True love

Is there anything more joyful than when your child toddles up to you, puts her arms around your neck and gives you a big wet kiss, just because? God, I'm so in love...

Air Supply and other pleasures

I sometimes think what my life would be like if you hadn't moved into the 'hot chocolate' room near mine. If we hadn't ended up on the debate team (hahahahhaaa...God that was lame, "To speak out the truth and shame the devil, to deny my points you won't be able for your points are brittle like autumn leaves so let me sweep them away and let them fly in the breeze"...and we thought we were so cooool...hahahahahhaha). If we hadn't gone to north, south and france and exchanged stories about those 'trips' and letting bygones be bygones. If we hadn't travelled for 4 hours to see each other and bring with us hordes of chocolates that we could just have easily bought when we arrived instead of lugging it around the train/bus. If we hadn't watched pulp fiction and four weddings and a funeral and played gin rummy and ate until we passed out and bought haagen daz in our pyjamas every single day for that fantastic precious weeks after the final exams. If we hadn't ponteng'd all the CLP classes and drove around subang and shah alam instead. If we hadn't shared our love of eating and more eating.

Where would I be now?

I cannot imagine you not being a big part of my life.

Thank you so much. For always being there, though the happy and not happy, through the thin and the fat, through all the many many codeks.

Thank you for not being afraid to ask the very very difficult embarassing questions "Kat mana barang untuk..." just because I needed it.

Thank you for my wonderful birthday lunch!!

I've got a mouse and I'm not afraid to use it!

I went for a meeting just now at one of the regulatory authorities and as usual, had to sign in at the Guard/reception desk - insert name, organisation, purpose of meeting etc. What caught me off guard was the next column in the registration book:- "Declaration of Weapons". Wow. I should bring my kitchen knife next time just so that I could write that in. What caught me doubly off guard was that not less than 10 people who had registered that morning had written down "laptop" in that column! That was just hilarious.

Runaway moms

Most of my friends and I grew up in the 1980s and I don't know why (something in the water? lack of efficient electric kitchen gadgets/washing machines? no Astro/playhouse disney to distract the kiddies?) but all of us have memories of our mothers at one point or another getting so fed up and stressed out that they ended up stuffing their clothes and tying it up in a kain batik (for more dramatic effect? I'm sure we had enough luggage in the house) and threatening to run away - not just from their husband & the house but also from us, their children. And how we would plead and beg "please don't go, don't leave us, we want to go with you" etc.

My husband brought this up the other day as we were both sitting watching Amani play, about how sad he felt when his mother did this on one occasion, so very sad that she had the heart to actually leave him behind and he turned towards me and asked, would I ever even think of doing that to Amani.

I looked at him but before I could answer, full realisation dawned all over his face:

"You wouldn't run away - you would kick ME out!"

this my darling is a slice of heaven

It was a hot Saturday afternoon and we were outside looking for cats. Suddenly, the familiar sound of a bicycle bell - the ice cream man! I stopped him and asked for a scoop of chocolate ice cream on a cone. Amani's eyes widened with curiosity -what was this? she seemed to say. I picked her up, she's getting heavier now and she leaned over to smush her lips gently against the chocolate ice cream. And found heaven.

And I said to her, welcome, my darling to my world, where chocolate is good and ice cream is good but chocolate icecream is just better than Elmo and Barney put together.