many many years ago, never in my wildest dream will i dare to imagine that i will one day be able to have lunch with him. just that hand's length away from him, talking about casual things in life, chatting, joking and laughing. once upon a time, my dream was just to be able to find him again and know how life has been for him, if he went on to become the doctor of his ambition and whether his eyes still twinkled like so. that dream came true, someone found his contacts and i thought that was where the story ended. but sometimes the powers that be smile kindly down at me.

that day, that lunch was more than i could ever ask for. actually, it was the second lunch. the first, some years back, was too ackward, too forced, too unreal. it left me with many regrets. this time round, maybe because i was caught off-guard by his eleventh-hour invitation, i had no time whatsoever to run it through my head. i'm usually better when i don't use my over-analytical head :-p

lunch was simple, the conversation casual. we talked about our lives, past and present. perhaps it was age that mellowed me. what struck me was that he seemed to understand. that it was easy talking to him. i guess some things never change, no matter how many years in between. i can't even remember clearly the things that happened, many memories have been erased with time. i doubt he can remember too. we were both too young. whilst he was my first puppy love, sweet and memorable, i was nothing more than a passing fancy. still, it was alright. it didn't really matter. life is about our memories, our feelings. just because it was not earth-shattering and deeply etched in the heart for him, it does not make the memory any less sweeter.

what that one and me had was sweet memory. and now, a casual friendship. neither wants anything more. i want to say a word of thanks, but only in my heart. thank you for staying so pure and good. thank you for staying you.

shovelled the older one out of bed today to keep me company for my sporadic 30-minute morning walk around the neighbourhood. i never did like the leery stares from strangers that hang around by the side of the road for no apparent reason than to freak you out with their trailing looks. maybe i am just delusional when released into the wild.

barely 2 minutes into our walk, we strolled straight into a dense fog. right in the early morning sun, a fog out of nowhere, so thick that you can barely see beyond. it would have sounded like a scene from a ghost movie if not for the smothering fume of pest control spray.. despite holding our breath and using our shirt as a filter when our breath could no longer hold out, we couldn't help but inhale some of the toxic fumes. why they are carrying out the spraying during rush hour peak traffic time when most people are on the streets, i assume they are trying to reduce the population of pests, as well as human residents, in the area to improve traffic conditions.

barely 15 minutes into our walk, we made a planned (hers, not mine) detour into the neighbourhood big M for her breakfast. i get the vague feeling that i have been conned from the word go. my morning exercise is very rapidly turning into a stroll to get her favourite breakfast. she settled on her breakfast menu in a jiffy; sausage mcmuffin (without egg), one milo ice and a cup of hot coffee for dear ole mummy to sip on whilst the little bunny gnaw at her food at the speed of grass growing.

apparently, mcd doesn't have 'service with a smile' on the menu anymore. we were offered it's latest introductory menu instead: 'service with a scowl'. there was some friday fashion thing going on: the man stacking the utensils was wearing a shocking pink plastic party hat whilst the fries man was wearing bunny ears. the lady behind the counter serving us was wearing the latest face-black-like-the-bottom-of-a-pan look from paris' winter fashion look. whilst we were halfway through saying our order, she turned her attention to her colleague. i looked straight into her eyes but it didn't bother her one bit. perhaps she's used to getting stares from people. our order turned into one sausage mcmuffin, with egg of course and the coffee turned into a cup of tea. they do magic with mcd breakfast now too! quickly we took a table and started on breakfast before she started pulling a rabbit out of the milo. no drama whatsoever. i seem to mellow with age.

the walk back took another 10 minutes. my half hour morning exercise turned out to be a one and a half hour outing with 25 minutes of exercise and almost an hour of dawdling in between. the day didn't turn out as expected but it was still a good break from the monotony. daughter and i had a nice time together to add to our little memory bank. this is probably the first and last time she will wake up at 8am to have a walk with me.

i remember there was a time when her gift was the most precious thing ever. a beautiful glossy-paged story book from london with the most amazing pictures. i can't remember the name of the book, nor do i have the book anymore, but i still remember the awe and wonderment when i flipped the pages. a book like that was rare and a real treat to the eight year old me. my shelves were lined with enid blytons in black and white and pages so coarse you could sand the table. so, to the little girl back then, it was the most beautiful book in my possession.

now, so many years later, a branded handbag worth so much more than that book echoes with emptiness. is it because she didn't mean to give it to me but only upon seeing that i was around, sent someone to scurry down to her car to retrieve it that the sincerity is absent? i can't help but think that there are many more such gifts of convenience sitting comfortably in the back boot. or is it because it is not the first time?

has she changed? or have i changed? or is it because the time, the place and our roles have changed? life was simpler when a gift was just a gift and not innuendos of intention. perhaps, it has always been, and my mind was too childish to recognise it. then again, aren't all gifts a tool for exchange of your affection? so why should i look at this with a more cynical viewpoint that the others? perhaps because this was not an attempt at my favourable consideration. perhaps because this was more.

i know i shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, just in case i find things there that i do not like. a gift is a gift, whatever the intention. i should take it as that and be grateful for the things that are given. sigh. it's easier to be grateful when the things are less materialistic, and comes with less attachments. a simple hand-drawn card, a sweet text message, a voice of concern when you need it, a hug from a friend......these things touch me more.

somewhere in my closet, i have a bag. beautiful as it may be, i am reluctant to look at it.

i wish i am less of an idiot.

facebook is the place where we can get all excited about finding friends that we have lost for many decades, names that we can barely remember and faces that have changed so much since we last laid eyes. it's really an invention that should win the praise of millions, just like steve jobs, only nobody is ever grateful for things that are still around. there is also the fact that millions of manpower hours are lost on cooking food we will never get to eat, farm produces that are only virtual and will never help the world poverty and poking people for no apparent reason than to remind others that we are still alive. those annoying parts perhaps we do not need.

through facebook, i've found many old friends, and many old friends have found me. people that have coursed through my mind on and off over the last few decades, i am finally able to look at their family photos, their vacation pix and know how they are faring now. it's like being able to scratch an itch somewhere deep inside, a peek at the pages that come after the 'happily ever after'. however, after the initial euphoria has died, you slowly realise, wonderful as it may be to finally see your best friends when you were in school, interesting as it may be to see how some of them have changed, that these people are actually strangers to you now. you may remember all too clearly some of the conversations that took place then, but it is no longer the same person that you befriended again on facebook. the little boy with the sweetest smile who had a crush on you for the longest time is now cold and distant after an unhappy divorce. the little girl whom you spent every school hour side by side with is a pleasant and sweet acquaintance at best. the friendships that you have lost to time, it is lost forever. if you turn back to look, nothing stands in place. only emptiness, a memory of what had been and a smile in reminiscent.

a few days ago, i had lunch with someone from the distant early chapters of my life, someone i knew since i was 11 years old but rarely had much contact in between. i started by asking him a very simple question, which seemed to have confounded him; perhaps he was reading too much into it. does he know me at all? undoubtedly we have all changed over the years, and he does not know me now, but did he know me then? a strange question perhaps.

i tried to remember if i knew him then. faint memories fluttered by. guitar strumming melodies that i did not hear. long calls that lasted into the night. letters that have evaporated with time. laughters and voices. the cheekiest and brightest grin. i looked up from across the table and the grin was still there. those were the past but did i really know him? his principles, his values, his desires and his ideas? i shake my head a little, as if to clear up the cobwebs and dislodge memories tucked in some corner of the brain. i didn't know much of him, but i knew him. he was a nice guy. he is still a nice guy. someone with the correct values and principles, whatever they be. someone whom you can rely on and talk to. someone who is a friend.

apparently, people from thailand eat bugs. cicadas, crickets, cockroaches, beetles, bamboo worms, silk worms and ant eggs. they fry them crispy and brittle and they are just like your favourite crisps or pretzel. goes wonderfully with beer.

well, we all kind of knew that. so, that's nothing new. but what i wonder is whether thai people really buy bugs from their neighbourhood market every week and eat them as part of their healthy wholesome diet everyday, or is this some huge gimmick to attract gullible tourists. for all you know, each time you buy one pound of those stuff, they are laughing so hard inside that they want to roll on the floor whilst pointing at you, and saying 'you guys really fell for that?'

i have some friends from thailand, and frankly speaking, when they visit i really don't see them salivate whenever a cockroach run past or hear the sound of crickets at night. i have also never seen them put anything that resembles such matter in their mouth. so, when you say thais eat cockroaches and crickets, how many percent of the population are you really talking about? 0.01? 0.00001? and how often are they eating it? whenever the blue moon pops up? i want hard convincing data. not that i'm going to pop one of those things in my mouth anytime soon. there's a reason they are known as pests. they are not your everyday poultries and sea products.

i put this theory to my cousin when she told me about thais eating these stuffs and she looked at me as if i was some crazy delusional maniac. but really, do most of the thais eat this everyday as part of their meal?

i'm gullible, but not that gullible.

please excuse me whilst i grumble and bemoan, for what use is a blog if not to unload all the crap that you pick up in your day.

all i want is gas. simple, not that sweet smelling, natural gas. sometimes, when things are going your way, all your have to do is drop by the nearest gas shop, fill in a few forms, pay the money, make an appointment and mr. gas guy will come a-hooking up your gas connection. IF things are smooth sailing and your good karma meter is right to the top.

life for me is never that straightforward. character building i think they called it (rolls eyes). it started out just like everybody else, but when mr. gas guy came knocking, he said that the piping from the wall is not long enough to connect and i will need to contact miss management. which of course i did in a jiffy, and miss management promised to have it done in a jiffy. jiffy, in case you haven't looked at the dictionary for a very long time, means to forget about it and leave it for a couple of months. so, i harassed miss management some more and one fine day, she waved her wand and it was fixed. naturally, the next step was to make another appointment with mr. gas to get him to swagger his bottom over to connect the gas. i must give credit to mr. gas guy because he always call when you ask him to. nicely, of course.

so, mr. gas guy came today and connected the gas. hey presto, and i have fire. definitely easier than our ancestors, the caveman. the fire, however, was too small to cook with and pretty much too small to do anything with but stare at it and go 'ooooooo' and 'ahhhhhhh', like grandpa caveman. mr. gas guy said it was miss management's fault. she needs to modify the nozzle. let's skip the technical bits because i wasn't really interested on the how, why, what and when. i just wanted the solution. anyway, mr. gas guy said miss management will fix the problem, again, and they will come back after that. sigh. this sounds like a never ending story.

i called miss management, and she said that it wasn't her fault. it was mr. stovetop's fault. i have to call mr. stovetop directly and he will come and modify the nozzle, free of charge. after some sweet-talking and whimpering, miss management said she will call mr. stovetop herself, explain the problem and get them to call me. sounds like the beginning of another horror story. i don't get. the same problem probably applies to all the units there. why didn't they just get someone to come in and fix the piping AND the modifying in the very first place, instead of waiting for each resident to call them individually and settle the case one at a time. can you imagine how much petrol, car trips, manhours and time are wasted just for one simple thing? each installation takes so many trips by so many people but yet nobody does anything about it until they are asked. sigh. malaysia at it's best i want to say, but i'm told this happens the world over.

so, anyway, to end the story, mr gas guy then tells me that they can do the job. you probably want to clobber him with the head at his point, or at least i do. the catch is that it will cost me, instead of foc by mr stovetop. if you want to wait for mr. stovetop to call you, wait for them to turn up for their appointment, wait for them to actually modify it, call mr. gas guy and wait for another appointment again, wait for them to turn up again and wait for them to solve the rest of it. and you wonder why there is progress is slower in this part of the world. my head of hair is growing whiter as we speak. i do want gas sometime this century.

what can you do but pay the bugger? well, if you look at it one way, it's efficiency - helping you to solve other people's problem. another way to look at it is....thief!! do you get the feeling that mr stovetop, mr gas and miss management is in this whole big conspiracy? at $45 per unit, i think that they are raking up a fair bundle and enjoying abalone every night.

with all these running around, albeit not physically, who needs exercise? :-p

today is 14th october 2011. it's a very special day. i need to mark it down in huge red letters on my calendar so that i will remember each year's 14th october. today is known as the international-everybody-ignore-me day. hurray!! yippee!!! break out the balloons and champagne and we'll have a grand party!!

no emails get answered. no sms receive a reply. i think it's the way the stars, moon and the earth are aligned today. i'm invisible today. i sent one person 2 smses, but he ignored me until i called him up and press him for a reply. i called another 3 times and she promises to send me a form by email, but until now.............4.09pm, i'm still waiting. i've been waiting since early morning. i've sent a few other texts but apparently they've been re-directed to the bermuda triangle. i've got a list (yes, i'm getting old and i need many of those) of 11 people who have not come back to me despite my many haunting reminders. sigh. i don't blame them. i blame the world, the stars and the galaxy. today is not a good day for working. and so, i shall be getting off work now.

i will also not be working on the 14th october of every year! :-p so bite me!

tired of scrolling down and looking at beautiful women yet? (who am i kidding!?!?!)

anyway, let me tell you a story......

once upon a time, very very long ago, in a faraway land known as The Kingdom of Doongoos, there lived a very famous bag designer. Back then, there wasn't any job vacancy for bag designers because people carried their belongings with them in a piece of cloth, or hide, tied up with a knot and held up by a piece of stick.

i've even included an illustration for those lacking imagination. what a nice little blogger i am. as you can see, there wasn't really any need for a bag designer like him. he was a man ahead of his times. so, he was really more known as 'the-crazy-guy-who-goes-around-sketching-silly-little-animal-skin-thingy". quite a long name, i am sure you will agree, but that's how people back then give out names, so who are we to argue.

anyway, this little guy has a lot of pent-up frustration and anger, because his creativity and ingenuity was not recognised. trapped in his little dark cave, holed up with all the animal skin, he finally went berserk and wanted to carry out revenge on mankind. (insert crazy mad-scientist kind of laughter)

the little guy spent days and nights, and nights and days, and days and nights, well you get the picture, drawing and sketching, sketching and drawing....and then drawing and sketching some more. he finally came up with the masterpiece, the creation to end all creation, his tool for retaliation on all who mocked him!

are you curious what he came up with? wait, let me google for the illustration again.......

a handbag! ahhhhhhhhhhhh, not just any handbag mind you. a handbag with a handle that is too short for you to carry on your shoulder, and yet too long for you to hold on your hand. so, how do you carry it around? yes, like the beautiful ladies you were oogling over at the very top of the post, in a frozen v-shaped-arm manner! like a mannequin that escaped from the shop window.

in his crafty and cunning manner, he made every person who carried them look silly; one arm hooked upward in  an awkward manner and the hand, empty waving around listlessly in the air. some try to hide the gawkiness by holding something in that hand; a handphone, a piece of tissue or a wallet, whilst others perfect the technique by holding their hand out elegantly like the queen, waiting for her subjects to kiss her hand. sticking out the last pinky is optional, depending on how delusional you are.

he sold the idea with such success that the ladies loved it immediately, and it carried on throughout the ages. nobody noticed anything wrong with the design and women scrambled over each other to get a piece of his designs. until this day and age, if you look closely you can still see some of his works on the street. and if you see one, just remember that little crazy man, eons of years ago, gloating and laughing wickedly, screaming in his dark cold wet cave......."REVENGE IS SO SWEEEEEEEEEET!"

apparently, at age 40, your father still dictates what you should and should not wear to dinner.

sigh.

doesn't it just incense you? well, it certainly does to me. burns me so deep that i just couldn't resist exploding here.

just received a mail from someone i know. a mail in our national tongue, complete with pictures of this poor little 4 year old child who is in the hospital who needs our most heart-wrenching financial assistance. the poor child's head is fixed in position with metal nails all round to keep it still so as not to hurt the neck further. he is suffering from a weak neck as a result of down syndrome. a most distressing picture, one that you cannot look at long without feeling depressed.

i am cynical, no doubt, but i remember someone saying somewhere that sometimes it's better to be deceived rather than to ignore. to believe that there could be a chance that it is a lie but still extend your assistance rather than sit back and be cynical and lose the opportunity to help. strange thing is that there is no mention whatsoever of where to donate the funds. no account number, no bank name. only the poor little boy's name. so, how exactly are you suppose to help? how are those heart-wrenching pictures circulated all over the internet suppose to help this child?

apparently, by forwarding the mail, you can contribute 1 sen. hello?!?!! how gullible can people be? how can anybody get any money, much less 1 sen, by hundreds and thousands of people circulating mail? i've seen so many examples of chain letters but i think this must take the cake in being the most shallow, most despicable, most contemptable. hurray, you win a title, whoever you are! you must be gloating in your seat. how can anybody ever circulate such a post in the hope of making it into a heart-wrenching chain letter? whatever happened to scruples and morals? forget that! whatever happened to human decency? whoever can exploit this situation must really be the bottomest of the scums.

searching through the internet, there is indeed this poor little child, whose case was disseminated all the way in 2008. that was 2 years ago. somehow, i don't think that poor child is still in that same position all these years. either he has gone for the surgery, or he hasn't. all these years and people are still circulating his photos. i wonder how does he feel about that? how will you feel to have your photos plastered all over the internet? for nothing more than just milking the pity cow.

the person who started the chain-letter is so despicable, but what of those that plainly forwarded them without giving it a second thought except to rid yourself of the guilt of not being able to do anything, or perhaps to cocoon yourself from such bad things happening to your own loved ones. this denial, this lack of responsibility for the things that you send to others, is what kept this mail circulating for 2 years.

dear people, please read and think before you hit the send button. this mail did nothing more than milk people of their emotions and serve no purpose except to.