Possession

We gave one of DD's empty toy container boxes to my dad for him to put his bits and bobs in - DD was furious - ie limbs flailing, eyeballs protruding kind of furious - that we hadnt asked her first. We tried to convince her that we had bought a new one specially for him and altho' it looked exactly like the purple coloured container boxes she owns it wasnt in fact hers (a lie of course as it was hers).

She eyeballed us suspiciously with that "you dont fool me for minute" look she has mastered then pottered off to her room and called us in 5 mins later to view her handiwork. She had taken her little name stickers (which we got for her books) and stuck them on all her container boxes, including her bed, mirror, cupboards, toy truck, and whatever else was within her reach. She said "NOW you wont get all mixed up isnt it mumma". DH and I were on the floor laughing at which point she stuck her name sticker on my forehead and said "you also belong to me mumma" ! ......which quite frankly scared the pants off me.

I baked my first cake in our new oven over the weekend - quite an achievement considering I'd bought the oven 6 months ago and was using it as an extra workspace. Finally dragged myself down to Taman Mayang to the cake shops to get all the ingredients and tools and decided to inaugurate the oven with Mrs Fernander's trusty old butter cake - which came out brilliant.There's nothing quite like the simple butter cake is there? get that right and you've mastered the essence of cake baking I think. So many cakes nowadays taste rubbish coz people scrimp on the ingredients. Mrs Fernander was of Dutch Burgher descent from Sri Lanka who used to teach cake making and icing from her home in Bangsar for 20 years during the 70's and 80's - she's long gone now, but her recipes are still solid gold.

She taught my mum and was a real stickler for being neat and getting things just right. She herself was always immaculately dressed and accesorized. I remember going with mum a couple of times to her baking class and being in awe of Mrs Fernander. The theme of her sitting room would change every 4 months ie she had a theme for summer, autumn, winter and spring! They dont make them like that anymore do they?

Festival of Lights

The festival of lights is around the corner and again Mumma Thush has made no "palagarams" ie kuih-muih. Quite a renegade mum me, will be offering up store bought rubbish for the festive season. Divali will be muted for us this year but for DD's sake we will get out the ole sparklers and let her have a go with that.

Last year she picked up the burnt out sticks and burnt her fingers and was furious with her father - somehow blaming him for her fingers. This year am sure she will find another scapegoat for her misdeamenors. She asked us what she is getting for Divali and we told her that she will be getting a whole lot of love. She replied "I get that every day what?".

I remember as a kid getting so excited when my grandma arrived on the train from Parit Buntar with huge tins of muruku, laddu, nei-urundeh, chippies, ghee biscuits with a cherry on top and other such sweet meats for all of us in the 'city'. She usually arrived 2 weeks before Divali and lined up the tins in the 'secret place" -NOT. We would be constantly nicking into her tins the entire 2 wks and by the time the big day arrived there would just be some crumbs at the bottom of the tin. We would always have open house on Divali day between 11 and 4pm and inevitably end up fighting the effects of rain which could always be counted upon to pour just as the guests started to arrive. It was all part of the fun of Divali. Our new clothes always ended up torn and muddy before the day was thru. One Divali we hired caterers who set up stalls around our garden. The ice-kacang man was our favourite and by the end of the evening we were wearing salwar kameezes with a touch of ice kacang...actually more than a touch - a whole swirl.

The festival of lights celebrates the victory of good over evil....may all our lives always be testament to the victory of good over evil. Happy Divali to All.