昔の時

Today I ate lunch with my grandparents. Sounds kinda odd when you think about it, since my paternal grandparents stay in the same house, but today there was fried rice for lunch, and usually, if brother and me aren't like, obviously waiting for lunch, we'll just sort get a bowl each and eat wherever we were, like in front of the comp, or while watching TV.

But today, I thought it would be good to eat with them, since I hardly eat with them, and in fact, hardly talk to them. Which can be a whole story by itself, but that's not gonna be the focus here. So I took my bowl and joined them at the table, and brother also ate there.

Through most of the meal, nothing much happened, except that my grandma mistook some luncheon meat as lup cheong and tried to throw it in my bowl (cos she uses dentures and she doesn't find it easy to eat that sort of stuff), and so we all ate. Then after I was done, she told me that I could go and do my own stuff since they (Gramps and Gran) ate really slowly. But I told her it was ok. It actually sounds somewhat different when it's in Chinese, but that was essentially the core of the conversation. So I just sorta sat there and continued to talk to Gran, which takes some doing on my part, since I am not exactly proficient in Chinese.

And then Gran started reminiscing about like the past. I mean, it all started out because of the lup cheong, as she found some in her bowl, and then it progressed to how it was good to be young, and then she said the best part of her life was when she was taking care of me and brother when we were kids. (Sister wasn't born yet). When I was about 8 and brother was like 5. She was talking about how he would go to kindergarten in a bus and she would send him off, and then I would come back from school, and he would come back from school, and then my parents would come in from work and go to her place for dinner before Dad took us back to Bukit Batok.

And as my Gran continued talking about the past, I suddenly remembered two events that are somewhat related. One was when my Gran and my aunt (who's about 10 years younger than my dad) took me to a shopping center. I don't remember when, I don't remember which shopping center, but I'm guessing it had a Metro inside, cos I clearly remember the white tiling that Metro always has. And my Gran bought me a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle figurine, and one for my brother, which for us was a big deal since my parents refused to buy anything like that for us. (Dad was always a firm believer in buying gifts of practical value, so he would give us useful things for birthdays and Christmases. Like... socks....).

And so this memory popped right back into my head when she was talking about all the old times. And then it went even further back when she started talking about how dad's friends were good kids too and told me that when I go visit friends, I should make friends with the parents too etc etc.

But it was a really nice conversation to have over lunch, to be able to talk to my Gran (Gramps isn't a very talkative person right now), and to remember good memories of the past on a rainy Thursday afternoon.

Cheerio.

Oh, and that other thing I remembered up in Paragraph 5 was when I met J on Tuesday, and she asked about my grandparents. Don't know why this memory popped in though. Must be a grandparent thing.