Still Thinking…

And so the garden project has been on for the past 3 weeks…and the tomato plants were growing spendidly. I checked for flowers and new shoots every morning, like a mother hen looking for worms. Yikes. Very obsessive, this gardening thing.

Our bedroom window opens to the balcony, and my daily routine now has been somewhat pathetic. Instead of heading straight to the washroom when I get out of bed, I flip the blinds to see if the plants in the balcony are errr…ok. I will look and look for a good 5 minutes, squinting my eyes. I am sure DH felt like saying, “Don’t worry, your plants are still there!” repeatedly…but he wouldn’t want to sound like a broken record because I will still peep out of the balcony anyway.

I now know about plants, flowers, container gardening, pinching tomato suckers and deadheading flowers more than I ever did in my entire life. I was beginning to feel like an old lady, until an ex-schoolmate who is now living in the UK – talks abt her obsession with pinching and poking her plants every morning too. We both agreed that gardening has spiralled our cool-factor 2 notches down. Sad state.

Anyway, there is a really gorgeous Siamese twin gerbera daisy growing in one of my pots. Very sweet…as the lower bloom is constantly fighting for sun-exposure with the upper bloom . She is often sad, and her petals droop often. Kesian. I’d really love to help her get as much sun as her older twin…but I don’t know how to do that without having to conduct surgery and break their enjoined hips apart.

Smokey is enjoying the balcony garden very much, and often kepo around the pots and do her smell-check. We grew a small pan of cat-grass for her…and she loves it. The things I do for the cats…sigh.

I really hope my Tomato Project bears fruit (lame, lame pun). Serious. My Singaporean kiasu side decided to have it all – I have 3 varieties of tomatoes planted, Cherry tomatoes, Beefsteak tomatoes (huge, round ones) and Lemon Boy tomatoes (yellow, round tomatoes). I named the Lemon Boy tomato plant ‘Fazimato’ – after Fazi, my oldest friend from childhood. We used to live in the same kampung. I planted the Lemon Boy on her birthday, May 21st. Since I didn’t get her anything for her birthday, I called her in SG and announced I am naming a tomato plant I am planting that day after her. Only childhood friends can get away with weird gifts like that.
I wonder how many more plants I have to name.

All these after an initial strategy to impress Mak and Busu when they are here. Talk about over-doing it !

I should really update, before I get flogged by the village-idiots.

Now that the Canucks are out of the Playoffs, my life has settled quite a bit – with an occassional (*correction* – make that every 2 days ) fix of hockey, cheering for other teams. I have made a vow NOT to talk about hockey during meetings, or even allow other associates to bring it up. I tend to get distracted, and those meetings will go off-tangent for a good 10 minutes. Everyone in Canada it seems, knows a thing or two about how to run a hockey team. In everyone’s fantasy, they SHOULD be the General Manager of some hockey franchise, well, somewhere.

We have moved recently. A week to be exact. We are enjoying this new place very much. though boxes still abound around the house, but we’ll get to it. My mum and Busu are coming in July – so I am looking forward to that. I have been planning a list of to-dos while they are here and I realise it IS a tad challenging. I need to charm mak – because I want her to be go home convinced that Canada is not-too-bad. She does not have an impression on Canada, so this first visit will be the benchmark. Other than the sea, the mountains, the rivers and the gorgeous wildlife that I know she will love, what else can I do to make her WANT to spend time here as an annual affair?

So I came up with an idea. It HAS to be something that my sister’s lovely house in JB cannot compete with (hah, she will probably be shaking her head when she read this!). I know mak has been planting stuff in a little plot in my sister’s garden…but I bet she did not get to plant….*drum roll*…. TOMATOES!

Oh my brilliant mind ! How I love thee! I am so determined to make the tomato planting work its charm on Mak (and Busu!) that I have been spending time reading about it. Growing tomato plants in the balcony in Vancouver is not impossible it seems – and you can get an abundant harvest most times. You can also accompany your planters with salad leaves, cucumbers and many other vegetables in your mini-balcony garden. I bet you can throw in a chicken or two in there.

Now the problem is – I am ZERO-skilled at planting. I don’t have green fingers – just brown ones. My not-so-brilliant mind in gardening obviously needs help from the experts, and I think I may have to call up Dr N’s help on this. Her parents have not only SUPERgreen fingers, they have them in BRIGHT LIME green! I remember how I gushed over their vegetable garden in their huge backyard. So lush, and so productive!

So let’s see if this tomato project becomes a reality. You know it is successful when mak wants to come visit again NEXT summer saying “Aku nak pergi rumah Uja lah. Boleh petik tomato.”

That would be awesome.Even when it means I am competing for mak’s attention with a red, round fruit.

Sorry folks, another sports post.

So DH indulged me with 2 tickets to the Canucks vs Phoenix game last Monday evening. It was some kind of a reward for his wife’s good behaviour, so instead of a hot fudge candy, I get to go to GM Place and watch the guys kick some a..

Oh man, was I excited! I WAS so anxious I couldn’t sleep the night before. It didn’t help that I was having a long day of different meetings, but I was so determined that nothing will stop me from watching my super spring chicken Mason Raymond live in action, get myself drowned in the thunderous singing of the national anthem O’Canada, and of course – watching and joining the thousands of back-bencher coaches shouting at professional athletes how to play hockey better.

At the last game we went to, I had embarassed DH by shouting “Oiii!!! Booddddoohh” to the rink whenever the players make a stupid pass, in a sea of Canadian fans. I realised that when it comes to your natural reflex, your native tongue takes precedence. Now in a given time, I am pretty sure my appropriate Malay vocab might just give way to something way more dangerous, those power-words in Hokkien. I was genuinely afraid of that moment. The moment the Hokkien apek crawls out of my brain and out through the mouth and splat onto the rink. By then, someone may just be shoving chilli onto my face to shut me up. There ARE kids watching hockey all around me. So I sticked to Malay, religiously. “Bodoh” is oh-so-mild.

We got really good seats, right at the centre-ice on the upper bowl where the real (read: non-corporate and beer-happy fans, urrrgh) are. I was surrounded by a spectrum of them. Above me was an annoying 17 year old who called EVERYONE in her entire universe on her cellphone, shouting and screaming how SHE is watching the game live and her friends are not. Her conversation goes something like this:

Annoying girl: Ohhhh myyyyy Gooooodddd!!! Do you know where I ammmmmm??? I am at the gammmmeee!!!!! Oh my Goooddddd!!! Did you see Taylor Pyatt???He is sooooo HOOOTTTTTTT!!!!

Friend on the other end: (because I can’t hear, I can only speculate). Repeat same dialogue as above. Replace “I am at the gammmmeee” with “You are????”

Annoying girl: Ohhhhh myyy Gooodddd!!!! I am so gonna call you at the first goal okaaayyyy??? He is sooo hooottttt!!! This is soooo coooolll!!!! Love youuuu!!!! XO!!!

Man, who has conversations saying ‘XO’ at the end? DH and I looked at each other and we both thought the same thing, it felt like we were reading transcripts of an MSN conversation. I figure that if I want to get into the groove, the next time I call my mum in SG I should also be spewing,“Maaaak. Mason Raymond sooo hoootttt maaakk!!!. Ok, Uja dah nak pergi goreng mee ni. XO!!!” Sigh.

Anyway, the annoying girl behind me was complimented by a pair of very veteran looking hockey fans on my left.They were at least 60 years of age, and was doing nothing but a running analysis of the entire game. I am talking abt BIG TIME analysis here. The kind where if you replace the hockey terms with financial ones, you will probably make some money in some dodgy hedge fund. They coulnd’t stop talking, albeit in hushed tones. With the annoying girl behind me, I didn’t mind them. I bet they were as much as in a mood of “aku nak lempang ajer budak belakang ni” mood as I am.

Then, on our right are the quintessential hockey dudes just out there for a good time. They were a riot. Half the time we were laughing our heads off with their jokes and banter, and boy – can they really talk to the rink!

But alas, no game is uneventful – especially when it is NOT a free ticket and you spent money on it. The last game I went to, there was no Mason Raymond and we arrived late, which means I missed the anthem. This time, we arrived really early so I won’t miss it (even when I don’t know how to sing it). And of all days…they HAD to choose some koyak hipster to sing the otherwise majestically beautiful song. It was so bad, the spectators couldn’t keep up. Watch for yourself and judge. Man, the Canucks looked pissed.

And oh, his Star Spangled Banner was much worse. Even Bush would have sung a much better rendition with his toy banjo on a one-legged donkey.

And then, as if that was not a bad start, my super spring chicken Raymond got a bad hit and end up not being able to play for the next 4 weeks. When that incident happened and I realised that he was not getting up, I was so panicky that my motherly instinct came through. “He is just a boyyyyy!!!! Don’t hurt him!!!!!” He is just a boyyyy!!!“, I shouted in an ocean of sounds. Like anyone cares. I was beginning to sound like the annoying 17 year old behind me. The only one who cared was DH. He was shaking his head.

But, hey we won 3-1 that night. I almost hopped and skipped back to our car. In fact, I did, but maybe because it was freaking 5 degrees outside and we had to walk for 10 mins to the parkade in the cold.

I am still sore about being shortchanged for a rousing, live anthem experience. I wanted to be moved, the way I always do when I watch it on TV. I guess it wasn’t meant to be, and that guy really should have been hit with a hockey stick the moment he went sooo off-key.

Disclaimer: I have not shifted loyalties. This is still my number one anthem. (Sung at the 2004 FIFA World Cup Qualifier in Japan)

Yes, I admit it. It has happened before, and it is happening again. I am (other than the now infamous tag ‘spa-addict’) …*hides face*….a seasonal sports fan. Spectator sports to be exact. Note the keyword ‘seasonal’.

During my *ahem* slimmer days, soccer – the Malaysia Cup to be exact, rules. I love watching a competitive sport which is team-based, and I enjoy thinking ahead for the players and see how they read the game.

Like everybody else, I followed the Singapore soccer team during the glorious 90’s closely, so close to the point that my friends and I eventually get to know some of the players personally. Yes – groupie is the name they (or rather other girls who did NOT get as close as we did) called us. I don’t like that word. It makes me feel like a female fish – be it the tiny guppy or the delicious garoupa. You choose.

Then, about 7 years or so ago, thanks to a close knit group of guy friends who swear they are F1 racers incarnate, I left soccerdom and plunged into F1. The speed…oh my God..the SPEED! Back then, you cannot beat my precise and comprehensive knowledge about F1 , even if you were an intern with the BMW-Williams team!

Which reminds me, I did, and yes I DID, applied for a job with the UK-based Williams team. I emailed them some long garbage about how I should be a part of their entourage, my media connection then (what connection? I was so damn young!) and many other forgettable reasons which I am sure made the Head of Personnel of Williams (whoever he is) forgets. When I get hooked to a sport, I dive in head-first. When F1 was the rage for me, I took matters into my own hands and pray for a media pass. God was generous with me (and I am not sure I deserved it, but I am thankful masya’allah!) and in 2002 I was somewhat sent down to Melbourne to cover Toyota’s first year at the F1 Grand Prix – complete with cocktails to attend, shoulders to rub with Mika Salo and a very insightful chat with Gustav Brunner. I was fascinated by Gustav’s engineering prowess. He, was fascinated by my hijab.

Yes, I was in heaven. In F1 heaven. I won’t even mention here about the pit-stop tours and the over abundant food that we were served at the Paddock Club. “That’s halal pastrami for you, mam,” a blonde waiter chips in politely. How thoughtful. Ahhh, I like this Paddock Club thing. If only I can afford the US$4,000 ticket to get in. Some of you, I am sure, will also remember my fascination with the oh-so-cute Alex Yoong, even when his pokak Minardi car stalled half the time on the circuit.

And then life happens, and I slowly entered an inexplicable F1 funk. I did miss the team-based energy that soccer offers, and I missed very much, the speed of F1. As the plot unfurled, Canada came by. And I was thrown, PMS included, into the world of brawl-and-brawn filled hockey.

Team-based sport + Speed = Hockey.
Hockey + Canada = Addiction.
Addiction + Propensity to like spectator sports irrationally = Mason Raymond.

Ahhh… Raymond. Everybody LURRVVES Raymond. Only 22, a fresh rookie with the Vancouver Canucks and skates oh so well *wide smile on my pathetic face*. He is almost too beautiful to watch when he skates pass his checkers and shoots an unresisting puck into the net *wideR smile on my pathetic face*. DH is very well aware of this new fixation, and he couldn’t care less. Why would he? He knows Raymond has everything he has too (or at least that’s what I told him…shhh!). Raymond is a calm, patient and focused player, much like the calm, patient and focused supergeek that DH is. But wait. Raymond likes Border Collies and DH likes Huskies. Raymond plays NHL hockey, and DH plays hockey on the PSP. Raymond is engaged, and I am married. Dang.

But Raymond aside (seriously, he is a spring chicken who has hundreds of girls going after his dimples!) hockey is the next best thing for me right now, almost a super-sport, and solid combination of things I love about soccer and F1. The thing is, seeing how fanatic I have become and how supportive DH is of my endless bohemian bungees, he has been pressing me about putting my name on the waiting list for the Canucks season tickets (which will probably take a year or two to secure, and an arm and a leg to pay for). I should be jumping at it, yes? But I didn’t.

They say age comes with wisdom, or the other way round. I figure at this rate, hockey will slowly enter its self-prophesised funk too in a couple of years. So by the time I get my round of season tickets, I am not soooo into the game anymore. Who knows what my ‘next’ supersport will be. As long as it is not, *LOUD cough* , a very-odd-sport called curling.

For that, pls God – let hockey stay.

1994 – Malaysia Cup : Singapore vs Kedah – Fandi Ahmad’s Magic

2002 – F1 Grand Prix: Melbourne’s Starter Crash

2008 – NHL Playoff Race: Canucks vs Oilers – Fight-filled match

Ah oh. I really shouldn’t be blogging and make preps for the birthday do tonight. But I can’t help it, I waited for that time-stamp on my blog for 4 years. So a little distraction just to document it will be ok, wouldn’t it?

Anyway, I always feel so very lucky on the 29th. It is a weird feeling to be a leap year baby, and I recall my tiny fingers scrawling the number ’29’ in a red marker, on the calendar on some years when there is no leap day.

I got my semi-surprised birthday gift from DH at the stroke of midnight last night. I was, of all things, slumped unceremoniously in front of my Mac – staring hard at the Canada Revenue website (yes, DEFINITELY unceremonious!). There were some company matters to attend to, and I was reading through tax (*read: BORING) information. At 11.59 pm, DH burst into the homeoffice with a little wrapped box in hand. I was of course super excited and opened it. It was …errr.. a box of matches. It came with a note that says the real present has ‘walked’ away…and it is somewhere near the keyboard. Oh well…I have a treasure hunt to participate!

It was a lovely gift. And very timely too. You see, in the past month or so – we have been taking walks around the neighbourhood. In my true Asian fashion, I will ONLY wear whats comfortable on my feet – and with evening temperatures sometimes hitting below zero degrees, nothing else matters. I have been walking with my Rockport sandals because they were the most comfortable for me, even if they are open-toed ones! Yes, I have been walking in below zero temperature (on some nights) with just socks and sandals warming my feet. My trainers were broken, and I didn’t want to buy a pair just for the sake of buying one. I am pretty happy with my Rockports, thank you.

So to Nike DH went for my birthday gift – all nicely wrapped in a huge orange bow.

The usual wishes came through various means, via Facebook, MSN, SMS, phonecalls and emails. Thank God for technology. I don’t remember having to reply to so many birthday wishes all at the same time.

I woke up this morning with a quiet conversation with God, thanking Him for his many bounties in all of my years.

Then, an email came from my cousins. The title was “The Secret of Leap Years” and I thought it was a forwarded email of sorts. It was around 7.30 am, I was sleepy and opened it. My cousin had made a video of some really funny photos with some funny twisted stories, complete with wishes from my family. Goodness..that video made me laughed so hard and bawled like a kid. I don’t really know why I was bawling, and we were laughing it all off over Skype a few minutes later. He even bought a cake and 9 candles as ‘prop’, made his kids sing a birthday song and blow it for me just for the camera . LOL. That’s one birthday cake I DON’T get to eat.

The last message on the video was from Mak. It was a classic birthday message from her – it always end with a reminder on not forgetting God and prayers.

I will always remember Mak’s story about the day I was born. She said there has been a huge thunderstorm while she was in labour in that small clinic called Chong Clinic I think, and my late Mak Ngah was getting nervous for my birth. She made a nazar for Mak’s safe labour, and apparently after I was born – the storm subsided. In the midst of all these attention I am getting on this leap birthday, 2 women stay central in my heart.

Arwah Mak Ngah for her prayers for Mak, and my sweet mum for teaching me what Ihsan means even when I didn’t understand its true meaning then.

Thank you Allah for all your gifts. I have so much to be thankful for, and I pray You bless many others with the same, if not more.

View in winter and summer

This past month has been energy sapping, but the most fulfilling of 2008 so far. It is a strange combination of a very loose grip on what kind of certainty the future holds as well as resounding faith that He has a very big plan. The latter, excites DH and I of course. We are waiting, in firm faith, for the very gentle, enveloping wind.

We have had a very peaceful closure to losing Cookie to the urban jungle, and are very centered on the fact that he was either rescued and taken in by another pet-lover in the neighbourhood, or had died. Both ways, we are thankful for the many fun moments we had with him, even those days when he peed on our pants every time we try to take him to the vet! Those were the days. Cookie remains a special pet to both of us (although between DH and I, the number of pets we had combined can somewhat qualify to be a mini-zoo!). We remember him very fondly, and talk about him often. We left his fate to God, and make constant du’a for his wellbeing if he is alive. The rest, is really not in our hands.

In replacement, Smokey was sent our way. It was a very strange turn of events where Smokey, who lived in the Mission home, was left without anyone taking her in when we all moved out (she is fed and watched over while the house was in the market for sale). There were a few families interested to take her in, but my FIL (who loves Smokey dearly) was reluctant to agree. So her new home status was somehow left in the air. When Cookie went missing and the search for him remain fruitless, DH and I could not stop thinking that perhaps this is all God’s arrangement to ensure Smokey gets a new home, and that new home is actually ours. We took her in late December, and she has been the sweetest cat ever since. She is a hunter and was the one who taught Cookie most of his hunting and outdoor skills, when we all lived in Mission.

There are a few things brewing on the workfront, and I find it very rewarding navigating the maze. I am so thankful at how much help God has given me this past year, and how He guided me to tread the tempestous waters of TV broadcasting here. Such invisible hands. I really don’t want to lose that, insya’allah.

And so this entry was a quick insight that I felt during yesterday’s Tafsir class. I have been very mindful of the popularity of The Secret worldwide, and know of many instances where people attribute their new successes to The Secret’s principles of self-empowerment and visualing positive thoughts. On a very superficial level, critics would dismiss The Secret as a pop-version of positive thinking, without the psycho-babble. Normally, I would have been okay with that. But I felt that there was more, but I couldn’t point a finger at what it was that I find uncomfortable about The Secret.

Yesterday, I think I finally got it. It was this resting of your destiny and fate in your own hands, a manifestation of arrogance and pride – that does not rest well with me. It is antithetic to taqwa, in surrendering and remembering God. I want to work hard for my keep, only if God wills it and the keep makes me closer to Him. I am frightful of wanting something , that will make me loose that taqwa grip. It is so easy to do that. We are all no saints. I am sure we can agree on that at least.

So the principles of The Secret, if you are not careful, will bring you to that point where you do not surrender in its true sense. You can be whispering to yourself “I am visualising positive things, but I know God will determine if I get it or not” and think that is okay. Would that mean we are asking first, giving (to Him) second? I think so. Giving in this context refers to increasing our taqwa, abiding His commandments and contributing to the ummah.

I feel that if we ask the “universe” for what we want, as how The Secret people puts it – we are weaving a very thin line of arrogance (to God’s mercy) and ungratefulness (to what He has given us). Even if by the term “universe” – they are actually referring to God and making Him pop-culturish. It is like without paying the rent, you ask the houseowner if you can stay for the next year.

It is no secret that we have to say our thanks to God for many things, including your ability to move your eyes right now to read this blog post this far. Just check the 3 books of the world’s monotheistic faiths, and count how many times He asks mankind to remember and be thankful to Him.

And that, is no big secret.

Video by MAS Media Foundation.
Music by Kareem Salama (www.kareemsalama.com), a Muslim country musician.

Glorious.

Some years ago, I recall bumping into a pair of dog-owners in a typically humid Singapore park (in Tampines), obviously walking their dog. There was nothing strange to that sight, but it was baffling to see the dog’s breed. It was a husky, an obviously unhappy one. The best phrase I can describe the dog is – it looked drained. Then, the only real husky I have seen was a gorgeous furry one on a roadtrip in Canada, and it was love at first sight for me- because the husky was so obviously enjoying the whiffs of the cold wind against his face, his eyes glistening with joy. The husky I saw in Singapore, was far from glistening from ANY kind of joy.

Two years on and I was back in Singapore again. I read a local story with much anger and frustration. Some chap decided to own a husky, kept him tied outside his landed property house (in a typical Singapore heat of 32 degrees, mind you!) and didn’t care much about the dog’s welfare. I think the observant neighbours called the SPCA, and the cruelty made news. I was fuming then, and remember ranting to DH about it.

Now, this year, I got to interact quite a bit with these lovely dogs in Alberta. These are trained, running huskies, whose daily ‘job’ is to run sleds across fields of snow and frozen lakes. I saw how they rolled on the snow with glee, barked in in excitement and most of all, that glisten of joy in their eyes were etched perpetually. I appreciate how much these huskies are born for the cold weather, the Canadian-kind of cold weather may I add – the kind of cold that even some Canadians define as punishing. I therefore, cannot fathom why would supposedly dog-‘lovers’, a definition I contest in this case, would keep huskies in Singapore when the weather is so unnatural for these canines.

Today, a friend told me about her ex-neighbours who used to own not one, but TWO huskies in their HDB flat. They are walked every day, but even if the dogs are being walked at dawn or dusk (when the weather in Singapore is the coolest) and possibly kept in air-conditioned rooms 24/7, the huskies are still being kept as pets in their most unnatural state, cooped up in a concrete jungle. I am so ready to take on the debate about ‘cruelty to animals’ without batting an eyelid with the Singapore husky-owners.

I was also told about how owning huskies in Singapore has become a trend now. People are seen walking them in parks and beaches, and in increasing numbers.

It will be a long shot, but I really hope the authorities (the AVA) will come in to at least ban huskies in Singapore. It is ridiculous and totally unacceptable to have a cold-weather dog like the husky in an island enveloped by tropical heat. In some ways, it is almost a joke. I googled and just saw an ad for a white husky puppy going for SGD$1,388 – and there were a few interested queries. Seems like the husky is a coveted pet.

I realised that there is a very thin line between animal lovers, and animal posers. I hope Singapore husky owners know that they cannot win this argument, no matter how they try.Deep down, if they truly care for their animals, it is not hard to believe that they do. They just let their desire to have an exotic animal (at least for tropical Singapore) for showy purposes rule their better judgement. That to me, is a very sad state of affairs for a nation of thinking adults.

The next time you see them walking their huskies at the parks or beaches, look at them direct in the eye and ask if they REALLY think their dogs are happy with the Singapore weather. And then pat yourself in the back for doing your part to stop these ultimate animal posers.

The huskies can’t talk back, but YOU can.

PS: Huskies (including the popular American and Siberian ones, are banned and restricted from ownership in the US. And the last I checked most of the US are located within the Northern Hemisphere. Hah. Go figure. )