Day Out with the Sunshine Gang

Bapak had to go for a checkup at Alexandra Hospital, and I managed to persuade CA to take a half-day off yesterday. So we packed the brood for a day out. We had planned to go to Sentosa at first, but since I have arranged to meet my cousin in Woodlands in the evening, we labak-ed at the club instead. While waiting for Bapak to get his stuff done, we had lunch at the famous Everton Boneless Chicken Rice joint at Queenstown. Waaaaa...sedap sehh! I marveled at the skills of the masterchef at removing the bones out of the sharp end of the wings. The chilli sauce, sap fan hou sek wor!!! Senang cakap, New Hawa pun kalah! Rex pun tergugat! But the only snag is that the place is so jammed packed at lunch hour, you'd be served just when you are on the verge of upturning the table. What made it harder was the fact that the neighbouring stall sold really exotic Chinese fare, Peking duck, a smorgasbord of cured meatstuff, char siew and get this, live frogs! There was a big cage of those big fat slimy amphibians a few steps from our table, singing some off-key number a capella. Gosh! my mom would probably freak out and swear off Singapore altogether if she sees this. Aishah on the other hand was making conversations with them. Ewww...

After lunch, Bapak was still not done, so we headed to Ikea for the free coffee and a little dessert. Packed some Swedish ginger biscuits, toffee lollies and, whooops, truffles. Ok, ok, not for me lah, I am a GI Jane whaaaaat? I am meeting my Cape Malay foster parents, Bapak Ismail Petersen and Ibu Hawa tonight, so perhaps they might like them munchies. Depa tak nak pun takpa...Heh heh. Will blog about them soon.

Later, we picked my inlaws' up from the hospital and headed towards Seletar Air Base, my favourite place in Singapore. It kinda reminds me of Butterworth, Penang. I really love it there. Maybe someday I'd be lucky enough to live in a single storey pre-Merdeka bungalows, who knows eh? The streets there are named after various locations in London. The tiny roundabout is called the Picadilly Circus, there's Edgware Road, Baker Street etc etc. If you like period movies, you'd definitely like Seletar.

Aishah and Abah ad a great time splashing about in the pool. Mak shared with me stories of the times when she used to be an Army Sargeant, and tales of her childhood. I really treasure moments like this. Bapak kept to himself at one corner, his legs are giving him problems lately. Poor Bapak. I hope he enjoyed getting some fresh air while watching CA relive his youth. Mak says that Bapak was the one who taught everyone how to swim. Now CA is teaching our daughter. Definite Kodak moment this one.

Later we headed to(panjang story lagi ni, ni bukan atenahism dah ni, ni nazrahism) Sembawang Satay Club for dinner since my cousin is still stuck in the jam at the checkpoint. Ya ampun, saya tak rekemen makan kat sini. Nuff said.

After settling my mom's orders with my cousin, we headed home. Lepak! Penat! Flat! Kondem!Pancit! But definitely worthwhile because I was in the company of the people I love. Will do this again soon.

Oh by the way, Ayu is leaving for SF today, she will be meeting up with Ely this weekend! We'll see how that turns out. Word is ,Ayu is making Laksa Penang, she is bringing assam keping all the way from home.

Tomorrow CA's site is closed for the Moon Cake Festival. Yeay! We will go out again!

I got a box of really huge Raffles Town Club mooncakes in the kitchen yet I do not know if they are halaal. Does anybody know? Well, I don't really like eggwashed cakes anyway...and the yolky one are not so sedap pun...Sour grape!

Boisterous Blahniks

A girl can dream big dreams eh?

Life is like wearing shoes. Some shoes you wear everyday, some shoes you keep for years and years waiting for the right occasion to wear them. Some shoes you are willing to forget, some shoes you refuse to throw away. Some shoes fit well, some bite you. Some shoes you buy just because. Some shoes are simply shoes that protect your feet and take you places.

I would not say my upper secondary school stint at MRSM Beseri was anything I look back with fondness except the fact that that is where I found my true calling, which was everything that did not require Additional Maths and Science subjects. I was an arty farty angsty feminist stuck in a junior science college popularly known as Serambi Mekah where heads had to be bowed 90 degrees to the floor just so that boys and girls could not main mata. Tough luck for a girl who just came out of a convent. I guess the fun bit was not what and how I did in class, where I slept through most of the classes,possibly due to low blood sugar, hey, Perlis was very HOT and the food was not all that good. Luckily for me, overzealous testestorone enjoyed leaving peanut butter jars under my desk for my snacking pleasure.

I was already actively writing chronicles of my adventures in a journal and managed to persuade an abang senior to write with me in a freewriting experiment. Ok, ok this guy thought I was the love of his life and we figured that if we were to write letters in a book and leave it under our desks, it would be inconspicuous. What do I know about love at 16. I just loved to write. Psst..psst, at the time I already had a off again-on again childhood sweetheart who wrote to me regularly from Southampton that there was always mail for me almost everytime I checked. And how I loved stamps from the UK. And he sent me chocolates too. He is now a good friend, happily married with a kid, and still a computer geek. I met the abang senior not too long ago at One Utama, he's married with kids, looking every bit like a bookish mathematician. And don't let me start on how many geeks I have dated, but decided to marry a rocker instead. But then he is a closet geek. Heh. And so am I. Perfect match upstairs. Alhamdulillah.

Oh, I digress.

Beseri had this weird MCP thing going on that girls and boys could not mingle socially without being thrashed at the surau if not under the hot sun. Suffice to say, I was royally miffed by the fact that we were treated like second class, so low that some holier-than-thou guys had to cover their faces with a book to avoid that sinful gaze when talking to you. We always got the bad seats eventhough we were called pelajar puteri, my glorious derriere! The happening tasks of deejaying, emceeing and stage performances were not privileges enjoyed by the girls.

I grabbed the opportunity to make a difference by collaborating with the English Department and organised a concert commemorating Earth Day( guess who became the lyrical Mother Earth). We had girls and boys masked and dressed androgynously just so that we would not tick the surau people. Yet I heard of mass solat hajat protesting our activities and a toilet bowl bombing when the show was going on. I didn't think, we did anything wrong , I still don't,but there were so many confused and constipated back passages then, who later became more notorious after we left school. Bah!

We also had a lil Speaker's Corner and by then I had already developed a proximity syndrome with the microphone, there were more and more girls involved. I was librarian then, in charged of newpaper clippings. And I loved it. I spent a lot of time there. Because I was anal about books and things arranged a certain way, some people nicknamed me Mama Bosan.

I had two other nicknames, P-Nut and Datin. The former is attributed to the fact that I love peanut butter(the food really sucked big time, ok? Save for the nasi lemak, after prep. Sadly, the guy who used to sell it to us suddenly expired recently) and the latter is between my larger than life attitude back then or it has to be because of the hand-me-down Datinesque baju kurung I wore. I was not very big on baju kurung back then, so I had too few and Mak let me use hers.

My father's friend, Hj Mat Din and family was my foster family with whom I spent weekends when it was inconvenient to go back to KL. They welcomed me in their massive home in Kampung Salang like one of their own, I feel that I am truly blessed.I first learnt how to make roast chicken there from Nicole Maree Mackay, a Kiwi who was an exchange student staying with my foster family. I remember rides on the maroon Jaguar which ferried me back to the place overlooking Bukit Gondol, feeling a little like a princess in the back seat.

I probably sucked academically, but it was there I professed a lifetime love for Edward de Bono and that has made me the person that I am today. The shoes I wore at MRSM Beseri were kept in the far end of my cabinet, because there were things I would like to forget. I would like to think I have moved on, but there are two teachers whose brains were in between their legs I really do not wish to meet again. Ever. And they are the very reasons why I would not send any of my children to boarding schools.

Above all, I cherish most about Beseri is the friends I gained, yet due to my own negligence, I have lost contact with them. Recently a guy from my prep (homework and revision time) gang found my blog, and that led to a visit from a long lost sister from my homeroom. Welcome to my blog Paroe and Aida. Incidently, they are the bloodline of our alumni, I look forward to reuniting with old friends again. I am glad my old shoes decided to see the light of day.

P.S: Positive blogging lagi Kakteh.

A Day at the Beach

I wanna build Ma a BIG castle

And a tall tower for her to skodeng Malaysia

So after my Saturday episode of muncung, we started Sunday morning with high hopes. So much for promises of Egg Benedict at Starbucks first thing in the morning, CA just had to touch the fish tank lah. First it was a noisy pump, and then, there were air bubbles in the water and then, kaplonk!! Banjir, saltwater all over my living room. Sigh. I was posing another muncung yet again. Luckily, Ely was there to pacify my nerves via YM. A little after noon, oooh a hungry man is an angry man, CA finally got the fishtank under control.

Aishah was already throwing tantrums, insisting that she would not go out unless it's the beach. Makeup on my previously matte face was getting a bit shiny, and my tummy was playing a maniacal symphony much akin to a Slayer piece. I was resigned, mana-mana pun bolehlah, tak kuasa gua!

He would not let up, so just I told him I wanted to go somewhere I could sit down and read the book Mak gave me, Grasshopper by B.Vine, and finally succumbing to the Da Vinci's Code bandwagon. So he packed some Padang food from Selera Bundo, and we headed to the East Coast beach semasa matahari tegak di atas kepala. We found a shady spot, at one BBQ pit and hentam our tapau-ed brunch. We were soon joined by another young family who were obviously on a special diet. The parents had cabbages, carrots and tomatoes while the kids had noodles and seaweed soup. The young boy looked at our lavish spread of ayam sambal hijau, rendang daging, bergedil, lemak pucuk ubi, sambal belacan and sambal goreng and had a longing look on his face. Nak pelawa, mak dia bawak dia lari pulak. Kesian. Either they have serious allergies to food stuff, or they weren't eating real food for religous reasons. They could not be on a slimming diet as they were all skin and bones.

After lunch, we secured another shady spot under a tree to lay our mat, and chose another one where Aishah could build sandcastles. It was really sunny but luckily I had one of those F1 giant umbrellas, that worked as a parasol for my girl.Her hat was not giving her much sun protection. I am a puteri lilin wuss.

I had Super Big Gulp iced lemon tea, peanuts, Twisties and CA on my lap while I read my stuff. Sigh. Finally, some quality time for the two of us. A picture perfect afternoon.

Baru nak relax, a group of people invaded our temporary hideout by spreading a large mat 4 times the size of our tikar jerami and totally ignored the fact that they were really cramping our space. How rude.But then it is the weekend, and we have to share every bit of Singapore with everybody. I was not annoyed until they started playing out-of-tune hippy songs and making a whole lot of ruckus over the guitar player from Hell. Aiyoh!

Turned out it was some kind of a family gathering. Gathering of noisemakers and hooligans I should say. Not only the little kids were making so much noise, one of them stomped all over the castle that Aishah had built and kicked sand on CA and Aishah's face. I glared at the supervising parent, he only told that little rascal a lame, "Be careful".

To which spunky Aishah replied, "Stupid boy!"

I did not teach her that, I swear.

We left soon after, as things were getting strangely rowdier, and it did not help that we were outnumbered by this big group. I guess with limited space to lepak, one cannot main chop-chop tempat. As we approached the parking lot, the sky turned grey, we smiled conspiratorially at the clouds.

I needed to stock up dairy products for the larder so we headed to Parkway. Just outside Giant was this place, Pastamania that sells Vittoria coffee, so we singgah sekejap, java junkie that we are, and CA surprised me with a small serving of Italian Tiramisu. Belum sempat ku menjamahnya, bak seekor helang, Aishah menyambar tiramisuku tanpa segan silu. I managed to get a spoonful of it. And it was gooooood.

After Giant, we headed home and freshen up. No TV, no internet, no books, no touching the fishtank, just the 3 of us on our kingsized bed. Lights were off by 10. Woke up feeling very refreshed, and so in the mood for housework. Hope to keep this up.

So that was my Sunday. How was yours?