An incredibly productive Saturday

You know how most of the time I write about how nothing really happened recently, except for me watching some old West Wing or roleplaying online or vegging out in front of the TV?

Well, Saturday was certainly anything but that.

First off, I went to work. That, in itself, is usually non-productive; I usually spend so much time surfing the net on a Saturday morning that I'm bored before the official knock-off time of 1 pm. However, because I'd left a bunch of stuff half-finished on Thursday afternoon (I'd ostensibly taken a half-day, though I didn't exit the building till about 2:30 pm), I was a rapidly typing productive cubicle rat on Saturday morning. I also had time to surf the net and catch up on some regular websites I read, so it was productive in a non-work sense too.

After work, there was lunch (always a pleasant proposition), followed by shoe-shopping. T and I now have running shoes! His are red, I kid you not, and mine a more muted and lovable baby blue/powder blue. I tried on a pair of bright orange ones, but they were some newfangled design that were low cut at the ankle and with plastic bits on the side that pull together when you lace up. They just didn't sit right on my foot. So I got shoes that looked like what athletic shoes have more or less looked like since the '80s, only they feel softer. Call me a conservative consumer, why don't you.

In addition to shoes, I got running shorts and a pair of socks too. Because when you've already busted the monthly budget on a cousin's wedding and a mother's birthday and the need* for running shoes, what's another thirty bucks on shorts and socks?

Our little consumer adventure was followed up by some prompt breaking-in of the shoes. Since we were all gathered anyways (we being G-man, cousin Dan and his wife, T and me), we headed northwest to the Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve. It's so far north you can see Malaysia, which I actually mistook for Singapore because I thought at first that I was looking across the nearby Kranji reservoir rather than the Straits of Johor.

Other than sightings of the non-Singaporean landscape, we also saw numerous egrets, which led to fond reminiscing about Eagle and Egret and what they're doing on their honeymoon.** There was a brief otter sighting, but it was swimming directly away from us so we didn't get a good look at it. In fact, I thought it was an oversized mudskipper at first. We saw lots of mudskippers too, and some monitor lizards, and some crabs, and plenty of dead molluscs (T thinks the otters ate them), and a huge spider that I would've run away from had it so much as moved. It was so deathly still in the centre of its web that we were starting to wonder if it was real or just rigged by the park people in its prominent location to make urbanites like us feel happy that, if nothing else, we saw a spider.

Anyway, watch T's Fotolog for photos of our little afternoon out.

Technically, I didn't break my shoes duing our walk. I was already wearing walking shoes, while Dan's wife was in slippers and couldn't find a pair of running shoes she liked at the store, so she wore mine and broke them in for me. I still don't see why T thinks it's important to break in running shoes. I thought they were supposed to built for comfort, so you could just slip them on and run, run, run.

Speaking of running, we didn't quite run back to the car, but we were certainly brisk-walking once we got out of the park, to race the fierce clouds that were threatening to unleash heaven's fury on us. We knew for a fact that rain was en route, thanks to a handy SMS received some time earlier that warned us about the pouring rain in Bedok. Next time someone wants to know how small Singapore is, I'm going to point out that it still takes embittered storm clouds a good 30-45 minutes to race east-west, so it's not that small, hey?

Once we got into the car, it was another race, because T and I had to run home and shower before dinner, and we were definitely going to be late. We turned out to be a good half hour ate, but fortunately the food at Bumbu was fabulous and won over my grandfather (who's kinda hard to predict, these days), so I think we were forgiven for that. The parentals also loved the restaurant, and kept talking about the restroom --- not that it had an open window that allows you to see over shophouses all the way to the hideous Golden Landmark Hotel, but about the vases and pots they use to house plants and fish in the restroom. I like it especially 'cause of the vintage "Stop At Two" government population control poster that dates back to the '70s, which is when my parents decided to stop at two.

After dinner, I came home and passed out on the couch. I'm not so sure that's good for my digestive system or the fact that there's at least one skirt that I can't fit into anymore, but it sure as hell felt good.

So. Productive! See, I can be productive.

* See entry for October 21, 2003. (I still haven't figured out how to hyperlink to specific entries yet.)

** Eagle and Egret were the call signs we gave to the bride and groom at the October 18 wedding. T and I were Buttercup, in honour of the Powerpuff girl who dangles on the keychain that I carry our car key on (plus our car is dark green). Cousin Dan and wife were Toby and Sam. Yes, we watch way too much West Wing.