Cheese, Chewballs, and Fire Pockets

Great news! Tiga, now Tigger, was adopted by a lovely family, and is surrounded with happiness!He has a brother, Jasper, who keeps him inline, and plays with him. 

He loves his humans, has doubled in weight, and his eyes have turned to deep amber.

 So, back to regular life. Perhaps day drinking. I prefer to just call it drinking, so as to not be all judgy.

But please don't take yourself! 

Feeling underwhelmed? Add more stuff to your sugar water! Chili, Crab, milk green tea, foam, which is sometimes cheese-flavoured. Our local hawker even does this on fruit juice, like a frothy cheesecake puff on top of your watermelon juice. 

Here at home, we made the extra healthy dill gin sours instead. 

There's a lot going on in the neighbourhood. They're building a tunnel, so this means free raincoats for all. I'm not sure if you've ever tried wearing a raincoat in the tropics. In our experience it's even wetter, but on the inside.There were reflective disks which are quite sensitive, I guess. Also, I haven't mastered the art of shadow photography while trying to catch to up Barry. 

Next door to us is an Indian street snacks brunch place. Their pani puri has something akin to mango Tang in it though. 

Speaking of mangoes, we found a fruit which the plantdentification apps couldn't plantdentify. Anyone?

Then we visited an urban farm. Their gig is they explain agriculture to you for 2 hours, and then you get free lettuce. Having grown up in rural Canada, I didn't learn much, so felt like it was a lot of investment for lettuce. 

For other passtime ideas, I suggest...

Moxibustion! Is this a thing in the west yet? It's the burning of mugwort leaves near your skin. This is the DIY version where you put these mini fires in polyester pouches strapped to your body. What could go wrong? So basically like a heating pad, but with smoke and risks. I just read that you can add salt and garlic. (Side effects include a toxic reaction and skin cancer.)

Bad news. While you've been wearing fire pockets, your skin your double chin has been sagging big-time!Time to get a chewball, just like a dog!

---

Creepy Fort, Cucumbers and Figs

When you think of Singapore, you probably don't think dilapidated buildings with graffiti.

So let me help to wreck up your pre-conceived notions.

(Although I'm starting to worry that by posting so often about nature and ruins, I'm being misleading.)

This is Fort Serapong, one of 9 forts that the British used to unsuccessfully protect Singapore from Japanese occupation in WW2; built in the late 1800s.

It is largely off limits. This is due to the risk of concrete walls crushing you to death, which is unlucky.

Also, the stairs are hard to maneuver, and you can get lost in the tunnels (blocked, so not shown).

However, there's still a washroom. Or maybe a kitchen.

The bolts that held the big warring guns in place are the longest lasting, to break your feet for decades.

Strangling fig: ambitious. Not intimidated by swallowing a whole building.

The inside view is fairly creepy.

Speaking of swallowing and creepy, here's a fun fact. This is the creeping cucumber, which is edible when green, but a strong laxative once black (background).

Animals of the Night

There are 67 species of snake in Singapore, and until last week, I had only seen one.

We sought help of the professionals, who helped us to find this shore pit viper. Venomous, yup, but threatening to humans, not so much. More of the reverse.

Above, the oriental whip snake, which we'd seen before, and below, the painted bronzeback, super pretty.

It turns out that the trick is night hiking, which means you have to find the nature parks with paths for this (ex: Bukit Batok, Pasir Ris) without breaking your ankles in the wild forests (ex: Clementi, Dover).The Banded bullfrog is common in Singapore. Fun fact: bullfrogs in French are called ouaouaron, which is an onomatopoeia.

Spiders at night, they are large, and some may say scary. I would say simply hard to photograph.

Weaver ants. Doing clever things with leaves.

Leaf bugs, hanging out with the leaves, looking subtle.

Big news. We learnt that in Singapore, crabs climb trees and eat leaves. Like 2 meters above the sea (mangrove) level.

This is an apparently a rare sighting of horseshoe crabs mating. Like the progress of women's health, horseshoe crabs are so slow it's hard to tell if they're alive, including while mating. 

If you want a break from the mangrove creatures, there's always the termites, looking plentiful and wood-hungry.

And don't forget the colugos. We've learnt to spot them now and they're fabulous! The silent fly/gliding thing is skillful!

Ditto the tarantulas, although they're only as big as a quarter.

Finally, this is likely the best picture of an Asian toad we'll achieve.

---

Tiga the kitten

Meet Tiga, our third accidental rescue cat! He's a 7 week old kitten, and he's up for adoption.

Tiga was found scared and alone on the road at this busy lotsa lanes intersection. Like any rational human, I hopped out of my cab and chased him along this green line. The cabby and kitten were both confused.

He was ok with the cab ride, but not a big fan of the cat bath and spa that followed.

Tiga cleaned up nicely and started playing and cuddling in no time! (Stray cats in Singapore have evolved to be quite tame).

Here he is going to the vet, who gave him a clean bill of health (dewormed, flea/tick treated, FIV/FELV negative, no chip/earmites/ringworm)!

He has been quite entertaining, to adults and children alike.

I'm concerned he looks a bit like Barry, no?

He's a sweet dude, so we're training him to be a lap cat. It's going well so far, and I'm being tickled by whiskers on my cheek as I type this.

Oh, he woke up, and he says "\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\uuuuuuuuuuuuuudddddoisssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"

Lots of purrs.

However, Barry is still allergic, even to this little puff, so please let us know if anyone wants to adopt a sweet little kitten! He plays a lot, like this.

---

Celebrating Sexism with the Pigeon People

Welcome to Neon Pigeon, a restaurant with pink font and wild delusions about what International Women's Day (IWD) means.

Let's review:

1) The title of the email was "Hit Me Baby, One More Time". This is for an event in support of a charity fighting violence against women. Good job.

2) To celebrate IWD, some places give women get a discount, or a gift. But the pigeon people suggest women have to wear less than fully clad costumes. Why thank you for telling women how to dress! That's both novel and liberating. Perhaps you could also tell us what to do with our bodies?

3) Of all the women's heroes, we're celebrating "girl groups" (sic)? Including Brittney, apparently? I mean they weren't the worst, but not exactly the empowering role models we seek to celebrate.

4) Finally, if you win, guess what? You get a "big boy surprise". What women seek after wearing a costume, is judgement and surprises from the male gender. That makes us feel empowered!

I sent a nice note back to the Pigeon people, along with AWARE, the NGO. Here is the response:

From AWARE (3 separate notes, and an offer for a call).

Thank you for writing to us to flag this issue. I am glad that you did.

We are very disappointed that this happened. It is offensive and goes against what we stand and fight for. In fact, we are often on the side calling out things like this. [...] We are working with the restaurant to see what can be done to rectify the issue.

I am really sorry for the distress that this may have caused you and others. Thank you for speaking up and holding us accountable to our own standards and which we wish to see in society.

Conclusion: AWARE is awesome, check them out.

From Neon Pigeon (3 days later, after they sent the original email again but changed the wording on social media, as shown below)

First of all, we’d like to thank you for taking the time to share your feedback with us and bring the potential double meaning of our original messaging to light. As continuous supporters of AWARE, it was not at all our intention to offend or upset the same community which we aim to support. We understand that this was a big oversight on our part, and we’d like to extend our sincerest apologies. Upon receiving your feedback we adjusted our messaging. 

[...explaining IWD to me...]

[...explaining why 90's girl bands is a good theme...]

In regards to the dress up theme, it is not at all compulsory and only a suggestion intended for fun. There are a number of different women represented in our visual, only some of whom are baring skin. As much as we respect these styles do not align with everyone’s views of equality, there are also many women who believe being able to wear or not wear certain styles of clothing is a form of expression and empowerment. Some of these women are represented in our team, and had great influence in coordinating this event. Given this year’s IWD theme is about celebrating differences, we do feel this is appropriate. 

[...justification of why women don't get an IWD discount...]

Conclusion: Neon Pigeon is owned by the Dandy Collection, which also owns Fat Prince, Firangi Superstar, and a new restaurant TBD. I'm just sharing this in case you want to never go there again.

---