Empathy, sympathy, compassion

October 19, 2020.Reading time 6 minutes.

The definitions of empathy, sympathy and compassion used to be a little unclear to me. Not anymore. I’ve had some recent first-hand experiences to set me straight. My husband fell off Snoopy, his motorcross bike, a few weeks ago. Sustained a number of injuries. Nothing too serious. Not like the ankle bone he broke last […]

PHP 7 – How? What?

October 12, 2020.Reading time 6 minutes.

Its finally caught up with me. No more excuses. The dread of the PHP 7 upgrade. I’ve been dodging the bullet for over a year now. I’ve read enough. I know why I should upgrade/migrate. I sort of get and don’t get what I should do to make the upgrade possible. My head is blurry. […]

My mum’s recipe 6: Upma

October 5, 2020.Reading time 7 minutes.

I don’t like Upma. I don’t like its taste, texture or look. My mum likes it. So much that she’d probably have it every Friday, her second vegetarian day in the week, if she could. Monday is her first designated non-meat day. My mum’s vegetarian days go up each month correspondingly with the number of […]

Take heed

September 28, 2020.Reading time 6 minutes.

I smelt gas as I walked out of the lift to my condo. I sniffed harder. There was the smell of gas in the air. I walked into our condo and asked my husband if he smelt it. He opened the cupboard that housed the gas tank. Nothing. But the cupboard adjacent to the electric […]

Memory lane

September 21, 2020.Reading time 6 minutes.

I love my mum. Always have. She turns 87 next Sunday. With her birthday around the corner, I was thinking more about her. As she is now. An old girl. Hearing suspect. Memory failing. Sleepy dopey. Heart and head willing, but body lagging behind. With flashes of determination and stubbornness. And, as she was many […]

Forgiving

September 14, 2020.Reading time 6 minutes.

I had watched the movie, ‘A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.’ The same week, my mum told me a story about her estrangement with her stepsister’s sister-in-law. It made me think about family and friends. People, who have fallen out, and have not spoken or visited for years. Deleted from each other’s lives. With no […]

Mothagam

August 31, 2020.Reading time 6 minutes.

August 22 was Vinayagar Chathurti. My mum was fretting leading up to the big day for Lord Ganesha. She usually gets excited when there is a celebration on the horizon, particularly Deepavali. But this time she seemed concerned with her ‘To-do’ list. Shopping, cleaning the altar, sprucing up the condo and especially making ‘Mothagam’ or […]

Putrajaya and pavements

August 24, 2020.Reading time 6 minutes.

Pavements and pedestrian footpaths. It was a treat to walk. Yes, to walk from Putra Square in the north to Gemilang Square in the south. Continuously, without any encumbrances. Through a magnificent boulevard – 4 km long and 100 meter wide[1] – lined with plants, trees, parks, kiosks and Government offices. My husband and I […]

Changing expectations

August 17, 2020.Reading time 6 minutes.

Back in January, I scoffed at the idea of a Fixed Deposit (FD) rate lower than 3%. I usually scour the business pages and online promotions to compare the best FD rates offered by financial institutions. Homework is a must for a safe home for my hard earned money. Especially when the journey was long, […]

DIY

August 10, 2020.Reading time 6 minutes.

I am not a DIY- er. I have never tried to make, fix or learn how to repair things that are broken or stopped working. I don’t like DIY. Which by the way is not part of the Malaysian culture. At least, not this Malaysian. It also doesn’t help that I am hopeless at it. That […]