Cinta dulu-dulu.

Masa kat rumah Mak arituh, aku ada tanya dengan Auntie Lah, macam mana Ayah mengurat Mak ek?

Auntie Lah adik bongsu Mak. So kiranya sure Mak jadikan dia umpan untuk tipu Atuk aku kalau nak pergi dating. Sama macam Auntie Lah selalu gunakan aku masa dia bercinta dulu. Aku selalu ikut dia dengan ex-husband dia dulu pergi bercinta sebab Atuk tak kasik dia keluar berdua-duaan.

So aku tanya Auntie Lah, caner Ayah mengurat Mak.

Auntie Lah pun mulalah bercerita.

"Dulu masa mak muda-muda, dia suka tengok wayang yang 'open air' kat Club House kat belakang dewan Jubli Intan tuh."

Aku mengangguk. "Abis tuh?"

"Mak selalu lah pergi sana tengok cerita hindustan malam-malam dengan kengkawan dia. So masa kat sana, Ayah ngurat Mak lah" sambungnya lagi.

"Yelah, ngurat camana?" Aku bertanya.

"Ayah baling kacang kat Mak dari belakang"

Masa aku dengar baling kacang tuh aku dah tergelak besar. Tapi masih boleh control lagi.

"Abis tuh?"

"Mak marah. Mak tak suka. Tapi kawan Mak yang syok kat Ayah pulak"

..dia sambung lagi....

"Masa tuh Ayah hensem. Tapi Mak tak suka sebab dia mengurat cam budak kecik."

(Now I know from where I inherited that trait from)

"Dah tuh, camna lak tetiba Mak boleh suka kat Ayah?" aku tanya lagi.

"Sebab Ayah tak berenti-renti mengurat. Last-last Mak bosan, terima jerlah"

Masa nih aku dah gelak berguling atas lantai (literally sebab masa tengah bercerita kita orang tengah baring melepak depan tv).

"Wah, sakan betul Ayah. Tak sangka."

"Memang saiko apak kau tuh! Sekarang baru tahu?"

Dua-dua terus gelak besar.

*

Orang dulu-dulu nak mengurat baling kacang jer. Kalau orang lelaki sekarang mengurat ikut style macam tuh aku rasa dah lama dia orang kene tapak kasut.

Hujung Minggu Bersama Ayah

Sudah lama aku tak pulang ke kampung. Aku mahu memberikan alasan bekerja, tapi kalau nak diikutkan semua orang pun bekerja. Aku mahu berikan alasan kesesakan duit, aku tak sampai hati. Aku mengambil cuti yang panjang untuk meluangkan masa bersama Mak dan Ayah di kampung.

Ayah tak berapa sihat kebelakangan ini. Selepas dijangkiti demam Chikugunya minggu lepas, aku perasan Ayah dah semakin lemah. Tenaga dan kekuatannya sudah tidak setara jika dibandingkan dengan keadaannya sebelum dijangkiti demam tersebut.

Ayah pun semakin sensitif. Pantang ditinggikan suara (walaupun sebenarnya secara tidak sengaja), Ayah akan merajuk dan masuk ke bilik menyendiri.

Mak pesan, "Adik, kalau Ayah cakap, Adik iyakan ajer. Nanti dia merajuk. Mak sekarang biar jer apa Ayah nak cakap. Kalau tengok Ayah merajuk cam budak kecik".

Aku mengangguk.

Bila dia sudah puas bersedih, dia akan keluar dari bilik dan duduk di depan TV tanpa bercakap, atau bertutur walau sepatah kata. Ia boleh berlanjutan sehingga ke malam hari.

"Adik ada duit?", tetiba Ayah bertanya.

Bulan ini memang aku sedikit sesak. Banyak bantuan pesakit luar dihulurkan kepada rakan-rakan dan sanak saudara yang lebih memerlukan. Sesak tak sesak, telefon aku bulan ni jer dah 3-4 kali kene potong. Sebab aku bayar sikit-sikit.

Sepanjang 30 tahun, belum pernah lagi aku rasa sesak sebegini.

Tapi aku menidakkan, walaupun aku rasa jauh disudut hati Ayah dia tahu dan sedar anak bongsu dia dalam kesusahan bulan ini.

Aku masih belum gentar walaupun aku tiada duit atau kekurangan duit. Aku gentar kalau Mak dan Ayah susah hati sebab aku susah.

"Betul Adik ada duit?" Ayah seolah tidak berpuas hati.

"Ada. Kalau tada orang mintaklah nanti ok?" Aku menjawab, dan aku terus ke dapur.

Dulu Ayah pakai seluar bersaiz 40. Badan tinggi dan tegap. Tiada siapa yang mampu untuk mengurut badan Ayah tanpa rasa sengal-sengal di otot-otot tangan. Sekarang, semakin lanjut usia, badan Ayah semakin susut. Saiz seluar dah turun ke saiz 36. Badan pun dah semakin berkedut, dan sentiasa duduk memegang dada.

Doktor pesan untuk bawa Ayah ke hospital swasta, agar pemeriksaan terperinci kepada penyakit jantungnya boleh dibuat. Tapi cuma Tuhan jer yang tahu, betapa degilnya dia. Puas semua adik-beradik, makcik pakcik aku memujuk.

Kalau sakit atau demam biasa, nak pujuk ke klinik pun susah. Inikan pula, penyakit-penyakit yang kritikal.

Aku kadangkala terpaksa bertindak seakan mengugut semata-mata untuk membawa dia mendapatkan rawatan.

"Ayah kalau tak ikut Adik pergi klinik, lain kali orang tak balik lagi. Cuti pun tak balik, raya pun tak balik" aku mengugut.

Selalunya, taktik ini menjadi.

Tapi kelmarin, "Ayah tak nak pergi klinik, Ayah penat. Sakit dada. Bagi Ayah tidur dulu" , ayat ini menyebabkan aku mengalah dan bersedih sepanjang hari.

Aku biar Ayah rehat dulu. Pasangkan penghawa dingin, letakkan sebotol air mineral di sebelah katilnya, dan juga pil-pil yang perlu diambil.

3 jam Ayah tido. Ayah tak pernah tidur sebegitu lama.

Dikala itu, aku sedar, Ayah sudah tidak seperti dulu. Ayah sudah tua. Keringat dan tenaga kederatnya sudah dimamah usia.

Spontaneity

I was hunting clouds.

What was supposed to be a surprise birthday bash planned for me was canceled at a very last minute due to someone's excitement for knowing that this coming weekend is his semester break.

"Jom! Let's get out of KL!"

"Huh? You are crazy!"

He had totally forgotten about the plan he made with my darling girlfriends about my surprise birthday party. But since this is the only window of opportunity that we have to spend time together, my girlfriends let him go (with warnings of course!) and reschedule the not-so-surprise-anymore party to a more feasible time. Thanks girls, I love you guys! Thanks for being so understanding.

..sebenarnya takut bf kene kutuk ...hahahaha

So yeah, am taking a leave tomorrow because someone decided to give me an early birthday treat (as if! am sure he has something in store for him too :P), and am off to some place nice and relaxing to chill for the weekend.

Back to the 'old faithful' where it all started. ;)

The old faithful.

Stuffs.

picture taken with EOS 350D, Location: Cameron Highland, Pahang

When I first started this blog, initially I wanted to make it some sort of a gallery for me to share my collection of photographs. The idea was stunted by the fact that after doing so much of scrutinizing, I don't think any of these pictures can be considered good enough for public view.

Takmaulah orang cakap orang nak amik gambar dia pun sibuk nak amik gambar. Tapi nan ado katanya... (haha tetiba bahasa fefonen..jgn marah)

But lately I have been getting good reviews from my flickr page and emails saying that I should give a photography a serious try. Some of them were really impressed with my "good eyes".

(matilah sebenarnya rabun ayam tapi tada siapa tahu? :P Gambar amik tada angle, sekali jer snap sesuka hati.)

Those supports and admirations somewhat injected me with a bit of confidence, and force me to think, maybe I can do this. *berangan tahap dewa*

So here I am. Back to the initial plan. I'll start to publish one or two pictures per entry, although it is not related with the entry of the day. Ok?

macamlah ada ramai sangat orang yang baca blog ni.

Taken with Nokia D60, Location : Batu Caves, Selangor

*
I now pronounce my brother a divorcee. They have officially separated on the 6th of Aug. Adik(Nasri) and him planned to have a joint celebration (Adik's birthday was on the 5th Aug) to commemorate his new found freedom.

Since after the separation, he has been taking Baby (his daughter) to my place every weekend, so that they could spend time together. I love having both of them around.

Meriah skit rumah.

So on Saturday, I'd be spending quality time with my niece while Mr.Snots can go and attend his classes. It's a win-win situation.

My fave niece. ..Baby and her cat, Kucing. *rolls eyes*
Shot was taken by point and shoot SONY DCS T5 , Location : Old Apt.

All of my nieces and nephews called me Uchu, being the youngest in the family. But Baby can never say it correctly. Most of the time she'd be calling me Achu. Close enough. But there's this one time she called me Tochu :O

Sib baik bukan tauchu. hehehe.

Her fave sentence is "Ini Baby punya". Once she blurts that thing out, don't even think of taking that stuff away from her. Even my new TV now belongs to her.

kalau tiga hari dia duduk rumah, tiga-tiga harilah kita orang semua tengok reruns of Lion King, Barney, Teletubbies and Dora. o_O

Loved and Overwhelmed.

Disclaimer.
This entry is so keji. You might want to puke or feel like killing yourself after reading this post, so consider yourself warned. Proceed with a plastic bag in hand if you will. You can choose to barf in it, or strangle yourself with it.

Pic was taken by Canon EOS 350d, location: Cameron Highland, Pahang

It has been two months since we first said iloveyou to each other, and I have officially shed tears for 16 times and counting; I am pretty sure there's a lot more coming my way looking at the rate of it. Tears of joy and love, most of the time; and tears of anger, for the rest of it. Anger triggered by my past, jealousy, miscommunication; you name it, most likely we have gone through it. We are still in the stage of getting to know and adapting towards each other, so we are certainly bound to make mistakes, lots and lots of it.

When I'm my normal erratic self (and this happens not just during the time of the month!!) ; I get pissed off, annoyed and feeling all sensitive easily. Thank god for the past two months, he has been coping with it quite well if I may say so. I can be so hardheaded at times, I am sure he sometimes do feel like pulling his hair when we are in that situation. But being cool and macho, most of the time, he would just kept quiet.

It is always so hard (no pun intended :P) between us, because although we share the same passion in life (read: gigantic power transmission towers perched all over the country, MatLab coding, boring engineering stuff, photography) we are totally on the extreme opposite side when it comes to everything else.

Firstly, he is more "Malay" than I could ever be. Even if I am the "Malay" one in this relationship, and he is not. He loves his ulam, like how i love my coffee. He knows every name of the ulams, rebung, pokok-pokok, like how the cows know its grass and grains. :P

He cooks, and I eat.

When we argue, I would like to talk things out, come clean and sort it out there and then, but he would prefer to be left alone. Just let him be for few hours, and then feed him. He'd be okay after that. (and that was his exact sentence mind you).

While I am more of the organized type, he is more hippie in a way. Everything with him is quite spontaneous.

While I do think more and need time to rethink the situation again and again and again..he acts on it.

He is the morning, early bird type and I'm just too lazy to wake up way too early regardless of whether it is my working day or not.

We do complement each other if you wish to see it in a different angle, but knowing me, am sure am going to make it hard for this relationship to work. I don't adapt and change my anally-retentive-strict-for-no-reason self that well. Here in this post, am giving my assurance that I am learning as I move along with him.

Certainly, there are moments that I would treasure my whole life, and keep on using it as an excuse/reason for me to work things out and go forward with him, no matter how difficult the situation might be.

There's this one time, it happened somewhere in June, when he was helping me out moving stuff from the old house to the new one. After chucking all the stuff in, we sat in the empty living room taking a breather... he reached for the guitar and started singing one song after another.

(He has this tendency of bursting into songs, using the words we use in our daily conversation as cues *looks at Leen* *Aries!!, rolls eyes*)

Then he sang me this one particular song from the Everly Brothers called Let it be me.

(i know, he is such an old soul trapped in a not so young body. He is ancient when it comes to his choice of music)

He sang it with such passion and feelings, both of us were totally overwhelmed by it. I was looking deep into his eyes, and he was looking into mine..digesting and absorbing every single words coming out from his mouth. Suddenly both of us cried, and we couldn't stop. It was such a freaking waterworks display.

That song touched us like nothing else can. We were totally absorbed into the moment and lost in oblivion. I never really cry for something so sappy and romantic, so I put the blame on the gloomy weather and the emptiness of the apartment area.

We were laughing and crying and alternate between the two like a bunch of hyenas. It was so embarrassing. *malu*

For the past 6 years that I have known him, I never once see this side of him. I don't know whether this kind of things happen to you guys out there often, but not to me.

I realized at that point of time, I want him in my life and for the first time, I feel that I've made the best decision to be in a relationship with him.