Chapter two begins tomorrow

I am very excited. Tomorrow, my mother rejoins the work force!

My mother has accepted a job offer at one of the outlets of a chain of restaurants that sells traditional Italian wood-fired pizzas and home-made pasta. The outlet where she will be working is located in a busy shopping mall that is about 30 to 45 minutes' bus ride away from my mother's home. Fortunately, she has a direct bus to and from work.

As my mother will be working during the "dinner shift", her working hours will be from 3 pm to 11 pm. This wonderful feisty lady is looking forward to the challenge and to the opportunity to interact with customers.

My mother is a people-oriented person and even in her previous jobs, she got along very well with her customers and often received letters of commendation. I am sure that the same will apply in her new job.

This evening, I managed (for the first time in several weeks - praise the Lord) to leave the office before 8.30 pm. I met up with Da near my office and we took a bus to the Kallang Airport hawker centre. We were initially undecided what to eat for dinner. I was about to order ramen noodles (yes, LSD, my latest craze at this hawker centre) when I changed my mind and decided to order something from a stall selling fusion food. From what Da and I can make out from the menu, the hawkers at this stall are Hainanese and they sell signature Hainanese fusion dishes such as pork cutlet curry rice, etc.

I ordered a chicken cutlet curry rice. I found the curry slightly spicy and yet, a little sweetish. I would have preferred there to be some vegetables in the dish but according to Da, such a Hainanese dish typically is not accompanied by vegetables (other than potatoes).

Da ordered a chicken cutlet with spaghetti noodles in tomato base sauce. Again, there were no vegetables in the dish (not even mushrooms, Nining!). The tomato based sauce was tasty despite the lack of ingredients.

All in all, Da and I enjoyed the dinner and we would patronise this stall again.

As my mother had already had her dinner, Da and I bought a whole soursop from our usual soursop drink stall at the hawker centre and brought it to my mother's home. The stallholder took his time to select a soursop for us and he advised us to eat the soursop tomorrow as it was not fully ripe yet. He also requested us to notify him if the soursop was not up to our standard. My family and I have been patronising this soursop drink stall since the 1980s (er... when I was... erm... a little girl? *wink*) and the stallholder has no objections if we were to buy the whole soursop from him (even though his business is actually the sale of soursop drinks and not soursop per se).

We also bought six rice dumplings for my mother. As she needs to be at the restaurant by 3 pm, that would mean that she would need to eat her lunch at home before she leaves the house for work.

We took a bus from the hawker centre to my mother's home (where our car was parked) and had after-dinner hot drinks with my mother.

Yawn... look at the time. Ma, you better sleep early tonight. You have a "long night" tomorrow!

Ma, may the Lord bless you in your new job and may you look forward to each day at work with joy and excitement in your heart. You are a survivor and I know that you will adapt to your new job easily. Have fun! 加油!