Thursday 30 October 2008

All In a Day

I started the day feeling the exact opposite of Mr Caprio when he shouted "I am the king of the world!" Felt much better after sitting down on my chair for about half an hour and over some little chit chat with my roommate (yeah! I have a roommate in the office now!) More chit chats over breakfast and afterwards and I was basically not productive throughout the whole morning.

Really sweated it out over those little green table with three other men, forgetting lunch altogether. Thankfully nobody complained of anything smelly over the 3 o'clock meeting. Felt really appreciated (in the lack of a better word to describe) after lunch break as though I have the best ears in the world ehehe.

And yet, still do not have desire to plan anything despite it being 3 days away. How ironic it can be that history is repeating itself. Let's just hope it won't be replicating exactly as it happened before. And that is the end of this very cryptic entry of which only I know all the pieces that will make up the whole picture.

Friday 24 October 2008

Vanity Overkill Part 2

I feel like singing "Oops! I did it again!"

Yes folks! If you have been following the program, here is the proof that I did not back off my words.

Presenting, my potato head. If you don't believe me, you just have to take my word for it. And if are inspired enough to follow my footsteps, I have a piece of advise for you.

When you go around and see those little corner barber shops, just surrender your head to them and pay whatever good money they're asking of you. Believe me, it will be worth it. Unless you are so much in love with yourself staring at it butt nekkid for two continuous hours, cold, wet and fingers all wrinkled up. Or you don't mind looking like an escapee from a sanatorium trying to blend uncomfortably into the society while you are en route to those barber shops anyway to ask them to finish the uncompleted job. Because those twin-bladed or triple-bladed shavers were never designed to shave anything more than 10mm long in bulk. They would get all cranky and simply glided over those mountains of hair.

Especially if you were halfway through and suddenly you found yourself in a pitch dark bathroom and with only a towel wrapped around your shivering body, you got yourself out half expecting to find somebody trying to pull a prank on you by switching off the lights. Only to discover that the whole suburb were in complete darkness due to some supply interruption somewhere out there and for five long minutes, pondering and unsure of what the next course of action should be. Thankfully those comrades of mine did an excellent job and I was never more appreciative of their efficiency.

The verdict? Loving it and this is definitely not the last time that I would do it.

Tuesday 21 October 2008

Vanity Overkill

Did I tell you somehow I was getting vain lately? It is a bit too early for a mid-life crisis for me, isn't it? Fortunately, I did not go on a shopping spree looking for the latest fashion and adornments and I still use that trusty old bar of soap to "cleanse" my face (and the rest of the body) rather than being metrosexual and look for the latest and most effective skin toning and firming facial cleansers. At least not yet.

However, my vain self was suddenly staring into the mirror 2 days ago noticing painfully how much the rate of receding hairline has somehow accelerated. Which calls for desperate measures! No, I am not going to make our Datuk Sam envious of my even-better planted locks than what he's having right now. That is way too desperate. I am thinking of a more demurred but not so subtle way of dealing with it. Shave it all off. The ones you, and you, and you can see, with the hope that it should revitalize the much shampooed hair of mine.

It won't be the first time though. At last count, I think I have done it at least twice in my adulthood, or the whole life for that matter. I don't think I have been been flashing the epidermis of head when I was a teenager or way before.

Given the gender mix of readers of this blog, I doubt that I could invite anybody to join me with this one. I am thinking of maintaining this one for a much longer period though. Depends on how rajin it is going to be for me to keep it cleanly shaved given current propensity or the lack of discipline to even keep my face clean-shaven. We'll see about that.

Tuesday 14 October 2008

Raya Celebration and Pregnancy Background

I have no excuse for not updating. No time? I have plenty of time, only used it for something else, not updating the blog. No stories to tell? Plenty, if I include ALL the juicy happenings which might not be printable in the first place ehehe. However, Raya and wifey being pregnant are 2 big occasions that are worthy of an entry by themselves. Since I am lazy I'll combine those 2 in this one.

Maybe I'll adhere to pure chronological event and tell a story that I have been telling others countless numbers of times in real life and chat boxes. About the pregnancy.

If anybody had been paying close attention to my blogs that much, they would notice that I have not even made a single passing mention on the worthy subject prior to Athyra is Walking entry. Not that I wanted to keep it as Highly Classified Information (though we'd like to keep the gender secret *wink wink*) that deserves a place under the OSA but simply owing to the fact that we (we as in me and wifey) did not know about it. After getting her menses for the first few months, she mentioned to me that she had missed one and the test came out negative. I had asked her to go to a clinic for a proper check and ultrasound scan just to make sure and throughout, I've always thought that she actually made the trip to the clinic, and she did not. And the menses never came back with innocent breastfeeding as the wrongly-blamed culprit.

In the absence of morning sickness and any other related telltale signs, she was only convinced to actually pay a visit to an O&G only after she felt some kind of movements and I went along just to make sure. Surely enough, she was estimated to be 20 weeks pregnant and the not-so-little worm thriving inside was almost half a kilo already with the EDD around late January or early February. And my sweet little adorable Athyra would be around 1 year 3 months by then.

So, there you have it. Hopefully I won't have to repeat the story again after this. I think I am way beyond broken records already ehehe.

Ok now about raya. Of course, apart from the usual commute back and forth between one PD to another (my kampung is also a PD you know? Grandfather's Swamp), this was the first raya without my father. As much as we would like to remember him in our prayers and celebration, the living keeps on living, right? My fear was mostly for my mother and thankfully she seemed to be strong enough to be going through it alone among the full regiment of my siblings and their children. Again, we did not take a group photo this year (which we did not last year) and those limited photos that I put up in my FB was taken with a measly phone. How I wished I had a proper camera, compact or DSLR to prop up the mood of photo sessions.

I also gave the usual raya BBQ routine that we have on the eve of the second or third day of raya which had been going on for many years this year a miss and I do not even know if they did have one in the first place because by the that time, my Raya time in my kampung has ended as we made our final stop in PD with my in-laws.

We spent the whole day of Saturday visiting wifey's a few of wifey's sisters houses and I spent the night glued to Time Traveller's Wife while wifey needs to come up with the usual things required for a menerima and engagement ceremony. Oh yeah. I almost forgot to mention that I finally unwrapped the book from its pristine, transparent cover and got through it over the raya period. My verdict, a very technical love story, most possibly a tear-jerker for the fairer sex and I like it. Not the run-of-the-mill love story and I am pretty intrigued on the subjects that they do talk about within their daily conversations. Sounds pretty unreal to me but then again, he was a librarian whom thrives on books anyway.

Ok back to the topic at hand. The engagement ceremony was performed on Sunday, the fifth day of raya, complete with dais and my 2 girls were selected as the accompanying flower girls. It went on until around 3 o'clock. After some acts of trying to look busy helping out with the cleaning bit, we made our way back to KL around 6pm. Except for the half hour queue at a right-turning traffic light junction, traffic was smooth on the trunk road and thank goodness I don't have to endure that multiple hours traffic jam in those main arterial highways nationwide.

I guess that's all I can say in this ironically very muted entry. And a longwinded one at it as well