Visiting

Drove over to Shah Alam today to see Sharifah & Hamza. Sharifah isn’t feeling too well at present. She’s been bruising easily and her blood count doesn’t look good at all - now awaiting the results of further testing. We’re hoping for the best.

On The Floor

Work on the new floor in the house proceeds apace with quite a number of the tiles now in place. Must say, I'm happy to be away from it all for the moment, though it will be nice to get back to life as usual. We're hoping to do so by the end of the week, though I suspect it'll take until the year's end to get everything in real order. Good to have a project to look forward to, I suppose.

Street Life

It's warm of an evening in the city, which makes walking pleasant from my point of view - though I think Noi has her reservations about over-doing it. It's also refreshing to walk around without coming across too many folk who are obviously struggling. Hope this is a sign that most of those at the bottom are being provided for, one way or another. Across three evenings we've probably walked by around ten people who looked like they didn't have anywhere to go and might well be spreading themselves out on or around the pavement. None of these looked particularly vulnerable, and one can only hope that looks weren't deceptive. 

Mind you, there were small children involved in three cases with the young women looking after them seeming to be surrounded by and guarding their few possessions. But the kids looked well cared for. Somehow this didn't seem as desperate as it perhaps should have done.

The Big City

Took a stroll this evening to Bukit Bintang, generally taken to be one of the most happening places in the city. The experience served to confirm the obvious. We are small fry in a very big place. This is massive, perspicaciously noted Noi as we drank a cuppa in a shopping centre known as The Pavilion:

Mind you, it was interesting to note that the room for prayers in the centre, tucked away down a long corridor off the 4th floor, was relatively small. Presumably this was not one of the designers' priorities. 

Keeping It Real

Put in another shift at the gym in the early afternoon and did not enjoy it at all. Which is making me wonder if I'm setting the resistance too high on the machines I've been using - varying the trainer of choice today. The sense of the effort required to get the wheels turning feels similar to the setting for my usual machine (which is the highest resistance available for that version of the elliptical  trainer) but after a time keeping going on these different machines takes quite some doing. I don't mind the idea of making an effort in the interest of keeping reasonably in shape, but I'm not sure it should feel quite so forbidding. Indeed, I'm sort of surprised I've managed a full one hour session today and Thursday.

For the last fifteen minutes today I kept myself going by visualising myself slurping down epic amounts of cold water as soon as I got back to our room. And I can assure you the water tasted especially good when I was able to make the fantasy real.

Bad News

It's a measure of just how cut-off from the life of the world we used to be when spending time in Malaysia that I can recall not actually being aware of the 2003 invasion of Iraq until the Americans were several days into their assault. Oh for such innocence again.

Now both Noi and I seem to be picking up on every nuance of what's going on in the Middle East, which engenders a curious low-lying, simmering anger in us both. The anger of helplessness in the face of brazen injustice. 

New Numbers

Noi took care to book a place for us to stay in the city with a gym attached and I dutifully made my way there this afternoon. There were two elliptical trainers, both by the same manufacturer as the one in the gym back in our usual Far Place (Star Trac) but with very different controls. So I spent much of the session adjusting, with some success and much exhaustion. Probably a good sign.

The read-out on the machine of my choice gave useful info on my heart-rate, which peaked around 162, averaging 155-160. I'm not sure exactly what this means but since I survived the session I'm assuming the numbers are okay. I seem to remember hitting something like the same figures on the old machine that eventually collapsed pre-pandemic.

Lost And Found

These days we negotiate the busy highways of the Malaysian capital using Google Maps to find or lose our way around. (Roughly 60% finding to 40% losing.) We found our way back to the big IKEA store at Demansara fairly easily this evening; but getting back to our current HQ on Lorong P Ramlee turned into a bit of an epic. Distinctly over-exciting for our advanced years.

Happily the present IKEA is pretty much the same as the older version, from which we purchased quite a number of items a quarter of a century ago when we first put Maison KL in order. Nice to be able to half recognise some aspects of the past. I suppose they couldn't think of any painful ways to improve the place and so resisted spoiling it.

Seeking Refuge

We've got away from Maison KL for a few days, being temporarily resident in a place adjacent to the KL Tower. It's good to get away from the mess, though we'll be regularly visiting it to make sure the disorder is in some kind of order. Glad I'm not the one digging up the old floor and replacing the tiles. That looks like genuinely hard work to me. And demanding of real skills.

Upside Down

We finally got started on repairing the tiled floor in the living room. Or rather, our contractor Ah Seng and his merry men got started whilst we sheltered from the attendant noise by retreating to the upper floor of the house. Tomorrow we intend to get even further away as the hacking and racket continues. Basically we're ripping up and throwing away the whole floor as we just can't get matching tiles to fill the space where the damage is.

Glad this has started since we've been delaying forever. Glad when it will be over and normal service is resumed, though that's likely to be quite a way off.

All Change

Popping across to Wangsa Maju in the early evening, Noi and I experienced one of those ever more frequent moments in which we expressed startled surprise at what was for us a sudden change in the skyline to which we've been accustomed. Coming up the hill adjacent to the supermarket on Bukit Antarabangsa neither of us was ready for the two large blocks of flats in the distance beyond the houses on the roadside opposite the emporium. Where did they come from? said both of us simultaneously.

This helped us prepare for the many changes we witnessed in Wangsa Maju itself, rendering what had been fairly familiar interiors not so.

I know change can't he helped, but I can't help wish it could be.

Wasted

I'm in the rare position of not having any genuinely pressing things to do, for a few days at least. Very nice. Except that I'm contriving to almost entirely waste the time granted. How so? Well, today I found myself watching a couple of documentaries on YouTube related to various versions of substance abuse & the attendant addiction. I learnt nothing that I didn't already know about the sadness, despondency and sheer waste involved - which felt just a bit ironic.

I suppose part of me watched the on-going misery with a complacent sense that at least I've managed not to mess up my life so spectacularly. Which doesn't speak well for me at all, I'm afraid. 

In Contrast

I'd been half-intending to finish Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet - A Novel of the Plague before setting off for KL. But I didn't, allowing myself to be side-tracked by Robert Philip's A Little History of Music. It wasn't that I put Hamnet entirely to one side, but I deliberately spun out the last third of the story, the segment following the boy's death, slowly reading a few pages at a time to take in the rich detail offered. I suppose I was to some degree distancing myself from the inherent sadness of the text.

In contrast, Philip's survey of music through the centuries never rose to the level of the gripping, but was easy to manage. Briskly informative would be a fair description. 

I finished both today, gaining something from each in its way.

Not Quite In Control

We had a new car radio system installed just over a week ago. The previous system worked through a touch screen that suddenly opted to turn temperamental, and we'd been putting up with the inconvenience for a few weeks when it further opted not to function at all. So we decided enough was enough and we'd get something new and a bit more state of the art.

That was all well and good but what I didn't expect was something so state of the art that operating it would be an art in itself. If I tell you that it took me until today to figure out how to switch the thing on and off you'll have some insight into the complexities involved. I will say I was happy to get the system to link to my phone from Day 2, but I still don't know why it sometimes decides it isn't linked and refuses to do anything about this. Though it will happily re-link when switched on again, as it did just now.

Having said all that, the actual sounds coming issuing forth when all is well are great. Just played Stevie's Fulfillingness' First Finale and the drums & bass sounded epically clear & precise. I never realised that what Stevie plays drum-wise on Creepin' is so complex. It takes a great dark, slinky sound to a new level - a neat discovery after more than half a century of very happy listening.

In Retreat

The kind of day when the world is just too much. No adventures necessary. We stayed happily at home. Even then bits of the world dribbled in through the usual channels, as they usually do.

The one I opted to listen to featured a surpassingly beautiful meditation on the theme of today's post. Something worth listening to in all the noise.

Friendly Faces

Met up with Nahar & Yati, and their youngest daughter Zahra, just now in Far East Mall. They're over in KL until Thursday, just for the fun of it. Since we managed to meet up with Boon & Mei last Saturday evening at Fafa's housewarming that means we've been able to catch up with our old chums at the right time, just as the holidays begin. A timely reminder of what life is for. (And I don't mean just eating grub together, important as that is.)

Here, Eventually

Somehow this morning I managed to forget to complete the digital arrival form I need to do before the Malaysian Immigration will let me in to their fair nation. Fortunately the guy on the booth checking our entry was the epitome of patience and didn't complain at all about the hold-up as I did the necessary on my handphone. Completing the form on a phone adds considerably to the bureaucratic torture by the way as hardly any of the drop-down thingamajigs work, but we managed eventually. I say 'we' since the officer himself took my phone to complete the address in Malaysia section for me after the phone resolutely refused to accept any info on the subject from me. The whole experience reminded me of one of life's great truths: the little people caught up in the impossible bureaucracy of their organisations are without fail incredibly helpful.

By the by, we entered our northern neighbour complete with working VEP (which we astonishingly settled about a week ago) and sailed through various toll gantries paying through our e-wallet (working!). So the actual journey up the North-South Highway was a delight. (Except for the massive jam after Ayer Keroh which slowed our arrival in these parts by a good two hours. But you can't have everything.)

But now we're here and it looks like the house is working and we can finally rest. So good night all, and sleep tight. I know I will.

Finishing Off

Almost finished the job-list for the first week of the vacation. Now preparing the on-going list centered on what we need to do at Maison KL, where we'll be off to tomorrow morning. There's always something, as Mum used to say in an irritated manner. I know how she felt, though I'm trying to be happy about the fact there's something rather than nothing. 

The Right Place, Again

Eid al-Adha, 1446

It wasn't overly crowded at Masjid Darussalam this morning whence Noi and I went for the second shift of prayers for Raya Haji. So, in contrast to last year, I found myself reasonably up front and centre for the proceedings. I suppose I feel at home for congregational prayers just about anywhere, but when they are enacted in the place I'm most familiar with the comfort level is palpable.

And later we're off to a very new place for house-warming at Fafa & Idham's recently acquired apartment. Hope they'll be happy there. And comfortable. The omens look good. 

Wobbling

14.40

Just got back from Friday Prayers where I started to feel the effects of today's fast. I'm not used to this, and I've got a fair few scripts from IB to deal with this afternoon. Hope I remain clear-headed!

17.20

I'd forgotten just how sharp a first-day-of-fasting headache can be. Now unfortunately remembering.

22.00

Given the crashing headache I was dealing with as I broke today's fast, getting to the gym later was to some degree unexpected. In fact, I'd sort of convinced myself I wouldn't be going at that point. So now I'm reflecting on the power of habit and just what you can convince yourself can be done just because you've done it before. A key aspect of the challenge of fasting itself, by the way.

Lacking Intensity

I've reached the part of Hamnet that deals with the boy's death and funeral, and it doesn't make for easy reading. Except it's so well written that it's distinctly pleasurable to read.

I think it's the intensity of the writer's apprehension of the world that does it. The novel is life-affirming even at its darkest since each detail is so vivid and alive. Even the dead body of the child. 

I felt a bit flat this afternoon, probably the result of dutifully ploughing through some unrewarding marking, and the contrast with the vividness of what I was reading was marked. But in some ways, possibly most ways, I was happy to settle for my shallowness.

Widening Horizons

We've been switching on our twinkling lights this week, since these are the early days of the month of Zulhijjah, leading up to Eid Al-Adha. A pertinent reminder of a larger world elsewhere and deeper concerns than cleaning bookshelves and marking scripts. Also a way of invoking memories. Not that I've forgotten anything of what we were so fortunate to experience some nine years distant. 

Working Up A Sweat

Spent much of the day perspiring. Even marking IB scripts with a standing fan pointing in my direction was enough to evoke a mild dampness, and when it came to getting the bookshelves vacuumed my t-shirt blossomed with wetness, as did my shorts. My growing sweatiness reached a peak at the gym and since then I've been going easy on trying to get stuff done. Mind you, there's still plenty in store for tomorrow, though I've decided already to adjust my marking targets in a downwards direction. After all, I am on holiday. I think.

In View

As a bit of an experiment the other day I searched YouTube for versions of Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony. It turns out that there are lots, confirmation that the Internet can be a good thing when it wants to be.

The stimulus for my search was finding in my feed a link to a particularly fine version of the masterpiece performed by the Budapest Festival Orchestra. This both sounds good and looks fantastic due to some excellent camera work. The shots of individual players are cunningly selected to illustrate facets of the music, particularly those of the soloists. The visuals make everything sound clearer to a non-musician like myself, if that makes sense. 

And seeing it in action, as it were, I finally have begun to understand why the ondes martenot sounds so beautifully expressive. 

Hearing Restored

The stars aligned last night. I was happily expectant regarding what was in store with reference to Tunggu Sekejap: The P. Ramlee Suite but in the event was completely blown away by the show. Everything about it was sensationally good, starting with Julian Wong's commentary on his wonderfully engaging music. But there was so much more than that going on, not the least a sense of generosity on all sides - performers and audience - that was obvious as soon as the show started. Everyone was there for a good time, and more. The more being a kind of reverence for the magic of creativity at every level.

One of my best nights ever in a theatre, and that's saying something.

And lovely to hear Noi gently singing along to every recognisable melody.