Pink Lady

I had a long overdue affair with pink lady. She must be holding it against me. Her sturdy bridge was coated in a layer of dust, her metallic spooks, now a shadow of her former self. Her rubbers cried to be replaced, her chain that had served me so faithfully,disappeared in an inch-thick of grease. She used to draw admiring glances when we went out together, from those in awe and approval. But now, she received only polite coughs and enquiring smiles.

Finally sick and tired of the grease that she had been putting on me, I decided to settle the matter once and for all. I brought her down to Uncle Hui, rolled up my sleeves and was prepared to get my hands dirty, just to learn how to give her a thorough wash.

To my disappointment, Uncle Hui said that cleaning is a messy business and impossible to finish within one day. Neither does he have the time to teach me how to do it properly. What a disappointment! I contemplated doing it myself. But for someone who can't even tell the difference between gasoline and kerosene, cleaning pink lady is a tall order for me.

Uncle Hui was prepared to give her a 'makeover' for a fee. Much as I would like to settle this on my own, I guess pink lady would be going away for the next few days.

Game for a game?

After much dilly-dallying, we finally kickstarted our "special" project. Amin, Gladys, Shixin and Aiyuan were the first to spearhead the movement. At 630 pm yesterday, we went down to ITE Bishan to play badminton with the athletes from the Special Olympics.

We might have thought that we were more competent at the game than the athletes. But all such thoughts were quickly wiped off, as one by one, we were trashed by our opponents. It was an interesting observation to watch the interaction. The two lady athletes ended up coaching the girls how to serve; Bryan, an eleven-year-old, who was very discouraged initially and kept claiming that he was very lousy at the game, soon gave up playing with us because our standards were too low for him.

I don't think we pose much of a challenge to the athletes. But the whole session was heartwarming as there were a lot of hilarious moments as our players sent the shuttle cocks everywhere but the right place; and the athletes amazing patience and enthusiasm in coaching our girls. All for the love of the game.