Skin.

What a sight to see!

It’s summer, and everyone here is baring skin. My friend calls it “an excessive reaction to the sun, wrought by winter oppressiveness”.  I’d like to hear him tell that to those girls over there, strewn across the grassy city parks like monsoon mushrooms in their bikinis, dreaming of sand on their cheeks and salty sea smells.  I’d like to hear him tell that to those other girls over there, bouncing around the city in skin-tight skimpy jogging wear.  They’re having so much fun they wouldn’t care less.  I must admit I started feeling rather stuffy in my jeans.

Of course, I didn’t bring my beach-wear. As the same friend confirms when the first thing he asked me was, “have you brought your switer?” (that’s how Indonesians pronounce sweater), we pack to prepare for the unfamiliar, that being cold and unpredictable weather.  We could well call our actions an excessive reaction to the future cold because I sure as hell packed a lot of switers.  Which aren’t much use at this time of the year.

So I embarked on what I would call “reactionary shopping”, which is the sort a girl does when a girl attempts to Go With The Trend.  But since I’m no longer a teenage trend-hopper and I was brought up to be a politely-dressed girl, my choices turned out to be conservative after all.  But just because I can, I went jogging bra-less the other day.  Obviously no one noticed, but shocking isn’t it.  I might fancy calling it an excessive reaction to liberation. =D

The flight of the escapist.

Finally, on this 20 hour flight, some peace and quiet. 

Well, unless you count the germans, who seem to enjoy speaking across the aisle to one another. Fortunately, I don't understand a word they're saying, so it's like white noise.  I'm taking the Lufthansa, so we're making a stop at Frankfurt. On the plane the announcer's very german voice burst through the speakers, saying "We are about to land in 15 minutes, so please return to your seats NOW."

A smattering of laughter broke out among the passengers at the last word.  I immediately imagined Arnold Schwarzenegger (10 dollars says I got that spelling right) sitting back there behind the microphone, saying "Get back to your seats NOW, or I'LL BE BACK."

At the airport in Frankfurt I had to stay for 7 hours, so when we landed my primal senses instinctively turned themselves on and began sniffing out my primary means of survival:  free internet. Found said internet.  Found that it wasn't free.   Grudgingly, I pulled out my credit card, swiped, and opted for the 15 minute session.  Enough to send a few emails, or so I thought. 

As I logged in to my email, I miss-typed my login name.  It said "Teey".

Feeling daft, I re-typed it, and there it was again saying "Teey". 

Looking down at the chunky keyboard, I discovered in horror that the germans had all their keyboard keys jumbled up.  The letters were all over the place!  Where there should be a "Z", there was instead a "Y".  And then I spent the next 10 minutes looking for the "@" symbol, which was shyly hiding beneath the letter "Q".  After swiping my credit card again, I commenced in writing my very short email, which was excruciating because I was typing like a two-year old, or like my mother. 

By the time I clicked "send", my minutes had run out again.  I'm thinking the whole keyboard business is a nasty tactic to get foreigners to spend their Euros on typing. 

It was a lonely flight, which was the beauty of it.  In Boston, my friend called out my name really loud at the arrival gate, which was a lovely welcome too. 

Shine.

I was never a very patriotic person. I had teenage dreams of living abroad where there are civilized pavements and subways and teachers who admire you for having an opinion. I was also slightly disappointed that we only have two seasons and everybody has the same hair colour. We also have poverty, illiteracy, corruption, societal gaps, and dreadful, dreadful sinetrons.

But these past few years have been a bit different, although I didn’t notice it at first. People work hard and are generally happy. There’s been more good news about Indonesia in the media than I have ever remembered. Even without government facilities, the Indonesian art world, movie industry, and music industry is blossoming with new talents of international marketability. You hear people annoyed that ignorant western media coin jargons like “The Rise of Asia” but upon further reading they only mean China and India. We become like hungry scavengers clinging on to every shiny object we can find, only to find that there are many, and many more to create. And then we start creating our own shiny objects. Every team I coach, every transactional advice I give is tinged with a desire to prove our professional savvy. In conversations with foreigners, I find myself slipping casual anecdotes on the liberal, intellectual, tolerant, and colorful people that we are. Just in case they hadn’t noticed. And there are so many others working hard to establish our place in the world. And then we start to gain pride and momentum, as a nation and as an individual.

And that is what the terrorists destroy.

-In memory of Garth McEvoy, may he rest in peace-

The Ruthless Dictator of My Weekends

Again stepping on rather a lot of toes here, but one must do what one must do to ensure the delicate balance of sanity prevails. My own personal balance of sanity hangs delicately by a thread titled “Please Do Not Take Away My Weekends”. I once had a lengthy debate about how we should define “MY weekends”. Is that a day where you only do things by yourself? Or is that a day where you can drop the veto on all other plans but your own? Or is that a day where you impose a prohibitive ban on all things “work-related” but keep your plans open for everything else outside and in-between? It is by no means definitive. It thus comes down to personal preference.

In my perfect world, I would be the grand designer and ruthless dictator of my weekends. But alas, we are gregarious creatures, and one must make room for dissent, democracy, compromise and relationships. Which leads us to weddings.

Weddings??

Yes well, the shocking truth is that I dislike weddings. Shocking because, in a world where wedding invitations arrive at your doorstep for every weekend within the foreseeable semester (via post, e-mail, sms, or lately via facebook), and local tailors build impressive empires out of sewing wedding-party outfits, and wedding parties create traffic jams within a 1 km radius of the venue, it is shocking indeed that I am not enthusiastic about weddings.

If I had my way, I would attend only the weddings of my close friends and relatives, where I could genuinely rejoice in their joyful moments. I would happily get a new dress tailored, put my hair up at the hairdressers, battle through the weekend traffic, and walk from my faraway parking lot to the venue in my stilettos to achieve this. But for the 70% of other wedding invitations from people not classified as “close friends and relatives” which I attend due to the commonly accepted norm that invitations must be fulfilled unless there is Force Majeure, I feel cheated out of My Weekends by society.

My personal preference is not that I could reject invitations at ease, because invitations are a goodwill gesture which one must appreciate. Rather, it is that people should not feel obliged to invite as many people as they can and hold the biggest weddings they can afford. This idea may not gel well with prevailing cultures, but at least consider how the traffic and limited parking space challenges one’s delicate balance of sanity.

See you at the mall.

The managing partner at my office bade everyone a good holiday yesterday via email which said, “For those of you celebrating, Happy Ascension Day! For the rest, see you at the mall!” This was both funny and wickedly accurate with a touch of sarcasm, because if you are a Jakarta resident wondering where to go (e.g. where to eat, where to watch movies, where to get groceries, where to get your nails done or where to rendezvous) you will most likely end up at the mall.

Lacking creativity, I took my mom to the mall. We queued and circled around for parking space for over 15 minutes, and finally waited on a family that were walking back to their car. As we waited, another car pulled up right beside us with its nose blocking our path, vulgarly laying claim to the parking space. Fighting ensued, during the course of which my mom, a very sweet and mild-mannered person, made angry racist comments to the other party. And then deciding that parking space was too superficial to be fought over, we haughtily drove away and abandoned the mall. I’ve often thought that going to the mall on holidays and weekends is a pretty bad idea. Now I’m pretty certain it’s a pretty bad idea.

I also have a particular aversion with certain types of people you meet at the mall, which I’ve categorized as follows (please excuse me if I step on a few toes here):

- Ladies with Branded Monogram Bags. I see so many Louis Vuitton’s I can barely appreciate it anymore (not that I ever did). It is neither exclusive nor sophisticated. Especially when they come with gaudy cherry prints. Multiple-printed logos look rather like gift-wrapping too, don’t they.

- Ladies Who Lunch with Big Hair. Middle-aged ladies who lunch with about 10 girlfriends during work-hours because they probably do not need to have a job, and they are dressed to the nines at a mall, and their tresses of hair look fresh out of the hairdresser, puffed out and stiff with hairspray. They look like people who are suffering hair-loss and trying to camouflage it.

- Ladies in a Veil with their Hotpanted / Tanktopped Teenage Daughter. Nothing wrong with either, but the two paired together is a sight that is just awkwardly lopsided.

- Ladies who Can’t Walk. Because their heels are too high. Therefore they do not swing their legs like normal people, but sort of walk with awkward determined knee-lifting strides. It looks painful.

- Ladies who are Blinged-Out. Too much accesory is overkill. Some ladies wear big earrings, necklace, bracelets, and rings all in one because heck, they love all their bling and can’t decide which one to leave at home.

- Ladies with Two Toddlers and Two Nannies. The lady sits, eating her salad, staring pensively into open space. Her toddlers, of enough age to eat by themselves, are being spoon-fed, mouth-wiped, and fussed over by their respective nannies. Once in a while she looks at her children with unconvincing concern, tosses her well-permed curls with her well-manicured hands and resumes eating in silence.

So if you don’t go to the mall where do you go? That’s a good question. After exiting the mall parking lots, I took mom for late lunch at Hong Kong Café (which was very parking-friendly by the way), and we ate hot dimsums in the late afternoon sun. Much better.

(Speaking of malls, check this out it's wild:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdD0j6wmMNc&feature=fvst

Prepping for August

I will be leaving my cactus to the care of my bf, who seemed profoundly touched that I trusted him with my plants. I told him I trusted him with my life … (obviously drama queening, because it’s a no-brainer that the plants are probably better off with him anyways?) As for the gym membership, that’s a bit tricky, because who would want to take over a fitness membership for one year only? Well if you’re interested, give me a call.
I need to get:

1. a brand new spanking silver Macbook that will never contract a virus no matter what I plug into it and with a built-in camera for conference calls with the bf, to replace my perfectly functioning but boring HP Compaq;
2. a shiny new blackberry, for unlimited virtual chats with all my friends in Jakarta who all have blackberries already and think I’m a dinosaur because I don’t see the point in getting one yet;
3. a kick-ass SLR camera to artfully immortalize the land abroad in the spring, summer, autumn and winter; and
4. a velvet black designer trench coat because where else will I have a reason to dress like Audrey Hepburn?

Unfortunately, I am not privileged enough to have legally blonde ambitions. I must painfully snap out of my fanciful fantasies and face the ugly truth about the straight-edge, gray-skirted, primal things I must prepare for the real world. And that would be:

1. knowledge to survive random discussions with classmates (“Oh I think the stimulus bill may or may not turn out to be a success depending on …”);
2. documents and plane-tickets and rents and no one to cook your food for you and how to read a map and how to fix your laptop by yourself without the help of mas-mas Ratu Plaza; and
3. saving up for an array of books that I will not be able to pirate the way I pirated all my undergrad books.

Now if someone would just lend me their Hepburn-inspired velvet-black designer trench coat or take over my gym membership for a year so that I don’t have to waste 20% of annual membership fees just to keep my membership waiting for me when I get back, that would be really really helpful. :)

Alhamdulillah

I might as well say how profoundly grateful I am most of the time.

Clean Breaks.

There’s a part of last year that I miss. I won’t pinpoint specific things, but as a hint last year I was younger than this year. It is so tempting to yield according to wherever the wind blows. Being “twenty-something”, this would mean yielding to uncertainties and emotion, insecurities and ego, dreams and doubt. Being afraid of staying young and afraid of growing up. Being happy with achievements but afraid people will expect too much from you. Being happy with future plans but afraid they won’t come true. Being more eager to think about others, but afraid you haven’t sorted out your own self yet. Being in a transition from being cared for by parents to having to care for your parents. Being happy with comfort zones but knowing you have to get out of it sooner or later. There just isn’t enough room to accommodate all the conflicting emotions, let alone comprehend.

I wonder if there are clean breaks from the way I was last year.

I’m hoping the answer lies dormant like an expressionist painting, a tangle of meaningless brush-strokes when viewed up close, but crystal clear when you look from a distance. I’m hoping that if viewers take a step back and look at the big picture, they’ll find that there’s no need for me to worry and I’m already doing all the right things and I will get there eventually if I put my heart to it. Get where? Get to a place where I will prioritize the right things, the right people, and be of use to others in need. And that would mean learning not to yield.

a healthy dose of optimism

Went to the Modernisator’s seminar yesterday about the new global economy post-G20 Summit, and were enlightened by the speakers of that forum as to the following facts:

1. Indonesia is no longer a 3rd world country. We are acknowledged as one of the 20 most significant economies of the world. So if someone says Indonesia is a 3rd world country, you can say “Haha. What age do you live in?”
2. Indonesia’s rise from the ‘97-‘98 monetary crisis is a globally acknowledged success story which today’s crisis-ridden economies would like to learn from.
3. Whereas traditionally Asian countries have been exporters and the west has been the consumer, we could be experiencing a shift where the west will be the exporters and we will be the consumers.

Went out of the seminar feeling a little jolly and optimistic, and thought a little celebration would be appropriate to close off the evening. So we headed off to the aptly named Social House, which on a Tuesday night was busy and packed with an unpretentious crowd and felt very 1st world.

“To the 1st world”, said the bf, raising his glass.
“To consumerism”, said I, raising mine.

And then we had a good laugh at how silly we were. In my heart though, I felt a growing passion to become a part of the energy driving Indonesia forward.

tomorrow morning.

For the third time in a week, I dreamt I was shampooing my hair.

There is no need to procure in-depth Freudian psycho-analysis to glean what this could possibly mean. I am supposed to get out of bed and shower, and my body resolutely refuses to do so. Perhaps trying to be funny, my body instead cheats my brain into thinking that I am already in the shower. I eventually wake up drowsily feeling for my hair and discovering with a shock that it is still dry, tangled, and on the pillow. The message my body is sending is profoundly simple: “Sleep, bitch.”

With all my heart and soul I wish I could comply with nature’s call. But for some reason everything always needs to be done by tomorrow morning. Why must everything always be done by tomorrow morning? Tomorrow morning became an ominous large looming shadow over my head which compelled me to bring documents everywhere I went on the weekend (not that I actually read them). Tomorrow morning gave me unforgiving shampoo dreams. Tomorrow morning is relentless and cruel to humanity.

As a pre-emptive strike, if I may borrow battle-zone terminologies to emphasize the nature of the situation, yesterday I took the initiative to propose my own timing to The Powers That Be. All brisk and business-like, I put on a confident tone and said “Great! I’ll have this done before noon tomorrow!” In reply The Powers That Be said, “How about 10 in the morning?”

Teez the great defiant warrior princess replied:

“Um, okay.”

Thriller.

“My job isn’t interesting!!” I said, while the bf looked taken aback and rather hurt by my statement.

“Don’t say that.” he said earnestly. He said it with the air of someone who has had a love and hate relationship with his job for a long time. He said it with the air of someone who was afraid that if innermost thoughts were spoken out loud and audibly those innermost thoughts would become too real for comfort.

Whether my assumptions were correct or not, there really was no need for him to worry.

“All I’m saying” I said, “is that there’s no story to tell. I love my job, I just can’t explain my fascination for it to other people in time to finish before they fall asleep.”

“John Grisham” he said, “told exciting thriller stories.”

“Of scandals in big firms. What if there are no scandals? What if people don’t get any more evil beyond just plain annoying?”

We fell silent for a while and started thinking of possible scandals to fabricate.

“Once upon a time…” I said slowly, “there lived a corporate lawyer who … found that her client’s maturity date had been unilaterally shifted by the creditor in violation of the facility terms.”

The bf dropped his head and snored.

The Plant Who (Apparently) Lives.

Do you see those little green perky nipples sprouting out of my cactus? They were not there before. The only possible explanation for these little funky tumors is that my cactus is growing. It's growing, people. Super yay!

And do you hear that? That was a big simultaneous sigh of relief from the 5 people who chipped in on the cactus.

The Plant Who Lived.

Once upon a time there lived a girl
Who made even the bravest men curl
with fear, for she had tendency to be cruel
And this was most decidedly un-cool
The saddest part about this tale
Is that she wasn’t always such a fail
In fact she was quite good inside
If only she had sense to hide
The fact that she did not possess
Any talent in the “caring” process
Because, you see, she fancied plants
(although she didn’t really fancy the ants)
But they always died under her care
The poor victims driven to despair
So she changed her tact, for she was cunning
Nobody ever saw this coming
She bought plants she need not cater
The amazing cactus! which needs no water!
The spiky things were very tricky
Their cute little bodies were quite prickly
She had them very prettily potted
But before very long they… sadly rotted
Her friends looked on and sympathized
They shook their heads and empathized
They said “enough!, this murder shall cease!”
“We can’t afford to handle more decease!”
So, they thought and thought and thought
And finally decided an item must be bought
To give her plants another lobby
(For she refused to give up her hobby)
So when she reached the age of twenty five
They bought her a cactus, green and alive
And underneath the cactus pot, oh look!
They bought her a how-to-care-for-your-cactus book!
Alas, this story has no ending yet, dear reader
For we know not whether it will be a survivor
But let’s just say that she fully believes
Cactus will be known as The Plant Who Lives.

The End (we hope).

?

In the end, is a person more often judged by what they consciously try to do, or what they unconsciously neglect to do?

Consider this a survey.

An Almost-Walk To Remember

At precisely 7pm I knock on my senior’s door and ask permission to leave the office for a couple of hours.

“You got a date yeah?”, he said smugly.
“No. Yoga class.” I say, pretending to look hurt by his suggestion. “I’ll be back by 9-ish.”

I exit the office lobby and was greeted by the sight of traffic. It was the day before Christmas eve, and the good citizens of Jakarta are unanimously in panic to make it home before traffic gets bad, which naturally makes traffic worse. I gave up hopes on finding a cab and walked instead to the nearest busway terminal. My gym is located at about 20 minutes walking distance from my office. In Singapore that would be like walking slowly from Wheelock Place to Paragon City. In New York that would be like walking from Bubba Gump to Macy’s. It would be common. In Jakarta it is unheard of to walk such a distance, unless you have absolutely no choice.

But I like the busway. Despite having been sandwiched between its doors once because of the idiocy of a certain busway driver, it is effective and remains the closest thing to a metro subway you can get. Plus, it still retains some exotic third world charms, e.g. people fighting to get inside always compete with the people fighting to get out. So I took the busway, and two busway stations later, I got out and found that it was raining hard. Very hard. I did not bring an umbrella, and was forced to huddle under the leaking roof of the terminal, 5 minutes walking distance shy from my gym. I felt sad, cold, impotent. Not to mention late for yoga. I contemplated making a run for it, but then remembered my gym was located on the 5th floor of a glitzy mall. I saw myself, wet and soaked and dripping, entering the mall’s marbled lobby, going past the disdainful security, and being greeted by an acquaintance from the neighbouring stock exchange building. The thought was unbearable. So I waited, sad cold and impotent.

Suddenly, amidst the crowd of cold pedestrians, motorcyclists, and miscellaneous beings huddled underneath the terminal, there came a shining beacon in the form of a woman wearing a biggish umbrella, leather handbag, and monochrome suit. Her outfit looked like it was heading for the stock exchange.

“Excuse me miss, are you heading the direction of the stock exchange?” I asked her, and she nodded like serendipity. I asked her if I could share her umbrella and she nodded again. So we became two strangers in the night, braving the storms and trudging through puddles together. If she had been a guy, the story would have ended with a wistful “I never got to know his name.”

As it was, I thanked her, whoever her name was, and made it to yoga class on time. Finished on time. Showered on time. Proceeded to find a cab back to the office, which would be easy as the mall and stock exchange are stock full of waiting cabs. But apparently, the taxi stands were empty tonight, and the taxi queue spelled doom. I waited 5, 10, 15 minutes, and then started to think the unthinkable: I might have to walk back to the office. And then, in a sudden burst of inspiration that is born from desperation, I remembered that bf works at the stock exchange building. And bf has car.

I dial his number and get a busy tone. I dial his other number. He picks up. I say, “Hi! Where are you?” and he says he’s driving and he already left the office.

“Oh.” I say, putting the whole weight of the world on the monosyllable.
“Why, what’s the matter?”
“I’m stuck at the stock exchange. I can’t get back to the office. There’s no cab. I’ve been waiting forever. I need a lift!” I almost sob.
“What? How long have you been waiting?”
“Like, half an hour!” I exaggerate.
“Okay wait, I’ll turn back”, he says.

10 minutes later, he shows up like a knight in shining umm.. car.. and I open the door and pronounce with sparkling eyes, “My savior!!”
I then proceeded to hug him throughout the entire journey back to my office. Which, by the way, lasted a full five minutes.

Mayhem

(a fiction)

I can’t say for sure whether the invisible ring around my finger is tight.
After all, it is invisible. Perhaps I merely imagined it. But that can’t be right.
Sometimes I see it glinting in the sunlight as I reach for my cup of coffee. Sometimes I accidentally leave it behind on the sink after I wash my hands. I would panic, and then feel relieved when I find that it is still there, on the sink, where I left it. Sometimes I twist it absent-mindedly, as I search for the right words to say. So you see, I can’t have been imagining things. Besides, it was given to me by a very special man.

I still remember the day he gave it. He was twirling his fork, absentmindedly I thought at the time, but now I know he must have been nervous. The spaghetti kept sliding off the end of it, and he finally put it down and said, “I’ve decided my primary ambition in life is to make you happy”. I smiled and felt that was the happiest moment of my life. He took my hand and there, right there between our enjoined palms, lay the cold metal smoothness of the invisible ring. It was beautiful. I’ve worn it ever since.

Ever since means about 3 years. But it feels a bit loose lately, as if my finger had lost weight. I weighed my body on the scales just to check, and sure enough, I had lost weight. I haven’t been in the mood to eat in recent weeks. I’m beginning to worry because the ring, it disappears sometimes. And when that happens I sit down and cry. One time I had to go down on all fours in my office to check whether it was on the carpet. I called in my secretary to help, and she couldn’t find it either. I then dialled his number and asked him whether I left it at his place, and he said, “What ring?”

But you see, I can’t have been imagining things. I’ve been wearing it for so long. I called up my friend and asked her if I had left it in her car the other night when we went out. She said she hadn’t seen anything. She said that by the way she had bumped into my man this afternoon and she thought his sister was really cute.

I said he doesn’t have a sister.

The Dictionary of Misunderstood Words

(inspired by Milan Kundera)

“Partnership”
He yearned for a relationship of equal partnership where the little responsibilities of life are shared together. Partnership was the foundation for a sustainable and understanding relationship. It was also a pre-requisite for commitment: when she was passive and did not play into her role as equal partner, he was afraid of committing himself to her.

She yearned for a relationship of equal partnership where the little responsibilities of life are shared together. But, for her partnership was the outcome of commitment. Afraid of selling herself short, she would hesitate from being proactive and full of initiative when she wasn’t sure of his commitment to her.

He needed proof of partnership to commit. She needed proof of commitment to partner.

“Friends”
He saw friends as a means to an end. They form interconnected dots which team up to become the network of his life. There is a reason for being, and that reason will manifest in the future. When he socialized, it was an act of investment for his future.

She saw friends as a moment. She did not know whether they would still be there in the future, she did not care whether they were ever in her past. Her friends form little moments in her life: happy and sad moments filled with different characters. She crystallized the little moments and collected them in her pocket to make herself rich.

He thought she forgot him when she was with her friends. She thought he didn’t enjoy being with her friends.

“Focus”
He saw focus as a means to arrive at your destination. She thought focus made you miss out on the scenery.

“Movies”
He liked watching movies and thought of it as a relaxing hobby. He enjoyed spending weekends with her going to the cinemas and discussing the movie with her afterwards.

She thought the perfect date was a night full of conversation in a cozy atmosphere over drinks. She thought the movies hampered conversation.

“Selfish”
He often thought of her as selfish. She would become absorbed in her work, she would rarely call or text to say hello. He would purposely wait to see if she missed him.

She often thought of him as selfish. He would become absorbed in his work, he would rarely call or text to say hello. She would purposely wait to see if he missed her.

L.

at the dusk of day when tired are limbs I turn to you

but tired you are too

at the dawn of night when cold is out I turn to you

and cold you are too

at the rise of tides when time is short I turn to you

but timed you are too

at the edge of brinks when tears are loved I turned to you

and loved you are, still.

meet the mom

I felt calm as we sped along to meet the bf’s birth-mom. Not the first time, but usually in crowded ocassions where in-depth conversations can be restricted by the various diversions one can always fabricate at social settings. This time it was a surprise visit, no ocassion, no crowd. Nonetheless, I felt confident that nothing could go wrong as the mom is a very sweet lady.

She immediately fussed and opened cupboards and tinkled glasses and bid the bf to make me some ice syrup, I overheard from the living room. Said the bf, “She doesn’t like syrup”.
Said the mom, “She doesn’t like syrup?”

Well, I don’t like syrup, nor sugar for that matter, except when it is dissolved in ice cream or chocolate. But apparently this is not a mainstream trait.

I then set about showing the mom the cookies I brought for her. You know, the traditional cookies that are bountiful during Ramadhan. She beamed at them and said, “Ah thank you… did you make these?”

I gave a shy sort of giggle and said haha… uh… No.

Apparently she is a skillful cook, which of course I knew, but did not really register fully until she brought out her own handmade batch of cookies which looked like the ones in magazine pictures. As we sat chatting and munching her fabulous cookies, she asked, “So what is your family cooking for Idul Fitri?”

My mind immediately flicked through the various honest answers I might give:
a) Nothing. We usually buy.
b) Well, we like to make salad and toast in the morning.
c) Lasagna.
d) Um, cookies?

My mind refused to graduate any of the above possible answers because, much as I adore mom’s homemade lasagna during Idul Fitri, what respectable Indonesian family would have lasagna and salad with croutons for Idul Fitri?

As I opened my mouth to give it my best shot, bf came to the rescue. Said the bf, “You know mom, her brother is an excellent cook.”
“Really?”, said the mom, beaming, “what does he cook?”
“He can cook anything.” said the bf vaguely, to which I nodded vigourously.

At that point the sister mentioned they were about to cook ketupat the next day. I cottoned on with enthusiasm. Armed with a vague memory of what my cousin once told me, I started to say things like, “ah yes, you trickle the rice grains through the gaps in the leaf pockets…”












Well, I didn’t get to finish my sentence because the mother suddenly showed me her unmade ketupat. But she did not bring out those empty leaf-pockets you buy at the market to fill with rice. She brought out long sheaths of leaves. She was going to friggin’ plait them into pockets herself. I don’t know anybody who still does that.

I felt new respect for her, as well as a slight panic for my own behalf. Luckily, bf soon made excuses for us to get going. In the car the bf said, “So, what are you cooking tonight?”

The smile left his lips as I fixed him with a murderous glare.

Oops.

With some trepidation, I approached the stainless steel weighing machine. My trainer fiddled around with some buttons, and the dash on the screen started blinking for an agonizingly long time. My bare feet felt cold against the metal scale and I twisted my little towel nervously between my hands. Finally, the screen gave us numbers. And this is the verdict:

you have gained 2% more body fat than the last time you were here.
you have gained 1.2 kilos more body weight than the last time you were here.

My trainer looked at me with an amused look on his face and said:

“What did you eat in Padang??”