Appreciation

A beautiful wedding, very well-planned and organised. It's hard to believe kids in our eyes have got it all done on their own from beginning to end.

Our "kids" have proven to us their capabilities to handle difficult tasks independently. I can't call them "kids" anymore though they would always be in my heart!

And the most touching part was the words of appreciation from my lovely daughter's heart. Even reading through it again today, my eyes would still wet with tears .......

Mom, Dad,  You two are amazing - amazing as parents, as husband and wife, as role models, and as friends. To me, you have succeeded in teaching me what it means to love to one another as husband and wife; to be patient with each another, and to support each other in your respective endeavours and most of all, to make the effort to bring joy and cheer to each other.  Pa, you are always the one who looks out for me, protects me and shelters me. You make sure I eat my greens, your heart hurts when I come home from school with a new injury, and your face lights up with pride when you hear about my achievements.  You sacrifice your precious time to fetch me to school, music lessons, now, to work and back. Our 8 minute car ride is the one thing I will miss the most because it is when you offer me advice, catch up on our day, and discuss current events such as me reminding you that it’s mom’s birthday or your wedding anniversary. Occasionally we drive in silence but I appreciate the comfort and stability you bring with you.  I know I have been quite a handful growing up and I want to thank you properly for putting up with me all these years, for finally supporting my decision to study in Australia, and being even more supportive when I return home. Dad, you will always be my role model – for showing me that nothing is impossible, that a hobby is worth investing in, and to live a life with the motto ‘don’t worry, be happy!’ is definitely worthwhile!  Ma, you are my super-mom. On top of being a working mom, you’re also Mrs Fix-it-all, Cook-it-all, and Make-it-all. While Dad showed us that creating something is not impossible, you taught us that solving something is not impossible; not without some creativity and effort!  You played a vital role in my learning to be independent, to think for myself, to seek my own path and to be an extraordinary person. You have always showed me that we can pull through difficult situations even though others would have given up long ago – such as drying my wet textbook page by page on a sunny balcony, sewing me my kindy uniform when the school didn’t have any, sit with me weeks on end to teach me math, science and accounting to make sure I get my A’s. I owe my determination and grit to you.  You showed me a degree of love no other person can replicate, through your actions and sacrifice. You remember all my favourite dishes to the extent that you create a recipe blog so I can replicate them away from home. You encouraged my love to read and never saying no when I pile up boxes of books to buy at warehouse sales. You make me limited edition clothes that I proudly wear, and most of all, you are also willing to let me make my own mistakes, as much as that pains you as a parent.  I thank you for never giving up on me, for setting the bar so high as a wife, and as a mother, because if I can achieve half of what you have today, I would consider myself blessed!  Both of you and Pa have taught me that learning never ends, and who best to learn from but you two. After all, it is not everyday someone my age can declare that their parents are savvy online shoppers!  From the bottom of my heart, thank you ma, thank you pa, and I love you both!

Note : My only contribution was sewing the dresses for the flower girls! Not bad, right?

My iPhone

I love iPhone, as my daughter has predicted. Not so much that it's a phone to chat, but more of it being a multi-function device. Together with WiFi, "WOW", its "power" is far far beyond a senior citizen's imagination.

After seeing me using the iPhone day and night for the past three months, my husband teased me, "Remember somebody said she didn't want a handphone earlier...? Hahaha..."

"Come on, you know I am not after a "mobile"phone. This is different: smartphone is not just a mobile phone; it's also a multi-function device which I am willing to pay for even if our children didn't buy it for me..." I defended myself, but couldn't deny the fact that I was hooked like any youngster!

Recently we (four old folks, my husband and I together with his sister and brother-in-law) travelled to Kuantan. My iphone for once worked to it's fullest in this trip. It's used to google for places of interest to visit, where to eat good food and shop for local specialities. No more headache to look for new places as  GPS led us all the way to every location. We could even check for weather and identify places with most negative ions (one of the main concern of my sister-in-law in this trip). By the way, high concentrations are found in beaches, mountains and waterfalls  .....

Beautiful scenery, delicious seafood, even moments that we met the Menteri Besar of Trengganu, Datuk Seri Ahmad Said at Hai Peng Kopitiam, Kemaman where we were lucky to get a free treat from him, were all captured with this "camera". Pictures taken were sent to our children there and then. Local or abroad, they could see instantly how we were enjoying ourselves in this getaway bliss.

Another wonderful part of this "digital camera" I realised was that it's not limited to 24 or 36 shots like the Kodak films; I could just simply snap, delete, re-snap... ANYHOW I wished! Not gonna worry anymore that some ugly shots(of me) would remain for life in the albums!

On our way home to Kuala Lumpur, we decided to stop by Bukit Tinggi* (for negative ions?) on the spur of the moment. Fortunately there were still rooms available and at the hotel counter, we were trying our luck requesting for some discount. The receptionist who wasn't very helpful replied,"No, no discount unless you book online. Online rate is much cheaper than walk-in rate. But I don't think there's any way you can do it now."

"Why not?" This old lady took out her "secret weapon" to rescue. It was easily done with a smartphone at hand. My dear iPhone saved the day again! (You don't believe? Oh... evidence? No problem, see my screen shot here....hehehe...).

Not just some cheap thrill, my friend, we saved enough for the four of us to have a simple dinner at the golf course that night!

I don't think I can live without a smartphone anymore, really. Again I must thank my children for it. And I think this time I should thank all the brains behind the technology too!



PS. *Bukit Tinggi is about 2700 feet above sea level.

Smart phone and I

All the while I didn't have a handphone. Even before retirement when I was still working, I didn't have one either.

I felt I could be reached easily either in office or home via the land line (or email). So there's no necessity to add extra burden to myself (charging, checking messages or miss calls...) and I was happy to keep my handbag lighter without this gadget.

I wasn't missing anything without a handphone really and I thought I would never, never need to get one.

I don't mind to be the odd one out in this era when even kids are chatting away on handphones.

If it's my decision, you know the same truth (that I don't need a handphone) still prevails! But when my eldest son ordered his dad an iPad, his younger brother gave him the bright idea of also getting their dear mum an iPhone. ( I would have stopped him if I had known earlier). That's how the story of smartphone and I began.

Whilst the father rejoiced in receiving the present he had long dreamed of, I was grumbling behind that the iPhone would be a white elephant for me. Partly also I felt a bit heart-ache to have spent so much of my son's hard-earned money.

For quite some time my "white elephant" was left in it's packing (no one was home to set it up and I was not interested to find out) until my youngest daughter returned from Australia. She subscribed immediately a data line for me and introduced me to the world of smartphone. She had worked before with a cellphone company in Australia and according to her, amongst other smartphones, iPhone was the first love of the senior citizens there. Based on this fact, she assured me that I would soon learn to love it too!

Her statement couldn't be more true as I had since then got hooked to using Whatspp, Skype, iMessage, facetime, gmail, google, GPS, bloomberg, camera, youtube ....

All on that iPhone!

Yes, it's every senior citizen's first love. I would gladly endorse this fact! And I must also not forget to thank my children for this wonderful gift!

You owed 1 cent!

I was shocked to receive a call from the handphone service provider, notifying that the service for my husband's mobile phone will be suspended due to outstanding bill. If you have the patience to read on, I believe you would be shocked too!

"I have just paid the bill and there's no outstanding." I protested.

"But you didn't settle the whole amount, the outstanding amount is now overdue."

"No, I paid the whole amount for the current month as shown on the bill. You must have been mistaken."

"Our system shows there's still 1 cent outstanding. Please make payment immediately in order that your service is not interrupted...."

"1 cent?"

I took out my bills to check. Yes,  last month's bill was RM88.01 and the post office where I paid the bill only collected RM88.00 cash from me. Wasn't the 1 cent supposed to be ignored according to the new ruling?

I also checked the current bill and discovered that 1 cent still showed as outstanding! Arithmetic was correct. I still owed 1 cent! The problem was I didn't take note of this when paying the current bill. I assumed it's written off last month.

But why such a great fuss over 1 cent ??? Even to the extend of making a warning call!

"You better go and pay now..."

"No, I am not going to! But I can add it in when paying the next bill."

"I am sorry, then your line will be temporary barred until this amount (1 cent, no joke!) is settled... . For your info, there will be charges for reconnection...RM10 .... ". She spoke like a robot.

No matter how I explained, she wouldn't listen. I put down the phone and furiously made another call to the customer service to complain and explain my situation.

Won the case and they waived the reconnection fee  which was 1000 times the 1 cent.

But this long call of grievances definitely cost me at least 100 times the 1 cent!

Please remind me......

Both my husband and I were getting more and more forgetful (sign of aging). Keeping track of important upcoming event has became a headache to us. To solve the problem, our children taught the father how to set reminders in his smartphone so that there's no fear of forgetting any important event . Yes, what a good idea, making full use of the greatest invention of this era (at least to old folks)!

The trouble was sometimes we need to be reminded to be alert of the alert tones from the smartphone!

Fully aware of his forgetfulness, my husband would not fail to ask me to remind him each time he set a reminder in his phone. This "double protection"system should be foolproof we thought. Let's see how we've fared in practice....

Some time ago, we received an invitation from a Malay friend to his daughter's wedding. It was held at the bride's place on 25th of the month. I checked the calendar and told my husband that 25th was a Sunday. "No problem, but please remind me...." he said and quickly set a reminder in his handphone.

Just before the Sunday (25th), we realized that we had to go back to hometown for Ching Ming that Sunday( there you see...we forgot ). My husband called and apologised to his friend, explaining to him why we couldn't attend.  But his friend said, " No worries, there's another reception at the bridegroom's place the following weekend, it's 31st. Please make sure you come", he said. 

"Oh.. then we can go next Sunday since we can't make it this Sunday... please remind me..."my husband again said the same thing to me. But he forgot to set a reminder for this date (31st) in his phone this time.

Anyway, from 26th onwards, his faithful wife kept reminding him (everyday) that there's wedding reception coming Sunday. Surprisingly both of us remembered this event fairly well this time. 

On the D-day, we dressed up smartly and headed to the wedding venue. My husband was so proud that even without setting iPhone reminder we remembered the event.  

We handed our present for the newly weds to the receptionist at the counter and started to look around for our good friend. Oh, What a beautiful Sunday to share his joy!

The hall was full of guests. And where's our friend, the bride's father? He was nowhere to be seen..... . So we asked around and didn't expected to learn that the bride's father was another person! They presumed we were at the wrong venue ....

We took out our invitation card to show them; no mistake and we were at the right place!

"Uncle, yes, the venue was right... but this was yesterday!"

It was so embarrassing when they had to dig and search to return us the present! (Good thing we hadn't started eating!).

"I thought I ask you to remind me..." my husband turned and stared at me with his big eyes.

"You ask me to remind you to attend on the next Sunday.... and today is Sunday ...." 

My dear, 25th no doubt was on Sunday, but 31st WAS NOT SUNDAY! It's Saturday!

What a joke! We did try to remind each other.... SUNDAY...SUNDAY...SUNDAY....

I wonder do you old folks also fumble like us this way???