Help Me Lord

Six lashes of the cane for a glass of beer, are you for real? We have again become the laughing stock in the world arena, not surprising, as we always `BOLEH’. And to sum it all to the law of the religion, wake up people. Islam is a very forgiving religion, please get that right.

So she admitted to her wrong doing, and the judge (which school of law is he from?) decided to slam her with six lashes of the cane, in order to teach her and the rest of the Islamic society a lesson. Sad, very sad indeed, if by now the government still won’t learn the lesson of oppression. Keep on oppressing your people and you will be definitely sending an invitation to an uproar of fury to them. Like the ticking of the time bomb, you will be surprised by its effects.

Is the Government feeling so insecure in their Parliamentary sitting now, that they have to bow down to threats of some group of religious people, are they so scared that they could already see the lights of being toppled if they do not give in to what these certain groups' demands?

First the depression of the students, instead of moving forward, we are taking big steps backward. Majority of the lessons in school will soon be in Bahasa, yet despite that, the Government still sends thousands of students to study in Western universities, and they will only return as excellent mugging students, and not those who could build a nation.

Please remember that the Lord is most merciful and forgiving. So if the Lord can forgive, why can’t this lady be forgiven, instead of lashing her like a barbarian, would it not be better for her to be sent for community services?

Help me Lord.

Dream Catcher

Have you ever experienced the frustration of getting up from a dream and could not put the pieces of the dream together? It is worse when the dream was something so beautiful that you wish you were still in the dream, and want to know the ending of it.

This happened to me recently, and I keep thinking of the dream over and over again. I managed to gain some but I know the rest was just too shadowy to put a focus to what the dream was all about. What was more important was the failure to recognize the faces of the people in that particular dream, actually I still think of that dream every time that I am contemplating over something……… funny.

There were times, in fact many times that I was so tempted to get a dream catcher and place it at the window in my room, but then again I thought that was just fictions, and in the end will only collect dust. So where do we go when our dreams get broken?

Dream catcher……………….. erm……………… ???

Amal................

Two days prior to the beginning of the holy month of Ramadhan, I sat with my little angel and explained to her the importance of praying especially during the Ramadhan month. She listened diligently, asking questions every now and then, and sincerely asked me to guide her with the praying.

Apparently before she left, a good friend’s husband had given her a book on prophets as well as a guide to praying. There’s where she got started, and for two days she sat next to my bed, copying the supplications, reciting the sunnah and following me as I do my prayers.

On the second day of Ramadhan, she was confident enough to do her prayers on her own. I can never thank the Almighty Lord enough for this angel that was given to me. Alhamdulillah, so far she has managed to complete all the five daily prayers.

Her school starts today, and she was concerned enough not to dress revealing as she has to observed the respect of the month of Ramadhan. She is simply amazing and I can only pray that she will carry on her practice beyond the Ramadhan month, InsyaAllah.

Thank you Bang Man for the books, you are appreciated.

First Day Of Ramadhan

First day of Ramadhan, we decided to go to IKEA to shop around for some stuff, and return when it is time to prepare iftar. The two angels when they are together, their playfulness surpass any place and situation. Ramadhan is easier when their minds are in the playful mode.

We had a very simple iftar of plain rice, fried chicken wings, mixed vegetable soup, fried liver with onions, anchovy chilies and ‘pengat jagung’ for dessert.

Alhamdulillah for an easy first day.

Ramadan Karim To All

The holy month of Ramadan will be here in approximately 2 days time, we are very fortunate again to be welcoming yet another holy Ramadan. Alhamdulillah.

I am glad that we will not be exposed to the numerous Ramadan markets and offers of buffet spread by various hotels, where sadly we forget that the holy month of Ramadan should not be celebrated in such a manner of wastages. Alhamdulillah. It will be a meaningful Ramadan for us, insyaAllah, as we will be tested with longer fasting time than usual.

To all the Muslims who stumble on my blog, I am taking this opportunity to wish you Ramadan Karim. To all friends and family, with the coming of Ramadan I seek your forgiveness for any wrong doings that I might have done, directly or indirectly. I wish you Ramadan Karim and May the Lord’s blessing be with all of us always.

Ramadan Karim to all.

Don't Forget

When you are chasing the rainbow, don’t forget the rain
When you are sitting comfortable, don’t forget the broken chair
When you are flying high, don’t forget to look down at the ground
When you are given the world, don’t forget the unfortunate

When you are laughing, don’t forget the silent tears
When you are so loved, don’t forget those hearts your break
When you are at the destination, don’t forget the departure
When you are mocking me, don’t forget the daggers pointing at your back

Life is a constant walk on the tight rope, don’t forget

I Saw A Villain

I saw a villain, but I was so taken by her angelic smile
I saw a villain, but I was so trusting in her sweet talks
I saw a villain, but I was so welcoming to her charming eyes
I saw a villain, but I was so quick to engulf her innocence

Now I realize that the villain is real
Now I realize that the villain was dressed in furs of fury
Now I realize that the villain was such a bitter person
Now I realize that the villain was a jealousy freak

How can I be so blind?
How can I not see that the villain will come to conquer?
How can I not sense that the sweet talks was just a bait of mistrust
How can I just open my heart and let the villain destroy it?

It Was Me....................

At the funeral, I saw many people, some were just mingling around, some were getting acquainted, some were deep in supplication, some were just looking and very few were attending to the dead body. It was a moment like this that you start putting names to faces, and yet you can’t get them all right.

Once the body was shrouded, it was brought to the main hall of the house for prayers. I keep telling them to hasten things up, for we do not want to keep the dead body of a Muslim for more than 8 hours after the demise. I also reminded them to be gentle at all time.

The beautifully shrouded body was finally put into the hearse and onward to the graveyard. Cars started to line up in preparation to get moving, I took a final last look at the house, the family, the friends, and not forgetting the enemies, who had all come to grace the dead.

At the grave, I watched as the body was lowered to the ground, I can only whisper to the people involved with the burial to be extra careful, and to make sure that the body and face is placed according to our belief. Everything went well as instructed, the grave was covered and people marched away home bound, but I was still there, in fact I am there, I was dead, it was me, yet I was the one organizing my funeral.

Can’t remember what time it was when I woke up, but it was still dark, hubby was still snoring, the area where my angels were sleeping is still very quiet, where am I?

I realized that it was just a dream; I stay in the darkness and offer my supplication to the Lord, our creator.

Nature Watch

Among other things that I enjoy in life are simply the simplest around us. Nature watching, time and again can be so mesmerizing, so peaceful, so magical, and so therapeutic. Moments like this makes me realize that I don’t care if the nastiness of others were to bite me to my marrow. I am still happy, you can break me but you can never destroy me.

Mario's Catch

Mario the handy man came, each time with his English speaking girlfriend by his side, holding two posts, one as his interpreter, and second as his helper. They were a sight, a nice couple. He does not talk much, but he will explain all that needs to be done, changed and bought. They came and went as they deem fit, so the working time was way much longer than we had anticipated, but it was worth the waiting for Mario did a good job.

After one weekend Mario came as usual accompanied by his beautiful girlfriend, smiling and laughing she handed me a big plastic bag, inside the bag was Mario’s pride catch over the weekend. Two fishes, each weighing more than 2 kgs, I have no idea what fish that was, but they sure were big and heavy and fresh.

I decided to clean one and keep the other one for later. Cleaning the fish was a real task, scaling it was not a joke, gutting it was a heavy chore, but all in all it was done. I marinated the fish for about 2 hours prior to steaming it. The three hungry ghosts just loved the fish.

Thank you Mario, for a good catch.

Do You Think?

I believe in life you can’t have everything. Amidst the peacefulness, good traffic, excellent transportation, we are still being exposed to dog poo everywhere. The authority even provided them with free plastic bags to pick after their dogs, but nothing matters. Once a moron always a moron, and yeah, their dogs actually smell better than them.

Fun In The River

The little angel was not so much in favor of swimming in the river; however, being encouraged by her sister, she was finally game for it. They were a sight of joy, teasing each other all the time, laughing and challenging each other’s ability to rough the cold river water.

It was a fun day of course.

Proton Satria Neo

Proton Satria Neo, total garbage of plastic, cheap rubber and warped glass. Top Gear team (episode 3, season 13) high end engineering assessment.

What a joke, well …………………………… the BOLEH era, backwards we march.

Euphoria of Death

Euphoria of death, arr……………… what a description, yes indeed this was what was engrossed in my mind yesterday, as I prepared the pack for our outing. It is weird but yet something surreal only I can share with me, and only myself will understand.

I thought it was kind of exciting to think of going to the place that you have never been before, no one knows what was there to expect, except for the things that were told to us by the living, and the referral from some religious scholars. The dead has never returned to tell a story, or to pen down a novel, yet everyone talks about the fear of dying…………………… why?

Suddenly I felt the fluttering of a million butterflies in my stomach, the twitching of my heart, the lump of excitement in my throat and the well of unfailing tears in my eyes. Alone, I thought death should be welcomed the way one was welcomed at birth, with celebration and not sadness. At least that’s how I would want my demise to be. No one should be sad at all, for I am the one who will be living all the sadness of my life here on earth, where in the first place I have never ever asked to be born.

I figure going to the arms of your creator would be such essence of peace that could not be described. The serenity of being answerable only to Him and no one else, being His servant and no one else, being just you in His eyes and no one else, bring the feelings of acceptance to me.

Knock, knock, knock …………… I am knocking on heaven’s door (smile).

Beautiful Captivating Swans

They are so beautiful, captivating and wonderfully peaceful to watch for hours on ends. Soon they will be migrating elsewhere and it will be months before we can go swan watching again.

Sisters And Swans

Looking at them, my heart is forever filled with joy. Six years apart, yet they are so close to each other, well they do have those siblings squabbles but they still share a lot of things together. Today they had requested to go for a swim at the river, though the weather was not that fantastic, I could not deny them the quality time and the happiness of togetherness.

Shower Oh Shower

The pictures showed what and how much damage had taken place in the shower, it’s amazing, I am just lost for words. I thought the people here are more honest in their dealings, but boy was I wrong. Thankfully it happened now and not during the cold season, it would have been more difficult then. Thank you Lord for someone like Mario.

Blame Yourself

An email from a friend …………… ‘I caught my son’s girlfriend sleeping in my house too often now, how can she be so cheap, what kind of upbringing does she has?’, how can I respond to these questions in a more positive way? But I will try.

My advice to her was, don’t blame her on her upbringing, I can only think that her parents were not aware of her behavior, and that she may be an angel in front of them. Just take care of your son and worst case scenario, just marry them off.

Why parents are always blamed for their children eccentric behavior? I don’t know, I have no definite answer to that, people are bias. Having said that some children do really represent their parents, I have encountered many of such, and it humbled me to keep on whispering to the Lord that my kids will be protected from this loop.

insyaAllah……………………………..

Lord Makes It Easy For Everything

In the dusk of dawn, in the comfort of our tiny kitchen, with eyes still half open, she was busy preparing her potato salad, while I fried some left-over rice. The sounds of the utensils were the only sound for that moment besides the humming of the old refrigerator.

We had woken up to do our ‘syahur’, we have been planning to do the replacement of fasting for many months, and it only come to materialize this week. Each in our own thoughts, it is as though we were sleep walking while doing the chores at the same time.

Then she asked me ‘ma, what happen if we cannot do the replacement fasting because we were sick or we forgot?’, this is as usual the curious mind of my little angel asking the questions that must have been bordering her, as Ramadhan is approaching near.

I told her about the possibility of performing the ‘fidyah’, explaining to her was another story but I was glad that she came out with such curiosity, I am glad that I am still here to let her know what she might find no one to turn to when I am no longer around.

Thinking of which I searched the web and discovered that they have made it very easy for us to do the calculation with an online calculator. At my age now, I am not very sure how many days I might have accidently, lazily or purposely not performed my fasting when I was much younger.

InsyaAllah, I will pay the ‘fidyah’, it is nearly 3 days fasting for us today, Alhamdulillah though the hours are much longer in summer, we were blessed with good tidings.

So They Are Beggars!!!!!!

These couples sure attract her attention for her to actually throw some coins in their pot. You cannot deny the fact that they were the most artistic beggars on the road, and it was nice to see how articulate they were with the costume and make up. Well…………………. It was her pay day too (he he he).

The Kebab Look

This is one of her favorite places, mainly because there are so many fresh vegetables and fruits to feast her eyes on, besides the famous kebab stall. Pictures seen here of an anticipating innocent hungry face waiting for her turn to be served by the kebab operator.

Bike Punk Go Green

Going green, people here are encouraged to change their habits of taking the public transport or driving their own auto to just simple cycling during the non winter season. In support of this change, a charitable group was set up to give free service and repairs to anyone who needed it. Someday maybe, someone with less materialistic thinking cap will get good things going over there.

Chicken Rice

Chicken rice has always been one of the favorite dishes for everyone in this family, in my previous entry whatever you want to cook and could not get the ingredients, you will just have to improvise and come out with the nearest to taste to the original. Here is my chicken rice recipe with very limited ingredients:

Rice: basmati, butter, chicken stock, garlic, ginger and 1 onion. Method: wash the rice, crush the garlic, thin slice the onion and ginger. Heat a medium pot, add the butter, once the butter melts add garlic, fry till fragrant, add the ginger and onion, let it fry for 8 minutes, add the rice and further fry for 5 minutes, finally add the chicken stock just enough to cover the rice, and cook rice like normal.

Chicken: 1 medium size chicken, clean and discard all fats, pat dry the chicken with paper towel. Rub chicken with crushed garlic and salt. Let it marinate for 15 minutes. Heat a large pot on the stove; fill up enough water to boil a whole chicken. Once the water is boiling add the chicken and lower the fire, add an inch of crushed ginger and salt to taste. Once chicken is done, drain the chicken immediately (save the stock to cook rice and to make the sauce) with cold tap water, and rub sesame oil all over the chicken.

Sauce for chicken: oyster sauce, light soya sauce and sweet thick soya sauce (in this case I just add a bit of sugar as I do not have the sauce available), ½ cup chicken stock, sesame oil and ¼ teaspoon of corn flour to thicken the sauce. Mix together all the ingredients and simmer on low fire for 8 minutes.

Chili sauce: No red chilis were available, so I used green chili, ginger, garlic, salt and sugar to taste and ½ a lemon juice. Blend all the ingredients together, once done, just add a bit of sesame oil.

Tomato and cucumber to garnish.

The chicken rice was wonderful; we are ready for a second try.

Water Balloons Fight

They had planned for the water balloon fight for days; preparing and getting more excited as the little angel kept count of the time. As usual we can only plan but to make it happen will never be in our hands. Finally, last Sunday when the weather was super hot, we marched to the park with bags of water balloons and picnic pack. Seeing the joy on their faces over simple things in life, I thank the Lord again for His blessings.