I had a wonderfully insightful chat with a friend of my mother who also considers me a friend. Despite our obvious age difference we hit on quite well on some topics. She's Ellen and lives in New York City, just dropping by into the humble streets of Singapore after 3 glorious weeks in New Zealand.
It's amazing how the three of us (Ellen, my mother and me), can talk for three hours straight in a little cafe with just three drinks and a slice of cake. That woman is seriously engaging and has no qualms talking to someone who could nearly pass of as her grandchild by a couple of years.
Oh I do envy some youngsters in America, how surrounded they are by engaging people. I haven't yet found a westerner boring. I suppose many would beg to differ.
Ellen has got such a splendidly horrific idea in my head. To spend about ten thousand on a trip to New Zealand and get into a nearly full transparent helicopter and view the snow-peaked mountains from a height of 8000 feet and a dangerously driving pilot. A pilot who has every intention of landing on a lake hanging off the solid rock of a mountain. Yet for a woman in her late fifties that was quite a daring act. Telling her children to get ready for an early inheritance no less and telling them to wait a couple more decades after surviving the ordeal.
Of course we women are strong hearted. Her husband, who was quite game and to whom she consented, didn't dare take photographs of the panoramic view which plunges you straight into the ravines of death in peaceful New Zealand.
It's strange how much I crave a proper conversation with people. I have few friends to talk to in great detail on moral issues like abortion or capital punishment. Or even listen to someone talking in an interesting tone about the current economic and social status of America, though briefly. These days, such things are rare and far between. It's hard to keep up with long distance contacts and hard to bear with the longing to meet up with them soon. I miss her already and she'll be leaving tomorrow for the plane flight back to New York presumably.
Here's to the Holidays. Holidays with the capital "H", it deserves the title.
2 comments:
Man, you three sound like a feminst cult group.
You make my life seem sad, Mneme. Or Muse. Whatever that pseudonym was.
I was just wandering around your blog, and read this post about NZ again.
And the helicopter thing is exactly what I did.
The pilot was turning around and talking to us, while flying about five metres away from a gigantic mountain range.
And we landed on a snow-capped mountain. In summer.
BUT I DID THAT FOR ONLY THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS. HA.
Okay, enough with the self-prattling. RICHARD GERE IS OLD. AND HE JUST DESTROYED THE POOR INDIAN'S DOVE BUSINESS IN THAT VISA AD.
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