pastries

Nigella. There is something so soothing about watching her carelessly measure cups of flour and grate chocolate, I can literally feel my shoulders loosening up, my inner domestic goddess smiling serenely.

A couple days ago two missionaries rang our doorbell. Well, I didn't know that at first. There was a chinese guy who spoke to me in halting Malay, then the mat salleh guy accompanying him asked if I could speak English. Having replied the affirmative, he asked me if I had heard of God's name. All this while I was standing barefoot in my pajamas with smudged glasses and messy hair(belum mandi).

We talked a bit more, then he asked to read me a line from the Scriptures(?), to which I said sure, why not. He seemed somewhat surprised that I agreed and all the more nervous. He fumbled with his Bible, his voice was hushed and a bit shaky while he read, his eyes were blue.

When we were done he thanked me for my time and bade me good day, while I smiled and wished him the same. I guess most other houses they'd visited must have given them a frosty treatment, they seemed very surprised and nervous with my courtesy, like they weren't used to it.

Did you see the Nadal/Verdasco match just now? Insane. Not that I'm a tennis follower(or any sport, for that matter), but it was grueling. 5 hours! And hear ye, hear ye: When watching such a match, it is best not to sit next to Rafa's most impassioned supporter(a.k.a. my sister). It can get ugly. If you must do so, sit quietly, and make not any sudden movements.

Danish pastry. Now there's a thought.

Lila Fowler

I am giving myself a maximum of 13 minutes to do a post.13 and then slumber beckons.

To the uninitiated, this is a moleskine book:
'Moleskine is the legendary notebook used for the past two centuries by great artists and thinkers, including Van Gogh, Picasso, Hemingway and Chatwin.'-main description you'll find under moleskine's official website when you google it.

I'd show you the nice doodles in moleskine notebooks I've seen but they are all personal sketches of people I blog stalk so it's really not my right to do so.

***

Ya Allah, terima kasih kerana mengurniakan saya seorang ibu yang boleh masak kari ikan yang memang kick ass.

***

I went to the supermarket with my mom yesterday. We grabbed a trolley and started looking for the things on her grocery list. We reached the veggie and fruit section, mom parked the trolley at the side while we looked for tomatoes, daun sup,etc. Then she brought the stuff to the weighing counter to get them priced, so I headed back to where she parked the trolley to bring it around. I got back to mom pushing the trolley, she looked down into it and gave me a quizzical look, saying "Eh. That's not my things in there", something of that sort, and for a minute I froze before the obvious kicked in and I realized I had taken someone else's shopping cart. I quickly reversed the trolley with the intention of returning it back to where I had taken it.

Then I turned and saw some guy with his hands outstretched towards me. Sigh. I screeched out a "Soreeeeee!", pushed the trolley in his general direction and ran away as fast as I could.

Mim alif lam wau.

***

Aurora borealis.
To be able to see this someday? who knows.

Tell me where did you not see the signs?

Becky spies on Mr. Bunny

One thing I like about Channel V is the decent airplay time they provide for regional acts and their efforts to promote said acts. Thanks to them, I've got my eye set on two bands, the first being Electrico, who come from Singapore. Check out their song Hail to the Friends, it has this nice touch at the end where trumpets(horns?) are thrown it.

Lencongan: I think trumpets/horns are brilliant. While I don't have the desire to play it myself, I find that they add a superb additional layer to a song, or help define the song's crescendo. Think John Mayer's I Don't Trust Myself With Loving You, Fake Empire by The National(this one is particularly awesome), and Postcards From Italy by Beirut. Have trumpets/horns ever let us down? NO.

The second band I've had the good fortune to come across(they're already pretty big but I'm ketinggalan as usual) is Up Dharma Down, from the Philippines. I actually just came across them today, so I haven't found out much, but I'm listening to Every First Second, and I must proclaim here that I am totally feeling it. Singer Armi Millare has a smashing voice. If I were to describe the song, I'd say it sounds dangerous, intense, sexy, slightly sad. To me anyway.

Whee. I'm so happy there's good music everywhere.

***

I am very envious of people who take good photos. And people who can doodle beautifully in their Moleskine notebooks.

Lencongan kedua: Back when I first heard it until quite recently, I used to think Moleskine notebooks were actually mole-skin notebooks. As in, they were made out of the skin of this animal:

Morbid, yes.

Alamak, after typing and deleting the paragraph that was to come here over a dozen times, I am now just too sleepy to actually finish it.

Goodnight.

Frankie

There was this one time I blogged about this old shoe box I have, where I keep any paraphernalia that has sentimental value to me. I haven't looked at the box since that last post, but today I was looking for something to paste in my journal, so I lugged the box out again. An ordinary let's-dig-through-the-past moment.

I looked through everything, and a chunk of the junk in the trunk had to with X(ceh, sejak bila aku jadi orang yang ada cerita sensasi sampai kene ada code letter ni?). X was my friend in high school. One year older, quiet in person(I rarely actually talked to him in school), very lively over the net, sent me the best emails.

Looking over the emails, the cards and the souvenirs again, I've come to realize that he was probably one of the nicest friends I ever had. The best emails. Random quotes from Oscar Wilde and lyrics of a favourite song. Dumb jokes, and the kindest words.

I screwed it up.

It is for things like these I dislike the person I was back then, because it took me too damn long to grow up. I think any ounce of common sense and maturity only appeared after high school onwards. Between childhood and the duration of high school(I call them the Crazy Years), I messed things up a lot, and X is among a number of things I particularly regret.

Ceh, is this the afternoon soap opera? No lah, I didn't do anything like get married to his brother who happened to have inherit the family fortune and then convinced him to change his will and leave everything to me, thus leaving his family penniless. Tidak.

I was just the ultimate friend-of-the-opposite-sex from hell. I was clingy, I expected too much, I was over-sensitive. I took things too seriously. Huh. So we contacted each other less frequently once he finished school, even rarer once I was done, and then we moved on to other things and didn't keep in touch. That was that.

I'm sorry I was so stupid. He was one of the nicest friends I ever had.

***

Totally digging BreakEven by The Script. Screw you music snobs.

***

Becky is finally coming around! Displaying increasing signs of a magnificent manja attitude, she neatly arranged herself between mom and kakak to snooze while we were watching American Idol.

Speaking of cats, I met the cat with the handsomest face I'd ever seen at Miss Salmi's house the other day. I wish I had taken a picture! When I saw him, I thought it was the most macho face on a cat I'd ever seen. He wasn't a Persian or a cat of some sort of pedigree or anything, he was just a normal grey and white cat with a stumpy tail and some healed wound scars on his body from previous cat fights. But he had the most perfect face, and he was a tremendously nice cat. He always heeded Miss Salmi's calls, he would lazily blink at her(a smile!), and at other times he would act like a kitten, playing and jumping about and pawing wooden logs.

As I told kakak, I may have encountered my True Love, who unfortunately happens to be in the form of a cat.

Pasang the fairy lights

Kakak brought me to this swing-dance class for beginners a few days ago.

We learnt the basics for Charleston swing dancing. Learning the Charleston(is that right? Do I call it THE Charleston?) was fun. It made me hot and sweaty, and it was awkward since we had to rotate partners every few minutes(the hotness and the sweatiness did not help-maybe if I was a latina goddess it might have, but oh well), but it was fun.

The real nice moment came afterwards. After the Charleston class was done, there was another class for more experienced dancers, (which kakak attended), and then there was a social, where everyone was invited to just swing and be merry.

I was sitting on a bench during the social(since I had no other knowledge of swing dance except the Charleston steps I'd just learnt, there really was no point asking someone to dance, was there?), watching the others do their thang, and it was cool. It was COOL. At one point they were playing this version of Cheek to Cheek(it's this gorgeous song that Fred Astaire sings while dancing with Ginger Rogers in one of their movies), the lights had been dimmed, people were swing-dancing freestyle on the floor, and it was just awesome. To think that you can just ask someone, or be asked to dance; and then glide along to the music, without thinking except to follow and respond to your partner leading, it just seems so enjoyable. I think at one point I was smiling stupidly to myself watching this terrer couple dance, and I thought "whoah, I get it. I get it!".

And what I meant by that was I understood what my sister was talking about when she told me some time ago that when she got married she wouldn't want a silat performance or anything, she'd rather just have a big dance floor and swing dance her husband. I would totally want to do that now too! Swing dancing is great, and I'd be hooked if it weren't such an expensive hobby. And I'm not saying this from a sentimental point of view wholly, though it would be nice to think of it that way. The thought of swing dancing with 'the one' invokes wistful daydreams and unrealistic expectations, but that's crap waiting to be written another day.

The point is, I would love to be able to hear a really good song, start tapping my toes, catch the eye of the person beside me, and somehow convince him/her(be it kakak, dad, a cousin, the cute guy at the dance class, or the guy who looked freakishly similar to my old GP teacher) to dance with me, and we'd just swing! Damn. that would be fun.


***


I'm trying to wrap my head around Palestine, Israel, and the associating branches of Gaza, the Gaza Strip, Hamas and Fatah, West Bank,etc. For all the suffering endured by the people in Gaza, I feel like I at least owe it to them to understand properly what they're going through and what led up to the airstrikes, and not just offer blind sympathy. But it's a bit confusing, and it's times like these where I need a Nani or a Shao Min(them informative folk) to explain it to me.

buat penat je belajar komponen sastera

Semalam kami dapat kucing baru
Hendak namakan Tun Teja.
Malangnya tidak jadi(kami memanggilnya Becky)
Kerana itulah nama yang ia sudah biasa.

Tadi saya ada tinggikan suara saya
Pada ayah, kerana saya marah.
Tapi ketika menaip pantun ini
Saya sudah berasa serba salah.

Tadi ayah saya bawa Becky keluar
Biarkannya meneroka laman.
Apabila nampak sang arnab, Becky takut
Dan dengan Mr. Bunny dia enggan berkawan.

Saya cuba membuat kek berpuding
Sepatutnya ada dua lapis berwarna terang.
Tapi tidak menjadi, saya patah hati
Jadi kek itu saya buang.

Hari ini saya banyak tulis dalam diari saya
Dengan tulisan yang begitu buruk.
Kalaulah orang lain baca diari itu
Tentu mereka ingat ia ditulis beruk.

Muka saya ada banyak jerawat
Saya rasa sungguh tak puas hati.
Bila-bila saya terpandang cermin
Terus muncul perasaan geli.

Saya pergi tukar warna blog saya
Gatal pergi pilih warna kelabu.
Kadang-kadang bila saya tengok semula
Blog saya nampak hodoh macam jelebu.

Saya senang naik angin pada hari ini
Baru sedikit kena dah merajuk
Tambahan pula, saya bengang
Sebab saya sangat gemuk.
(Damn)

Saya nak menari banyak-banyak
Saya nak baring atas rumput sambil dengar lagu
Saya nak pergi taman permainan terdekat
Dan naik buaian laju-laju.

Pantun saya sangat bodoh
Jangan risau, saya tahu
Tapi lagi baik tulis pantun ini
Daripada post yang panjang merapu-rapu.

ok tenkiu. bye.