HUH?!?!

So, I woke up yesterday to a message in my inbox saying I had won a blog award.  Huh?  What!?  Me?  Are you sure you have the right person?  I haven't regularly posted in a long time. Sporadic, yes, regular, nope.  I have a few Singapore buddies that post all the time, and have spectacular blogs about the ins and outs of life as an expat, and living in southeast Asia (Hi Leone!!)  My posts of late have been heavy on fascinating content regarding Frank having hiccups (it was hilarious...he came 2 ft off the ground with each hic...uh, anyhooo....) and light on actual info or stories about life in Singapore.  Maybe it's that I've been here 2 years (double huh??), and the wide eyed wonder of it is gone.  Maybe seeing men in skirts, putting a dollar into my shopping basket, eating foods spicy enough to blow my face off, drinking tea and coffee from a plastic bag with a straw, and seeing toucans is just my normal life now.  It's still super cool...there isn't a day that goes by that I'm not jolted from my every day reverie and notice the differences. I still love living here, and despite being so darn far way from family and friends, and not being there when they need me, I am not ready to go back.  My life here is pretty sweet.  I work when I want, get to travel, have a pool outside my door, get to spend these early days of marriage taking on the world with Lar, just us.  Oh, and cheap massage.  Definite perk.  I've been pretty open about it occasionally sucking.  It's pretty much the being so far away that is hard.  My best friend has gone through a very difficult year, and being away from her was hard on both of us. Not being home for the holidays, yep, it sucks.  Going through personal struggles without my peeps around me, yep, sucks. Something that is occasionally brought up with my expat friends is that, in fact, it is a lot harder than we bargained for, living here. This is something that is usually discussed in a sheepish, I can't believe I am saying this manner.  Because we know how it looks on the outside, to our families and friends far away...we live in the tropics, most of us don't work, have full time help, and get to travel.  And Cheap massage.  We are aware that we shouldn't whine and complain.  We don't want to sound like privileged douche bags.  So we do it quietly, amongst ourselves, and every once in a while, we let our families and friends know that there is nothing else in the world we would rather do, no place in the whole world we would rather be, but to be sprawled out with them on their couches.

But the good still outweighs the suck.  You can quote me on that incredibly eloquent nugget.

So...if you'd like to read a really good, informative blog about life in Sing, I highly recommend you go here.  I'll keep posting about Frank playing with his wind-up mouse, and Lar eating his body weight in pickles, and the occasional cultural high point, as I come across them.  In the meantime, I've very honored to receive the award....I'd like to thank my husband (almost pulled a Hilary Swank...whoops) My parents, the little people, Kate Gosselin's stupid hair cut and the guy that made my coffee this morning.....You like me, you really like me!! 

Ahem...ok, sorry...moving on before Kanye interrupts me.....

In other news, the F-1 night race came to Singapore again this past weekend. Lar and I got tickets from friends (thanks guys!!), and Larry went on Sunday night.  I chose to not be amongst the gazillions of people, deafening  noise and sweatiness.  We took advantage of all the hub-bub and went to one of the concerts the race was sponsoring on Friday night.  We saw Simple Minds (still sounds fab....and a little botox goes a long way) ZZTopp (sounded good, just a little rickety...it's hard playing sober after all these years...BAHAHAHA....I crack myself up...) and No Doubt (great performers...Gwen Stefani is gorgeous, and she just kicks a lot of ass). After toughing it out in the first few rows of pushing, shoving, no deodorant wearing teenagers, we moved up to a quite area where we found a picnic table and sucked down water like camels preparing for a trek in the sahara.  We had a great night, but sorta felt our age....oh well....I can still rock out when I need too.  And it was pretty funny to watch Larry point at his Texas hat and wave, every time he thought the ZZtopp boys were looking our way.  Sigh.

It is a big time of year in Sing....Hungry Ghost month, Hari Raya, Mid-Autumn fest, and my favorite, Deepavali.  We are going to a lantern fest party this weekend in our neighborhood, and I'm sure I'll be hanging out in Little India, trying to talk myself out of buying a sari at the Deepavali bazaar.  We have a guest coming in a few weeks, so guest room prep is well under way.  Larry and I are seeing Depak Chopra this weekend.  He's coming through Singapore, and we're having him over for dinner.  Ok, not really.  But we are seeing him give a lecture, and I'm pretty excited.  I heart him.

Thanks again for the award...It made my day.  Now go read Leone's blog.

xoxoxo

Pam

Random Frank and random Lar eating random soup.