Eid & Eat

It was Thursday night, my hubby was still in a meeting downtown, while I had to entertain a neighbor who came to my house. I was supposed to be the listener, when she needed someone to dump her mid-life crisis. So I did, patiently. I gathered all her sad stories on one side of my Random-Access-Memory, to be erased upon her leaving. She left, when my hubby walked in. Sad stories vanished through the darkness of eve.

It was 'Raya' eve, the night of Eid. Suddenly we realized that we wouldn't have anything to serve should any visitors come on the 'Raya' day. The good thing about living in Kuala Lumpur, business-minded people know when to make extra money, targetting such last minute group of people like us. Therefore, they stayed up late to after midnight selling the Eid's necessities. Off we went searching for 'lemang'(Pronounced as lehr-mung), Malaysian famous glutenous rice cooked in bamboo, layered with Banana leaves. It was past midnight. Dark and quiet.

At the corner of one area, we saw an open fire.

We didnt bother to call a fire truck. Instead, we joined the jamboree, waited patiently for our 'lemang'. The stall owner informed that, we had to wait for the next phase, as the earlier batches were sold out. We decided to drive around appreciating KL by night.

STOP!! Durian. Couldn't stand the smell? Fine. Stay in the car. It was late, but for Nadia and I, never too late to eat the spiky King of Fruits. No seat? No problem. Squat. Who would recognise you at night?

The Durian was EXCELLENT!. RM5/pc (USD1.50)

Half an hour, we were back at the Lemang stall, but still needed to wait a little longer. Good business. Over 10K sticks sold this time. The happy owner was kind enough to explain to my hubby on the cooking process. Interesting, but no thanks, as I could have been grilled to well done if I listen longer, as the heat was unbearable, that I left my hubby suffered attending to his elaboration.

RM10(USD2.40) per stick of 16in in length, with 1.2in in diameter. cost us RM50 for 5pc.

Next, off we went, looking for the associating dish, 'Rendang', meat, cooked in heavy coconut milk and pounded desiccated coconut. Very nice coconutty taste.

An area called Taman Tun (Tun Dr. Ismail),about 15 minutes drive towards downtown, would be the first place we could think of where for years it had been the centre of 'Ketupat' (rice stuffed in square shaped woven young coconut leaves, and boiled for long hours),'Lemang' and 'Rendang' on every Raya eve. Merry by the road side, I wished we could stay a little longer, but our eyes were too heavy.

We reached home with the foods at almost 1.30am, sleepy. Raya could wait till the next day, but not the temptation, so, we ate some of them before going to bed.

Warning:Do not practice this.

Eid day, following the tradition, we all went to the nearby mosque for morning prayers. Quite a lot of people.

Right after prayers, we visited my inlaw's for big breakfast. Ate, chatted, joked, laughed.

2 hours later, lunch time. Few relatives came.

Eating continued. Chatting uninterrupted, Jokes and laughter proceeded, clutching further towards a closer family ties.

Then we left home to rest.

Festival Of Sacrifice 'Eid Ul-Adha'

Celebrated as a second Eid for this year, 'Hari Raya Qurban' fell on Friday the 27Nov 2009. Its an occasion to commemorate Ibrahim's (Peace be upon him) willingness to sacrifice his beloved son, Ismael(PBUH), as an act of obedience to Allah, which later Allah changed His order for the Prophet to slaughter an animal ('Illama' then), instead. Like other countries, Malaysian Muslims observe this special day with morning prayers at the mosque and followed by visiting family and friends, handshaking, hugging and forgiving each other and of course, food fiesta will not be excluded. Should sacrificial animal to be offered, that would take place right after the morning prayers. This year however, the Eid coincided with Friday prayers. Hence, the slaughtering-in-the-name-of-God event at my area, had to be moved to the next day, just a convenient day for my family to witness and learn how the occasion was performed in our new neighborhood. I was among the onlookers, who at first, peeping in between legs, avoiding the sight of oozing blood, then later, gusty moved forward for a closer look. 8 cows were sacrificed on that day. "Do not pity..do not pity...." I self-whispered, for the practice was executed in the name of God and for the sake of the porverty-strickens. The honor comes truly from piety(not pity) of heart, took place at the mosque, located about 3 minutes walk from my house. But, lazy bumps still drove there. Guess who. Slaughtering, butchering, cooking, and distributing, all were done by voluntaries. For the first time my hubby slashed a thick chunk of meat, for the first time, my son, Adri, touched a 4-legged animal flesh, fresh and warm and for the first time I got to know those nice ladies, who were religious to my perception. "Do you work?" "Where do you live?" were among the FAQs. We were happy to help and to have met new friends. What a great experience. The men did the cutting and washing, while the ladies did the cooking. Almost every volunteer got their portion of meat. At first, I refused to accept it, as I thought it should be given to the needy. I took it anyway, just because... There were still HUGE! mount of flesh yet to be distributed when we left, while everyone had enough, to take home. More givers compared to receivers? That sounds like Doomsday is just around the corner, doesnt it? Time to repent, I reminded myself. Along the way back I could see many carrying portion of meat in hand. Some must have been waiting long for this Eid to afford a special meal other than eggs, I thought, feeling guilty having a portion with me. Within an hour upon reaching home, I was already busy cooking meat curry, which I later distributed to few lucky picked neighbors, also to my sister-inlaw, Diana, who live nearby and to my brother, Asri who happened to stopby. Never mind the taste of my cooking, I felt GOOD for the day.

To my surprise

I remember a teacher told me that most children have a different character when they are at school. I tried not to believe that. Today, I was checking many folders in my PC, cleaning up all the unwanted ones, as I know my kids had been playing hide-and-seek with me using my PC. To my surprise, I found these photos of My daughter, Nadia playing guitar for the group of classmates on the stage. Emm..... quiet girl huh... Firstly, she used my PC without my knowledge. Secondly, she is not as reserve as I thought. So, what the teacher said is right. Aha!.. time to do more investigations.

Sigh.....

People died young,
companies closed down,
couple getting towards separation.
These are the few regretting news I've been hearing lately. The most sadden, I know these people.

Fine, lets leave the dying part to God. He knows what He is doing. As a human being, we should not go against faith. Talking about companies going out of business.... why do the business without knowing how to manage expenses? Why not do study and observation before embarking in the business?

People spend more than what they are suppose to, and they let their financial goes uncontrolled. If only they stayed with simple life, like Lim Goh Tong, they could have done it well.

I read about Lim Goh Tong, a Chinese Malaysian successful businessman, the owner of Genting Highland gambling parlor. When he became filty rich, he didn't boast and didn't switch to expensive car. He started with nothing but being good to others, being honest and started his construction business by buying a 2nd hand tractor and renting it to contractors then. He made it to a successful building developer later. Being rich and successful he still spent quality time with his wife and children. He said, he couldn't have done it without his wife's support. How I wished every successful man would think this way.

A wife is the core of every successful business and family happiness. Sometimes its better to go separate ways if both could not get along for some apparent reason, but I don't understand why she unreasonably left behind with the children when the husband is reaching prosperous income. Its sad to see the children, longing for a happy family like others. Its a sorrow to note their gloomy face when they look at their friend's mom and dad, so lovingly , joke and laugh with their children, like they used to.
Oh God, please bring the father back to them and leave these pitiful children out of their torment. Amen....

UPSR is out

Today, 6th Graders result is out. UPSR exam, as how it is referred to in Malaysia. Adri got what he deserved for not taking education seriously. He chose playing football instead of studying.... He played computer game when his parents were not around..... He kept falling asleep when being forced to read. Boys will be boys. What more can I say? Today, receiving his exam result, he created his own dissatisfaction for not getting straight A's, as he got B's in two of his subjects. He was sad that his favorite subject, Science happened to be one of the B's. Having seated next to a parent whose child scored all A's, today, of course I wished for my son to excel similar flying colors result too, somehow, recalling those days during my time, I only used 2 terms, 'Pass' or 'fail', while the kids now are talking about 'A' or 'not-A'. So, to me 3A's and 2B's is excellent (to my standard.. he..he..). He was able to score 3A's and 2B's even when he did not pay much attention to his study. On the other side of my mind, I wonder if he is gifted, or,has the level of academic gone down. Whatever it is, I would like to think positively that my son is a smart boy. And one word for him... 'No more freedom by next year, my boy" OK, 1 down, another 1 to go. Nadia is now in a midst of SPM exam, a hurdle before entering college. Wish her luck. Phew! so, this is how my parents felt then. What goes around, comes around.

What an experience

1st scenario Way back in 1990, I was involved in the project computerizing one of the library at a prestigious local university. Most of the library staff were still struggling to understand the IT terminologies , as computer were not widely use in the library then. I got someone to sit in front of the computer screen and asked her to login. She did. I told her to input data to the specific field. She did. (There wasnt any terminology called 'mouse' then, that position of cursor was maneuvered using arrow key). 1st system module completed. Pointing at the screen I said, "ok, you can get out from here". Blushed, the poor lady stood up and walked towards the door to leave the room. I called her back to her seat to continue to the next module. From then on, I started using the term 'exit', instead.

2nd scenario Windows was not born then. I was standing in front of the class, giving instruction to type something to the system then instructed my class to press 'enter' key to execute the command. An elderly man complained that his computer was displaying gibberish.############## I came to him and instructed him to lift his finger off from pressing the 'enter' key. The gibberish stopped.


3rd scenario It was PC with windows and mouse era. "ok class, to access the system, use the mouse and click on this icon", I said while pointing at the icon, projected to the screen. Far at the back seat, I heard a bit of commotion from the 2 ladies who shared PC. Both seemed to have difficulty finding the icon. I noticed, she was lifting the mouse high, pointing it to the icon on the screen, like a remote control. I approached and showed them the correct way of using mouse.

4th scenario It was full moon. Beautiful sky in Terengganu. On the next day I conducted course to librarian. This lady kept on giggling while looking at the screen. From giggling to laughing. At first I watched and smiled. At last, I couldn't help joining her laughter and was about to check what was so funny on her screen. Her colleague stopped me and whispered "She is crazy and get worsen during full moon". I stunned. It caused me goose bump.

Thank you God

It was time to pay credit cards. At 9:40pm, just an hour after my dinner, which was half hour upon reaching home from work, I drove to the bank about 7km from my house. That's considered 'close' to KL standard and 9:40pm is still very early to life in this city. I couldn't find a parking, so pretended as one, I parked at a special lot for Gold Member.

The place is called Metropolitan Square. I noticed a long queue to each Citibank cash machine.

"They have so much money", I thought.

Reluctantly, I let the machine gripped my money and GONE! split seconds. Ouch! but I felt the relief of settling part of my debts. City life and credit card are first cousins.

Upon walking out of the bank with pain in the heart, I decided to take a sip at an affordable place, the Indian restaurant, next door. In Malaysia, any Indian restaurant is called 'mamak restaurant'. The 'mamak restaurant' was quite empty, but not the club , 2 doors away. The music at the club was loud, but entertaining with substance of laughter from those people. They probably regulars.

"These people have so much money", I thought.

I observed the area around me. Those high rise buildings located in a higher rank area called Damansara Perdana, are almost 100% occupied. 'Perdana' means prime. Just by the name of the area, you could tell the level of its standard. I wondered where those many people got so much money to afford them. How I wish......

At almost 10:15pm, I was on my way back. I noticed expensive cars were driven every where. I passed by The Curve, one of the classy shopping area, where you will find everything you need, but quite on a high price. It was closing hour and many people were walking out carrying shopping bags.

"These people have so much money", I thought again.

While driving, I received a text message (sms) from a rich friend of mine, complaining about her agony.

I knew her and her husband since they were not as rich. Now that they both driving expensive cars, holding a few properties, live in a huge bungalow complete with pool (my kids' dream house) and the youngest of their 6 children is reaching teens, her hubby found himself another bed mate. The most hurting part was, she learned about the shocking news when her step child was already few months old. She has my sympathy, but there is nothing much I could do. My poor friend.

I reached my small terrace home, appreciating my simple life, blessed with a loving and caring husband and my beautiful children.

Ladies stay in color

Life is full or colors. How you play you role as artist portrays the quality of the end result. But being married for many years, whats the point of maintaining prettiness? You have your children as assurance of marriage stability. Your hubby is getting older too. So why the waste spending for beauty continuance?

Well ladies, stop thinking that way. Temptation is always there in a man. What attracted them to you is what they are expecting to see until today. Regardless of age.

You need to maintain your color. I've read 'Why men love bitches'. A bitch keeps herself sexy and pretty to all men. She doesn't let her men take control of her life when it comes to beauty matters. If her men couldn't make it to the date, she doesn't keep herself crying in her room longing, like a dog waiting for her master. Instead she would set another plan for herself. That keeps those not-so-smart men competing to get her. Oh no no.. don't be a bitch. But yes, be a bitch to your husband.

Back to what colors could do to women. To add a little more fun to our weekend, we hired a makeup artist, Naza, to do a little job. Lesson: How to apply make-up.

Every girl wants to stay pretty and there is a girl in every women.

After being persuaded, my mother-inlaw was supporting enough to join the crowd.

Although might be hurting to a girl's delicate skin, but little Aleia wouldn't let her mother gets prettier than her.
The 4 hours session plus potluck went well. Applying makeup is not as simple as I thought, especially when I am not a kind that apply make-up everyday. You need to know the right color for your skin, the right color for day use, dinner use, makeup for photo session etc, etc. It was fun, although I enjoyed the food more.

Unlike painting on canvas, a slight mistake of color tone and color combination could do wonders to the look. At the end of the session...


TARRA...!!!!

A bit about me

I am not a fighter I am a lover. Something must be wrong with kids though. Most dislike me, and running away from me, even though I love them. Why..? Minus the screaming part, I enjoyed the looks on those crying faces. So, I made them cry.

Question answered. I love the people around me. I forgive people easily even if I sensed an insincerity apology. As a human being, I do get mad sometimes, somehow, my metabolic process does me a soul detoxification every night, as I never let anger transformed to hatred, I do self forgiveness and forgive others before I go to bed. My wish is to be a philanthropist, but I am not even close to the 'wannabe'. So, I use the sound-alike 'Philantropist-wannabe'. That explains why I opted for the wrong spelling of PHILANTHROPIST. You got what I mean? http://philantropist-wannabe.blogspot.com/ I don't watch TV that often, because the news is very depressing nowadays. I rather eat or read book or cook or do some paintings during my free time, and tried not to enhance my shopping skills. BTW, when it comes to economic matters, do not apply 'come what may'. Yeah...yeah.. I know how boring it sounds. I am not THAT feminine to love Roses, somehow there is something about this Genus Rosa that I like to draw them. Perhaps, I could find them a buyer someday and donate the money to the orphanage. (Me, thinking aloud again) Base on positive thinking, hey.., I did wall painting too. I did it when my hubby was not around. Lesson to learn..."Live happy life, avoid disagreement!. "

Nope, I am not a painter nor am I an artist. I just love anything that is nice to see, touch, sense, taste and feel. Nice to know you too...