i get in at 1130 after having been out at tanjong pagar most of the night and change into something more comfortable, in time for yeen teck who comes to collect me for supper at 12.30. tootle-toot went the horn, and i say goodbye to my parents and bounce downstairs.

yeen teck, fresh off his return flight after his first diplomatic mission, is smug about having a diplomatic passport. he has just accompanied the minister of state to some UN meeting in jakarta to assess asia-pacific countries' progress towards reducing poverty in the region.

me: wah, so did you get to hand around the thin cucumber sandwiches and wink conspiratorially?
yt: no lah. i am not high up yet. i pour the coffee.


me: *looking at yeen teck's name card* desk officer?
yt: as in i work at the x country desk lah.
me: why sounds low-class leh? jaga like that.
yt: yah lor.


we were going to try having supper at the famous midnight curry along upp serangoon road. previous abortive attempts = three. yeen teck wisely parked at the multistorey hdb carpark nearby instead of outside the kopitiam and we walk down the road to the midnight curry stall. there were only two or three occupied tables. this surprised me greatly. ordinarily at this time the place would be chock full of taxi drivers on late-night shift and people of the class of burglars and insomniacs. we order two plates of sticky curry rice, a dish of stewed cabbage, tunghoon and taupok, curry chicken, and the famous pork chops. half an hour and very empty plates later, yeen teck proposes going to jalan kayu for prata.

me: are you sure we can eat anymore?
yt: i can manage one kosong.
me: hmm.

good sense intervened. we went back to the car.

me: what about just going down to punggol park?
yt: punggol park? where's that?
me: er, just down the road, hundred metres, maybe a couple of hundred metres.
yt: okay then, sounds near.
me: or maybe three...or four?
yt: listen, a couple means you only get up to two hundred max.
me: meekly: yes.

(this refers to the time he drove to cville on my instructions: just go a hundred meters down the road and turn left. when he arrived he explained carefully that my breezy estimate of a hundred metres was in fact a kilometre.)

yeen teck says he's too tired to drive to the beach. we decide that the best thing was to stay right where we were in the car. yeen teck leaves the air-con on and we put back our seats. bear dances on the steering wheel.

me: my legs are too long.
yt: put the seat back lor.
me: how do you put the seat back?
yt: never been inside a car izzit? so suaku.

so then we lie back and talk of this and that until, in my half-asleep state, i discover yeen teck hasn't heard the goon show before. that he had to drive me home immediately so that i can listen to it. yeen teck, in any case, was quite tired from his jakarta trip, and it was 2.30. feel a little sad, to have seen yt for only two hours in this month home, but he says he'll worm a new york posting as soon as he can. afterall, the UN is his portfolio, and he's bound to have to come over some time. and then of course we'll have to go to cville!