Dear Rockstar,
G, one of Mummy’s best friends here, will be relocating to Singapore in a month (because of her husband’s job). Mummy was really sad about that for awhile. G and Mummy spent many soul-sharing hours on the Bloomberg chat dissecting boyfriends that were bad for us and family problems.
So we keep trying to do a few more swanky Hong Kong lunches before she goes and Skype replaces black truffle-and-foie-gras ravioli lunches.
This is what Mummy wanted to wear. Nyonya Kebaya blouses are unusual in Hong Kong and Domani is a swanky business lunch place (to which Mummy refuses to wear recycled workclothes – the cargo pants take care of that. Mummy can’t remember why she’s not in her usual strappy gold snakeskin Prada heels which she usually pairs this particular Kebaya blouse with though. In this pic she’s wearing dark green snakeskin peeptoes – customized because they’re cheaper than branded shoes.)
But you had other ideas – after getting you ready for school Mummy was so short of time she ended up throwing on Unknown Factory studded and ripped jeans, an old Marc Jacobs sweater bought heavily marked down years ago and still crumply from the back of her wardrobe, and the Marc Jacobs booties she usually wears if it’s a bit chilly for open toes. All to a background of bawling because you got mad at being rushed to finish your Incy Wincy Spider video and put on your socks and shoes.
This is her trying to salvage the look as much as possible in the Domani bathroom. She grabbed the 3 big inexpensive turquoise-and-silver rings to brighten up the dull taupe of the sweater literally as she was flying out the door with you.
(In fact, this captures the mood of the moment prior to swanky restaurant more, when she was scrambling to do school run with you bawling into her neck.)
Mummy has only been to Domani once before. It was the end of another friendship. (So you can see how Mummy would be totally weirded out by one of a string of goodbye lunches with G here (her suggestion and treat). And why is Mummy not really surprised we somehow get seated at the exact same table where she had that fight more than a year ago?)
M was someone Mummy confided in at her work cell group. She didn’t want to risk someone giving her advice she didn’t want to hear, so she sought him out. From an old moneyed family and newly reformed after a youth around womanizing and excess, M, Mummy figured, would give the least “holier-than-thou” advice when she sought affirmation she had made the right choice to not visit Grandpop whom she was (then) estranged from. That was how a budding friendship was formed. Mummy thought.
There was a separate tiny dealing room for the team Mummy was on, back then, and she was the only female in that room. She was also the ranking equity derivatives dealer. 11 years in many different dealing rooms, that was the only one with a very prolific use of the four-letter c- word, among others.
(Mummy would be lying if she claimed it hadn’t made her feel inwardly uncomfortable, but it did eventually die down when, after being heckled to “cuss like a man” for the umpteenth time as she was trying to close a trade, she managed to turn a good profit and calmly respond “And I did the job just fine the way I am.” (ie without the cussing)
It’s why Mummy has told you people can respect you even if they dislike you for not fitting in – for eg with the cussing.)
Anyway. Sometime during our swanky lunch, M mentioned how he condoned the c-word cussing, and “Do you realize the risk I’m taking by going out to lunch with you? I drink with those mates.”
It was the last conversation Mummy ever had with him. She doesn’t feel that badly about it, actually – her thinking was, there are so many people who might need a friend, she needed to prioritize her limited resources of time and emotional energy.
M made it very easy for her to do so.
Mummy asked for it, because in the first place she picked M just in case someone with more grounded gave her advice she might find difficult following.
Sometimes we really do get what we wish for, what we look for. It’s not necessarily the best scenario.
So look for the right things right from the outset, Rockstar. Then you don’t have to be sorry when you find them.
Love,
Mummy
(who loves the incongruity of “floating dim sum” from one of the restaurant windows in the middle of all the high rise offices)
PS: Mummy’s not sure those cussing equity cash traders ever saw M as their “mate,” they made really mean jokes about him all the time. He just thought they were so cool, is all. Some people just look for different things in “mates”
PPS: Mummy didn’t want Grandpop to yell profanity in front of you when he got mad about other unrelated stuff, was why she initially distanced us. She hadn’t trusted that even a wiser, more mature Christian counsel than M would probably have given the same advice if it warranted. After almost 2 years of estrangement however, Grandpop is now great with you and the 2 of you now talk on the phone couple times a week.
