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Curiosity Cures

December 7, 2009 by Enida

I do not expect one to know everything. I don’t. And as I am very open to learning a little bit of something everyday, I take one day at a time. But not knowing where Moscow is when one is almost 40 however, is very sad for me to digest. Not knowing to Google for it and believing that it is 120km south of Timbuktu, Mali, Africa… is sadder, if not sadistic!

 

Today I just learned that the best and most natural facial scrub is sugar. Just mix a tablespoon of sugar granules to your regular facial cleanser. Wash your face like usual every night with it for a week. It is good to cure dry skin.

 

 

I have yet to learn how to cure dry brain.

 

 

 

Postlude:
Uh, I know for sure what shower caps can keep dry other than hair. Bah!

 

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Nevermindland

December 7, 2009 by Enida

I saw an old old friend on the internet the other day and had a bit of a catching up chat. She didn’t sound like she was all that new to the internet. Well at the very least she knew what Facebook, YM and Google were about.

 

She asked about my present whereabouts. And when I said ‘Moscow’, she responded with, “Kat mana tu?” Huh? I thought she was trying to be funny. So I said, “Oh Moscow is in Mali, just 120km south of Timbuktu.”

 

It was when she went on to ask, “Mali kat mana ye? Bunyi familiar je.” I honestly thought she was joking. So I gave her a matter-of-fact answer ‘Africa’. “Oh so ngko kat Africa lah pulak sekarang ni ye?” Oiiii!

 

“No lah, I am in Moscow.” I repeated myself to see if she was actually a classic case of listening-with-her-knee-cap or was another shower-cap-woman case. “Tadi ngko cakap ngko kat Moscow, Moscow kat Mali. Dah tu, kat Africa lah tu.”

 

“Isssyyy… ngko ni bior benor. Ke ko buat lawak Geography dengan aku ni? Aku kat Moscow. Pernah dengar tak Moscow?”

 

“Tak sure lah. Tu lah ngko! Tak reti duduk satu tempat. Pegi pulak tempat orang tak pernah dengor saper suruh?”

 

I was flabbergasted, lumpygutted and goonyjuted all at once! It was then that I thought of making a lawak Geography to her, “Sebenornye aku kat Chaah je.”

 

“Chaah? Kat mana tu?”

 

Suddenly we got disconnected!

 

Oopsie daisy! Never mind.

 

Posted in Sense | Tagged | 7 Comments »

Ken Lee Meehoon Tulibu Dibu Douchu

December 3, 2009 by Enida

 

 

 

I mast say to know like this Tai Wan Xin Zhu Rice Noodles very mouch espfcially becourse althought it’s not easy break or bumt, it’s not abzorb the souce and spise I putt in with it. I apriciative that it won’t wound my stomach, and I was very worrie it’s going to get angry when it’s hungry like that Mr. McGee don’t make me angry. You don’t like it when I’m angry.

 

Howevery, the spfcialty that scanted me was the sweetness, the smoothness and also the scantiness. So I was extrimly toochsome! Event though it’s robot was aboratively starchy, it’s recomended becaourse of it’s bumtation. I hopped, with the unwounded stomach, it’s smoothing this Tai Wan Xin Zhu Rice Noodles that is mouch the robot product and it’s tooched me!

 

And the best spfcialty that scanted my sweetness the most was it’s good mouch feel I have never having before this want! Beleave me, you will not angry with me or with it’s aborative starch, ever! Until you toochsome of it’s scant and bumt cooking, it won’t get angry and it will smooth your stomach. With that, I live it up to you to try this Tai Wan Xin Zhu Rice Noodles four great spfcialty!

 

I gez just like this Ken Lee Meju More tulibu dibu douchou ken. Very spfcial to me!

 

Posted in Grammaticalizationism | Tagged | 14 Comments »

Procession?

December 1, 2009 by Enida

A friend stopped by tonight. No, that’s not true. It was I who stopped her on her busy track. I just wanted to say hello. But I didn’t just get a hello back. She stopped and gave me power!

 

She enriched me with a simple-but-simply-overlooked philosophy, that “Life is a process.” I thought I knew that all along. Well, indeed I did! I knew that. All along. But the trouble with knowledge sometimes is, we don’t put all of it in words. And when a great friend came along and put my knowledge in words that I thought I had heard before, I was stunned nonetheless.

 

For I realized that it was not her words that I actually heard. It was her thought. One of those many that I had shared. All along. In silence. And from a distance. She was there to say hello and release my wordless thought. The stopping-by was brief. But it was enough to have done wonders.

 

I am blessed with great love from great people. So blessed… that it made me wonder if in the many of my previous lives,  perhaps I was that smart accountant in Singapore, or that marathon runner in Hong Kong, or her sister in India, or was I that great professional gallivantor who speaks English, Dutch, French and Malay just as easy as her eating Nasi Lemak with sliced cucumber, boiled eggs, roasted peanuts and deep-fried ikan bilis?

 

Life is a process. And that’s what I am. In this life I am that thoughtful but wordless writer who knows very well how to love but knows not what love is all about.

 

Being thoughtful and wordless hurts. But that’s a process. Knowing how to love well, yet clueless about love… is painful. That, too, however, is a process.

 

But then, one day… when I have all the words and lose all the thoughts, the process will end. When I know what love is but know not how to love, I will end.

 

I would rather be a process in this life then. Be a work in progress. And in the meantime enjoy every strand of my gray hair, every wrinkle on my face and be entertained by every slightest thought of revealing the real name of that Shower Cap Woman (who had no idea that her middle name is also the brand of birth-control pills… until she got pregnant and did not know who the father of her baby was!)

 

I like this process of accepting that life is a process!

 

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The Shower Cap Tragedy

December 1, 2009 by Enida

Had you come to me before July last year wanting me to talk about shower caps trivially, I would have. I could have. As trivial as shower caps could be. And as trivial as telling you that my favorite and trusted ones are those available at Watsons pharmacies. Thick, polka-dotted, and come in two’s.

 

And those Watsons shower caps were exactly the ones I got for Be’s colleague who had asked him to get in Malaysia (as she was on the Russian island where shower caps were nowhere to be found). Up until the end of July 2008, shower caps were not too personal to me. Sure! I drove to Watsons KLCC to get the colleague those precious shower caps.

 

But came August 2008, life taught me many lessons I could not have trivialized. Even shower caps taught me one:

 

  • That if one’s husband comes home telling the wife that a female colleague had asked him to get her (kirim) some shower caps, what may be going on between the husband and the colleague is nothing trivial.

 

Nothing is more personal than a shower cap but a thinking cap.

 

 

“What you do with your thoughts is entirely up to you.”
– Anonymous

 

 

Posted in Hurt | Tagged | 6 Comments »

She’s In Love With The Boy

November 30, 2009 by Enida

He wasn’t supposed to be a late November baby. In fact, he wasn’t supposed to be a November baby, late or early. Our first date wasn’t supposed to happen until December 15th, 2005. But then again, he wasn’t supposed to sit the way he sat… across Mommy’s tummy, however he wanted, refusing to compromise his own comfort.

 

Hence, Dr. Ravi Chandran suggested the dreaded C on December 1st. Came Noah’s Ark, hovercraft, high water of the water-break, he had to come no shorter than 2 weeks earlier (than the due date). And then again, Mommy had a selfish idea – she wanted to have a collection of two November babies!

 

And so he came on a Wednesday morning the 30th day of November 2005. It has been four years now since our first date and since I fell in love with this boy. The blessing is, I have kept falling in love with the same boy. Everyday.

 

Happy Birthday, Edrick Karl Johnson!

 

 

 

Posted in Monchies | Tagged | 1 Comment »

Warning: May Contain Adult Content!

November 26, 2009 by Enida

Me Monchies were changing into their pyjamas when Edrick started this conversation last night with:
“Kakaa, when you were a little boy…”

 

Kitreena abruptly, naturally and nurturally corrected the brother:
“Edrick! I wasn’t a little boy. I was a little girl.”

 

Edrick insisted:
“No Kakaa. When you were three, you were a little boy!”

 

Kitreena looked VERY confused at this point when she said:
“No Edrick! When I was three I was a girl. I am a girl!”

 

Edrick:
“No! I am three and I am a boy. When you were three. You were a boy too!”

 

Kitreena:
“What are you talking about? When I was three, I was a girl. Now I am seven. I am still a girl, Edrick.”

 

Edrick tried to explain his theory:
“Kakaa, I’m three and I’m a boy. When you were three you were a boy. When you’re seven, you’re a girl. When I’m seven, I will be a girl. Goddit?”

 

Kitreena’s jaw dropped right to her feet when she finally understood her brother’s Gender Identity Theory:
“No Edrick! You don’t change! If you’re a boy, you’re always a boy. When you’re a girl, you’re always a girl. You don’t change when you’re seven!”

 

Edrick was puzzled when his theory was denied by his seven-year-old sister:
“You don’t change?”

 

Kitreena:
“Noooo silly! You’re a boy. So you’ll still be a boy when you’re a grown-up. And I’ll still be a girl when I’m a grown-up.”

 

Edrick went into his vocabulary show-off mode:
“You mean when you are adult?”

 

Kitreena bolayan:
“Yeaaahhh… grown-up, adult, the same thing.”

 

I might have looked like I was busy putting the laundry away and sorting the hangers in the closet (Edrick’s hangers are blue and green. Kitreena’s are pink and orange.) And I might have looked oblivious, but I could tell… there were so many theories formulating in those little heads. There is so much going on right now – upstairs. Oh I can tell!

 

I mean… just look at their face!

 

 

 

Posted in Monchies | Tagged | 3 Comments »

Hot Tall Vanilla Latte, Please!

November 25, 2009 by Enida

If I  were to flirt with  the idea of flirting with him, I would first thank MokcikNab for the pantuns and the beautiful translation. Well, not that he can’t read bahasa. He is probably the only man with steel eyes in the whole wide world that can say, “Maaf, bahasa saya tak berapa bagus,” in perfect bahasa. And it was both his eyes and his tak-berapa-bagus bahasa that actually changed my tea heart to coffee!

 

But I am not going to. Flirt with the idea of flirting with him, that is. I don’t do the flirting thing anymore. Not since the year 1999, at least. With the knowledge I have about myself, breaking a heart is too heart-breaking for me to do. Afterall, even my heart is in its work-in-progress mode. But someday, he needs to know that there is a book written from the strength that the images of him had given me. Someday, he will have a page dedicated to his green sofas and his orange cat. And oh his hanging owls too! 🙂 But that someday is not today.

 

And then, if I were to seriously flirt with the idea of flirting with him… I would send him these pantuns:

 

Dari mana punai melayang
Dari sawah turun ke kali
Dari mana datangnya sayang
Dari mata turun ke hati

From whence flies the dove
From the fields and down the brook
From whence flows the love
To the heart from just one look

 

Dari mana hendak ke mana
Tinggi rumput dari padi
Tahun mana bulan mana
Hendak kita berjumpa lagi

Tell me where you go from here
The grass grows taller than the padi grain
Tell me the month, tell me the year
When you and I shall meet again

From: MokcikNab

 

But then, these were just thoughts I flirted with back then. The thoughts that got me through the nights of counting beads of tears. The thoughts that got me through the days of counting beads of prayers. For Mom, for me and for me Monchies. The thoughts that were wordless then as they all went into healing my heart. I am still one good work in progress. Wish me love and luck, that with my tak-berapa-bagus bahasa, I will have a book of heartful words.

 

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Read Roses Written Blues

November 25, 2009 by Enida

 

I ended up with my own Roses Are Red poem because I could not quite agree with its ‘Violets are blue’ logic. Violets, to me, are not really that blue. They are reddish blue, perhaps. But not blue blue. Or true blue. Blue and red equally. Purple perfectly. And of course purple is a mix of red and blue. Violets are logically, literally, and therefore should be literature-ly purple. Not blue. I stood to have been corrected by myself, thank you very much. And now I stand to be corrected by anyone who dares to correct me with a better correctness than mine.

 

This is my blog, lest you forget.

 

I began changing it by first mental-scanning for a word that rhymes with sweet. It would have been nice to keep some of the poem’s original sense. And then I recalled Kitreena’s artwork today of a hummingbird. She spelled bird as b.r.d.e. Hmmm… oookayyy, let’s tweet the birdie shall we? And then I found this fancy post-it with a bird. Call it karma or sutra, I must have been a bird in my past life. And so I saw the blue skies. Blue violets can be on somebody else’s notes then. Haven’t got the blues for ya, violets!

 

‘Sugar is sweet.’ Sugar? That is such a processed sweetness. Can’t we have something a little bit more natural here? Like honey! I honestly think it goes better with birds, skies and all. Honey from bees, bees and birds fly, and they like clear blue skies as well. Plus, I don’t wanna be thinking of that sugar refinery in Felda Mukim Chuping or of a packet of Gula Prai when I get to the ‘Sugar is sweet, and so are you’ part in the poem!

 

Well, as you can see… I went through quite a bit of a thought-process for such a simple note for Kitreena. And oh yes, she is on the second rerun of her spaghetti boxed lunch from home. I made Spaghetti Carbonara but with some fresh chopped tomatoes and pickled artichokes the other day. Mama mia! Tanto gusto. Tutto belissimo. Abiss ito. Massu tido. Mmmuuuaaahhh! Buona notte, mia colibri!

 

 

Original version:

Roses are red,
violets are blue.
Sugar is sweet,
and so are you.

 

 

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I’ll Be Write Back!

November 24, 2009 by Enida

 

I was going to start writing Kitreena simple notes tonight – notes that I will slip into her lunch box tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after, and everyday after that. Found these two old old glow-in-the-dark pens and was going to write on the recycled black cover of a color pad. I had already found one of those Roses Are Red poems to be my first notes.

 

I did say those two glow-in-the-dark pens were very old, didn’t I? I can bet you a dollar to a vareniki that they are actually older than Kitreena. Hmmm… guess what? They don’t work no more. They don’t even glide. Forget about glowing!

 

I am off to look for my gold and silver marker pens. They are not older than Kitreena. They are older than me!

 

Posted in Write On | Tagged | 2 Comments »

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