Through The Looking Glass

I love dogs of all sizes, from giant Great Danes and St. Bernards down to little bitty Dachscunds. But if an animal can be cradled in the palm of one hand, I cannot consider it a dog anymore. Anything that small is either a hamster or a guinea pig. A dog is an animal that really should be visible to the naked eye.

Laura (real name kept secret to protect my safety) does not think so. She's a 200-kilo realtor with a 2-kilo dog. I'm not kidding; Duchess, her Yorkshire Terrier, rides around in a litte pouch suspended over her mistress' ample tummy. Together they look like a strange species of marsupial, a cross between a Kangaroo and a fur mitten.

We met them while viewing houses in Boston. They lived up to every caricature of a large woman with a pet the size of her fist. In a loud falsetto voice Laura told us about Yorkie party she was taking Duchess to. There would be about 30 of these creatures milling about like possessed furballs. And the only way to identify individual animals would be by their jewelry. Duchess' birthday was coming up later in the week. And for that grande soiree she would be prepared with nine (yes, nine) different dresses. Heaven only knows what mountains will be moved when Duchess has her "sweet sixteenth" birthday party.

Fortunately all the other people we met in Boston last week were sane. And we were really lucky that we had Sally (real name hidden to protect her from the embarassing revelation about to follow) to take us around. We loved that she shared our interest in food from different countries. That was not obvious at first, when Sally extolled her town Newton for being more tolerant than neighbouring Wellesley. The Wellesley town council would allow only Starbucks to open a coffee shop. Newton, on the other hand, was willing to admit Dunkin' Donuts as well so that its residents would have access to different kinds of coffee. (To her credit, Sally went on to talk intelligently about middle-eastern, Indian, Thai and Chinese food, all of which are also available in Newton.)

All in all it's been an interesting week. For the first time I got a good look at suburban America and it was beautiful. We drove through towns with charming wooden houses separated by wide tracts of forested land. Inside every town there were extravagant stretches of playgrounds and parkland, interspersed with lovely lakes and ponds. Winter was turning to spring in a wash of bright green. Not the deep, glossy tropical green of Singapore but a lighter, crisper, more temperate shade of green. And over the long weekend it seemed as if everyone was out running or cycling or at least out walking with their kids and dogs.

It wasn't all smooth and pretty for us. It took us half an hour to change terminals at JFK airport, which made us think wistfully of the efficient and passenger-friendly airports in Asia. The practice of tipping had me in a perpetual state of bewilderment. I'll probably need night classes to figure out whom to tip and how much. But that's all part of the normal friction of moving to another country with a whole other culture.

For now I'm just pleased that at the end of our week-long scouting trip we came back to Singapore feeling positive about Boston. There's plenty to look forward to when we move there in a couple of months. And in the meantime, we'll continue to soak up tropicana, Singapore style.