FUNNYACCENT

Let's Get It On..............

Despite the humidity and dry air I had a wonderful time yesterday at Boston Garden. I noticed a the frist squirel ( I named it Tarzan) at the back was on a higher branch away from the second squirel (I named it Tarzana).

Tarzan looked down at Tarzana on a lower branch and made this long low pitched sound. When Tarzana looked up at him, he stuck out his tail up in the air and wiggled it. The tail immediately bloomed to a double size. Tarzana lifted her tail 45 degree and wagged. With a swift but feminine move Tarzana slid down the branch headed toward the ground. Seeing Tarzana wagged her tail, Tarzan didn't waste time. Instead of followed Tarzana he jumped onto the lower branch and down to the ground.

"Ohh....mama, you're hot baby."

After almost fifteen minutes Tarzana let Tarzan hit her close but never too close. Everytime Tarzan reached on her side, Tarzana moved to different direction: on the grass, over the roots, halfway up on the trunk. At the same time Tarzan wagging his tail like crazy and made that sexy horny sound: Eeeeiiiii......eeeiiii.......eeeiiii.........

I guess, Tarzan made Tarzan worked hard to get her, she made a low long sound and dlimbed up the tree. Tarzan wagged his tail again and followed behind Tarzana.

I guess it was their first date and they must be heading to Loew Theatre on Boston Common to watch Pirates of  the Carribean: The Dead Man's  Chest.

Writing Letters and Grilled ButterFish

It's extremely hot now, too hot to be in the kitchen grilling my lunch. But a woman got to do what a woman got to do. I've been craving for  grilled butter fish for ages. I defrosted the fish this morning before I left for a walk.

I stopped at South Station to get my Charlie and to mail some letters. Despite of fast e-mails with one slow caressing on mice, and my hello zooms  across the ocean in one heart beat  I still enjoy writing  letters.

I love the feeling of my left palm on the left side of watermark  paper while my black-ink ball point pen cradles between my right thumb and forefinger flow rhythmically with my thought. The pen rests comfortably on my third finger. The tips of my fourth and fifth finger touch a lower and fleshy part of my lower part of right palm.

Sometimes I have so many things to write about, I started to write faster to catch up with my thought. But after three or four lines I noticed the tails of letter a were missing, letter g began to look like letter s, I took a break. Gathered my thought and arranged my sentences.

The feeling of personal achievement soared my heart  when I folded the pastel color writing notes and inserted them in the envelope. I don't get this feeling with my eight fingers on the keyboard.

Back to my lunch, when I got home, I rinsed and sliced yellow and green zuchinis which I bought on Tuesday at Organic Farm Stand at Copley Square. I cleaned portobello mushroom with wet paper towel and rinsed the green beans. I marinated them all with crush pink peppercorn, dried basil, oregano, dried orange peels, crushed dried red peppers and crushed garlic. I added three table spoons of olive oil too.

I rinsed the jasmine rice, turned on the rice cooker, threw in a piece of daun pandan into the rice. When the rice cooked I added one third cup of cream corn. I love corn in my rice.

Opposites

Illustration Friday - Opposites

Thief

Sunday Scribblings- Thief

One of the girls in my Form Two class stole my English essay homework, copied it word by word and returned my exercise book into my bag. I had no idea when and how she did it, but when our new substitute English teacher called me and the girl to her desk I was puzzled.

We stood side by side facing the teacher, our backs to the class. The teacher opened our exercises books and placed them in front of us. Her book in front of me and mine of her. She told me to read the first two lines from a second paragraph. What was the girl thinking? She didn't make an effort to alter anything. Word by word she copied down my essay.

"Why did you steal my homework?" I hardly knew the girl.

"I didn't steal it, I just copied it." Her chin almost touched her chest.

"It's called stealing."

The teacher held up her hand to silence me.

I don't remember the rest of the episode. The funny thing is I couldn't even remember the girl's name nor her face. I couldn't remember how I felt about it. Was I angry at her? Did I feel sorry for her? One thing I know I never talked about it outside my classroom. I ran into her a few times at a dining hall, but she always avoided me.

Now, I'm I'm wondering after all these years, why is this episode popped up?

Mirror Oh Mirror

One of the hardest thing for us to do is to sit and listen to somebody else pov about ourselves. I'm not talking about our strengths, our positive sides, how incredible we are, how smart we have been and all those craps. I'm talking about somebody else dogged you and you sit there and take it all. Word by word, shit by shit.

Nine years ago when I was still with my x, we had this long talk. Well, actually he did the talking and I listened. He was the first person ever told me I was arrogant, over sensitive, hot tempered and list went on as long as my two arms put together, perhaps he added my legs too. I forced myself not to open my mouth even once to defend myself, to justify my actions, to rationalize my behaviors.

I read somewhere, that once in our lives, we met someone that we really cared or perhaps loved, we thought that he was the right person for us. It turned out that person didn't stay long in our lives, but we learned something precious about ourselves from that person. That person moved on.

For me, I've learned to be humble, to learn to look into myself-unfiltered from him, to learn to listen when somebody points out my mistakes. And I'm telling you, LISTENING is not an easy thing to do- an on-going battle within myself. But, once I pass that ego trip (take a deep breath)....................

Thank you, P where ever you are.

Have You Seen a Horseshoecrab Lately?

It has been an extremely hot weekend. I hit the beach at 5:45 a.m on Saturday and there were already a bunch of runners way ahead of me. The tide was low, the air was dry and thick. I would've changed my mind about running if I didn't start it right away. 

Fifteen minutes into running I spotted and empty small  shell of horseshoecrab. I wanted to stop and took a picture, but I knew if I had stopped, the rhytham would be disturbed and I didn't like it when my heart beats and my steps weren't in sync. I made a mental note to walk on the beach on the way home.

After a second lap around Castle Island, I skipped a get on the swing time I usually enjoy when I got to this side. I walked back toward the beach where I spotted the dead crab. Then I noticed it had similar shell to the horsedshoecrab shell I saw earlier. So it wasn't a horseshoecrab after all but a crab that lost all its limbs.

I have a fond memory of a horsehoecrab when I was a kid.

Headless Man In Brigham Circle

I was on the bus 39 when I saw a giant headless man flapping and swaying back and forth, left and right in front of Brigham Women Hospital. I got off the bus and took a couple of photos.

Norm and Non-Norm?

The last time I had cempedak fritters ( I named it jillfruit) was last October 2005, during a fasting month. Super88Market on South Bay Mall which I frequent doesn't carry cempedak, so last week after I finished my run on Charles I walked back to downtown and wandered around Chinatown looking for grocery stores.

I found one on Washington Street located on opposite site of Penang Restaurant. I've been to Penang Restaurant many times before, but I don't remember seeing this grocery store. I thought it was a Peking Restaurant or something.

How delighted I was when I saw a pile of raw cempedak in clear plastic packet  in frozen section. After I pinched, sniffed and poked I picked one packet that looked most desirable.

I cut short my initial plan to look around the supermarket. I could almost taste the sweetness and chewiness of cempedak fritters on the tip of my tongue, not to mention the scent of cempedak flesh gurgled in hot oil. It was unbearable. I headed to the cashier register.

In front of me a tall girl in all black - micro mini skirt, fishnet tight, beautiful metal accessories on her wrists and fingers. She held a clear plastic bag of medium size of squids. She turned around and flashed a smile at me. I thought I was looking at Pink. 

An elder Chinese woman ahead of Pink had a hard time with her EBT card. Either the money wasn't in yet, or she had spent all her food stamp or the welfare office had stopped giving her the money for some reasons. EBT card is like a debit card issued by Department of Transitional Assistance to its recipients. The recipients couldn't get a cash out of it or buy anything else except food.

The card was declined for the second attempt. The cashier snatched the receipt and handed it to the woman. I didn't understand a word she was saying, but it must be repeating what she told the woman for the first woman. It declined.

The elder woman pushed her EBT card toward the girl, raised her voice to the cashier, tapped her gnarled fingers hand on the machine.

The cashier raised her voice to match the woman's, grabbed the card,  ran through the machine for the third time.  Less than 45 seconds after the woman punched her pin number, the slip came out and the cashier pulled the slip and handed it to the woman with her EBT card. The elder woman refused to take the card from the girl.  She pointed her forefinger into the girl's face, her voice was getting louder, screaming at the girl.

At this point I was hoping the elder woman would've not yelled at the cashier again because it wasn't the girl's fault.

But sometimes we, the human species  do dumbest things when we are embarrassed. Ego is bigger than common sense.

The girl screamed back at her, threw the woman's EBT across the counter.  If the look could kill, that woman would've turned into ashes.

"Ohh.........no, she dik 'ent." I said to no one in particular.

"Yes, she just did....," Pink turned around and made a did- you -see -that? face to me.

The older woman nor the rest of the women in the queue didn't seemed to be bothered by the young girl's attitudes. The woman picked up her EBT card, put it in her pocket book and walked toward exit door minus her grocery bags.

As I was waiting for my turn I wondered did that woman accepted an unacceptable behavior from the cashier because she did the same thing to the girl?

When I passed the fish section earlier I noticed another elder woman in sharp blue silk dress tried to get the men's attention who was gutting the fishes with:  hey... hey ....Waved her manicured hand exasperately at the men. None of the men turned around.

Sometimes in a hurry we forget to be courtesy and respect the persons who serve us, sometimes we 'forget' to say thank you to a popcorn girl at the movie theater because she has an attitude. If she had an attitude, so what?

Sometimes, after we washed our hands at the public bathroom, we threw the paper towel in a trash in a hurry and missed it. When I picked up mine, a woman with me said, why bother, it's a cleaner job.

Do we only do good deeds because we are promised something good, something beautiful, something virgins in return after life? What if we aren't assured of anything, will we still do it just because?

Sometimes we get angry because somebody behind us accidentally bump into us didn't apologize. Five out of five times if you said, "Excuse me," with a dazzling smile, the act alone could threw them off  the orbit. And they would say, "Sorry, it's my fault."

Friday Illustration-Skyline

The Way She Ironed........

My mother had her ways to get things done around the house. Be it making the bed, washing the dishes,  sweeping the floor, hanging the wet clothes on the clotheslines, folded the clean laundry or even peeling the onions.

One of my mother's weekly housework I loved to watch was ironing my father's uniform. After the dining table was cleared, dishes rinsed and put away, my mother turned the dining table into an iron board in our little kitchen.

She layered the top of the dining table with 3-folded army supply green blanket. On top of the blanket she added two-folded of two or three batik sarungs.

My job was to get a bowl of tap water. I filled up half of the green aluminum bowl with  water and placed the bowl on my mother's right hand side, slightly away from the hot iron. Then she took a bar of wax from top shelf of kitchen cabinet. I don't remember when was the first time I saw that wax, but the wax went every house we moved into.

My mother went into a bedroom and came out with almost a foot pile of my father's starch army uniforms and my school uniforms- blue skirt and white shirt and a half dozen of wooden hangers

She started with my father's green  short sleeve shirt. She spread the shirt wrong side facing her,  dipped her right hand into the water and lightly sprinkled the collar, the sleeves and moved to the body of the shirt. She put the shirt aside and picked the second shirt, third and fourth and did the same thing.

When my mother was done with the fourth shirt, she picked the first sprinkled shirt, spread on the table, on the wrong side, ceased the collar a few times, picked up the wax bar, glided it across the collar from left to right a couple of times. The tiny bits white wax scattered at different part of the collar.

She picked up the iron, pressed the pointed side of the iron onto the shirt's collar right corner, her left hand slightly pulled the left corner of the collar-straightened it up. With one quick, smooth move, like a magician my mother ironed out the wrinkled waxed collar.

Next, she ironed both sleeves and moved to the wrong front sides of the shirt, followed by the back of the shirt. Then she ironed on the right side, ceased the front pocket and checked the loose buttons. She then, hung the shirt onto a wooden hanger.

She repeated the process as my father sat at the end of the table reading the newspaper out loud-sharing the news with my mother. From time to time, he dropped the newspaper on his lap to sip his favorite teh tarik. I sat at my father's elbow, my chin rested on my hands, content.

Note: The sketch above I did a few days ago from my memory.  After the seventh attempt I got it the way I remember it. It was my grandmother's old iron. I learned to use it when I was seven. It was heavy and hot.