The Road To The Big Day

The wedding looms so close. At times I feel like I am on track. Other times though, I get into a panicky mode and suffer through nervous attacks. Then I will operate mechanically - based purely on my checklists (which I have a few), with no emotional involvement at all. Any advice from already-mother-of-the-brides?

Anyway.

We have started sending invitation cards out (especially to those out of town. Macam pelik pulak bawak kad banyak2 pergi hantar kat post office..). I hate to be too late, at the same time thinking sending them too early might be somewhat presumptuous. Some said send email or SMSes - with GPS coordinates. I went like, wow, and here I am using the snail-mail. But I do prefer cards. Cara lama. There is something charmingly quaint about it which I like. Sending coordinates is a bit cold and hard for a romantic like me (yeah, right..)

And I am still struggling with the hantaran - it just wont yield to my bidding. There is always something amiss (and I cant put my finger on what it is). It could be the ribbon, its color, the renda, the.. - anything and everything actually! Let's leave it at that for now - until I have better coordination with my fingers, I'd say (and for my obscured creativity to come to light).

The wedding will be held at home, so my husband is fixing things up.. oh, just this and that - which about covers the whole house. Inside and out, of course. LOL.

We plan to finish everything maybe a week or so before the big day. I think we'll be able to do that. Insya'Allah. That'll leave us a few days to recover and for final details (uh, and enough time too for the butterflies to assemble for the final countdown..) Yeap, sounds like a good, workable plan.

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More On Raya; Raya 2011 Part 3

Although I thought raya has passed me by, apparently it has not. Last weekend we gathered at Dee's place for lunch with the girls. Mijah came with her children and Zarina and myself came on our own, leaving the men folk behind. Delinn didnt bring a partner although we hoped she would.. Zana - we really miss you.

Dee was the most gracious host, satu meja untuk main course and the other for dessert. We of course, enjoyed ourselves. Panjang sembang dan berpindah2 meja! Thanks Dee for hosting. Thanks Delinn for the photos (a vain pot that I am I had cropped the above photo.. and I 'hate' your iPhone for such picture perfect photos..)

The office has various raya celebrations too. Division. Group. Clubs. The raya ad is still playing in the elevators. I think tomorrow would be the last raya makan2 (walaupun raya dah abis). Tiaranita. Persatuan Eksekutif. THAT should be the last. I hope.

On another note, I have lots of stuff done for the wedding. Please make some doa that the celebration will go on smoothly. InsyaAllah. I'll update that next time here.

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Books, Books & More Books Part 29 : Snow Falling On Cedars

I read this like a few pages everyday and finally finished it within a month or so. I am beginning to think that this is how books are meant to be read - steadily and dengan istiqamah; instead of being on your toes throughout your read and cramming the whole book till 3:00 am the next morning (and forgetting almost everything else in that process).

Snow Falling on Cedars. This is an old book, published in the 90s. It was the title that caught my eyes. I might have seen this years ago because the title seem familiar when I rented it (fyi, I rented this like more than a year ago tapi baru tercapai dek tangan).

It is (mainly) about a Japanese American who went to trial after being accused of a first degree murder of a white American. It is a story in the 1940s - 50s, after WWII. It surely cant be easy being of Japanese descend after the Pearl Harbor attack.

The story was told beautifully, especially when describing the falling snow outside the courtroom. And the title is totally befitting of the storyline. It is a book well written and worth reading. In fact, it was a best seller and also won the PEN/Faulkner award for 1995 (a yearly award given to living American fiction writers) .

ps - I checked and noted that I have 29 posts on books. That basically means I have read 29 books so far (that is from 2007 till now - sikit nye!) I may have a few books that I read here and there that I do not blog about (usually buku2 ilmiah - malu nak cerita pasal buku2 nih, kuang3x - and trashy, worthless literature (those books may not even be entitled to be called literature, come to think of it). And lots of magazines (saya suka tengok gambar sebenar nye, macam budak kecik).

I must read better.

pps - Someone said kita kena jadi macam orang putih - dia orang rajin membaca. He knows some guy who read three books at a time interchangebly (is this a valid word anyway?). I thought siapa kata orang putih je rajin membaca. Orang Melayu pun ada yang rajin. Bukan pelik nak jumpa orang yang baca 3 - 4 buku sekali gus, ye tak Zana?

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Selamat Hari Raya 2011 Part 2

More stories on raya.


We spent the raya in the old house this time. I grew up in this house but funny how it felt so much bigger those years ago. And I have forgotten also how the floors creaked. The first day we opened all the windows and let the wind blew in (I should have taken photos then). And dawn is the best time to be in the house, dingin.



The lawn was newly mowed. The smell of newly cut grass reminds me of days when we mow lawns ourselves (it was a big place to mow actually). We kicked off our slippers and walked barefooted on the freshly cut grass (and did the unhealthy thing of membakar sampah..)


We visited my aunt in Matang (which is on the way to Kuala Sepetang where you get your mee udang). This is (part of the structure of) Kota Ngah Ibrahim in Matang. I pass by this building maybe more than a thousand times my whole life, but I have never stopped to look / visit. This raya I said we should stop, but it was closed (naturally). The children asked, kita nak buat apa kat sini? (they do not share my enthusiasm for adventure).

A bit about the kota - it was built by Ngah Ibrahim (of course) in 1854, the orang besar Perak who ruled Larut then and who had rebelled against the British. When Ngah Ibrahim dibuang negeri the British took over the place and it became the official resident of the Asst Residen British di Perak. It was also the place where Dato' Sagor and Datuk Maharajalela were executed in 1877 for allegedly murdering JWW Birch, Residen British pertama di Perak (jahat kan orang putih ni..?) Much later it was also used as a maktab perguruan before Maktab Perguruan Sultan Idris (now university) was built. It was also a school once but now turned into a kompleks sejarah. So there. Some history of Taiping.

We took lots of photos, but only a handful turned out alright (I think I need an SLR.. what else can I put the blame on?) And the children always 'misbehave' whenever we take photos (terfikir pulak, maybe it is their own unique way of telling me letih la nak melayan mak (asyik) tangkap gambar..)

He's my eldest brother. When my arwah father passed away, he took over the (impossible) responsibility of taking care of us, along with my mom. My adik was only ten then. I am sure we put him through many loops (have we ever said thank you? Thank you, thank you, thank you Abg Nan).

This is like (less than) a third of us. Having everyone together at raya is definitely impossible. My mom will fret who sleeps where and if she has enough bantal (she definitely does not have the space nor the bantal for everyone actually).

So that's a wrap for raya.

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