Tuesday

I'm talking about the past, here: back at the end of November, 2008, just days into the odd and unparalleled lapse of activity here in the Update Column, Sunshine and I flew to Singapore to celebrate, to the greater extent, our belated Anniversary--and to a lesser extent, the US Thanksgiving Holiday. When we got married I'd made explicitly sure our anniversary would never fall on Thanksgiving, a holiday I never loved. I lacked the foresight to realize this meant we will forever be putting off celebrating our anniversary until the upcoming long holiday weekend. It's ironic, sure; but so far we've gotten to celebrate twice every year. And so far celebrating has included traveling: Hong Kong in oh-seven and now Singapore on oh-eight. There is an affluent and tony city feeling to our anniversaries, a travel theme neon and commercial, surely christened by our maiden voyage to Vegas. Just a week before this year's trip we were still debating where to go: Bangkok? Malaysia? For no better reason than our theme we picked Singapore--a country so much like a mall that it actually goes on sale every year. It's lucky we did: the day we were slated to fly, a loose affiliation of elite society escalated recent protests over the Thai prime minister by capturing the Bangkok airport, trapping travelers inside and halting all traffic coming and going. Theirs is a complex protest, but it boils down to a rising concern that the prime minister is acting in the interests of recently ousted-and-exiled former PM Thaksin Shinawatra, who also happens to be the current leader's brother-in-law. The closing of Suvarnabhumi airport happened early enough that we'd never have made it into Thailand to be trapped in the concourse. So choosing Singapore really worked out for us. [Cavin]