Bum Leg to Elephant Leg

Although there is not much pain anymore, the bloody leg keeps swelling! Not only the calf but the whole bloody leg! So much so, i can barely bend my knee and my toes are fused together! And it's all NUMB! ARGHHHHHHHHH!

Went to the Doctor yesterday, got medication (which I keep forgetting to take- maybe hanging out with Dory too much) and an MC! The first one in my whole life! Doc told me "Try resting it and just sit and sleep".

Most people would probably shout with glee, but I do hate not being able to do things for myself, having to appeal for help, not being able to join in the festive season and being so troublesome for other people. And frankly, quite boring not driving around and painting the town blue.

Ok Buddha, help me here. I know I have not been a good student, ok, so I have never been good anything, but please help my bum leg get better. *sniff*

Panto,Wheelchairs and DURIAN FLO!

Having a bum leg is infinitely troublesome. Excrutiating pain, people staring at you, people having to wait on you, but well there is a silver lining to every cloud. Was taken off by Dory and Webbie to KLPAC to watch a Panto of Cinders (Elvis Style!) and even the Ushers and Doormen took so much pity on me trying to ease myself out of the car, that we were accorded Disabled Parking status and the whole group of us entered the auditorium via the "disabled and aged ONLY entrance". Was even "kindly requested" to sit in the front row, for fear of dire consequences and lawsuits should I try to climb the steps to my actual seat.

The panto itself was great. Hadn't been to one in such a long time, it really had me yearning for those London days, O so many moons ago. FJ was great! She played the wicked step mother and really hammed it up sufficiently. I haven't seen her in such a long time and I really do feel happy for her to be in such a production with so many big names and I felt she was genuinely happy. After the show, she came out, gave me a hug and even walked me to the car. Suddenly I felt I really missed her and so good to reconnect.

The following day, was the soft opening of DMT (Dzambala Mystical Treasures) at 1 Utama and therefore we toddled along to "offer" some support. Tarbush met up with us earlier and jumped into our car. Upon arriving at 1 Utama, everyone had decided unanimously to jockey park. Because of the bum leg, getting in and out of cars has become terribly tedious and ungraceful to the point of embarrassment. To get out of the car, I have to swing the bum leg out the door, grab the hiking stick (thank you Png) and swing myself upright, which causes immediate seizures in the calf, and so to balance while the blood rushes down, I have to hunch forward with my butt in the air and NOT move. This also means the car door can't close either, til the cramps ease I can actually hobble off.

So once the car halted at the jockey station, my 3 wonderfully supportive friends raced off whilst I hunched unceremoniously and everyone, including ugly Indian jockey, stared and gwarked. Eventually the cramps eased and as I limped into 1 Utama, the 3 chums reappeared with a wheelchair! Awww, so they do love me after all....

Warning: Dory pushes a wheelchair exactly like the way she drives - Hazardously.

At one point, her handphone rang, and she promptly forgot that she was pushing a wheelchair, picked up the phone and I found myself rolling head first into a baju kebaya stand!

Guess who was at DMT - Bibikins! So after the standard congratulatory messages and a quick scan of DMT (which is rather nice - will wonder back once the leg is in order) we, dragging Bibikins in tow, quickly headed for the Piece de Resistance - DURIAN FLO! For all durian lovers out there - this is a wonderfully sinful ice cream softie made with the REAL Stuff! A real ONCE TRIED FOREVER HOOKED thing. It is entirely genuine too! Proof being the stinky breath and pungent belching.

The drawback of eating durian flo (from a cone with a tiny scoop) was ... No one wanted to push the wheelchair anymore....awwww

A Bum Leg For Christmas

Admist all the parties, the pressies, the laughter and gaity, this Christmas had the makings of the best I could ever remember. Christmas day began blissfully with a multitude of sms seasons greetings from old friends and acquaintences and life is absolutely wonderful!

... until disaster strikes......

My favourite sport in the whole wide world, for now anyway, is badminton. I may not be terrible good at it, but what I lack in talent, i make up for in enthusiasm. So when Dory and badminton buddies mentioned a 3hr marathon on Christmas Day from 3pm onwards, there was really no need to convince me much further. Ok, so I was supposed to attend a Dharma Session at 5 and I had promised to do so, but there is no reason why I could not do both. Heck! it was Christmas Day, and it should be enjoyed! So happily I went off to the courts all happy and eager.

"Have you stretched and warmed-up?"

"Ah yo! Am already warm. Let's Play! Let's Play!

Within two minuites flat a searing pain ripped through my left calf leaving me yelping and unable to stand, let alone walk. The remaining session had me benched, moaning and groaning whilst all other chums jumped all over the place also with groans and grunts, but of the happier, excitable sort.

Sadly now, cookie is housebound with a bumed leg and totally unable to participate in any other festive activities...*sob*

Too much of a good thing? Or instant karmic retribution for compromising spiritual advancement for personal enjoyment??

Parties!

Christmas this year was particularly exciting as I received 2 invitations from buddies that I really DO enjoy being with (therefore any other invites can be turned down without much decision making and grief). The only problem was that fell both on the same night (Christmas Eve!)

Dory had invited me to dinner at her house, predominantly a girlie party. James and the gay Bois also had a do of their own. Both places held such great promises of mouth watering food, fun company and a truly enjoyable time.

Earlier that morning (Saturday) I was on chat with Bibikins and Twisted Fairy. The darling fairy was yakking away about how busy and immensely popular she was with her 4 parties that evening and I was suddenly struck with the idea of turning her really into a fairy... The perfect Christmas gift for her... her very own set of wings!

So after consultating with Bibikins, I was given a phone number of some "WIG" shop in a god forsaken place that only traders go. A careful survey and a couple of fruitless rounds later, Hoorah! A wig shop for "show" people. All of a sudden I had found myself in a treasure trove, wigs of every conceivable colour, shape, texture, style... Masques.... and WINGS, both the feathered angelic ones and the grossomer fairy ones (in different colours too).

I was so excited and after quickly purchasing a white innocent looking pair of fairy type wings I immediately trekked over to the fairy's house and presented them to her. She squealed and within a blink of an eye, the wings were donned and she flapped around the house. I must say that seeing her utterly delighted made the expedition to lala land worthwhile.

Dinner at Dory's is always wonderful, irregardless of the occasion. A good dinner does not actually mean the tastiness and quality of the food, although that does help rather alot, it is also the company and the degree of comfortableness we feel with one another.... will fill you in on that in another post.

By the time I got there, dragging Fuzet, my ole buddy from Roedean days (the poor duckie was in an accident earlier where her car was sandwiched near her house) a huge turkey graced the table, Brussel Sprouts (yum yum!), roasted spuds, bacon wrapped in something unpronounceable, Caribbean Chicken.... WOW! A whole Buffet!

Fanda was there in a slightly better looking jacket (thank the lord, he finally got the hint with the ugly blue THING) but in a god awful dominatrix shirt - what's a little worrying is that he actually looked like he enjoyed wearing it. Png (Dory's best buddy) was there all bright and cheery, Webbie's parents and a few other people.

One particularly amusing (or rather embarrassing) incident:

After tasting something that looked vaguely like strawberry jam. I declared "Oooh I like this! This thing with all these red balls in... sooo sweet!"

Fanda peered over "Red balls? They are Cranberries! It's Cranberry Sauce! You mean you never had that before??!!!"

Fuzet coming to the rescue "Oh in boarding school, it was always mashed up so how the hell are we supposed to know what they looked like??"

After din dins, Fairy made her grand entrance, wings, fairy outfit and all. Of course, the wings were a big HIT! And click click - picture time! It was just such a great party that I kind of regretted promising the Bois our attendance. But a promise is a promise, so Fuzet and I jumped into Fairy's Beamer (chauffeur driven) and suddenly we were in glorious room with loads of gay Bois. Music was thumping, food spilling from tables, a flurry of kisses and "DAHLIN' You look gorgeous!" - a gay boi party in full swing!

A few hours later, after being groped, (and doing my own groping), humping the dance floor, a series of grotesque but cute pictures, it was time to go home - A truly wonderful Christmas!

Busy, busy, boom!

It's christmas eve! Time has just gone by just so fast this year and soon it will be 2006 and oh so not-looking forward to next birthdays.

Since the glorious Russell Watson concert, have been ever so busy with on-line chats, one orphanage christmas party (read Dory's blog), and scrummy lunches, dinners etc.

One of the highlights of which was a dinner at an Argentinian Steakhouse. That afternoon Fanda had suddenly decided that he missed us girlies and wished to take us to "munchies" so after a hilarious chat session the only people who could join him was myself (of course! It's free food!) and Dory. Darling Dory had heard of this place called Maredos at Chulan Square and proceeded to sell the idea to us, finally a decision and SOLD! Lucky for us, the first to arrive was Dory herself, who then realised that the name of the place was Gaucho Grill and NOT Maredos.

I must say, the steak is rather good there, especially my T-bone thing. Fanda had unfortunately ordered the ribs, a bit disasterous and the poor sod had to make do with the salad bar. Dory promtly declared "Steak is healthy! It's processed salad!" Felt a teeny bit guilty when Fanda paid the bill but maybe can find someway to make it up to the poor duckie.

Actually although I may not really sound it, I have been rather depressed...

It's rather distressing when a project that you were roped in to rescue, you painstakingly work it up from scratch, submit it, only to find out that some persons had totally convoluted it at final submission...and *crashed*

Russell Watson

My personal discovery of Russell came about 3 years ago by way of HELLO! Magazine.. A wonderful tenor from Salford, from Northern England with an inspiring rags to riches story. In essence a Yobo (complete with Man U Fan Club Card) with undiscovered talent who sings like an angel. Wow! (Of course, I then romanced the idea of possessing some previously undiscovered talent, that I myself don't even know about.) Anyway, proceeded diligently like a good little fan, to collect all his albums. Thank god, only 3.

To cut a long story short, about a month ago, I eavesdropped on my boss's telephone conversation "Yes, I accept the Russell Watson Concert Invitation..." WHAT! Ole Russell coming????? After an internet search, during office hours, BINGO! It's a YTL dooda and IT's FREE. The only problem was that for us, unconnected lowly personnel, we have to enter a ballot to grab a pair of tickets. So all my chums got bombarded with requests to enter a ballot and I evaded all questions of "who is he?" (The theory being that if they knew, they might want their tickets after all and where does that leave ME?) Sadly, no ticket transpired and desperation set in... MSN advertising and two days before the concert *ding!* my very own twisted fairy appears with 2 magic tickets!

Now twisted fairy is a freelance journalist (synonymous to discipline select reporter) and was roped in by the concert's PR company to pose as an interviewer as the original one had dropped out and they didn't want to lose face. Twisted fairy proceeded in proclaiming how bored she would be having to sit through a tedious concert and Yay!.. This was Kismet! My destiny! Nonchalantly, I gallantly sacrificed myself to be subjected to dire boredom...

As the day approached excitement grew and my usual unflappable self became animated with squeals of glee and soon was all dolled up (complete with fushia shawl and earrings) and was driving into the Sentral car park, Brickfields.

It's amazing how these people do things. It was just soo glam! The guests, numbering 6000 persons, were to park their cars (for free), hop onto a train (specially chartered with it's own platform) to Sentul and board coaches to take us all to KLPAC. Police were even engaged to halt all traffic in favour of the huge line of buses, thus providing us with a smooth transit hop!

The grounds of KLPAC was entirely transformed into one humungous garden party. Large sprawling tents, filled with a buffet dinner, drinks, plasma screens and glittering lights; some military marching band even paraded all over the place in smart white uniforms. Malaysians have very wide interpretations of the word FORMAL. In my understanding, it's penguin suits, flowing dinner dresses with a bit of bling bling (too much would have been entirely distasteful). Still I sighted mini-skirts, short sleeved shirts - Plebs! Commoners! I would say the only really unglam part was the rows of porta-loos of which one had to queue up for, and how ladies with glittering evening gowns were supposed to managed that I have really no idea. Maybe the dress code should have been: FORMAL - but porta-loo friendly.

GL (my partner in crime) and I at the buffet tent..

Oh how I love my twisted fairy....as she is a "reporter" she was of course accorded with press tickets which meant 4th row from the front Centerstage! This meant that even I was in front of the Royal and distinguished guests (Pakla, Agong all dolled up too!)

Well what to say about the concert. In short - FAB! Ole Russ was great, the sound system totally wondrous (from where I was sitting anyway) and favorite songs were sung. Each seat had their own goody bag consisting of the souvenir program book, YTL bottled water, postcards et alia freebies and even our own Raincoats! Free flow of wines during intermission (cheap plonk being better than no plonk) Well, we did have to site through a 20 min speech by Tan Sri on global history for the past 50 years, citing everything from Kennedy, Churchill, Hitler to Peristroika and Gorbi which ended with a great big bible thump and GOD BLESS ME! Zzzzzz! The whole shebang ended with a magnificent fireworks display - about RM300,000 burnt up in a full 15 min extravaganza.

It was truly a night to remember and I loved it and floated all the way home, via coach, coach train... etc. Thank you my wonderful twisted fairy!

English-Malinglish

Malinglish is NOT bad English, (well, I suppose it can be or rather it is) but it is what I refer to for Malaysian English. The local excuse for the annihilation of the Queen's English (The Queen not being entirely English anyway) is local "slang".

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE Malaysia! Malaysia BULLEH! And after 12 years of living it up here, I can't think of anywhere else I would rather be that can offer me irregular amenities of a first world country with third world pricing! The local people are mainly not very local (migrating from China, India, Indonesia, etc. etc.) Better still, the people of Kuala Lumpur, well who is actually from Kuala Lumpur??? So we all cut to the quick and call ourselves Malaysians.

Along with the migration bit we bring along our own customs, superstitions, and dialects. But our ancestors were not sooo dumb. They figured out that they needed to learn English to interact with the rest of the world and therefore try to make more mullah. So as we need to make our mark in the world, Malinglish arose.

Anyway, I have a problem. I actually grew up in INKGLUND. And as cute as malinglish is, I miss ENGLISH. So recently I met some new friends whose circumstances were very roughly similar. Everyday since has been an utter delight. The exceedingly dry humor, underhanded sarcasm, acceptance of personal eccentricities without offence and the wonderful vocab indigenous to that tiny speck on the map that once tried to colonise the world. Simple words and phrases can bring such a huge impact and make me pee in my pants with laughter and memories.

For example:
"Utter prat"
"Wanker"
"Bugger"

So much so that nowadays, I fervently strive to find more and more such phases that are sooo fundamental to the very essence of my entire being. The nectar of my life! My Elixir!

Did I forget to mention the accent?

Rehearsal!

Smoochiano Pavalucci is in rehearsal! Whilst snorting up the essential cancer causing ciggy butts I have discovered the perfect setting where i can emulate the prepubescent choir boy's falsetto. Stairwells! And to hell with anyone else listening to a glorious magnifico rendition of "Silent Night". Albeit unknowingly, they are blessed and it's FREE!

So if suddenly you notice that i have developed a predilection of dissappearing into cavernous places (stairwells, toilets and any other cloister-like places) a superstar suprano is trying to metamorphize!

NB: Bangunan Ming is reputedly haunted anyway. So additional caterwauling is not going to make much difference and may even scare off the "unseen".... and the "seen" for that matter...bah humbug!

Smoochiano Pavalucchi

Operafest! A bunch of 35 kids, (actually only counted 30 cos 5 were obviously wusses) aged 6 to 19 who practice every weekend for about 6 hours to form a deliciously classical choir, awwww, with an eccentric conductoress thrown in for good measure. And as Christmas beckons, Carolling Concert - time. Needless to say, little ole moi was, of course, invited and I must say was totally captivated at the abilities, sheer determination, courageousness of these kids to stage a full two hour concert! Reminisces of English (not British) boarding school Childhood. It was better than sex!

The audience consisted of exuberant parents, arm twisted friendies and unsuspecting IM buddies, some irrelevant dignitaries and ZAINAL ABDIDIN. Zai was such a darling! As one of our local mega superstars, eccentric conductoress had to pay certain tributes to him, amongst gushing accolades to Great Eastern Assurance, for giving up a good Friday night's knees up to attend the concert. In response Zai got up on stage and declared, et alia, "I am a Muslim but I am also Catholic, Hindu, Buddhist" Wow! I was floored! and he sang for us too! A cappella! I'm in love!

Anyway, the carolling continued from the popular to the perversely obscure crescendoing to the finale "Silent Night" Oi Vey! Finally! It becomes audience interactive and moi gets to belt out Karaoke-style! Exhilarated, I toddled off home itching to get away from the friendies that issued me the invite just so I could scream and screech out anything vaguely operatic (and no was not stopped by police) and right up until 1.30am was giving all my neighbours a real earfull of "Adeste Fideles" and "Once in Royal David's City". That was actually not the exhibitionist in me and rather unintentional. Was creating a new definition to "singing in the shower" only to realise later that the bathroom windows were wide open. Smoochiano Pavalucchi in the making!

The impossibilities of blogging

Enter all fellow voyeurs and nosy people with no life but to read others!

I created a BLOG due to utter desperation of having no one to talk to apart from myself whilst stuck in an empty office with only the internet for company. And invariably the blogging will begin with upmost gusto and frequent posts then fewer, tapering down to even fewer ...and soon everything is a memory stored in cyberspace. Because ultimately, having conversations with oneself is infinitely faster, spontaneous and less troublesome, then having to chore over remembering knit-picketey little details like usernames and passwords and ensuring that you spell check (actual typing is much less desirable and barely coherent). With my luck, once labouring through all the required steps the ISP will decide to hate me and punish me with some complete drivel about " the server is currently down. Please try again in 5 mins"...

Having said that... I must say there is this small itsy bitsy part of me that does gain a certain excitement from all this...hmmmmm a third personality emerging? Goody... someone else to talk to...

So what's a "blog"?

Every once in a while i'll hear the word BLOG. Ambiguous words like these don't usually merit much thought and are usually passed over in conversation with all participants looking like they actually know what it means. Me Too! Never had the faintest idea til a couple of months ago when a group of chums got together (on line, of course) and were discussing a certain fairy's infatuation with a cute, just-out-of-arms-reach leprechaun. The Lep had the curious name of Frozbite (spelt wrong to protect certain identities) and one wonders just how close can a fairy get with a Lep called Frozzy, but c'est la vie. Then all of a sudden, Dory (the friendly, Fish with a highly selective memory) came on line and dived straight into the convo showing us a light (or rather switching it off totally) ... "errr, sorry fairy, I don't think so"

Fairy: WHY?

Dory: He has a blog

Cookie: WHAT?

the URL flashed across the screen and silence reigned over the IM. The Fairy starts screeching about lost hope and ladida. And voila I attained enlightenment! What is a Blog! And, of course, stories of a certain "not-so-innocent" Lep running after Trolls instead of Fairies... oops! unwanted enlightenment?