Finally sampled the cake my brother made and I would give it a 9/10. Mama’s cozy birthday celebration was a great success and I was so relieved that no one spent their time in the kitchen the whole day as there was very good teamwork. I look forward to parties at home but I dislike seeing family members spend majority of time cooking or doing chores because I want all of us to be able to have some leisure time together.
The first thing I asked when I woke up was “so what time do we plan to finish cooking?” And the reply was “2pm”. I just cannot accept that answer and immediately went into my efficient mode and asked which tasks I could help out. This was the same mode I went into when we were shopping together yesterday and my brother think it is funny. Since I dislike shopping for groceries, I suggested that we play a game where we memorize the shopping list and try to grab everything on the list as fast as possible. Turns out none of them played my game and I was the only one excitedly grabbing all the things needed and waving items at my family to indicate I got them . My brother said I reminded him of the house-elf Dobby from Harry Potter and he kept teasing me about it after we finished shopping. I must have been in my own world as I did not notice anyone staring at me (my brother told me there were 2 staffs staring at me and must have thought I am mentally challenged). Anyway, we finished cooking at 12noon and I had an hour nap before going to the other house where Rainbow lives and groomed him again today.
We made a total of 6 dishes and 1 rice, supposed to be 8 dishes but we cancelled the winter melon soup and baked osysters as we think there are already too much of food.
1) salad - cucumber/ pineapple/ onions/ carrot/ lemon juice
2) Steamed Prawns
3) Steamed Fish
4) lemon Chicken
5) mutton curry
6) mixed vege with scallops
7) mint rice
There seems to be a clash of themes but they are all asian dishes and I love the mutton curry and prawns the most! I think I didn’t eat a lot but my mom think I ate too much. Maybe my insight on food portion is very poor but my plate does look good and I am going to be missing this wonderful dinner so much!
Dinner would have been 100% perfect if my husband was around. It is a pity that the only time all of us could be present is Chinese New Year, otherwise it is impossible to get him home. Hmm, I suddenly have a brilliant idea as I am writing this. What if I am able to hire a temporary replacement to do my husband’s work? Then I could make him leave his work and spend some time with family. However I couldn’t find a replacement on my own without his approval first. Besides, I find it hard to do his work despite following him to work everytime I visit him. The difficulty lies mainly in the part concerning communication with the workers from Bangladesh. I still don’t understand what they are saying most of the time as the order of the nouns, verbs and adjectives are very different from English or Bahasa Malaysia. It is sort of like Japanese I think where the arrangement for “I go home” is “I home go” if I am not mistaken as I had attempted to learn Japanese language on my own but failed.
I am so bloated with dinner, cake and probably the tiny amount of alcohol that I don’t feel like sleeping. I also learn that the emotion to counter sadness is tiredness. If I make myself super tired, I probably will not have any capacity to feel sad going back later. I would probably be looking forward to get some sleep and would not dwell on “when is my next visit?”. I feel November is too far away and I was thinking it would be nice to visit again in between. If my next visit is in 2-3 months, it feels more bearable. I really don’t know how I could endure as a young adult in medical school going home only annually for 5 consecutive years. If I have a Doraemon door, I want to teleport to visit my previous me and give her a big hug and tell her “I am so proud of you for being strong". I did have a choice back then, but I did not want to spend my parents money. The difference now is, I am funding all my travels and I feel going home is priceless! I had a recall bias when mama asked me how many times have I gone home since I transferred to Kelantan and I told her "twice last year" but she said I was wrong it was 3 times last year - chinese new year 2023, July for my Birthday and November in the first month of my registrarship. She was absolutely right and that means in a period of 18 months I have gone home 5 times. If only I could have a body double replacing me in Kelantan, that would be awesome! Okay, I’m being ridiculous again. Maybe it is the cocktail talking.
I was the “bartender” for tonight and fixed everyone something like a mojito. I crushed mint, added lime juice and a minty lime soda water along with a splash of Bombay Sapphire with some crushed ice. Papa said it was tasty but my brother said he couldn’t taste any alcohol. Actually my brother is right, I can’t taste any alcohol either but I felt so warm after taking it. I enjoyed the part where the mint was harvested in real time from my garden and it felt safe to consume them without worrying about pesticides. I am thankful that mama and papa loves to plant and have been taking care of the garden so well that almost everything is thriving except for the lime tree and bamboo plants that are threatening to wither away. I also love hearing the sounds of dog barking on and off, it is comforting for me as it is the sound I have grown up with(not the continuous noisy kind of barking just some woof woof here and there). Too bad I don’t seem to hear any howling this time. In kelantan, I rarely get to see dogs in the neighbourhood I stay and whenever I see one and try to go near it, it will scurry away. I wish there is a friendly dog for me to talk to over there.
Oh it is 2 am. I am getting sleepy. It’s rather peculiar to think that in 18 hours plus I will be almost a thousand miles away from home (the Internet said it is actually about 957 miles).
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