Again, La Serpiente woke up way too early today, but we were prepared: we stuffed her into the running stroller and then I took her on an hour long tour of Singapore in the early morning. We got as far out as Marina Barrage, and then I slogged home with her again. La Serpiente had lots of snacks with her, whereas I was running on water and vague hope, so for the rest of the day I was more than a little bit broken.
Later, when La Serpiente had gone out to make a gingerbread house and I was left with Destroyer to entertain, I struck on the idea of going to Tiong Bahru Park, where there’s a strange children’s play area, with a half-tipped over train and zip lines. (Some kind of theme there or not? I can’t discern it.) My journey was filled with angry or obstreperous people (like the security guard at Outram Park MRT who gave me a five minute harangue about idiots who won’t move into lifts properly, or the woman who thought she could shove her stroller into the lift while I was still trying to get out (right of way trumps that, baby, and my stroller vs your stroller isn’t a proper contest) but eventually I made it to the park.
Tiong Bahru Park is right by a big main road, and has the children’s area right in the middle. That was a huge sandpit with the tipped-over train as the centrepiece, and disappointingly only one of the two ziplines was still in commission. They look like they’ve been designed so that your child can get a swift kick in the head from another child – who needs health and safety?
What was more distracting as I approached the train was the demented party that was going on next to it. The very nadir of modern music was blaring (some kind of remix of Bruno Mars’ The Way You Are with the vocals through a vocoder and some kind of beat on top) while three women gyrated and writhed to the beat. On top of a blue tablecloth. I’m not sure if it was twerking or not, but there seemed to be a lot more buttock being shoved in every direction than you want next to a children’s play area in the middle of the afternoon. Destroyer was fascinated and wouldn’t stop staring, apart from when I got her to go down a very long and possibly quite dangerous slide.
At some point a drunken man with very few teeth wandered over and did that crotch-grabbing thing next to the ladies. You know, the thing that men who can’t dance but think they can do. Not the kind of thing that I do: that’s like watching a crash test dummy in a washing machine. This was just more crotch thrusting and standing around lamely while the women continued.
Actually, one of the women was wearing a Christmas hat so maybe it was just a seasonal celebration with questionable entertainment values. I took Destroyer back to the station and we got home just after La Serpiente and her gingerbread house.
A ludicrous gingerbread house, fully ten inches high and covered in icing and candy that La Serpiente had arranged and applied herself. I was very, very proud of her, although she then blotted her copy book by going manic for the next two hours on sugar and sleep deprivation (including new habits she’s recently picked up, like banging her fists on the table when she’s cross). So a career in gingerbread architecture may be in the offing, but we may also need a personality readjustment.
Such great times.