On Monday night last week, just before a colleague left the office, she told me she would like to have a chat with me the next day, could we have coffee perhaps. Sure, I said. I wondered, just for a moment, what she had wanted to chat about. I thought nothing more of it that night. I stayed back for a bit more and got home a few hours later. When I got home, I logged on, didn’t see any urgent messages so decided to call it a day. I poured myself a glass of wine and settled down to watch some tv. When I got in the next morning, there were a couple of urgent stuff waiting for me in the email – stuff which had come in the night before. I guess the idea of a blackberry, something which has been looming in the background and recently approved by the bosses, is starting to worry me. With that dreaded slave driving gadget, I would have been alerted to those emails and would have tried to do some work, the lateness of the hour notwithstanding. In any event, thanks to the slow rate of response from IT, the machine still hasn’t been delivered to me although it has been approved some time back. So I only discovered those emails the next morning and though I was in early as usual, I didn’t have time to spare and was at work full on immediately. I had therefore forgotten about the colleague’s request for a chat. At least, until that colleague walked in a little later than usual. 20 minutes after that I asked if she wanted to grab that coffee. We went down to the shops and it dawned on me then why she wanted to chat – she had that dreaded meeting invite about a review meeting, before her probation period ends. However the probation period wasn’t up for another 6 weeks and that was what concerned her. She wanted to know what this meant and if I could offer any advice.

I didn’t think anything of a review meeting as we are at that time of the year where the twice yearly session takes place for everyone. In her case however, she had worried about it as she was on probation and there were concerns things weren’t working out. We chatted a bit more and I provided general advice, seeing that I did not know her too well. Just as soon as I got back to my desk, I saw an email which took the wind right out of my sail. Later that night that colleague was in an exit chat with HR.

That colleague was a beautiful person. She was warm and personable. It just didn’t work out for her strictly on a professional and work fit level. I was at a seminar that night, which she had also signed up for. I was half hoping she would turn up notwithstanding, so that I could have a quick chat with her and wished her the best. I knew however that she wasn’t going to turn up. It would take an extraordinary character to still show up for that seminar. Anyway, I got home that night and had time to only have a glass of red before retiring for the day. It wasn’t a good day.

I went in to the office the next day wondering if she was holding up well. I once knew that feeling. It takes a while to get out of it. In fact I was going to wait for a few days – perhaps until the weekend – before I think I will call her, just to see if she’s okay. There is of course the strong possibility that she would paint me with the same brush with everyone else and refuse to speak with me. I wouldn’t be offended if she does, and would still hope she gets over it as quickly as possible and move on to other, better things.
Work has again been very busy and I was home late on both Monday and Tuesday night. So on Wednesday night I decided to go home early to have dinner with the family. We went out to our usual quick and nasty haunt – Sofia’s – and enjoyed the talk and relaxing atmosphere more than the food. This was especially true for Tress, who is spared the cooking and washing. She has taken over the cooking role for a while now, as I tend to get home late. I have cooked less even on weekends. Somehow things have been happening such that even on many Sunday afternoons, I’d find myself working at my laptop. I think I will have to be deliberate about it all and say, set aside alternate weekends where I don’t do office stuff and just do what gives me peace – cooking!

Speaking of which, the displacement of Jamie Oliver by Gordon Ramsay as an ever-present chef on tv is almost complete now. Jamie now appears not as a chef, but as a campaigner. The most recent tv show aired here was the one where he compared free range chickens and eggs with battery hen and fast growing commercial meat chickens. It was more an animal rights program than a foodie show, although he did try to whip up a token dish or two to illustrate his points.

I don’t think the issues washed too well in that someone who is conscious of costs aren’t going to be swayed to start spending more for these birds to have better lives. Consumers who have been buying free range varieties are converts anyway so the program is just a warm fuzzy vindicating session for them.
This past weekend was filled with various activities and it just whizzed by in a flash. I was up early on Saturday morning and left home a little after 7.15am, to head to the airport to pick up Alex and his family. Wilson was the other one to help pick up this family of 5. I got to the airport before 8am and headed to the nearby McD for a coffee, while I waited for them to call me.

Josef, Julian and Li Har came in my car. Li Har must have been terribly tired as she slept most of the way from the airport through to their home, while I chatted with the boys. After I dropped them in their home in Doncaster East, I headed home for my usual chores. I had just under 2 hours for them so I went through them very quickly. Tress had very kindly dropped my dry cleaning off for me and was also t o pick it up later.

At 12pm, I had to drop kiddo off at her class, then went to church for a couple of meetings. These were long ones – one from 12-2 and the next one from 2 through to 5.30. The first was a home group leaders’ meeting. I wasn’t a leader but had to stand in for Cecilia, who was away on holiday. The other was a Board meeting and since we hadn’t met for a while, there was a lot to work through.

That night, most of us had dinner at Jason and Mel’s and TT Quah and Maudrene also joined us. We finished just before 10pm and I thought we could maybe catch an hour of the Tour de France and watch Cadel Evans blaze through the time trial round. It wasn’t to be of course, for my plans as well as for Cadel. Tress and I dozed off on the couch within about 20 minutes, and Cadel’s aspiration remain a dream.

We climbed off the couch a little after 11 and crawled into bed, having abandoned our attempts to keep up with Cadel and also having allowed enough time for the beds to warm up nicely.
The next morning we had to be up early again – we had to prepare a dish for the lunch after church, for parents of youth group participants. I made a baked potato with chives, bacon and sour cream.

We headed to church in cold, windy and rainy conditions. In church, TT Quah was the speaker and half way through the worship, he took over to say he was concerned that the weather conditions reflected the way some members felt and wanted to reassure them that God is still with them.

Steven, a dear brother who has been having some physical/medical needs, went up to the front for some prayers and it cause my eyes to well up. The week before, an impromptu “healing” session had led to a wide belief that he has been healed. On Friday night however, first in our home and then in the car when I was driving him home, it was painfully obvious that the “healing” was anything but.

Therein again lies my dislike for such “healing” and “prophetic” sessions. Speakers dish out these so called “messages” and “word of healing” at the drop of a hat. They are simply impervious to the feelings of those who are longing for some deliverance. They elevate the expectations and emotions of these very needy and therefore vulnerable people, only to let them crash through the floor. I think very often the speakers themselves needed to feel that they had a word.

If it was truly God who healed Steven, why did he lapse so soon after? From my recollection, no one whom Jesus healed had a relapse, at least not one week after the healing. And, I don’t know if these people were so strong in their faith that their healing continued. Was their healing dependent on their own faith, or was it dependent on Jesus’ sovereignty? How could we blame the sick for a relapse? Do you think the healed wanted that relapse? They would do everything they can to avoid it. To blame them for it is to rub salt into their wounds. I don’t know what it is, but this sort of healing isn’t the sort of healing we saw in the New Testament. If it is so precarious and fragile that its longevity is suspect, it doesn’t speak very well of the source of these healings.

After the service, I asked if Steven wanted to come to our home again next Friday, even though there were no home group meetings scheduled. I just wanted him to come and have a relaxing evening, and perhaps we can just pray for him – not for healing but just for God’s loving hands to be on him.

That afternoon, after the lunch, we again drove Steven back to his home in Kew and by the time we returned to our own home, it was just after 4pm. I logged on to my work email, did some work and then kiddo wanted to go watch the Dark Night, the latest episode of the winged crusader.

Thankfully the nearest cinema was just a 2 minute drive from our home, in the Forest Hill Chase shopping centre. There was hardly any queue at the box office – probably due to the fact that it is now a couple of weekends since its premiere and it was a Sunday night, usually a timeslot most people rather spend at home.

Kiddo and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Tress however, said she was struggling and had dozed off intermittently.

The action was great, the acting spot on and the storyline was gripping, even if it was comic book stuff. We especially enjoyed the rotating role of who really was the hero – Batman or Harvey Dent, the DA. Harvey turned out to be a dark, tragic figure and Batman continues to wear the mettle of the hero, albeit not the hero Gotham deserved (but needed). The direction involving Harvey Dent turning into two-face flipping a coin to decide the fate of his captives, was so tight I found myself trying to trace the trajectory of the coin to see if it was thumb-up or the other way around. The ruthless manner in which characters were “killed” off – Rachel Dawes, Harvey Dent and Chief Gordon – made it all very dark.

Even the Joker – the most talked about character, especially here in Oz – added only a sligh hue to the darkness, not the full blown colour its costume and make-up could have required. By keeping even this central and commanding villain of a figure just a touch other than dark, the irony and callousness of his deeds become sickly and subtly repelling yet compelling. It is like driving past the scene of a ghastly accident – you know it would not be pretty but you stop to look anyway.

There was another sequence of scenes wonderfully constructed – when the Joker caused a panic in Gotham, leading the entire population to make a rush to board ferries, which were laden with explosives. On one boat were the scumbags rounded up by Harvey Dent the district attorney and on at least 2 others, civilian fleeing the crumbling city The civilians got the opportunity to pull the trigger to blow up the crims but didn’t. This was a triumph of good over evil and the flippancy and flamboyance of the Joker at this setback gave a really scary glimpse of what is true evil – that even the failure of bad when pitched against goodness, meant nothing. That was true evil – that nothing mattered. A mistake would have been to have the Joker display anger or disgust over his failure to prove man was essentially bad. The fact that he didn’t care was worse and Heath Ledger showed again, why many thought he deserved a posthumous Oscar. Hanging from his legs on a cable after Batman overpowered him, he just shrugged it off, letting Batman know he had a grander design – that of using the very goodness of man to turn against itself.

Harvey Dent, the erstwhile crusading district attorney had been horribly disfigured as the love of his life got blown up, a la Najib Razak’s girlfriend. That turned Dent, an upright and fearless crusader, into a vengeful murderer, even to the extent of murdering a child while the father (Chief or Commissioner Gordon) looked on. Of course, Batman came to the rescue, even as I again followed the trajectory of that dreaded coin.

Even characters which would have been exposed to the danger of being underplayed had pivotal roles which were amply played out. Michael Cain for example, was just almost completely overshadowed by the performances of Ledger, Oldman, Erkhardt, Bale et al. Yet his role of wisely dealing with the note Dawes wrote for Wayne, was so well directed that it truly provided yet another pivot to turn the movie and roll the storyline along so very nicely.

Morgan Freeman was wonderful too, as usual. The way he flicked away the pesky Wayne Foundation accountant who was trying to milk our hero, packed a punch that made me laugh. That young twerp – the arrogant slime ball city lawyer like character – must have thought he got the Wayne Foundation president by the proverbial balls. Freeman aka Fox, just flicked him off like a pesky little fly. The ensuing scenes which included Bale zipping around in a Lamborghini, trying desperately to save that accountant was also terrific, subplot notwithstanding – actually it was also pretty well woven in with the theme of morals going astray and no rules apply anymore. You see frantic scenes of Joe Blogs attempting to kill off the traitor blackmailer, with only Wayne and Gordon doing anything to prevent total chaos.

That “chase scene” was child’s play, in comparison with numerous other scenes, such as the one when Harvey Dent was being transported in an armoured car with the Joker in tow in a huge 24 wheeler, an arsenal of all sorts of guns imaginable on board. Thinking Dent was Batman, the Joker went through his guns like a pack of cards, looking for that ace (or Joker) to finish off his enemy. The real Batman was frantically chasing, first in his bat mobile and then in a tear-away Bat Harley with wheels the size of oil drums.

Actually that was when I sort of lost track of the plot. Batman crashed away from the Joker, after Ledger excelled yet again in a playing chicken scene which he won hands down, literally. As the Joker stood poised to finish off Batman, Gordon came from behind with a gun pointing at him and had him under arrest. Next thing you know, Dent and Dawes have both been kidnapped and tied up in separate locations, buried amongst row after row of oil drums filled with explosives. My guess is even as the Joker decided to face Batman, his cronies rounded up Dent and Dawes but there was a gap in editing there which required a few minutes to catch up and be reorientated. That however didn’t detract from how terrific the movie as a whole was. What an experience, and I am really glad kiddo made us go for this one.
We came back and got ready for work the next day, which was really difficult given how it is getting progressively colder in the mornings now…