shuffling on by…

3 posts in a space of less than 24 hours! If I keep this up, I might as well as change my site title to Blazing On By. Anyway…

Being a DIWK family (that’s Double Income With Kids), we rarely have time for homecooked food. Let me rephrase that, Na rarely has the time to cook for us. It takes her about an hour to commute to and from her workplace in Bangi. In the fasting month it is worse. With almost everyone rushing off straight after work to get home in time for berbuka, her normal commute time is even more lenghtened.

So yesterday being an off-day for her, we had homecooked meal for breaking of fast. Yayy! It’s a no-big-deal meal, nothing fancy and fussy, but satisfying nonetheless. She made her specialty Mee/Kway Tiau Hailam (how do you spell that word anyway? Kway Tiau? Kueh Tiau? Kueh Teow?).

First we have the mee kuning, saute’ed with a bit of kicap manis and garlic. (Please excuse the half-gone condition of the noodles. I was already on my second helping when it occured to me to make a post on this and took out my camera-phone.)

The kway tiau, also saute’ed like the mee kuning. You can have a choice of just the mee kuning or kway tiau, or both. I prefer the mee kuning but at times I mix them up.

Then the gravy. Prawns, squids, chicken, ginger, cauliflower and brocolli. Na knows how I like the brocolli done; lightly. Still fresh green and crispy.

Oh, don’t forget the bawang goreng, sprinkled generously over the dish.

And we have teh best mee/kway tiau hailam in the world. The bowl’s only half full because that’s my second helping.

We had fun.

I was walking past some promotion counters in a local hypermarket recently when I came upon a counter promoting a certain brand of car stereo system. I looked at the big Point Of Purchase cards highlighting their offer price, and I thought, that’s very cheap for a Clarion. Which made me look again at the system.

It wasn’t actually Clarion, but Clraoin! How the heck do we pronounce that, anyway?

ROTFLOL with Ms. LUITA!!!

Spotted a World Cup related contest in an up-market shopping complex.

Count the ball and win? Ok, let me try….

One.

Where’s my prize?

You’d expect an up-market shopping complex to be more mindful about dotting their i’s and crossing their t’s.

Have you ever watched Dennis The Menace (the movie)? There was a scene where Dennis had to spend some time at Mr. Wilson’s house, and he was told not to touch a particular button. He sat there, fidgeting, dying to touch the button, even though he was specifically told not to. He lasted all about 5 minutes, and he pushed the button. The result was catastrophic. And hillarious, but that’s movieland. This is real life.

What is it with kids and buttons. It’s like buttons can speak out and only kids can hear.

“Push me…. puuuuuuush meeee….”

And kids will obey. Yessirreee! Kids will obey buttons but not parents. Adam was late for his tuition but he insisted on having some french fries for snacks, so being a good father (plus french fries require no special cullinary skills) I rushed to cook some up. As I was doing that Adam was fussing about in the kitchen. I sort of ignored him.

Biiiiigggg mistake!

He went up to the microwave, saw a button that said ‘Quick Start’ and pushed it. Now, our microwave other than serving as a…, well, a microwave oven, it also served as a temporary storage compartment for leftover food, snacks, chips, and other types of food that don’t need refrigeration. At that moment I had stored a Tupperware of serunding (chicken rendang floss). Serunding in Tupperware is completely microwaveable. But this serunding came in a packaging that contains some sort of silver foil.

Yes. Metal and microwave oven don’t mix too well. Missus came in, saw smoke coming out of the oven and asked what I was cooking in the oven. I had my hands full as I was straining french fries out of the wok. I can’t even remember what I did to the strainer. This is what’s left of my serunding, minus the smoke. The Tupperware? It’s a total write-off as a food container as the foil and plastic sort of fused together at the bottom, but I could always use it to store my DIY knick-knacks, screws, nails, etc.

Adam? If all the guilty people in the world have ‘guilty’ written on their faces as Adam had on his face then, there would not be a need for lawyers.

Kids and buttons!

a nephew got married yesterday. as usual, missus and me got assigned to do up the hantarans. these are offerings of gifts exchanged between the groom and bride. it may consists of any odd number of gifts, normally starting at seven from the groom, and the bride must reciprocate with two extra gifts, nine. these gifts normally consist of personal stuff like cosmetics, handbags, shoes, watches… and lately handphones and digital cameras.

mostly, missus did the work. i just did the finishing touches.

the sirih junjung. not counted as part of the hantaran, but is a must to precede the hantaran.

the wedding ring and ‘maskahwin’ money. the maskahwin amount differs from state to state, and for kl it is rm80.

the ring, close up.

the ‘duit hantaran’ or dowry. the amount is normally requested by the bride’s family.

the quran and telekung (prayer gown). though not compulsory, are quite common as part of the hantaran. the bride would normally reciprocate with quran and prayer mat.

handbag.

cosmetics.

cake. the flowers are actually made of icing sugar.

fruit basket. the cake and fruits are normally included in the hantaran to make up the ’something sweet and something sour’ requirements normally insisted upon by the elders. i do not know what it signifies, maybe that in the life that lay ahead for the newlyweds, they must be prepared for the good times (sweet) and the bad times (sour).

the groom…

…and the bride.

congratulations, kids. may you find bliss and happiness together.

more photos at the gallery.

damn nearly had us a fiery drama 2 days ago. was just settling down to finally watch ‘lost’ on the season 1 boxset dvd i bought on my last trip to penang, when i heard missus shouting at me to come outside. she had stepped out for a moment to… i can’t remember now what was it she was doing outside, but at the moment she called my name I smelt it. a burning smell. not just burning smell, but burning rubber smell.

i went out and missus asked me if i smelled what she was smelling. i said yeah and instinctively i looked up at the tnb main connection board thingy outside the house. sure enough, it was smoking. and i heard crackling sounds. i rushed back inside the house and pushed the elcb to shut the power down.

after making sure there were no more crackling sounds, i called the tnb hotline 15454 and notified them of the problem. the woman on the other end of the line promised they’ll send people to look into it shortly.

and they did. 1 hour plus later. not a bad thing, considering that day being a public holiday and everybody in festival mood and all. they took one look at it and knew straight way what happened. must have happened a lot. loose connection, causing the cable to spark and burn. these things were installed by the building contractors, and a combination of/or any of these factors; rushing for completion deadlines, repetitive work, under-qualified labourers, etc. could have caused the shoddy workmanship.

tnb technicians rewired the whole thing and replaced a huge fuse-like thingy that was half-burnt, in no time… and no charge. lucky thing we were at home when the thing decide to spark.

i shudder to think of the ‘what ifs’.

this little piggy went to the market,
this little piggy stayed at home,
this little piggy had roast beef,
this little piggy had none.
and this little piggy went…
“wee… wee… wee…” all the way home.

photography: raja luqman adam
foot model: raja luqman adam

… way to see off 2005.

a niece during our recent end-of-year getaway.

yet another klcc twin tower picture.

Photo taken with my trusty FujiFilm A310, with a fence-post as tripod.