Halloooo, Papa

The Kiss

by Gustav Klimt (1862-1918)

For more, click here

Khalil Gibran; poet, philosopher, artist, prophet, writer

I visited a friend's blog earlier and saw another of Khalil Gibran's writings from The Prophet.

It is so beautiful that I simply have to reproduce it here.

Then Almitra spoke again and said, "And what of Marriage, master?"

And he answered saying:
You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when white wings of death scatter your days.
Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

Click HERE to find out more about Khalil Gibran

...But Enough Is Just Enough

A Man Can Take Only So Much Smothering.....

Affection

Tenderness

Zerlynde and Jonathan's latest obsession

It's masak-masak when they wake up, it's masak-masak at noon, it's masak-masak after their afternoon nap and it's masak-masak just before bedtime.

Poor dad is more often than not "forced" to join in so that Jonathan gets to play the gracious host and offers him tea or coffee...

Legal Aid Centre's 25th Anniversary

The Legal Aid Centre celebrated its 25th Anniversary at E&O last Friday. Our firm bought a table, so I was there with our guests. The evening went smoothly enough with the usual speeches followed by a powerpoint presentation on the history of the Legal Aid Centre in this country. Although the dress code for the event was smart casual, most ladies were dressed in their best and finest. Our table, I must say, boast of the best-looking men. My opinion solely and I am probably biased.

An auction was carried out towards the end of the evening, the highlight, from the looks of it. To give you an idea of what was involved, Cecil Rajendra's 1 hour poetry recital was auctioned off at RM400-00 whereas Nazriah's beef/chicken rendang fetched RM500-00.

An enjoyable evening overall, mainly due to the fine and pleasant company at our table, and also because dessert was creme brulee....


Me and my two oldest friends at the Bar
Picture courtesy of Eugene

A Reading Habit

Zerlynde loves to read, and aloud too.

Poupee marcheuse

Went to Toy-r-us specifically to get Zerlynde one of those V-tech laptops so that she'll stop messing with mine but was distracted by a 30-inch walking doll and a 60-piece kitchen and tea set.

When parents buy toys for their kids, is it really for the kids or for themselves?


Zerlynde and her doll are exactly the same height!

Zerlynde's Pet

Zerlynde loves her pet, Chillie. She calls it "Meeee" in a sing-song high pitch way.



We love to see how she hugs her "Meeee" and showers it with lots of kisses and looks of adoration. Amazing how babies can be so affectionate...

Raya Break

Hubby seldom misses going to Salim's house for Raya. Out of curiousity, I asked him why. Seems Salim's mum cooks the best Nasi Briyani in the whole world. This year however, he was in for a major disappointment. Salim's family catered lunch for their 300 guests. So, hubby didn't get to eat his favourite once-a-year Nasi. Salim did promise us homecook briyani in the near future though.

Friday, the 4th - We were supposed to go shopping at Gurney Plaza. But hubby had to attend a funeral in Baling at the last minute. So, my parents, Kitty and I brought Zerlynde to Carrefour for some grocery shopping. Of all the hypermarts, Carrefour is our favourite, not because it supposedly offers the lowest price but because they have those cute little car-trolleys for cute little people.

Zerlynde loves it!


Sat, the 5th - Lunch at Nazu's. Zerlynde got to play with one of her first and "oldest" friends, Mia Sara, who's 9 days younger. (We often joke that we planned to be pregnant together!) Nazu and I hope our daughters will be best friends when they grow up.

One Fine Spring Day, another Korean Movie to Catch

Check out this link for the trailer and music video.

Click here for a review.

Coming soon... April Snow

The Official Site

The Synopsis

The Theatrical Trailer

Winter's Sonata

Unlike my sis who rushes home everyday to catch the 8.30pm Korean drama series on tv, I unfortunately don't have the luxury of time to sit through an hour of tear-jerking romance, especially at that particular hour when Zerlynde normally demands for her nightly lullabies.

So, the only Korean drama that I have watched from beginning to end is the sensational Winter's Sonata featuring heart-throb Bae Yong-joon and Choi Ji-woo, the Audrey Hepburn of Korea.

I believe it was sometime in year 2002 or 2003 when I bought the VCD set and finished watching the complete soap-opera within 2 days, accompanied by my mum who went through the emotional and mental agony with me only to heave a sigh of relief and satisfaction at the end of our journey.

Winter's Sonata was so popular in Malaysia during that time that there was even a malay version of its theme song, not to mention the sprouting of "Winter's Sonata tours", gimmicks offered by the opportunistic tour companies. I would have jumped onto the next plane to South Korea myself if only the tour companies threw in tea with Bae Yong-joon in their package.

To read a review of the drama, click HERE
To listen to one of my favourite songs from the soundtrack, click HERE

Menace, Real not Phantom

Of late, instead of sitting contentedly on the bed playing with her toys every morning at dawn, Zerlynde has taken to climbing down the bed; cruising around it, crawling all over the room, nibbling the handphone battery charger, pulling at my laptop wire, flipping and tearing at my magazines, pulling all her toys and books down from the shelf, opening all my empty shoe boxes, in short, causing a riot and being a real menace to her sleepy mother and sometimes father.

I can't even type now without her thumping away at the keyboard........

The only way to keep her sitting still is playing her baby programmes on my laptop beside the bed which I am going to do next.......

Poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Two of my favourites:

The Best Thing In The World
What's the best thing in the world?
June-rose, by May-dew impearled;
Sweet south-wind, that means no rain;
Truth, not cruel to a friend;
Pleasure, not in haste to end;
Beauty, not self-decked and curled
Till its pride is over-plain;
Love, when, so, you're loved again.
What's the best thing in the world?
--Something out of it, I think.


How Do I Love Thee?
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

A Hectic Week

It's been a hectic week. Zerlynde caught a cold since last Tues. I brought her to see her regular GP near our home on Fri when she didn't improve after 4 days. That evening, when I got home from work, my mum said she had been vomiting the whole afternoon. I got panicky and after a few phone calls to GMC, mum and I packed our bags and headed straight to see Dr Jessica to have a check up and a blood test. We also decided to put her on drips to improve her hydration. We could hear poor Zerlynde howling at the top of her lungs from outside of the procedure room.

We spent the night in a 2 bedded room. I shared a bed with Zerlynde. Poor mum had to sleep on the folding chair. The next morning, Dr Rama and Dr Jessica came for their rounds. We were relief to be told the results showed Zerlynde was just suffering from a common cold. So, I had "overreacted" again, but it's better to be safe than sorry, right?

On the same day, my brother's wife, Liew Yang was admitted to GMC to have a baby. We requested for Zerlynde's discharge and moved our stuffs to Liew Yang's room No. 527 to wait for the arrival of Shaun. Dad and Kitty bringing Jonathan and Mina arrived shortly after 3pm. We then went to the second floor to wait outside the operation theatre. Finally, a nurse wheeled out a baby wrapped in a pink bundle. We all immediately rushed to gather around the incubator to catch a glimpse of the baby. That moment was infused with a great sense of awe, amazement and love. We stayed at the hospital until at about 6pm. Since both Zerlynde and Jonathan were not well, we decided not to stay too long.

On Sunday, Kitty, Kenzu and I originally planned to do a bit of shopping and get a basket of flowers for Liew Yang from Island Plaza before visiting her and the baby again. We were detoured by the signposts leading us to E&O Tanjung Sri Pinang's Courtyard Terrace show units. Spent about one and a half hour there. We were very impressed with the 2 show units and toyed with the idea of buying 2 adjoining units there. We even went to the extent of exploring the possibility of converting the courtyard into a room. That's how much we liked the place. Anyway, we did some shopping and got our flowers after that, then went to GMC to catch the 7-8pm Baby Show Time. Left at about 9pm.

Monday. Again, Kitty, Kenzu and I went to GMC, this time to assist James and Liew Yang with the discharge. Jonathan's got fever and running nose and Zerlynde was still coughing, so mum and dad stayed home to look after them. We waited for the nurse to change the baby etc, then I carried tiny Shaun in my arms all the way to the car as James filmed the "homecoming". Kitty then took over the handling of Shaun while Kenzu and I left separately to check out some jewelleries at Nam Loong. The traffic that day was really bad and it took us really long to drive from one place to another. So, we decided to go straight home after coming out of Nam Loong empty-handed, stopping at Ghee Hiang on the way to get some 'Tau Sar Pneah". That evening, we had dinner with some of dad's friends at a chinese restaurant, then Kenzu rushed off to join his family for dinner at Tambun.

Tuesday - Deepavali. Kenzu and I went to Ramesh's house for lunch. The ayam masak merah was delicious. Zerlynde was initially abit wary of the strangers there but later warmed up to 4-year old Dylan who played "peek-a-boo" with her. We were there from 1.30pm and left about 2 hours later, after Zerlynde threw up all the biscuits she consumed. Jonathan, on the other hand, didn't seem to have improved. His fever was still high, more than 39.5 degrees celcius and his cough was really bad. Also, his eyes were red and teary. After dinner, I set up a yahoo mail for newbie dad and taught him how to visit our blogs.

Wednesday - The whole family with the exception of Kenzu, Zerlynde and I went to GMC again. Jonathan's condition was bad, so we decided to bring him to the hospital to check his blood. Shaun had jaundice, so he too had to go for a blood test. They came back at about 2pm. Seems Jonathan's got a "measles-like" infectious disease. The Chinese call it "fake measles" literally. I think he must have got a mild form of measles or perhaps Roseola. We were so worried about Zerlynde and the baby catching the disease from him, so the three babies were segregated. Jonathan's free to roam about downstairs, Shaun's confined to the guest room, Zerlynde to our bedroom. Kenzu and I were stuck in the room the whole day with her. Luckily there're enough toys to keep her occupied, so she didn't make any fuss.

Despite all the buzz, I managed to steal an hour off earlier this evening to go for my belly-dancing class :) When I got home, my siblings commented that results are showing :) :)

Quote of the Week

"She smells of peanut skin", says Daddy of Zerlynde.