Hot Water Memories

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I sent this message to a friend last night :

“Something happened to me tonight that reminded me of you.”

Reading it before I sent it off, I realized that the message did sounded a little bit corny, but what the heck. I pressed the “Send” button anyway.

True enough, he called me this morning.

“Hey, did you send me a message that was not meant for me last night? I was thinking, ni dia salah hantar ni……..”

“I did send you a message but it was no mistake. I did think that you’d think that message was meant for someone else, a beau maybe, but it’s been so long since I had a beau and I married my last beau.”

God, never in the history of mankind did the word beau appeared so many times in a paragraph.

“Something did happen to me last night that reminded me of you. You see, I accidentally poured hot water on my hand last night. Memories of you sitting on your bed, applying some cream on your burnt hand while softly whistling a tune came back to me like it was only yesterday.”

God, it hurts. Good thing it happened right in front of the sink and I doused it with water and Lina put some butter on it. The next fifteen minutes was pure torture but it got better and I only woke up once last night because of the pain. No blisters or “gelembung” in sight and a trip to the pharmacy for a soothing cream this morning helped a bit. The wrist is still throbbing. I’ve got an angry red welt all around my left wrist, like an expensive bracelet from Tiffany's or one of those fancy jewelers. So far no “gelembung”, please, please, please, let it stay that way. We were trying out the new thermo-pot that we bought earlier in the day and I was emptying it of the first boiled water (as instructed) and we didn’t realize that there was water, hot boiling water, in the spout. Out it came when I tipped the pot and onto my wrist….

Morale of the story – never never pour boiling water on yourself. I’ll tell you later if butter really works.

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Ye Ole' M-48 Tank

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On an M48 Tank. I used to be nuts about most things military. Show me the silhouette of any fighter from that era, let it be F-14 Tomcat, F-15 Eagle or the F-16 Fighting Falcon, I'd be able to recognise them.

Me and my buddy Ah Chong (from school, not from my childhood days) would compare our make believe military hardware during Miss Wong's English lessons. But of course Ah Chong would lose out when he wants to put .50 calibre machine guns on his jet planes.

"Wei, Ah Chong, no one puts .50 calibre guns on airplanes anymorelah. Now it's the M60 Gatling gun, 100 bullets per second, usually 20 mm, not good for the enemy's airplanes...."

And of course we'd go to great lengths to discuss whose planes are better. When no one wants to back down, we go to the guru of aviation, our buddy Red.

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Figure This Out.

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Figure this out.

A guy meets a girl. Guy gives a fictitious name. A fictitious (did I get that right?) job. A fictitious office. A fictitious area where home is located. Everything is a lie.

Why?

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Just Before I Go

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I'll be switching off this PC of mine at work in a few minutes and I'm not sure when it'll be back on after I move to my next place. So I thought I'd take this opportunity to abuse the privilege this early in the morning.

Nazzim wanted to go to school this morning. Lina offered to keep him at home but he said he prefers to go to school. Even Sofia declined to stay home from ugama classes this morning. There is a God after all. Not so fast. Nazzim wanted to go to school and play Scrabble - this week they could bring any game, board or otherwise, to school and I saw a kid toting a carrom board to school yesterday morning. Pictionary and Dominoes were boring, said Nazzim. He brought those to school earlier this week. Well, we played Scrabble last night and all was fine, meaning I was trailing until I managed to post "flying" over a triple word score, giving me 33 points and all hell broke loose. Sofia was upset that I finally got more points than her and Nazzim was fuming because he had his eyes on the same spot with the word "choose". Anyway, it was time for a shower and then Nazzim has got to go mengaji.

Anyone wants Lina as a kid? I have a feeling that parents would love her. I topped up her pre-paid mobile phone last night. She must be the most infrequent user of a mobile phone. We need to spend RM 30 a month on her mobile and she hardly uses her phone at all. Each time we top up her phone, there'll be at least RM 60 worth of credits left. So I make it a personal mission to use up her credits. I reckoned she probably uses about RM 7.60 worth of pre-paid charges every month. Not that I'm complaining... She should learn how to use a phone from the master - the record of thirteen, read my lips, thirteen, hours still stands. I hope she has forgotten about that.

I am looking forward to tomorrow night to meet a classmate whom many of us have not seen in years. I saw him yesterday as yours truly got him the tickets to go up the Skybridge at the Twin Towers. I'm looking forward to seeing him again as I am also looking forward to seeing my other buddies such as rostameffendi and red. I should be there. At our age, our favourite topic is still children. In a bit, it'll be about our ailments.

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Rolling Rolling Rolling, Rawhide

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I am packing my stuff and am in the throes of moving to my new workstation, one level below. Oh my Zod, I do have a lot of stuff. Boxes and boxes of manuals, files and papers. I have no idea what most of them are. It used to be that I have three times the amount of stuff but a few years ago I just gritted my teeth and threw away anything that I have not seen or do not want to see or do not need within the last six months. It worked, I never missed anything at all. Once I get settled in, it'll be Spring Cleaning Part 2 - The Snow Blower.

Let's hope that the movers don't get hernias moving my stuff. I have have to squat in one of the smaller workstations as the bigger ones are not ready. Ah well, I got to move as if I don't, I can't send the email to the previous assets that I was serving saying that I am no longer with the previous team and hence please please please speak to my replacement (and I could also thumb my nose at them at the same time). I have been wanting to do that for the last three years. Goodbye regional office and hello some other places. I must have been over to the regional office forty times these last three years and the hotel staff :

i. do not swipe my credit card upon check-in.
ii. knows that I prefer standard rooms instead of any suites.
iii. knows that I prefer rooms that face the main road.
iv. knows that I prefer rooms close to the elavators so that I don't tire myself on my way to work, dinner or disco.

You know how it is, they swiped your card because they are afraid that you'd run off without paying for your room. Wei, I curi your bath-tub nanti baru you tau. Please please please give me standard rooms since I hate any part of any place that I am staying that I could not see from my bed. Aiyo, once I stayed in Parkroyal K. Terengganu and all they had was a suite and I could have sworn that it felt like I was sleeping in Angkor Wat. Alone. Usually when that happens, I just say to whoever it may concerned that if you leave me alone, I'll leave you alone. It worked so far.

And now the all that is left is the two small cabinets that contains some personal stuff which I will move myself.

Hi ho Silver, and away................

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Spics and Specs Too

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I met another blogger last Wednesday and I must say that it was such a pleasure meeting a lovely person. Hmmmm, I was humming “There Must Be An Angel Playing with My Heart” all the way home after that, heh heh. But it was tempered by the fact that I was in a rush that night. Left work late, met her and didn’t last till very late as we, me and the family that is, had to be in Genting early Thursday morning.

Things worked out fine over Thursday, Friday and the weekend. In Genting, I had to work and Lina took both of the children up to wherever they were supposed to go while up there (and make Lim Goh Tong richer). Of course the two children had to tuang classes for two days but we got our money’s worth the few days prior to the trip as they would follow every single word we said and everything we asked them to do. Well almost. Kids being kids, they they’d try to sashay their way through and around our words. And being ambitious, they brought some schoolbooks with them. I think they spent exactly seven minutes each on schoolbooks while up there. The rest of the time were spent at the amusement park, the swimming pool, trying to coax their mama to go to the amusement park, again, and also asking when are we coming back to Genting. Half a day into the amusement park, Lina rebelled at the fact that she was tired, hungry and her feet are aching and it’s time the children fulfill her whims and fancies at that particular moment – lunch!! So for about half an hour or so both Nazzim and Sofia played waiter and got their mama her food and drinks and some TLC’s. I wasn’t there, I was at work, talking about things like water depth, porosities, permeabilities, places like Rabat, Fez, Casablanca, Marrakech, the meaning haute mer and a few other words that I’d probably misspell anyway. Started dreaming of the casbah and I definitely have to take steps to make sure that it will not remain a dream, heh heh.

Some people amazes me. I got news of my bonus recently, I told Lina and that’s where the buck stops. Due to some people’s indiscretion, they would tell their spouses and their spouses would tell the whole world about things such as their bonuses and now everyone knows about my bonus. Aiyo, learn to keep your mouth shut lo…… I never worry about your bonus, so why worry about mine? Get a life, bud.....

Saturday morn, off we go to a kenduri and to a barbeque later that night at Lina’s aunt’s, Andek’s, place. But before the barbeque, that evening we had a friendly game of soccer within the compound of Andek’s house and it was a bad decision. Trust me on this one. Never ever ever ever play soccer if you have not played it in, oh well, five years or so. And never try to mark a twelve year-old kid who is a school player. Lina’s cousin, Afiq, is skinny, stands up to just above my elbow, probably weighs a quarter of what I do but he ran circles around me. I had to argentine him, that's a new word I discovered, meaning, pull his shirt, do anything dirty to stop him. It didn't always work. The result of the game was that you’d discover that you have muscles in places that you didn’t know there were muscles. Why? Because they’d be aching like crazy!!!!! My neck aches, my shoulders ache, my thighs ache, my arms ache, my calves ache and many many other parts of my body ache too….. But we won, 10 – 9. I scored two goals and Afiq scored eight.

And today’s Monday….. Oh my Zod, I need a new drug.

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Spics and Specs

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Nazzim is now King of the World. He’s just got the UPSR exams over and done with yesterday and till this weekend he’s got a license to do whatever he wants. Returning from school yesterday, he got Lina to give him back his Gameboy, which we confiscated like six months ago. But the thing is, Sofia pulak sibuk-sibuk nak main too.

“Young lady, your brother has just gone through the first of many major exams that he has to go through. Tell me what you did to deserve the Gameboy?”

Well, nothing but somehow I had to let her play, just a bit.

Nazzim thought the UPSR was easy, except for the Penulisan paper. He’s always had some problems with that.

“Don’t know what to write la, Papa……”

Well, but then he did say that he wrote down a few points and carried on from there. I guess whatever the results are, he will learn many lessons. If he gets the desired perfect results, it will be because of the constant hard work that he puts in since the beginning of the year. If he gets less than perfect results, more work is required. But he is happy that he breezed through most of the papers. Now, for the results….. Lina says that he’d be very disappointed if he gets anything less than what he wants. But we have to be ready for that possibility and makes sure that he does not get disheartened by it. For days before the exams I told him to relax and not get nervous. Que sera sera la………..

We ended up in a bookshop last night, to get Nazzim the latest Harry Potter book, as we promised him. But both Lina and I ended up with stacks of books - they were on sale. We spent a hundred ringgits on about twelve books that would have easily cost three or even four times as much. Joli katak......

I have transferred to a new department. One that has got to do with deepwater. For starters, something like in 1,900 m of water. It is a relief. Been in the previous department for three years and it’s time for a change. And in view of some recent personal developments, maybe my next step is to ask for a posting in a far away place to get away from this d_mned place…….

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