FUNNYACCENT

The End of the Year

SELAMAT HARI RAYA HAJI

HAVE A WONDERFUL AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR TO ALL.

Perhaps we will have more time to look into ourselves instead of looking outside for the answers we've been looking for.

The Other Side of Us

I am forever grateful and appreciate the kindness of the staff at a few local agencies and banks I had visited during the five weeks I was back in Malaysia recently. They were not only helpful, friendly and ready to help, but their smiles lit up the day.

One of them, Ayu, a Taiping Maybank staff was extremely helpful. I don't say the rest of the staff weren't as nice as Ayu, but from a few trips I had made to the bank, Ayu stood out. I told Ayu how wonderful she was and I appreciate her help on my last trip to the bank. I was surprised when she said thank you to my compliment. Out of habit I had praised and complimented everybody who gave an excellent service or I'd just simply enjoyed their food, and as I said Ayu stood out.

I understand how unfamiliar we are with genuine praises and compliments. Old folks like to say you don't praise your children it goes to their heads. But they do not hesitate to condemn, belittle or putting down their children at any given moments. And where do the hurtful words go? Heart or head? All of us like to hear a genuine compliments. We strive more when we are appreciated.

Talking about the good things and good times, a few things that amazed me and annoyed the shit out of me too.

It was the third week I was back in Taiping. After our morning walk at  Taman Tasik,

we stopped at Maybank to cash a cheque. This time the business took me to the second floor or maybe third floor? I picked my number and sat  next to Kak N. Less than three minutes, my number was up.

I greeted the cashier and handed her my cheque and my ID. Halfway throughout my business, a woman walked up to the counter NS stood next to me. She leisurely, planted both of elbows on the counter and support her chin with her open palms. She intently looked down at the cashier who was counting the money. Less than six inches space separated us. I was apalled. I moved away a few inches from her so I could get a good look at her.

She had a badge on her blue Tudung (headscarf ), Keretapi Tanah Melayu.

I cleared my throat, "Cik minta maaflah, saya dah terambil nombor cik kah?" Excuse me, did I take your number by mistake?

"Huh?"

"Cik, La ni giliran saya, nombor cik tak naik lagi" This is my turn, they haven't called your number yet."......"And Selamat Hari Raya."

Cussing under her breath, she moved away , a pretty good distance from me. If her look had a poison ivy, I would've been scratching like crazy.

And it bothered me when the old, the young, the men and the women bumped into you, stepped on your foot, elbowed you, pushed you, shoved you, but you hardly heard , "Excuse me, or sorry, minta maaf ya." It bothers me more as I'm typing this entry when the children have started to follow the suit.

I miss Olen and Chomel. Olen with four legs up on his own pillow.

Pomegranate Lover

Many times I've prepared special dishes because a sentimental value they carry. Dishes that my father enjoyed and couldn't wait to lay his hands on while my mother prepared them. Food my mother loved to cook because we kept praising her," Sedapppp.....Mak" It's yummy.....Mak as we cleaned off our plates down to a single grain or to a last drop of gravy.

Somehow I feel their presence, I hear their voices, I see their genuine pleased expressions as I grind toasted star anise, peel the onion skins or cube the carrots. All the little acts that I shared with them that meant nothing then were glued that bind us together all these years.

 

Recently I bought two pomegranates at the supermarket. My immediate thought was, "If Kak N sees this...". Kak N loves pomegranate.

She loves pomegranate so much she could eat them everyday. During my vacation recently Kak N bought white and pink pomegranates a few times. She cracked it opened and left it on her kitchen counter. She carefully picked up two or three pink seeds at a time and ate them as she went through her chores.

I ate one of them over the weekend when I got home from the gym. It was sweet,crunchy and juicy. It was so juicy I had to soak my white t-shirt in a bleach to get rid of the red stain. Either the bleach wasn't bleach enough or the redruby pomegranate has its own kind of ink.

Anyho, on Friday night, when I took a break from my latest quilt project, I found the second pomegranate I almost forgot about it while raiding my refrigerator. I wasn't hungry actually, but I craved for something with sweet fragrance, sour , tarty and soupy. .

You know the moment when a bulb lit up in your head? I had that transcendence moment (hah...hah....hah) as I held the fruit that was said a fruit of paradise in my hand.

Heaven and earth must be aligned that night because as my brain racing horizontally and vertically for the ingredients, I found out I had them in my refrigerator.

First, I made vegetables stock by dumping a bunch of celery stalks, fresh ginger, fresh garlic, black pepper, pink peppercorn, cinnamon sticks, salt and not to forget a gallon of water in a deep pot.

I cut the pomegranate into halves. Over an empty bowl, I removed the rind and membranes, exposed the brilliant red beads. When it was done, I scooped the ruby red seeds and let them dropped through my fingers back into a bowl.

When I was a kid pomegranate captivated my imagination. My grandmother told us we should eat the pomegranate seeds one by one. If we were lucky we might find a real ruby among the red seeds. If we dropped even one seed on the floor, we would be on four searching for the red seed. We made sure we found the seed.

Back to my kitchen, I rinsed a half cup of split peas and a half cup of barley in a smaller pot.  I added cubed sweet potato, ground cardamom and a pinch of salt. Cooked with enough water until the split peas and barley were tender. I didn't add more water but I added five cups of cooked veggies stock and the pomegranate seeds and cherry tomatoes.

I chopped a handful of oregano and coriander leaves and mixed with ground turkey. Then I made about 15 turkey meat balls.

When the soup began to gurgle I dropped the turkey meat balls. I heated about a tablespoon of olive oil and fried the sliced shallots and fine sliced ginger until they turned light brown and their fragrance spread in the air.

The sweet aromatic scent hung in my kitchen. As the soup began to gurgle I poured the fried shallots/ginger into the soup and quickly put on the lid to trap the sweet spicy aroma.

It was almost eleven p.m when I removed the pot from the burner. My pomegranates soup might not have moved the heaven, but I think The Big Dipper was turned upside down when I had my first spoonful of it.

Have a wonderful Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanza and peaceful holidays.

Telephone Cable Thief, Telekom Malaysia and Curry Mee

Being away too long from the blog world have ripped off my writing momentum. I blame it on Telekom Malaysia or TMNet or the person/s who stole the telephone cable back in Taiping.

On Friday,the third day of Hari Raya, Kak N took a detour on our way to an open house in Kemunting, we stopped at Pejabat Telekom, got our number and filled up a two-page application form for a streamyx basic that came with a modem. 

The place was quiet, our number was up in a jiffy. The girl who helped us was efficient and extremely helpful. She told us we would get the package in a week.

On Monday we got a call to pick up the streamyx package. The installation was a piece of cake. I sent the sms for account activation after the registration and so on.

My niece and Adik high-fived and danced around in the living room when they saw how fast it was when I logged on to check my e-mails.

But the joy lasted less than an hour when all of sudden the green DSL green light started to blink. I lost the connection so fast I didn't have time to save my latest entry.

Perplexed by a sudden lost connection I took all the must do steps to make sure I did the right thing in the first place.

*A phone dial tone -checked

*modem-line-microfilter connection - checked

*modem link/dsl light - checked (blinking)

*reboot - checked

I called customer Interaction Center (1-300 #). The rep was helpful but he asked to do the same thing I did. He told me he chanelled my problem to an appropriate party. I should call them in tow days.

"What? Two days?"

'Bla......bla.......bla......."

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrreatttttttttttttt!!!

Two days later, Kak N and I on our way home from our morning jog at Taman Tasik (Taiping Lake Garden) , we saw a telephone cable was hanging up in the air.

The misssing telephone cable was from the pole two hundred meters from my parents's house. During the night or perhaps early morning, somebody climbed up the pole and cut the phone cable. 

When we got home, Kak N picked up the phone. Nothing. Damn the damn thief/thieves. It happened before, Kak N told me. Kak N called the Telekom Hot Lines to report the missing cable with her cell phone (I found out nobody used cell phone back in Taiping, but it would be another story). Nobody picked up the phone. The next 30 minutes Kak N made three attempts to get hold to customer service rep which was suppose to operate 24/7.

Both of us were aware that we were still in Shawal mode, so we reduced our cussings and not so pretty words we unloaded onto Telekom CEOs down to technician and not to mention the damn thief/ves .

I wasn't going to let a tiny glitch to spoil my long awaited vacation.  When one of Kak N's friends called her on her cell phone to remind her of another open house in Taman Semarak, we jumped into action. Curry Mee, here I come!!!

Trying to Total Recall

My original plan was to post my entries/photos two or three times a week while I was on vacation back in Taiping.

Wide awake in the middle of the night on the second night after I arrived (I landed on Saturday a.m 10/21/06), I logged on the internet and tried to get to typepad. Kak N told me before how bad and slow it was the dial up service in our area,. But I didn't realized it was painfully slow.  I almost fell asleep right there while watching the Microsoft logo turtled its way to typepad.

I posted my 23 hours journey from Boston to JFK to Frankfurt to Singapore to Penang. I thanked SIA cabin crews (especially a husband and wife team from Frankfurt to Singapore flight # SQ0192)for their endless helpful and genuinedly concerned when I had a slight medical complication due to my recent surgery.

I watched the Microsoft logo waved its wa when I hit Save button for fully five minutes. When the damn logo stopped, the service disconnected and all I wrote went down into a cyber sewer. Good gracious. I tried a second time. The line was disconnected before I hit save button. Oh.......no. I decided then, it was about time to update Kak N's slomo dial up service.