Another Birthday Blues

In a month’s time, I will turn another year older. As always, whenever my birthday is coming, I will turn into this moping sulking mildly neurotic bitch who will find fault in everything and everyone. I’m starting to turn into one now.

Just a while ago, I scolded my clerk for making too many mistakes in her draft and early this morning, I almost had a screaming match with a very important client. NOTE: almost, so yes, good sense prevailed in the end, thank God!

I just have to keep reminding myself about not letting out too much in this firm. You see, gossip is usually the essential meal of the day for a certain type of people. A lot of this people happen to work in my office. So, if you give a certain information to them, that information will more often than not, be blown out of proportion.

Yesterday, I kicked up a small fuss about having to attend to The Toad’s file which she claimed is not hers. As I’m not on talking terms with The Toad (I talk, she croaks), I informed the clerks to just find the file next time and dump it right under her nose since her initials are all over the file cover and she can’t claim that it’s not hers. Soon after, I heard the girls gossiping about how Cik Sue is VERY angry at Cik Toad for not doing her work. VERY angry? I don’t think I even appeared angry, but if they want to embellish it so, so be it. I just hope that the stories won’t evolve into me stuffing the entire file into The Toad’s mouth or something like that, although I must admit the thought of such thing is very pleasurable.

Anyway, I was planning to go to Indonesia for my birthday since I had been dying to see the Borobudur temple. As it turns out, my friend is unable to make it and since I have just recently had ‘kids’, I wasn’t very disappointed in not being able to go away for ‘D’ day. Sure, I lost some money there as the Air Asia tickets are not refundable but at least I am feeling kind of relieved for not having to leave my babies with anyone else.

Maybe I’ll just go to PD again.

Since I’m not spending money going on a vacation, maybe I should buy myself a birthday present- things I have been hoping people will give me but no one ever had. I wanted a PDA, people gave me books. I wanted a new laptop, they gave me food. I wanted a new cell phone, they gave me stationeries. I had to buy my own freakin’ cell phone because people around me are all so kedekut!!

So now I’m thinking of buying myself a new iPOD since my old MP3 player is all in pieces now. I’m also getting myself a new camera since my old trusty camera is no longer working and I’m just using my cameraphone which is crappy. And oh, I’m also thinking of getting a treadmill so that I can exercise at home while watching TV. (I find that I have come up with too many excuses about not going to the gym or go for a jog - all TV related excuses of course)

I hope that in a few months, I would be able to fit into those bikinis I’ve been raving about on my last birthday blues, hehe.

Till the big day comes, let me just sit back and wallow in this bout of birthday blues. I’ll get up and rejoice once the day has passed.

Here Comes The Smear Campaign!

Now that election fever is here, politicians have started showing their ugliest sides. Some will have skeletons dragged out of their closet and some others will act all goody-goody while gleefully digging other people’s skeletons and throwing ‘em out in the open. Either way, these are all the repulsive acts of politicians and their cronies during any political campaign. I expect the mud-slinging to get worse in the next few days.

I was directed to one particular site by rockybru today. The site made me sick to my stomach. No, it is not so much the contents that disgust me but the intention behind it. The site purports to expose the lifestyle of a certain single female politician. Long have we heard rumours of this particular politician’s sexual orientation, but we can never verify the accuracy of such rumours.

I’m not proud to say that I actually checked out the site, but if the title suggests raunchy information, I expect to see such information and not just some unverified and unsubstantiated stories with pictures of some kids’s birthday party and some holiday trips abroad with family and friends. Typically, the site is written in the manner of someone seeking to sensationalize the pictures. But the pictures themselves are nothing but ordinary. There’s nothing sensational at all about it.

The caption at the bottom of the page reads:-
“Gambar sudah menjadi bukti. XXXXXX berprofil buruk. Menteri yang membela rakyat kini menjerumuskan rakyat ke arah sesuatu yang menyonsang dari lumrah.

Apa yang kita tunggu lagi? Mahukah kita meneruskan kegiatan sumbang XXXXXX ini bermaharajalela? Pak Lah mestilah mengheret XXXXXXX ke Jawatankuasa Disiplin UMNO! Lucutkan semua jawatan XXXXX dalam kerajaan dan politik!”

Bukti apa? Really, what do the pictures prove?

The photos show this politician hugging and kissing her daughter, the child’s birthday party and some family trips. The captions throughout the site refer to the little girl as ‘anak’ XXXX (with inverted commas- as if an adopted child is not worthy to be called someone’s child) and the ‘anak’ lesbian. I pity the child for being labeled as such.

Whether or not the stories are true is beside the point. An exposé, if that is what this site sought out to be, should be backed by actual evidence, not some twisted interpretation of some photos from a family album.

I myself never liked this politician and will never be a fan. So, I don’t really care if she is a lesbian or not (nor do I think it is any of our business if she is), but I do sympathize with her for having to face all these crappy rumours, truth or lies notwithstanding.

Over the next few weeks, I’m sure we can expect more personal attacks like this one. What a nasty thing this politics business is!

The Kids

My mom’s in shock, my sister is wide-eyed, my friends all snickered. It’s like the world’s most shocking news.

It’s so unbelievable it sounds like something out of Twilight Zone.

“Sue has kids”.

These words spread like wild forest fire. It swept through the community like a raging inferno threatening your very existence- unstoppable, unrelenting, unforgiving.

How can this be?

Is she fit to be a mother?

She doesn’t look motherly at all.

Is her house clean enough for her to raise kids?

She is so messy, I wonder if her house has proper ventilation.

She can’t even take care of herself, let alone take care of kids!

The poor little ones must be starving!

Oh, the horror, the horror!

Such horror!

Errr.

……

……

Now wait seminit, kids?

They’re kittens la! Aiyah….

I understand why my mom is worried that my house will stink to high heaven, but really Mom, as messy as I am, I am not dirty. My house is unkempt because I’m rather disorganized, but I’m actually quite clean. So my house is far from filthy.

My sister kept referring to me as a mommy, and she kept calling me every night to check on the little ones. As if I’m gonna let them starve or something. It’s rather annoying I tell ya, but I’m taking it in stride and assume that her concern is more about them cute kittens which she probably wish are hers, and not about my ability to take care of the young ones.

My friend M asked “If I go to your house, is it possible to walk around barefoot without stepping on cat poo?”

Aiyoo.

So far, it’s been great. They are 3 cute 1 ½ months old kitties of mixed breed. They are manja, they are playful, they are fluffy, I just want to cuddle them all day long.

I must admit, cleaning out their litter box is not a favourite part of the job, but it has to be done. So I just have to hold my breath and do the deeds. For very very small kittens, they sure poop a lot. That’s all they do, eh? Eat, sleep, play, poop. Eat, sleep, play, poop. I wish someone would invent a machine that can just collect the stuff out of the litter box every time after they use it. It would make my life a helluva easier.

Aside from that, the kittens are fabulous. I played with them so much, I smell them everywhere I go. I have scrubbed clean last night and had a very good shower this morning and put on clean clothes. I only patted them good bye and washed my hands before I left, yet here I am at the office, with my hands sanitized and without any cat fur on my clothes, still smelling them kitties wherever I go. What can I say? My nose is in kitty zone.

So, here’s my little ones:

Pippin- cute like an apple seed, small like that little Hobbit in LOTR, and reminds me of Pip, the pipsqueak in Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations (although the latter is a contemptible one, and in no way reflects Pippin the kitten).

Pippin tidur terlentang

Blanket- because she likes to hide. I tried to put fresh blankets in their cage when I first brought them home, and she wouldn’t move from a corner. So I covered her with that blanket, and there she stayed for a good few minutes, hiding away.

Blanket not hiding anymore- I guess this means she trusts me now.

Mopster- initially named Tassel because of her lion-like mane, I renamed her after a mop, because she mops the floor under the coffee table every day. At first I thought Mopster is a boy because of the size (a whopping 750g at 6 weeks old!) and the fact that she’s the cheekiest of the lot. But it looks like it’s a she. Still, it’s quite difficult to tell at this tender age. We’ll just wait a few more months.

Mopster-looking like a mobster

So there you go. My kids. My beautiful beautiful kids.