Another Phase

I’ve been through phases of personal frenzy. There was once a frenzy for scrapbooking – I scrapbooked every piece of photograph found around the house. I spent countless hours embellishing and matting pages according to themes.

There was even a dedicated scrapbook entitled “Faces from my past” which from the title one can guess that it was plastered with pictures of ex’s  (that’s a plural) and me, movie ticket stubs, pressed flowers, love letters and notes, lyrics of what used to be ‘our song’ and even break-up notes. I’m still not sure what I’m going to do with that particular book. Sell it for scrap perhaps?

There was another period of personal frenzy which involved a lot of sports equipment – badminton racket, and a tennis racket, a pink golf set, roller blades and Frisbees, which they are now gathering dust, stored away in the far end of the storage room under the stairs.

I’ve entered another frenzy phase the past two months. Cooking, baking and collecting recipes. Not that I don’t cook on a daily basis, but being single, living with family and a helper around the house, cooking is not that much required from me – and I eat out a lot.

But the past two months, I’ve cooked, I’ve baked and I have filed away recipes according to categories. Julia Child would have been proud of me. I have also bought kitchen utensils – food processor, garlic press, icing bags and tips, cookie moulds, zester,  cooling rack, various sizes of baking dishes and pans – some of which I might never again use once this frenzy of mine phases out.

Amidst this cooking and baking frenzy of mine, I have discovered something.

There is something comforting and much joy to be found in cooking and baking. The whole experience and process is somewhat therapeutic to me.

 I love the wafting smell of butter, cinnamon and vanilla, the homey ambience it creates and the anticipation as I watch the batter rising slowly in the oven whenever I bake.

 The sound of ladle and spatula cling-clanging against the wok, the sizzling sound of onions and garlic as they begin to change colour, the fragrant smell of spices and herbs and the flavourful combination of all the ingredients makes cooking pleasurable and enjoyable.

Cooking, however, gives me much more freedom as compared to baking. I love the free flow of ingredients that goes into the pot, altering flavours as I go along. I don’t use measuring cups or spoon, everything is by taste.

I have made egg tarts, blueberry cheese tarts, cheese cake, nasi bukhary, trifle for dessert and an assortment of colourful Hari Raya cookies just to name a few.

What I love most from this cooking frenzy of mine is that I get to share the food with my family and friends and I can safely conclude that the joy of cooking lies in every single person which can either be the love for cooking or the love of appreciating the result of cooking. In the words of Oprah Winfrey, “My idea of heaven is a great big baked potato and someone to share it with”.

It’s not such a bad frenzy now is it? This cooking and baking. If only it would last ;)

p/s: Who says single people can’t cook?

Will I Ever?

Carrie : Will I ever laugh again?

Miranda : Yes!

Carrie : When?

Miranda : When something is really, really funny.

Sex and the City

The Proposal

This is the part where I’m supposed to be sitting hidden behind a door, eavesdropping and giggling and thinking “finally, a marriage proposal”.

I would be making my first appearance to the soon-to-be in laws with a tray in my hand, laden with a pot of tea and a plate of kuih. I would then shyly and demurely cast my eyes downwards, dutifully and oh so gracefully serve everyone the tea, while they in turn would gawk at me and I would finally in a voice that is slighter louder than a whisper, invite them to drink, “jemput minum,” while slowly backing away, heading back to the kitchen, to continue to eaves drop and giggle a bit more.

That was how it was supposed to be or at the very least that is how I picture it in my mind.

Bordering on hilarity and maybe insanity, depends on which side you look at it, the situation which presented itself upon my family and I took me by surprise…and can I say that it completely knocked my socks off!

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. But I remember laughing, loud breathless shrieks of laughter. Maybe I was able to laugh about it because I have never met the guy who was seeking my hand in marriage. A friend of a family friend I think. Must be the work of my aunt. I know, so like the slot Cerekarama TV3 every Saturday.

“tu la, anak saya ni memang nak kawin. Biarla nanti ada orang jaga makan pakai dia ni. Gosok baju, basuh baju. Ye la, terjaga la sikit dia ni. Ni sekarang makan minum pun tak tentu arah. Nanti bila dah kawin, sedap sikit hati saya ni tahu ada orang masak untuk dia, berkemas semua untuk dia ni ha,” says the mother of the supposed-future-husband-of-mine.

And to which my mother, very nonchalantly replied “saya faham maksud akak. Tapi saya nak mintak maaf la bebanyak. Anak akak ni sebenarnya perlukan pembantu rumah, bukannya isteri. Seorang isteri sepatutnya berkongsi hidup, macam kata omputeh tu, don’t walk behind me but walk beside me. Saya tak nak anak saya jadi pembantu rumah. Ish, dia ni masak pun tak pandai, lagi nak ngemas rumah. Eh, jemput minum kak, sila la rasa kuih raya apa yang ada tu ya”

My mom rocks but I think this is one of those moments when the advice “choose your words wisely” should have been taken into account. The things we say, although we don’t mean it, could have a different affect and effect for the other person.

 And for the record, I am very much capable of cooking and cleaning and I can be very domestic shall the need arise.

Just so you know.

No where else but here

If some people would just stop politicizing Malaysians for just a moment, if they would just stop and look really hard maybe they would realize that deep down, we are indeed 1Malaysia.

Selamat Hari Malaysia.

There is no where else I would rather be than here.

Sincerely Yours

There is no kampong to be going back to this year. Grandmother dearest will be spending Hari Raya here with us in good ol’ Kuala Lumpur this time around.

We’re starting new traditions.

I’m expecting arrivals from Singapore and Johor anytime now. No, not anytime now, I need time to make the house presentable. Give me ample grace period please dear aunts and uncles. Time for me  to sweep everything under the carpet and maybe under the bed.

Although it feels kind of weird not to be going back kampong, like we normally do, but I think it doesn’t matter where you are. What’s important is the people celebrating it with you.

Yes, I’ll miss the thundering explosive sounds of the meriam buluh, the shrieks of my little cousins, the harassed feeling I get whenever they try to mow me down, the constant flow of guests that come in droves to visit my grandmother, of which I have to add, would turn me and my sisters into wild and frantic bibiks-making sure that the kuih raya jars are constantly replenished, drinks to flow non-stop and amidst all that chaos, lunch and dinner will still need to be cooked and served. Yes, I’ll miss that.

But it’s ok. They’ll be on my turf this year which means I get to have a say. “Pergi tolong cuci pinggan, jangan terabur makan kuih, ha! Lompat lompat, cubit karang”…I can be that but where’s the fun without the shrieks and yells. It is Hari Raya after all.

So…

Selamat Hari Raya to you, where ever you are, be it in Kelantan, Pahang, Terengganu or even California, have a blessed Eidulfitri. Mohon ampun dan maaf, zahir dan batin jika sekiranya ada tersalah kata, terkasar bahasa selama ini.

Be safe on the roads.

September Rain

Really. Where did August go? It’s September already?

Mean Machine

A guy to gym coach: “I want to impress this cute girl I’m meeting in three days…which machine shall I use?”.

Coach: “Use the ATM machine outside the gym…”.

You Complete Me?

Intermittent pauses between completing PowerPoint slides for a work presentation, writing articles which were long overdue, sipping on really strong coffee and a large sugarless ice tea, there we were, 2 girls, sitting in a crowded coffee place, complaining about the heat, checking out cute boys and back to complaining about the heat.

After a few exchanges of commentaries and analyzing why the heat was so in palpable, the conversation took on a different turn.  From weather commentaries to commentaries on boys to figuring out one of many life’s mysteries – a sense of belonging. And it suddenly poured outside, from where we were seated, we could see the drops of rain. No wonder it was so hot.

My coffee partner, who shall be known as BlackCoffee henceforth, because she likes her coffee bitter and black, is living a life that is still, as she described it, pending. I can’t really describe things in detail as its her story, and writing about it would be like violating copyright protection rules. Her life story is copyright protected.

Ok, now I’m beginning to wonder how I am supposed to continue with the story.

Contemplating divorce, the question that arose was, “am I doing right thing?”. I was taken aback, kind of heavy stuff for a rainy Sunday evening. I looked at her, honestly not knowing what to say. No, that’s not exactly the truth, I knew exactly what I wanted to say, with complimentary  facial expressions thrown in, considering my strong aversion to the husband for the things that he did to BlackCoffee and the kids.  But who am I to judge? I can only say what I think is right, but push comes to shove, it is her life, her marriage, her call.

What lingered on my mind was what she said later as she looked hard at me and expressed what she felt inside “I like the feeling of being complete. That my life is whole. The husband, wife and the kids.”

I get what she was saying. I think I do.

But I can’t help but wonder, does that make me incomplete? Single and all. Is that how many married couples out there sees a single girl out and about, as an incomplete entity in society?

I remember reading a comment on Facebook. A friend congratulated a newly married friend-congratulations! Welcome to the real world. Err, I seriously thought that I am living in the real world as it is. 

Maybe it is one of those cases of  ” I know you think you understand what you thought I said but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” I perhaps may have interpreted it the way it was not supposed to be understood. Maybe, perhaps.

But it does hurt sometimes, to have people say that life is not complete without a husband and kids, that I have not been living in the real world, that my life is much simpler being single, that my problems, my issues are meaningless and insignificant. It hurts to hear comments from married friends when they un-tactfully say ” oh I don’t know what I have been doing all this while, running around town, pretending that all is fabulous, being single when in actual fact life was so meaningless. You should get married already”. If it was that simple, I would have. Trust me.

That is just not fair. But then again, sometimes they say that life is not fair. Maybe I’m on the wrong side of the balancing scale. Maybe I have to hop on to that ‘In a relationship’ bandwagon stat if I want to know what real life is.

Now, what is that dating site I once wrote about? I better hurry and register myself. ;)

Romantic fool that I am, I don’t  support the notion that ‘you-complete me’. I’m much more inclined to believe that ‘I-complete-me’ while ‘you’ complements the perfection.

p/s: Cinta at the moment this entry is written is ok with being single. Marriage is an ever-after affair, a lot of thought should be put into it. Singles have the right to be choosy. We learn from the mistakes of our married friends who are living in the real world.

Predictably Unpredictable

An old friend called me yesterday. We’ve known each other since we were sixteen. I can’t remember how we became friends exactlt as we went to different schools. Me in one of those schools where my seniors would blow up toilets just for the fun of it and being chased by one of the teachers in the midst of cutting school is a norm. He, on the other hand, went to one of those preppy institutions, where they wore preppy white shirts with preppy white trousers and preppy black shiny shoes. A preppy boy in a preppy school, with predictable flying colors exam results with of course a predictable future in the line engineering. Everything about him is predictably predictable.  But his preppiness and my gangsta-paradise of a school background did not stop us from being friends.

So yes, he called yesterday. Which was alse predictable. Only the conversation was not so predictable which caught me off-guard.

Preppy boy : Have you updated your blog?

Cinta : No, not yet. I don’t know what to write about.

Preppy boy : It has been a while right?

Cinta : Errr….yes

Preppy boy : You should just announce its death. Shut it down.

Cinta is rendered speechless on the unpredictibility of his line of thought.   

Un ía a la vez.

When I first started Single in KL, I was optimistic, and positive.

I wanted to stay positive because I wanted my life to be filled with all the good things in life. Good vibes attract good things and good people. I believed in that. Whole heartedly. I saw the good in the bad and though everything wasn’t peaches and creams with cherries on top, I urged myself to see things as colorful as they can be.

But that was then, many moons ago.

I have been in denial for the longest time. Telling myself that whatever is happening will eventually fade away. If only I could figure out the ‘whatever-is-happening’ part. I’m still confused and I am still trying to figure out this empty feeling inside myself.

No, I am not referring to my non-existent dating life at the moment. I admit, it gets kind if lonely sometimes. Not, not sometimes, most of the times. Especially on cold rainy evenings such as today. *sigh* I don’t know…But I do know it is not because of the lack of dates.  No, not that.

There are so many things that I wish I could say here, to let the words flow onto the monitor but I can’t. I always believe that whatever is said or written, whether intentionally or unintentionally, could or would hurt people. Family and friends. I don’t want to do that. I don’t believe in that. I’m more traditional and I believe that I have a certain responsibility to the things that I post here.

Hence the lack of posts the past few months. I can’t think of anything nice to write about.

More often than not, I find myself laughing less and frowning more and even the wrinkle lines have even started to show.  I’ve been seeing less of my friends and family and when I do, even my own laughter sounds hollow to my own ears.

Life is so predictable at the moment. Work, home, the occasional dinner and work again the next morning with the occasional travel thrown in between. I am thankful for that. To be allowed to see the beauty of life, of nature and of people from all over but something is missing. 

I don’t know…I don’t know…I don’t know…

I don’t even know where this post if headed. Maybe if I am honest to myself, and admit that life isn’t a colorful rainbow right now, maybe I can move on and figure out what went wrong.

Tell me that it is human to be feeling what I’m feeling right now.

In the meantime, have a meaningful Ramadhan. Maybe I get to see the little girl with the strawberries sewn on her telekung again this year during terawikh. Maybe this year she’ll have flowers instead. Maybe.

un día a la vez.

One day at a time.