3-day break cut short

At lunch with Mom at Marco Polo, the Italian restaurant on the 38th floor of the Taipei Shangri-La, my boss called and asked if I was free to work tomorrow. What was I to say? “No, sorry, I’m in Singapore.” I don’t like to lie, so instead, I said, “yes, I’m free, and I’ll come in, just for you.” Maybe I’m going to use that Singapore excuse next week if he calls again. I won’t be lying. ;) More details on that when it’s finalized.

So tomorrow, I will be going in early, at 8h00 to head over to the Legislature, where there is a health committee meeting and the Minister of Health will be questioned by legislators. In other words, I’ll be there to watch some drama kings and queens who taxpayers elected, overpay and call “lawmakers” shred Mr Yeh Ching-chuan (葉金川) to bits. Did I ever mention that Legislature reporters call the Legislature “the Loonieslature?” Instead of “立法院,” they call it “瘋人院.” I’m cutting my break 1/3 short to go to the looney bin. Yay.

After a late lunch and accompanying Mom shopping, I came home, dropped off and picked up dry-cleaning, did 3 loads of laundry I originally “saved” for tomorrow and began to run a fever. I originally wanted to post pictures from the Pingtung trip I made on Sunday for a travel feature, but didn’t have time. I went paragliding! After two jumps, I was 100% air sick, but I’m already looking forward to doing it again. So no time to do laundry, no time to blog, no time even to have a fever. My throat is killing me, my head about to burst and I’m perspiring like crazy, but I bet you, the symptoms will be gone by the time I reach the office tomorrow, and it’ll come back again the night before my next day off. It’ll be waiting. Does this mean the way to not get sick is to keep working? Oh no!

I’m still tired and sick, but apparently in good spirits after sleeping for a day and a half.

Mom and I, over a hazy but still nice view of downtown Taipei, shared a lunch course of bread with olive oil and balsamico and minced olive paste; spinach salad; handmade, fresh fettuccine with smoked salmon on cream sauce, a fried combination of calamari, shrimp, broccoli, red & yellow bell peppers; and a dessert of dried figs, vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce, towered on a cookie. Delicious, but no pictures. Mom says Dad gets jealous of these mother-and-daughter lunches. So just a picture of her café, my tea and her hand-woven handbag from Bali. It was a good lunch and I ate a healthy portion. Good thing for that because I had started feeling ill and lost my appetite in the evening.




This afternoon, we also stopped by local jeweler Wang Pei-hao’s boutique in the shopping mall next door. Before I arrived though, Mom told him about a bad experience I had with one of his staff the last time I was there, and he felt so sorry that he prepared a bouquet of beautiful red roses for me, and gave Mom a big discount for things for herself and for “me at my wedding.” Of course, she’ll be safekeeping it and wearing it for me until that day. My wedding? Who’s the groom?

When you have kids and they’re small, you buy them cute little outfits, make your children wear them to please yourself, but too bad you can’t share and wear. When they’re older like me, you think once, you think twice, you think three times, then grimace, pull out piles of cash and buy your grown-up kids expensive jewelry. But the good thing is, you CAN share. Maybe I would like to have kids one day after all. Haha. Still may need to find that groom first, though.