Road Blocks Aplenty

In the past few weeks, I’ve seen far too many road blocks around KL.  Intensified yesterday and today,  and I bet will culminate during the weekend in support of the planned much publicised rally on Sunday.

Reducing the 4 lanes of the Federal Highway to just 2 lanes on a Friday morning rush is just cruel and frustrating.  Guess their mission to thwart and dampen the eager rally-goers’ spirit and enthusiasm is partly achieved.

Anyway, road blocks on massive highways are one thing, but road blocks on deserted lanes in front of neighbourhoodly shops are another.  Last week, we headed out to Ar-Rafi in Sec. 13, Shah A1am for dinner and amidst the turnings of the small, lanes there were 4 whopping roadblocks.  I purposely did not include the sighting of a policeman hiding behind a TeeeNBee feeder pillar with a notebook and a walkie-talkie.  Now, I’m not sure whether it’s reassuring or it’s unnerving.

Heavy police presence is sometimes welcomed and some to a certain extent induce a false sense of security and subsequently complacency in the community.  But it also means that there’s a bountiful of criminals living amidst ourselves and it’s chillingly scary.  Especially when the dailies’ frontpages splash murders of innocent children, hapless mothers, fathers, suicides and even our celebrated MrSecondSpaceman was not spared the brutality of our so-called civil society.

I quiver and I shudder at the future my children are facing.  Sigh!

End of My Golfing Days

True.  True.  True.

The end of my glorious golfing days ended today.  A total of 1 month and 2 days of actually holding a golf club.

3 years back, at the height of MrGart’s fascination in golf, I was intrigued.  I’ve always shared interests with him, sports-wise.

When he was hooked on snooker, I was there on the snooker table, aiming for the cue ball using the spider cue.  We went for countless snooker sessions at Peterborough downtown, sometimes until the wee hours of the morning.  We watched Jimmy White and whoever-that-redhead guy was.  Now, he’s off snooker, I think since I don’t think he knows where his prized cue is at this point in time and I think the belly’s making his target more difficult these days..

When he was into football, well he was never off it, ever.  I followed him to countless matches, Manchester United matches and even in Europe, during our Inter-Railing backpacking trip, we walked all over Milan for Juventus’ home ground.

So, naturally I thought I’d be great at golf.  Bought the set.  Practised at the local driving range.  Missed more than I actually hit.  By a yard.  Went to our neighbourhood’s pitch and putt for a session.  Failed miserably.  Thought a bigger course would do me justice.  So we were at uUPeeM course, full of mosquitoes and I was a disaster.

Thought I’d give it another round but was abruptly cut short when I found out I was preggy with Ariz.  There!

So,  a week ago, I listed the golf set on eeBay and oh my!  It was a hit.  In the end I had 6 people actively outbidding each other 52 times to get their hands on it.  I asked for RM300 and ended up with RM557.50.  Yay!

Anyway, today casa1238’s friend  came to pick up the set he bought for his wife and he’s very kind too, even inviting me to his home in Miri, if I happen to be by.

Well,  I hope casa1238’s wife will be happy with the golf set.  I hope she can put it to a better use than I was ever.  As for me, no more thinking of golf.  I’m into baking now.  Something the gals at my office appreciate better than golf.

Just One Measly Hour

One teeny-weeny measly hour of no TV in the house last night bought me :

1.   2 repeatedly read books with Ariz & Adani.

2.   Completed and checked kumon worksheets.

3.  Discussion on what Ayisha name means and Aliya regaling us of Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w)’s marriages, the ages of the wives and all.

4.   Sirah revision for Aliya’s KAFA’s exam today.

5.   Sleeping kids by 10:00pm

6.   Nursing & sleeping Ariz by 9:45pm and Mummy’s explore into troposphere, about Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit & whathisname Celcius.  In case you’re wondering I’m still on my Bill Bryson’s A Small History of Everything.  Exactly my type of reading pleasures.

6.  2 hours of Internet time for Mummy.

This is soo gonna get permanent.

psstt even when the curfew’s lifted, I was too engrossed and missed House at 11pm.  Cehs!

Adani In Concert

As promised, here are 3 pictures of Adani, courtesy of Ninuk a.k.a Uqbah’s Mak. Our pictures are so glap that if I post them, sungguh kurang berkesan.

Adani, in her typical pose. In the dressing room before the performance.

Uqbah the elephant & Adani the dancer. BTW there’s only 7 girls and 15 boys in her class, so I guess she’s entitled to 2 boys at any given time. Heh!

Stretching before her Madagascar.

My baby’s a big girl. *wipes eyes*

Last Day of School

This morning Asha’s being rather difficult. She told us last night that Teacher Sharmila said that there’s no school today. I nicely told her, I did not think so, to a furrowed brows.

So, I called up MissKLSentral to confirm. Yup, I was right.

So, this morning, dressed and ready, MrGart suggested she bring a smaller bag to school and that triggered a “that’s my bag” and “mummy.!”.

Well, I left MrGart’s to his device and left the scene with Adani in tow. MrGart called me later and said that she was bawling her eyes out in the car and that they went and saw mainly bigger kids at school and he sent her home. Heh!

Well. Adani still has 3 more days of school next week and there’s a letter about a party and pot luck. Hmmp! Nak masak apa ye? Adani was talking about a BIG butterfly cake. Uh-uh!

Aliya’s been feeling under the weather lately. She has cold and was sniffing last night and slept early. She was a little warm. She woke up about 11pm and promptly went downstairs, almost sleep-walking-ly and sat on the sofa in the darkness, in tears. We followed her and directed her to the kitchen for her nurofen & promethazine.

Aliya has a habit of that actually. Especially when she falls asleeps not in her own bed and when we wake her up for her to move into her own bed. She’ll mumble and walks elsewhere and we haveto physically take her to her bed.

Teringat kat Najwa, roti’s daughter. Is she still sleep-walking ?

Ayisha’s Birthday Cupcakes

I’ve not gone crazy over cupcakes, but I have children who are born in the months of October, December, January and February and also a husband born in February, so expect more pictures of amateurish cakes and such.

Anyways.

Ayisha’s birthday will be on the 1st December 2007. She’ll turn 7. Yes she will. Only 7. The sad part about born that time of the year is that school’s out. So, Mummy will always have to bring forward the celebration.

So, since this is the last week of the school year, I decided last week that today’ll be the day. Cupcakes are still the easiest for me, so taking the cue from Adani’s success. More cuppies today. A significant different though. I used buttercream icing, instead of the sugar icing. I prayed that it’d work and alhamdulillah it did. BTW, I got the recipe from CookingforEngineers website. Great great website!

All 52 of them cuppies for Asha to bring for her classmates.

Adani, Aliya, Ariz & Daddy’s Cupcakes.

For Spinah, MoshTino, Hazel, Haiza, Ley & yts who all gobbled these up even before I could blink.

What’s left of the icing.

Ayisha beamed this morning.

I’m just happy for her.

The cupcakes’ are also therapy for me when I saw that she’s number 31/39 in her class and 261 out of 313 children in the Standard 1. Aku sungguh sedih. Feel like a failure. I need help.

Facebook .. A Revelation

Seems like everybody and I mean everybody is in Facebook these days.

It’s almost a hype already.

Last week I was fighting zombies, slayers and vampires till I got sick of blood and started to crave for sago gula melaka instead and took a break. And today, I figured out I was promoted to a Level 2 slayer. Hmpfft! In my absence, people have been killing off my slayer again and again. The only explanation why my points kept increasing.

Anyhow.

The best part about it is that I get to get acquainted (from afar, silently) with friends I knew in the olden days and have forgotten them until I see them in friends’ friends’ friends. There!

So, this friend of mine. Sani. More like my junior at UMIST. He looks exactly how he used to any uni and that’s like 12 years ago. Time flew but he looked the same. Except that he has a daughter on his lap. Guess 12 years did go by then. Sani was so innocent when I first knew him from Omot. And his friends were oh sungguh baik and bersopan-santun. Felt so inadequate. But they turned out to be a lot of fun too.

We all grow up, we all grow old. We all got wiser too, in the process, I suspect, though some slower than others. But it’s always always very amusing to see them all again. Reminisce over the memories. Flashes of snippets of memories of lunches in the cafeteria, of the graduation ceremony, or the trips in the blustery wintry night across England. The smells of the past, the tingling and the butterflie in the stomach.

Friends are catalysts to all this mixed emotion. And I get to see what Abas has grown up into. Hmmmpphh.

p/s Entry ini sangat tidak berfaedah kerana saya ngantuk tadi baru makan nasi minyak, sago gula melaka, wantan soup at the offfice Raya do.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

*looks out the window*

Hujan!

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Syawal Telah Pergi ..

Yup. Raya month is over. Phew! I now have a shot at reducing my weight now! Kalau pegi open houses tu makan tak ingat dunia .. no self-restraint at all. Sekarang, rasakan panahan asmara gmoks! Ha ha ha!

Anyways.

First of all, I should congratulate Gina on getting herself hitched and married on Saturday. I’m oh so happy for you. Truly I am and I’m still kicking myself for not being able to attend the glorious wedding at Ipoh. Sorry babe, will make it up to you later, kay! Dengan ucapan .. ehem ehem .. Selamat Pengantin Baru, semoga panjang umur dan bahagia selalu. Dah halal ni, sila kan la! Ish!

Well, next stop. We were at 4 open houses over the weekend. Meen’s, Ita’s, MrGart’s older colleague who lives in BJ and who’s youngest son sits next to Aliya in school and MrGart’s friend’s second wifey’s house. There! I should tell you that Aliya was hiding behind my back the whole time we were at her boyfriend’s house. Malu tak kira. That Farhan pun bukan main terliat sana terliat sini. BTW, if Aliya reads this, I can tell you she’ll flip.

And the second wifey’s house was gorgeous. With fish pond and all. They did a doa selamat & marhaban to celebrate the birth of their child and the aqiqah kambing .. giler punya sedap. Nak amik lebih sikit, malu!

Then yesterday was a BIG day for Adani. Her first ever stage concert was held at Kelab Darul Ehsan and her Titanic (Ninuk’s still baffled why the school named a class over a sunk ship!) class went up second. ANd Adani was FLAWLESS!

She smiled. She twirled. She hooked hands with her cutesy boy partner and perfectly went into circles together. No flips, no accidental bumps. Just perfect twirling. And she’s smiling all the time. She posed for pictures and she waved at the crowd when her turn’s over. She’s a real angel! I’ll upload the pictures soon. It was such a great feeling seeing your baby on stage, performing a dance. Oh so proud a parent I was yesterday and always.

By the way, since this is beginning to be a rojak entry, I should mention that I’ve been pretty snappy for the past few months with the kids. But yesterday, at the concert, we were behind this much older couple whose daughter is in Std 2 and they looked like perfect parents. Nurturing, smiles all around and I made a resolution that I will not become the nagging, erratic, short-fused, perpetually angry, snappy, unstable parent that I am. I’m changing. Insyallah! I pray for your guidance, Ya Allah!

Opps .. to all the CBN’ers oldies, I met Mrs Manuel yesterday. She’s the principal at CBN throughout the five years I was there. She was also the principal who bit my head off for leaving the school for Ser1 Puteri and who bit the rest of my head off when 9 days later, we (my twin & I) crawled back to CBN. He he he! What to do? I love the school too much and did I tell you, we had to sleep in dorms? With other people? Oh sungguh tragis! Wasn’t that actually. We wanted to go to eMRSeM Beseri which my father veto-ed, so in retaliation, we bowed to his demand and got our wishes days later. Anak-anak yang sungguh mencabar minda mak bapak! Psst .. to parents of twins, b every wary, twins are cute, but they are wayyy too shrewd!

Well, I hope this Rojak has enough perisa. Signing off now to make my coffee.

Girly Cuppies For the Girls

Sleepy!

Was up last night till about midnight baking 5 batches of the cupcakes. Then had to wake up this morning about 5am to ice these lil’ cuties.

So, by 7 this morning, Adani’s taking 34 cuppies, Asha’s taking 9 cuppies and Ariz & Aliya can share the remaining 4. Should’ve taken the pictures while these were not wrapped in clingfilm. Heh! But I was running late and just remembered to snap some pictures to make certain colleagues at work drool. Sungguh kejam!

So, I hope Adani and her 22 classmates would have a grand time celebrating her birthday (a month late) and the Children’s Day today. I also hope that Ayisha’s is sitting smugly in her class right now, beaming from her 9 gorgeous cupcakes that her Mummy made especially for her and her 8 other friends. I told her that next week I’ll make at least 50 cuppies for her friends to celebrate her birthday (she’s born on the 1st December, so we’ll have to bring it forward), but she insisted to bring some today. So, I hope no girlfriends of hers would be in tears today.And I also hope that Aliya & Ariz would’ve dived through the cupcakes and not smear them on the sofa. Hehehe!

*zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz*

Anak Jantan Ku Seorang

Ariz Zuhayr !!

 

Arghhhhhhhhhh!