Weekend

Urrghhh.......... what an indulgent weekend !

Received about 4 invitations tapi I only fulfilled family ones. The rest, Kamil's client and 1 ex-colleague I had to decline. I really hate makan sampai kembung. Cakap aje... because even though I went to one house for lunch and another house for dinner, still kembung jugak.

Kamil's Mak Teh served mee kari. Tengah makan baru perasan udang masak tempoyak. How lah can I miss that one. Ambik lah jugak sikit and it was amazing. Pekat dengan tempoyak, which I love even though I do not take durian. Haha.

Since we are still bibikless, balik to clean the house and tackle the laundry. There were loads. Luckily Kamil is able to take half the load.

For dinner went to Kamil's Mak Ngah's house and they had live keawtiaw and satay cooking, cendol and pasemboq. Makan lagi.

Slept with heavy stomach so it was not that peaceful.

Today we cleaned the house again. And cleaned. And more cleaning.

Bila bibik takdak baru lah perasan that she is not very good at keeping house. Borderline lazy lagi sebab I couldn't see the effort at all. Bibik Yati last time memang tak pandai but the effort is there. Yang ini... hmmmmmmmm.... Setakat elok nak jaga anak-anak ajelah.

Aku ni... kalau tak pandai takpe, boleh diajar tapi kalau malas tu yang susah. Hmmm............ Nak buat macamana ? It is rather hard to get a good maid. Walaupun this one Kak M yang carikan seperti biasa but she could not guarantee her efficiency, kan ? She can only promised me that she can be trusted, itu saja.

Jadilah. Beggers cannot be choosers and since I am not the type to marah-marah... I just have to bear with her.

Tomorrow I start training. Seminggu siap. Dok pulun siapkan report ni...

Cerita bodoh bulan posa

Okeh... meh aku cerita...

Satu hari during ramadhan, all of us broke our fast kat TGI. All of us were there.... so I took the opportunity to ajak adik-adik aku tolong angkat pondok aku from the left side of the house, to our patio on the right side.

My BIL MD cakap ok aje and ajak to buat kerja-kerja pemindahan malam tu gak.

They all came around 10 pm and mulalah Kamil, MI, MJ, MH and MD flexed their muscles. It was not an easy job kay sebab ada halangan di setiap perjalanan. But MD dah studied the pondoks (ada 2 masalahnya),keliling rumah tengok topography and all, duduk memikio cara-cara yang paling sesuai and off they went.






Aku nengok aje. After they sucessfully placed the first one, tiba-tiba this horrible smell assaulted our nostrils. It was beyond awful. Smelt like fresh cat poo. Check-check ropanya MI yang dah terpijak. Hehehheheh.... Meraung le mamat macho itu sambil mengamuk marah Moggy. Sorry ek. Moggy tu ada class, he wouldn't do such thing. Plus, all the while he was in the kitchen... so it wasn't him. Whatever it is, puaslah kita orang berguling bantai gelak kat dia sampai dia meraung lagi sekali.

That is why, the next one MI tak mau buat. Mengada.

Anyway, we sat bersembang until past midnight and they left with plans to sahur roti canai kat kedai Mamak.

Pukui 4.30 pagi Kamil dah pi collect adik-adik and mak aku. Some kita jumpa kat sana. While eating, my Maksu sms-ed suruh mai rumah dia ambik barang. Kamil buat perangai gila and ajak pegi Damansara dan-dan tu jugak. So pegilah aku dan dia, anak-anak kami, mak aku and MI.

Tak sampai 5 minit dalam kereta, the horrible smell from yesterday mai balik. MI ni tak cuci betul ke ? Belek kasut dia and adalah sikit yang masih tinggal. Aduih.. letih kay. Punya lah busuk, aku pening kepala.

So Kamil berenti kat petrol pump seksyen 9 and suruh MI basuh the offending selipar kat situ. Dah dia keluaq, kami pun keluaq lah. Marah lah pulak dia.

"Tak payah lah semua orang keluaq !" Eh, suka hati lah. Kamil went around the vicinity to cari kayu, while mak aku bagi instruction macam mana nak buat kat MI. Aku dok berdiri sambil gelak aje... Entah kenapa kelakar sangat.

It didn't seem to work, masih ada banyak lagi walaupun water was used and Kamil jumpa kayu to help scrape it off. MI dah angin tahap gaban dah masa tu. Why, I dunno.

Then mak aku grabbed the shoes from him and sambil mencangkung, mak aku ketuk-ketuk kasut tu kat rumput. Aku ngan Kamil pi bantai gelak lagi because the sight of her in her jubah, matahari pun belum naik lagi, tepi jalan sambil dok mencangkung tu sangat kelakar bagi kami.

Tambahan pulak si MI menjerit-jerit suruh mummy berhenti but she ignored him. MI entah kenapa naik gila and while aku and Kamil dok gelak and mak kami dok ketung-ketung kasut tu atas rumput, dia nya dok menjerit-jerit, "Family ni clown tau ! Clown ! Clown ! ARRRRRGGGHHHHHHHHHHH "

Lagi le aku and Kamil bantai gelak....

Aku tak tahu kenapa aku rasa the incident sangat kelakar.

Aku tak tahu kenapa MI kena angin.

Maybe we are really clowns.

If only I took pictures.

Heheh.

Merepek di kala pening

So….

Hmmm…….

I am very happy. Tersangat happy.

But also, I am quite worried. About something that is totally unrelated to my source of happiness.

So… last night, my worry and extreme delight made it quite difficult for me to sleep.
So a bit hazy now.

A bit ? Who am I kidding ? Extremely hazy.

I have loads to do. Have to finish them by tomorrow morning as I have a meeting after lunch and will be off the whole of next week for training.

It has been awhile since I been trained.

Tension jugak.

Ngantuk lah.

Semalam aku naik hantu. I told my kids already to jangan buat perangai sampai Mummy jadi Pontianak. Degil.

I am the sweetest so and so around okay (heheh) tapi bila aku angin, you’d better run.

Ooohh.. berlagak.

My staffs nak datang rumah. Hari tu quite a few couldn’t make it. So aku pun apa lagi, busy le nak ngebat rumah. At least dapat tukar cushion cover yang dah koyak rabak tu pun jadi lah.

Hehhehe…..

Btw kelmarin, Abang nak naik atas. Sibuk keliling rumah cari Moggy. When I saw him happily carrying Moggy out of the kitchen, I shook my head in resignation. Punyalah penakut, kucing pun jadilah nak jadikan teman.

But when he saw me shaking my head away, he said, “Saya bukan takut lah, Mum… I just need companionship…”

Hehhe… Amboi hai…. Cepatlah aku dapat menantu agaknya.

Raya do

So… Raya dah nak habis.

Aku kononnya nak cerita sangat pasal tragedy kelakar bangat sebelum Raya tak pun cerita-cerita sampai sekarang. The mood for that story dah hilang dah… Hehhe…

Last week we invited Kamil’s past and presents colleagues datang rumah for raya. Because aku tak puas makan ketupat palas and kuah kacang (I am a kuah kacang person… rendang doesn’t do that much for me…) I served that together with kawan2nya ketupat and rendang, plus laksa Penang and the usual Minestrone soup with crusty baguette (I really should start making other type of soups sebab satgi orang boring mai rumah aku…. Nak buat mushroom soup leceh lak.. Nak kena blend soup tu at the end….).

Mum made some meehoon goreng sebab takut tak cukup buuutt…. Aku ni segan lak nak serve it to my guests sebab pernah sekali when I was small, aku dengar orang bersembang pasal menu at a party and “biasalah kat Malaysia ni birthday party mesti ada meehoon goreng…” was mentioned. And dah lama-lama spaghetti Bolognese was mentioned alongside meehoon goreng. So sebab takut orang boring, aku akan cuba elakkan from serving these 2 dishes. Tapi Kamil keluarkan jugak sebab Mummy’s meehoon goreng is his favourite. Sekejap je habis pulak. Soo…. orang dah tak boring dah lah kot…. Haha.

I also made chocolate cup cakes and caramel congo bars which one of my staffs tapau-ed home for his family. Mana mamat tu dapat tupperware Allahualam because I definitely didn’t give it to him. I also baked marble cheesecake and of course chocolate and vanilla tarts. Must reduce the eggs when I next whip out a batch of them vanilla creams.

Alhamdullilah the guests didn’t come in droves but they arrived in batches so we weren’t super busy and had time to talk and sit down with the guests.

My boss came with his lovely, lovely family. Before that Kamil’s Dutch boss arrived right on the dot and I shook his hand saying, “How marvelously mat salleh of you to come on time..” just to make Kamil a little anxious. I suspect that he is a bit nervous when I am in the same vicinity of his bosses as he knows I like to tease.

My aunt and uncle came all the way from Perak so yeay ! I was happy and Kamil was grateful.

We have taken out the humongous table from the library and put it in the kitchen instead as the kitchen table kan dah pi ke patio. The light green table made a wonderful working table, what with its size and girth. I placed a two seater and a long backless bench in the library to fill the space, laid out an old carpet and voila ! a much cosier library materialized. During the makan-makan, we left the side door opened and it was sooo nice in there, what with the wind and the rustling of the leaves from the rambutan tree just outside the room.

Sooo nice…. Especially considering that I didn’t have to spend any money to furnish the new addition to the house as expected. Well… maybe I have to re-upholster some of it. Shouldn’t be too expensive.

My guests prayed in the library and when my aunt and my cousins were in the room, I saw them baring-baring sambil sembang-sembang and they looked peaceful and tranquil… and oh perasannya aku.

Anyway, it was a nice makan-makan. Food tak banyak yang tinggal and my guests stayed for quite awhile to lepak and just enjoy themselves. Kamil’s boss stayed for almost 2hours which was nice. Kamil’s aunt and her family also stayed for quite some time, bergossip berbagai with his sister sambil gelak-gelak. One of Kamil’s ex-staff siap mandikan anak lagi. I am glad that people are comfortable in my home.

Masalahnya we didn’t take any pics. Sayang….

Cerita pendek hari raya... cerita panjang.. Sat na....

Selamat Hari Raya ! Maaf zahir dan batin.

It has been awhile since I wrote. And I do want to write, especially about just before raya and raya itself buuutt... I thought it would be nicer with pics. Buuuttt the pics are only available via Facebook and... apparently you can't copy from Facebook and paste it elsewhere.

So really right now I am waiting for my very inefficient sister to pass me the pics.

As usual, pagi raya with the ILs. Then around 12 baru le dapat aku balik rumah mak... like 5 minutes away. Second year in a row I ajak Kamil balik kampung dia and dua kali jugaklah dia tak nak.

So what to do ? Ikut my sister balik Seremban. Hehe....

Malam we visited Bab and Mami Ela and it was really fun sebab my cousin Zaf is back from Dubai. It had always been such a pleasure talking to him, especially since he and my husband both adore each other so they talked a mile a minute. Ada je benda nak cerita.

Second day, pagi-pagi lagi aku cabut balik Perak. Best.... And as usual, aku pegi solo sebab my other family members cannot bergerak pagi2 one.

Best kat Perak. At one relative's house we were served Mee Kari Ketam. Terangkat segala apa benda yang boleh diangkat. Kita orang tension sebab dok memikio macamana le masak benda alah ni. Macam masak mee kari biasa ke ?

My aunt punya lah curious sebab esok pagi when we woke up, tu dia... Mee Kari Ketam for breakfast. Berebut kita orang makan. Menjadi, buutt... kurang manisnya. Maybe they had better ketams than my aunt.

And oleh sebab itu juga, I will try to make some this Saturday.

Tunggu ya for the verdict.

Anyway we had wanted to stay for 2 nights. By 4 pm dah angkat bag dah... dah kat pintu dah kita orang pun... But punyalah busy bersembang, when I looked at the watch dah pukul 6 !

So Kamil said, toduq sajalah lagi satu malam. "You okay ke ?"

You asking me ? Of course le aku okay. Rumah my family maaa ?

Happy !!!

Anyway, yesterday Mom called to announce the death of my aunt in Kedah. My dad's sister-in-law, mom of my 4 cousins. Terkejut gak because we didn't know. Patut le mom ajak balik Kedah but she didn't tell us why. Kita orang malas le pulak nak balik because the very loooong journey.

Anyway, I am quite sad that we didn't go. I simply can't. Berguling atas lantai boss aku kalau aku ambik cuti lagi..

Dah malam baru my cousin teringat nak sms all his cousins. Aku tak perasan pun until my other cousin called around midnight to ask. Sian. Aku tak mau kacau that is why I didn't call. Busy kan ? Tengah sedih kan... Tak yah lah aku kacau.

Anyway, dah tak ramai dah menakan aku up north. Most of us are here so aku kesian jugak ngan depa. Tapi I am sure adik-beradik belah Arwah ada to offer help.

Takpelah. Maybe next week aku balik utara to check up on my poor uncle. My Tok Cik pun meninggal kat rumah depa. So I can use the opportunity to visit her grave jugak.

Al-fatihah for Mak Arah, yek ?

Thanks.