WHAT WE NEED TO KNOW ABOUT MEN

A lone bull swaggered towards a small pack of musk oxens. The fight of intimidation had begun. They glared. The younger one pacing back and forth, swinging it's head, testing his chances. The old bull feeling threatened pawed the ground. His position as the alpha male was at stake. But he would fight to the end.

Like men. Like alpha men. And it was only when I married, ate and slept with a man and had more sons than daughters did I begin to grasp a deeper understanding of the beast mentality. I found it wondrous in its primitiveness, its wildness, its beastliness and most of the time I would be flabbergasted. At times I would be stunned into a subservient silence.

My early introduction to men's minds was of course gleaned from my father. He loved cars that looked masculine. Like the Valiant. Or the Ford Cortina. Being overtaken was one of his pet peeves. He would turn dark and fume silently. And I knew exactly what would happen next. He would step on the accelerator, the car would speed up and finally he would be Overtaker. I could almost feel the vibrating strings of satisfaction drifting in the air. As a teenager I was mostly bewildered by such a display of childish competitiveness by my father. The working of men's minds were completely beyond me. They were alien.

Then I watched my sons fight opponents in the ring. Their karate keikogi snapping sharply with each kick or punch. Sweating, soaked, each intimidating the other, each psyching the other, each glaring, occasionally stamping their feet or pawing with their fists, each strategizing their next move. Like musk oxen bulls. But when the final score was on their side my heart swelled. "Them, my friends, are my alpha sons!" my mind would shout, my head would nod and my fist would punch an imaginary sand bag. Short of thumping a hairy chest I was for that very moment quite the man. My alpha husband would be close to the ring. Stamping and roaring like a triumphant bull.  But in the secret pocket of my woman heart I am thankful that theirs is a fighting sport that is controlled. Where full contact is not allowed. 


When they emerge from the ring with their keikogi unraveled, their black belts loose and pendulous, their hair disheveled, strands of it glued to their foreheads with sweat, skins glistening, eyes shining, bodies a little bruised and their breaths coming fast and heavy I would feel primitively and beastly proud. Like a man. Like a beast.

So it is only now I know that a tattered keikogi is macho in men's eyes. I've always wondered why Z treasured his and was taken aback when asked if he was going to throw it away. Quite the contrary he wants it framed, hung and displayed. It is only now I know why some young alpha men have their hair closely cropped. It makes them look intimidating to their peers. It is only now I know why some alpha men have their hair longer than usual. It makes them look rugged and rough. It is only now I know why alpha men sit at the head of a table facing the entrance. So they will be the first to sight an enemy when he enters. It is only now I know why alpha men make every littlest thing they do appear important. They regard everything as a contest. To get the upperhand. To prevent others from pushing them around. It is only now I know why my alpha men love Swiss knives. It makes them feel like a MacGyver. And it is only now I know why alpha men never ask for directions. It makes them feel incompetent. And literally lost. Sometimes, exasperatingly and alpha-ingly, lost. Like little boys. Forever. 

Now let me see....is there anything else I need to know about alpha men? 

Uh-uh I don't think so. That about covers it all, don't you think?

*SIGH* We women. Therefore we are............More complicated. 

Image taken from here.

TO WHOM WE BELONG

Could one feel dearly for someone one hardly knows? Asha found the answer in the small hours of one morning when she received news of his death. A strange and tender sadness blanketed her and she prayed that he may rest in peace. "To Allah we belong and to Allah we shall return. May God bless your soul.....dear brother", she whispered, in the dimness of her room.

Asha remembered his arrival for the first time at her father's house. He smiled broadly as he emerged from the car with his wife and their three little daughters. He acknowledged her with a warmth and a questioning nod of his head as he mentioned her name. Asha returned it with a friendly smile while baby Min sucked his thumb in her arms.

Ken was cheerful, comfortable in his own skin, totally without traces of resentment, assumption or expectancy when he joined Asha, her husband, children and her father in her father's home that evening. Asha was pleased her father had agreed willingly, at her prodding, to invite Ken and his family for dinner. She had made the suggestion because she knew her father had needed to settle this emotional gap, this unfinished business of his life. He was getting old and needed some closure. And a little guiltily she did it out of her own curiosity. 

She knew though that he had wanted this for a long time but could never find the courage or the confidence to do it alone. At least, she thought, on this evening she could be there to ease the anticipated awkwardness in this most delicate of situations. But she realised that she needn't have concerned herself because Ken turned out utterly pleasant and agreeable in an almost innocent, naive and delightful way. In a way that Asha thought only children could be.

She watched and listened to him talk and politely enquire and was especially blown away by his tenderness when he turned to his step daughter, the oldest girl, and spoke to her like she was the most delicate of beings. Like a fragile butterfly he had rescued and treasured. At that point Asha wondered what in life could have caressed his heart so. She wondered what could have made him utterly gentle in this way. She wondered what he thought of life and what he made of destiny or whether he even believed in it. Could he be this gentle a soul in spite of a fatherless childhood? No bitterness and no hurt? At the least he should have had some questions...... for heaven's sake?

But she supposed he knew, was told and understood. She supposed he had accepted the past, his destiny and the circumstances of his birth and had no more questions to ask that could be answered. Perhaps he was grateful even; for all those years of acknowledgment in name and for the financial support, at the the least.....in spite of all the questions and doubts her father had harboured in his mind. For decades.

He was a musician and Asha could sense that her father was silently pleased. For he was so inclined as well. Having heard word that Ken would be performing at the Hilton her father had dressed smartly one evening and headed out to watch Ken perform with his guitar. 

"A natural ", her father had commented smiling and swaying his head in satisfaction when he returned home. If only he had said that to Ken himself it would have meant more. But Asha knew it would have been too awkward a thing for her father to do.

Asha couldn't help but think that they looked quite similar. Her father and Ken. So perhaps her father's fears were unfounded after all. Perhaps he finally believed without a doubt. Was convinced. She hoped. For Ken's sake. For her father's sake. For closure. In both their lives.

Ken had this childish and amusing belief in ghosts which he expressed openly and without fear of judgment. In an uncomplicated way with a candour and a lightness and a frankness that made them smile rather than frown with skepticism. And he clearly believed death was the end. So when Asha's father had died several years later Ken assured her that all was well. 

"Be happy." he had said. "Don't be sad."

For father's problems were over and he is now in peace Ken had told her. 

"He is sleeping like a baby." 

How charming. How quaint. How stark, clean and uncluttered he was, Asha marveled.

Asha did not know her half brother well enough to know his weaknesses. But whatever imperfections he may have had she knew that they could not be greed, presumptuousness, spitefulness, bitterness or envy. Guileless, honest, sincere with not a smidgen of righteousness in sight...he seemed not much different from her father really Asha thought. 

Asha looked down and all she saw and smelt was a moist, sweet, glistening mound of red earth. Freshly dug and piled. Over Ken. She wondered if he had been happy and content with his destiny. She hoped he had been. Just as she hoped her father had been when he died. Two men. One heart. Surely they must belong each to the other. Then she knew they did. She felt the same quiver of grief and tenderness for both.

SLEEPLESS AT FIFTY

When I fell fast asleep amidst the raucous roar of Godzilla with tiny screaming humans at its feet a few years ago I realised that I was heading towards serious trouble.

Fast forward. 

Tonight a few years later. It’s two in the morning, almost three, and I’m still up. I reflect and realise, at the ripe age of fifty three (or whatever), that life can be categorized into two main phases. The deep-sleep phase and the no-sleep phase. I have come to be aware, literally, that keeping awake at night is no longer a struggle or an option. It is a fact of life. Middle aged life. I cringe at the word middle age but use it I must. For in denial I live not.

Gone are the days of those deep, sonorous sleep sessions. When an earthquake would have failed to rattle me awake or the screeching wail of a baby would have whizzed past my ears and make me snuggle even deeper into my pillow. 

Today, I’m in the no-sleep phase of life and I can now empathize with older folks who fall seriously asleep in the middle of an animated conversation. Without warning. Or when their heads tilt back as they sit on a couch. Not with dignity but with sleep, their mouths gaping as if in awe. I feel for them. Sleep becomes elusive but at the same time creeps up on you without warning, usually in public and in embarrassing places, in a middle of a noisy conversation or even while clucking playfully at a grandchild. I’m no longer the giggling youngster entertained by an old man comically dodging sleep during the day and willing it to come in the middle of the night. I no longer find it amusing or worse laughable. I repent. For I might just get there.

Six hours, claim my middle aged friends, is the maximum stretch of time that they can sustain sleep. The clock inside of you sets for six hours of sleep but you’re up before it goes off and beat it at its own game. You win every time and yet you’re still a loser.

The click of a switch or the rustle of clothing as someone walks past, the faint padded footsteps and the sigh of your partner all become unwelcome companions as you struggle in your bid for sleep. You wonder if you should have separate beds or separate rooms or separate lives. So you can court sleep again without struggle and without pain. 

Now I know why my father was up at a ghostly five in the morning, every morning while I slumbered on to ten or eleven. Ten hours of sleep when I was young was a luxury that I took for granted then. Ten hours of uninterrupted sleep now would only mean one thing. A coma.

As my husband and I drive past mamak shops during sleepless nights I marvel at those young men and women who deliberately take the option of keeping awake to sip, nibble, drink and eat their sleep away into the small hours of the morning. Unaware that one very old day they would wish they could have it all back. The sleep I mean. I feel anxious for them.

Past fifty sleep becomes a word that smatters conversations with your friends during your eternal waking hours. It becomes foreign and distant and desirable like some knight in shining armour or a desirable damsel in distress for aging males. It becomes simply a word, a desire, a wish, a hope, a yearning, an obsession, that keeps you awake.

How I envy those who sleep like dolls, like dead men, like trunks of trees. How I resent those who find comfort in their pillows and in the crevices of their bed. But I tell myself that there is another phase yet to come when I would most probably wish that I could live on even if it means a lack of sleep. So I thank God that He keeps me awake. Still. After all there is more in life than there is in sleep. 

Image taken from here.

THE GREAT MALAYSIAN WILDEBEESTS

The Malaysian peninsula’s ecosystem is considered to be perhaps the last of the ecosystems in which such species still thrive. They are often described as ‘those blundering and voracious little mammals that strategize little but brim with dense joy and determination’ so that their thrusts over the plains at specific times of the year are watched in endless amazement, worry and disbelief. 

Nowhere else in the world do migrations of such madness occur except in the valleys and plains that carpet Malaysia. And in no place on earth have there been witness to movements of beasts in such deranged droves and manic unison that leaves one gapingly awed. These migrations begin in the weeks before the onset of the Great Feasts.

The migrations could involve about several million beasts of three or more species at any one time. They speed and stampede along the same worn paths each year. By instinct they bolt in clumps, each made up of two adults and three or four young ‘uns, and it is in this formation that they start off in unison and with but one insane mind. 

Peculiar only to this region, a big number are victims of their own follies, for they are their own predators and victims all in one. The spectacle of this suicidal phenomenon can only be understood when seen in person and only then will it be comprehended as the Seventh Blunder of the Modern World.
 

This manic migration is a dramatic story. It takes place amoung the various states of Malaysia and is the greatest, brainless show on earth. Amoung the open plains of the West Coast and the East Coast, the North and the South and all the crevices in between these foolhardy Mammalaysians get into gear and stampede blindly at full speed in almost all directions and head for the backwaters of Everywhere.

With a show of camaraderie some will band together at certain stops to embark on the journey in groups of twenty or thirty and spend hours huddled in a tight pack. If they are lucky they will arrive at their destination intact and then disperse into smaller flocks. Those unfortunate enough to have totally incompetent leaders, who lead them like blinded and lobotomized freaks, may never see the light of a living day again.

The precise timing of these migrations changes annually, according to the waxing and waning of the moon, the occasions being very spontaneous, auspicious and natural events. While on the trip to the backwaters of Everywhere wild hoots of “Balik Kampung! Balik Kampung! Balik Kampung!” often accompany them and with this they grow manic and crazed and get out of control. So driven are they that it is not uncommon to see many of them entangled and splattered in fatal accidents resulting in sad but not unavoidable deaths.  

Before the onset of each migration, wild life patrols often attempt to regulate their movements with warnings of dangerous patches along their journey but these warnings, as always, fall on deaf beasts. They prefer instead to expose themselves to danger and throw caution to the wind in romantic and problematic waves and sweeps.

The movement back is just as dramatic albeit with less enthusiasm for the climax of the great migrations have been achieved. From then on, the migrations take on a downhill dip but with no less number of crashes and splatterings. Their reckless bravery culminates during these seasonal migrations, when they turn into feverish, sub-normal Mammalaysian wildebeests.

The casualties each year are high but do nothing to discourage a repeat performance the following year with the exact same casualties, in almost the exact same spots, for the exact same reasons and in the exact same witlessness,  And thereon we witness, in awful disbelief, the migrations of these two legged, dying-to-be-dead Malaysian Wildebeests.

"Balik Kampung" may be likened to the original sentiments of " Take Me Home, Country Road". The difference being that this happens at least four times a year marking every festive season and its family reunions in multicultural Malaysia. It is particular only to Malaysia and its inhabitants. Me wildebeest.

A-BACKPACKING

Backpacking is an activity that marks no prejudice. I say prejudice because I had thought the backpack fit only for the backs of men. I'm always amazed at the sight of female backpackers. Their backpacks so huge they appear almost mule-like carrying them. So when a female backpacker crosses my line of sight I would usually watch her a little longer. Totally in awe of her male-like virility and wishing that I had some of it. Just in case.

But I fathom the sense of adventure that these backpackers yearn for. Driven by the thirst of curiosity and the hunger to experience the authentic. Without a doubt it is exciting. An escapade for exhilaration if not weariness. If I were twenty five, twenty six - seven or simply young, unmarried, unattached and hyperactive I imagine backpacking would be something I would live for. So when our daughter N announced that she was going a-backpacking in India I didn't collapse. After ten days she returned home from her trip. Thank god. She looked tanned, toned, trimmer and tired. She slumped into her bed and awoke only for dinner. Listening to her saying how tired she was I, being mother, joked that she needed a holiday to get over her holiday. Then I giggled at my own clever joke. Only to hear Miss N announce adamantly that it wasn't a holiday that she had had... but backpacking, italicized and bold.

For curiosity...or was it for authencity... and guided by the Lonely Planet guide book her backpacker friends and she took the local bus in India, the local train at rush hour, ate at roadside stalls, suffered Delhi belly, visited the Taj, rented a van with driver to Jaipur, Goa, et cetera, scoured Mumbai's art galleries with a local who had kindly offered N the tour, interacted and exchanged emails with fellow backpackers from across the globe, stayed at rest houses and budget hotels but the climax of her journey, to me at least, was ...she had had her hand henna-ed.  Although not necessarily all in that order of course. But it was beautiful. The henna I mean. (I'm sure the Taj Mahal was too. But since I wasn't there.........). It was a Rajastan's bride's wedding henna. It started from the tip of her fingers to about three inches beyond her wrist. I admired it. The curlicues. Then my eyes moved further up and I noticed a darker design on her upper arm just below her shoulder line about four inches long and one half inches wide. I felt a small shudder of alarm breaking through my belly. 

Aloud I wondered if it was a tattoo while  silently I was praying that it wasn't. Of course, Miss N proclaimed that she wasn't that crazy. I looked at her. Of course not. Just a hard nut to crack. Resolute. Untameable. I looked at the creature I had created. In sync with H. (Hey, I'm not taking all the blame). But on the other hand she is also determined, hardworking, loyal and kind. Well... perhaps I will.

So what did this stay at home mother learn for the day? Rush hour in India is just that. RUSH. Spelt S.T.A.M.P.E.D.E. Instead of getting off the train when it stopped N and friend were warned by a lady passenger to stay on it, to stand back and to allow passengers to embark before attempting to get off. Of course I imagined the girls had their puzzled eyebrows busy at work as well because they did think it was silly to exit after new passengers embarked. In a minute they learnt why. A stampede swarmed into the carriages. Much like swarming bees into a hive I imagine. It was a good thing there are seperate carriages for men and women in India. When the stampede had settled down to a buzz and to relative stand still they then proceeded to squeeze themselves out of the carriage. Like toothpaste, I am imagining. I'm glad she survived that. But what if the train had left before they got off? What if they had gotten crushed? What if they had never found the exit amoung all those bodies? What if.....???? But these are what ifs potential-for-breakdown mothers should never dream of. Ever.

Invested with more foolhardy motherliness I then proceeded to ask N how had she gotten her clothes washed while she backpacked. I looked at her and waited for an answer expecting something along the lines of "Oh I sent it to the laundry." Nope. Silence. A mumble. Then I heard the word backpacking, italicized and bold.

Come April N the girl/woman will be going off again on a short trip. Come May N the boy/man will be trekking miles through the jungles of Pahang, crossing rivers, befriending leeches, slapping mosquitoes, sleeping in tents and climbing Gunung Tahan, the highest point in Peninsula Malaysia.

Come tomorrow I the mom/woman/wife/daughter/cook/human receptacle of woes and experience-r of second hand adventures would still be mulling over the fascinating fact that a backpack isn't a burden after all. It rests on your hips, N the man told me, not on your back. Hmmmm......is backpacking a feminal thing after all? We so have hips.

PS : For all her scruffy adventures in India Miss N did not come home with mere dirt and dust on her hands. She bought me this. Oh so girly! Me love. 

STATE-OF-THE-ART APPLIANCES AND TECHNIQUES TO GIVE COOKING A BOOST

I am cooking chicken curry in my steamy kitchen and I attempt to bat my eyelashes to give those very Nigella come hither glances to god-knows-whoever-is-watching-me-while-I-cook-in-the-kitchen. My mascara curdles, my make up is being reduced and my hair just got sautéed along with the onions so that they are now limp while turning a crisp golden brown around the edges. But why suffer? Cooking is getting pretty savvy and every serious cook, born or bred, needs to invest in the latest and in a hundred percent foolproof cooking appliance that will ensure gourmet meals while you look glamorously splatter proof, inspired, intelligent, sociable, famous, rich, British middle class eccentric, madly American or indecipherable Australian but most of all to revive that ever dwindling passion in the kitchen.

If you invest in this state-of-the-art appliance and adopt these savvy techniques I will guarantee you results every time and you will live never to regret it. So save up and invest in a Television Crew and plug it into your kitchen socket at all times and cooking will be really fun and inspiring.

It is good idea to look for the ones that come with a real live dishwasher attached so that it will also collect and wash all those dishes that you mess up while you put together the Thai green curry or after you fiddle and bash that plump garlic.

Be sure to purchase this appliance while it is on offer because that is when they throw in one of those beautiful built-in kitchens. You will be spoilt for choice from the down to earth, practical town house kitchens to the most elegant European designer kitchens some with French windows that seem to sprout sprigs after sprigs of fragrant herbs so that you can, at long last, alluringly stretch out your arms all the way across the island top, grasp those crunchy herbs with your cutexed finger tips and tear them apart while displaying your gleaming white teeth and pouty lips through the lens of the Television Crew.

Don’t worry about the excessive amounts of fat or oil that you use because the Television Crew ensures that it doesn’t all go to your hips and thighs or to your heart. You don’t even need to use those ugly aprons that cooks from the previous century used if they want to look good after the cooking. Wear your best while you are at it because after all if you are seen to look good, you feel good and that in turn ensures that your food will taste good.

Pour compliments all over your own cooking yourself because there is nothing like self-encouragement when you are swathed in attention. While you are thinking ‘a pinch of salt’ practise multi-tasking and pour in that sinister handful of salt instead. Add those garnishes that appear to cost so little but seems to be worth all the extra effort of chopping and mincing that is needed. After all, you do need to encourage and tempt your guests’ eye balls with colours which also happen to be so necessary to keep the Television Crew in good working order.

Have a bunch of gluttons ready at your dining table so the Television Crew can zoom in on them to show how much they love you because you invited them for a free meal and a television appearance. Never think of washing up after because, remember, the Television Crew is there. Always, always have a dish ready and cooked to perfection to speed things up. It would be very rude to keep your guests waiting or to allow the food to get cooked.

Memorize the vitamin contents of fruit and vegetables for that extra edge in entertaining so that even if you are serving foods high in cholesterol you can still save your guests’ lives by telling them about the superfluous amount of vitamins that your sweet and rich dessert exudes.

Develop that forearm so that you can ‘simply’ whack a big bar of chocolate on the counter or grind the pestle into the mortar with manly gusto. You might even lose a few pounds along the way. No guarantees though especially if you lisp. However, do learn to lisp, bat your eyelashes, develop that Australian accent and be a socialite in your spare time to give your cooking character. Oh did I say character? Swing those dirty utensils and pots and pans to the left and right of yourself, good naturedly, to bring out that highbrowed cheffy character that lies hidden in you.

Be creative. If your television crew dishwasher attachment does not manage to wash the pot or pan that you need, in time, due to a faulty brain, get it to fetch a spade from the garden shed for that fried bacon and eggs that you so eccentrically want to demonstrate. While you are at it, think mobile and get your creative and cooking juices flowing by converting your toaster into a toastermobile or your automobile into a toaster, whichever came first. That way you can drive right up to your guests’ front door and generously entertain them in your pyjamas and with your hair standing up.

 Don’t forget that embellishments are very necessary when you invest in a Television Crew, so a row of Samburu warriors in full tribal gear and mud huts will do much to enhance your passion for those exotic Kenyan dishes of the African Safari. Again, don’t worry about the washing up because the Television Crew will always be right behind you wherever you may be in Africa, the Antarctic, rumbling along on a train or strolling and gesturing between grapevines in Italy or Spain.

I guarantee you, that with this amazing appliance and all the latest techniques recommended, you will be madly brimming with inspiration in your kitchen and cooking will be ridiculously easy-peasy.

BREAKING IN THE ZORI

Z came down the stairs with a sweet grin stretched across his face. I looked up and I saw a mess of rope dangling from his hands. I was alarmed. Then I looked lower and I saw Z's left foot sheathed in a roped, hand-crafted flip flop and the other foot  bare. I was relieved.

After scrutinizing Z's zori in my hand I realized that it takes obsession to make a zori (out of rope) and even more of an obsession to wear one. Particularly if it were made of rope. For the past week or so Z had been studying the art of making zori. Zori, for those of you who know not yet, is Japanese footwear that has been around since the Haien period (794 - 1185) before western shoes became popular. They were originally made of rice straw or other plant fibres, sometimes cloth and apparently sometimes even of rope. It takes a sadist to invent one out of rope and a masochist to wear one of rope. It hurts. 

Me masochist. 

When I saw the finished pair proudly displayed by Z and his satisfied expression I was smitten. They were flat and thonged. They were handsome. They were rustic. They had character.  They were the work of a perfectionist. What more could a woman want. They looked better and cuter than the rubber, mass produced, boring flip flops that I wear now and I thought they would make great house slippers. I knew I needed a pair.... I wanted a pair. And I requested Z to make a pair. For me. Since he was obsessed he grinned even wider.

Z spent a good part of the afternoon and part of the evening making a pair for me. By the time I came home from an outing with H at about nine in the evening I had a zori.  For free. It looked so good and it was so painful. 

But that's the price one has to pay to look pretty. And it does look pretty. In a rustic kind of way. As of now my feet are still breaking them in. I am determined to wear them. I can smell my own tenacity. And I have announced many a time at the dinner table that once I'm done breaking them in I could climb Mount Kinabalu barefoot. Like a goat.

If I could wear killer 4 inch heels in my heyday (all day) with the prospect of deforming my toes with naught health benefits, and if upper and middle class Chinese ladies of old had had their feet painfully bound and deformed for life for their men, all in the name of beauty and sensuality, what are zoris I asked myself. Especially if they're going to give me the regal posture of a queen, stimulate vital energy and blood flow throughout my body, reduce stress, improve balance and enhance my physical and mental well being.

At the least zoris are not confined to women and are, therefore, historically, not markers of gender or class, and could, in my opinion, certainly be a panacea for the flat footed.

As I wear them around the house all I feel is a kind of discomfort at first. I've never had foot reflexology but I suspect  that it hurts in the way a foot reflexology would hurt.  It feels very much like walking the pebbled reflexology walking paths at the park. As I walk on it more often I feel less discomfort and more attuned to the pressure points. Z has broken in to his.  And I intend to break mine in because ....

" Once you become use to them and the hanao becomes loose, you will need to push and press down with your toes more firmly to hold them in place, this stimulation of your toes and the build up of the muscles in your feet from wearing Zori will not only make your feet healthier but will have a excellent effect on your body in general. As you may know Reflexologists believe that each organ and muscle are connected by a network of nerves to a point on the foot where the energy terminates. By walk in zori these points are massaged and in addition your spine will become straighter, making your posture more beautiful accordingly."

And ..


"Conceivably, Japan could blame many of its foot problems on the West. Before the start of the Meiji Era in 1868, almost all footwear was either geta (wooden sandals) or zori (thonglike sandals, often made of straw).


I am so breaking them in. Or are they supposed to break me in?

CARS AND ME

I have never been able to develop an affinity for cars, no matter how hard I try. The emotional bond that men have with them is completely absent in me. I regard the car not as another human being but as the ‘thing’ that transports me from point A to point B. Period.

I lack the skill of discernment when it comes to cars or for anything that sits attached to four wheels. As far as I'm concerned, each and every one of them has the same set of four whirl-able wheels, two bright lights right in front, two red ones right at the back, four entrances and no maintenance. They are all of them one and the same. The only feature that differentiates them, one from the other, is the colour which is something that I can refreshingly relate to. Because colours are what I live and breathe for.

Because of that, it has become quite characteristic of me to walk purposefully up to a car that is not mine and attempt to embark simply because it's of a similar colour to mine. I've also attempted to break into someone else’s car for the same reasons. As I was wiggling my car keys in the lock one day a gentleman came over and, seeing that we were all women, asked politely what our intentions were in forcing the lock (his lock in particular). We babbled. In a chorus. And at that instant the true owner realized, to his complete disgust, which by the way was spelt correctly on his forehead, what we were all suffering from (we suffered from car-bungles). In a state of shameful shock we backed off and whimpered. Hurt and disorientated.

So the day that a complete stranger walked confidently up to our opened car door and happily snuggled into the back seat while hugging a bundle of groceries on her lap was one of the happiest days of my life. She sat comfortably for a good few seconds and then started to blink at an unprecedented speed. My husband, children and I stared benignly back at her not unlike the cows on my son’s t-shirt. It was not until the light of revelation had dawned on her that she flustered, turned into a beetroot, hurriedly disembarked and stumbled over to her employer’s car nearby. Now that is what I call a soul maid mate.

I have also come to realize that cars have another very important purpose in life and I can vouch with absolute certainty that my daughter, N, would wholeheartedly agree with me.

For some, cars are not really cars in the sense of being cars, if you know what I mean. For men, it is a Form, an Idea, the Platonic perfection of their unnecessary infatuation. Cars are made to look good, shapely and are blessed with that effervescent glow, so that men are taken in, woo them, caress them, fall in love with them and treat them with such useless, idealistic tenderness the result of which, we women, being the pragmatic green-eyed monsters that we are, have come to regard cars as a substance for abuse.

I, being woman, believe that cars were made, unwittingly, as a panacea for the demented warrior women of the twenty-first century. In order to get from point A to point B, the highway is the holy war path, the car engine the steed and the horn, the jousting stick. And the car, the whole car and nothing but the car? It is mine armour.

What better armour than thy car, me ladies. Thou art damsels within their mighty embrace. Tis why after a war weary day when the fair maiden cometh home she dismounts and leaves her armour safely clamped outside for it to recuperate from the day’s battle and to prepare for the next.

As a mark of all her heroic attempts at bravery my daughter’s car scathingly shows for it. Two long scratches that scratch to infinity on the left side, a whimpering dent in the left corner of her back bumper, a rebellious hollow on her right front door and an amputated wing mirror on the driver’s side. All mustered in good time and speed and I appallingly applaud her.

It is with much reluctance then that I reveal to all men, husbands, fathers and sons alike that in all our girlish attempts at feminizing the car with cuddly toys, dainty tissue box covers and fluffy cushions, those acts are merely beguiling ways to disguise the dark, demented truth of the inner workings of warring women at their height of combativeness.

So beware you small minded road bullies and caressing car adulators out there. We care not for what the car looks like nor for which is ours but for what it is capable of. Period.

Image taken from this interesting related article.

THE INTREPID GENE SKIPS A GENERATION

What do you do when your 82 year old mother decides to go on a 10 day tour of the middle east? A region wrecked in political turmoil. And freezing as well - at this time of year.

I spent a week before her departure bringing her to the mall in search for warm winter clothing......thermal underwear, a  woollen sweater, hat, scarf, woollen socks and a pair of Hush Puppies. I lent her my favourite winter coat. It draped over her quite nicely although she was much smaller than I am. I bought her a set of compression bags to get all the air out of thick clothing so she had more room for other things in her suitcase. As I rolled the bag and all the air hissed out I wondered aloud if she would be able to do it herself when she repacked her suitcases at the intermittent stops along her tour. She answered in the emphatic affirmative. I could smell her tenacity. I'm forever disturbed.

This trip had been quite unexpected and sudden. A friend had pulled her aside at the market one morning and excited her into going to Jordan, Syria and Palestine. My children were very amused when I told them. And they had asked why on earth and at this time? Little do they know. Never plant ideas into my mother's head.

She walks with slow, steady and resolute steps and often I 'll have to slow down so that I could walk abreast with her. I feel not quite normal because I'm an extremely fast walker and to slow down seems like an awful waste of time. But she seems to have settled herself at that speed. Perhaps as a result of age. Or height. Or character. Small. But sure. So sure that freezing point doesn't make her bat an eyelid. That the most unstable political conditions is brushed off with a wave of a hand. That she is eighty and without a travel or health insurance makes no difference in her choice of activities.

My brother had lent her a hard type suitcase and a hard type hand luggage. Both in bright flashy red. The big one had one quirky lock where you had to smack the corner of the case before the lock caught. I told her to sit on it if she had a problem instead of smacking it with her 82 year old hand. Though not in so many words.

Finally H disconnected the battery of her car and I locked the doors of her apartment and doubled checked them. But five minutes into the drive we had to go back for her jacket. She had left it on the kitchen stool. Should I worry? Then we drove the Hyundai the forty-five minutes to the airport, through jams, night lights, tolls and some supplications that I saw her making.

But finally she went off with Happy, Excited and Can't Wait printed right across her forehead. They were flashing like neon signs. I went around telling whomever I knew in the group to take good care of her, her bags and her. While she beamed ecstatically. Quite unperturbed.

As we walked through the bubble doors of KLIA I felt a wave of hot, humid air sweep in. And I remembered that my daughter will be going to India on a ten day trip a few days from today. She too will be going with a group of friends. Backpacking. I saw her counting a stack of rupee notes the other day. A few days before she resumed mugging for her  Finance paper for her MBA. I looked at the stack, fingered it and asked if she will be bringing anti-diarrhea pills as well. She answered with a big roll of dark, adamant eyes. I took that as a yes. I think. Hope. I could smell her tenacity.

Two distinct generations on either side of me going seperate ways, half way across the world, to almost extreme locations. I am forever throwing my hands up at these two women. I wonder if I should shake my head in disbelief or burn a hole in my heart with envy. Because here I am debating if I should get off the couch and get on with my nightmare journey: The Gym. 

The intrepid gene has skipped a generation. Me. Wimp.

FATALISM AND THE HOMEMAKER

                                                                                      

The Greeks were great believers in fatalism. Fatalism is a belief that whatever happens is predestined. Are we homemakers predestined to suffer holidays or to enjoy them?

In preparation for a trip to the United States for her daughter-in-law’s sixth delivery and for a month’s stay there Jamilah Din had envisioned a holiday of sorts in a cooler clime. Then reality struck and she was brought down to earth with an acute thud.

She remembered the story of The Girl and the Ring Cake. A story that has always lived with her forever, it seems. Nobody else has ever heard of it so perhaps it was a sign of an innate destiny of hers that she should have, inborn, such a ridiculous story that it was to haunt her in her later years.

A mother and a young girl lived together in a forest far, far away from civilization.  The girl’s grandmother died one day and the mother had to leave her daughter to see to the funeral arrangements of the deceased. The trip would take about a week. The mother worried and was flustered over how her daughter would survive the week on her own. The poor mother sat down and rummaged her head for a solution. There was only one night left before her departure and she suddenly got an idea. The mother decided to bake a ring cake. A large one. And so she did. When she had done that and the ring cake was ready, the mother happily packed her bags in the morning and before she left she put the ring cake around her daughter’s neck and said,

“Now daughter dear, while I am away all you need to do is to eat this ring cake that I have put around your neck. This will keep you from starving until I get home.”

The mother left and returned a week later. Her daughter had died. She looked and saw that the ring cake had only been half eaten. Her daughter had been too lazy (or stupid), or both, to turn the ring cake around so that she could eat the other half. She starved to death.

Now, Jamilah Din did not bake any ring cakes. Ring cakes would not have lasted a month.

So what she did was to cook, in batches over a period of a month, two hundred and fifty meals, packed them individually, labeled and froze them in re-heatable plastic containers and zipper bags. She listed instructions on how to use the electric steamer, the oven, the stove and ample warnings of the dangers lurking in the kitchen. She made a food chart or a periodic table of sorts of all the meals that her five children would have for a month. Then she printed them out and plastered them all over the walls in the dining room and the kitchen.

An example follows.

	CHICKEN       CHOP	RENDANG	CHICKEN     CURRY
Childl 1	6  ******	5  *****	6  ******
Child 2	6  ******	5  *****	5  *****
Child 3	9  *********	5  *****	6  ******
Child 4	9  *********	5  *****	6  ******
Child 5	9  *********	5  *****	6  ******

	BEEF       STEW	YUMMY   CHICKEN	BEEF       KICAP
Child 1	6  ******	7  *******	5  *****
Child 2	5  *****	5  *****	5  *****
Child 3	6  ******	7  *******	5  *****
Child 4	6  ******	7  *******	5  *****
Child 5	7  *******	8  ********	6  ******

Jamilah Din then instructed them to strike off the relevant asterisk each time they took a pack of food from the freezer. The chart above ensures that everyone has their fair share of their favourite meals without crossing over into another’s domain. This prevents strife and civil war. And probably mud slinging and hair pulling as well.

She then took an excruciating seventeen hour trip to the US, sprinted five hundred meters in her high heels to gate fifty in New York, took the connecting flight to Baltimore, arrived, and in two days her daughter-in-law delivered her sixth child. She cooked and cleaned and wrestled with her five older grandkids for a month, gaped at their crazy antics, answered scrutinizing questions and cooked for a party of ten a day before her flight back. 

She then took another excruciating seventeen hour trip back to Malaysia, sprinted the same five hundred meters, in her high heels, to gate fifty in New York, took the connecting flight to Tokyo and then to Kuala Lumpur and arrived to a home cocooned in dust and to relieved five alive children. They wiped their brows and sighed, "Now,we no longer need to strike off asterisks.".

Jamilah Din's holiday was anything but.

PS: This is a true story. The names have been changed to protect the guilty. The protagonist now resides in Kuala Lumpur and is living the life of a recluse.


The food chart/periodic table is an actual one that worked well. Everyone had food that they liked. And each person could keep track of how much of their ration had been used up without having to check into the freezer (provided they marked off the appropriate asterisk diligently each time). Even if they skipped meals no one else would be able to eat into the other' share by mistake.

The numbers indicate the number of packs there are for the particular type of food followed by the same number of asterisks. For example if there are 5 packs of chicken curry the number 5 followed by 5 asterisks will indicate that. Each time a person takes a pack of chicken curry he or she will cross out 1 asterisk leaving 4 asterisks which in turn indicates 4 remaining packs of chicken curry left in the freezer. And so on and so forth