Flights Of Totoro Fancy

Whoooooeeeee!

We're off on a Totoro adventure. Everyday is Totoro-sighting day. Ever since Brisbane, small fry's been seeing Totoros everywhere. We'd be walking along nicely and suddenly she stops dead in her tracks and points to a tree or a spot somewhere in the distance and say,
"Oooh, Mummy, look, look! Ooohh! It's Totoro!"
"Wow! Really? Where, where?"
"There, there, over there! On the tree!"
"What's he doing?"
"He's picking apples! Nah, here's one for you, Mummy."
"Thanks, babe."

Let's call that Scenario #1.


Scenario #2
"Oooooh look, Mummy! Totoro's on the bus!"
"He is? Where's he going?"
"To the library!"
"What's he gonna do at the library?"
"Borrow some books!"

Hm, yeah...Totoro would be interested in going to the library at the Gold Coast.

Scenario #3
*Gasp* "I can see Totoro, Mummy!"
"Where?"
"There, there! He's on the Wheel!" (The Brisbane Eye - Brisbane's version of the London Eye)
"What's he doing there?"
"He's going for a ride!"

Scenario #4
While observing the fishes and sharks at the underwater viewing gallery at Seaworld, Gold Coast:

"Totoro's swimming, Mummy. Look, look!"
"Where?"
"There, there! Over there!"
"Are you sure? Can he swim?"
"Um yeah, Mummy."

Scenario #5
"Totoro's driving the car, Mummy!"

Scenario #6
"Totoro's over there, digging some nuts, Mummy."

Scenario #7
"I see Totoro's ears! He's at the window eating, Mummy!"
"Wah, what's he eating?"
"Um, nuts, Mummy."

Scenario #8
She's on the bed reading or watching TV when suddenly she gets up and starts rummaging around in the luggage.

"Baby, what are you doing?"
"I'm looking for the little, tiny Totoro, Mummy."

The little, tiny Totoro has been missing for a while at our house.


That's not including the times when she'll inadvertently burst out into song, serenading everyone within a 10-30m radius with the two theme songs from Totoro. Yes, in Japanese. And yes, it could happen ANYWHERE: bookstores, walking along the sidewalk, sitting in her stroller and even in the bus.

IN. A. BUS. With passengers.

Yes, that's my little Totoro-spotting and theme-song spouting small fry. What would life be without her?

Unimaginable.

The Girl In White

Even with the muted effect of the polaroid, you can still clearly see that one small eye. Oh well....

This was taken several weeks back, a month almost and is one of my favourites. I'd just gotten my 680SLR then and was having a field day, trying to limit myself to just one polaroid a day. For the most part, I succeeded.

The girl has a thing for cameras; the moment I pick up the 680 or the D80, she'll make a beeline for either. With the D80, she'll fiddle with the lens cap and try to put it back onto the lens, a few times she succeeded. She even knows how to get her fingers around the cap mechanism and fit it back onto the lens with a teeny little bit of help. One day I found her on the floor with the D80, cap off, trying to fit the cap back on with a little too much gusto. I just about had heart palpitations. Thank goodness we'd gotten the Hoya filter to fit onto the lens proper.

In the meantime, am looking forward to a weekend away in Bali. Other than being away on holiday, the best part of the trip is we get to have fun with the rest of the Ng family too. I don't think we've EVER gone away on a family holiday before. The last time I remember when we were actually on a family holiday was in Langkawi waaaay back when and that doesn't count because sis was only a tot just a little older than Sophia and the reason I remember it is because we have pictures of her naked on the beach (no one will ever find them as she's snitched these off the photo album and taken them into her safekeeping).

Nope, no other family holidays when we turned into teenagers and then blossomed into full grown adults. Damn, I have never taken a proper family holiday with my parents and sis before! Let's hope we don't get on each others' nerves too much. But then again, there's always the grandchild to deflect any family tensions/crises.

Oh, and there's always the private pool at the villa that we'll be staying in.

Wild At Heart

On the way out to lunch with my parents, we saw a neighbour's cat do battle with a baby cobra on the side of one of the main roads at our residential area. Well, Rizal says it was a baby cobra. And it was more like the cat was having a field day bullying the baby cobra. We actually turned the car around and stopped by the side of the road to capture the moment on the digicam.

The cat toyed with the snake in the grass for long enough and had driven it from the cool of the grass and shade of the trees onto the smoking hot tarmac road. The poor thing must have felt the heat because it looked like it was trying to keep its body off the road by flipping and moving in short jerky movements. It tried to get back up from the road onto the grass but the cat was there and it wasn't going to let the snake go back to the shade without giving it a run for its money.

We didn't stay long to watch or to record; we were running late. We also didn't tell the guards there was a fight going on. The way things were going, the snake was probably going to lose anyway. Although Rizal did mention that if it was a baby, the parents and siblings were probably around. Oops. As an afterthought, I was glad we have screens on all our windows and doors.

When we got home, neither animal was in sight. "The cat probably killed the snake and took it home as a present," Rizal concluded.

I hope we don't bump into the parents or siblings of said snake.