Electricity Top Ten by venitha

Top ten eight things to miss when your apartment has no electricity for 18 hours:

• Flashlights Torches. The million and one torches that it took years to accummulate as Christmas gifts from my mother and seconds to decide not to bring to Singapore.
  
• Hot water. Cold water in Singapore is not actually all that cold, so a cold shower isn't as bracing as you might think, but still.
  
• Hair dryer. I am a vision of loveliness today.
  
• Cold water. As an American, I've resisted adopting the Singaporean habit of drinking tepid water, so my fridge is stocked with pretty blue Nalgene bottles of cold, though sadly today not-so-cold, water.
  
• Kitchen appliances. What? No oatmeal? What? No hard-boiled eggs? Drat. I peered into the dark deserted refrigerator in search of something, anything, and Yes! Many many thanks to Brian and Andrea, to whom this post is dedicated, for bringing an astonishingly prescient gift to our candlelit bookclub last night: Brian's world-famous cheery [sic] cherry bran muffins. (Brian's muffins are in the good company of Marilyn's famous chocolate cookies and every black dog I know - Hi, Kiwi! - in that pictures tragically do not do them justice.)Many many thanks to Jim for putting the muffins in the fridge right next to a Lindt dark chocolate bar that I was duty bound to save from sure ruination in our apartment's heatwave. I can't imagine a more orgasmic breakfast combination. At least I'll have air-conditioning to console me tomorrow when I'm back to oatmeal and hard-boiled eggs.
  
  Because I know you are all concerned about whether I have eaten, I'll tell you that for lunch I resisted a breakfast redux (I have learned through harsh experience not to eat too many bran muffins in one day, and anyway, we were out of chocolate) and comforted myself with the cold cold air-con and the hot hot popiah of a nearby foodcourt.
  
• Internet access. The free wireless access at my neighborhood McDonald's rules! I almost feel guilty for my recent snarky comments about the fàn-tastic.
  
• Handphone charger. What a pain to have your phone run out of juice just when you're fielding calls from a landlord agent, two building reps, various leak stuffers, an electrician, and, of course, that oh-so-Singaporean requirement, layer upon layer of management for them all.
  
• Air-con. I could not survive in this country without air-conditioning. As soon as they got the electricity back on, I jacked up the A/C and took a good long nap. Air-con, glorious air-con.
  

venitha