Happy Birthday, Joe

The Lorax

It’s Joe’s birthday tomorrow and we’re celebrating with the kids today by watching The Lorax with them. The Lorax was a favourite book when they were growing up. Sarah especially loved it.

Guess it pays the bills …

Happened to walk past Joe’s laptop and peeped at the powerpoint slide that was on his screen. Um, definitely not glam! He serves as Chairman of the World Toilet Organization.. and now works with waste! Biofuel sounds so much better, but let’s not kid ourselves!

The Artists

Joe and Sophie signed up for a an event organized by the Center for Fathering (CFF). “My Father My Art” was a collaborative art project where they got to create a painting together. An artist supervised the project and their painting will be exhibited along with 29 others. The paintings will be auctioned off to benefit CFF. I think they expect the Dads to buy the paintings! Pretty savvy! J & S had a great time. Sophie painted her face in one corner and Joe’s in the other. I’m glad they got to spend some quality time together.

Reliquary

When I walked into Joe’s study last night, I found him and Sarah hanging out despite the late hour. Sarah was watching a live tennis match from Roland Garos and was simultaneously immersed in whatever cyber activities were also taking place via her laptop. Joe was staring lovingly at 2 items before him and seemed more than a little spacey and dreamy. It turned out that she had brought home an award “for excellence in social studies”. I was thoroughly amused at Joe’s bliss. In fact, Sarah and I took to teasing him. When Sarah declared her interest in medicine, Joe, despite being proud and supportive, was quite obviously a little sad that his first born would not join him in the law. Also, Joe is a history hound and won all the history geek awards during his time as a student. A few years ago, his high school history teacher (who was an ornery 87 at the time), came here to visit and stayed with us! So History is the man’s drug of choice and he remains an addict. It was both silly and sweet that he sat there and gazed lovingly at her little award. When threatened with the possibility that the award, like most other kiddy trophies and mementos would probably disappear into the abyss we call our studies and rooms, Joe quickly sprung up to find the perfect place save his precious proof of Sarah’s successful DNA inheritance. Sarah and I were hooting with laughter when he placed the “relics” next to his prized model of the Capital! That’s as close to a reliquary as it gets for the man. Sarah and I had a fun time teasing her poor old Dad. She may bring home an award for mandarin… I bet that won’t get featured on his shrine.

11&47

It was Joe’s birthday yesterday. We had a joint celebration: a birthday dinner for Joe and Sophie (who celebrated her birthday on Thursday), and a sleepover party for Sophie. It’s amazing how much noise 4 little girls can generate! They were very sweet together. It was a very relaxed and low key celebration with good friends. (I love the photo of Sophie making her birthday wish!)

Model United Nations – The Legacy

So.. after 14 years of waiting, Joe’s Model United Nations genes finally surface. Sarah took part in her first national MUN event last month, and will be part of the MUN festivities at school as SAS plays host to the IASAS (Interscholastic Association of Southeast Asian Schools) MUN Conference this year from this Wednesday through Saturday. As part of “host duties”, we will be housing 3 MUN student delegates from the International School of Manila. J and I went over logistics with Sarah earlier this evening. While I was more interested in mundane details like transportation and what to serve for breakfast and dinner, J was trying to share his MUN impressions with poor Sarah. I joined in the torture by making her model her MUN t-shirt. Joe insisted on having his photo taken with Sarah while showing off his souvenir gavel from one of his MUN conferences back in 1983! Good lord. The poor child is a saint. I will do my best to keep her embarrassing father away from her and her fellow delegates. That’ll be like keeping a moth away from the flame.

Balance

I’ve just come home from a lovely dinner. Wonderful company and conversion augmented by superb food and wine. Poor J had to stay home and work. I often wonder about our mad schedules and the rigorous demands that we take on. J and I are remarkably similar in our approach to life. Maybe it’s to do with us both being first born, dogged in our chosen interests and pursuits, and just plain aggressive when it comes to getting what we want. Perhaps we aren’t good for each other as we tend to feed of each other’s frenzy and support each other’s choices to put in all on the line when it comes to driving ourselves relentlessly forward. At least J has the excuse of being our sole breadwinner. Me? What’s with my mad preoccupations. It’s hard to draw the line between wanting to be productively and meaningfully engaged and hubris. That’s my biggest challenge. Ok -maybe it’s the wine talking. I guess it’s better to be happily busy and exhausted than unhappily bored but rested. I have to try and aim to try and take some long overdue time out with J. The poor thing is simply swamped. This is the first summer we’ve spent each buried in work. This charming illustration by Sophie Blackall says it all for J.

Beyond LKY & Burritos

I managed to persuade J to attend an opening of an art show with me this evening. He stubbornly refused to change out his “comfort clothes” and I think he was the only one sporting a tie amidst the hip “artsy set”. I was intrigued by the theme of the show: “Beyond LKY”- where local artists were asked to envision Singapore after Lee Kwan Yew’s passing. Unfortunately, most of the art didn’t quite live up to the stimulating premise. As a reward for tolerating the art show and all the hob-nobbing that’s associated with these things, I agreed to Margarita’s for dinner. He showed no mercy on his burrito!

General Tso’s Chips – Good!

Our verdict on the strangely named potato chips? Yum! Thanks to A who is crazy enough (and sweet enough) to travel 9,000 miles with them for us!