Thursday Duty

It was a long day Thursday. Between leaving the condo and getting down to the cool underground subway-station, I was soaking in sweat. During "winter" in this tropical country I forgot summers are even warmer! When it is thirty-two degrees, it feels like forty. But I am not complaining! I am enjoying the heat.

Last week I bought ToriQ home for dinner and even though John was not thrilled, I loved it. Yesterday I needed it again. Dawn was fine eating it too. Though we bought it in the basement, we went to the third floor to eat it in the food court. It was a meal filled with intense talking. Afterwards my friend wanted to wash her hair at the hairdressers, reason very agreeable. We went looking for a reasonable price and found Organic Way, which would wash and style her hair for S$35. The result looked amazing and I very much realised I needed a haircut sooner rather than later. There was no time for me to cut it right away, but I will try and make time next Thursday!

At The Cat Museum we started as a duo in the reception. Lots of people came at the same time, so much so that we had over sixty visitors in the building. It was fun counting money, telling first timers about the different floors, helping kids putting their shoes in the lockers, talking to strangers. I actually enjoyed sitting in the reception, though it was awkward to be so bad at counting change. Dawn had to help me a lot, I am not good at head-counting under stress.

For the second session I was supposed to be alone in the adult section. It was no problem for me, I know how to answer some of the visitors questions and how to steer them around, but I was not alone. Another person came, said she was not suppose to volunteer that day but would stay with me since I was alone. It was nice, though there was not much to do. Later another volunteer came to the adults, and the first one left, but later a third volunteered joined us. I was confused. From supposed-to-be-alone to more-than-the-usual-number. I had nothing to do!

Eventually I went looking for Jessica, the woman running the place. I could not find her on my way down and decided to check the reception as the last place to look. There I found Kimberly all alone, while three people were stationed with the adult cats. Maybe a bit messy with distribution of helping hands. I tried my best to help counting the money, though I was again awkwardly bad at it. Half past seven Dawn and I could finally leave.

We decided to have dinner and she knew a bar/restaurant near where she was staying. The place was called L'Etoile Cafe and felt very French. I ordered their Carbonara and it was really good. Crispy bacon and creamy pasta. To that I wanted their Carlsberg, but they were completely out and instead I had a weak, or light as Dawn insisted, beer I did not recognised. At nine Dawn needed to get ready for an event later that evening and I took an Uber back home.

The driver was new to the app and another customer was in the front seat. While the driver only talked Chinese, the woman explained what they came up with in English. I was very confused, thought she was his interpreter or assistant. She was not. In the app I saw that her location was closer than mine, but suddenly we were only a few minutes from d'Leedon. I appreciated it, though it took forty minutes for a normally twenty minutes ride.