Pembantu rumah

So … aku tak ada pembantu rumah sekarang.

Because my helper Yus nak sangat balik sebab nak kawin dengan pacarnya. “Saya udah berpisah dengan suami saya….”Hmmm….  Wokey. I fervently hope lafazan cerai ada berlaku….

So in June, I sent her home with a heavy heart. She is not good at her job true, but the kids love her and dia tak banyak cakap. Plus, good or not, yang penting she is there for the kids.

We were maidless for a month where every morning is a mad scurry to prepare for the kids’ stay with the ILs. My heart went to them every time I waved them from the door, merendeh-rendeh dengan bags filled with after school clothes, slippers and school bags which they will lug around until home time.

The kids came home feeling tired because they have no room of their own at Atuk’s house, their own stuffs and the luxury to do the things that they want. Adik once said that she felt like painting that day and was disappointed because she had forgotten to bring her set. Esoknya, tambah lagi satu bag berisi her painting stuffs pulak.

After a month of doing that, I found a temporary one. Lebih kurang Yus aje budak tu. Diam aje. Aku tension dengan minah ni because I have to specify everything I want her to do. Please buang sampah pun perlu di-specify. Kalau aku tak specify, berulat benda tu kat inside the kitchen bin. Jadi aku yang tak suka menyuruh-nyuruh and prefers you- follow- what- I- do adage spent weeks cleaning up the house. But one good thing about her, she religiously followed suit.

Then after 3 months, dia pun nak kawin. Apalah halnya ni. What is it about me that mana-mana aje maid yang datang mesti nak kawin gak. Neti and Bibik Suriati too did that. They are both happily married now. Bibik Suriati is almost 50 and lost her husband 10 years ago, okay ? Tak pernah pulak cakap pasal ada boyfriend and tetiba when she called to say hello, she sprang “Bibik udah kawen…” to me. Nak jugak aku pengsan masa tu.

So… the kids are back living like nomads. Nasib baik cuti sekolah so they don’t have to tow extra luggage to school. And nasib tak baik jugak cuti sekolah. Because they have duduk tegak and mind their behavior and just follow other people’s lead whole day long. No luxury to baring-baring tengok telly, or their favourite videos or play with the neighbours’ kids or paint or baring dalam bilik sendiri, or belek their card collection or main PS3 yang Babah baru beli. The PS3 yang Babah promised bukannya untuk main game tapi untuk tengok Blue Ray.

I have never seen him do that even once.

And for me… well… Kamil sebenarnya yang bermasalah. Dia yang kena basuh baju, iron baju, bagi anak makan, cuci toilet etc sebab I have been coming home late.

Well….dah dia yang sanggup…

Moving on… hari tu I asked Adik to help me send something to the kitchen. We were up in the room and there were just the 2 of us at home because Kamil and Abang went to play football. My little girl although can be very feisty and sassy, she can also be very, very penakut.  Bukan scraredy-cat dah tapi scaredy-lion. Oleh itu, dia mintak aku teman. “Saya takuuuttt…” she said with a sheepish smile. Laa… what is the point of me asking you to do it if I have to teman you ? Might as well I do it on my own, yeah ?

So….

Mum : Takut apa  ?

Adik : Hantu..

Mum : Takut apa ngan hantu ?

Adik : Nanti dia cekik saya..

Mum : Have you ever read in the papers about anybody yang kena cekik dengan hantu ? Pernah tak ?

Adik : Vampire can suck my blood….

Mum : Vampire doesn’t exist ! Have you ever baca dalam paper pasal orang kena gigit dengan vampire ? Itu semua cerita dalam telly. Not real !

Adik : Okay… what if saya kena rasuk ?

Damn….

Mum : Okay lah, okay lah… Jom turun.

Haisshh !!

I hate second guessing myself

So……

Anak aku, my little boy managed to get 5As for his UPSR.

Seronok kan ? I am so happy for him, for us. Memang it is only UPSR but to see his hardwork, all those studyings, and ferrying him to classes finally paid off.

Including all the marah-marah, and the emotional pujuk-pujuk and nasihat too of course.

Ada orang ni cakap aku garang dengan anak-anak sebab tu lah Abang dapat 5A. I don’t know if she really meant that Abang is not clever and could not do it without the extra effort. Whatever. But I feel like I must stress that apart from garang, I am also loving and funny and generous.  Kalau dak, Kamil would not have said, “You are a good mother…” when I asked him to describe me in a sentence.

I really wanted to hear, “Sexy siren..” really.. considering that he is my husband…. But there you go. That was what he thought of me. Him, the person that I could not lie to or hide things from since we share pillows should know me better than anybody and everybody in this whole wide world, dak ?

So apart from garang, I should really have other positive attributes as a mommy, yeah ? Perasan ke aku bila aku cakap macam ni ? Entah.

So… that spoiled my mood a bit.

Still I am happy for Abang. And proud of him. When cikgu called out his name, we were still walking to the auditorium. We heard a few names being called but we have no idea what that was about. Baru nak naik tangga, we heard his name being called and kelam kabut lah kami berlari dalam terpinga-pinga.

“Why are they calling your name, Abang ?”

“I really have no idea…” he said.

When we reached the first floor, where the auditorium is, several people called out his name. Some patted his back while aku and dia tercengang-cengang. Adik was trailing behind us and Kamil was not even there because he was still trying to find a parking space.

When we got to the door, a teacher saw him and shouted his name. He went in while I stopped at the door. Cikgu gave him the slip and he looked at it. “Menggeletar tangannya….” Said the teacher to the crowd (she was holding a mike).

He then turned around to me and with the biggest smile ever said, “I got 5As !” I motioned him to come to me because they were waiting for him to leave before calling the next name. He started to leave before he stopped, turned around to the teacher and said, “Terima kasih, cikgu….”. They laughed. I think I was more proud of that, him being so polite.

He showed me the paper, I got all emotional and hugged him tight. Masa tu hilang euphoria, hilang pride. Yang ada cuma kasihan. I don’t know why aku kesian sangat dengan dia at that very moment.

Maybe all those years of reminding him to study, marah dia when his results are not up to mark. Stress budak tu agaknya. Bila dah dapat the coveted 5A, now what ?

At that moment aku rasa macam, what is all this for ?

But trust me, it was just but for a fleeting moment sebab lepas tu when I saw Kamil, terpinga-pinga jugak, I was truly happy again.

Aku rasa yang penting is he understands the requirement to work hard. Eventhough time has changed and our everyday life changed where bullock carts changed to cars, lampu pelita to light bulbs, dapur kayu to gas stoves but the requirement to work hard did not change. You still have to work hard to live. And this is the most important lesson learnt in this process.

Cuma… well.. I just hope that the memories of him working hard does not overshadow the memories of him mucking about, having fun and just be a little boy. Hari tu we watched Criminal Minds and there was this scene where the villain, while falling down to his death from a building was experiencing the customary your whole life passed before your eyes thingy.

Abang commented that it is sad that the villain only had 3 good memories and probably that was why he became orang jahat. Before he drifted to sleep that night, he again talked about that and from there I know that it has a profound effect on my son.

Therefore I really, really, really hope he has more than 3 good memories !

Congratulations my darling, darling boy. Mummy is sooo proud of you.

Deepavali

So…. Apa aku buat masa cuti ?

I don’t remember Tuesday at all for some reason. My memory is really getting bad.

Wednesday pepagi lagi I took the kids to 1U. It was just the 3 of us on account of Kamil had to work. Kami sampai sebelum kedai bukak lagi sebab aku punya tak mau berebut parking. Hehhehe...

Ingat nak pi tengok wayang but since I haven’t been to 1U for ages, aku melilau cari TGV. Lepas baru perasan TGV belum bukak lagi, melilau pulak cari GSC. Punyalah banyak escalator aku naik just to find parking space instead. When finally jumpa dah terlepas Frankenweenie by 30 minutes.

Hampeh.

Lepas tu aku berbelanja sakan kat Zara beli baju untuk Adik and her cousins who came later with my mom and siblings. Pi makan Thai food, makan Churros, beli board game untuk Abang supaya dia tak asyik mengadap PS3 yang bapak eh baru beli (I really do not understand that purchase.. Apparently it is a guy thing so I wouldn’t understand ever !).

Malam…. Budak2 mengaji and lepas tu Kamil took us to The Curve. Ingat nak makan kat Ikea tapi punyalah ramai we went to Popeye’s instead, much to Adik’s displeasure. Adik ni sebijon aku, perut Melayu, so fast food ni macam tak kena dengan gaya. Tapi Babah got upset with her and kena marah kat situ. Sian anak aku….. Aku memang tak sampai hati tengok meleleh ayaq mata sebab makan. Aku rasa tak salah pujuk kot. Nak marah buat apa ? But what to do, aku yang pilih mamat garang bak vampire lapar to father my children…..

Semalam Kamil ajak jogging kat Lake Garden. He said he feels fat, buat aku rasa he feels I am fat jugak tu sebab tu beria benar ajak jogging kat tasik size besar. Yup, aku adalah tension hari ni…..

But alas, the heavens poured that morning so what we do was breakfast, ambik bibik baru (more later on bibik lama … kalau aku ingat lah nak cerita….), hantar budak-budak balik, attend to our toilet (and I do not mean toilette kay..) and drove to Viva Mall, the biggest mall for Homeware, or something to that effect lah.

Nasihat aku, jangan pegi sebab all 6 floors had nothing that caught our eyes. Zilch. Nada. Kosong. Rugi giler all those floor space, kay. Mengarut. Lepas tu pi Mont Kiara Solaris tapi apa pun tarak, pi Publica tapi susah nak park kereta so aku ajak Kamil pegi BSC.

Balik kami lena and siap-siap untuk pi sambut Deepavali with Kamil’s staffs. And let me tell you, we didn’t manage to get to our destination. Kami kena tipu dengan GPS. 2 kali. Lain yang kami tekan, lain yang depa tunjuk. They even managed to send us to a place that made us think of our safety, made us think if we ever gonna get out of there alive.

At one point I had to get out of the car to help Kamil do a U-Turn on a very, very narrow road. Dengan hutan belantara sebelah kiri and gaung sebelah kanan, and kegelapan yang lebih dari gelita, aku dah bayangkan episod-episod yang sungguh tak best from my favourite Criminal Minds actually happening to me. KLCC peeking magestically behind the huge trees kat belakang aku looked so surreal amidst the surrounding, wokey.

So our plan for briani and muruku was thwarted. We got kuew tiaw goreng at Uptown instead.

Bosan.

Posting emo

I think I have been very good about people having their own opinions, which literally translates to I don’t try to impose my own opinion on you. I also generally respect other people’s opinion, I don’t judge as really, how we think is shaped by our environment and make-up (if you know what I mean), a nature/nurture kind of thing.

Saying that however, I feel that respect shown to the little ones yang minta sedekah  or bantuan, if you like, is something that is expected. Showing respect to others is not subjective, not based on opinion but rather on just being plain nice. The requirement to be nice is also not a mere opinion but something that is demanded by society and all religion. To be shown respect is a right for everybody and anybody. Hak semua.

Some people are of the opinion that we shouldn’t give any money to beggers, whether they are nicely dressed or not. Some say rather than helping these kids, it is better if we help single mothers, or support cancer organisations or whatever. It is fine by me. What is not fine with me is being rude to these kids. To the little boys and girls yang self-consciously approach you and bagi salam with calendar ke, or ubat or madu in their hands.

Kalau tak nak bagi pun, can’t you just smile at them and say no ? Or worse, geleng kepala without the smile ? Must you ignore them while the little one terkulat-kulat tunggu you to acknowledge them before finally leaving ? Or worse if you waved them off rudely which resulted them to turn around immediately with face red with shame ? You like to see people malu macam tu ?

I once dined next to a couple in Shah Alam. In between them there were tom yam, fried calamari, telur dadar, sayur goreng of some sort, nasi of course and rojak buah. Bila adik datang minta bantuan, pakcik berkopiah and makcik tudung labuh buat dek.  Macam budak tu tak ada pun kat situ. Salam pun tak berjawab. The boy left and approached our table. When the couple got up to leave a few minutes later, I noticed makanan semua tak habis. SO it is okay bagi duit for food that is going to the bin but to spare even RM1 for charity pun tak boleh. To even smile politely at the boy and say no pun tak boleh. Maybe in their eyes the boy does not warrant any acknowledgement. Sampah masyarakat agaknya. But what disturbed me the most was budak tu pun dah tak rasa apa-apa. I expected a bit segan ke, marah ke but nada. His face was expressionless, his heart already hardened at a very early age. Sian dia.

I believe that dugaan datang in many shapes and forms. And if not pun, where is your sense of pity and empathy ? Surely that doesn’t have to be taught ? But then again, I could be wrong.

Anyway once, at a time when I was always out on the field, one night while having dinner with my colleagues, a little man came. One colleague ignored him and pretended not to see. Seeing that, I waved the little guy over and gave him cash. Another guy looked sheepishly at me and said, “I do not know if these boys are genuine…..” Fair enough. I told my colleague firstly he doesn’t need to explain. Secondly, I too do not know if they are genuine, but I believe that Allah is watching and judging how I am handling this. And thirdly, I tak sampai hati. Children are too precious to be ignored. Doing this is degrading enough and I do not want them to feel worse by being rejected.

True enough, kelmarin I took the kids to KFC after their class. Twice we were approached by these boys and twice I gave them money. When the second boy approached me, the first boy who I had given money to tried to stop his friend from coming to me, but I told him that it was okay. I gave the second boy some money and Kamil asked if they had eaten. They both politely said yes.

“Makcik nak belanja makan sini, ni. Nak tak ?” I persisted.

“Takpe makcik, kami dah makan….” He said, smiling beautifully. So innocent, so sweet, so young. Kalau dia dekat ngan aku tu, mau aku peluk. I one saw one makcik actually doing that, okay. She pulled the surprised boy to her in a side hug. She asked if he went to school and if he was clever. Sweet, huh ?

Anyway, the other boy, was a bit older. He smiled gratefully at us and then left. Many, many times they walked in front of us and every single time they will smile.  I thought initially that they do actually want to eat tapi segan nak cakap, but lama-lama I realized, they just want to see a friendly face.

Subhanallah. Kesian kan ? I was just thinking berapa banyak kali lah depa kena verbally abuse or ignored today.

Saying that, it doesn’t mean that I condone those people who sent these helpless kids out to get funds, yeah ? I am all for the kids.

So… mana-mana anak-anak yang kena cari rezeki by this way, when things are bad and all you need is a hug, come and find me. Makcik akan dakap erat-erat and peluk kuat-kuat, kay ?

Adik tak leh nangis

I remember that day, while I was crying, curled up on the sofa while MJ and Kamil buried Moggy, Adik came to me, face all troubled.

“I can’t cry, Mummy… I am so sad about Moggy but I just can’t cry…” She squeezed her eyes shut tightly, willing for the tears to actually come.

“Maybe you don’t love him as much ?” I suggested. To tell you the truth, I am rather curious about her, my little girl. It is quite hard for her to shed tears, unless instigated by anger. Which is soo unlike her Abang who could cry at a moment’s notice, meleleh air mata if there are things that upsets him.

Meleleh air mata aje tau, bukannya meraung..

Anyway, my daughter protested saying, “But I do love him as much, but I just can’t cry. Why ?” I pulled her into a hug and didn’t answer because seriously, I have no idea why.

Two to three days afterwards, while in the car Abang and Adik were having a discussion about Moggy, reminiscing I suppose when the conversation turned into Adik’s lack of crying.

“Why didn’t you cry when he died ? “ Abang queried.

“I was sad…..” was the reply.

“You can’t cry…” he accused.

“I can too ! I cry every morning when I wake up !”

HAhahahahha…. I had to masuk campur at that point. “Itu throwing tantrum namanya, bukannya menangis sedih…..”

Nasib baik sengih… Kalau start menangis payah gak.

Anyway, between then and now, she had said so many, many funny stuffs cuma whenever I sit down to write about it, I dah lupa. Bila I bawak kereta sorang-sorang boleh lah pulak ingat.

Oh.. I remember one now.

It was ages ago. Masa tu raya I think and Abang was feasting (and I mean it in every sense of the word) on Tok’s cooking. In between mouthfuls, he commented, “Tok is such a good cook. Tok is the best cook for native food and Mummy is the best Italian and English cook…”

Hehehhe…

Adik pulak tanya, “What is native food, Abang ?”

“Macam nasi lemak, nasi goreng like that….”

And Adik naik hot, “You mean makanan biasa ? Malay ? Why do you say native food ? Why do you like to use words yang orang lain tak tahu ?”

Hehhehehehehehhehe…….

My fluffy orange boy... WAAAAA !!!

So my orange boy is gone...

I didn't know it was going to be so hard, really. I miss him.

I miss having him around. That night, after we buried him I asked Kamil what he wants for dinner. I was tired from the long journey, from the drama and all, so in my head I could only muster a fried egg sarnie. Kamil ho-hummed for awhile then he said, "Jom keluarlah..."

Eh, tak penat ke mamat ni ? Bawak kereta from Ipoh, ada aktiviti tanam-menanam dalam hujan lagi. Then he said, "I tak sanggup duduk kat rumah tak ada dia. I feel funny... Usually dia ada kat sini watching tv with us...." I of course cried again.

SO we went out with my siblings and everybody was trying to figure out the cause of death. I couldn't bear to think what did it and the whole time aku rasa kepala aku berdenyut sakan trying to ignore the discussion that was going on around the table.

I cry almost everyday. Especially when I arrive home and he is not somewhere waiting for us. I miss seeing an orange furball lurking around whenever we got home. I also miss seeing him peering from the back of the house whenever he hears us getting into the car. I miss catching him outside the house, walking on the road, out for another adventure. Kamil usually would stop the car and order him to go home. He, my darling, darling boy would always meekly obey.

Kamil would always say, "Pandainya dia..." as we watch him walk desolately back into the house, his plans for the day interrupted by his very strict parents. He would sometimes run home whenever he saw us arriving home, always ready at the door to quickly get in, to be cosy and dry again. Usually bila kita orang nak keluar he will keluar sekali, to watch us leave from the porch. I alwyas wonder if dia sebenarnya nak ikut. Sian dia.

No more putting in water for him at our bathroom because he will only drink from that source. Sometimes when we forget there will be loud meow to remind us. No more requests to be scratched while I was on my throne. No more him jumping on my computer, so jealous that I wasn't paying attention to him. No more waking up in the morning with him in between Kamil and I.

Aku rasa ralat sangat sebab the day we were busy preparing to go back, the day before he died, he was following us around, meowing loudly. Numerous times Kamil and I stopped our preparation to ask him what he wanted. Aku remember bending down to pat him on his head while he looked at me with eyes so wide and big, meowing urgently. I wish I had gathered him in my arms instead of just patting him. I wish I knew what he was trying to say.

I can't stop crying. Kadang-kadang meleleh air mata ingat kat dia. I keep looking at his pictures, trying to remember him alive, desperately not wanting to forget him, his essence, his perangai.

Oh dear.