Belated Birthday Gift

After an entire day of excruciating pain from some strained muscles along my shoulder blade, I knew I had to see a doctor when a sneeze felt like it could take my life away and breathing became a chore. Painkillers were prescribed to ease the pain (duh) rooting from an injured deep tissue muscle that was near to my ribcage. Friends have been making fun of Moody Penguin and myself for injuring ourselves at the same time but truth is, we weren't injured while attempting some kinky stuffs. I pulled my muscle when I was trying to lose those flabs at the gym! Then again, the more you explain, the worse it becomes. People love to hear what they love to hear.

Anyway, Moody Penguin had wanted to get me my birthday pressie since... well, my birthday. Knowing him, he ranks last in the hopeless romantic list and practicality reigns in terms of the things he bet his last dollar on. And those of you who are thinking of "useful girlfriend", wipe that thought off! He briefly mentioned late last week that we're gonna hit town and get my pressie sometime this week and he needed for me to be present. But that thought didn't quite occur when we went to Marina Square yesterday. His prelude of hanging around aimlessly and stories of finding an old point & shoot camera at home being less than decent to loan it to a business counterpart convinced me that he was going to get a point & shoot for himself when we walked into Cathay.

As he was browsing, I took very little interest in the camera stuffs because that was my g'zillionth time in that shop ever since I dated him. As he picked up some cameras to see, I casually picked another camera to play with since that was the sucessor of the camera I almost bought a few years ago but eventually settled for a Sony T10 which by the way, he thinks it's a crappy camera (I do not disagree at all). After seeing my cousin carrying a similar camera during Chinese New Year, I took special interest in the Canon Ixus 870 IS with the HUGE viewfinder and I mean the 3" screen nearly filled the entire back of the little camera. I was pretty impressed by the wide angle function (although I didn't think it was very wide-angled) but I was sold on the macro function. Not to compare with people with the "tua leng kong" ie DSLR, I could take relatively sharp images of objects that was less than 2cm away from the lens.

At this time, Moody Penguin "showed interest" in the camera I was holding and started playing with it. And within a minute, told the guy that he's getting it. He liked the silver one but I thought the gold one looked better. Without even batting an eyelid, he told the guy to bring out a new piece of the gold one. So I questioned him as to why the gold one. He was so quick, he said "more unique". I bought that (the story). Even until this point, I was totally oblivious to his intentions because we could pay in instalments on my credit card and I thought that was the only reason why he brought me along.

As we were walking, he shooed me to buy an ice cream cone for him which I was more than willing to do since he never fails to chomp down on that mint chip thingy everytime we pass by Andersen's. It's extremely pleasing to see that smile on his face whenever he's chowing the ice cream down to nothing. Simple pleasures in life. Me watching him and him munching his favourite thing. And within 10 steps, he just casually passed me the bag and mumbled "nah your birthday present". I was pleasantly surprised but I didn't want him to spend so much money on a gift like that on me. Besides, I'm not a serial point & shoot blogger. (Think: Ms PillowLim)

Moody Penguin, being the guy he is, has this MAN thing. No sweet talk nor nonsense. His concern is beyond words and as much as I can get extremely exasperated at times when I just need a little sayang, I know he cares. Similarly, he said nothing sweet nor romantic but just gave me the "nah your birthday present" nonchalantly. It's not the cost of the gift nor the practicality and for once, we mean every word of "it's the thought that counts". Not that it's not a good gift and in fact, I totally dig it. I think it's a major improvement from my "lok kok" T10 and I can now go snap happy and be a second PillowLim, aka PillowSim. But what mattered most was his intentions. Not every gift is perfect or even great as much as we appreciate most of them. But the amount of effort one puts in to get someone an apt gift, is irreplaceable.

A quote we can hardly forget if you belong to this generation of mine. In Jerry Maguire, Dorothy (Our Bridget Jones whose name escapes me this very moment... Right... Renée Zellweger) said, "I love him! I love him for the man he wants to be. And I love him for the man he almost is."

Meanwhile I'm going to play with the camera... Provided that I have a charged up battery. See! This morning I came into the office thinking that I'll charge it in here since I need a minimum of 9 hours to charge and after I do that, I can use it tonight. Our smart friend here (it's ME by the way...) brought the camera, the memory card, the charger but forgot about the battery entirely! Marvellous! For a review of the camera, you have got to wait for me to have a chance to charge my camera's battery.

Thanks Dear...