Making Snow in Singapore

This weekend Mike and I decided to get creative. Or rather, Mike decided to get creative, and I stood around and carried things and said "oh that looks good baby!"

The past week or so, Mike's been working on a matte painting that he described as an aerial shot of a snow covered canyon with mountains in the background. I haven't seen it, but it sounds delightful. Now, Mike's project this weekend was to take a picture and use it in his matte painting. The problem is, we're in the jungle; there are no canyons here, there is no snow here. So we had to improvise.

At first we tried taking pictures of rocks, but it's hard for a rock to look like a canyon or a cliff. We wandered around the little park behind our apartment, climbing through grass and ant hills to get shots of the rocks that line the pond, freaking out the gardeners and generally making a nuisance of ourselves. Mike had his big Minolta, and I used my little digital camera. We probably looked like the world's most insane tourists; "look, this is a rock we saw in Singapore! And here's a mound of dirt!" It was fun, though, we haven't been through the park in awhile and we hardly saw anybody other than the occasional passerby or jogger. Despite ant bites and sweatiness, it felt great to be outside without having to run errands or catch a train, just enjoying the views and the sun.

After we finished with the rocks, it was time to try to make it snow. We found an old board someone had discarded, and we set it on a table in the park and I proceeded to cover the entire thing in flour. Mike even blew on a few spots, to create snow drifts. I have to say, it really did look like snow, especially once you got up close.

We got covered in flour, but I love little projects like this. It reminds me of being a kid, setting up scenes with my troll dolls and Skipper, Barbie's little sister. (Mom wouldn't let me have Barbies. Apparently they promote a bad self image or something.) I like feeling like I'm part of what Mike is working on, I so rarely get to help him and to be included in that part of his life. I loved seeing him in that mode, though, he looked so focused and excited, and I couldn't help taking pictures of him, too. He just needs a bigger beard, and he would fit right into one of his books on the matte painters in the 70s. They look like a bunch of hippies playing with miniatures.

Sunday we went to a small dinner party at a friend's house. We're the only Americans in our little group, but there are quite a few Canadians as well as the Australians. We talked about food again, and Target, and cheap drinks, and all the things we miss from home. It's fun to talk to people from different countries, because even the English speaking ones have different words. Australians especially have their own way of talking that's really fun. They like to shorten words, and at first it's totally confusing. They call sunglasses "sunnies" and swim suits "cozzies," which is short for bathing costume. Now I normally don't condone abbreviations, and forbid anyone from vocally using the term "LOL," but for some reason I really like these terms. I think it may be the accent, but "sunnies" is such a happy word, it just sounds more fun. Also, they have their own term for white trash: bogans! I also like this term, because I can't for the life of me figure out how it came into use. White trash is pretty self-explanatory, but bogan? Who knows? What I do know is that it makes me feel warm inside to know that no matter where you go, every country has their own version of rednecks. It's a small world after all.