Stories of KK

KK’s really gone off. What with the cycling and windsurfing, the newest bee in his bonnet is kitesurfing. Which basically involves flying a gigantic kite on a surfboard out at sea.  He's never done it, but to get there, he decides to get a preliminary feel of it by giving wakeboarding a shot, which he's also never done. He takes off from work after lunch one day and pulls the whole family with him to Ski 360 at the East Coast Park, which offers a wakeboarding-like experience except that instead of a boat it’s a cable line pulling you along. He says: I also want the kids to learn that there’s no giving up.      * Me and kids, doing nothing   The thing is, KK doesn’t actually have a hard time. He gets up, gets it and completes one round after 30 minutes. I say I'm the one who  will really prove the perseverance point, because I’m sure I’d still be falling flat on my face into the water at the start point at the end of the hour. But see, I’m not going to ...

KK's 40 and a light has gone on in his head: He wants to re-live his Olympian days. First it was the cycling to and from work which has been going on for six months, and is still going strong, rain or shine.  Then suddenly, as we approached the end of the year, he announced that he is going to start windsurfing, a sport which he had stopped oh, maybe seven or more years ago to replace with golf.  I ask: “Are you not going to golf anymore?” He says: “No. I’m still going to. When it’s off-season I can play golf.” These days, I am of universal benevolence and as long as he is happy, I am happy. (in other words, I don’t care!)  Honestly. I like that he is going to windsurf again. I have always thought of my husband as a windsurfer than a golfer. Operation Windsurf is short and sharp. When KK makes up his mind, he doesn’t stop to consider options. In two days, he installs a roof rack on the car and gets his hands on a board, a mast, a boom, a sail, surf shorts, harness, l...

KK works late three nights in a row.  Three nights, we don’t hear the loud click of the door lock turning at 7pm and the kids don’t have the sturdy pair of arms to run into, squealing “papa”!  Each time KK has to stay back, he tells me almost apologetically and I respond: “OK”.  Home alone with the kids doesn’t faze me anymore. But one of us cracks.  The second of KK’s late nights, I tuck Day in bed. As I pass by his room door on yet another thankless errand the girls send me on, I hear quiet sobbing.  The boy is lying face down on the bed, legs clamped tightly together, arms crossed under his face. I go over to him: What are you thinking about, Day?  He looks up, mucus running, eyes red and streaming with tears. “Papa… I miss papa,” he squeaks.  KK tucks Day into bed every night. The talk man-to-man in the dark. They play games on the iPhone. They sleep next to each other until Day goes down, which usually takes all of five minutes. That’s why he miss...

It was a long-awaited moment: KK finally allows us to step into his office.  I have this fixation with seeing his workspace. Ever since he started his first job I have photographed all his workspaces, from dingy containers with mangy dogs to big holes in the ground, and this is no different. Only he never allowed entry because this office is “corporate”.  This time, the only reason we were permitted was because he was working on a Saturday (first time I think), and there is no one around to see how unprofessional he is, letting his family paw all over his work things.  The kids had a field day, as expected. While Day and Jo fought over a canned drink, Lu took her time. Sitting at KK’s table, which was unbelievable. There was only space for a calculator and an empty rectangle where his laptop was supposed to sit.      Running along the carpeted corridors.      We take silly pictures. We miss the old GB site  though. I think that workspace...

The usual picture is this: Girl goes shopping, man tags along, carries her bags. It has never quite been the case for us. I don’t shop like a girl. But KK does.  Let me explain: How I shop is, I find that I am deficient in something (say moisturizer). I hit the mall, head straight for the moisturizer, I buy it, I get out. Or, more commonly nowadays, I need to buy presents for kids. I head to the toy shop or bookshop, grab the bunch, get out.  KK likes to browse. Check things out. Waltz in and out of golf shops / sports shops / G2000 / hardware shops and the like. What catches his fancy at the moment, he buys.  I have to admit, I am not a wife who buys clothes and underwear and all that jazz for KK.  Instead, I have the pleasure of him coming back with shorts and shirts for me. Usually it’s when he finds the state of my belongings utterly unacceptable.  So when we go to the malls, this is our usual picture: Man goes shopping, wife tags along, supervises the kids....

Nothing much fazes me. But my eyebrows involuntarily shot to my hairline when I saw Day’s Chinese spelling list. (Yes it has to be Chinese)    I mean. Come on. The boy is 6. He has not officially started school and I, who have undergone 12 years of Chinese education, cannot read some of the words in his spelling list . (Admittedly I am crap but still.) I would have let him sink or swim.  I saw it as the teacher trying to give the kids some exposure, and while I might have spent some time going through the words, I thought it was more important to get him to speak and like the language.  However, KK rose to the challenge. In true problem-fixing man style, he strode into Popular and purchased a Besta electronic dictionary. The sort with a stylus which allows you to trace the correct order of strokes, and which very helpfully vocalizes words you write in in case you don’t know how to read it.  “It’s more for us lah,” he intoned, when I protested the $400 transactio...

KK walked out of his examination hall at the SMU this evening at 5pm, lugging three heavy bags bulging with textbooks, face downcast. “I think I may have to try again next year,” he said. Then he brightened: “But when I see the kids, I forget all of that.”    * Just out of the exam hall   Good thing, then, that me and the kids were there to form the Finish-Exam party. For a man who is so un-diligent and so un-academic and who flunked all his uni papers, KK seems to have done hell of a lot of studying in the last 15 years. The Masters was over.  Now it’s the Professional Engineering certification.  A badge of honour bestowed only on a select few in Singapore - particularly in the wake of the Nicoll Highway collapse when the Government made it really hard for anyone to get that certificate - this is KK’s second attempt.  Exams are offered only once a year. It costs $450. He took a week off work to study. He said it felt like the result would be exactly the sa...