Happy New Year!

Why, hello there. And happy new year -- it's still the eve of Chinese New Year in Chicago, but it's 1.07am in Singapore and officially the year of the dog and 4703. The Chinese people have been in existence for many moons -- that's a scientific fact, because it's the lunar new year.

So much has happened today that I couldn't resist resuscitating the old blog (vroom! vroom!), and since I'm no longer a corporate drone, perhaps my daily life would be more exciting and I'd be posting on a regular basis. I hope you, friends and readers, will keep me honest.

The best thing so far, this new year, is having Uncle Rob home from Sydney to celebrate it for the first time in almost 25 years. No kidding. And, Uncle Charley! He's not a real uncle like Uncle Rob is -- Robert is my mom's older brother. Charley Desanges is one of my dad's best friends, who's stopped over in Singapore on his way back to Nice (where he's from) from Nomeau, where he's been for the last two weeks, visiting his two brothers. (Nomeau is a French island in the South Pacific, where everyone surfs and catches fish with a hand-thrown harpoon.) You know that scene in "The Sound of Music" when the Captain gets the telegram that the Baroness and Uncle Max would be visiting, and the children scream in jubilation, "Uncle Max!!!" That's my brother and me this morning, when my dad said that Uncle Charley was in town for a week-and-a-half. "Uncle Charley!!!"

We usually have the traditional new year's eve reunion dinner (that's like Thanksgiving dinner, when the whole family comes together from wherever everyone is and eats a meal of abundance -- to ensure we'll always have enough to eat for the whole year) with my dad's side of the family, but since my cousin Kevin was home from New York last week, they celebrated a week earlier. So my mom's side came over, and earlier in the week, after a brief quibble, Uncle Rob won the coin toss to make dinner. Uncle Rob owns a rotisserie in Sydney but used to be the executive chef at the Waterfront, one of the top restaurants in the city -- he ran a kitchen of 60 (sixty!) cooks. The menu:

- Cold seafood platter (lobster, oysters, prawns)
- Les moules (Belgian-style mussels)
- Black pepper steak
- Baked ziti in marinana sauce
- Tuna carpaccio with Japanese seaweed salad
- Caesar salad
- Six bottles of wine, ranging from French to Australian to American

It was the first time in family history that we had a non-Asian feast for our reunion dinner. I had to nap for 10 minutes before we made our annual visit to the temple just before midnight to receive blessings for the year -- I have never faced Buddha half-drunk (merci beaucoup, Uncle Charley) in my life, and I wasn't going to start this year.

But, I'm barrelling ahead too quickly. The day started out great with Amelie Mauresmo's victory over Justine Henin-Hardene in the women's finals at the Australian Open. I avidly hate Henin-Hardene -- no sportsman should be as cocky and smug about their talents as she is. Mauresmo won in a strange fashion... it was almost too easy for the current World No. 3 who had never won a Grand Slam, or was it karma? Her semi-finals opponent Kim Clijsters retired in the third set from a torn ligament and Henin-Hardene gave up the battle in the early second set, because of an upset stomach. But my heart broke when Henin-Hardene walked slowly and heavily -- the antithesis to her tennis play style -- to the net to announce her retirement with the same whatever it was that enabled her to last 56 minutes into the match, taking a beating and playing like Venus Williams circa recently. And that was all that held her up... she broke down at her seat and again during the trophy ceremony.

For someone to whom winning is so important -- you'd think that it is all muscle on Henin-Hardene's small frame, but it really is muscle and pride -- pulling out of a Grand Slam final must be like losing the killer topspin off your power forehand (that's Justine's bread-and-butter shot, if you don't follow tennis). She had an upset stomach because she doubled her intake of anti-inflammatory pills to numb an aching shoulder. She would always do what it takes to win, but this time, she got too far ahead of herself. It's not breakfast of champions this morning in the Rod Laver Arena, it was the humble pie of would-be champions. And losing is always a hard pill to swallow. Maybe a better game next time, Justine... and Amelie, one of those Notre Dame gargoyles must've been grinning down on you today.