an afternoon in the market

everyday we create history. our first bismillah of the day, our first step of the day, our first coffee in the morning and our first alert that we are clearing. but in terms of submitting entry, this entry has a new definition of entry submission for me, at least. hence, i created a new category for it called meet and greet.

what is so historical about this entry, you might ask. because this is the first entry i submitted which had to go through a lenghty process of censorship from another two related blogger, namely olab and rotidua. hence, the delay of submission.

it first started with a pm that i sent to olab asking if she were doing anything tuesday. well, if they were going to gate-crash my house should their electricity supply got disconnected again in the future, i'd better get to know her personally first, right? my feeble attempt to rope in some others failed miserably. as usual, they had their own commitments. so it was down to only the two of us until olab managed to persuade rotidua, who was on leave, to join us. three is definitely not a crowd even if they said if two people are alone, the third person is the devil. well, in this case, you decide whom the devil is.

i came on time, being the gentleman, uncharacteristically. i had to endure staring into thin air for about 5 minutes, memorising every single word on the specials menu located outside the restaurant before a nice lady in purple tudung called me from behind. there she was, olab standing behind me and it was kind of awkward at first. we knew each other quite well in the blogs but never in person. then the ball started gathering momentum as we chatted without the distraction of food in front of us.

rotidua, living up to her reputation of a celebrity, came a good half hour later. the absence of food on our table was also part of her demand of being there. that we couldn't have anything before she arrived. somehow i wondered how she recognised me when she was on the phone looking for olab. could it be my charm be radiating so much despite the noisy restaurant background or i was too loud that it was foolhardy for anybody to ignore me sitting over there talking to olab? as she approached our table, she handed over a huge plastic bag to olab, citing barang perempuan, the normal citation given to guys to politely keep your noseyparker nose out of those business, hehe.

olab had her soup and something else (which i failed too notice because i was too engrossed with my own lamb shank) and rotidua had pasta that she hardly touched. she proudly exclaimed that she was on diet. pasta is not really a good dieting food but hey, she didn't ask my opinion. i too couldn't be my usual thick-skin self and you won't believe how difficult it is to pry the very last bit of flesh from those salivating lamb shanks using a fork and a knife which would be performed easily with both hands holding the thigh and biting of the meat like a caveman.

despite our work commitments (ehem!) (but rotidua was on leave, mind you), our chitchat was extended until 2.45pm and we bade farewell to each other. while the food was good, the company was even better. it was a nice warming up session for the upcoming meet and greet session slated to be on the 9th. july. i can't wait to meet all those people that i haven't met and compare the mental images that i had in mind about them and the real people.

by the way, according to the menu, marche is the french word for market hence the title. and pictures courtesy of olab's phone with camera.