Posted in Pokrovsky Boulevard, tagged Life on January 15, 2010| 2 Comments »
I knew I was going to confuse many people with the last entry. I am not sorry as it was totally intentional! Muahahaha. No peeps. I am not inchinta (pregnant in Italian). My business has seen unimaginable profit with Kitreena and Edrick and my shop is closed so that I can spend the remaining years of my life counting my profit blessings.
It is my friend Jo-Anne – also my neighbor I once or twice mentioned in my entries – who is expecting a little one. She lives 13 houses down the boulevard from me, if you noticed the number. Hehehe. I was just too excited about the news yesterday because I actually creepily had a dream that she got pregnant, and she did!
Posted in Pokrovsky Boulevard, tagged Life on January 14, 2010| 3 Comments »
Posted in Makan-Makan, tagged Food, Life on December 31, 2009| 3 Comments »
The plan was to have lunch at Daikon Restaurant on Prospekt Mira on my birthday. But the road was too icy and the CRV’s skating skill is no better than mine. Yes, I am making an excuse and indirectly saying that I am not meant to skate. I got scolded by my mother-in-law yesterday for the ‘spill’ and for the cheap stunt to change my surname from Johnson to Jolie. Thanks Mom for calling all the way from Arizona to ask me to hang on to your son or a snow-shovel or something. I know now how much you love me. Heeeeeee!
So this Daikon Restaurant – on Prospekt Mira, building number fourteen – serves Asian cuisines ranging from Vietnamese to Indonesian, including Singaporean but skipping Malaysian. Oh well! Big deal. Though the snow piled up to about 15 inches today alone, the CRV managed to skid and skate us to Prospekt Mira for a late lunch/early New Year’s Eve supper. And we’re happy to announce that this will be a family tradition from now on: Turkey Dinner on Xmas Eve, and Asian Dinner on New Year’s.
Kitreena was almost screaming in delight when she saw Kway Teow on the menu. She’s definitely more Asian than what she gives herself credit for – she could tell that it was a dry kway teow (wide fettuccini-like rice noodle) and not the fresh-made like what we can get in Malaysia or Canada (at T&T Mall in Calgary). And when she saw the Indonesian dish selection available at Daikon, she whispered to me, “I miss Bibik, Mom.” I am definitely going to write to Bibik about Sayur Asem and Sambal Bajak she can get at this restaurant!
Be, though, was hoping for some good plain ole Fried Singapore Meehoon like what we used to devour, drool over, ordered for take-away and fight over (and about) in Perth, particularly what we used to get from that little restaurant on Doric Street, Scarborough. So he asked for Singaporean Noodle, but So’on Goreng (so’on = mung bean noodle) was what he got. Well, better than that noodle that would wound his stomach and get angry!
Me? Oh I was just happy to see this…
Well, the menu says it is a BIG portion of spicy soup, blah blah blah and udon for its noodle. Big, I believe, is very subjective. Especially if it is meant for the supermodel-cut Russian babes whose legs are the size of my upperarms. The strand of noodle you see in the picture is one of the five I had in that bowl – together with two BIG shrimps, one BIG bak choy leaf and two BIG pieces of unidentified objects that tasted like chicken. The kuah (soup) was actually quite tasty. Better than Singaporean Laksa kuah at Secret Recipes. Oh, I didn’t say that!
The highlight of our New Year’s Eve’s late lunch/early supper, however, was this…
Happy 2010 to the people I love.
And yes, that’s YOU!
Posted in Write On, tagged Friendship, Life on December 31, 2009| 1 Comment »
It has been days. And on each day, I was sitting there no less than hours, trying to find words worth writing. I ended up reading. As well as it has been years. And each year, I was looking for nothing less than a reason as to why some people are just meant to appear and re-appear in my life. I ended up waiting even more.
Well… people are people. Some came. Few stayed. Some left faster than I could say ‘никудышно‘ in quarter a breath. Some had nothing nice to say. Some even broke my heart and too mean to say sorry. Some soothed my soul, mended my faith in love and restored my faith in faith itself. Some just said ‘Hello’ to my face in the corridor and later sent so many kind words to my Facebook.
Such is life.
And just as I thought another year would end uneventfully, a young old friend nudged me on one elbow on one hand and said, “Ehem!” while on the other offerring me some purple Strepsils. If you asked me how long I have known Miss Biker, I would say, “Oh, since 1990.” (Oh my! Has it really been 20 years?)
And the next hour of conversation was more than what we ever had in the last twenty years. Yes, all twenty put together. Though we did meet at a common friend’s wedding on September 20, 1998, all I could remember was how I went rolling on the floor laughing to her expression, “Sit lah down.” And all she could recall was me telling her that I came back to Bangi all the way from Scarborough because I had a dentist appointment.
For all the hours I sat waiting for words worth writing, and all the years I waited looking for reasons worth being… here’s the warmest hugs and lots of HACKS on the snowy new year’s eve from one motherless traveler in Pokrovsky to another in Jonkoping!
If I am to be blamed for finding what I wasn’t looking for, then if you ever asked why I looked… I would just give you the answer all fools have given, “Because it’s there and because I can.” The pictures, that is.
If I choose to feel the pain this time and be hurt by what I wasn’t supposed to see, then if you ever asked why I kept picking at the scab… I would unashamedly be that human left with no strength and say, “Because it’s there and because I can.” The wound, that is.
If I am cornered, left to deal with this emotion no one dares to call it anything else but anger, then if you ever asked why I couldn’t just forget it and move on… I would with no pride say, “Because it’s there and because I can.” The past, that is.
And if I just let me be that weak foolish human being unable to move forward, pulled back by painful reminders I didn’t know I was supposed to avoid… then let me make my mistakes. Because I am just a human. Because mistakes are there and I can make them.
I don’t hate many people. But because I am just a human today, I hate you. You keep making nothing but the same mistakes. I don’t hate many things either. But because I saw what wasn’t meant for me to see, I hate your mistakes. They keep bringing nothing but pain. (I called them lessons before, those mistakes. But I wasn’t human then.)
If you ever cared enough to ask why the hate now, I would just say, “Because it’s there, and I can choose to either live it or leave it.” The pain, that is.
I have not learned my lessons well, have I?
Maybe I should just walk away.
Posted in Write On, tagged Life on December 9, 2009| Leave a Comment »
“All I have, as a matter of stating the painfully obvious, is one life. I have lived it in a way that no clocks can ever put yesterday back into tomorrow.”
Did I really write that? Oh my, I sure did!
Posted in Sense, tagged Life on December 8, 2009| 1 Comment »
If I could find a picture to manifest the way I feel right now, I would. It would be easier. But I don’t feel like looking for a picture now. No. Not this morning. If I could say it in words, I would type a thousand words more, I assure you I would do that too. But isn’t that what I have been doing?
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It doesn’t get any easier if you choose to read my words with your thoughts, giving them your meanings. Dare you call me a liar when all I write is about myself? Who do you think you are to tell me how to be Enida? Come then… become me for a day. And write the way I write my thoughts, with the words I see my truth through.
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If you are reading this, chances are this is not about you. Please don’t flatter yourself. For those who are reading, those who are reading between the lines, and those who aren’t reading… I am just going to copy and paste what my KaCher wrote on her profile about her writing and her needs to write.
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“I write because I want to, because I feel good doing it, because I can. It doesn’t matter what I write, truth or lies, they all come from a place you wouldn’t know. So if you ever feel at any time that you understand me, save it. You don’t.”
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I repeat:
“… It doesn’t matter what I write, truth or lies, they all come from a place you wouldn’t know.”
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Peace to the world, haaiihhh! 🙂
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Posted in Write On, tagged Lesson, Life on December 1, 2009| Leave a Comment »
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!
Posted in Sense, tagged Did You Know?, Life on November 19, 2009| Leave a Comment »
Justifying to my best friend why I chose to bare my life and its personal details in my writing… I said, “So that people who enjoy talking about me will have an easy access to a reference, Cik Nan. If they have any doubt about a ‘story’, they can always refer to my blog and be anchored by my truth, my version. They can create and have their own addition to their edition. But my truth matters to me. I am, afterall, a reliable source for my stories.”
I have grown wise enough to not deny the fact that people talk. About me, and behind me. Not many will care enough to talk to me about me. People don’t only talk. They judge too. And that is perfectly human. I am not worried. For all I know, I have done that too, against my preference, principle and consent. As none of us is an island, we keep rubbing against each other for lessons, for comfort, for entertainment and sometimes for a challenge!
So if you caught yourself talking about me, do know that I know you’re talking about me. Whichever version, yours or mine, is fine by me. Just make sure the other person you are talking to knows that Enida’s Version is available on Questa e Enida before anybody starts judging a me.
Postlude:
I just learned a new word today:
gavel = a judge’s hammer
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