Forget dinner in Singapore until next year, we have dinner right here in the good old USA. Everything is as it should be, except for one small minor detail. Instead of turning up the heat, preparing the hearths for Yuletide fires, we are turning on the air conditioning. Except for the bizarre fact that it is hot when it should be cold we are in a frantic pace, to prepare ourselves, our home, and our lives for what lies ahead. This is our early winter, pre spring, Christmas activity. The house is abuzz with activity. All engines are humming along with a nice sonorous tis the season... as we prepare not for Babettes Feast but rather for our annual Christmas Roast. Savannah, our daughter, is home for the holidays, and is baking every conceivable concoction of desert including a Yule log, a Bourbon pumpkin cheesecake, a red velvet bunt cake, a chocolate buttermilk cake, and various pies. Since she has been surviving on college food for the last months her mind has obviously wondered off into the land of fanciful deserts, which she is fulfilling in the days before Christmas. She has taken over the kitchen in preparation for her all-nighters of baking. There is flour sifting everywhere, moulds, cake pans, bunt pans, and pie pans being greased and caressed. Even our bird Melody is humming Christmas carols along with Savannah as she dons her apron singing I'm dreaming of a white Christmas while it is 70 degrees outside and focuses on her tasks ahead. There is the aroma of Bourbon and pumpkin wafting through the house and as I make my way into the kitchen there are endless mounds of butter, flour, sugar, and chocolate. Enough good food to give any good set of eyes and nose good cheer. Outside the final leaves are being raked, the lawn pristine with dew, the gravel driveway is being raked and manicured for our guests. Inside the tree is glowing with decorations, and mysteriously mounds of presents seem to find there way under the tree. The couches are being vacuumed, windows are being cleaned, beds are being made and slowly the house begins to shine its Christmas best. And now we prepare the table for the feast. The handmade linen tablecloth is carefully ironed and with all hands on deck, is carefully placed perfectly over the large dining table. Next my mother's Royal Copenhagen china from the early 1950s is carefully placed around the table along with the silver tableware. The wine and water glasses are placed by each serving. The silver candlesticks are carefully placed in the center of the table, and beautiful flowers are placed throughout the house. Often there is the smell of peony, lilac, vibrant tulips, lush hydrangeas, and exotic roses perfuming the Christmas Feast. Special wine has been selected and the house begins to shine with all its glory as it prepares to welcome those who come for this special feast. As Christmas day approaches I…

  We arrived at the terminal at 9:30PM on our day of departure for a late night eighteen hour nonstop flight to Singapore. We were off to participate in an opening of my work at the FOST Gallery in Singapore. Leslie, my wife was convinced that leaving late at night was a good thing. We would arrive at the airport already tired, and we would simply get on the plane and sleep our way luxuriously to Singapore. I, on the other hand, was not so sure. I am a morning day person, grumpy and irritable at night, and was not sure how well I would do with the window blinds closed for the whole flight. We were traversing the world flying east in eighteen hours of continual night. At 11PM sharp we departed on a large Singapore airlines plane, converted to only one luxurious class, and off we went on an adventure, my feet will never forget. As we began our long travel we relaxed into a four hour dinner, and despite consuming alcohol, drugs, and wishful thinking I found myself unable to sleep but rather staring at the flight-map for eighteen hours as we slowly made our way across Europe, all across Russia, down the edge of Iran, through the entire length of India, down further past Thailand, and lastly finally touching down at the immaculately, clean, precise, and ultramodern airport of Singapore. The third world may be all around you but you are in an oasis of first world modernity. For eighteen hours I had not blinked once watching the TV map progress ever so slowly in front of me. I was totally transfixed. I knew as well as the pilot our longitude and latitude at every given minute. I was a sitting GPS. Unlike all the intelligent people on the plane, who had slept luxuriously flat on a bed made by stewardesses, I had remained upright, for some unknown reason, for the entire flight. Everyone arrived ready to go. I arrived ready to sleep. No wonder I arrived in Singapore with spots in my eyes. These little black spots floating across my vision, I am convinced started by staring at the map for eighteen hours. We were met at the hotel by our most gracious hostesses, who for the duration of our stay made every effort to be our companions and take care of our every wish. Here I was surrounded by two young beautiful gracious Asian women, who took care of me. What could be better for an old man like me. It was pure bliss. Every day the question would be. Do I need a foot massage, a back massage, a leg massage, a nap, a meal, or anything else that they could do to make our stay pleasant and memorable. The art of hosting and graciousness is definitely not lost in the East. Woe to America. Every day as the clock struck 2PM it was time for our daily reflexology. We would be ushered…