of fire, chingay procession, birthday and 4-car pile up...

these four things happened in a single day. how exciting!

went to dadi's on saturday. you know the usual end-of-the-month-visit-the-nenek-day. we reached abt maghrib. traffic was ok lah, slow moving but ok... drive up was fine, till we exited tampines and ammi suddenly screeched, "eh! dekatnyer kereter sebelah ni!" i turned, and oh yes, the car on the left was very near to ours. and as i was trying to make out the driver's face, a horn was heard and the car sped past us... lerrrr.... uncle aku rupanyer..!! nasib baik uncle aku, kalao orang lain dah kene dah. i'll chase that bugger and kicap his face. (like real!)

upon meeting at dadi's place, uncle said later they wanna go see the chingay procession. i was a bit malas actually. and memandangkan i got a good parking spot in the mscp, sayang pulak nak give up the parking lot (alasan!)... so after magrib some of them went by uncle's car and i stayed back.

while chatting with auntie and the kakak sedara, we heard the maids kecoh-ing at the dapur. apparently they saw a red-rhino vehicle and i scrambled for the camera and went down to become PHOTOJOURNALIST. hehehehe..!!

 

  

 

the opposite block's rubbish chute was on fire. so i think someone called the scdf. surely enuff, when they opened up the rubbies chute, and went through the heap of rubbish, there, i saw fire. and the smell. urgh, rubbish and smoke smell, eyurgh...!! they managed to put off the fire in a blink coz the fire wasnt really that big. all's well that end's well. as in the song in 3 idiots, "arrey bhaiyya, alls is wells...!!"

then i went up to dadi's house and uncle called to say that the chingay procession will be passing by the road behind dadi's block. so went down again. and surely enuff, i managed to experience a really colourful chingay procession!! the uncle and the rest were complaining on how they were trying to catch the procession by car and in the end, the procession passed by dadi's house. hahahaha..!!

some pics for you to wow at.

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

i like the universal studios one, very elaborate. and of coz, the one with the pharaoh's head, haiz... i just love egypt and anything to do with egypt. there's one with a lion's head and i suddenly remembered Aslan, the Lion in Chronicles of Narnia.

done with the procession, we celebrated my niece birthday. Shahirah turned 9 yesterday. She was the one i was facebooking about, the one i went bonkers searching a birthday present for her mwahahaha...!! in the end, i bought her an Interactive PC. ok lah tuh.

i like her cupcakes! i saw it and the song, "UNDER THE SEA...." played in my mind.

all done, we decided to make a move. it was nearly 10.30pm. we sent caci home 1st then proceeded home. the traffic on PIE was going at a snail's speed. we were at paya lebar and on the automatic road announcement board stated that there is an accident at Eng Neo... siak lah, jauh nyer... brapa lama lagik nak kene tempuh ni traffic jam.

but just as we reached eng neo, there we saw it. a 4-car pile up. this must be one of those front-car-jambrake-and-the-rest-couldn't-stop-in-time scenario. i saw a car with a p plate and the number plate is SJN. argh, kereter baru. mesti sakit jantung owner kereter tuh! and alas, i was driving. if not i would have taken a pic.

and then it was a smooth drive home. top up minyak kat caltex and reached home like nearly 12am. and slept like a log.

nice hor. in one day, got to see red-rhino fighting rubbish chute fire. got to see an array of nicely decorated chinay procession vehicles. got to celebrate birthday. and got to see a 4-car pile up. heh.

geylang sipaku geylang... and good cheap western food...

i cabotz out of work today for a while to meet Ammi at Geylang. She wanted to get some things. And since on Saturday, we wanna go chill at nenek's house, and Sunday is a duduk melengkar macam ular day for us se-family, so today it is.

Geylang on a weekday is not like Geylang on weekends. Pretty lengang lah compared to the hustle and bustle of the weekend crowd. You can even change parking space at Tanjong Katong every 10 minutes and you still have lots more parking space to cover mwahahahaha...!!! Kalao weekend, nak dpt satu parking lot, macam nak gi perang.

Oh. Anyway, I forgot to bring the camera. How silly. I must be having a super-gonggong day. Yun and NO CAMERA..???!!! MUSTAHIL...!! (cue dialogue: "hari ni hari bodoh saya tuan!")

But anyway, 1st stop Tanjong Katong. I literally went crazy (not that im not crazy, i know), at First Lady tudung section. You know they selling cheap-cheap tudungs right? They were selling shaylas!! 2 for $5.90. TAK KE GILER TUH!!?? Im a sucker for shaylas. If I had known they had started selling those pretty things, I would have rummaged my wardrobe the day before and take note of the bajus which has no tudungs to go with them hik hik hik. These shaylas very pretty, with donno what batu/shiny things at the rims. and since they were quite jarang, I bought the tudung dalam too. You know the easy tudung, where you just sarung and tadaaa...!! Mesti jembu kan Miss Yun wearing them (ok people, cue: MUNTAAAAAAAAAH.....!!).

Next stop, Joo Chiat. Abba kirim supplement Habbatus Sauda kat kedai jamu. My family swear by that supplement. Oh yes, one day must write blog abt Habbatus Sauda. With a hadith Nabi accompanying the supplement, I'll gladly eat that rather than any other drug-gy supplement. Hadith goes as this - Habbatus Sauda, ubat penyembuh segala penyakit melainkan maut. MasyaAllah. I see a lot of improvement in me after consuming that, Alhamdulillah. Cuma kadang2 kalao penyakit nak datang, tak leh elak lah kan. Penyakit datang pun pencuci dosa, betol tak?

And the sister kirim tudung also at Joo Chiat. My sis is the tudung-masuk (aka easy-tudung) fan. She not like me, brooch here brooch there, until tudung oso lobang2 asek kene cocok byk kali hik hik hik.

Next up, Pasar Geylang. Ammi wanted to get her sarung lengan there. I tried wearing sarung lengan before, but I kind of get irritated by them. Tak tau lah kenapa hehehehe... Belum serasi lah gaknyer. Hehehhee..!!

And then, it's makan time. It was lunch hour but Pasar Geylang kedai makan is quite deserted. So we had all the time in the world to choose our makan and tempat duduk. We settled for western food this time.

And COME HERE COME ALL, I wanna make a makan review as well. When you go to Pasar Geylang and is in of good western food, please do get your fix at #02-142. There's this western food stall which is simply named "Western Food". And when we came to order, there's this malay abang, a very friendly one, greeting us chirpily. Ammi wanted to eat spaghetti and I wanted to eat grilled fish. And so we ordered.

This is it, the spaghetti bolognaise, $4.50.

Here it is, the grilled fish with mushroom sauce, $5.50.

(sorry for the not good picture quality, never bring camera mah. so must rely on 3.2mp hp camera heh.)

IT WAS A GOOD CHEAP WESTERN FOOD LUNCH. Wa tak bedek. Spaghetti was nicely done. Not too sour. Fish was nicely grilled. The coleslaw blew me away. You know some coleslaw tastes so mayonnaise-y that at the end of it, you feel very muak? This one had just the right amount of mayonnaise and the vege were just abt the correct texture.

I feel happy when I eat a good meal. And I washed that down with Green Tea. Oh yes, I love Pokka Green Tea.

Then after a few good burps and smiling faces, we had to make our way. As we were leaving, the abang greeted us again. "Ok dik. Terima kasih dik, datang lagi." And as usual, aku kan muka tak tau malu, I turned and said, "makanan sedap ah, mesti saya datang lagik." Abang senyum sampai kat telinga dokkkkk... Next time must take photo of the shop and the abang. Kasi kedai abang popular. Korang rasa dia bagik aku commission tak? Mwahahahaha...!!

And then, I went back to office and Ammi went home. The heat was sweltering and I was sweating buckets. Happy dapat masuk office with the aircon full blast and nearly snoozed away mwahahahaha...!!!

Ok dokssss... Till my next write...!!

The Neneks, The Moyangs AND The Pantangs...

Ok, hari ni im in the mood to story about pantangs. You know those taboos of cannot-this cannot-that kinds… I don’t know whether you were subjected to this when you were younger, but I had my fair share of it whilst growing up. Some more wa budak kampung. Not really kampung lah… My kampung was in South Buona Vista aka Pasir Panjang tapi the house was made of bricks and stone and cement. So is that considered kampung? LOL. So growing up in the kampung gave me a fair share of kampung pantangs from the neneks and the moyangs.

One of the things that I loved to do was reading whilst lying on my tummy. And I would dangle my two legs up in the air. Alah, senang cakap, meniarap and menyabong. And whenever someone, maybe an auntie, and usually it’s an auntie lah, or the grandma or the mum saw that antic of mine, a screech can be heard and the screaming started, “Eh mana bole menyabong gitu!!!!??? Nanti mak bapak matiiiiii……!!!!!!!!!” And automatically the legs will drop to the floor and I will suddenly find myself sitting up, mouth agape, eyes terbeliak like got toothpicks stucked between the eyelids like that. Yelah, sapa yang nak mak bapak mati dokkkkkkk……..????

That was one of the pantangs that I hold so dear to life when I was growing up. But then, as the otak became stuffed with knowledge and the mulut dah pandai menjawab, then I started thinking. Wait eh, what does dangling legs got to do with dead parents?

So sebenarnyalah kan, org2 tua dolu-dolu don’t want their womenfolk to look so uncivilised. Well, for a minah to dangle legs like that is not a pretty sight, so the neneks and the moyangs did a tagline like that so that the minahs are scared for their lives and will NOT dangle their legs like that. Easy solution.

Ni lah orang2 tua dulu. Kalao nak fikirkan balik, a lot of the pantangs, if we really hold on to them and believe in them, can actually lead us to be syirik, Naudzubillah. Take the above for example. Dangle legs = equals to = parents die. Cannot think like that mah. Kan dosa tuh. Ajal maut kan kat tangan Tuhan.

Interesting hor… Lemme see what other pantangs were there that I can remember of, or maybe you peeps can remind me of what I have missed out.

Pantang: Tak bole baring menyabong, nanti mak bapak mati.

Sebenarnya: As explained above, the neneks and the moyangs mata sakit tengok anak dara terkangkang terkiyap tertiarap-tiarap kat lantai. LOL.

Pantang: Anak dara tak leh duduk kat tangga rumah, nanti tak kawin. (this applies to tangga umah kampung lah, I guess)

Sebenarnya: Another one like the above also lah. Tak manislah minah2 duduk2 kat tangga rumah. Becoming tontonan orang lalu-lalang. (And aku tak pernah duduk kat tangga rumah, tak kawin2 pun sampai skrg hik hik hik… Ammi will surely roll her eyes if she knows I typed this mwahahaha!!)

Pantang: Anak dara tak leh menyanyi kat dapur, nanti dpt laki tua.

Sebenarnya: The neneks and the moyangs wanted the minahs to quickly finish up their whatever housework they have to do in the dapur. I guess singing hampers the speed at which they were doing the housework, so as to scare the minahs, this tagline was used.

Pantang: Tak leh jemur payung dlm rumah, nanti ular datang.

Sebenarnya: Tak nak orang tersandung and trip over the payung lah actually. And also the neneks and the moyangs don’t want the wet payungs to wet their house. Takkan lah pasal jemur payung dlm rumah, cik ular nak datang bertandang pulak kan. Hehehehe…!!

Pantang: Tak boleh amek gambar bertiga, nanti yang tengah2 mati dulu. (I’m quite surprised actually, a few friends of mine are believers of this. Now, even in this age.)

Sebenarnya: Maybe it happened that, there were three friends, took photo and the middle one died 1^st.

Or, there were three friends. Two of them wanted to take photo together and the 3^rd one was jealous, so he/she started the tagline. So the speculation became that whoever amek gambar bertiga, the tengah one die 1^st. Gitu. Dibawak turun temurun, sampai mcm real jadik criter tu. Takkanlah pasal tu je bole meninggal pulak kan. Secara kebetulan lah tuh….

Pantang: Tak boleh duduk atas bantal, nanti bisul.

Sebenarnya: The neneks and the moyangs heart very pain lah see the anak cucus sit on the bantal yang dijahit cantik-cantik. So kerana nak menjaga bantal tu jangan koyak or rosak, they created lah the bisul story. Lagipun, tak baik jugak lah kan, bantal yg buat rest kepala dibuat untuk letak bontot kita ni. And kalao kita pk balik pun, now punyer zaman, we are always siting on bantals what, right? Cushion pun bantal per.... And the ones who usually get the bisuls don't even remember siting on bantal kepala hehehehe...!!

Pantang: Tak boleh menjahit diwaktu senja/ malam, nanti mata guru buta.

Sebenarnya: Bila dah kene tegor gitu mcm mestilah takot kan, sapa yang suka tengok gurunya buta atau cacat whilst it is from the teacher that you got the knowledge from. Actually lah kan, the lesson to be learnt here is the neneks and the moyangs ckp mcm tuh pasal, dorang tak nak mata anak cucu dorang rabun due to bad lighting. Back then, org kampung kan, their source of lighting is lampu minyak tanah aka lampu colok. And also to prevent the finger from dicucuk si jarum.

Pantang: Tak boleh letak pinggan kat tapak tangan when eating (bertatang), nanti jadi perampas suami/isteri orang.

Sebenarnya: Orang tua tuh cuma nak warning tuh. Makan bertatang kan dangerous, orang terlanggar sikit, the pinggan will fall off the hand and bersepahlah nasi. So as to avoid extra work of cleaning, the neneks and the moyangs created this story.

Pantang: Dilarang bertukar-tukar tempat bila makan, nanti byk laki.

Sebenarnya: They just want you to sit at one place and eat lah dey. Yang kau makan merayap tuh buat apa?

And this one is a mystery till now...

Pantang: Tak boleh makan leher ayam, nanti leher terkulai kat pelamin.

Sebenarnya: Aku pun tak tau apa reason disebalik pantang ni. Penat berpikir otak ni. Maybe the neneks and the moyangs wanted the whole pinggan of leher ayam to themselves. They mati-mati donchwan to share the chicken necks with the anaks-cucus, hence the terkulai kat pelamin story. Ni aku punyer theory. Kalau korang ada theory lain, lemme know. Hehehehehe...

Amazing kan? All these pantang larangs. At this moment, somehow, the mind can’t remember any more pantangs. I believe, the pantangs dikuatkuasakan because the neneks and the moyangs just wanted to keep their anak-cucus in check lah. To teach them manners and to scare them so that they become civilised people.

Tapi like the mum said, dulu punyer anak-anak, dengar kata. Lagi-lagi the anak-daras, very naïve, mak cakap apa pun, they believe. And the mum had to add, “tak mcm kau, ada je nak menjawab kalao orang tua cakap.” Oppppppsssss!! Alah, sorrylah Ammi, but wa tak leh carry ah gini mcm punyer pantangs mwahahahaha…!! Pasal wa rasa tak logik lah Ammiiiiiii....!!! Hehehehe…!!

Anymore pantangs you would like to share?

Salam Maulidur Rasul SAW

mlm ni dah masuk 12 rabiulawal

ingat tak hari apa?

hari keputeraan junjungan besar kita, Nabi Muhammad SAW.

the day Allah bless us with the arrival of the al-amin, Rasul Allah pbuh.

allahumma solli 'ala saiyidina mustofa, 'ala habibika nabiyika mustofa

with that, i leave you with this song by Sami Yusuf, You Came To Me.

Salam Maulidur Rasul SAW semuanya.

breathe easy people...

for PASTAMANIA is still HALAL... yeay! yeay! *take senapang gajah and shootz the people who started the email rumour*

jahat eh mereka-mereka ni. tak baik kan spread rumours gini mcm. hmph!

up up and awayyyyy.....

no lah, not going anywhere lah... just a little bit on the happy side, or should i say jovial side... i'm finally given the ok to get back to work after 7 days at home...!! yeay! yeay!

to those who came late, oh well, let's start from the beginning...

on a sunday during the chinese new year holidays lah, happy-happy go ECP, swim-swim like nobody's business, eat-eat like khinzir hutan, then returned home with sunburn like dendeng kene bakar sampai hangus...

oh. before that, the picnic cum bbq was mindblowing. i loved it!! had a lot of fun...!!

and, back to the story... came home with the face turning technicolor. my face - the part where it was covered with hejab - was my original colour. then the rest of the skin was blackish red. oh, you know the sun eclipse? black in front and with the light all around the circumference (spelling?), my face was like that - and i am NOT exaggerating.

then the hands, shoulders down all fine. till it comes to the wrist onwards, black. then the nose. the nose turned red, like that famous arch-nemesis of mine. the CLOWN lah what else? and the lower lip, oh my, that was the weirdest feeling ever. it's like my whole lower lip stiffened. kering and blueblack like donno what.

looks like the skin has decided to turn mat-salleh and spf 20 sunblock is not enuff. should have listened to yan and tempek the spf 50 sunblock on the face. but, oh well...

i was perplexed. oh god, how was i supposed to go to work looking like a roasted chicken? the face so cannot make it one. but it's ok, i thought, i still had monday and tuesday to recover.

then on wednesday morning, the day we all humans were supposed to get back to work, i woke up with the lower lip feeling so sore. somewhat guessing why the lip decided to give out that feeling, i took a peep into the mirror and horror horror, the whole lower lip had sores breaking out! yikies! cold sores aka lip herpes aka shingles aka MAMPOS AKU...!!! i've never seen that numerous breakouts in one sitting. NO, NEVER..!!

but still, i braved the morning going to work. i felt like a blardy alien sitting in the mrt with lip looking like it has pimples. i avoided all eye contact, but i felt the whole world was looking at me. so bad for the self-esteem, chet.

decided to see company doctor 1st thing when i reached work. doctor was quite taken aback seeing the millions (ok, im exaggerating here) sores on the lip and said, "looks like i need to give you mc." shucks. when i have work piling in the office, there the mc makes its appearance. but no choice mah. i deal with patients so cannot anyhow go to work smiling to patients with the lip looking like that right? wait patients complain how? LOL... so mc given, wednesday to friday since saturday and sunday are not my work days. to be reviewed on monday.

but psst, i was actually enjoying the mc on wednesday to sunday lah. mcm happy gitu kan duduk rumah, goyang kaki, tengok dvds, surf net, and during the cny holidays kan, all channels of starhub were given free - so apalagik!! ahahahaha...!!

but the only thing that was distracting me was, well, 1st i cant eat much, coz i cant even open my mouth big enuff to sumbat the spoon in and 2nd i felt groggy and sleepy soon after i pop the 5 times a day pills. so it was more of makan sikit, tido, bangun, makan sikit, tido routine...

monday came and again saw the doc. i had suspected i would be given more mc because some scabs were still not drying out yet. bingo, as expected, two more days of mc given. by then, i was starting to feel bored sitting at home. coz donno what to do already mwahahahaha...!! nak kuar pun tak leh kuar, pasal i'm sort of being quarantined (and it's amazing how some people don't understand the meaning of quarantine).

and the hand started to feel itchy and started peeling off the scabs everytime i'm in the toilet. yeah bad move, coz one scab turned bloody when i forcely pull it off yesterday. apalagik, kene tengking lah dengan mummy dearest. "tangan gatalkan! meh sini mak tarik sumer!!" hah kau, menggigil skjp! hahahahaha...!!! but by night, most of the scabs dah fall off by itself. so i'm happy.

dad took a look at the lip and said, "ni satu belum kering betol ni, bole keje ke?"and i said, "saya nak keje lah, dah boring dok umah." i think the dad must have supressed his intention of putting his hand over my forehead to check whether i was having fever and rubbish-ing away. mwahahahahaha...!!!

so today, reviewed again and i'm fit for work yeay! the colleagues were sweet and the boss sweeter hahahaha...!! i think he's just sweet coz i just came back today. besok, siap lah. hahahaha...!!

although there are still some scabs left, im so glad im hale and healthy and back on my feet and no more feeling groggy. but yes, throughout the days im at home and felt like i was rotting away, ramai jugak yg mengetest kesabaran aku... rather than comforting me, they were in fact making me feel guilty that i was sick and have to stay at home. blah. nevermind, ni hari aku, besok2 hari kau, baru kau tau perasaan aku, labuuuuuu.

i'm hoping that the remaining scabs fall off quickly and that the sun-tanned (or the sun-burned sampai hangus) hands become fair again as quickly as possible. the face dah ok sikit, the hands ni yang masih mcm orang minyak heh.

so it's up, up and away for me in the office. so many things to follow up and needing my attention. need to get that groove back and now i realise, I MISS MY OFFICE AND MY JOB. mwahahahahaha...!!

ok lah ladies and ladies, see you next time. tada!!!
luv,
the one who is jumping with joy coz she got her results and she passed her Module 3 Arabic exams. MODULE 4, HERE I COME!!! WEE WAA!!