my left foot

ok, so it’s not like the movie about the irish guy who could only move his left foot. this is more about the removal of a foot, which technically, is, err, the right one.

see, if i had my foot cut off……

well, it’s hard to imagine this scenario, really. all i could think of, right now, in my current fluffy, pink-brained state, is not being able to wear cute high heels anymore. or heck, ANY cute shoes anymore.

but i guess it would mostly be a huge blow to the self-esteem. the feeling of powerlessness. anger and denial, inevitably. the loss of a limb you’ve depended on all your life and taken for granted, is not exactly something you’d readily accept.

he was scheduled to have his foot amputated yesterday, coz well, it’s pretty bad now and threatening to infect his bone, or something gory like that. but due to his protests, one of the docs decided to try to clean up the wound again and salvage it for a while more.

he used to be big on steaks just before he got struck by that heart attack more than two years ago, and right after, i got put off by large chunks of meat sizzling on hot iron plates. i believe i’d only consumed one or two meals of steaks since then, all the while feeling my arteries being clogged up like wads of hair in the bathroom sink.

he used to be big on sweet beverages and coffee, always waving away our warnings, saying there’s always the “medicine” he has to take daily to ‘ward off’ anything bad. which he always skipped, coz he hated eating medicine, the stubborn man that he was, and still is.

he used to be big on sleeping and general siesta-ing, hardly ever exercising, and always giving excuses not to go for outings with us, saying that he wants to sleep or rest at home. and since he got sick and on constant medication, all he CAN do is sleep and rest. and he can’t go on outings with us anymore either, since being unable to walk.

i am guilty of reflecting on these things, even that imminent amputation, with a little… detachment, because, well, i don’t feel as close as i should be to the man. i know i’m supposed to go find out more from the doctor about the situation or something, but i don’t. i know i’m supposed to give words of courage and empathy, but i can’t. i know i’m supposed to reach out and… do something, but what? it baffles me, coz communication has *never* been a stronghold in our relationship.

i have little idea how to do anything except, well, watch the deterioration from the sidelines and wait.

i’m almost as cold and numb as his rotting foot.

if it had been her in his place, you can be sure i’d be a right wreck and things would be drastically different – i’d feel as if i’d be the one losing my right foot. but then again, *she* has always been the stronger one, the smarter one, the forward-looking one who always took care of her health and ours. the more loving and lovable one.

so anyway, erm, there isn’t a point to this entry really. just an update on what’s going on right now, and whatever you can read between the lines.

till the next fluffy, pink-brained entry!

men in black

if you ask me where my drumsticks are, i’ll tell you they’re OUTSIDE the window. yeah, yeah, so i flung them out, in one of my experiments to see whether drumsticks could fly. (and i tell you, they can’t, not even the fried chicken kind.)

so, since i still have musical ambitions, i had to modify, and made do with my xylophone sticks instead. they’re *almost* the same, but not quite. (you can’t dig your nose as well with xylophone sticks, as i found out.)

anyway, i heard that megadeth was coming to singapore, so i thought i’d step up on my drumming skills and did some intensive practicing. who knows, maybe i could apply to be the backup drummer should theirs dislocate his shoulders, or get a heart attack and keel over just before the show (well, they ARE very old, or so i heard), or have a bad bout of stomachache from the spicy seafood at newton.

and then, mum had to burst my bubble by telling me that i was too late and they’d already performed last night! sheeesh. well hey, there’s still that other grandpa band, black sunday or sabbath or something, right?

speaking of bands in black, i also heard that My Chemical Romance is coming in december! the day AFTER my birthday, to be exact. fwah! maybe i could get a ticket as a birthday present! (please? pweety please??)

or better still, if i could somehow spike the drummer’s laksa or mee pok with extra cili padi just before the show…

cowabunga, dude?

this is a True Story.

overheard in another section of department:

X: WHAT THE…?! NINJA TURTLE?? THEY NAMED THEIR CHILD NINJA TURTLE?? YOU GOT TO BE KIDDING!
(expletives and exclamations slightly exaggerated for dramatic purposes, but you got the Ninja Turtle right.)

Y + others: HUH?! are you sure??

X: YAH!! NINJA TURTLE!!

Y + others: *scramble to look at evidence on record*

etc.

they see all kinds of names everyday, these people, and hehe, this must have taken the cake.

or rather, the pepperoni pizza. :p

i wonder what’s his (i’m assuming it’s an unfortunate male child who will grow up being constantly bullied at the playground, become traumatised and mentally scarred for life, and end up a social outcast, forevermore hiding under his “shell”, so to speak) surname – lee? tay? bala? singh? bin mohd?? (to that last, as my mum would say, “selisih kan!”)

some quipped that the actual turtles’ names were much better (and sensible) choices, you know, michaelangelo, donatello, raphael, and errr… (ok, i have a thirty-year-old memory, so help me out here.)

i didn’t dig further to investigate, coz records are just records, it doesn’t say much about the parents’ background (though mother had probably just given birth at IMH, or OD-ed on laughing gas/epidural when she named him, or both). but yeah, we thought there definitely was “something wrong up there”. it’s a miracle that the parents possessed the clear faculties to even submit their child’s records to the said department in the first place.

then again, maybe it was a family member’s last dying wish to name the child Ninja Turtle. like, err, their dead son whose favourite cartoon was of the four sewer heroes. or the father had lost a gambling bet to his drinking kakis just before the child was born, and in his drunken stupor, he honoured the bet, which was to name his newborn child Ninja Turtle. or the parents’ first date was to watch TMNT: The Movie, and they felt it a romantic gesture to name their firstborn after the show’s protagonists.

or clearly, i’m also losing my clear faculties by thinking too much into this.

and now i feel like a pepperoni pizza…

melayu boleh (nyanyi)!

tofik.
hardy.
pendi.

*chuckles*

korang-korang yang lain tu, pi balik kampung chai chee na nyanyi lagu getai macam pompan-pompan papaya tu sudah, ok.

takpe lah budak-budak kita tak pandai maths, selalu masok drc, suka kawin muda abih cerai, dan lain lain lagi gejala popular masyarakat kita.

termasok kutu-kutu bawak blok yang suka main gitar sampai larut malam nyanyi lagu rawk jiwang.

asal ada SOUL, beb.

:p

ps: thank gawd that show with the two tarts is over. now i can rest in peace without their flat stomachs and cleavages in sheer dressing gowns causing me mental agony while i wait for ‘grey’s anatomy’ to start at 11pm. brrr.

realrun

i’ve been on a month-long hiatus from running but today i restarted my engine to prepare for the upcoming realrun competition. i must admit, for the month of ramadan, i didn’t really train, but today’s warm-up session was rather encouraging. did a 30 mins slow jog around pasir ris and tampines. although the distance covered was just 4.8km, i felt quite refreshed after the run.

this will be the first time that i’m taking part in the realrun. what is so different from the usual run is that you get to run on the road, the beach, a mini forest and get this, the RUNWAY!! how often do you get to run on the changi airport runway? anyway, i’m kinda short on training time as the run is this saturday. but luckily i’m just taking part in the 10km run rather than the ambitious 15km. i guess, i’m just gonna enjoy the scenery and not worry too much about my timing.

btw, anyone out there taking part in the competition? maybe we can pace each other, don’t worry i won’t outpace you guys, me just gonna plug in my ipod and enjoy the run

just a little patience…

we’d just wasted three hours of our lives this morning, waiting… and waiting… and, yes, waiting…

usually, if it’s just me, i’d make a quick visit to the 24-hour private clinic nearby, which invariably has either one or even zero patient before me pre-lunchtime hour, so it’s always a painless five-minute quickie with the doctor on duty.

but today, both of us were down with the sniffles, and he *insisted* we go to the nearby polyclinic together since it’s, well, free. :S

hokaaay, i thought. well, technically, i couldn’t really think, seeing how i was suffering a blocked nose and ear and violently sneezing my eyes out.

we made it out of the door by 8.45am, and arrived just before 9am, BUT! a throng of people, sick or otherwise (it WAS a rainy, monday morning after all) had already made their way into the clinic and more were lined outside.

i was reminded again why i urghh-so-hate public healthcare, and if only it weren’t freaking free (for persons like the husband and myself), i’d never step into this waiting-room ‘hell’. :S

after registration, we took our time for a prata breakfast, toiletries shopping, and returned to find that it STILL wasn’t our turn. i’d even perfected my game of miniature golf on my mobile by the time #2284 blinked above the consultation room door.

so much for the real-time webcam queue watch to supposedly help people find out how many are waiting in line in these polyclinics.

and the information on the website is REAAAALLY useful too.

eg. “When are the Polyclinics less crowded?”

“We encourage you to avoid visiting polyclinics during peak periods (red zones) in order to minimize your overall visit time.”

and it proceeds to display a chart with the ENTIRE monday, from 8am to 4.15pm, highlighted in, you guessed it, RED. hah!

mondays or otherwise, if you gotta go, you gotta go, right? and you do it in the morning to get it over and done with, so you can have the rest of the day to recover. and i sure wouldn’t wanna travel all the way to the other side of the island just because it’s half as crowded there. (besides, wouldn’t your employers be ’suspicious’ if you do that?)

so, the moral is, go to work on mondays, even though you’re almost dying, coz chances are, you’ll die waiting in the queues at the polyclinics anyway.

ps: and for all my ‘effort’ and unrelenting ‘patience’, the doctor gave me, no – OFFERED me two days of mc, thanks to my swollen nasal passage and other ‘ailments’. thank you, doctor! it was well worth the $8.70 consultation fee (as printed on my invoice, of which i was to pay a total of $0) that the gahmen is paying you.

x-tion

weekends are SO short as it is (cue sigh), especially with *somebody* working on alternate saturdays, and add to that, accommodating to *somebody* whose nap times are at the peak of the afternoon, effectively cutting the weekends even shorter.

so the ruthless mommy, in desperate need of those raya vibes, dressed the little one and bundled him up in the car, yawning and all, nap time notwithstanding. donch care!

a barely-ten-minute cat nap’s all he needs, the time it takes to get to each destination, coz he NEVER wants to miss out on the action!

“nap time? crankiness? what’s that?? enjoy lah beb!”

speaking of action, i’ve sat through at least two or three episodes of the highly ridiculous and ludicrous action series on tv over the weekends, believe it or not, called none other than ’sazer-x’.

everytime i mention this name in front of a group of boys (and i’m also talking about adults here), they’d perk up and go “sazer-x?? i pon tengok!”, and i’d roll my eyes and groan. it’s like… a disease that i’d only just discovered. maybe i’m the last person to watch these kind of shows? (or the first female to??) lol!

and over the two or three episodes, i tried my darndest to understand the blahdy thing, really, i did (in between more groans at how incredibly and unbelievably schewpid the show is, and why the heck am i even watching it), because i wanted to ‘guide’ my child through his tv consumption (studies say that talking to children while they watch tv increases their vocabulary and teaches them right from wrong, and is way better than letting them watch it alone… or something lah, i really must pay less attention to studies) and participate in his interests (of which this was totally my fault for even switching the damn tv on).

yes, his interests, which no longer involve lovey-dovey barney or cutesy-wutesy baby einstein. mention to him “power ranger” or “sazer-x” or “grandsazer” and he’d cross his arm and hand in his best impersonation of those strange creatures, which i still can’t figure whether they’re aliens or monsters or cross-breeds or mutants. (and what is it with these japs and their deep-seated culture of fighting samurai-style even in the far future, gaudy masked costumes and all??)

in any case, my constant refrain while watching the show with him was “you cannot do that ok! cannot kick-kick/shoot-shoot/fight-fight people like that! (depending on the current action on screen) if you do that to your friends, wait they fall, paaaain! then they dowan to play with you!” etc.

memekak kan, mak macam gini? orang nak tengok pon tak stim, agaknye.

welllllll, i just think i had to be the voice of reason in an otherwise unreasonably merepek premise of a storyline after all!

and of which i actually googled, ok.

so, here’s the definition according to wiki, for all you parents who are as clueless as me but nak eksyen paham apa budak-budak ni suka sangat tengok:

Sazer-X: A team assembled in the year 2500AD with the goal of traveling back in time five hundred years and changing history by collecting the twelve Cosmo Capsules. Each member of the party is equipped with a Strage-Ring around their wrist that amplifies their elemental powers, and their own personal Knuckle-Cross, worn on the back of the opposite hand. When the Strage-Ring sparks the Knuckle-Cross, they can equip the high-powered suit of armour stored in their Knuckle-Cross and become Sazer-X. Their transformation call is “Power Up!” (“X Equip!”)

and if you understood THAT… please enlighten me coz i have NO idea what all that gibberish is about. *gives up in exasperation*

can we revert to that elmo’s world vcd, please?? sesame street is just waaay less complex than this. and mommy’s getting too old to catch up on your generation’s pop culture. :S

let’s go to bed!

i guess mummy has mentioned my spiderman stunt the other day with my cot bed. well, it’s ABOUT TIME those two did something about it! they’re such procrastinators, i swear.

they brought me to look-see toddler beds the other day, but eventually postponed any purchase, even though i’d shown my clear preference for a particular one with a cool canopy over it. i think they’re waiting for me to offer my duit raya to them. HAH! wait long long, hor.

meanwhile, diddy attempted to do the macho thing by converting my cot bed into a junior bed, but, err, let’s just say, some things just aren’t meant to be. (hmph, he really should take up some handyman workshop or something… oops, sowie diddy! you da bomb, ok! selamat hari raya, maaf zahir batin, halalkan makan minum, teruskan tukar my diaper selalu, etc…)

so, he gave up and now, i’m as good as sleeping on a mattress on the floor! which is just as well, i guess, coz i get to literally JUMP into bed, plus, i get to bring ALL my toy friends and books to sleep with me. naturally, mummy nagged at me, saying there won’t be any space for me to actually sleep with so much things in my bed. sheesh. party pooper.

the morning after, diddy said he found me on the floor…

SURE OR NOT?! that’s like telling me i snore in my sleep – it’s simply NOT true, i tell you!

ahh, that’s more like it. and all crumpled and messy, with mismatched pillows, just the way i like it.

ouh, and mummy says it’s a good thing i haven’t been found “sleepwalking” so far.

(but i’m just lulling her into believing that for now. hurhur.)

in any case, i’m STILL waiting for that proper tod bed, hokay?!

and don’t you touch my duit raya… “neeeq nye!”

three’s (not enough) company

throughout the days we’ve been raya visiting, there’d usually be a ‘convoy’ of cars.

when it’s time to travel to the next destination, the little one would turn to us, his parents, and with a flippant wave of his hand, give a cheerful “BYE!” and promptly attempt to hop on to ANY car that’s not ours. more often than not, it’s a car full of other kids, or his favourite uncles or grandfather.

i don’t know what goes on in those cars (this was taken by nur), but it must be loads of fun for him!

i’m sure there are parents who don’t encourage this in case they impose on others, but i don’t mind it coz it’s only family (and as for the case of haznsham, what’s one more?? haha!), and well, when else do i get the husband alone in the car, berfeeling pengantin baru? lol!

but at the end of the day, when we haul the little one back into our car, he’d protest coz he knows then it’s time to go home, and parting with company is such sweet sorrow…

for a short while anyway, coz he forgets when it’s mummy’s turn to wrestle and shoot imaginary guns at him. :p

mummy: “bang! bang!”
aniq: “arrgghhh….” *pretends to fall*
(roles reverse, repeat)

PDA

the perks of being a mommy…

getting unreserved public displays of affection from your child.

… or perhaps that’s his way of thanking me for the huge bowl of fishball soup (or as he calls it, “bo-ball”, his favourite, which explains his round-as-fishball cheeks) i fed him for lunch at the century square food court. hee.

“ack! i’ve been (s)mothered!”

hah! just you wait till you’re old enough for me to show this to your girlfriends…