Kitchen rule no 1: Listen clearly

Ever since the birth of hawker stalls just a stone throw away from home, mom has dramatically decreased the frequency of the kitchen tools' usage. But last week, because we decided to give our faithful vehicle a major rest, mom took charge of the kitchen again. This was the main course of the day;

Gorgeous Macaroni and Cheese

So I strolled into the kitchen area while she was preparing the ingredients and before I managed to sneak out from it, she spotted me. Thank mighty god for the good tropical weather, mom got some onions from the backyard to spice up the dish.

Mom: Please cut the onions. Not like usual eh, make them in cubes.

Me: **scratch head, don't understand and simply cut onions like usual**

Because the kitchen was in quite a din with the sound of pots and pans fighting with each other, literally you would think it was a kitchen of mass destruction, if you were nearby. Thus you would understand why the following conversation (which was more of shouting than talking) took place.

Mom: Don't you understand what I said, cho ho ee bien cube!! mm si like this...haiyoh lu...

Me: **Scratch head again and continue cutting ritual**

Mom: **Snatch away knife and took possession of half cut onions** Kio lu cho ho ee bien cube lu beh hiau tia hior!!! haiyohhh.....

Me: Hamik cho ho ee bien cute....onion pun tiuk cute ee meh?!!!

After that mom almost killed me with the knife had I not escaped the kitchen with my fast running legs....Phew, rupanya ask me to make them into cubes. Baru ku tahu.

Sigh, ampun tuanku beribu ribu ampun :)

Die Die Die Die Die

More often than never, I make it a point to at least post once a week. Suddenly when I am just about to write something for the reading community, something I thought would perhaps make your days better and brains brighter, I realize that my finals paper for BUS 320: Advance Human Resource Perspectives is on 5th February 2008! That is less than 3 weeks away.

Oh my God.

Oh my God.

*Counting fingers and running wild to find calendar before smacks into wall and faint*

P/s: Seriously wei, like this can die-lah!

About what happened last week

That morning, I had lingered outside the gate, making my walk from the car to the house deliberately slow and measured, unsure of how to greet the family friends in the wake of this death. I saw a few men talking at the garden and a few ladies by the casket sobbing. As I write I feel vaguely guilty that I had felt so little in those hours immediately following grandfather’s death. Our lives had never crossed much until my recent stay at the same house. I have grown up knowing him only as a visitor, someone who is so familiar; yet unknown.

When evening came, all the floors downstairs were occupied by the people from the surrounding communities, who had arrived to pay their condolences and provide support for the grieving family. Most of those present were women, and most of these were older women, for whom a death, which did not emotionally affect them, was an opportunity not to be missed. It was nonetheless a chance for them to get together, to fuss, to gossip and to reminisce about the deceased person, even someone they had not really known.

I stood before the casket several times when nobody particularly noticed, and looked at the photograph displayed by the side. He was really a handsome man, I decided. I have always thought that father is also good looking, though in my opinion, his regular clean features lacked openness and no sense of the unpredictable in his nature.

Unpredictability; to me are the qualities that elevated ordinary beauty to something irresistible. Don’t you think so?

During the night when everyone was quiet and asleep, thoughts of grandma came more often than I had expected. The white casket, the beautiful flowers and the continuous murmurings of condolence were reliving themselves as they reminded me of her funeral barely two months ago. It is at this time, awkwardly at grandfather’s funeral, that I really feel the lost of someone so important and realize more than ever, how much I miss her presence during the past weeks.

For a long time, I stayed under the sheets and watched the ceiling in the dark. At grandfather’s house they give me a big mattress, but I remained still on only one side, not used to spreading myself out and taking more room than I needed.

The rain has come now as I sit here writing this. I listen, relieved at the rain, at its breaking of the silence outside which I am now so used to. The rain is drumming hard and hollow on the roof, and as I listen, I hear the steady downpour splashing as it hit the ground beneath, such a variety of noise the same water is responsible for.

I close my eyes and listen again; wondering about grandma, what she is doing and about grandfather, where he is at.

And if both of them were happier now to be away from home tonight?

Peace be with you