Grandma

When my husband passed away I was only 39 and the two youngest of my troupe were 5 and 3 years old. At that time I had told my eldest daughter not to make me a young grandmother. I had made my mother a grandmother at the age of 36 and so I was not ready to go down that path at the age of 39. Now I will be turning 50 next month, it is time. I want a grandchild. The feeling started to come over me when I had turned 46 and much to my dismay my daughter for once in her life listened to me and so I am still waiting.

It wouldn't be so bad except my niece who married almost three years ago now has 2 children. She is 28 years old now, the same age as my eldest son, (he's not even married yet!), and so it has become a bone of contention with me. Now I am not one of those nagging mothers some even say I am quite cool for a mom, but this is one thing I find myself nagging about is the lack of grandchildren. It doesn't help matters that when I visit my in laws or call them for anything they always slip in the same question "Is Dawn pregnant yet?" They know I badly want a grandchild and that I am green with envy that my sister in law now has two.

Now my daughter and her husband lived together before they got married, and a few months before that big day she stopped using birth control. So she has had ample time to get pregnant. When she told me, I had asked her what would happen if she got pregnant before the wedding. Her dress was quite fitted and I was worried about an expanding waist line. "Don't worry ma" she said "the back of the dress is laced up so it can be loosened. "Ok " I'd said and waited.

Now most Sundays we go out for our family dinner. I insist on it as that is the only time we spend any time together as a family. It has been years since we have all sat down to dinner together. With the kids working and one working in Singapore we don't spend much time together and so that is why I want my family dinners. Now our family dinner is the time were we catch up on what is happening in our lives, we laugh, we fight, we talk cock, and so, at one of our dinners a few weeks ago the topic got around to grandchildren. That week her husband couldn't make it for dinner so I asked her why she's not pregnant yet. "Are you trying." I'd asked her. "I mean I want to be a grandmother before I die." " Well mom" she says since "Alex is working so hard and most of the time, by the time he gets home I'm asleep." "Oh" I said "in that case I have a solution." "Book lunch." "HUH" she said. "Yeah, make a lunch time appointment with each other, rush back to the condo get the job done then go back to work." She just gave me one of her withering looks slapped herself on the forehead and shook her head. Well I thought it was a good idea. A little afternoon delight.

Sad Day

My eldest daughter messaged me yesterday that her mother in law was terminal and they did not expect her to last the night, and sure enough in the early evening she messaged me again that her mother in law has passed away.

Stella had been diagnosed with cancer almost two years ago. The poor woman had been having trouble with her stomach and couldn't eat. The first thing everyone thought was that it was a gastric problem. She was admitted to the hospital where tests were run and it was found that she had a huge growth in her stomach, which turned out to be malignant. She underwent surgery and had had to have half of her stomach removed. She went through a session of chemo and once done she seemed to be doing quite well until last April. She had been having a high fever and so she was admitted once again. This time it was her kidneys not functioning properly because of an infection. Once they got rid of the infection, she once again rallied around and seemed better.

July arrived and my daughter and her son became husband and wife. Stella attended and even though she was painfully thin she looked fantastic. She seemed happy to finally see her only son marry. We all had thought she had beaten the cancer.


Unfortunately we were wrong. Two weeks ago she was hospitalized with another high fever. She was vomiting and therefore could not keep any food down. Without food in her stomach her body could not receive any nutrients to sustain it. They did more tests and found the cancer had come back and the doctor diagnosed only 2 weeks to live at the most. When my daughter called me on Sunday she told me that Stella was being kept alive by her intravenous tube. Stella did not survive for two weeks, she succumbed early last night.

I did not get to know Stella well because I was working and had a busy schedule. She lived in PJ and I live in Klang but the few times that we have met I found her to be nice woman. She is a Christian and I am a free thinker and so I wish her from the bottom of my heart,"Go with God, Stella He will receive you." You will be forever in our hearts and sadly missed.

Mothers and Children

My daughter came back from Singapore last Thursday night for a visit. She has been working there since July, her first real job since graduating from college. I have missed her and hadn't realized how much until she went back again yesterday afternoon. After she left I felt a big void and the rest of day seem to stretch out into aloness. If I had been working it wouldn't have felt so bad for I would have been busy myself and not have been able to spend much time with her. Her job seems to be going well for her and for this I am grateful. I have 5 kids and I used to think that once they had all grown up and gotten on with their lives I would feel a sense of freedom. After all the years of cleaning up after them, doing their laundry and ironing, getting their asses out of bed for school or work , yelling at them to do their homework, forking out money, the nagging and complaining (on my part) and the tears that have been shed over the years because of them ,I now come to realize I shall miss them all when they leave. This became abundantly clear when she left yesterday. When my husband died it had been the kids that had kept me going through all those terrible days of worry, when all I had wanted to do was curl up in a ball of self pity, but because of the kids I could not do that and so I had to grow a pair of balls and soldier on being both mommy and daddy for them. I still have two left at home but they have become independent because of necessity and because of the years I have spent working. So they are seldom home ,often out doing their own thing. I am proud of my children and know that I have raised good responsible young adults and hopefully one day if I'm lucky I will have grandchildren to help raise.

Working From Home

Is it too much to ask to be able to work from the comfort of your own home. I have been unemployed now for the past month so I thought it would be nice to do typing jobs at home freelance, but every bloody time I check out typist jobs at home they ask you to pay money first. I have been to the work online at home sights, too many to count and all of them ask you for money. So when I came across a few typing jobs you can do at home on jobstreet no less and even the Star newspaper I was once again flabbergasted to see they to wanted money for membership, and the software. What a crock of shit. One even had the audacity to ask for USD100.00, not the fluctuating exchange rate but at the fixed rate of 3.8. So I sent him an email and told him I seriously wanted to work from home but I seriously was not going to fork out USD100. He replyed you can work from home for free but did I have email extractor, whatever the hell that is. So my search goes on. Yes I do want to work from home. How nice it would be to be able to sit in the comfort of your own home and work. Never having to fight the traffick jams again, no more pissant bosses who treat you like shit and make you feel less than useless and saving on gas. Is this kind of job a dream. I did fork out money to join the membership of one of these sights and to this day I have not made a single cent. That was last year. Online surveys where they promise you, you can make $5 - $25 per survey. So I signed up with a bunch of companys and to this day have not received a single survey. Or better still when you go into the free sights they tell you not available in your country. Great. My conclusion is all these sights are con jobs and they themselves make money from gulible idiots like me who are willing to fork out the money in USD no less.

Animal Lover

I am an animal lover, so this morning when I went out to buy my ciggies and newspaper (yes I'm still smoking even though the price has gone up again) I saw the dog catcher drive by with a truck load of dogs. Most of them sitting there looking dejected and one barking his head off. It saddens me to see this as I know they are not kind to the dogs and once at the pound the dogs will be put down after 3 days. On the other hand I don't like to see them roaming the streets sick and diseased. A few months back there had been a stray on our street which one of the neighbours had started to feed. He arrived on our street looking all pathetic and hairless and my son called him Diseaso. After a few months of daily meals the dog started to look healthy and his hair started to grow back. He was a friendly dog always trying to get into your compound, sticking his nose up your skirt when you got out of the car to open the gate and licking your hand when you weren't paying attention. He always got ya by surprise. So one day I came back from work and he wasn't around. My youngest son informed me that he had been taken away by the dog catcher and apparently had put up one hell of a fight. I felt sorry for the poor thing and actually missed him. I too own dogs. I also have a cat and a bunny rabbit. I have a Great Dane, a Shitzu mix and another small dog of questionable breed. They are a lot of work but if given care and kindness these animals will show you affection back. When you have been out and upon your return the dogs will greet you with their tails wagging, the cat will rush across the driveway to rub against you and even the bunny will stand up in his cage as if to say look at me, and in the early morning when you get up and start your chores they will reward you with piles of shit in the front (small dogs), piles of shit in the back yard (big dog) cat shit in the litter box and bunny shit in the cage. So my days begin with cleaning shit. Shit my kids pretend not to see. But hey its ok as I've said I'm an animal lover.

The Ugly Foreigner

I read a letter in the Star newspaper the other month whereby a local was complaining about rude foreigners in Bangsar and I have to admit, to my dismay there are a few out there. In the day spa where I used to work we catered to mostly westeners. I recall an incident with our manicurist. We had an American mother and daughter in for a full spa treatment and the daughter was having a manicure done as well. Now the mother was an all time pain in the ass and complained about everything, on the other hand the daughter was not so bad. Seems the mother was visiting the daughter, as the daughter had followed her husband here ,as he had been posted here to work. So as the daughter sat and did her manicure the manicurest accidentally cut the ladies finger with the cuticle cutter. Off course she bled like a stuck pig and when the mother saw what had happened she started to raise holy hell. I could see the daughter was embarrassed by the mothers behaviour and kept telling the mother that it was ok. The mother was undaunted and proceeded to complain to the manageress threatening to complain to the boss, and to make amends we must give them their spa treatments for free. Which is exactly what the manageress did. Here in Malaysia we to have our rude locals. Witness the locals when they drive how they cut you off, fight you for a parking space and please don't even ask them to wait their turns. The roads become jammed during rush hour because they simply cannot wait. Don't expect them to give way to you because they won't and so you must force your way in. Getting on the LRT is a nightmare as everyone rushes towards the entrance even before the passangers getting off can disembark, and what about the men. I have had men rush through the door after I have opened it to go in myself. Is that not rude. Hey buds if I open the door for myself I don't expect you to rush in first. I have been to the gas station waited 5 minutes to pump gas only to have some asshole on a motorbike quickly rush to the pump I had been waiting for and at that same day spa those locals who can afford to go expect you to kiss their asses because they paid for it. So before we start complaining about the Ugly Foreigner we should take a look around at the Ugly Malaysian, because they are there elbowing you out of the way so they can get on the elevator first or order their food before you.

Merdeka

Happy 51st Malaysia. Have you noticed this year how quiet it was. The streets were clear no celebrations at home. In my housing area any celebration is cause to set off fireworks, and so as midnight came around I waited for the noise to start. Midnight hit and all I heard was one bang! That was it, for all I know could have been a car back firing. Where is your spirit Malaysia. Is it because the price of gas went up and so did the cost of everything else. That your salary didn't go up with the rising prices. That you have to spend $600- $1000 on gas every month which puts a huge dent in your salary. It's sad sad sad that you have to work your butt off just to pay for your gas to go to work. This past month I have been going through the want adds looking for work something along the line of Admin Assistant, and looking at the salary thats being offered in these jobs I might as well stay home because it amounts to the same thing. By time I pay for my gas I'd have nothing left. And so the search goes on for that perfect job with the good pay. At least one good thing the price of gas did go down 15 cents, unfortunatly nothing else went down in price.