OBITUARY

Tuxy Jetta Zones
1 May 2005 - 26 Sept.2006

It took me 3 days to ponder whether I should actually jot down this very sad episode in my life. I don't feel like grieving anymore however I felt as if I'd betray Tuxy by excluding her untimely demise from the fold of my memory.

3 days ago, we had our iftar in tears. In fact I couldn't remember if I ate at all, with everyone at dinner table sobbing, blowing noses and trying our best to contain the sorrow. I even saw Imran wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his t-shirt, shaking in tears.

The drama started at 6.30pm when papa returned from the nearby shop.
papa: Where is Tuxy??
mama: I've not seen her today!
papa: I saw a dead cat by the curb of the roundabout, looking exactly like Tuxy.

I've just finished taking my bath, wrapped my wet hair in a towel and rushed downstairs.
I searched for Tuxy all over the house, garden, front yard.
The maid said Tuxy did not turn up for breakfast this morning.
I was beginning to be frantic and started calling out her name..

At about the same time, Dilla arrived from work at the gate and I asked her to drive me to the curb to check on the dead cat.
I was in pyjama pants, loose t-shirt, hair bundled in a towel and wearing the maid's garden slippers.
The moment I saw the still body, I knew it was Tuxy!!
I turned to Dilla and she confirmed my worst fear by just seeing the tears already welling in her eyes.

Tuxy must have been hit by a vehicle while foraying just about 50 meters from the house.

Tuxy came to our lives by a split second sheer coincidence about 16 months ago.
We were at my mother's house in Kuala Pilah when Imran saw this very pitiful Siamese cat, body covered with fungus, belly bloated with worms infestation and suffering obviously from severe malnourishment.
She was probably 2 weeks old and could hardly walk, creeping from the drain outside my mother's kitchen.

Imran said he was sorry for the cat.
I took her in my palm and bathed her in warm water. After an attempt of feeding her with whatever human food available from my mother's kitchen, I told papa that the kitten required medical help, as her skin appeared to be curling up as a result of fungal infection.

That evening, as we prepared to leave my mother's house with the poor kitten in a box, Imran saw ANOTHER one in the drain. This little girl was far worse than the one we picked up earlier, one eye plastered up with dried mucus almost blind, and having bad diarrhoe. She was a mess of black, ugly thing and if we did not take her along with us, she would probably not last another day.

Papa: You mean we are going to end up with 2 sick kitten?
mama: mama tak sampai hati, papa. I already took one but could not ignore the other just because she was ugly. My conscience can't take that!

The moment we arrived in KL, I took them to the family Vet. They were dewormed, given a course of antifungal treatment for 2 weeks, vaccinated and prescribed with specified kitten food.

After they were cured, they turned out to be 2 beautiful girls, Chihuahua is a bit clingy but Tuxedo or Tuxy as she was later lovingly called was very independent. Her favourite pastime was sitting on top of one of the pillars in my garden, watching the world passed by....

I'd naughtily disturb her peace and tranquility by calling out her name and waving to her from the balcony of my bedroom.

She had very pretty, shiny, jet black coat of hair by now, the reason why I jokingly called her Tuxy Jetta Zones....

She loved the garden, spent most of her time there. She was my constant companion at the Koi pond, biting playfully at my feet, left, right and then left, perhaps to alert me of her presence.

I used to tell the cats to be careful of the passing cars.The guilt is still there, that I did not do enough to protect Tuxy from one.
But 16 months of life, free to roam and venture around, is better than 6 years of living protected in a cage.

Tuxy was aptly buried under the Cempaka tree at one corner of her favourite garden of our house, very close to the pillar where she frequently held station.

May you be happy at the cats' heaven, darling.
Once in a while, don't forget to look down on mama at the Koi pond!, I'll be missing you!!

In Loving Memory.

Tuxy and her sister ChiHuaHua within the first week of coming to our lives.







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Ramadhan is here again.......

Alhamdulillah, we are given the opportunity to perform our ibadah in the month of Ramadhan again. Other than trying harder in my efforts to be a better muslimah, top on my priority list this Ramadhan will be cutting down on purchase of food for the breaking of fast.

mama: Tahun ni mama tak nak membazir macam selalu lah! Mama nak beli just enough food for everyone. Beli 3 keping kueh and I'll cut them for us to share...

Ikram: Aren't the kueh already cut when you purchase them?

mama: Yes, and I'm going to cut them further into even smaller pieces!!!!..

Everybody at the dinner table looked at me in disbelief.

On Saturday, my mother called to inform me that my grandmother suffered a stroke. That it eventually came was not quite a surprise since my grandmother is already 98 years old. After the first sahur, we drove back to Kuala Pilah to pay my grandmother a visit.

She of course cried when she saw us, especially after setting her eyes on Tasya. Even with half her body hardly functioning, she still remembered not meeting Tasya for so long since my daughter had been away studying in London.

I pray that whatever days left in her life will be easy for her, and that she will not lose her dignity. We know how it is with stroke patient when she would require assistance even in her private moment.

We left Kuala Pilah the same day at 2pm and decided to check out the Pasar Ramadhan at Jalan Melang. It was the first day of the fasting month but the Pasar was already a hive of festivity. I saw lots and lots of food cooked in Negeri Sembilan way. Tasya and I walked around the rows and rows of Ramadhan hawkers and went back to our waiting car with:















1. Gulai tempoyak daun kayu
2.kerabu daun pengaga
3.Daging salai masak lemak campur belimbing buloh
5.Gulai sayur maman
6.masak lemak ikan masin dengan nenas
8.Acar limau jeruk

All these are sold for RM2.00 per serving.

9. Ayam percik at RM1.80 per stick. Try buying the same at Taman Tun Dr. Ismail, I saw on TV last night that it would cost you RM5.80 each at the Pasar Ramadhan here.

10. Rendang ayam dengan daun puding. Tasted just like my mother's.

Lepas tu papa menambah lagi dengan:

1.Dalca
2.Gulai sotong
3.Ayam masak madu.

My main intention of trodding down the Pasar Ramadhan in Jalan Melang was to go and get my 2 favourite N.Sembilan traditional kuih:














The Buah Sepang a.k.a Badak Berendam which I purchased from 2 different makciks.

Another all time favourite is the Kuih cucur (second plate from left) which is made of tepong beras and gula anau. It's difficult to prepare in your own kitchen but cheaply sold during Ramadhan at RM1.00 for 3pcs.

The rest in the picture are good old cucur pisang, toothless delight, buah melaka, cucur badak, and agar2 santan with gula melaka.

At only 2pm, and another 2hours of journey back to KL, I've already bought 2 jugs of icy watermelon juice:

Ikram: Whatever happened to your cost cutting measures, mama?

mama:Today is different, I bought the food so cheap but delicious, besides I wanted to help the Ramadhan traders in my kampong!!!!...

ye ke??

Astaghfirullahalazzim....

(disclaimer: Food arrangement and the use of carca-marba utensil is courtesy of my made-in-Indon maid. Any fatal flaws against the acceptable etiquette is not the responsibility of mama-irma).

Lihat lah, Dunia....

Finally, after 8 years of working moderately hard, Malaysia Airlines decided that we are worthy of an 'Outstanding Sales Achievement Award'!!!! This award really belongs to my entire staff, without whose effort, this accidental travel agent would have called it a day many, many years ago..

I called myself the accidental travel agent purely because I have never thought that I would be counting airticket stocks each morning, 6 days a week, as a career. Being married to an airline staff, with free annual tickets to do my personal travels, my most meaningful participation to any overseas trip thus far was holding on to the boarding pass handed over to me at the airport by dear Papa.

After leaving a Government job, I set up office in my own bedroom, with only a desk and a laptop hooked online to a stockbroking company. I buried myself thick in serious stock market investment and very soon it appeared like it was a battle between myself against the ticker. After 6months, and a fattened bank account, I became an isolated person. I waited for papa to come home each day to brag about my daily haul and if he failed to show any expression of being impressed, I would start a quarrel.

Papa suggested that I should go back to seeing the world. I started meeting friends again. To make a short story long, one dear friend requested if I could help him manage his fledgling Travel Agency. I asked to buy it over instead, and in 2 weeks I was the owner of a business I knew next to nothing about. Papa nearly had a heart attack!!!!!

I went for a short intensive course in an effort to equip myself and only then started to familiarise myself with the AIRIMP codes, using Alpha, Bravo, Charlie for A,B,C instead of Apple, Bola and Cacing!!!!...ha,ha,ha....
I learnt the structure of a fare ladder, calculated the maximum & minimum permitted mileage and created airlines routings worldwide, within 2weeks.
I obtained a Certificate in Travel Trade with a Credit and could now arrange for your trip to the North Pole.

Fast forward 8 years later.....What do you know, the national airline has kindly concurred that we are one of the Outstanding Achievers amongst Travel Agencies in the country.

Here's hoping to a more profitable business in the years to come......

Farewell, Irwin.

Imran and I spent the entire day yesterday watching 'The Crocodile Hunter' on the Animal Planet channel, a marathon programme as a tribute to Steve Irwin, the wild life conservationist who was killed by a stingray on Sept.4.

Steve's passion towards conserving especially wild animals, made him a very special and kind person that should the stingray lived, even it would have regretted stabbing Steve on the chest, piercing his heart, in that freak accident last Monday!

I watched documentary after documentary filmed by the brave Aussie. I laughed out loud watching him made a face like a spoilt child, declaring "I want to be an OrangUtan!!!", after spending a whole episode being with a family of the specie.

I cried when his dog, Sui Irwin, died of old age. He spent the last hour with her, him sobbing as she died in her sleep. It was just like a page from the book 'Marley the dog' which I've just finished reading.

Steve started catching and rescuing crocodile at age 9 . The knowledge he imparted through the documentaries he made were those he acquired from the school of hard knocks, scratches and scars. He said that he didn't believe in spreading information through reading from pages of texts, but by demonstrating them. Indeed, the way he went about explaining the habits of the Slow Lorris, and the life in a colony of Macaque, were exactly what I learnt from the text books for my Animal Behaviour class in University Malaya, doing my own degree in Zoology. I had to memorise the mechanics of the snake's movement through an imaginary pattern but Steve explained it all by just holding on to a snake's tail!.. But he'd later say: "Now, this is really dangerous, don't try to do it at home, kids!"

Irwin spent his life trying to rescue endangered animals and it was only appropriate , I suppose, that he died doing what he loved.

Goodbye now, mate,
May you rest in peace...