A Lush Christmas

It has been a long time since my friends - the Lushes - and I met up. Getting together has become quite a logistical nightmare recently. What with Fabulous Fiona away in Shanghai playing with needles and moxibustion, Statuesque Sarah avoiding bomb-wielding terrorists to rescue the needy in Iraq and Shameless Shalom desperately finishing her final year thesis.

And Lissome Lorelei vacillating between work and a life-time commitment :)

Of course not forgetting me stranded in the faraway island of Borneo.


And yes, we'd like some of these for Christmas. No need for matching wrapping paper even.
So you can imagine that it's been a while since we've sat together at the same table. So it was a miracle indeed that they all managed to come down to my place for Christmas. Since we'd been communicating regularly online with the minutiae of our lives ( some better than others! ), catching up didn't take all that long.

After all I had so many things to share about the eccentric vagaries of the folks in Miri :) From the endless roundabout dilemmas to the dour-faced service staff.

Then Statuesque Sarah managed to add a few shocking titbits about her time in post-reconstruction Iraq. Bullet-ridden houses and blown-up victims? Sounds horrifically traumatic. Instead of heading for the hills after her harrowing experience there, our intrepid Sarah only seems revved up for more. No doubt I'll soon be hearing of her in some war-torn God-forsaken banana republic.

Biggest shocker was the news that Fabulous Fiona's brief acupuncture stint in Shanghai has actually turned her on to sultry almond-eyed Chinese fellas. After her experience kissing frogs from every other race and nationality, this comes as a welcome surprise to her doting dad - who is no doubt congratulating himself on coming up with the acupuncture suggestion. Have no fear, we will turn her into a patented rice queen yet.