Of Sneezes and Saffron, part II
The minute my dad and i arrived Wednesday afternoon i was put to work by my aunty - joined my cousins who were running around like drones waitering and helping out in the kitchen. Never ending flow of relatives and well-wishers coming in all day - most of which hardly missed a beat to pay their respects to go straight to the food. Imagine waiting on hordes and hordes of seriously kampong people, dressed all in black when its 40+ celcius outside.To top it off, not many of them spoke english OR malay.. This went on through the night and until lunch the next day.
After lunch and another barrage of ceremonies the next day, our entourage brought her to the temple for final prayers at the crematorium. FInally had some rest after that. THe next morning at the temple when we picked up the ashes we had a lunch for the immediate family at the temple. Just as luck would have it, that was some special monthly day or of worship where people come over to the temple and offer food to the priests for blessings. Needless to say there were lots of random kampong moochers at our lunch in the main temple dining hall - some of them even packed our food to go. Started the drive home around 3-ish - parents made me drive. Boring ass-4 hour drive on the highway.
Idle hands are the devil's workshop
Next couple of days were pre-tty boring asides from a coupla friends coming over and the odd cybercafe/supper sessions- and of course the odd 1-meal a day binges- i don't think i'll be eating Nandos again for a while after scarfing a whole Peri Platter ( 1 chicken, 3 sides and a salad) all by myself at lunch with my parents Saturday. My capacity for gorging has fully returned, but then i'll be full for the next day or so...
Some of the more notable acts of boredom include:
-Sharpening everything with a blade in the house
-Spear-fishing( with a sharpened broomstick) for rats behind the house at dusk - caught one!
-Reorganizing all upstairs bookshelves.
-Putting sharpened sickles and parangs to use - some cosmetic gardenwork
Sunday, July 11, 2004
Wednesday, July 07, 2004
Time for another overdue update between sleeping and Blogger being down...
Part 1 : Of Sneezes and Saffron
The four of us drove down to my grandma's place on friday ( 2 July) . Quite a few of my aunts and uncles were already there. Not only was it sERRIOUSly hot, there was no water in that area of the state as well - and as expected, hardcore sneeze attacks came along pretty soon cos of all the dust and mangy dirty cats around the place. Unpleasant. Boring too as none of my cousins were there yet. At least caught up on some proper Thai food.
1 day short of being completely bedbound and semi-comatose for an entire year, my maternal grandmother passed away around 1.30 am sunday morning. Almost everyone stayed up well into the next day helping with the planning for the numerous ceremonies to come. By noon busloads more of relatives, a small procession stage, tents and monks in many many shades of orange had appeared. After some last rites/blessings thingy ran by a coupla priests and a "specialist" involving most of the family she was put into a coffin and put up under the shade outside in a typical lying-in state arrangement after being injected with formaldehyde. THe formaldehyde will probably come in handy as the numerologists later decided that she would be cremated the coming Thursday after a 3 day wake and a couple more ceremonies.
Hence, in an uncharacteristically merciful act my mom let my dad and i fly home sunday night so we wouldn't get in the way of all the arrangements and rituals aANd because the house was kinda packed too. We'd be flying back in wednesday afternoon for another ceremony before the cremation and another bunch of ceremonies. Hopefully driving back friday.
A merciful release for my grandmother - she had been suffering from crippling athritis, rheumatism and the like for the last 11 years to the point of near total incapacitation.
Part 2 : Banana Leaf Madness
On monday, managed to meet up with charlotte, lionel and soha. Started with the first two dropping by my house to wait for soha to finish teaching at BBBS. Ended up with them staying for 2 hours-ish and laughing at my old photos. Poppycock. Later picked up Soha and at at a banana leaf place somewhere near UM. Went mental to the point of being full for the next 24 hours. Nasty, nasty things must have went on in my stomach. After that we just dropped soha off and chilled at casa de kinky until they were nice enough to agree to a drink at 1 Utama so i could scamper off later and meet my dad for a 9.30 show that he preemptively booked me for almost a week ago- Spider Man 2. It was quite okay...about as good as the first.
Part 3: C'mon, something other than Warcraft?
Spent the better part of the morning clearing out my room of junk , reorganizing the upstairs bookshelves and redoing the mess of wiring in my room. Later had dinner at 1 utama with zkerng and we joined the guys ( more like got there first) at silver surfer for a much missed cybercafe warcraft marathon. There was like..10 of us - total all out swearing, cursing madnesssss. Got slighty less hectic with the pussy hero map. Played like , from 10 to 2 and then had our customary post-mortem discussion at the mamak followed by cocktalking and reminiscing. Nobody was really eager to drive back cos it was raining like cock. Oh yeah - speaking of driving - first time i drove out of BU since LAST summer. Didn't bang anything or get lost in the rain- go me!
Still waiting with baited breath for the e-mail or snail mail that'll say that i either need to resit a paper or two, or god forbid, completely failed my bitch of a course. Those were supposed to be passed out from the 2nd onwards - well its already the 7th, so i'm still keepin my fingers crossed. If i don't get it next week i'm calling anyway to make sure they didn't screw up my address....haha i'd be completely over the moon if i don't hear anything from them till the end of the month which means i passed clean.....i can only hope....
Part 1 : Of Sneezes and Saffron
The four of us drove down to my grandma's place on friday ( 2 July) . Quite a few of my aunts and uncles were already there. Not only was it sERRIOUSly hot, there was no water in that area of the state as well - and as expected, hardcore sneeze attacks came along pretty soon cos of all the dust and mangy dirty cats around the place. Unpleasant. Boring too as none of my cousins were there yet. At least caught up on some proper Thai food.
1 day short of being completely bedbound and semi-comatose for an entire year, my maternal grandmother passed away around 1.30 am sunday morning. Almost everyone stayed up well into the next day helping with the planning for the numerous ceremonies to come. By noon busloads more of relatives, a small procession stage, tents and monks in many many shades of orange had appeared. After some last rites/blessings thingy ran by a coupla priests and a "specialist" involving most of the family she was put into a coffin and put up under the shade outside in a typical lying-in state arrangement after being injected with formaldehyde. THe formaldehyde will probably come in handy as the numerologists later decided that she would be cremated the coming Thursday after a 3 day wake and a couple more ceremonies.
Hence, in an uncharacteristically merciful act my mom let my dad and i fly home sunday night so we wouldn't get in the way of all the arrangements and rituals aANd because the house was kinda packed too. We'd be flying back in wednesday afternoon for another ceremony before the cremation and another bunch of ceremonies. Hopefully driving back friday.
A merciful release for my grandmother - she had been suffering from crippling athritis, rheumatism and the like for the last 11 years to the point of near total incapacitation.
Part 2 : Banana Leaf Madness
On monday, managed to meet up with charlotte, lionel and soha. Started with the first two dropping by my house to wait for soha to finish teaching at BBBS. Ended up with them staying for 2 hours-ish and laughing at my old photos. Poppycock. Later picked up Soha and at at a banana leaf place somewhere near UM. Went mental to the point of being full for the next 24 hours. Nasty, nasty things must have went on in my stomach. After that we just dropped soha off and chilled at casa de kinky until they were nice enough to agree to a drink at 1 Utama so i could scamper off later and meet my dad for a 9.30 show that he preemptively booked me for almost a week ago- Spider Man 2. It was quite okay...about as good as the first.
Part 3: C'mon, something other than Warcraft?
Spent the better part of the morning clearing out my room of junk , reorganizing the upstairs bookshelves and redoing the mess of wiring in my room. Later had dinner at 1 utama with zkerng and we joined the guys ( more like got there first) at silver surfer for a much missed cybercafe warcraft marathon. There was like..10 of us - total all out swearing, cursing madnesssss. Got slighty less hectic with the pussy hero map. Played like , from 10 to 2 and then had our customary post-mortem discussion at the mamak followed by cocktalking and reminiscing. Nobody was really eager to drive back cos it was raining like cock. Oh yeah - speaking of driving - first time i drove out of BU since LAST summer. Didn't bang anything or get lost in the rain- go me!
Still waiting with baited breath for the e-mail or snail mail that'll say that i either need to resit a paper or two, or god forbid, completely failed my bitch of a course. Those were supposed to be passed out from the 2nd onwards - well its already the 7th, so i'm still keepin my fingers crossed. If i don't get it next week i'm calling anyway to make sure they didn't screw up my address....haha i'd be completely over the moon if i don't hear anything from them till the end of the month which means i passed clean.....i can only hope....
Thursday, July 01, 2004
Ahh.. realized how i missed my mother's dulcet voice when she issues orders and imperatives( 99% when she opens her mouth) to my father and i. bleurgh.
The next whole weekend hangus - got dragged back to visit my bed-ridden grandmother - she has been bed -ridden for the last like, 4 years. God forbid that she actually passes away anytime soon, then i'd have to stay even longer - thai funeral rites are apparently rather long. Sorry if that sounds insensitive. I just don't like how my mother drops her orders - yes i KnooWWW all mothers are like that, but i'd probably have both sides of the family behind me if i say that she's more than a little pushy. Hope i don't miss too much lepak/gambling/eating/clubbing time. It is after all MY holiday, dammit.
Speaking of clubbing, a coupla of us checked out the new Zouk in kl. We went on thursday, which was " Ghetto Heaven" and also ladies night. NOt only was there far more quantity than quality, there were also LOaaDDS of mat kampong and mat motors and other random mats trying to show off their rather dubious "moves". Dance floor was packed as hell, but the music was good and the drinks were not too expensive.
Played badminton the other day too. Amazingly played a bit better than on the odd occasion i did back in London. Must be the weather or something. Still feeling the pain today - aching grip and leg pains - those 'clicks' and 'clacks' in my legs during the game can't have been beneficial...
Anyways, hope the weekend rolls over with no incident( if anyone sees the Reaper, try and invite him to yum cha or something). Lookin forward to good ol' gambling sessions and all the cursing over cybercafe Warcraft....
The next whole weekend hangus - got dragged back to visit my bed-ridden grandmother - she has been bed -ridden for the last like, 4 years. God forbid that she actually passes away anytime soon, then i'd have to stay even longer - thai funeral rites are apparently rather long. Sorry if that sounds insensitive. I just don't like how my mother drops her orders - yes i KnooWWW all mothers are like that, but i'd probably have both sides of the family behind me if i say that she's more than a little pushy. Hope i don't miss too much lepak/gambling/eating/clubbing time. It is after all MY holiday, dammit.
Speaking of clubbing, a coupla of us checked out the new Zouk in kl. We went on thursday, which was " Ghetto Heaven" and also ladies night. NOt only was there far more quantity than quality, there were also LOaaDDS of mat kampong and mat motors and other random mats trying to show off their rather dubious "moves". Dance floor was packed as hell, but the music was good and the drinks were not too expensive.
Played badminton the other day too. Amazingly played a bit better than on the odd occasion i did back in London. Must be the weather or something. Still feeling the pain today - aching grip and leg pains - those 'clicks' and 'clacks' in my legs during the game can't have been beneficial...
Anyways, hope the weekend rolls over with no incident( if anyone sees the Reaper, try and invite him to yum cha or something). Lookin forward to good ol' gambling sessions and all the cursing over cybercafe Warcraft....
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