Rabbits are Rodents, Right?

We have had a pretty exciting weekend.

Saturday Matt and I relaxed, played tennis, and I fell asleep in the sun (acquiring a sunburn on half of my neck, face and one arm).

We went out to dinner with two great couples. One we have met through the Jewish community. The man actually works at JPMorgan with Matt. They were superb. They also invited their friends who were also outstanding. They're all really interesting and REALLY nice people. Meeting people that we connect with isn't something that happens everyday, so we were pleased.

I know I have written a lot about this, but here goes again...non-kosher eating...

I know that eating all of this stuff is a stage, so I kind of feel like I should take advantage of it. For nearly my entire life, when I looked at a menu in a restaurant, I always had two or three options that were vegetarian, and because I'm cheap, I would simply choose the cheapest choice. It was a simple task, actually.

Eating everything has changed that whole experience. I look at a menu, and I have so many options. (I have also worked hard on not being so cheap, so I'm trying to not look at prices too much). Last night I decided to try rabbit with some sort of bacon thing on gnocchi. I have NEVER had anything like that.

All was fine and well until the food was served, and a conversation commenced about whether or not a rabbit could ever be kosher. Well, someone said, "I think it's part of the rodent family, so...I mean, I think that it probably can't be kosher." That REALLY grossed me out. I couldn't stop thinking about those HUGE, GROSS rats in NYC subway stations...Then I was thinking about cute little rabbits, and then finally I kept thinking about the cute little kitty that we have befriended. I felt like I was eating her. I ate up all of the pasta (and the bacon), but I left the rest of the rabbit.

My mom was reminding me that I became vegetarian (for five years) after I saw a family of shrimp on a plate (heads and all...). This could be happening again...

(I must be really Jewish, since EVERY time I typed rabbit - I actually typed "rabbi" and had to go back to put the "t." Clearly this eating style is a stage.)

Today we went on a great walk. We met Etan, who is in town from Chicago, at the reservoir here, and we had long hike. The beginning of the hike was uneventful, and it was actually filled with people. We reached the HSBC Treetop walk, and that was actually pretty cool. We then walked on and saw a bunch of neat lizards and things like that, and then the monkeys were everywhere. We walked to Bukit Timah Nature Reserve - it was about 10km total.

I don't know if I'm going to get arrested, shot or fined by writing this, but we'll see if there is censorship with this blog...

Stupid me - where there was no garbage can around, I decided to eat a banana. I thought I would just hold the peel until we saw another garbage (it's Singapore, there have to be garbage cans everywhere!). It took quite some time, and I had walked with it for about a half hour. It was mushy, brown, and getting grosser. Then we ended up seeing the monkeys. Some of them were cute, just watching, or sort of doing their own thing. Some, though, showed their teeth and got mean looking. The banana peel kept getting squeezed tighter into my hand. We saw signs all over the place that had a picture of a monkey's smiling faces with a banana and a line through it - and it said "fine $250."

What are the chances that I would think to eat a banana on a hike with monkeys, while it's illegal to feed them (bananas particularly), and there is no garbage?

At some point, though, we were walking on a bridge, and I felt cornered in. One of the monkeys started walking towards me (with teeth and all), and I freaked out and tossed him the peel and ran away. I was really scared - and I broke the law, which in Singapore is a really big deal.

I will never again eat bananas near monkeys.

We had really good Indian food as a reward afterwards.

Then I convinced Matt to play two-man Settlers of Catan with me a few times. Matt killed me. I think the tides are turning in our relationship. I usually kill him.