our Moo business card has finally arrived! how i love Moo!

i ordered one batch early May, but it seemed that the box got lost in the mail and never arrived. a month later (early June), i contacted Moo's customer service, and they are super helpful. without much questions, they sent me a replacement batch... with a very nice email from them. i couldn't ask for more!

again, i waited for almost another month. i almost gave up and decided that Singapore Post doesn't like me getting packages and will not deliver it to my home. this has happened a few times before, where friends sent me care packages and they just never reach our home.

but it got here this morning, and i'm a happy Moo customer.

after a long break of doing gallery/exhibition hopping, we went to see RESUSCITATION by Woods & Woods. the exhibition was at 72-13, the same gallery where we went to see A for Andy two years ago.

i really love their space. beautiful. how i wish i had a home like that.

check out the ceiling and how high it is. and the floor. ooh, aah.

surprisingly, aina seemed to enjoy herself there. she participated in looking around the exhibit (which she supposed to peep into a hole... how fun!). and she loved the pamphlet given out:

more photos at the Flickr photo album.

so, i'm happy to announce that we finally did the long-overdue-update for avocadolite, although it just means that we reduce the site to one page. by the way, did you know that the last homepage had been there for about 5 years? oh my, poor neglected site.

in other news, our new mattress arrived today. yeah, we bought a new mattress. it's also a long-overdue task that we kept put off for a long time. our old mattress has a few springs about to poke out of the fabric.

the reason why we decided to get a new mattress was because last friday, out of the blue, ari got a severe back pain. so severe that for the whole day, he could do nothing but laying on his stomach. he couldn't move, sit, nor walk.

it got better in a few days, but we went to see the doctor anyway. the doctor told us that it's a disc problem. it's quite a common problem, mostly due to aging (ho ho, ari has aged!). he couldn't give ari medicine other than pain killers, but he gave us two pieces of paper on back exercises. he told us to do those exercises, get a good chair with back support for ari's computer chair, only work on the computer half an hour at a time, and replace our nightmare mattress with a firmer mattress.

so there. we already have good working chair and ari has promised to limit his time on the computer... we went straight to the mall and bought a new (and on-sale) King Koil mattress. free delivery that includes the free disposal of the old mattress. perfect.

we had to cut it off -- the lump, the hair and everything around her right ear. she then looked rather lopsided, so we decided to chop off the other side.

we were going to give her bath ourselves, but two days ago, ari injured his back and could barely stand up (but that's another long story). so today, we brought koda to a professional groomer to bathe her and she came up looking different than the usual koda:

 
before the haircut

 
after the haircut, with aina who misses koda so much while the dog was away.

the groomer trimmed the ear area even shorter to make it more even and clean looking. they also trim her leg fur and butt fur, which usually grows rather wild.

i kinda like her new look. it makes her look fresh, clean, bigger and "handsome". well, she has never been a pretty-type of dog, but this haircut definitely make her look more, ehm, manly and strong.

so, yay for handsome koda!

those are pictures of the 2nd year of aina. and starting today, we're going to collect pictures (and memories) of the 3rd year of aina... starting with this one below, taken about half an hour ago, wearing her birthday present from Tante Noushka (that also comes with the bunny tail).

we love you heaps, girl!

i think, having a picnic in a park while listening to singing opera is one of the best way to spend your afternoon. so we went to see the Opera in the Park at the Botanic Gardens. we were supposed to meet up with Daniel and Judy, but they couldn't make it.

the garden was very more crowded. it's like, 10 times more people walking around than the usual Saturday in the garden. so, judging from that, on the way to the Garden's Symphony Stage, we stopped and had a short soap-bubble picnic and run around with aina and koda. we thought the lawn in front of Symphony Stage will be packed.

and we were right. people were scattered everywhere. kids were running around between the labyrinth of picnic blanket. there were balloons and strollers everywhere. many drinks wine, champagne or something while hanging out with friends and family.

we decided to open our picnic blanket around the outskirt of the lawn, out of consideration that there probably many people who aren't comfortable with dogs around.

aina, at the beginning, was scared of the opera singing. she kept saying that the singer is "crying" or "screaming". after a few explanation, she became rather fascinated and wanted to meet the "aunty who sings"... interesting.

 

more photos at the Opera in the Park photo album.

when we arrived from the airport two nights ago, we noticed that the skin around koda's right eye was red and a bit swollen. the next day, the swelling was getting bigger, so we decided to take her to the vet.

it turned out to be a minor infection and was treated with the usual antiseptic ointment. but since koda couldn't take her paw off her eye, she ended up has to deal with her most enigmatic enemy: an e-collar.

every time we put the collar on, for the first half hour, koda can't move. she just stand uncomfortably on one spot. she then starts to move by sitting down. then walking. laying down comes last. and she keeps bumping her collar all over the place: table, chairs, shelves, our legs...

aina feels bad that koda is in pain (both the physical from the swelling eye and the mental one from the e-collar). so she keeps trying to entertain the dog: patting and rubbing koda -- sometimes, poking.

and trying to involve the dog in her afternoon swim.

koda, on the other hand, couldn't help acting like a robot. moving awkwardly around and bumping into things. it's cute to see that aina finally gives a loving attention to koda.

a few notes about the trip:

• the wedding was excellent. imagine driving around in an vintage London Double Decker through the center city of Auckland. fun!
• umeboshi, my pink laptop, went dead in the middle of the trip. half of the trip photos are in there. i'm currently trying to get the data out of the dead computer before reformatting the damn thing. ugh.
• i tried to write a journal entry everyday, up to the day umeboshi died. after that, i stopped. i still upload photos through ari's macbook whenever there is an internet connection.
• we went to see Hobbiton. it was a very cold and windy day... and hobbiton was nothing like i imagined.
• got to see some dolphins swimming and a little (pigmy) whale.
• zoo in Melbourne. unfortunately, we had to end it quick due to rain.
• playing around with red and yellow leaves... and sleeping on a green winter grass.

aina + fenny at the hotel

from lack of sleep (only 20 minutes of sleep the whole night), i didn't mind the toddler on my lap. both aina and i slept soundly on the first 2 hours of the flight. then after that, ari's turn to have aina on his lap. he didn't seem to have that much problem either. once again, aina pretty much slept the whole flight... so far, she's been doing very well in the plane! we couldn't ask for a more behaving toddler!

my brother and his wife, Ramanda and Fenny, picked us up at the airport. after getting a quick lesson on how to take the bus from and to the airport (for next visit), we're off to the hotel. Ramanda borrowed my dad's car, which was a bit on a small side. so, after loading all of our luggage and aina's stroller, it's apparent that one of us had to take a bus to the city. poor Fenny...

after taking a wrong exit on the way to the city, we met up with Fenny at the hotel, the Batman's Hill on Collins (ooh, batman's hotel!). Ramanda couldn't join us and had to go back to the office. Fenny had took a half day off to accompany us around.

we walked around the hotel area to get lunch, stopping to take some pictures along the way. we ended up at Taco Bill, a chained Mexican bar and restaurant.

ooh, what a yummy and filling lunch! late, but filling.

when we got out of the restaurant, it had already started to rain. oh no! and we didn't bring any umbrella nor rain gear for aina's stroller. so, instead of spending the day walking around the city, we ended up going back to the hotel.

ari fell asleep right away, followed by aina, while fenny and i caught up and gossiped about many things... he he.

i guess the first day in Melbourne was rather short. after Fenny left the hotel around 6pm, i went to sleep as well, waking up around 10 and was too lazy to go out to dinner. so ari went out to a nearby grocery store and bought some sandwiches and yogurt. aina didn't complain. i guess she was rather tired and would like to spend her evening drawing and coloring in her bed instead of out on the street. that's okay by me.

photo album: may 24 and may 25.

the check-in went very quickly, so we figured, we should get dinner in other terminal. we decided to pay a visit to Terminal 3, since i've never been there. the place is huuuuge! and looks very cool. probably one of the best looking airport i've ever seen. it's vast, shiny with green spots here and there. aina enjoyed running around there.

we walked around the food/shopping area on the second floor and decided on the Lerk Thai restaurant, which was better than i expected. there are still a lot of empty lots on the shopping area, thus those green walls.

after dinner, we hurried back to the Terminal 1, went to the bathroom, and enter the gate. then after a long wait, we finally realized that they might've delayed the flight for about 45 minutes or so. and they didn't bother to tell us... ah, the sort of things that you expect from budget airlines, i guess.

we finally took off around midnight. the plane was empty on the leg to Darwin. even though aina is listed as infant (below 2 years old) and doesn't get assigned seat, we got the whole row (3 seats) all for ourselves. we lefted up the armrest, allowing aina to sleep on her back instead of on our lap.

once we're airborne, the air inside the plane became very chilly and super dry... i had a hard time sleeping from the chill and my nose hurts from the lack of humidity. aina, however, slept almost from take off to touch down. well, good for her.

so when we landed in Darwin at 4:30am (3am Singapore time), aina was fully awake, happy and jumpy. i, on the other hand, was super sleepy and exhausted. ari, who can practically sleep in any kind of situation, wasn't as fatigued as i was.

we went through the custom and immigration in Darwin, so we had to take out our luggage and check them in again after the custom.

Darwin airport was full of sleeping people. they are everywhere: on the gate, in front of ticket counter, near the oversize-baggage drop-off, in the cafe, everywhere! i guess that's what happened if you arrive in the wee hour of the day.

we grabbed a toasted sandwich and sat outside of the airport. it felt really good breathing real air, instead of that overly-dry cabin air... *inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale*...

half an hour to the departure, we went upstairs to the gate. there, while aina ran around the gate area, i crashed and joined the sleeping bunch. i was sooo tired... thank god ari didn't mind watching aina all by herself.

photo album: may 24 and may 25.