BUTTERCUP DAYS

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Where is Anne?

Head above the buttercups,

Walking by the stream,

Down among the buttercups.

Where is Anne?

Walking with her man,

Lost in a dream,

Lost among the buttercups.

What has she got in that little brown head?
Wonderful thoughts which can never be said.
What has she got in that firm little fist of hers?
Somebody's thumb, and it feels like Christopher's
 

Where is Anne?

Close to her man.

Brown head, gold head,

In and out the buttercups.

A.A. Milne - Now We Are Six

EID UL FITR 1430H/2009M

... and on the eve of Eid, the Raya Grinch slinked away, his scheme to steal our Raya foiled at the call of the 'takbir'.

What a whirlwind celebration. Still, it was a low key affair at my folks' home that morning. Everyone was in a jolly mood although we were missing our dearest Tok Kecik and my younger brother (who had to spend his Eid in Turkmenistan)

And me? I'm just glad the grinch left me alone for once.

'ABUNDANCE' MOMENT AT NAZA HOTEL PENANG

One of the privileges of joining a trade or a business organization is, you get invited to some cool functions and launches. As much as I love the sharing of knowledge and meeting new people, I must admit I enjoy the free food too!

Last Saturday, I was lucky enough to be invited by a friend to a cooking demo at Naza Hotel Penang. We had a function with Bank Islam in the morning where I played the bidan terjun emcee at Kompleks Masyarakat Penyayang, and in the afternoon, I drove Kak Siti, with her daughter Alya and her mom Makcik Bulat to Naza Hotel, coz let's face it, I'm horrible with Penang roads. Duduk Penang betahun-tahun pun tak pass lagi jalan.

I don't usually blog about the food that I get to sample to all these hotel that I went to, coz most of them is standard affair. But this time gets a special mention, just because the menu is out of the ordinary, the taste of Mediterranean.

We were supposed to have the demo alfresco, the beach view was really breathtaking. Unfortunately, it wasn't our rezeki kot to enjoy the sea breeze coz not long after we arrived, it started to rain catberts and dogberts, and we were ushered inside.

Refreshing strawberry drinks were served by this cheerful abang (this was before the storm came)

What was missing were those little card signs that tells you the name of the food on display, so I'm just guessing these are eclairs.

I recognize the baklava at the back, but I've no idea what those are in the glasses, I didn't have the chance to get one for myself and orang lain dah bedal dulu. Some type of pulut with gula melaka and ice cream, I think.

Kempen buah-buahan tempatan

Appetizers, even raw carrots were delish! Alya in the background.

The chefs at work balling up meatballs- Corporate Exec Chef Shokri (right) and Sous Chef Ismail Mat. The recipe's really simple! I'm confident I can make my own meatballs, no more of the frozen fare!

Part of the menu, steamed veges and creamy potatoes (my fave!)

Grilled succulent kebabs (left) and dawwud basha (the savoury meatballs they made earlier). If you think the name of the dish sounds like a Turkish lord or something, then you are right! It is named after a Turkish pasha who was very fond of these dish.

Chicken korma and lamb meat, I suppose. I couldn't find the name of the dish in the press kit, but it was absolutely divine. The meat practically melts in the mouth, tastes like a very very good rendang.

Other foods that I didn't take any picture of are the wonderful harira soup, assorted salad and breads and an array of desserts. I was quite in a hurry to eat, but other guests who were faster to grab the good stuff beat me to it, haha.

The 3 piece band who ought to sing Mediterranean folksy songs to fit the theme actually, but most of the songs the played were in Spanish! Entertaining none-the-less.


The calm after the storm

Wouldn't it be nice of we ate outside instead?

Thank you so much to Naza Talyya Hotel Penang for the superb spread. Do check out their buka puasa promotion coz each day of the week, the spread follows a different theme. I think the menu is fabulous, not too overwhelming coz you can't stuff yourself too much for buka puasa unless you wanna walk out of the buffet room looking like a penguin.

After the lunch, we dropped by the magnificent Masjid Terapung in Tanjung Tokong for Zuhur prayers.

What can I say, the view's so gorgeous. Memang aman untuk beribadat.

Thank you, Ya Allah, for all the abundance in my life.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT YOU

Well. In conjunction of V day today, I've decided to do a 'rosy' post to offset those terrible after effects I could still feel from yesterday.

This is dedicated to my Valentine girl.

The first thing that I love about you when I laid eyes on you is, your eyes. When you came out from me and the nurses handed you to me, I wasn't so crazy about your nose but your eyes, ouh your eyes, they were so INCREDIBLE. I remember as the nurses were wheeling us out of the labour room, those huge glazy brown peepers of yours were wide open, scanning the ceiling and soaking in the daylight. You must have been wondering why things were so bright so suddenly. They're so spectacular and almost alien-like coz you didn't have eyebrows until you were much older. In fact, during your first week, we were quite obsessed with coming up ways to get your eyebrows grow, and not worried about your hair at all, coz you had those, until they shaved you bald. Your grandmother diligently drew brows on you with candlenut oil, and the petua worked! You have beautiful well shaped brows growing after that, unfortunately countless attempts at doing the same to your bald head proved fruitless.

Of course, I realized that no child could be perfect. For those mesmerizing eyes, the lack in the hair department was the unfortunate equaliser. But I love your hair now. Your grandmother says you have my hair when I was your age, wisps of fine hair curling at the nape of your neck. In fact, you're my exact carbon copy.



What I love about you is your colourful melodious voice. Your big voice, your small voice, your talking voice, your singing voice, your whiny manja voice, your screaming screeching voice that splits eardrums and shatters sanity. It is a sound I came to love. There were times when your endless chatter exasperate me, but trust me darling, what I really want deep inside my unthinkable heart is to never hear your silence.

What I love about you is your skin, every inch of it kissable and stinky and excessively sweet depending on the time of the day. It's a shame that you would have problems with your skin throughout your life I'm sure since it's hereditary but I'm grateful so far the affected area is your neck and sometimes tiny patches on your face, because it's nothing in comparison to that poor little boy that we've met at Tesco the other day who has the acute form of the condition. Or compared to your cousins Ebby and Danish who had to battle bath time everyday due to the stinging sensation on their broken skin. I'm so ever grateful for this small imperfection.

I love your tiny delicious yawn, your adorable pandiculation when you're rubbing off those sleepy bugs. You're a horrible sleeper, you never admit that you're sleepy and you never want to wake up when it's time. I love it when you whine, "Kakak cuti hari ni..." to get away from school. How I wished the clock ticks slower come morning so that we'll have more time to roll around the bed.

I love the way you walk, the way your adorable bum wiggles from side to side coz you have toes that turn inwards, so naturally you have a very ladylike walk. The only problem is you have naturally unladylike manners as well.

I love the way you sit cross-legged on the carpet while you rot your mind silly watching the atrocious Hagemaru. You look so tiny, but you seem to grow larger with your amused grin spreading slowly on your face at each punchline. Goodness, such undivided attention you pay to the insipid show.

I love the fact that you're mortified when we'd want to turn on the dvd player with the loud sound system, especially when your Abah announces that it's gonna be a war movie (yeah, he's all about war movies lately, isn't he? *rolls eyes*) When your pleas as to not put on the dvd goes unentertained, you'd wedge yourself between us on under our arms and sit very quietly at all the rat-tat-tat-tat and kabooms. Last night, you had to endure 'Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow' with me (coz our A**sterok was suspended, yeah, just can't let that go) and you acted so ridiculous and tensed the whole time. When I teased you that you're not scared of horror movies or ghosts, but are terrified of invading robots instead, your logic was "Nuha tak takut yang hantu-hantu, yang black-black, Nuha takut yang robot-robot, yang grey-grey saje" (I'm not afraid of black ghosts, only grey robots). The comic-book atmosphere of the movie spooked you big-time, I suppose.

I love it that when you see my exposed shoulders, you'd stroke my bare skin with your soft cheeks and you'd break into your own song "Lembut momma, lembut momma...". Or you'd pull the sleeves of your shirt to expose your own shoulders and you'd chant the same silly song.

I love the way you purposely yell at me, just to see my face crumple in mock tears, and you'd quickly hug me around my neck to give me consoling pecks on my cheeks. You find this game enjoyable coz you'd probably seen the adults do it too often, you think we do it for fun.

Alas, there wouldn't be enough pixels in this blogspace for my declaration of love for you, dot (or in the whole wide blogsphere for that matter). And you know I that I couldn't love you enough to make you understand that this love of mine surpasses all - all the scoldings, the pinches, the cold shoulders and the nasty stares that you sometimes get from me. I'm truly sorry if you're ever hurt.

I'll love you for all you are, and I hope you'll love me back for what and who I am. And if you don't understand by what I mean, someday when you're old enough, I'm sure you will.

THURSDAY NIGHT

We usually spend our Thursday nights at home, coz I try set up a good example to Nunu to read the surah Yaasin after Maghrib while waiting for Isya' prayers. It crossed my mind to be able to spend some time at mosques again, but since having Nunu around, I never do that anymore. Heck, solat terawikh pun asyik ponteng.

But she's grown up now and I kept thinking, when is the best time for me to start bringing her to mosques? I see people bringing babies for prayers and I never thought it's possible for me to do the same, but I know I have to start somewhere.

So last Thursday night, the opportunity came and I just grabbed it. I'm attending a tahlil event in Masjid Negeri Pulau Pinang organised by DPMMPP, marking its 50th anniversary. Not wanting to be stuck in the jam, we set our journey as early as 3 pm, picking Zara up at her home. She made me wear baju kurung. Ugh. Zara looked gorgeous as usual, all decked out in her shiny new baju kurung, while I decided to wear this old rag that I had since I was 15! Stupid move, coz the rubber bands at the waist weren't that elastic anymore and I had to use pins as I didn't have that much time to decide on something else to wear.

The traffic and the ferry ride were smooth during non rush hours, so we had plenty of time to waste. We hadn't had japanese food for quite a while (those pre-packed sushis at Tesco don't count!) and settled on Sakae Sushi at Gurney Plaza since the food are reasonably priced. Imagine two pieces of nigiri sushi (salmon) on a green plate costs only RM1.90? And they were generously cut and fresh too (sorry forgot to take pics... too hungry!). We regretted ordering other food coz we could fill ourselves with just those addictive raw 'cat food'! But our orders were just as good. Even the green tea was very aromatic, which I think had a tinge of seaweed flavour to it. I don't know, I could be wrong.

Sakae chawamushi (RM3.90) which Nunu had. So-so, we've had better.

My yakitori (chicken satay in layman's term!) - only RM7.90 for 3 sticks. And the chicken pieces were huge okay, a lot bigger by the famous satay Kajang standard.

Zara's goma salmon donburi (RM11.90) , basically just rice with lotsa chopped raw salmon and sesame seed.

Zara is this sushi-sashimi-fishy girl, haha. On the other hand, I'm a meat and chicken kinda girl. I gotta have 'em grilled or stir-fried, therefore I always go for teppanyaki or teriyaki. I'm on this special protein diet, which is perfect for me coz I don't feel like it's too much hard work since I never liked having that much rice anyway. My diet now consist of primarily lean chicken (baked or grilled), dory cooked in many ways, tofu soup, yoghurt, eggs, canned tunas and a range of veges and fruits, the kind that keep well and don't need much peeling and cutting.

It was hard for me to stay away from potatoes and fried food, but the beauty about this diet is, if I practice portion control, I can have that fried chicken or yong tau foo! I can have protein snacks in between meals too, so that I'd never feel hungry. Gimme a few weeks and see if I can pull this off and lose a couple of pounds, alright?

Cheeky pose.

Oh, going back to the story, Nunu was being very trying that evening. Although she wasn't really misbehaving, she kept wanting to go to the loo all the time! And I thought she has learnt to hold her pee already. The first time we went before we had our meal, and we were lucky the rest room was nearby and the handicapped cubicle wasn't occupied (I always, always go for the handicapped cubicles). The second time she wanted to pee, I had to practically drag her along while frantically search for the restroom in the crowded basement floor. We had no choice but use the squat toilet and she accidently sprayed on my shoes, which made me go "FAAARRRKK!" under my breath.

The third time, she complained that she wanted to pee again as I was buckling her to her seat, but she just went like 20 minutes before that! Dia tahan kencing ke apa? Probably that lah coz the 2nd time we went, the toilet there was really smelly and she was holding her nose, hihi. We couldn't go back coz I already paid for the parking coupon and we had less than 15 minutes to get out of there, so I told her to please hold and we'll look for a toilet at the mosque.

The traffic was beginning to get heavy and we arrived at the mosque pretty late. I tried to look for the best parking space nearest to the toilet but there weren't any directions. I took the wrong decision to park at the worst parking space available and we ran to look for the rest oom. Alas, we didn't make it in time and we had an accident at the mosque's front steps! How humiliating, Zara and I were horrified! Couldn't blame Nunu coz she tahan for so long, I wanted to knock my head for not getting her some pull-ups at the drugstore or something. My bad.

Anyway, I changed her into her baju kurung and luckily there were lotsa mops lying around (and still very little signboards around). Some men were curious to see me mopping the front steps (the VIPs were going to arrive at those same steps soon!) and one guard/caretaker was nice enough to come up to me and offered his help! For all the small misfortunes I encountered, thank goodness for the kind soul, coz I haven't performed my Asar prayers yet and it was close to 7 pm already.

(Gosh, Nunu's pee story lasted 4 paragraphs! This is not a rant, ok guys, just a reminder to me and those reading here to be always prepared with pull-ups, no matter how you trust you toddlers to hold their pee!)

When half of my problems were settled, finally we entered the main prayer hall and I tell you, we were dumb-struck. The place was very cool and spacious and immediately we felt blessed to be able to perform ibadah there. Nunu was very 'jakun' and could hardly contain herself to be in the new environment, but I did my best to keep her from being too boisterous or out of line. All she did was walk around being friendly with others, pull their prayer clothes and basically fidget like a little caterpillar she is, but a warning pinch on the butt from time to time was needed for her to sit still for a short period. We stayed there from before 7 to 9 something, after the tahlil, yaasin and Isya' prayers, and praise to God, she didn't make a scene. She enjoyed herself a lot after I've changed her again in pants and T-shirt and had a fabulous dinner provided by the organizers- nasi tomato, ayam masak merah, samah daging and kerabu timun! Believe it or not, I managed to eat only the chicken and beef. The rice looked very tempting, but it wasn't difficult for me to resist it. Yeehaa.

The best part of the night was, I had to eat at the main table, and Nunu got to meet her Tok Abah who were seated with other dignitaries, and even salamed the TYT Pulau Pinang and the Vice Chancellor of USM, Prof. Dato' Zulkifli.

All in all, I think she's ready for mosques. She'll learn to behave in time, I hope but I'll have to be ready with pull-ups!

MEHNDI

On our way back to fetch Nunu from Mak Nab's kampung in Alor Setar last Monday, we made a pit stop at the Village Mall Sg Petani to meet Martian's old friend. Actually, we dropped by to try the much talked about Radix Fried Chicken located near Village Mall, so we thought it was convenient for me and Nunu to just hang out at this little trinket shop while Martian went to order take out.

It was a Monday afternoon, so Arip wasn't really busy and to pass time, he offered to do a simple mehndi design on me for free! I resisted at first coz I am a little 'disturbed' with complicated decorations on my hand. Furthermore, with the recent brouhaha about the yoga fatwa and all, I was thinking we should stay clear of most things related to other religions, can? (Haha, actually, I am a little bit geli with all the henna!)

But Arip insisted that I would like his Persian design. So here it is.



Unfortunately, because I couldn't stay still for a whole 20 minutes, running after a kid who couldn't sit still for 2 minutes, the outcome wasn't that impressive.

Can you believe he charges only RM7 for a design like this? RM10 for a more elaborate pattern and RM20 tops for bridal designs. Erm, per hand laar, and yes, he does get the "Two fingers?" question. All the time.

ABUNDANCE

I am, by definition, a perfect melancholic, the quiet thinker, the sensitive pessimist, the critical analyst, the socially inept. For years, I tried to break free from my true character, thinking that I can fake my way through by appearing different from who I really was (don't we all go through that phase?).

In my search for understanding oneself, I have found the answers to my questions in an insightful book titled 'Personality Plus', where I learnt to embrace this personality which I thought could be crippling me to move forward. I found that I cannot change myself overnight, but I can capitalize on the strength of my personality and correct the weaknesses.

The best thing is, not only did I gain so much through self-acceptance (something that I've been struggling with all my life, coz I didn't like myelf very much you see) I began to understand the inborn temperament in others as well. I realized that my sanguine-choleric husband is born that way, and I learnt to deal with the difficult traits associated with that personality, as well as focus on the strong qualities. I found Nunu is a Popular Sanguine, and I should not inhibit her natural inquisitiveness, her zest, energy and gung-honess. I have to be able to accept that some traits in her that may be just 'undesirable' for me, but I can tap her fullest potential without being so 'constipated'.

Anyway, back to me please, since I'm such a negative person, one of the things I need to do to keep the momentum going and instill a good positive vibe do on a daily basis, is keep an 'abundance journal'. Apart from the thanks and prayers we offer to our Maker 5 times a day, this is a beneficial tool coz you're constantly observing the positive things around you and you're not just mentally noting them. You're doing a deliberate action and focusing your energy to keep attracting great things to happen to you. Maybe a heap of mumbo jumbo to you, but it makes a whole lotta sense to me.

I'm not sure if I'm gonna be consistent with the postings of my abundance journal, but I have to start somewhere. So this is my journal for today.

Today, I feel so abundant when:

- my mom came by the house early in the morning bearing gifts in the form of breakfast, and spent some good quality time with me, Martian, Nunu and Tok

- I got a fabulous deal for 3 pieces of yummy cakes for the price of RM5



- incredibly, I was given two pieces more when I gave this baker a quick visit (now if I were to slip back into negativity, I'd beat myself the whole day for buying and paying RM5 for the previous cakes, had I known I would be given two pieces later for free by a friend, going on and on like "Why did I have to buy those cakes? Why you so gundu and buy cakes that you don't normally buy anyway? Why spend so impulsively? You're gonna get fat again in FIVE minutes once you eat them!" yadayadayada. Full stop. No more. I ate all of them.)



- Martian won a hamper from a bowling competition. Hey, better than just a trophy! And the ringing in my ears when Nunu screams excitedly, "Yeay, kita berjaya! Kita berjaya!"

Mighty bombastic for a soon to be 3 year old.

Now, who else if feeling abundant?