Bahasa Jiwa Bangsa

None of these pantun are mine. I copied them from a book that I read because each made me remember something.

The scene of Latifah Omar picking pucuk ubi flashed in my mind when I read this – in black and white of course..
Harum baunya si bunga tanjung
Harumnya sampai melintas gunung
Tuan ku anggap sebagai payung
Hujan dan panas tempat berlindung

This reminded me not to swear so much - whilst driving especially.. and to take note of the words that I utter every time. What you say reflect your true self. Istighfar banyak-banyak..
Kalau ada menanam tebu
Boleh dijual di pasar desa
Kalau kita jadi tetamu
Biar pandai berbudi bahasa

This reminds me of a time that I was sick and nobody really pabderd to my needs (sob..sob, poor little spoilt me) and I said to everyone at home – no one can take better care of me than my mum. I remembered how my mother pampered me when I was down.. must call up my mum.
Apa diharap padi rendang
Daun berombak ditiup bayu
Apa diharap budinya orang
Tidak sama budinya ibu

And this should be one of my principles in life..
Jika gelisah mengingat dosa
Lakukan taubat sebenar taubat
Jangan diulang esok dan lusa
Ingatkan diri sentiasa taat

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Cinta Meniti di Bibir

I think the title sounds nice. Please pardon yours truly as she does the masuk raga angkat sendiri stint here..

On the other hand, I think cinta berputik di hati or cinta tersemat di sanubari would sound even more profound and poetic. But the title suits my purpose in this instance as I am talking about the new movie Cinta.

The reviews said it's a touching movie that would bring tears to your eyes without you realising it. I asked friends if anybody would want to see it. No takers there.

There's a big ad about the movie along Jalan bangsar. At first I thought it is a play at Actor's Studio in Bangsar or something like that. It caught my attention because Rahim Razali is one of my fav actors. Lakunan yang bersahaja. He doesnt seem like he is acting.

Caught a snippet of a scene on tv last night where he said, isteri itu bukan nya satu ? (I dont remember the exact word but I remembered it as a possession) tetapi satu anugerah. Dont your heart just melt with lines like that?

ps - I suppose that line would be applicable to husbands also, dont you?

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Of Contents & Substance

Aton mentioned about Jeff Ooi this afternoon and I wondered why the guy looked familiar. Then I remembered that I read his blog entitled LemakLemang sometime back. I told Aton he blogs everywhere and I wish I could be like him.. he’s a photo-journalist etc etc – hey, exactly what I want to be when I grow up! Ha-ha..

But there is this teeny bit of difference between me and Jeff (he-he..) ie he wrote about real stuff, you know – not mundane things like what happens at home with the kids. Mind you, I don’t think there is anything wrong about writing on home or kids.. but there must be substance to the stories. Sadly, I don’t think my blog has that pertinent information that I can call substance. I mean come on, who cares how I spent my weekend and if my wishes dont come true?

Anyway now I am looking for a substance - any substance - for my blog.. (I seriously think I have identity issues... )

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The Weeekend That Was

It’s 1830 hours on a Sunday. Appropriate enough to write about the weekend I suppose.

The mood is right after all – hey, Diane Summers is doing her very own ‘Last Dance’ on Light and Easy. ha-ha.. I have the tv all to myself (mind you, I listen to the radio on the tv.)

The evening is almost dark. It rained heavily just now (like any other evenings, these days). Iman is still caught up with her Prison Break series on the pc. Eirfan is at the playground with friends. Ilyas is still deciding if he wanted to continue sleeping or to wake up now (can someone please help me with this..?) & Zack must be sleeping also as he just came back from his futsal game which started as early as 0900 this morning (I envy him all that energy..)

Now about the weekend. Sat started early enough – Iman had to put in some extra hours at work so we sent her to the office. We stopped for breakfast at the usually crowded place along MRR2. It must be the timing - the place is (ohh – I have to write this – it is Andy Gibbs on the waves with Everlasting Love – my fav yearrrs ago) anyway, this breakfast place is not yet busy. The roti canai boy, as usual fulfill my order fast enough. I never ask my husband to wait line for the roti canai – he couldn’t get the preferential treatment that I do. Ha-ha..

Anyway after sending Iman we did some walking at the KLCC park. Gooood girl..

Since forever I have wanted to be able to brew the best tom-yam ever. When better than this weekend? So we stopped at the pasar tani to get all the supplies and fruits and.. and.. uh-oh, Eirfan had already made complaints and long faces – time to go home. I asked if we should stop by the school book store to get the list of books to buy for Eirfan, but a huff from the back seat told me that it was not a good time to do that. So we went straight home.

Opened up ALL the recipe books I have to find the direction to tom yam heaven-land. Chef Wan’s recipe uses the readily flavored cubes, so I skipped his. The only other recipe I found was a Kung Tom Yam. So I tried that – the result? Nothing to shout about although Iman said it is nice. Need to find another recipe later.

We had lunch invitation in Bangi. Traffic crawled all the way from Cheras to Serdang – can you believe that? They said because of MAHA. A good thing too actually, as when we got to Bangi we were ravenous and did justice to the food served. Shohor’s bungalow is nice, open and airy. He should have made that fish pond a swimming pool instead. That would be fabulous.

I also had 2 new recipes I wanted to try out – yeap, when else if not the weekend? The first is the super-licious munchy choc chips- that’s what the recipe said. Tapi tak super-licious pun – tasted like my regular cookies. As usual the children turned a blind eye to any choc chip cookies – they have had it with that when they were small. So I packed most of the cookies to be sent to Antie Da’s. Yan & Amir would appreciate my effort if the people at home wont..

For dinner I tried the second recipe that I have : baked paprika & parmesan chicken. It was thumbs down, but the recipe got 4 stars on the net – must be ..me!! So both recipes will go to the bin.

I slept like a log Sat night. & Sun (today) I was burnt out (ada ke burnt out in connection with work at home?) Anyway I didn’t do anything today. Didn’t feel like socializing so I skipped the aqiqah-cum-lunch invitation from Zihan (bad, bad girl – but the invitation came in the last minute anyway – that’s my excuse..) Went out to lunch at McD of all places, instead.

That was Sun so far, but at least I already have dinner on the stove.. What a weekend – but I am not ready for Mon. But come to think of it, was I ever ready for Mon anyway..?

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If Wishes Came True..

.. I would not wish for money or wealth ~
as how much would be enough anyway?

But,
I would wish for supreme faith and iman
and an ocean of wisdom
an eternal silatur-rahim and ikram-muslimin
and then for the best of health for everyone.

And a successful career for the children
and of course happy families for them too

But most of all, I would wish I could be blasé of what other people might think
and be dispassionate of what they have to say ~
(after all everyone's entitled to their own opinions)
and in fact not pay a heed to how they express their two-cents worth of anything!

I wish I could just wave my hand, make these pointless concerns go away..
and save myself a lot of headache.

I wish I just dont care.

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Raya Stories Part 5 - Raya Scenes

Beraya this Syawal..

Grapes in Mira's yard.. amazing!

Funny faces : Safia Binti Shaiful Azmi ..

My raya lights that were put up with masking tapes..

The tramisu was great..

If you must know, they were arguing over the recipe pulak here..

A blooming lily in the pot from my garden

Matching in colors.. and in celebration spirit

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Patience ~ A Virtue Indeed

Went to TH yesterday for some transactions. Found out then that I have misplaced my accounts book. Where could it be? It never left my bag as far as I knew.

Searched my bag about three times then. After that I checked all the other bags that I have in the car. It was obvious by then I didn’t have it with me. All that trip for nothing..

Searched my bags again when I got home. And the dresser drawers. And then the other drawers. The console table. The cupboard. Nowhere could the book be found. Iman said check your office tomorrow.

I doubt the book would be in the office, but searched everywhere I did. And as I thought, it is not in the office either.

Called up TH & asked what to do. The instructions given were to get the form at TH. Fill it up. Go get the stamping done at LHDN. Then go back to TH for the processing of the new book.

Sounded simple enough. But there was no parking at TH and traffic at lunch is always terrible anyway. And the jaga at LHDN was helpful but so garang.. and of course I had to pay for the stamping too..

It was drizzling when I left LHDN. Quickly got to my car, got in, locked the door, turned on the ignition, pulled the seat belt and looked down to buckle the belt in.. and what do you know..? Nestled neatly between the side of my seat and the hand brake and a bit hidden by the belt release buckle was my accounts book..

Subhanallah.. & mengucap panjang dibuatnya. The pages of the book felt crisp – it must have dropped from the bag some time back and got sort of baked in the car. What amazed me is that I had buckled the seat belt many, many times and never saw that book there but once I had gone through the motion of getting a new book, voila, there it is right under my very nose!

Only Allah knew the wisdom of what had happened. I thought this was a very tough lesson indeed where patience is concerned..

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Raya Stories Part 4 - The Twelfth Day of Raya

No, we didnt have any leftover turkey..

We wanted to invite some friends over for dinner last weekend. We had the menu ready and then started to discuss who we would invite.

Well, we cant invite every friend we have for obvious reasons. We decided to invite A, and B. And C must come also. Well, we cant invite B without inviting D too. Neither can we not invite E. And what about F? And G invited us to their place last raya, so we had to include them into the list also. And then H and I and J..

The list of guests was quite impossible to manage. Everyone just had to come. We thought hard about it and then thought about it some more. In the end we decided not to have the dinner do after all.. end of story and the brewing headache.

We had a light dinner that evening then watched Journey/Steve Perry in a 1981 concert on VCD. He-he.. The children said where did you find this thing? But it was not too bad – they watched the whole thing with us. After that we played Uno – Eirfan insisted. I have to have quality time with the guy after all so I managed to bully everyone to play. After that we watched a movie and then went to bed.

Actually, the evening turned out better than any raya dinner party would have..

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Raya Stories Part 3 - Bermaaf-maafan Seikhlas Hati

Raya is the best excuse to go visiting – if you need any excuse, that is. It is nice to go visit aunts and uncles at least once a year if not more, whether out of obligation or because of other reasons.

Last weekend, among the many houses we visited was my aunt’s. It was lovely visiting her, not because it was raya & they served the best nasi dagang (mana belajar pun entah – no timur blood there..) or they have ice cream goreng or the best cendol or the fact that her house is so immaculate and that they are so nice and hospitable.

It was the fact that they had mended the mother-daughter relationship this raya that was so wonderful to see. What's raya if we cant forgive our loved ones?

Juadah disaji sarat semeja
Buat tetamu menjamu selera
Perasaan yang lara, hati yang terluka ~
Usah lah dibiar terus bertakhta
Bermaafan jua kita di hari raya
Agar kasih sayang terus terpelihara, hingga ke akhirnya

May Allah protect all our silatur-rahim always, Insya’allah.

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The Young Artist

Collage? I never heard that when I was in school. But after many, many years of having small kids in school I have a teeny bit idea what that is.

Anyway, for the end of year exam someone chose to make a collage art. As in previous years, he would practice making the piece with his sister before the exam. She would teach him to do it then he would take the sample to school and then emulate that as closely as he could during the exam.

They practised the night before the exam..

This year he made a butterfly using the collage technique. And yippee.. he got an 'A' for that. But.. actually the title of the collage he was supposed to make is rumah impian. So yang sebenarnya dia dah terkeluar topik lah tu..

'A' butterfly collage

ps - He got an 'A' too last year. He had to make a mask, if I am not mistaken. He said it was too difficult and he didnt finish his mask in class. So he submitted the one that he made with kakak the night before. . Ada ke..? But I do admire his resourcefulness.. he-he..

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Raya Stories Part 2 - The Water That Poured Down From The Sky

Living in the wettest place in the country is not easy, let me tell you. It rained all the time, any time. One minute the sky was clear and the next you'll see dark furling clouds gathering at the tops of the hills. You may need to take the clothes out to dry in the sun three or more times a day. And you would get reprimanded by your teachers for not turning up for the extra curricular activities because seriously, you thought it had rained where school is located. And in town, people take bets on if it is going to rain or not.

So when it rained last raya - heavily, mind you - we were not surprised. The rain poured out of the sky for a good couple of hours before we noticed that uh-oh, the parit behind the house had overflowed.

We checked the main drains in front of the house and yeah, another uh-oh, that had overflowed too. Not only that, rain water was gushing in through the gates like someone had let water out from a big dam. The newly upgraded six-lane trunk road in front the house contributed to all that of course. The roads are built much higher to yeah, you guessed it right, avoid the roads from flooding. By doing that the houses, my mum's in particular, got all the water instead. And the drains all around the roads are too small for all the water to pass through efficiently.

Water had already covered the first step up towards the house. There are only two steps to get into the house, you see.. My mum took all that in her stride (I told her it is because we are home, she know she can rely on us. Kalau tidak, sure mak dah panik..). The children were happy and excited, jumping up and down watching the water. Our couple of heroes worked in the rain to lessen the effect of the water - unsuccessfully.

Then as quickly as it had started, the rain stopped. The heroes cleaned the terrace floors. But uh-oh - guess what? It rained cats and dogs again.. After that we just watched and hoped the rain would stop before it cause any serious damage. It finally came to a drizzle, maybe about 5 hours later.

All that woe in the name of development. Welcome everyone, to Malaysia Maju.

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Raya Stories Part 1 - The Photos That Were Never meant To Be

Ok, so here goes with the raya stories that I have..

The first can't be anything but a sob.. sob.. story. I didnt have a decent camera for my raya.. huaa...

The Sony Customer Service told my daughter the camera could instantly be usable again by changing the battery. We trusted that %$#*% agent.

I went back to the center to double confirm that before I buy the new battery - just to be told again that it is the display that is faulty, not the battery after all. She also said that it could take at least a week to repair, if not longer. What?!! Please believe me when I say that I didnt swear or glare or threw a tantrum at/in front of the agent (I only did that when I got home and retold the story to anyone who'd listen to me .. he-he..)

So anyway, no camera for raya but thank Allah for my handphone (by the way the old phone got stolen. Well, that's another story to tell), I managed to capture a few miserable photos this raya. Coincidently we were not so well coordinated this raya on the gambar thing. We didnt take any family photos like we always conventionally do every raya.

So this raya this is the best that we did with the photos.

Ni dah besar pun berebut mintak duit raya..

Seronok raya dengan si kecik..

She had the (dubious) honour to distribute the duit raya this year.. he-he..

Mesti kira duit raya..
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A Writer's Block

Chewwwah.. A writer's block konon.. as if!

A friend who used to be a journalist had said it was tough being a writer because you need to write immediately what you feel otherwise the idea would be gone and you might not have another compelling topic to write about later. You may sit and think and will yourself to think some more but that’s it – there is just no light at the end of the creativity tunnel.

That’s exactly what happened to me. I have a lot to write about, but the idea has not enough vigor to make me able to actually build up the effort to write about it.

I want to tell about my raya ie how mum took it all in although tak larat nya dia. How my wajik turned out sallow. How it rained so bad that we thought the house might just get flooded. How I finally managed to make all my kueh raya and put beads on my baju raya. How I put the lights up on my porch. And also about nonsensical things like pe’el ibu mertua ku, drivers and traffic and all the food that we manage to consume though we were trained to eat frugally all month during Ramadhan.

I want to tell them all but I cant seem to write them down as I have this - yeah, writer's block, you see. We'll see how long this will last, then I will start writing again about everything - and nothing - like I always do.

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