The Ground Beneath My Feet

First of all, my deepest sympathies to all who lost their family, friends and valuables in the recent landslide at Bkt Ant*rabangsa. Al-fatihah..

You know something is seriously wrong when the ground beneath your feet moves faster than you do. Yours truly is also a landslide victim, albeit one on a smaller scale than the BA one where the only casualties were 11 cars parked in an unfortunate spot. Still, whether there were lives lot or not, the landslide which happened right outside my office window really shook me.

There we were, happily banging away at our respective key-boards at 5pm and anticipating going-home time in an hour or so, when we received an IM flashed across our computer screens.. something like this: "Slope along Jln So-and-so is unstable. Please move your cars." Not even a minute or two later, there was this loud SNAP sound (probably the divider breaking), a louder whoosh followed by a sickening crunch and a small tremor which was felt throughout our building. Someone shouted "Bukit dah jatuh!". I thought it was a joke until everyone rushed up to the windows and someone else screamed. I squeezed my way to a window and what I saw really turned my blood cold... a huge stream of soil, rocks and debris flowed from the top of the retainment wall down to the parking lot below, crushing the cars beneath. Earlier in the week, D*KL had cordoned off the parking bays at the top of the retainment wall after the ground sunk a few inches. But apparently no one warned those who used the parking lot below between the two buildings.

People started grabbing their belongings and running out of the building. In the confusion, I managed to save my work, switch off my PC, text message my husband, grab my handbag and even retrieve a tupperware of strawberry tart that I'd stashed in the fridge. I held hands with one of the kakak from my department all through the lift ride up and manged to walk calmly to the emergency evacuation area. We had to walk past the fallen area.. almost half the road was gone! A friend from another department called me to check on me (thanks Alina). The security personnel were urging us down the hil to safer ground and I just went with the flow. I did not know that there were so many people in the 3 buildings! Suddenly I realised that I didn't have a way to go home as my husband would only finish work at 6pm, and given the horrific traffic jam already happening below he didn't have a chance in hell of getting there by 8pm. I quickly called another kakak from my office who managed to get me a ride to the LRT station in her friend's car.

In the LRT, I texted my dad and called my mom to teman me because I was feeling weird and n shock. Who knows what would have happened to me in that state, right? I would've probably missed my stop and gotten lost. At the interchange, I called my BFF when I boarded the monorail to Bkt *. She entertained me with various gossip all the way to P*villion where hubs was already waiting for me. To cheer me up, he took me for a nice, comforting KFC meal. Comfort food, indeed.

Later that night, I got a text from my boss telling me that our SM had granted my department a free holiday the next day as we didn't have a designated offsite office. Yippee!! All through the night and the next day I received countless calls and texts from concerned friends and family. My grandma called me three times, she was so worried and excited! Haha.

This morning I reported to the first building which was declared out of the danger zone. My building and building #2 was declared temporarily closed for a tentative 2 weeks-1 month! I went to my office to collect my belongings and saw the stream of mud had flowed down to the entrance of my building. 2 weeks indeed. Hmph.

I'm being relocated to Bangi tomorrow. Jauhnyaaaaaaa...

Home Sweet Home

Yes yes I'm still alive and blogging. Practically a month has gone by since my last post, yeah? Been pretty busy ever since all my family members successfully recovered from the flu bug. God, that was a horrible episode. Hope the bug doesn't come by visiting any time soon again, thank you very much.

First and foremost, we've finally moved! My parent's "innocent" hints got to be a bit too much ("Babah tanya what are your moving plans? Lama² tinggal rumah tu tak elok pulak...."). The winner: "Bila u pindah nanti I'm turning your room into a surau/reading room. Let me just measure for the carpets..." Okay already. So we got a lori sewa (an adventure in itself), packed up our stuff and shipped out right after Deepavali.

I'm glad to report that the kids took to the new house immediately. The best thing was that Eez started sleeping in his own room ALONE from the first night without a fuss! Of course, the TV my hubs put in there didn't hurt. We had set up his bed with new underwater-themed sheets from I*kea (Eez is fish-mad) and his fav Elmo blanket, arranged his books on the shelves and he immediately settled in. We were a bit apprehensive (and sad, on my part) to let him sleep alone in a new room in a new house so soon, but he just calmly told us to close the light and shut the door! But he did allow us to put the baby monitor on in his room. It was a bit of a struggle to get him to switch the TV off at first but now he's an absolute angel at bed times. I turn the TV off, he gets into bed with Friend and the Power Rangers figurine of the day, has a bottle of milk (yep, still a baby at heart), permits me to kiss and tuck him in and falls asleep by himself. Of course, I check on him about 20 times before I go to bed myself!

It's great to be living on our own again. Sure, the morning rush to drop the kids off and get to work is a bit mad, but we've become used to it by now. Everything in the fridge is ours, we have total command of the remote control and we can eat what we want! At the moment our downstairs area is completely devoid of furniture except for a patio set which temporarily serves as our dining table and two carpets. And we still have to buy curtains and a washing machine (currently we send our clothes to Laundry KJ. Haha.). But don't worry, I will have you guys over for makan-makan soon, only let me buy kitchen appliances first!

Cheers!

Tis the Season for Tissues and Ibuprofen

Yep.. it's that time of year when practically everyone whips out their tissues and sniff, sneeze and cough away. The time when bosses start tearing their hair out when staff attendance is low ("Boss.. saya MC. Demam."). The time when you complain in a pitiful voice that your head feels like it's in the clouds, your throat tastes of cotton, your joints ache and your nose runs like a faucet and the other person says knowingly, "Yeah.. tengah musim ni. My sibling/friend/parent/colleague also has it."

I finally succumbed to the flu today after son#2 and my dad were struck down by it during the past week. First came the sniffles yesterday. I manfully popped a couple of P*nadols, clamped a tissue to my nose and went to work. By the end of the day my nose was permanently red and threatening to peel due to the constant dabbing with a tissue. When I woke up this morning, my head was heavy but I didn't have a fever (tested myself with kids' Safety 1st thermometer - only 36.9 degrees). I dallied in getting ready until my mom told me to go to work because "dah banyak sangat cuti dah!". Errr.. well I do get 30 days annual leave and I've only been on MC 5 days this year! Went to the office, had breakfast, swallowed 2 P*nadols and started work. Sneeze sneeze cough cough dribble. Repeat every 5 minutes. The sub-zero temperatures brought on by the air-conditioning did not help at all.

Finally, by 11am I'd had enough. I was practically comatose at my desk. I finished up my report, emailed it to my UH and got permission from my manager to go home. Yeehaa! Got my MC from the panel doctor with about 5 different types of medicine. After a quick lunch with BFF and friends, I headed home for the safe haven of my bed. #2 was taking a nap when I arrived, thank God, so I managed to escape to my bedroom undetected. #1 was awake upstairs and wanted to play. I said in my most pitiful voice, "Mom's sick. Mom nak tido." He looked at me suspiciously and said, "Sick? Ubat?" I immediately showed him my little bag of drugs. Satisfied, he nodded and granted me permission into my room.

I contemplated taking my medicine before I decided to take them. I had flu pills, fever pills, the vile cough syrup and lozenges. Now, I have a natural aversion to pills since I discovered I had an allergy to certain types of pain-killers. A few years back I suffered from particularly bad cramps and was prescribed Voltaren. Little the 80's cartoon. After one dose my eyes puffed up and I had to take another day off to wait for them to subside. After I had #1, my doctor gave me Synflex. This time, my entire face puffed up and I looked like I'd been crying for a week. Ever since, the strongest painkiller I've taken is Ponstan. Anyway, I swallowed the evil little bitter-nak-mampus flu pills and cough syrup and crashed into bed. Within minutes, I was out. During my coma-like sleep I was vaguely aware of hubs coming home and working on the lap-top beside me, my mom coming in looking for pyjamas for the kids and #1 coming in a few times to whisper excitedly that "Mom's sick!", "Mom sleeping!" and "Wook! Mom's ubat!". Whether he was talking to himself or someone else, I'll never know.

I woke up 4 hours later feeling like I'd swallowed my pillow during my sleep. I hate drug-induced sleep. You wake up feeling like crap. I dragged myself out of bed and forced myself to take a shower since I vaguely remembered sweating profusely at some point in the afternoon. After a nice nasi ayam dinner which I could hardly taste, I felt somewhat human again. #1 has taken to giving me impromptu hugs and pecks on the cheek, his way of comforting his poor sick old mom, which is nice.

I will be a good girl and take my meds again before bed tonight. I have to go to work tomorrow since it's the company's Hari Raya open house and I've promised the kakaks at the office that I'd drive them to PWTC where it's being held. Let's hope my tastebuds have revived by then kalau tak rugi je all the yummy food!

Baking for Dummies

Taadaa! THIS is what I spent practically the whole of today doing. I must have watched too much Nigella lately to think that even I could whip up a cake in less than an hour like her. Have you ever watched her shows? She scoops out ingredients at whim without proper measurements, whips them all together, bungs them in the oven and everything comes out looking professional and delicious and perfectly done. So I thought, hey, she makes it looks so easy. Let me bake Ray's cake by myself.. the perfect solution since I'm on a pre-Raya budget, it's too short notice to order a cake and we're all sick to death of SR cakes anyway...

So during the past week I began gathering the ingredients and planning my design. I did some research on the web. Apparently the easiest birthday cake to make is a layered butter cake which you could then decorate however you want. Looks simple enough. Excited though I was, even I wasn't confident enough to make my own cake from scratch (not even using the "idiot proof" recipe I found on eHow), so I bought some butter cake mix from my local bakery supply shop yesterday. Got the eggs and butter. Good to go. This morning I was digging around in my mom's supply cupboard looking for cake tins when I discovered she didn't have the right size. There was a couple of square tins, some 10"s and something that appeared to be 9.5". So, another trip to the bakery supply to get a cake tin (they were out of 8"s so I got a 9" and at a 10% discount pulak tu, good deal).

This is how it went:

Oven pre-heated. Measure measure, mix mix.. everything's looking good. Poured batter into my 9" and mak's 9.5" (besar sikit takpe, boleh trim, I figured). Bunged it in the oven, set timer for 45 minutes. Went to check on the kids, put Ray down for a nap. Remembered I forgot to add in vanilla essence (wasn't in the recipe on the packet, but I usually add it in for extra flavour). Takpe kot. Came back almost an hour later, cakes still looking suspiciously wet and uncooked. Let them bake for another half hour. Cakes risen, but still looking pale and wet. Maid pointed out that the oven door doesn't close properly, letting out the heat hence oven not heated properly and cakes taking forever to cook. Damn. Yet another half hour later, cakes finally beginning to brown with nice smell wafting from oven. Some time later, cautiously opened door and patted nearest cake. Seems firm. Poked a skewer in which came out clean. Removed cakes from oven and set on wire rack to cool. Mixed up a batch of buttercream mean while, tinted it blue. Almost dislocate shoulder mixing the the colouring in. Mak helps to remove 1st cake from cake tin which comes out perfectly. Elder sister attempts to remove 2nd cake but it collapses in a soggy mess. Scoop everything back in and put it in the oven for another half hour. Meanwhile, lightly ice 1st cake to seal in the crumbs.

Remove 2nd cake which has gone all crusty on top. Once cool, remove from tin. Is cooked but uneven and lopsided. Trim off the bumpy bits and cautiously place 2nd cake on top of 1st cake. Nephew comes in and laughs at cake. Ignore him. Lightly coat 2nd cake with icing to seal in crumbs. Just remembered that had originally planned to put blackcurrant jam between layers. Crap. Too late now. Slather icing all over cake to create illusion of evenness. Elder sister comes in and helps decorate cake by poking Sm*rties into the sides. Nephew and niece look on hungrily from the sidelines, lamenting the fact that they're fasting. Haha. Finish off poking Sm*rties to create no "1" and sprinkling hundreds and thousands all around. And voila! My first cake is done.

After buka, Ray cut the cake with help from Eez. The cake was pretty good with the exception of everyone saying the icing was too sweet. Hmmm better luck next time. I had fun though baking this cake even with all the unsolicited advice and angst and stress. So with the 1st ghastly experience over, maybe next time I'll do better. Like Nigella.