Owh, Look At What We've Been Up To Lately

(I was at a gorgeous wedding a couple of weeks ago. Our friends' eldest son got married.)

..... He was sitting at the piano, putting final touches to his face with the compact powder. I thought rude pulak tak tegur – he was the nicest neighbor when he was living on our street. Tak pernah sombong. So we chat up a bit. My daughter hovered at the back, tangkap gambar.

He then put the compact away and said mari kita tangkap gambar kat atas pelamin - biar padan muka orang tengok! (in his typical drama queen / artistic way). So that was how I ended up like in the photo below (ps - my husband went whoa! when he saw the photo).

After that he asked anak you tak nak tangkap gambar? Iman pun duduk tangkap gambar. Dia lagi best, siap pegang kipas macam artist jugak!

Azwan was the emcee at his nephew’s wedding. I must say he did a superb job at emcee-ing. Memang ada natural talent. Semoga dilindungi dan dirahmati Allah selalu.

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It Is Fall Again

I suppose fall colors, especially in the mountains, will always make me feel melancholy in a way. Weepy sometimes. Definitely nostalgic every time.




Not surprisingly I have posts on fall almost every year, like here and here (and guess what? - I hadnt realised it until now, but they were all posted on the same date too).

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The Big Day ~ Thank You

So life is (almost) back to normal now that the wedding is over - in the sense that the mind and time is free from the plans and preparation for the big day and all the (inevitable) worries that come with the package.

Alhamdulillah the day turned out fine. Sesungguhnya Allah maha penyayang. I couldnt (and shouldnt) ask for anything better (in fact, what good have I done to deserve anything like this?)

In a way the whole experience has been humbling. You start to appreciate again things you have somehow taken too much for granted. Like the support of family and friends. Not to mention the precious eco-system of a close knitted neighborhood.

This thank you post goes out to family members, to friends, to neighbors. To suppliers. Everyone who had cared enough (to continue) to build the silaturrahim. For any shortcomings - we know there are many - we apologize for them from the very bottom of our hearts. Do tell us how to make it up to you. Thank you, thank you. You are all the dearest.

ps - I do not have even one photo to share at this point. I will post some once I get a few decent ones.

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Things I Tell Myself (& Sometimes The Kids)

Hidup ini hanyalah semata-mata untuk mencari keredhaan Allah.

Tiada tujuan lain kehidupan kecuali untuk mengumpul bekalan bagi perjalanan pulang kepada yang abadi.


(The challenge is matching actions with these words.)

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Makan2 at Al Rawsha

We were in city center to fetch Iman and somehow without conscious planning stopped for (late) dinner at Al Rawsha. It's a mid-eastern restaurant located at the very edge of Bulatan Kampung Pandan heading towards Maluri as you come from city center on Jalan Tun Razak.

Boleh baca ke map ni? You can if you are familiar with the area, me think (namun pakai lah GPS or Garmin or whatever your preference, especially if you are from out of town).

The place has this facade that looks like a castle from outside. The insides are pretty too with typical mid-eastern motifs on the walls (but the interiors at Tagine on Bukit Bintang is much prettier).

Reading the menu was a piece of cake; understanding it is totally another matter.. (sebab tu semua orang concentrate semacam masa baca menu tu, haha) Kabsa or hanith are a snap. We can also safely figure out falafel, shawarma and tabbouleh too. But anything else is beyond me.

We ended up ordering the lamb kabsa in a big plate (the boys went wow, when they saw the plate). With some vege flavored in olive oil and wrapped in vine leaves (I dont know what those are called though). Baklava. And typical mid-eastern malt drink. The lamb was good. So is the rice. I think I made better baklava during my years at college, nak cakap jugak tu.. (although I have lost that skill somehow. The last time I made baklava, recently, the phyllo turned out soggy).

On a scale of 1 - 10, I'll give the place a 7. I'll gladly go back to Saba in Setiawangsa for a meal anytime. Tapi nak buat tukar angin, Al Rawsha isnt too bad at all. They are open - believe it or, 24 by 7. Visit them here.

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A Family Wedding - Najwa & Akhi

This is a good time to attend weddings where I am concerned. I have a lot of checking out to do. The pelamin, the wedding cake, the bride's gown. The bunga telur. Bunga pahar. The flowers. The food ~ of course. The location. Make up. Rombongan pengantin. Lauk pengantin. You name it, I will put them all under the microscope.

Last weekend Najwa, a niece, got married. This time I include the pengantin photos, supaya puas hati dapat tengok pengantin - the last wedding I had the bridesmaid photo only.. haha.


Anyway, I thought the pengantin both looked bagai pinang dibelah dua.

This is the groom's parents. Kak Zah is the nicest person I know through work at the office. It is indeed a very small world (yes, you may sing the small world song..)

The wedding was held in Shah Alam. One evening some time ago we spent close to an hour in the pouring rain trying to find our way out of Shah Alam (so it is safe to say that Shah Alam is not my playground at all). In fact I had called up 4 friends to get directions to Monterez for the wedding. We did get to the club in one piece though.

Nieces (with their mum aka sister) in charge of the bunga telur.


Pengantin & bonda.


ps - please make us some doa that the wedding we'll be having will be sempurna in every way, InsyaAllah.

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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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