New Furniture

Yesterday I took leave. To prepare the house for our new furniture. Finally nampak berisi sikit le rumah. Kalau tak minimalist. Mummy and Bah came over with Tina (their maid) and brought durian, rambutan and bananas. They had gone back to kampung. The trip which caused me to invent so many excuses so as not to go. But it didn't stop me from gorging down the rambutans and durians they brought. Long story why I don't want to balik kampung.
But the bright side of yesterday was the furniture. Took us several months of savings to finally get them. A friend said, it's like you are just starting out in life. All these years (13) staying with my parents and 1 year at my cousin's fully furnished house did not need us to buy our own furniture. The ones we bought at my parents has to stay there, kalau tak nanti balik nak tido mana??
The happiest was of course, my darling hubby, who could not get enough of his new recliner. Sampai lambat gi meeting mlm tadi.....

Harry Potter & THBP

Finally it's here; so the family decided we have to go and watch it. Never mind that we did not watch the most talked about movie - Transformers 2, but HP is NOT to be missed. It's a family tradition since we have watched all the HP movies together.

A new twist to the tradition, this time we will bring Ilham - the third. He has ADHD and has difficulty sitting still for more than 5 minutes. He also does not like being in the dark and will get anxiety attacks at the end of movies/programmes when the screen goes blank and the credits roll up. He will scream, put his fingers in his ears and run to the kitchen and bangs the door shut.

So it was a difficult decision to make. Why do we want to bring him? He absolutely loves Harry Potter!! He watches all the movies on DVD over and over and over.

Anyway, Baba says he will be fully responsible for Adik (Ilham). If he screams or fusses in the cinema hall, baba will take him out and keep him occupied till we come out. So the big day came... there were 8 of us. When we entered the hall he panicked and put his fingers in his ears. Baba hugged him and calmed him by chanting, "Adik, nanti ada Harry Potter" all the way to our seats. He calmed down a little to explore the new surroundings and sensations. Most of the time however, his fingers were in his ears and his head was way down in his seat.

It wasn't until he heard HP's theme song did he take his fingers out and settle down somewhat. Then he almost shouted,"Harry Potter!!" (with a pronounced P- imagine saliva spewingout) ;) Now comes another tricky part, keeping him in his seat. Everytime there's an intense scene like a fight- he jumps and says"OHHHH" or when they are clapping on the screen, he claps and calls out to each and everyone of us to clap with him.

Then he got bored, so Baba went out to get popcorn, he took my shawl and laid down on the floor, "Tido" until Baba got back. I feel sorry for the people in front and behind us. But all in all it was a good outing. That was a week ago, and till yesterday, Adik kept on and on about,"Mummy, Harry Potter, jom?"

Adik, Harry Potter dah letih berlakon, dia nak tido.......

Dead of winter

In the 80's when thousands of Malaysians were sent overseas to study, I was one of the lucky ones. In those days it doesn't take much to qualify..... I got a grade 2 in my SPM but I managed to secure a scholarship to do TESL. Yang itu yang senang..Since English ku POWER!!! And at the time short of English teachers.
Anyway just remembered about an experience during the dead of winter. The thing is, I was sent to Univ of Minnesota. The location of the state of Mn is called the midwest. And we have 6 months of snow, and 6 months of almost snow. Summer still needs a jacket. 6 feet of snow in November is normal. So this one time during Xmas hols me roomies and I decided to have a video marathon since the weather forecast predicted a blizzard. We rented dozens of videos, camped in front of the TV and watched, cooked, ate, watched, cooked, ate until there was nothing to watch and eat. The last things in the fridge were veggies. We boiled and ate them like mangga and colek but with chili n tomato sauce. By the time we opened our front door, after much pushing because the snow had piled up over the two days (oh ya... two whole days of videos), we emerged dazed and disoriented....macam orang baru keluar dari gua bertapa
hehehe.. oh well, you had to be there to get it. :)

Wow, a busy week... Last night the family went to check out a new guitar for Izza. The niece broke her old guitar's neck and had kept quiet about it. When Izza found out she cried. So daddy has to pacify a 15 year old and reprimand a 3 year old. Anyway, it's about time she gets a new guitar. So, melayang around 2k for her new guitar. The best part was when we were serenaded by Mr Wong, the owner of Guitar Collection who waxed lyrical about every piece he owned by playing the most beautiful sounds on them....He played flamenco, spanish, pop, malay, english and made the guitar sound like a japanese instrument.
Oh, Monday morning, I did not come to work because my alarm did not go off. Why? because I did not charge my phone because I left my charger in Hotel Rasa Sayang JB. So, I woke up at 7.15 and wondered why the room was bright. Oh, it's 7.15!! Oh, hm... too late to go to work....yawn...might as well make the most of it. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzz. The next thing I knew - 'sayang, wake up, something's happening downstairs, I think one of the cat is dead!' What? Who? I ran downstairs to see Tuti the maid staring at a dead cat's body. Oh no, it's Ocean, the kittens' mother. Poor, poor thing. Her eyes were open and there were tyre tracks on her body.. (shiver). Now what'll happen to her 3 kittens who're not even a month old?
It took me two trips to the pet shop to get info on how to care for the kittens and hubby to search the internet. Do you know that kittens need to be burped too? Yikes...I don't need another baby to care for. So the official maks angkat are Izza and Tuti. Hahaha...

I am a little shaken... a blogger whose writings I have been following on and off has just passed away. He's called the Ancient Mariner. Apt title since he was a sea captain. I like his writings in that he is witty and quirky at the same time.

Al-Fatihah, may he rest in peace....

P/S: I intended to write about my eventful weekend and Monday - Harry Potter, my malfunctioned alarm, my poor, poor dead cat ( I now have 3 orphaned kittens), my ADHD son etc. That'll have to wait.

Thanks for the comments, making me more motivated to write...

Recently I had the unfortunate luck to be the receiving end of the boss' wrath. The best part was I was set up. By whom, you might ask. Well, here's the story..
I happen to find out that a colleague is to be transferred to a place at the other end of her hometown. Being single, it is like a process of natural selection to be rid of her to make way for the new and stronger. But in my opinion, why transfer someone who is in her prime, still dedicated and committed to her profession and replace her with a junior who is, in my opinion, worthless and with an attitude to boot!
So, being the senior officer, I thought of going to put in a good word for the colleague who is now (I heard) crying her eyes out. After a short and animated discussion with another senior officer (too many of those in this organisation), I was referred to the BIG BOSS - literally.
Ok... not too happy with that development. And then I got news that this colleague decided to ask for a month's extension and not appeal after all. Fine, that's good that she acquiesced to the needs of the organisation.
Next day, that senior officer told me that if I want to plead my case, come on down; the boss is in. Er... I said, that's ok, she decided to go after all. Oh...you have to see him if you want to luahkan perasaan... nanti senang you. Tak apalah... I rasa tak nak jumpa boss. Eh... datang, boss ada ni. So what was I to do?
I got into his inner sanctum with his trusted accomplice (the said senior officer) and before I could finish my sentence he started cursing me.... "keputusan untuk pindahkan sapa-sapa adalah hak aku sebagai pengarah! Engko sapa nak masuk campur? kerja engko jaga content, bukan jaga c***u! Engko pun aku boleh pindahkan kalau aku tak suka engko!!" "KPI engko tu engko jaga, ini bukan scope engko. Dah, end of story!! Jangan tanya-tanya lagi" etc...etc...
My answers were,"Thank you for that clarification and yes saya tahu saya boleh dipindahkan." Thank you and I walked out....
Begitulah kawan-kawan. Pada sesiapa yang mengenali my bos, benda ni tak heran...
Have a good weekend. HARRY POTTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'M BACK

It's been ages. I have kept myself busy over the months with many things - useful or otherwise. Been keeping in touch in cyberspace through FB. More interactive and totally forgrot about this space I booked for my ramblings. It's the same with my other journals.... long periods of silence and then Hi, I'm Back - for awhile. Seriously, I had thought this space has gone up in auction or whatever it is they do to abandoned blogs. But surprise, surprise, it's still here waiting for me to update my life on blogosphere.

Since nobody reads my blog, I can pretty much say what I want to say.

I first started my blog last year with a Father's Day posting. Tsk, tsk, I forgot to wish Dad Happy Father's Day again this year. I really should have an alarm set up for things like that. But I never forget their birthdays. I think that's more important. It's also been a year and three months my brother passed on. Life's been good. And BAD...