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Posts Tagged ‘Life’

Silver Bullet Bitten

Posted in Write On, tagged on April 27, 2010| Leave a Comment »

This picture. There was a story that came with it. In fact, there was a story that came with everything I saw, everything I captured with my out-of-date little camera. And I was going to tell you the story right away.

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But then I changed my mind. The way I change my mind everytime a not-so-good thought comes knocking. I don’t open my door to bad thoughts. Not usually. I don’t even ask ‘Who’s there?’

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The truth is, a year ago, if I had let the clouds of pain take me over… there was going to be no such thing as silver lining. Or silver anything. There wasn’t even going to be the silver-like ring on any of my fingers. Forget silver bells.

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I came a long way, as the story did not unfold just a year ago. It had started long before that. And the other truth is, I have been rethinking about it all lately. About how we choose from choices, opportunities and second chances granted to us. About how our choices lead us to where we are today.

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And for me to have been in Calgary in April 2010 despite what happened in April 2009 and August 2008… I have had my silver storms. I had seen months of rain with no sign of rainbows. I had seen clouds with the chance of armageddon. I had lost hope, found it, lost it again and faked one or two (or three).

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The only un-artificial thing left on me is probably my teeth. Even they have been filled with silver and mercury. And even they have not been able to turn me into a silver-tongued Enida. Well, such is life. And questa… è Enida. ¡Ya basta!

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Cloudy With A Chance of Me Having A Ball

Posted in Travel, tagged , on April 27, 2010| 2 Comments »

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Remembering Mom at Mom’s

Posted in Mom, tagged on April 14, 2010| 2 Comments »

Port of Call.

Her battle was lost during the last year of her beautiful life. She lost it. Her memory. She used to collect everything she could collect. She used to keep everything she could keep. Just so she could hang on to everything she could hang on to. So she wouldn’t forget. So she would remember it all.

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And then she forgot it all. She lost it all. She even forgot where she was. All she could hang on to was her name and where she met the love of her life. All she remembered was where she was when she was young and when she was in love.

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She was in the Port of Dickson’s. She was in love.

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And that was the last beach I took her to, on which she walked as though she knew it was her last walk on the beach. I think she knew it. What she didn’t know was where the love of her life had been. It was all gone before she could let it go. And then she let go.

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She left.

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Jolok

Posted in Nostalgia, tagged on March 11, 2010| 4 Comments »

Buah cempedak di luar pagar,
ambil galah tolong jolokkan;
Sayalah budak baru belajar,
kalau salah tolong tunjukkan.

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Leng Chai’s pantun on his Facebook status yesterday sure reminded me of a girl in my class when I was in Grade 5 at the All Saints’ School in Taiping. I can’t recall her name, but I remember her brother. Her kind-hearted brother whom I never met.

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Our class teacher, Miss Khoo Sin Nya, in the first few days of class that year was asking the whole class one by one of our father’s occupation. For her record, of course. And this girl, a painfully quiet girl, was almost in tears when it was her turn. Miss Khoo, not known for her sweet temper, lost her not so sweet temper when this girl (let’s just name her Bibah, okay), when Bibah would not say a word.

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We, the rest of the class, were waiting confusingly patiently that it was probably the quietest the class had ever been. The suspense was just too much to bear. I had to close my eyes for the fear that Miss Khoo would bang her table with the giant blackboard ruler (with a handle).  Though I knew I wouldn’t jump and start melatah like my Toksu… I was very very nervous on behalf of Bibah.

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For thunder’s sake, just answer the teacher lah Bibah, begged I, in the deafening silence. The question was, ‘What does your father do?’ What was so hard about it? I dared to bet that everyone was dying to know what Bibah’s father’s occupation was. And what was so secret about it. Bibah’s old man could not have been a spy, could he? After all, this was Taiping in the early 80’s. Or was he a… errrr, hmmmm. Eeeeshhhhh! Enida! Don’t! I slapped myself on one cheek.

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Silence.

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Suspense.

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And then…

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“Jolok buah.“

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More silence.

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I remember the faces looking at Miss Khoo, to find Miss Khoo looking back at Bibah. And she was looking at us all in one swipe.

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“Jolok buah? Apa buah? Buah klapa ka, buah nangkak ka, buah dooriyen ka?“

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“Buah kelapa sawit, teacher,” Bibah was trembling in what sounded like a relief that she was understood. And she wasn’t laughed at.

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“Cakap laaa baba you Peladaaaanggg! Aiiiyohhh! Itu pun tatau ka?“

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For the first time I saw Bibah’s sweet smile. I think the whole class smiled with her.

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“Tapi…“

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Bibah’s tapi sent the whole class into another swing of nerve-wrecking silence. Miss Khoo looked up from her record book and looked at Bibah with the biggest eyes possible probably was ready to attack Bibah for not telling the whole truth.

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“Tapi saya duduk dengan abang saya, baba saya sudah tua. Abang saya askar, teacher. Dia tolong jaga saya dengan adik-adik saya. Mak saya dah meninggal.“

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Bibah didn’t cry.

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But I know someone who did.

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Glossary for Neil and Jimmy:

jolok = poke

buah = fruit

apa = what

klapa/kelapa = coconut

nangka = jackfruit

dooriyen = durian

kelapa sawit = palm

cakap = say/tell

peladang = farmer

tapi = but

“Tapi saya duduk dengan abang saya, baba saya sudah tua. Abang saya askar, teacher. Dia tolong jaga saya dengan adik-adik saya. Mak saya dah meninggal.” =

“But I live with my elder brother, my father is old. My brother serves in the army, teacher. He (brother) helps taking care of me and my younger siblings. My mother has passed away.”

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Madame de Maintenon

Posted in Sense, tagged on February 25, 2010| Leave a Comment »

It has been a maintenance month, this February.

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The relationship maintenance job was done on the 14th with a 24-hour getaway at the Radisson Slavyanskaya by the river. Nice! I finally could hear my voice coming out of my mouth in a quiet conversation with Rahul,  when he took his Anjali out for Valentine’s rrrrromantic dinner at Maharaja. Usually I just do lip sync for me Monchies. Well, we do do the monthly maintenance on every 19th. But nothing as maintaining as overnighting. Ehem!

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The last 2 weeks have been a dental maintenance session as well.  Cleaning,  whitening, filling, filling-replacement, crowning, root-canal. No dentures yet, thanks to Sensodyne. Speaking of filling-replacement, I think it’s also time to update my will. I should leave a specific instructions to whomever survive me of what to do with my teeth. No matter how much surviving me bites.

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By now I should have enough porcelain filled in my molars for my survivors to make a tea set with. And by the time I am 75, if long lives the queen, I shall have enough porcelain to make a dinnerware set for each child of mine. As it is, my dentist bill is already equivalent to a set of Silver Palace all inclusive for me Monchies and me Conchies (Monchies’ cousins).

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In case you have no experience having cavities and having your teeth filled: dentists these days use porcelain (and many other aesthetic materials) instead of amalgam alloy (mercury or silver).

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It has also been a month of maintaining my running activity which I had been running away real far and fast from. On good days (though not very many, due to February being the shortest month this year), I can run 10km in my 100m² bedroom in a breeze. On bad days I can run 100km non-stop in my size 9 Ushanka-capped head in 10 split seconds. And that 10 split seconds have to be split and spilled into 3m³ of diet juice called Axe-Cues Me.

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Now that I have maintained blogging, posting at least 3 entries per week… I should go spank my maintained round behind, put on my 3-year-old runners that still maintain their brand-new look, and do some maintenance job on my weight. Hey, wait a minute… I have an article to edit, don’t I? Yeah, that Super Lynx article for Berita Harian from Mr. Maintain Delicious Heli Pilot old friend of mine.

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I am gone running… away from running.

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The Departure of An Arrival

Posted in Sense, tagged , on February 22, 2010| Leave a Comment »

This time, it’s not words that fail me. It’s my sorrow. For everytime I say something, or write something about the loss that Bibik went through, I feel too much. I feel my own words as I don’t think I can come close to understanding how it feels to wait for someone who goes away before she arrives. It wasn’t the wait that was long enough. It was an arrival that wasn’t.

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I will call Bibik later today if words would say it and if thoughts would count.

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Pokrovsky Boulevard #9

Posted in Pokrovsky Boulevard, tagged 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!

 

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Pokrovsky Boulevard #28

Posted in Pokrovsky Boulevard, tagged on January 14, 2010| 3 Comments »

 

The pregnancy news just made my year.
Come what may, I am smiling ear to ear.

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Laksa-Love For 2010

Posted in Makan-Makan, tagged , 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!

 

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Hacks

Posted in Write On, tagged , 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!

 

С новым годом! [S Novym Godom!]
Happy New Year to Miss Mean Biker and all my mean bikers traveling the world.

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