"When I Think Of Perfect Moments..."

All our yesterdays

are ours forever

...in memory

"the joys are well-savoured

the tribulations a real education

a relationship so perfectly tempered

that the forging has its own

strength and power

only we know" 

Our tomorrows are waiting

like mysterious presents,

wrapped up in time,

for us to open..

one by one

"In such premise

I'd only have faith 

in our destiny

made good truly together

Allah willing"

But today is here and now

It belongs to us

this perfect time

for love

"ever more happier 

we are married

perfect being made...

more perfect "

"no time better than now

to say

I love you truly

and will always be so"

"By Allah who answers our prayers

and loves us

and defines our needs

for he is All-Knowing

gives us each other" 

This promise of a perfect life

with you

_______

These beautiful verses by Dean Walley are interspersed with romantic scribblings (in italics) by my dearest husband on a flight over the Pacific Ocean on September 20th 1981

30 years later almost to the day, we sat together in celebration with our then-awaited "tomorrows", still unwrapping each one... to unveil his/her own unique mysteries

What better gifts can we ask for other than these - our children...

Happy Birthday to you "Red Alfa" - who is all of 59 years young today! 

May Allah grant us refuge from a knowledge which does not benefit, from a heart which does not tremble, from an ego which not sated, and from a supplication which is not accepted.  Ameen...

Facebook Down - So I'm Back Here

Dear Readers, especially masterwordsmith, Al-Manar and Nin who are probably feeling neglected by me not responding to their comments of my previous entry.

It seems that I have gone AWOL.

Just like many of those on my blog-roll I am now mostly domiciled in my other retirement home over on Facebook, chatting over the garden fence as it were.

However, this happened:

So I took advantage of the downtime to return to my Blogger for a look-see, me not being nimble enough to be plying back and forth between my two abodes on a more regular basis.



Well then, let's catch up on what's been happening in my little corner of terra-firma since Ramadan.

There was Eidul Fitri or Hari Raya as it is called here in Malaysia.

OK, you may try to get into the festive mood by clicking on the player. I have for you the late diva Saloma and her iconic eid song.

Hari Raya this year was just a teeny bit different with two sons now having their wives to celebrate with.

The pilot and wife went back to Terengganu whilst the doctors remained in Sabah for a while, returning later for their delayed wedding reception.

As per usual our Hari Raya fare was courtesy of the culinary skills of my sister-in-law in Ampang Jaya, assisted by our two princesses, thank you so much Kak Awi and the puteri-puteri.. I only had to provide the cookies and tidbits and cook the ketupats.

We spent most of the day and the next doing the rounds calling on the seniors in PJ, Shah Alam, Kepong and Ampang, and catching up on the latest buzz. Our relatives are mainly in the Klang Valley which is rather convenient.

At Mum's was where there was a lot of snapshots taken. Each of her children's family posed with her, then all the men, all the ladies, all the girls and all the boys... a few takes each time until she became tired of smiling. Am sharing a few here:

It was a very enjoyable couple of days but ever present in the back of our minds was the preparation of the upcoming wedding reception.

That will be a story for another day....  when Facebook is down again?

No, hopefully not...


Till then, keep tuning in....

______________________________________

Up My Nose

Like most mammals, I think I possess a rather sensitive olfactory functionality, in other words I pick up smells quite easily.

And if you watch "Animal Planet" you'll learn that mammals use this capability to hunt or to hide.

As for me my instinct is for flight rather than fight.

Hence I am one of those breed of humans, probably rare, who is not an animal lover - not cat nor dog or chicken or duck or horse or worse... cow.

I am not one to mess with other mammalian species.  I do not aggravate them or pet them, neither do I hate them - I just leave them well alone.

Chiefly because of their distinctive odours. Cows especially.

I'm not saying I do not drink their milk or eat their meat. In fact I enjoy creamy and beefy foods.

But many decades ago while living temporarily on an English farm during my practical year, I woke up every morning to the wondrous aroma of fresh countryside air - laced with more than the occasional whiffs of Mabel's or Clarabelles's or Daisibelles's farmyard offerrings (yes they had names and I cannot recall the other 20 or so).   You can say I was a tad overdosed.

Twenty years on the memories returned when we checked in our pilot son at the sekolah asrama penuh in Kuala Pilah. The narrow road leading to the school was scattered with green splatter whose odour hung stubbornly in the air that I wondered about the degree of bovineness the kids will smell of after five years there. Well I shouldn't have worried, when mingled with teen sweat they had probably cancelled one another out.

Anyway it's just odours of animal origin that I'm sensitive to. And also aerosol-based pesticides.

I'm OK with strong-smelling foods though like durian, cheeses, petai, korean kimchi, goat meat, tempeh, belacan. I do consume them as well, not with extreme gusto like hubby but I partake of them a little at a time.

Yes hubby has quite an affinity for such foods (except for tempoyak, due to a bad experience which is not fit for publishing).

And this Ramadhan he had cravings for beef tripe! Not for him to buy the pre-processed, white and cleaned ones which he says is tasteless. He has on three occasions so far brought home the original straight-from-the-cow tripe. Needless to say, that triggered long-forgotten memories of Mabel, Daisibelle and Clarabelle.

Fortunately hubby took on the task of brushing those sheets of stomach whatchamacallems with lime bleach before I turned them into masak lemak perut.

You have to boil the darned things first before cooking and throw away the water. I tell you the house smells like a barn each time and once I caught the neighbour's maid looking our way disapprovingly or could it be nostalgically, she's Javanese anyway and where she comes from cow tripe is a relish I was told.

Yikes!!! It says here you have to boil it and replace the water at least 6 times before the odour goes away. I did it only once but for an hour or more, thinking that might really kill any bacteria.

Nonetheless, on those occasions hubby wolfed down the finished product, surviving without any untoward after-effects.

Sheesh... now that I know, I'd have to process those sheets at least 6 times next time he brings home tripe.

And even how many times for that matter, I'm sure my olfactories will still not be desensitised.

But I have been conditioned not to take flight though.

We May Or May Not Learn

Actually why do we Muslims observe the fast of Ramadhan?

Many might say that they are simply observing one of the tenets of Islam. It is a mandatory requirement which if neglected lands one in the fires of hell.

We teach our young children this as well albeit with promises of rewards such as cash and new clothes for those who make the effort to fast.

As for us adults we too are motivated by promises of rewards that get credited to our spiritual account for the day of reckoning, and in this month according to hadeeth, rewards for good deeds performed sincerely in the name of Allah are MULTIPLIED by 70 times.

In the last ten days of Ramadhan when the going tends to get somewhat tougher (for me at least), we are also motivated by the promise of blessings of the Night of Power/Destiny which are better than 1000 months ie 83 years. In these final days we try to up the ante in anticipation and hope of being bestowed this night.

So this is the month in every year of the Islamic calendar when we strive to earn all these rewards by doing all that is good and avoiding all that is forbidden during the fasting hours and even after.

In fact this is the one month in every year where we undergo a refresher training not only in spiritual matters but also in our worldly affairs.

In the preceding months while still unfailingly offering our prayers, we probably had slipped into behaviours unbecoming of good Muslims, and tainted our hearts with arrogant thoughts, perhaps of vanity and pride at the very least.

Allah says in the Quran that fasting is prescribed upon us believers so that we MAY learn Taqwa.

And of course, this Taqwa is the ultimate reward of Ramadan, the supreme triumph.

It is not guaranteed like the extra credits are guaranteed.  Like  the elusiveness of the Night of Power, Taqwa is a virtue that we MAY or MAY NOT learn.

And how to know that we have learnt Taqwa?

It's by our behaviour on the first of Syawal and beyond! Do we still practise Allah-consciousness and self-restraint on the first of Syawal and beyond till 29th Syaaban?

Or not?

I for one hope that Allah grants me another Ramadhan, not just for the rewards but also the opportunity to develop/redevelop Taqwa.

For Allah says:

" The best of you are those who have learnt Taqwa" (49 : 13). 

______________
~inspired by Ustaz Shihabuddin from last night's usrah 

~also this article:

The Greatness of Ramadaan
by Shaykh Seraj Hendricks, Head Mufti (1998) of Cape Town, South Africa

Bussing It Home

My youngest daughter Syirah and I had made an unplanned trip to One Utama by bus, the longest journey we have ever made on RapidKL including the 20 minutes "transit" at KL Sentral.

What was also unplanned was the damage to my purse incurred at Mark's and Spark's but thanks to years of preventive instincts it survived being completely totaled.

Unfortunately such instincts are not applicable for bus routes. We emerged from OU's old wing with no inkling where to catch the bus back to Pusat Bandar Damansara and Kl Sentral.  An OU general worker told us to wait at the cross-roads across the LDP viaduct, on the TTDI side. An Indon sweeper also said the same. Don't worry about there being no bus-stop, she said, the KL-bound bus will stop for you at the corner after the traffic lights.

Hello? No bus-stop? Isn't that not proper and dangerous?

Oh well, let's just experience this, I thought. So we trudged over to the said corner looking dead green under the hot sun anyone could take us for a ride.

Several other people also came over to wait so that was a relief in a way.

The  U88 Kota Damansara - Pasar Seni bus soon pulled over. Syirah used the debit card for her fare and paid cash for mine - RM5.00 altogether.

When the bus u-turned into Damansara Utama commercial centre and then into SS2 after that, I knew we were in for the long haul, as it were. The route goes through Sea Park, Paramount Gardens, Section 14, and Asia Jaya before it hits the Federal Highway and then on to Bangsar, KL Sentral and Pasar Seni. Very, very long way - it took about 60 minutes but it wasn't unpleasant and it took us to KL like the OU man and Indon sweeper said. Only we hadn't mentioned via Pusat Bandar Damansara.

But we had ample time to catch the U63 back home before the rush hour. For this we had to wait at the bus depot adjacent to the Pasar Seni LRT station. In my school days it used to be known as "Klang Bus Stand". It  was hot and stifling inside, littered with paper and plastic bags and it seemed like ages before the bus came along. This is the part of KL which probably has changed little.

Thankfully the air-conditioning in the bus was working, just about, because now we get whiffs of BO from someone at the back, mixed with the aroma of jackfruit a lady was enjoying in the seat across the aisle. So just tahan lah…

The passengers seemed more chatty too although their tongues were foreign… some Tagalog, some Myanmar, east Malaysians, and the loud ones shouting into their handphones were from the sub-continent, unmistakably.

As we approached home territory on Persiaran Kewajipan in USJ, the bus circumnavigated Taipan, USJ 11, and USJ14 taking us on a local tour before finally terminating at Subang Mewah. We had actually travelled the route from it's starting point at "Klang Bus Stand" - a journey of 60 about mins.

So that was our day out on the busses - a learning experience on the whole, which made us really earn the teh tarik and mee goreng we had at Richfield Banana Leaf Curry House before going home.

Should we try the early morning Route BET3 next?

Bussing It

Last Tuesday my youngest daughter Syirah and I rode into KL on RapidKL's bus service. Specifically we wanted to check out the ride to Pusat Bandar Damansara from our area in USJ, a distance of about 25 km.

Syirah will be starting college there in September and we are considering RapidKL as a possible mode of transport, other than her driving or be driven. There are considerable savings cost-wise if she were to use the bus on a daily basis as the student pass is only RM50 a month for unlimited travel.

That morning we boarded a spanking clean bus plying RapidKL's route U63 Subang Mewah to Pasar Seni (Central Market) at it's starting-point opposite the Jati apartments. It helps that this place is only a stone's throw from my house and thus is quite convenient, also boarding from there meant we are practically assured of a seat each

The driver wore a cheerful smile when collecting our fares of RM2.50 per person and was also helpful when we inquired about an express service route BET3 that we had really wanted to use. We were two and a half hours too late for that one though, the last bus being at 7am serving mainly people going to work in KL. So we had to make do with the normal one instead.

The ride was quite enjoyable. The bus was air-conditioned, and it moved at a fairly decent speed as the usual peak-hour traffic had already begun to ease, only stopping now and again at the stops for passengers to alight or board. No untoward incidents except once the driver had to stop and get down at a tight corner to push a stalled car out of the way so he could negotiate the bus round the turn. Kudos to him, he did it as a matter of fact, and I heard no swearing nor complaint.

This is link on the RapidKL site for the route:
U63

It took about 45 minutes to get to KL Sentral where we had to change to the U83 for Pusat Bandar Damansara (PBD). The bus stop is actually on Jalan Tun Sambanthan and and it was a good 20 minutes or so before we located the onward bus terminal at the ground level of the KL Sentral complex, partly because  I had decided not to use the shortcut because of the construction going on around there - an unwarranted fear it turned out to be.

Anyway, when we got to the terminal, there was a U82 bus to Bandar Utama already waiting and another one driving in soon after. Apparently U82 also stops at PBD so we boarded it. The driver couldn't accept cash as fare as the ticket printer was faulty. He suggested that we buy the company BIT debit card instead and load in RM10 which is enough fare for two persons. And so we did and off we went. Less than 10 minutes later we were already at PBD but decided not to alight there because the place was teeming with foreign workers taking up the government's generous legalization offer.

What better reason then to go on ahead to One Utama (OU) for a little retail therapy!

However it was a very convoluted way to get to OU, passing through Damansara Utama and the streets of Taman Tun Dr Ismail. It took nearly 40 minutes even though very few people got on or off along the way. The fare displayed on the reader passengers have to touch their debit card with before alighting was RM5.00 for two persons.

Here's the link for the route:
U82

We had lunch, then stopped by at Mak's Spenders… ooops Marks and Spencers, to buy  a couple of slacks for myself. It's the only place with apparel for my Mat Salleh-like proportions. And we can't go to OU and return empty-handed, can we?

After afternoon prayers and buying a casing for my Nokia C6, we started on our  journey home.


(To Be Continued)

Back In The UK

If there's one thing that I must be grateful for thus far, it's my back. It's probably a gene I have inherited from Mom. All my life I have not heard her ever complain of sakit pinggang. Even now when she has spondylosis, the discomfort shows up elsewhere.

Recently, on a nine day trip to the UK for my son Azeim's graduation, we all ie. hubby, our two daughters as well as Azeim who planned the holiday, had to put our backs to the test.

Of the 7 nights on terra firma, we had the luxury of beds on only three.  2 nights on  coach seats in the Glasgow-to-London sleeper train and back, and 2 nights in a rented car on a marathon Glasgow-Land's End-Andover(Stonehenge)- Brighton-Dover-Glasgow road tour.

Which made the three nights at an inn near Inverness, a hotel in Glasgow and a B&B in Andover like god-send and thoroughly appreciated.

I had wondered loudly if I would ever get to go on a luxurious holiday,  flying first-class sleeping on recliner seats, checking into a classy six-star hotel, being chauffeured here, there and everywhere in limousines and eating  the finest cuisine.

 BUT...  that'd be the  kind of holiday  that spoils you rotten, that might actually weaken your muscles and may even make you suffer back pain actually.

And you learn nothing from not getting lost and finding your own way around a megapolis like London.

You might not quite feel the exhilaration of looking onto a beautiful Atlantic Ocean at the south-western tip of England they call Land's End, after a long overnight drive that is.

What more negotiating  the scenic route along the sunny southern coast all the way to Dover and walking on it's white cliffs overlooking the majestic ferry port where in the distance you  can even see France.

And how tremendous it was on the morning of your flight home which was at 1400 hrs you had your final shower at the motorway rest area outside Glasgow

and then you limited yourself to only one and a half hours shopping for summer bargains, which did not include kilts

Alhamdulillah, the old back held up.


Then again, a luxurious holiday might be very nice indeed.



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