atok and opah came visiting..

Abah was flying to Pakistan for three nights, therefore to keep us 3 girls (Mama, Melissa, Kak Ika) 1 strong boy (Ikmal), 1 remaining makcik ( our maid Anis) and 6 furry anak-anak angkat (our cats) company.. Mama went to Mak Yang's house in Subang Jaya last Tuesday night to pick up Atok and Opah and their entourage (our other maid makcik Mazita and Pakcu Boy's maid makcik Susilo).. and brought them home to Bukit Beruntung..

Atok and Opah have been living with Mak Yang and her family since July last year, eversince Atok got a stroke and immobilised for a few months and now still undergoing therapy. The right part of Atok's body especially the right-hand is still weak. Atok now uses a tongkat to walk around, but would forget to use his right-hand all the time.. Opah and Mak Yang would always need to remind Atok about his liftless arm.. jangan lupakan tangan lagi satu tu..

Last Tuesday was 28th August, a few short days before Merdeka day on 31st of the same month. Atok and Opah have been very politically and socially aware about the happenings around Malaysia all these years through watching tv and reading the newspapers, but Opah has been more and more vocal and emotional about the issues she came across with eversince her retirement from teaching more than a decade ago..

And with Atok becoming less interested in reading the newspapers (page to page, line by line, for hours on end like he used to do before the stroke) due to his slow-ability to hold up and turn the pages, or watching the tv-news because of poorer-hearing and maybe boredom for having nothing else to do due to his frail-conditions.. Opah has made her grandchildren more the subjects of her concerns..

So the past few days my children have been 'forced' to watch the national tv1, tv2 and tv3 for hours on end.. ie. no more cartoons on astro-channels 60, 61, 62, 63 for Ikmal and Melissa, or channels 17, 70, 71, 72, 76 for Zulaika, or channels 10, 11, 18, 40, 41, 42 for Mama.. Atok and Opah have conquered our viewing space!!!

With 3 tvs around the house, Mama and Abah should have provided more than 1 Astro in the first place.. right??? But 'no we shouldn't', Mama decided when we first moved here to this new house less than two years ago. The reason? 'I want my children to give and take and learn the concept of sharing and compromising'...

And with that concept 'successfully' embedded into the minds of the 3 children.. Ikmal, Melissa and Zulaika (and Mama included..) we have let Atok and Opah to have free reins of which national channels to watch during the past few days. The children have had to watch (together with Atok and Opah) drama minggu ini (present-day versions), debat perdanas, berita jam 8, senario-repeats, bersama-mu programes, etc.. on top of the various merdeka-programmes leading to the big day. And for the first time in my children's life, they watched the Merdeka live-celebration parades from start to finish.. wow..!!! Impressive!!!

To Zulaika, Melissa and Ikmal.. Selamat Hari Merdeka!!!

life's still the same in taipan..

It's a one week school break now, and we have started it last friday after school by going back to our old neighbourhood in USJ9 and Taipan in Subang Jaya. Mum's main reason was to go find one of her regular tailors to do up (ie. sew) our on-coming hariraya's matching bajukurungs.. but we eventually discovered that all her three regular tailors had moved on to other locations!!

In Taipan, we stopped and parked within convenient walking distances to our favourite shops.. ie. the animal/cat-shop, vcd-store, guardian-pharmacy, beebee-bakery, McDonalds and baskin-robbins-icecream-joint. These were some of our regular destinations when we stayed 9-years in this highly-developed commercial neighbourhood. These kinds of 'cool and happening' shops are rarely found in Bukit Beruntung, our permanent home since less than 2 years ago.. therefore my girls especially the eldest one Zulaika, were particularly excited and sentimental..

By repeated requests from her, we even had to pass by our old house at 17 jalan USJ9/3B just so we could catch a glimpse of what life we used to have there..

Mmm.. so many new changes in terms of new shops opening and renovated houses here and there, but somehow life seemed to stay the same.. everybody still busy going about their daily routines.. and coming back and forth to their terraced link-homes.. like what we used to do..

But of course, dear mum has been coming back to this old neighbourhood many times without the children, hence was not feeling the least sentimental and nostalgic like Zulaika and Melissa. The boy Ikmal was only two when we moved away, therefore not much memory has stayed in his young mind..

Living in Subang Jaya since 1989 including 9 years in USJ9 was very convenient. Almost everything was accessible and available in this self-contained modern township. But now living in Bukit Beruntung 40mins away by the main highway is more relaxed and slow-paced. Maybe not so exciting for teenagers similar age-group as my eldest, but the bigger house-space and self-contained 'facilities' that abah and mama have provided and incorporated for and around you.. should be enough compensations, right???

We cannot have everything in life, my dears..

Puan Tom and Ikmal in bed..

For a blog solely meant for the weekly readership of my ten year old daughter.. the heading above doesn't sound appropriate at all, ehh..??? But that is exactly what's happening in our household lately..!!!

Puan Tom has decided that her bed for the night.. after day-long of slumberings and lepak-ings on top of our cars, under the benches, on little nooks and corners around the house.. is our master bedroom.. on our master-bed.. intimately beside ikmal..!!!

I guess Puan Tom has given up waiting for my hubby coming home late almost every night from work.. therefore instead of waiting patiently for him to come home, she has opted to go for a much much younger and more available male..!!!

it started with Puan Tom..

We were building our current house back in late 2002 when we first saw this small female kitten playing underneath the construction materials lying infront of the front-gate. White mixed with black kitten playing alone.

As the construction continued and progressed slowly and haltingly over three years and three contractors.. we kept seeing this cat every once in a while, and more often towards the completion of the house. I started saying hello to her and casually named her Tom after Tom Abang Saufi, one of our local fashion designers. Why?? I'm also clueless but at that time i had a small gift-shop in the same building as Tom the designer. There!! ;))

A few weeks before we can finally move into the house in dec2005, the cat was getting friendlier and would seek me out whenever i came to visit. Her tummy was also getting rounder and rounder and straight-away i assumed she was pregnant. When she started 'talking' and meow-ing to me all the time as she followed me up @ down the unfinished house, i straight-away (as any seasoned cat-lovers would) understood her request for permission to 'beranak' at any secluded and safe spots in the house. And i told Tom "yes, go ahead my fellow mum.."

When we finally get comfortable in our new house, we could see Tom's tummy had flattened and she was regularly going up our rooftop. We never saw her kittens until she decided that it was time to introduce them to us by getting one by one of them down the roof. There were three of them, all females. By the time they came down to meet their human landlords, the kittens were already a few months old and therefore needed some time to get acquainted with us, humanoids..

Melissa, then 9yrs old, was the one most excited compared to her big sis Zulaika who couldn't care much. Baby brother Ikmal was only 2yrs old and was always shrieking around the house frightening the kittens all the time. Therefore Melissa had full control of what names to give to each kitten and she decided on these: Pebbles, Pickles and Pumpkin..

And as all of their names started with the letter 'P'.. we uninamously decided that the name of the cat-mum Tom should start with 'P' as well.. hence 'Puan Tom'............

dear mum is busy..

yeah, yeah, yeah..
dear mum is still busy with this and that..
and this and that..
and just yesterday, she started her own personal blog..
and therefore still no time to write to melissa at the moment.. ;)

lazy saturday at home..

Saturdays are our lazy, lazy days spent at home..

We'd wake up late.. breakfast late.. shower late.. even the cats are fed late..!!

Yes, we have cats living with us.. 6 of them all de-sexed and castrated. 3 females and 3 males.. my six feline children with each having different personalities.

Melissa and i are naturally cat-lovers since birth.. my husband and the rest of my human children have had to take some time to warm up to this concept of having 6 fur-ry animals co-existing and sharing our homely comforts.. but so far they've been most accommodating..!!

The fact that our current house has enough running space, poo-poo space, and whatever-else space have made this co-habitations very comfortable for every feline and human member..

finding time to be a regular blogger-mum..

It's been over a month since i started this blog, solely to get my little melissa to get interested in reading.. but i've only managed to do 2 postings..!! Finding the right time to blog on a regular basis is not so easy after all.. even just blogging to your own daughter!! I told melissa earlier on that she should check out this blog every friday after school to read and find out what i've written.. she has been doing that, and enjoying reading what has been written.. but the problem now, mum hasn't been writing..!!

Dear mum has been busy with this and that.. and this and that.. mmm..