Memories

You think you’ve gotten over someone’s death, that you’ve come to terms with your loss. That you’re done with your grieving. That you have moved on.

Then, one fine day, you see reminders of your beloved and tears flow again. It has been more than seven months since my mother passed away. These past few days, I have been getting fresh reminders of her. During Sunday worship for example, I can’t remember what it was that triggered my memory of mum but it was painful enough to bring tears to my eyes.

For dinner yesterday, I cooked black pomfret in tomato sauce just like how mum used to cook it. Later that evening, I went to Aeon with the kids and saw a middle-aged woman who walked like mum and again I thought of her. On Monday evening, we had pot-luck with my siblings and their families at mum’s house. It was just like old times, except that mum wasn’t there.

I have friends who lost their sons even before they reach the prime of life. Ben was 15, Wei Xiang was 8 when they were called home by the Lord. My heart goes out to their families who are still struggling to cope with their grief. When death comes unexpectedly and before its perceived time, we are caught by surprise. It may take a long time to recover from the pain of the loss especially when you are constantly inundated by reminders of them everywhere.

When you eat chicken rice, you remember that it’s his favourite food. When you walk past the computer where he’s spent hours playing, you see his lingering shadow. When you walk past his room, you remember how he used to snuggle down to sleep. When you see Pokemon at the toy shop, you remember that it was his favourite toy. When the Harry Potter movie comes to town, it tears your heart to pieces because if he were alive, he would badger you to take him to the cinema. When someone of the same age as him celebrates his birthday, you think of how tall your boy would’ve grown had he lived.

Memories… they can cause so much pain but when the ache subsides, we can smile at how our lives have been enriched by our beloved when they were alive.

Tummy in hiding

No. 3 is different from my other children in that he has fatty genes from my side of the family. (Two of my brothers like to compare whose tummy is bigger at family get-togethers.) The other three have skinny genes from my husband’s side but thankfully, the older two have filled up nicely. The only one in the family who looks like a stick is no. 4.

As a baby, no. 3 was adorably chubby but when his girth kept expanding in his primary school years, his profile looked like that of a tub. This year he suddenly shot up. The additional height gives him a slimmer profile, though he is still  on the fleshy side (bearing in mind that he is a meatarian.) However, his tummy still protrudes a little. Whenever we tease him about his “spare tyre”, he would suck in his stomach and pretend that he is super fit. If I reach out to pinch his chubby cheeks, he would suck in his cheeks so that I can’t pinch them.

My mother-in-law likes to comment on no. 3′s rotundness each time she sees him. So much so he has now taken to sucking in his stomach whenever he sees her. The last time we had dinner with MIL, she said he looks more proportionate now that he is taller. I’m sure the camouflaged tummy has something to do with it.

Cheap Western Dinner

This morning I caught a bit of Rachel Ray on TV. The dishes she prepares are easier than Martha Stewart’s. The recipe was fish fillet fried with bread crumbs with a side dish of pasta.

That reminded me that I haven’t fried pasta for a long time. I had two pieces of red snapper in the freezer, so I decided to cook pasta with fish. I fried the fish with olive oil, then tore them into flakes. Next the onions were sauted, then drained pasta added into the pan. Then I stirred in a cup of mushroom soup made from one sachet of Campbell’s and some tomatoes. Done!

For dinner, we had roast chicken. If we eat out at a Western restaurant, the damage would be about RM100 to RM120  for six of us, depending on what we order. Eating in is of course cheaper.

This home-cooked meal costs about RM30.

Chicken + carrots + onions : RM16

Pasta (leftover from lunch) : RM1

Mashed potatoes + gravy : RM7 (the pre-pack gravy itself is RM4+)

Salad : RM2

Garlic bread : RM4

For more ideas on how to save money, get my book Stretching your Dollar$ and $ense.

Quick meals

When I was a stay-at-home mum, I used to cook six days a week. Now that I’m working, this isn’t possible. For the first two months of working life, I catered food. For RM310 per month (weekdays only) to feed my family of six, it is a pretty good deal. There is no need to do marketing, prepare the ingredients and cook. All I need was two tiffin carriers for the caterer to load the food in. The problem is that my family can be quite choosy in their food intake. One day, there was cuttle fish cooked in chilli, four-angled beans and braised tau kwa. Of these three dishes, only the tau kwa suits our palate. We don’t like cuttle fish and four-angled beans, so our dog had a feast thanks to our pickiness.

After we stopped catering, it was economy rice galore. Every day we’d ta pau some dishes from the stall. We can choose what we like to eat, yet the family complained that the food tastes different from home-cooked meals. What a choosy bunch of eaters! In any case, eating out every other meal is no fun and isn’t very healthy either, what with the msg and all.

Now we’ve struck a compromise. On busy days especially those two days when I have to work nights, it is outside food.  On other days, we eat simple home-cooked meals. For those of you who are in the same predicament, you may like to try out some of these ideas. If you have any fast and easy meals to share, please do.

1. Put chicken and herbal ingredients in crock pot in the morning. In the evening, stir-fry some vegetables and open up a can of beans or fry some eggs to eat with rice.

2. Bah-kut-teh can be prepared in the crock pot too. Supplement with fast to cook vegetables such as lettuce. This can be stir-fried or added to the stew itself. If you’re doing the latter, it’s better to add the vegetables in a separate bowl of gravy so as not to alter the taste of the stew.

3. Spaghetti bolognaise. Dump a can of sauce, vegetables such as carrots, onions, potatoes even and minced meat into crock pot. Add an extra can of water and season with sugar and salt to taste. You can boil the spaghetti just before the meal or boil it in advance and refrigerate it before leaving the house.

4. Pasta with white sauce. Dump a can of sauce (Prego is a good choice) and add in diced chicken pieces, carrots, potatoes and a can of water. You can eat it with pasta or bread.

5. ABC noodle soup. Put chicken or pork, carrots, potatoes, tomatoes and onions into crock pot with sufficient water for making noodle soup. When you get home, transfer the soup into a pot for boiling over the stove. Add noodles to the stock. Yee mee, mee hoon or mee suah are good choices.

6. If you have no time to prepare any of the above, you can still customise a nice meal from dishes bought at the economy rice stall. Choose a dish with gravy, say chicken or pork slices in black sauce. Make sure you spoon in extra gravy. When you get home, boil some egg noodles. Drain away the water. In the same pot, add in the meat and gravy. Throw in some vegetables such as butterhead lettuce. Mix well and serve.

7. For a change, hot dogs or burgers would do nicely if you have young kids. For a faster and healthier alternative, boil the sausages instead of frying them. Burger patties can be put into the oven but you’ve got to watch the oven so that the meat don’t burn.

Now we only eat more fanciful meals on Mondays when it is my off-day.  We had Quiche Lorraine last Monday. I still have plenty of Calrose rice so maybe we’ll have sushi next Monday. Today we’ll have steam boat. Bon appetit.

P/S: Baking bread now only happens once in a blue moon when the urge to eat home-baked bread strikes  and when I’m in the mood.  The above picture showed my last attempt at baking buns which was a couple of months back – when the moon turned blue.

Buying gifts

A: It’s so difficult to buy gifts for men.

B: It’s more difficult to buy for girls.

C: Who says? You can buy so many things for girls.

B: Yeah, you buy her a pearl necklace, she wants a diamond one. You buy her a diamond, she wants pearls. You buy a blue dress, she wants a black one.

B sounds as if he has lots of experience. Nope, he’s a greenhorn who doesn’t have any money of his own to buy a candle light dinner, let alone pearls or diamonds. He’s my 13 year old son. I am A, C is my 9 year old girl.

Ma the tailor

Was cleaning out the wardrobe of clothes I don’t wear and bed linen that have seen better days. Going through the pile of fabric, I realized how much we have relied on Ma’s good sewing skills in our lives. She sewed all the curtains for my first house in Berkeley Garden and my second house in Eng Ann. She sewed pillow cases and bed sheets. My first born’s small mattress cover was sewn by her too. I bought a cloth with cartoon computer designs as the daddy was a computer professional. It is still lying in the cupboard after all these years. My firstborn will be turning 20 this month. It is time to purge so many old things but the memories I will keep. There are photos of him lying on that computer-design mattress I am sure, but for insurance, I decided to snap a picture of it before I pack it up.

Ma sewed clothes and material for so many people: her children, grandchildren, siblings, nephews, nieces, neighbours, in-laws and friends. She can sew anything, well almost. Shirts, skirts, dresses, sports wear, bed spread, curtains, cushion covers, pillow cases, kebaya, baju kurung, pyjamas, fancy dress costume. The only garments she couldn’t make was men’s trousers and jackets. She never had any training. Nobody taught her how to sew. She learnt by looking over the shoulders of tailors.

None of my sisters and I have the penchant for sewing. We do know how to handle the sewing machine and sew simple items, but certainly can’t do the whole repertoire like she did. When we were young, we had to help Ma sew buttons and hooks and hem the garments that she tailored for other people. When I was doing home science in secondary school, she helped me to sew a housecoat. But it ended up with too many buttons and the teacher was not pleased. When I started work, I took up a sewing course from a tailor. I reckon I would be more serious in learning the craft if I had to pay for it. Again, Ma helped me and the tailor was not pleased that I was doing work she had not taught yet. I sewed a brown blouse and a pink batik dress with a jacket before dropping out.

When the kids were young, I sewed PJs for them. In particular I remember a brown striped pyjamas for no. 1 and a yellow and red one for no. 2. I also sewed quilts for them, complete with matching pillow and bolster cases. For the house that I am living in now, I sewed all the curtains myself but for the dining area, the curtain which Ma sewed for my Eng Ann house is still in use, as are the bolster cases she sewed for the kids and the bedsheets she recycled from First Aunt’s discarded-but-still-good collection.

The sewing machine in my utility room can’t be used now. I can’t call up Ma and asked her how to fix it or bring her over to trouble shoot. It was acting up with  floating stitches. She had taught me how to do it once, then the problem came back again. Just before she passed on, I tried to fix it but the parts literally fell apart. The machine which she had fixed with an electric motor was from her. I’ll have to get the repairman to come in. For now I have to do my sewing by hand-stitches.

P’/S: I had on the baju kurung she sewed for me in my other blog (top right hand corner). I no longer have that baju kurung as the fabric tore during the last wearing two years ago.

Blog on Life Support

It has been ages since I last posted. Why?

1. Bulked up a book manuscript – done but more edits due soon.
2. Busy with work at Cambridge – still extremely busy but now has roped in aunt to help.
3. Mum in hospital for heart attack – still warded after more than two weeks.

Sound like old news? Yeah, I’ve got no energy left for fresh input.  That’s why this blog is on life support.

Have a good year ahead.

Crocodile tears don’t count

Out of the blue, no. 3 said, “Mummy, you say women live longer than men because they cry more. So that means actors live longer than other people-lah? They cry a lot what.”

Hmm.. I’ve never thought about that. But fake tears don’t count. In fact, crocodile tears may even kill you if you’re an actor and you can’t get the crying to appear genuine and you’ve got to do several takes.  Too much stress can affect your lifespan.

Short article by daughter

No. 2 wrote this short, sweet article about no. 4 in Starmag’s Generation Gap column, published yesterday.

The Sibling Connection (The Star, 13 September 2009)

WHAT is the sweetest thing in life? Is it waking up in the morning and finding an “I love you” note beside you on the bed? Is it going to bed after hours in front of the PC and finding a drawing of a huge Smiley face wishing you “Good night, XOXO”? Or is it coming home after a long tiring day in college and being greeted with a bear hug?

Yes, I get all that from my sweet little sister.

I want to always be able to hug her, pinch her soft chubby cheeks, kiss her and carry her like a baby. But I also want to be able to talk about “deeper” stuff with her, instead of just asking, “Who did you go to recess with?”

I want my sister to remain innocent, to say the cutest things like, “The cuttlefish will cut your stomach!” But I want her to grow up, so I can finally have someone to share my clothes with. Well, I shouldn’t worry too much. She is growing up and there’s nothing I can do to stop that.

My sister says she wishes that we were twins. She already is a carbon copy of me. A mirror image, my Dolly. She looks like I did when I was her age. She has the same favourite colours as me. She does her hair the way I do mine. She listens to the music I like and watches the TV shows I watch. She even copies the fancy way I write.

The perfect sister? Pretty much so. Even when I do get upset with her, it’s never for long. Once I was angry and refused to speak to her. She wrote me a note saying, “I am sorry, sister”. How could I possibly stay angry? And people still wonder why I love her so much.

I want to protect her from the harsh realities of life: Sometimes people won’t like you for who you are, they don’t want to be your friend. Sometimes you’ll experience failure and disappointment, heartache and bitterness.

She has to experience all that herself. Still, I know I will always be there for her. If she wants me, that is. She might, she might not. Bonds can fade. Hopefully, not ours.

I will treasure the moments I have with her because not everyone gets a angel for a sister. The 10 years between us is not a gap. It’s a bridge that connects two separate souls.

Fat and firm

No. 3 is heavier than me. He is stout for his age. I’m waiting for his height to shoot up so that the weight will be distributed more evenly and he won’t look so fat. According to him, being fat has its advantages. He told me this story recently.

Today the teachers were all in a meeting and we had to take care of the classes. (He’s a prefect.) There was this boy who was so naughty. He run here and run there and refused to go back to class. So we all chased him. Some go this way, some run that way and we surrounded him. Then he tried to do his kung fu on me. He grabbed me and tried to throw me over his shoulders but he can’t. Haha, that’s the good thing about being fat.

By the way, Amir Muhammad wrote a nice review of Do You Wear Suspenders? in his Pulp Friction column in yesterday’s Malay Mail. Go check it out here.

Curse of the tongue

Conversation at the dinner table :

No. 1 : Did you eat two pieces of kuih?

No. 3 : No, I only eat one piece. How dare you curse me!

Me thinking : Huh? What curse? We don’t curse around here.

No. 2 : Haha, that’s not curse. That’s accused, dong-dong!

A new room

Q : What do you get when you cross the conference room with the reception? 

A : Conception room.

This little riddle is courtesy of no. 3.  At our recent church camp in Pangkor, when I asked him to gather our group for talentime rehearsal, he said to meet in the Conception Room.  Just so you know, no baby was conceived in the conference room, or the reception for that matter.