Questa è Enida

I just realized that many of you cannot view my blog the way I set it. The way I’d like it to look like. Teringat and teringin pulak to check it out on a different screen, different computer the other day when I was at the cyber cafe. The font that I am using is CluffHmk. But not many people tau pun akan kewujudan nya. Another favorite of mine is Chinacat.

You can download/install these fonts on your computer if you would like to view the REAL look of Questa la Enida. Don’t worry, they are harmless little ttf files. The other three are bonus. Click away…

Cluff Hmk Font
Chinacat Font
Sandy Text Hmk Font
Alys Script Light Font
Augusta ES Font

My personal thanks to Suninthestream.

Cicero was supposed to be back this morning. Noon came, and these guys from Al Majid Computer tak nampak batang hidung pun. I don’t care about other batangs except for batang penyapu to hantam sama dia. I called Jijoy (what a name eh?) and was asked to call Sunish. So I called Sunish. He was half an hour away from dropping my PC off. So, that was supposed to happen at 12.30 midday. I waited, 12.30 came and went, 1.30 came and also went. 3.30, I called again. Sunish said he was in Ghubra or Ghala – whetever he said, I was already on a selective-hearing mode.

My wind went up the stairs sepuluh mata tangga, but I managed to keep cool. I wanted to be at work early today to get some papers ready for the new intake. And was not going to be home until after 7.30. But this very nice guy, Sunish, wouldn’t mind coming as late as after 7.45. Well, it was his call I thought. Being so trusting, I even set the reminder on my iPAQ and cellphone supaya tak karang tercarried away with my class. I tend to do that sometimes.

Came home 2 minutes before 7.45. Phew! The one-minute drive home from work was cut even shorter. I must have flown along Qurm Heights and Fahoud streets. Five to eight, I called Be on the home phone. Chitty chatty chitty chatty, quarter after 8, my phone just refused to ring. So I called Sunish on my cellphone. Somebody picked it up, but hello punya hello…kelekakk! He (I assumed it was Sunish lah, saper lagi?) hung up on me! Cilakak punya Sunish, if it was him!

I tried again, keletut-keletut-keletut, cellphone dah kena off lah pulak. Fine! I called Jijoy. But his brother spoke on behalf sebab Jijoy sudah demam, dia clinic sudah pegi doktor mau jumpa. Hah? Ye ke ni? My windy mood turned stormy. I called Sunish again, but it went numerous times unanswered. I sent him an SMS dengan ucapan: “Could you please send our PC back?” My last try was at 9 pm on the dot. Dot dot dot.

The background of the situation:

• We have been to Al Majid Computer in Ruwi 2-3 times.
• Jijoy and Sunish were at our place last Wednesday to fix the virus issue on our Cicero. So they were in our house for about 2 hours working on the computer.
• They came again Thursday afternoon to pick Cicero up – I thought I’d better let the pro handle the rebooting process.
• Jijoy and Sunish promised to get things done Saturday morning.
• Saturday morning passed, they didn’t call until I called them at midday.
• All I have now is their cellphone numbers – nothing else.

Now, what would you do if you were in my shoes?

What’s playing in my mind are questions and complaints like:

• What is going on huh?
• Is it that they haven’t fixed Cicero yet and are trying to buy time by making excuses and by avoiding me?
• When I called Sunish, he said Cicero was ready. Why didn’t HE call me? He knew it was ready. I didn’t.
• Why berjanji siap kasik time lagi, if he didn’t even know he could make it? Can I call that a lie?
• Three hours late – Sunish didn’t even have the courtesy to call back. How rude! What if I didn’t call?
• Sunish made all the promises to come at certain times. I waited and gave him the benefit of the doubt TWICE. I would’ve given him THRICE if he had not tried to avoid picking up his phone tonight.
• Why isn’t Sunish answering his phone?
• Is Jijoy really sick?
• At this hour of course there is nothing I can do. I have to wait til tomorrow to try call them again.

And then, there are the what-if’s:

• What if they were penyangak and dah bawak Cicero lari?
• What if they had found some secured info on Cicero that has enabled them to purchase something on the internet – now trying to buy time, again. I am positive I had deleted all our folders/directories that might contain such data.
• What if they had done some damage to Cicero, like dropped it or broke it to pieces and were too scared to tell the truth?
• What if they had lost Cicero – maybe other penyangaks had grabbed it and run away – and again, were too scared to tell me the truth?
• What if I were actually blowing this out of proportion?

Calm down, Enida.
There’s always tomorrow. And Cicero is only a PC. What is the worst that can happen? Malam ni tadi as I was climbing up the stairs, one hand carrying this laptop and the other closing the curtain at the stair-landing window…I stopped for two seconds looking out the window, thinking that there’s only 14GB of memory on those discs I burned everything from Cicero onto. The other 14 million GB is in my head. Some are retrievable, some has memory errors. And for some, it’s just a matter of cutting and pasting into the right folders. Then I’ll be allright. My memory capacity is 64 hyperbolellion GB. A few bytes away from infinity and beyond.

If my biggest what-if turned out to be a kenyataan, hey…maybe I could go ahead and buy that HP laptop I saw the other day. Yang bagusnya with a laptop, I would have a computer right away at my new place (wherever that will be). Meaning, I don’t have to wait for the shipment/sea freight no more. So mobile, I probably can just give my iPAQ away. Can somebody luku my head with something now? I am blowing things out of proportion and am definitely berangan taik kucing dengan gamaknya. Luku me so hard that all this berangan taik kucing can go longkah from my brain. Tolong lah!

By the way, with my 64 hyperbolellion GB memory…I can’t even retrieve the data aka remember why berangan always comes with the “taik kucing” terms between myself and Cik Nan. She started it. Not that she is taik kucing fettish or anything. Perhaps she figured out that taik kucing has this masam-masam kind of smell. The masam that makes your nose really tercari-cari sumber bau nya, especially if somebody terpijak and terbawak masuk dalam kereta. Terselet pulak on your car mats yang jenis berpintal-pintal – messy loops and tangles that can catch taik kucing terselet real good tu.

So, when Cik Nan and I berangan taik kucing, we berangan so hard and so busuk, no matter how ridiculous and melampau…we simply can’t stop. Like sniffing mencari dari mana lah datang bau busuk taik kucing itu tadi. The more busuk masam it gets, the more vigorous your nose terkembang kempis, and the deeper you inhale. Hai meh? So busuk and masam that you simply can’t get enough of. Your nose, miraculously boleh ingat pulak tu how taik kucing smells like walaupun the closest you get to a kucing is like five miles away. And that was like 3 years and ten months back. Your nose remembers that kind of kemasaman.

Berangan taik kucing, analogically speaking, is an acquired habit as well. Between Cik Nan and I, there are always some things to berangan taik kucing about. The latest was us berangan how my life would be like if Be gets the position in KL. I must warn you, this berangan taik kucing will be quite masam. If you can’t take the acidity, you’d better stay away. Otherwise, if at any point the kemasaman hits your intelligence quotience, I suggest you roll your eyes or stick a finger the farthest possible down your throat and puke. The kemasaman smell in muntah might be a bit more bearable than that of taik kucing.

My life as an expat in my own country would be a blast. I should be living not too far away from Damansara Heights, Kenny Hill or Bukit Tunku, ek eleh cik main. Paling cokia nokia pun, Ampang lah. Cincai cincai. Because Be would be commuting to and fro the Twin Towers. So, tak boleh lah ambik rumah kat Country Heights Kajang or one of those kat IOI Palm Garden yang dekat JW Marriot. I have to have a house equipped with a swimming pool. Bila lagi nak merasa jadi orang kaya in Malaysia. Kalah Datin Diaries okay. She has fish pond, or a fountain…the one that has lights, one of which she tukor the bulb without asking help from Datuk or the driver. And here I am in my berangan taik kucing, it’s going to be a pool. No pond pond.

“Hah, ngko sorang je nak kaya?” The soalan that has been exchanged between Cik Nan and myself for years. This time, orang kaya nak balik ni hah. Dig up Virginia boys, dig up Virginia! We’ll be swimming with not gold fish, but gold nuggets. Echeh! And oh, we didn’t get to berangan taik kucing about the cars I will be driving in Malaysia sebab bab rumah besor with a swimming pool kat Damansara Heights sure had a lot to berangan taik kucing about.

Nevertheless, we were interrupted by Cik Nan’s reality check if my ongkampung from Kelilau would come over and menebeng for a week or two sebab curious sangat nak tengok swimming pool. Maklumlah, the closest they ever get to a swimming pool is to those olympic size shown on TV musim Sukan SEA or Olympic Games empat tahun sekali. My ongkampung would be so excited, siap basuh baju tepi pool bawak papan tonyoh baju. Tak cukup bersih dengan menonyoh, siap menghempas seraya membanting kain baju tu pelepap pelepapp pelepapp kat pinggir kolam. Part batu marmar yang kasor sikit tu, bior cepat sikit bersih.

Mana-mana sedara yang lupa nak bawak papan tonyoh or berus sabut, they can make use of the part around the pool where overflown water drains down. The part looks so much like the papan tonyoh itself. Ganyang, gonyoh and sental je kat situ. If they use too much of the Sabun Feb Buku baru kang, berbuih-buih pulak swimming pool aku. So kolam renang at my house would look like kolah besor kat sekolah arab lorong tiga kampung jana yang tak pernah tak ada muntah katak. If it wasn’t muntah katak, telur katak lah kot. Pendek kata berbuih-buih dengan sakan lah the kolam.

Itulah kelebihan Feb Buku baru!

I’ve just read some of my old emails yang saya tulis and saved dalam laptop ni over a year ago. Masa tu menunggu Cicero dalam sea freight. Nak mengomail tak boleh sebab Internet Explorer laptop ni was version 3.1. Still is. Today I’m back to this laptop sebab Cicero has been sent away for a make-over. Kena penyakit ler, what else. Ni yang maleh ni. There’s no immunization langsung. You’d think by installing Norton 2003 and running automatic Live Update every week…you’d be protected. Hampa belaka.

So, I am again terputus hubungan dengan dunia di luar sana. The last time I turned this laptop on was about a year ago. Hah, lama tak lama. Masa menulis ni tak de lah internet connection nya whatsoever. Even with Cicero pun, the virus had somehow reconfigured the broadband TCP/IP setting. And almost every program that I tried to open would give me either system error notification, or cannot read memory. Kaputs!

Hmmm malam ni tadi lots came to mind. I was looking at the stuff we sent for framing. They turned out great. And then I put the three frames dalam gobok – standard tempat simpan barang merapu. Bila nak tutup je pintu gobok, mata terpandang pulak satu kotak yang I had forgotten apa isinya. Bukak-bukak, sure enough there were like half a hundred of different items. Kebanyakan nya accessories rambut. Irony nya…I just had a hair cut two days ago! Selama hari ni dok beli-beli segala coteh motehs, pehtu simpan. Now I have no hair to go with those accessories.

Dari satu benda ke satu benda. Towards the end, bukak jewelery box and jumpa cincin, gelang, rantai lama. Yang paling nostalgic nya cincin lah, of course. Terpandang cincin tunang tak jadi dengan anak raja sorang tu. The cincin, I thought, is so Melayu. A stone terletak kemas on a bunga tanjung. One of my personal favorites. Cincin yang tak pernah buat hal. I am a bit superstitious when it comes to rings. I guess I can call myself The Lordesswati of The Rings.

And then there was the ring from the first ikatan. The most troubled and troublesome ring. Seingat saya paling lama all the stones stayed in tact at a time was a week. Lepas satu-satu tergogok. At one time, sampai tiga stones nya ghaib. The last thing I did with the ring was to leave it with one stone rompong. The whole ikatan went rompong as well, at the end. Painful, but I came out stronger, wiser and kinder. A relationship lesson-packed.

Be so far has given me the most rings. The one I’m wearing is the ‘Number 1/Greek’ style, saya pakai to replace my wedding ring yang dah ketat since prego dulu. More friendly too since it’s a cut-out type. My skin can ‘breathe’. There’s the Dolphin, the V, and of course the ‘leather pattern’ wedding ring and the diamond engagement ring. With that many rings, if I am not the Lordesswati of The Rings, I’d be nothing.

Ada satu Tweety Bird ring yang saya simpan sampai lah sekarang. One of the Niks gave it to me. Sweety tweety. Oh yeah, toe rings. They are rings too. Ada lah satu dua, pun given by one of the Niks. The sunflower toe ring tu definitely from Nikki. Oh mekja, kawe dok jupo doh mano subang hok kaler biru kechek owk beghi. Gelang tange nyo ado mmolek. Sayei. Dok ingak mano kawe sipe.

Necklacewise…baru malam ni, after 10 years, saya bukak loket bentuk hati tu. Now pakai ‘The Embrace’ Be got me in 1999. Loket bentuk hati saya pakai 10 tahun. Given by the anak raja sorang tu jugak. Tak tau kenapa saya pakai segitu lama. Perhaps because I like tiny pendants. Tak minat yang besor nor. Berat. Perhaps I never really let go. Ye ke? Ah well, there are certain things in life you hold on tightly to your chest. And certain things that you keep getting dreams about every so often. Kalau anak raja tak seru semangat saya, mungkin pendant bentuk hati tu lah yang berantu gamaknya! I kinda like the hantu though.

Masa membelek-belek barang merapu tu saya terfikir pasal lelaki Melayu. Sebab hari ni tadi saya teringat seorang lelaki Melayu whose path crossed with mine satu masa dulu. Asmo Haros Mizan. Now, who can forget such a name. The whole family has the Asmo Haros part. His identity in the family is simply Mizan, really. And these Asmo Haros’s come with a ring each pulak tu. They have a family ring…a tradition. I liked that idea. Still do.

I have been thinking about lelaki Melayu sejati. Sejati not because they are Melayu. But because I liked them. Or rather the image of them. Note my word LIKED in past tense. That is because at present, I don’t know if I still like them. They must have changed. I must have too. But that’s not the point. I liked them the way they were when I liked them. Sejati, again, not because they are Malay. But because there was something about each of them yang membuatkan saya rasa sungguh sejati Melayu. Whatever that means. I guess, the thoughts of them bring out the Melayu in me.

I like the Melayu things. The cara, the culture, the sentiment…when it has nothing to do with religion. I used to feel sexy in batik sarong. Especially on the hips part. I even felt sexy everytime duduk bersimpuh regardless whether in batik sarong or not. Pendek kata, I think Melayu style is sexy. The pandang-pandang jeling-jeling practice, for one, is very lah mendebarkan. I used to get sesak nafas just main jeling-jeling with anak raja. The malu-malu feelings pun felt sexy to my veins.

And about these lelaki Melayu sejati…there is something nostalgic agaknya about them. Quiet moments can send vibration when you are with them. Have you ever felt that way? I don’t really know how to explain it. And I can’t really put my fingers in it, but lelaki Melayu CAN sweep you off your feet when you least expect it sebenornyer. Especially those yang tak banyak cakap (read: macho). Some of them are quite good with words. Many not so. But then again, I am writing about Lelaki Melayu Sejati. Yang tak sejati bersepah. Right next to you there’s probably one (million).

So, who are they? They are those lelaki Melayu yang saya ingat only in parts. The good parts only, that is. Those that I had good memories of or with. Not necessarily yang connected to me sentimentally aka serious relationship or anything. Like Asmo Haros Mizan. He was a very close friend at one point. No feeling feeling lah. He was in a healthy relationship and I was ending an unhealthy one. So he sent some good aura over to keep me strong. There was tempation of course for being close. But we were minds over matters. Otherwise he wouldn’t have made it to my list of Lelaki Melayu Sejati lah kan. D’uh!

And then, there was The Anak Raja. Physically, setakat ni tak de saper lah lagi yang dapat menandingi. He is always the most handsome man in my memory. He stays handsome in my mental picture even though I know for sure he has changed a lot more than what he would like it himself. I have changed too, to be fair. And I am sure kalau betul lah dia seru nama saya every week, he would probably have the very same perception of my look jugak in his mind. Selective memory at its best. Sometimes it’s NICE to dwell in the past every now and again.

Anyway, apart from being sexy, I think of the Melayu style or culture as very calm and calming. I associate Melayu with being peaceful. Like I associate Japanese culture with politeness, for instance. Sekejap-sekejap bow, sekejap-sekejap tunduk. Tanya soalan pun with no eye contact, out of respect. Their berlari-lari anak kinda berlari tu macam sopan se’sangat in my view. Similarly, whenever I think of African (or African-American), I think of the people being musical. You see it everyday on National Geographic or the likes, even CNN’s “Inside Africa”. Tak pernah tak ada bab menyanyi or drums beating.

So, when I think of the Malay culture, I think of the contented people. Laid back – not lazy. Redha might be the word, if that explains the people better. Not all, apparently. Malays are becoming more and more competitive in the modern world. I am not writing about Malays today pun. I am stuck in the era before the 50’s. I still have a crush on P.Ramlee, if you must know. I think he was attractive, creative, innovative, sensitive, hmm suggestive, uh smartive, and uh sexitive. So, P.Ramlee made it big time to my list of Lelaki Melayu Sejati. Positive!

The irony of it all is, I just dicovered that my Mom is a Chinese descendant, my Dad is Indian and I am now married to a lelaki bukan Melayu. Happily.

I am just a few minutes away from having to go upstairs – Kitreena’s bed time. Cicero is not home at the moment. He is with the guys, for a second make-over. Hmmm buat hal lagi, kena lah haul-over, bukan make-over. Frankly speaking, I don’t quite understand computer viruses. All I know is that there is no immunization. Walaupun dah kasik Norton 2003, kena jugak lagi kasik 2005 and whatever latest when the time comes. Ada 459 virus ke haper on Cicero. If he were a person, dah lama kena tanam six feet under.

This is quite neat, typing and writing on the laptop again. After so long. Menengok jugak sebenornya laptop-laptop dalam gobok kaca kat Carrefour semalam. Ada hajat tu okay! Mentang kat tangan ada pitih nya. Cukup lah kalau nak sambor satu hp laptop yang standard version tu je. Echeh! Dahlah boros, berlagak pulak aku ni. Repent, repent.

I spoke too soon. I posted Ralat Sifar panas-panas, straight from the oven. That was before I went again to Muscat Grand Hyatt on the final night of the Malaysian Food and Culture Festival. Saja to bawak Kitreena and Bibik to see the joget. Plus I forgot the camera the night before. All I thought of was makan-makan sampai pengsan (borrowing Dizzy Lizzy’s prinsip hidup – I admire her passion…doing anything sampai pengsan punya).

So, there were some other jogets. Finally, Malaysia was proven to be truly Asia. Indian, Chinese, and even the much awaited Ngajat. But I must say, the bonus was the Sumazau dance. Oh how I miss Sumazau. I took pictures, of course. Be was a little skeptical when I said malam sebelumnya that Kitreena would probably love the show. He didn’t think Kitty’s attention is long enough for something like that. Hmmm. Soheh now that Kitreena’s MY daughter. She is the nasi and my the kuah has tumpah all over her lah. Really.

She watched the show like never before. Well, never pun before. Not only she watched, she danced along. I should have taken the camcorder with. Kitreena was watching very attentively, except for masa the fashion show baju batik jarang. (The guys should have worn an undershirt lah at least, so that tidak menampakkan sesuatu yang girang atau perky. It was 17° Celcius that night.)

The whole Malaysian thing was great! Congratulations to all yang menjayakan nya. We want more! My only ralat zero point nya is…if I didn’t make it back to Hyatt the second time, I would not have known that they did have all the dances. Everybody paid the same rate: RO 11.900 per person for those four nights. All I saw was the Malay dances, whereas people who came the night after and probably the first night were given a lot more.

Raso lah termongak eh.

I realized this long time ago actually…that I can get all teary and emotional just watching orang menari tarian Inang. Silly me. I was in grade one when I had my first musical turn-on – watching my seniors’ melodrama performance. It was then that my ears flung open to Ahmad Jais and Rafeah Buang’s ”Ku Siram Selasih”. Strange but tarian traditional can get me stimulated (read: going). Not just the Malay dances, Tionghua‘s & Indian’s do the same thing to my brain.

Two years ago, though, I blamed it on my pregnancy when I got extremely patriotically emotional at the Calgary Indonesian Cultural Night. Tari Piring, Tari Endang, a plate of Gado-Gado, a bowl of Bakso Sapi and two or three Kleenexes later, I admitted to Be that I was homesick. I even shocked myself when I could recall most of the lyrics of Begawan Solo. I was brought up listening to Ayam Den Lapeh and Bugih Lamo. What is Begawan Solo.

Last night I was neither homesick nor pregnant, but smoke got in my eyes all the same. Came Tari Trendak Johor je, my nose didn’t know whether to get runny or stuffy. It went kembang-kempis profusely bila menengok those youngsters having fun on the stage. I really miss good ole days when I was THE Cabaret Girl on campus. The popular-for-all-the-wrong-reason girl, I was. Le Femme De Jogette!

Grand Hyatt Muscat is having a ‘Malaysia Truly Asia’ promo – Food & Cultural Festival – from February 7 – 11. We went on the 7th, cik main kobar. But the first night was just the launching night – private dinner reserved for the Malaysian delegates. I heard the news about this festival on the Oman radio. There was even a phone quiz thing. The question, though, was too mind-bonking! What is the largest city in Malaysia? D’uh!

I should not have trusted that Oman radio DJ. She is known for giving either misleading or incomplete information. (You should listen to how she baca berita. News on people wounded, or people get hurt in a car-bomb somewhere…would sound like somebody just won a trillion dollar lotery! Tak kena langsung intonation and rythm nya. Some people just don’t realize that our voice does reflect our ‘depth’.)

Anyway, the whole show was good. But one would wonder if it was truly Asia. There was no Chinese, Indian or the lain-lain dance. At all. There were the Johor Zapin, the Mak Yong/Gamelan, the Joget and Inang. Even some modern Arabic influenced Balkish-ish dance. All Malay dances, though. No tambi in white sarongs menari with sticks, or siew cher in qipao with long ribbons or kipas tangan. I was kinda longing to see some Kanang Anak Langkau look-alike dancing some Ngajat, if possible. Nope. I became quite ralat for the kesifaran of these other dances.

The food was okay too. I was quietly surprised to see a couple of English ladies berebut scooping up some cencaluk. They knew what cencaluk was, and seemed fond of it too. Of all, I was a bit disappointed with my Pengat Pisang. The bananas were pisang muda meh. So kelat loh. Good thing I had some Kuih Bangkit to sagat my lidah with afterwards. The teh tarik was menarik.

Dear Nikki and Ahmed Peter…

May you find more warmth
in each other’s arms
on these snowy days.

May you find more sweetness
in your being together
this bitter freezing season.

May you find every reason and excuse
to stay close to one another
in the heat of the fireplace…or argument;
or in the cold winter…or war.

May you find each other’s strength
that makes you weak in love;
the weakness that makes you strong
and human.

For you are a better I when you are a We.
Happy Fourth Anniversary.