Going Nuts

I think I'm literally going nuts. I'm sick of staying at home, caring for a kid who all of a sudden does not want to eat everything/anything we offer him, sick of these four walls and looking at the maid who never does anything right, sick of people telling me that we shouldn't bring Gib to public places coz that's why he got sick and we better be careful coz H1N1's rampant nowadays, sick of not knowing how to help Gib get rid of his access energy, sick of looking at my stupidly swollen foot that's costing a bomb to treat at that expensively stupid podiatrist, sick of trying to reason out with a 2.5-year old kid who's restless and always up to some thing or the other, sick of fearing of being sick, sick of being sick. I am so sick of everything.

And yes, who are we to say that we are sick of everything because there are always so many blessings given by the Almighty, and we should think of those and not those things that make us sick...?

I'm even sick of my own voices in my own head telling me not to be sick because that's just a really ungrateful thing to do when it's obvious God's blessed us with so many things although we lose sight of all those good things amongst the sickening things in life right now. And I'm sick of people telling me I shouldn't be feeling sick.

Am I making sense yet? Yes I know I'm not.

You know in Nemo that black fish, Gill, told Nemo; "Fish aren't made to live in a box, kid. It does things to you."

That's what humans are like too.

Humans aren't meant to be cooped up. It does things to you.

Like it makes me lose sight of the wonderful, great toddler that God's blessed me with. And it's made me lose sight of the fact that we are blessed to be able to afford a maid, because all I can see now is how hopeless this maid of mine is, and how she causes more headache than help. It's made me lose sight of so many things.

Maybe I need a holiday away from life.

Owning Up

Was in Taman Megah today to get the suspected-fractured-foot x-ray-ed, and decided to park at the opened-air carpark behind the Sime Darby Health Centre in Tmn Megah. No improper parking for me, sirree, don't want no parking tickets.

Forty minutes later, Mom and I came back to my good ol' second-hand bright blue Avanza which I'd bought with my own sweat money from the good ol' working days in Melbourne, to find the Avanza's bum having been bumped by some car reversing out of its spot. Or whatever.

Yeah I could take a picture of it and post it up here. But I think looking at the picture would make me pi$$ed off somehow. It isn't so bad to warrant cursings and crying on my behalf (although Mom did utter colourful curse-phrases all the way home.. now, how come she wonders where I get my temper from?) because .. well, a car is just a car, right? And the car still works fine. And the dent + scratches aren't soo chronic that they can be seen from more than 20 metres away (err.. 10 metres away still can see lah, methinks). And.. well, there is nothing I can do at this point anyway, so I'm just going to take it as fated by God, as a test unto me.

You know that prayer of serenity they put on bookmarks?

It goes something like this:

"May God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And the wisdom to know the difference."

I like that one. It does have a lot of truth in it, doesn't it?

But let me just say one thing, guys.

If, lets just say, IF and IF any one of you out there accidentally bump into another person's car (especially a parked car, with its owner utterly oblivious to what's happening to his/her vehicle!)... do have the courage and courtesy to own up to it and do the right thing. Because.. well..

Because it's just the right thing to do.

The other party may diss you and hiss at you, but you can live with yourself knowing that you simply did the right thing. You didn't run, you didn't hide. You owned up. And that is just... SO right.

Thank You Mr. Policemen

Our friend Tam was hanging out at our house earlier tonight and left not five minutes ago. It's always nice to have company, BUT....

I got so nervous tonight, I sweated buckets!!!!

I was busy gossipping with Tam when we heard loud crashing sounds on the porsh outside the house. We both rushed to the windows and saw half-a-red brick laying on the floor outside the window. The other half of the brick was laying outside the front door. I woke H up and told him that someone was throwing bricks at our house and then we called the Damansara Utama Police Station. Tam needed to get home and we didn't want to open the doors to a possible situation where there could be invaders in hiding, waiting to ambush us once the doors were opened. Hey, call me paranoid, but doesn't that happen fairly often in good ol' Malaysia?

Talk about a pleasant surprise; the coppers arrived within 5 to 10 minutes! Definitely under 10 minutes. Now that's public service.

They kept their siren lights going (minus the sound of course) and that attracted a number of neighbours to their doors for peakings. Surprising, the number of Malaysians still up at 2 a.m. There were two cops, one even armed with an M16. They took out their C.S.I.-like neon flashlights and circled around the house to make sure there was noone hiding in possible nooks and crannies.

We actually apologised for calling them over the very small matter of having bricks thrown into our car porsh, but they gravely told us that one can never be too careful nowadays with the rising criminal statistics. They both assured us that we did the right thing to call them because, yes, invaders could just ambush upon you at anytime. Don't ever think you're invincible in your own home, folks.

Once the policemen left, H and I sat like statues for a while in our living room while this realisation dawned upon us; noone is really entirely safe in their own homes. One has to be constantly aware of the dangers lurking in our societies, even when one feels falsely safe and secured in one own's home.

The bricks barely missed our cars. I've got a feeling that they were aiming for our cars but missed. Alhamdulillah. God protected us tonight.

And may Allah bless the coppers for their kindness and thoroughness, and guide them to provide their best for us. Because we do need watchmen in our society, and although I've never been a big fan of the Malaysian Police Force (ohhh yeahh... don't get me started on my lack of trust in the authorities.. I have trust issues, remember?) I must say that tonight they were there for us at the right time, and with the right words.

So thanks, Mister Policemen.

All Grown Up

When I first got to know H back in 1996 (we'd just finished SPM back then), my eldest nephew Shazwan was turning one year old. The first time I invited H to come over to meet-the-parents (my parents!), it was for Shazwan's first birthday bash. We were 17 and Shazwan had just learned to talk. He was a quick-talker, I tell ya. At one year old he was asking questions like a two year old. He listened to stories and repeated them to other people. When in restaurants, he would order his own food ("Nasi goreng satu, milo ais satu!") much to the amusements of waiters/waitresses. He was such a cute kid who was a real joy to be with.

And like all kids, he grew up.

Now he is 13 years old, a smart-talker who says the most shocking things which would cause his grandma to go "Astaghfirullah!!".. like that time last month when he said that one day when he's got a girlfriend, he'd want to go for a road trip to Genting so that they can have a date up there. Pffft. Ideas a teenager gets from peers. And just like how my parents flailed and fainted every once in a while when dealing with us in our teenage years, sister and BIL are going through the same exact situation. Karma is a funny thing, yeah?

H used to spend hours playing wrestling with Shazwan. H was the uncle that Shazwan used to follow around, and surprisingly still does now (sometimes). Now H is Shazwan's main confidante in the family, and somewhat his role model. H isn't too comfortable with the idea, but one must try to live up to a child's expectations sometimes.

Standing at 5 feet 5 inches, 65 kilos, it's disorienting to see the child who is nearly an adult himself bent over in a secret conversation with a skinny lanky man who is his confidante and advisor.

Shazwan's nearly the same weight as his Uncle H now, he can even carry the older guy on his back.


We all grow out of our role models once we reach an age where our peers seem cooler and our individuality becomes of utmost importance. Although this will happen when Shazwan outgrows H one day, I do hope that their closeness remains somehow.

We love you, you stubborn but soft-hearted wrestler boy, you. Remember that.

Mixed-Worried

Hard to describe but that's what it is. A mixture of .. should I be worried?... or no, no biggie, I shouldn't be worried. I'm talking about good ol' spine.

Since stupidly staying up half the night watching Grey's Anatomy (the first time I'd done this in yearssss!), for some reason the left side of my spine started feeling tingly, then eventually that led to an ache down the right side of my body, and now my left foot is swollen as if I've got a bad case of water retention. Really odd. I went to my tukang urut today (don't start with me people... I've been to many many many doctors my whole life and I know what they'll do and what they'll say, and at times seeing the tukang urut is a better option), and did not feel any pain when she massaged the lower spine leading down my left side. So I'm not entirely sure this time that this is caused by my lower spine like last year. The pain feels different.

If my feet were pretty I'd take pictures of em. Hehhh. Then you'll see how weirdly swollen it is. Weird weird weird. Hmm.

Well, the bright side is that I've felt healthy for the past year. Maybe another pain session is due for a reminder..? Shhhyeah.. I'm morbid aren't I.

Morbidity aside, I do pray that the pain will subside because living normally and feeling like you're nearly normal is such a great thing. One should never take normality for granted.

Everything Happens For a Reason

That's what they say. And yes, I do believe it's true.

At the Arabic class yesterday our teacher Mr. Bilal was telling us how he ended up in Malaysia. And Subhanallah, the story is nothing short of an amazing tale of intertwining fates. He was made redundant from a job as a computer specialist. He felt lost and decided to travel to Makkah for Umrah, during which he met a cousin of his whom he fell-in-fancy with. He married her, and they went back to Yemen where he was raised. In his desperate efforts for a job, he met the man who later played a vital role in bringing him here to Malaysia. And this all happened within the span of several months.

Dare I say something that has plagued my mind for years..?

If Ninie didn't die, I wouldn't be where I am now. If Ninie who was one of my oldest dearest friends, did not die, I wouldn't have decided to throw away all the care I had in the world and have a baby. If Ninie didn't die, I wouldn't feel afraid of having my life snatched away from me tonight or tomorrow.

Not a day passes that I don't think of her. I will always miss her. I miss her laughter and everything that made her unique. And I know one day I'll see her again when the time comes.

Morbid talk aside.. Do you ever wonder what in your life, what is that thing that happened for what reason(s)? We all have things that happen and change our lives permanently in unbelievable ways.

For me, Ninie was (is) one of those things.

What's yours? What changed your life forever..?

Traffic and Highway Signs

I have KL-phobia. I cannotttt stand driving into KL. I can count with one hand the number of times I've gone into KL since I stopped working in KL.

Today we went to Gleneagles to visit H's cousin, Ina, who's having a spinal surgery early tomorrow morning. Mom and Sister tagged along (because we travel in troops.. hehhh) and they told me to take the new DUKE highway. But they don't even know the way to take. So I told em, no sirree, we take the normal way okay... coz I didn't want to risk getting lost.

So like the nerds that we are, we took the NKVE to the Duta interchange, drove off the highway, into Jalan Tun Razak and worked our way up to Ampang from there. It took us 45 minutes to get to Gleneagles because of the usual Ampang jam. Grrrrr.

Don't anybody in Malaysia walk or take public transportation anymore...? Practically every vehicle had only one person in them (the driver). That makes millions of cars on the roads at any given time of the day. Scary thought. And lets not chat about the lack of pedestrian side-walks or public transportations in Malaysia.

After chatting with a chirpy-but-worried Ina, we left at nearly 5 p.m. and vowed to take the DUKE. So into the DUKE we went.

What is it with Malaysian roads and the lousy signage?? Call me a snob but the highway signage in Malaysia is nothing like those they have in Australia. Tensionnnnnnnnn.

First the sign said "Damansara 200 m"... and then at the turning, it said; "Petaling Jaya, Kepong, etc.." ... ALRIGHT you can argue that Damansara is in PJ, but why lah the signs cannot be consistent??! Put lah same-same names!

Ok since I have hypertension and high-blood problems in my genetic chain, I will stop yakking about highway signs right now.

I can just imagine what Ina must be feeling right now. When you're going through major surgeries, there's that doubt in you whether you'd live to wake up again. There's always that unsaid scary thought.

Here's praying that cousin Ina's procedure goes smoothly and that God will give her strength to carry through the post-op recovery period with patience and faith, Insyaallah.

The Indon Maid Matter

Wowza. My maid was acting up the whole day (you know, one of those days when they cannot do anything right), and I tell you... my blood-went-upstairs when I read in The Star today about the demands made by the Indon government for their workers who are planning to work in Malaysia.

Hey don't get me wrong. I am thankful for the help that I get. But the demands made are RIDICULOUS.

The Indonesian side is saying that the demands are necessary because they must do what they can to protect their citizens' rights. Oh gee. So what about us, the Malaysian employers. What are our rights?

I've had two maids so far (this is our second one) but all my life we've always had maids. Alhamdulillah. When I was small, we had a local maid from Batang Berjuntai in Selangor. She was my nanny and Mom's maid. Her name was (is!) Kak Lela. She was with us for more than 10 years and was a part of our family. She left to marry and start a family and it was sad for all of us to see her go.

Mom hired weekly help after Kak Lela left and we got our first Indon maid when Shazwan was born in 1995 because sister was working then and Mom needed help caring for Shazwan. Since then there's been a succession of Indonesian maids in our home.

We never mistreat our maids. My parents' maid has been with us for 11 years and Sister's maid has been with us for 7 years. My first maid, Nila, wanted to stay but chose to go home because she had a toddler of her own. I hope our current one somehow would work a number of years to come.

But hullo! .... If you think having maids is something of a luxury and can really simplify one's life.. goodness how you are sadly mistaken.

When Sister was looking for maid of her own (about 8 years ago), she went through a few agents and was cheated out of thousands of ringgits when the maids ran off or stole things or were forced to be sent back.

Once (we suspect) we took in a maid who was part of a syndicate because she arrived, waited 3 days to see how our house worked, took some money and walked out of the house in broad daylight when she was supposed to be watering the plants outside. The agent remains MIA to this day.

Once we took in a maid who shrieked and cheered and danced when watching the TV. It freaked my parents and sister's family so much that she was sent back after 2 days of unending woots-woots, whistlings and clappings directed to mister television.

Another time we took in a maid from Kampung Pandan who told our Bibik (my parents' maid) that she can teach Bibik the "ways" to make the men in our house bow to the maids' needs and desires. Of the "jampi"/black magic sort. Shudder! We sent her back to the agent immediately and the agent had the nerve to call us a few days later with scoldings of how the maid claimed that she was not fed and was beaten severely by us. Grrrrr.

Then there are the countless maid-stories of people surrounding us.

My cousin Jiji got conned twice in the past year by two different agents and lost a total of RM8000 before dishing out another RM5000 for a third maid from yet another different agent. So far third time's the charm but imagine the money spent.. and the heartache. Never underestimate the heartache. Sakit hati lah..

A friend of my Mom's voiced out that she could not understand how her new maid could eat so much, on and on and on.. only to discover that the maid arrived from Indon already pregnant (the doctors fibbed about this in their medical report over there), and when told that she would have to be sent back, the maid ran off leaving the family high and dry without help and thousands of ringgits down the drain.

Then there's Mira whose maid ran off too, and she suspects the maid had been abusing her 2 year-old son Emir because of the tell-tale blue-black marks he had on him.

I can go on but then we'd never stop, would we? There're just too many maid-related horror stories.

Now the Indon government wants us to let the maids hold their own passports, and have their own bank accounts into which we'd be depositing their salaries for them to handle on their own. In their own hands. And lets not forget the one day off per week. My family usually lets Bibik go home to Indonesia for 3 months each time (she goes home every 1.5 to 2 years) because Bibik never gets a day off. Already now our Bibik's telling us she has no desire for one day off per week because that would be eating into her own money, and she'd have less opportunity and time to spend back in her homeland.

So what do you think..? Do you think all these demands would really help both parties... or would they make the relationships between employers and employees more vulnerable and irritable?

For me, personally, it's like this. Wallahualam... tapi if it's soo hard, Mister Indon Minister... there's still the rest of the third world countries for us to look at. Maybe having a Sri Lankan or Cambodian maid wouldn't be so bad after all.

Of Vanity

I don't think I'm a vain person, but I guess I do care about some things. Does that constitute as vanity..?

I walk at least four or five times a week for 30 minutes each time and although the main reason for this is to exercise good ol' spine (not exercising makes my spine very very very stiff.. think of gripping onto your pc mouse for at least an hour without loosening hold; that's how stiff the whole of good ol' spine becomes at times).. I never seem to lose even a pound. Not even one. Go figure. Then there's the fact that I'm living with Mister-Eat-Everything-That-Comes-My-Way-Without-Gaining-An-Ounce. Yup of course I'm talking about H. Thinking about it makes me dazed and confused.

Then there are those "laugh"-lines around my eye area. Alahhh. OKAY, FINE. You can call em crows' feet if you want. Whatever. Maybe there're not crows' feet yet, but they're definitely heading that way. I think they'll be eagles' feet in about 10 years time. Only God knows. All that despite the fact that I religiously apply eye gel and eye cream everytime after washing my face. This indeed leaves me dazed and confused.

And I know that I have not been able to do a single sit-up or stomach crunch-exercise since the spinal surgeries, but you'd think a woman's tummy would go back to somewhere near to its pre-pregnancy size after nearly three years of the baby's delivery..?

And if I have to hear one more story about H's students telling him; "Mister H, whyy... are you sure you have a kid?? You don't look a day above eighteen!".... I swear I'll chuck out the eye-creams, lotions, hair serum, shavers, wax strips, tweezers, perfumes, concealers and that extra big pot of cocoa butter body scrub... right into H's grinning face.

Alamak. If H reads this, I'll be dead meat!

Sorry H huney, I love you to bits but have mercy on a woman's ageing heart, yeah?

After all, these faint stretch marks on this good ol' tummy are war medals, man!

Well. At least in my case t'is true that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach :p

P/S: Forgive me God, it's PMS laa kot...