su-lin says my brother bear excursion was lacking in providence because i did not tell my niece what to do if she were separated from me. this is true. i would of course have had an announcement made over the p.a. if i had lost her but she might refuse to go with a stranger who tries to take her to me. i probably would have given her my phone and put minyin on the speeddial, though that might work better with older children, and she has been known to leave her bag behind in the train. isn't it funny how all of us have managed to get lost at least once when we were little, or latch on to the wrong adult? i remember being at the science centre and clutching hold of my father's hand and having trotted along for a good while i looked up to find an amused stranger so i dropped his hand like a hot potato (as von is wont to say) and backed off while my own father caught up and claimed me. su-lin says this happened to her too. we were comparing notes while holding a place in the cashier's queue for her mother at metro marina.

(on that subject, this is the last time i get suckered into "exclusive" metro members' previews. su-lin's mum gave us tickets, and i thought aha! for i was just planning to go to metro sengkang to see if i can find a new skirt to wear that night, but it took us half an hour of queueing to get in, and the place was in hideous upheaval after the assault of morning shoppers (we went at noon.) the shoe department in particular was a scrimmage of emptied boxes and crumpled tracing paper. there was nothing left in the store that we could imagine ourselves wearing by any stretch of the imagination, the air was stifling, and i promptly got separated from su-lin. the store was jam-packed with people and phone networks were overloaded, so we couldn't call each other. on the roundworld principle i figured that eventually we would be reunited, but i managed to find her in front of the estee lauder counter only by grace of a rogue sms that got through. (where were you? i don't know! i turned around and you were gone! no! i turned around and you were gone!) although we were buying nothing i could not persuade su-lin to leave, because of filial piety. we stood in above mentioned queue holding a place for su-lin's mom, and even when her mother showed up she was guilt-tripped into staying. (this is why you don't go shopping with girlfriends with consciences). in the end i pried her away, but we'd stood in the queue for a good hour before that happened. in the end, on my way home, i got out at sengkang instead, where metro compass point was not only having a post-christmas sale, but was also completely empty at that hour of day, and sure enough i found a pale gold sateen skirt, such as i had set out to find in the morning. why should i ever leave the northeast again?!)

incidentally, ariel got lost at compass point two nights ago. they had gone to sengkang to buy a birthday present, and while everyone was bent over the shop counter he got bored and wandered out and all of a sudden my cousin was saying to the salesman - will you hold on to this watch while i go and look for my son? they found him near the escalator with a man who was escorting him (probably on his way to make an announcement) fighting back tears and looking terribly scared. sarah at least knows our address, but if you asked ariel where he lived he would simply say "home!" in the same vein su-lin says that it is no good calling "mummy" to get attention because then at least 10 women in the vicinity would turn around; she figured this out early, and, as a child, would go into the ladies room yelling "mrs lye?" which we both thought made a lot of sense but embarrassed her mother to no end.