At last! Phoebe Philo’s first sunglasses collection for Celine features one simple classic shape this season, as highlighted in yesterday’s Sunday edition of South China Morning Post’s Post Magazine. Yours truly bought the long-lost twin version by Oakley two, two months ago. What vision! What fashion savvy! GlaMum’s pair features polarized lenses that cut out glare and let you see much better with them on while driving, ski-ing or golfing. Not that she does any of those but that is hardly the point. Rest assured she will find some way of making this a confirmation of superior parenting skills. (Well, if she doesn’t trumpet her triumphs, even the itsy bitsy teeny tiny ones, who will?)
Separated at birth?
Also pictured, our Elvis wedding picture in Little White Chapel in Vegas (same place Britney Spears got married once; may our marriage last longer than hers, oh wait, it already has).. Kings was not Christian at the time, but I was – so we couldn’t have gotten married in a church in Singapore where we worked back then – I wanted to be married before God and figured He wouldn’t mind if we did it in Vegas with just 2 people from New York as witnesses we pulled in off the street. (But our parents were another story.)
Elvis is not dead – after he walked me down the aisle he went on to tour in Taiwan… Then there’s the pic of a young JD taken at Marina South in Singapore… Where they don’t allow dogs… Pre-baby we used to collect pics of JD in places she’s not supposed to be… sometimes bring her to pubs and Chanel stores at 7am just to get the picture… Then there’s the bottle of darling red wine from our wedding dinner at Flutes at Fort Canning with our wedding pic on the label… We took that pic in Central Park after dropping by, realizing it would be lovely to have wedding pics taken there, opening a phonebook and finding the first photog we could dig up – who happened to be in Chinatown.
The hippo in the first pic is of course William, official mascot of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Love him. He never judges. May have to do with him being a a blue hippo. Kings still wears the HKD 400 ring I gave him, as his wedding ring. It’s a discontinued style from The Met, antiqued with “If you have love, you have all” in old English. The bowl of hunks of turquoise rocks and jewelry is there because our helper broke the original wedding gift that used to sit there – a hand-made ceramic of two old people and an old dog with a blue left eye (guess who our friends were trying to depict?). And the cross is a market bazaar souvenir of our honeymoon trip to NY, LA, Vegas. Almost the only time we ever took a trip, before Rockstar, we were so busy working.
All artifacts of our previous life. A look at what we were like when we were 2 hungry newbies to banking with a crazy dog.
Hello, old life.
Oily mixed mushroom bread and cheese, and carrot juice from Simply Life. One of my morning breakfasts of choice before stepping into the dealing room each day. It’s quite a big meal, so early in the day. All the excitement. The buzz. I would be hungry again by noon latest.
I was passing thru Citibank Tower today and decided to stop for a bite. Merrill Lynch is there. Citibank. Idly, I wonder if I’ll meet any of our trade counterparts who used to count us as clients. Idly, I wonder if they will recognize me. I’m in old rolled J brand jeans and a summer-weight cream-colored Anteprima sweater from donkey’s seasons ago when I used to de-stress by buying some branded item, any branded item, on sale. I stressed out making the money, I should spend some of it – go on, you earned it, I would say. My hair is almost severely pushed away from my face with a thick cream suede band. On a Monday in a sea of suits I’m also wearing that other big banking no-no (besides jeans), espadrilles. Snakeskin, but espadrilles nonetheless.
Do I miss you?
Not a lot, not a wit, not even a little bit.
I used to sit in that corner red chair at Pacific Coffee with Relationship Managers, discussing investment products, people, politics.
I used to love leaving the office when it was dark and quiet, walking down those steps surrounded by the softly lit buildings towering over me as I waited for a cab. I don’t remember many failed deals at all. Almost none. But I remember so many trades going my way. I remember the satisfaction, as I left the building late, in the quiet. That is the one thing I miss. But I had to think about it.
There’s always a cab here. I led such a blessed banking life. Thank you, God.
Goodbye, old life.
I leave Citibank Tower via the nearest exit. I notice I’m walking a little taller. Rockstar and JD will be waiting for their evening walk and I still have errands to run.
More than 10 years. Why don’t I miss it more?
Hello, new life.
This is why.
This is why.
