perhaps the retail therapy - but I handled the worst tantrum of her life to date with incredible detachment. Maybe there's something to this Chinese medicine afterall. I mean, hey, it dates back to 2000 B.C. so it can't be too off, right?

Wonder if there's a tea for tantruming kids? Nah - it'd never work. I'd have to put too much honey in it and the whole sugar high would be just as ugly. Oh well - at least one of us seems saner.

A Day of Lessons

I have a vivid memory from childhood. My family and I were visiting my grandmother's sister, Aunt Sug. We were all sitting in the main room of their farmhouse when Aunt Sug said, "Well, I guess I should get dinner started." With that, she walked out into the yard, grabbed a chicken, spun it around her head and came inside to start plucking. To say I was freaked out by the whole thing would be the understatement of the century. 

Tonight was almost a walk down memory lane - almost.

I asked Cheryl to teach me how to make laksa, a spicy coconut, curry noodle dish native to Singapore with origins in Malaysia. I once heard it described as the national dish of Singapore. Yes, she makes it from a kit, but she has some added tricks that they don't tell you on the kit instructions. Ah ha! 

The problem is the grocery store around the corner closed for renovations this morning. I went in yesterday for supplies which was a very strange experience. Almost every single case was empty. I kept feeling like there'd been a natural disaster and all the food had been looted - that's how odd it seemed.

So Cheryl had to go to another grocery store. Naturally because the one so close to us is closed, the other one is running low on things. She had to buy a whole chicken as there were no chicken breasts. Whole chickens at home arean't really whole, now are they? This chicken had the feet, the head and the INCREDIBLY long neck tucked up underneath. I was a bit surprised to see it all unfolded. Okay - not surprised. Repulsed is a better word.

Expertly, she disected the thing, something she was raised doing. Me? I sat kind of curled up in horror in the corner feeling like my vegetarian days might be headed back for good. She also showed me how to devein a shrimp with the shell on, something I didn't even know was possible. The beauty is that the shrimp cooks in the shell which makes it sweeter and, when you serve it, the shrimp looks much nicer. 

Oh yes, Cheryl showed me all sorts of secrets. How mad I am at myself for not taking a lesson every night she cooked!?

Tonight's meal fit in perfectly with my new mission. I've decided that I will have no more Western food before I get back. I figure I'm about to embark on the most serious diet of my life when I get back so what's a couple of more pounds, right? I want to be in the best shape of my life by my birthday 2013 so this is the time for me to squander my health one last time. Truth is, I've always thought eating is an adventure all it's own. When I was struggling to put two dimes together, I used to take "coffee table vacations." I'd get a bunch of brochures (now I'd use the Internet) and read all about some exotic spot while eating food from there.

All to say that for lunch, I had Indian food, damn hot Indian food. My lips were still on fire 20 minutes after I ate.

I spent the morning running errands - things like buying another big suitcase and taking one of the two shirts I had made for Tom's birthday back to the tailor to "funk" it up. I liked it and it fits beautifully, but I wanted it to be a little cooler. It's a going-out-at-night shirt.

The afternoon was spent at the American Club with yet another learning game of Mahjong. I really do like that game! It's quite social and challenging. I like games with strategy that take a lot of brain power. Yup, it would take a LONG time to get really good. I once did a ridiculous story about the International Rock, Paper, Scissors championships in Canada - one of two international stories I did. Ha! The oddball we followed said something about RPS that really fits mahjong, "To the beginner, the moves are few. To the master, the moves are many."

Speaking of moves, these are our last few days here. More on that as this bittersweet week goes by...

Puppets and Dumplings

I'm always amazed that some folks can make a living out of things people like you and me can't even imagine. Today, we took the kids to see something called Tango: Puppets at Play - a one man puppet show like I've never seen before. Omar Alvarez is a puppeteer who creates puppets out of things like children's play tunnels and boas. He uses his entire body to create creatures. Maisie absolutely loved it and even Hudson was giggling for a whie there - when he wasn't fussing to leave. He was on my lap and said, "Mommy, need hug. I so tired."

Undeterred, we went to lunch at Din Tao Fung, that dumpling chain we love. I think it's kind of a hoot that our dishes are served by men in masks. The kids weren't as enthused. Hudson snubbed everything, even his new favorite - fried rice. Maisie did a great job eating several different new dishes. Yea Maisie!

 

We were supposed to go to an AWA Welcome Back Picnic - especially for families - but the weather was threatening all day. More so, Tom needed to go to the doctor. Yet again, he over enthusiastically cleaned his ear and the Q-Tip broke off in his ear! This is maybe the fourth time he's done that since we met. Who does that? It just cracks me up! Silly man! He tried all sorts of homemade remedies this week - like dousing his ear with olive oil. The cotton never came out, but I was curiously hungry for salad all night! Anyway - all is fine. He can pretend not to hear me again rather than really not hear me. Ha!

A Local Kind of Birthday

 

Today is Tom's 40-something birthday. It's not unusual for a dad to take his kids fishing to celebrate his birthday. Only here, we took our kids prawn fishing. What?! Prawn fishing?!

Yup, we went fishing for giant shrimp. 

 

Prawn fishing is a very local kind of thing to do here in Singapore. There are a few places in town to give it a whirl, but we decided to try East Coast Prawning after our morning swim. The place is made up of a few stocked, holding tanks under some tarps. We rented some bamboo poles and then loaded the tiny hooks with some kind of dark meat fish. Then we waited... and waited... and waited. I figured it'd be like shooting fish in a barrel and we'd walk out with a big ol' bag of shrimp within a half hour. Ha! Those prawns are smart!

Waiting is hard enough when you're celebrating your 40+ birthday, but it's made all the harder when you're 2 or 4. Maisie was pretty good about it, but eventually ran off to check the fish in the big tanks. Hudson had the patience of a gnat and ended up playing with my iPhone. The nice local man next to us tried to interest him by loading our hook with a worm he’d brought, but no amount of wiggling gave us the kind of luck he was having.

Tom, the birthday boy, actually landed one. Think of the highest pitched scream you've ever heard and you'll know Maisie's reaction. She was hysterical - in a good way. Her utter joy was cracking everybody up. Mind you, we were the only non-locals there. Hudson was super curious, too, and even tried to grab the thing. That wasn't a good idea since the prawn had pinchers! Tom has to be careful getting it off the hook, but my brave man did it. Getting it into the holding bag was a whole different story. The darn thing slipped right out of his hands. Of course, what were we going to do with it anyway? If we had a whole slew of them, we could have had them cooked for us, but one? Between four of us? Yes, it was a big shrimp, but hey - it's still a shrimp.

After it became apparent that our grand total catch would be one shrimp, we packed it up and went to rent a family bike, the goofiest adventure ever.  I felt like I was in a scene from "The Music Man" or something. The kids sat up front. Tom and I both pedaled, but only Tom could steer which, of course, made me batty.

We tooled up and down the boardwalk in our bicycle built for four looking at all the giant ships just off the coast. Hundreds of people were camping and cooking on the giant BBQ pits. Some folks braved the water and sand, but somehow with HUNDREDS of freighters just off the coast, that wasn't appealing to me. Amazingly, the day wasn't as hot as usual, but I still had to take a shower when we got back. Sometimes I measure the day by the number of showers I take.

We had a very local "cake" as well. I don't have a cake pan and cakes are very expensive here. Plus, the pre-made cakes are in flavors are things like Green Tea. So instead, I stacked up a bunch of mooncakes. Today is the last day of the Mooncake Festival so mooncakes are on sale. I bought some banana, passion fruit and chocolate ones from Raffles Hotel, the big famous hotel here. Yum! These were definitely better than the traditional ones we've had before. The snow skin is actually a sponge-cake like consistency and the filling is almost a pudding. The chocolate center is a hard, chocolate ball. Yum! Speaking of mooncakes, we could have gone to the end of the Festival and done the lantern march with the kids, but I’m Chinatown-ed out.

We had a very local kind of night anyway finally getting to spend some time with Typhaine and Fred. They’re the folks from whom we’re subletting. They’ve been traveling the entire time we’ve been here (nice life!) and we’ve only met Typhaine once before we came at my father’s-in-law farm. Her mother is the best friend of Tom’s stepmother.

We know all about them through our families and Cheryl. We’ve been watching their TV, eating off their dishes and sleeping on their sheets. She’s been reading my blog so we know each other,  but we don’t really know each other - so spending time together tonight was lovely. Cheryl babysat their 10-month-old Emeline and Cheryl’s best friend Jinky stayed here. Hudson loves Jinky, constantly asking, “Where’s Jinky?”

 

They took us to maybe the most local place of all: Westlake. This Chinese restaurant is located in HDC housing which is government funded, low-income housing. I’m guessing it’s a big like NY’s LeFrak City. The buildings are massive complexes and some of them are almost a city unto themselves. They have restaurants, grocery stores, cleaners and the like. I’m not quite sure where this one was since Fred drove (nice!), but somewhere off Holland.

Pork buns are their speciality and holy cow - are they good! We had a lot of other food that Fred ordered with much expertise. I’m not really sure what we ate - some kind of green beans with minced meat, chicken with chills, soft tofu - the list goes on and on. We were stuffed!

Of course, we weren’t too stuffed to have an after dinner drink so we headed to Dempsey Hill which is really packed on a Saturday night. We tried a placed called the Tippling Club.

The bar looked pretty nondescript, but the drinks were anything but. Tom’s was served in a tin can. Fred’s glass was covered in sugar - gorgeous. Typhaine’s glass looked like something from the 20s. Mine? I had the absolute best drink, hands down. It was served in a box, kind of like a perfume box. The drink was in a perfume bottle, too! What fun! I felt like I was knocking back some sort of prohibition concoction.The dessert was designed to match Tom’s drink. It was some kind of coconut, tapioca thing. I liked it, but didn’t love it. That place was definitely a cool spot to celebrate. Of course, four drinks and a dessert cost - are you read for this - S$150! And you thought NY was expensive!

Too bad Fred and Typhaine have been gone for so much of our stay. I really like hanging out with them and think we could be fast friends. The neat thing is they are planning to go home at Christmas - with Cheryl in tow! What a kick it’d be to see Cheryl there, playing in the real snow! Tee hee!