It's been raining for the past 24 hours now and waters have risen in several parts of the state. It's cold and wet and when you don't really want to sleep (because that's what people are wont to do in this sluggish weather), and today being Sunday too, you make excuses and delve into your favourite hobbies.

Up and about as usual by 7.30am, I picked up my sewing again! I've never disclosed this side of me here, but I've been sewing cross-stitch since I was 7 when Mrs. Yeoh made all the girls in Std. 1B sew on pieces of cloths with huge red checks. It had been rows upon rows of simple X's back then. Now I sew more intricate designs, preferring sceneries with birds in them. Birds, or ducks. I do not know why. They add elegance and life to the stillness of a background. If the duck sits on the water, the half cross-stitches beneath it are the shimmering shadows in delicate hues.

I am currently sewing a picture of waterfalls against a background of cool intriguing rainforest, in emerald green, and vines toiling around dark trunks. There is no bird in this one but there are tiny yellow flowers strewn across the cotton forest. There are still 3 panels for me to do before the picture is done, and I cannot sew fast enough. I am simultaneously reading `The God of Small Things' by the Indian writer Ayadh .......It is a `bestseller' but I find it crawling with over-abundance of similes. The writer compares everything with something! Of course it's a very clever thing to do but sometimes the reader just wants to hurry on to the plot and the story.

So how do I juggle between so many things to do?

Time. I time whatever I do...like, ok, today, I will sew for one hour from 08.30 to 09.30, then vacuum the house for like 10 minutes, and mop the floors for 8 minutes (because the twins were coming today and they'd mess it up in seconds again anyway); then have my cuppa hot Milo while I read `The God of Small Things', for 45 minutes. Lunched out with the twins and my kids at a Mall because of the pouring rain, mingling with Chinese New Year shoppers and Iman and Imran saw their first Lion Dance! They were enthralled and how delightful to witness their excitement at the loud drums and cymbals and the graceful leaps and sways of the `lions'. And they have learned to be appreciative because they clapped and laughed with the crowd! Iman has begun to address himself as `Abang' now..so adorable to hear him say in his high young voice, "Abang nak..." ..and Nenek wondered WHEN he had become so `big' whereas she watches him every single day?

Ah. A hodge-podge of ideas in my writing today. I am sitting at my Internet Cafe. There are not that many users tonight because of the rain. I cannot decide whether to listen to Laura Fygi or the Beatles but I think I will start with Marc Anthony. You-tube...you wonderful creation.

picked-the-pen...

Greetings Earthlings! (TQ Deq)

Am back from Everywhereland and realised with a huge bumpety-bump that I've lost all touch with the literary side of me for the past 3 or so months. Oh, not exactly, because I did read the original 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons' by Fitzgerald and it truly is a brilliant piece of creative writing. And I received 3 copies of classic novels, all leather-bound, from Fadinha, for that annual `Family Night' so I guess that justified my literariness.

What had occupied me so much?

Well, my Regal Tea Room Boutique was launched on the 14th of November 2010 by the YAM Tunku Shahariah, President of the JB Speakers' Club. Nothing fancy..the Club members came for the 'Launch & Lunch' and we had a casual little gathering. No balloons, no fanfare, just good old friendship. Then family came and we caught up on news and stuff.

Then immediately after that, we moved into our new house at Taman Ponderosa and believe me, it was not just MOVING INTO, it was a massive upheaval from one residence of 17 years to another one which has a totally new concept. My better half (why do they say this?) thought it was cool to buy a house one third the size of the present one, all ready for that `retirement' when he thought retirement is all about wake up in the morning for coffee and toast and golf and tea and dinner at the club and sleep...so cosy. Just the two of us. So unreal.

I'm not complaining because like a chameleon, I change easily to suit what surrounds me. Versatile and adaptable. And thankful for the shelter above my aging head. The new house has an open studio kitchen made for one cook. More than one, and our bumps bump. Not meant for the deep-fried sambal ikan kering and petai and other oily Malay dishes. For laughing out loud, imagine me wearing a frilly floral Laura Ashley apron and delicately balancing a wooden spatula while stirring soup with one finger. hehe.

Have not written about the famous Twins. They are all grown at Two-And-A-Half, they are at that Terrible Two age group. and when they come to our ,er, retirement house, they more than fill it up. They drag their blue wagons laden with half a ton of toys from hall to kitchen and back again, in 3 minutes. They come into Nenek's kitchen built for one and open the sizeable fridge and drank half a tiny bottle of Vitagen and spilled the other half just for the sake of doing so. Then they chase and scare the droppings out of the poor little sparrows in the yard, screaming "'Uyung! 'Uyung!" (boo-hoo, they lisp! they disfigure all the beauty of language! they say things so adorably!)...

And to date, I have not yet actually moved all our things from the old house. It will take me the next seventeen years to do so completely. How could I leave behind Fadinha's collection of Bookworm series, or Adam's box of broken bicycle gadgets, or Kak Lin's collection of cassette tapes, or Ali's kiddy clothes? Memories. All memories.

And I'm the weak one for memories.

Be writing again, now that I've picked up the pen once more.

By the by, it's still January, so a belated Happy New Year, a good Twenty-Eleven to everyone.