Friday, June 5, 2009

More with my old-old friend...

Had a fabulous lunch of popiah at old-old friend's parents' place while I was back in Sitiawan. Drool on.... 8) And our kids got to play together some more.
Popiah
Really brings back many fond memories. I used to take meals at her place while we were growing up together. We also walked the 'backyard' of her house... been a long, long time since I went to the back of her house. It was a place of 'adventure' for me those days - of geese, ducks, chickens, kittens, fish... and a well. It still is, not only for us but for our kids too!

This is the first time my gal has seen a functional well.... touch the water and to ooh and aah over its depth and coldness; that the water never seems to run dry. Quite fascinating! Something so from the past which used to be the lifeline of the town but now at its nadir.... The kids had fun and it brought back memories of those days when I used to draw water from the well at my grandma's place in Pekan Gurney... but I found out that that skill has diminished somewhat. 8(

There were tales of chicken rearing... how the wild chickens lay their eggs everywhere and how her ma would go hunting for them and put them into boxes, making it possible for them to hatch into baby chicks. The chickens run wild in her huge backyard. A wild rooster appeared from no where and has claimed the brood of hens his. LOL! Can see where this friend of mine inherited her enthusiastic streak for nature... 8)
Chicken Egg
This is so apt, huh??? Life and death in one box. LOL!! The mother hen will hatch her eggs in the boxes for the next couple of weeks... around 20 days I just read.
Chick
The kids had fun with a couple of 'newborn' chicks. This one is 3 days old, I think. There are chicks at different stages of growth in the backyard. Looks like this house never runs out of chickens to eat! This is, after all, one of those very few houses I know which allows chicks to walk their floor. Anyway, many years ago this friend convinced me to keep ducklings in a box under my bed without my mum's knowledge... but I was found out nevertheless. How do you keep squiggly ducklings out of sight and hearing? That streak of 'peculiarity' is very much alive in my friend. All those years of being away hasn't changed that! 8)

One kid tried to mark the chicks by tying different coloured yarns to their legs. But some of the chicks got the better of the yarn and managed tug them off. But I think the chicks must have been frightened by all the attention that they've been receiving.
Radio
The kids sat together and listened to stories from the radio... we both found that we get roughly almost the same stuff for our kids to listen (watch). In many ways, our ideas and ways of bringing up children are similar. Our present is now bridging our past with our children's future.

In the afternoon, we went for a game of ping pong at the church with the golden girls of the church. This is mother and daughter partnering each other... Great, eh??

We partnered each other too and played against the golden girls but we lost to them... so paiseh! And she is probably going to remember the one 11-point game we played in which she won... cos I kept serving out! LOL!
Ais Kacang Stall
After that, both of us ended up in the ais-kacang joint, eating mee and ais kacang, of course. More than 10 years have passed since our last in-person encounter and an even longer time since our last ais-kacang fix. She and her chin-tong (clear soup) mee... me with my kampuan and loo-mien.
Loo-mien
This is loo-mien (lor-mee) from the old ice-kacang stall that we used to frequent as teenagers. The stall is now at the Kampong Koh market. It took an old friend whose memory has been on the freeze for the last 10 years where Sitiawan is concerned to reintroduce me to that. Anyway, this shall be one of the places that I shall be returning. I always like Fuchow loo-mien. You are assured of goodies with every mouthful...bamboo shoots, black fungus, cabbage, dried squid and countless other stuff which I can't identify. But to me, this is the place to get the best loo-mien.
Chin tong mien
And portion wise, it hasn't changed much. It's still huge. The chin-tong mien above can make 2 bowls in Alor Setar. For her, I guess she's still used to the big portions... where she is, everything is still super size.

It was good to be able to sit down together, like we used to during our teenage years (minus the kids and Other Halves)... how time flies; how we've moved on in many ways... yet the familiarity opened floodgates of fond memories of days before and in it, I find so many similarities in our lives.... It's kinda amazing. Once in a while, we should be reminded of our past so that we can remember to count the blessings that God sent our way and see how such meetings of lives, in its own ways, have played a role in our lives and are still blessing us. It's a journey that's well worth it. Cos it's not just a journey back to the past, but a reminder of God's goodness in our present life and also a glimpse of what is possible for our children.

5 comments:

daboss said...

wow... i can recognize all the four people playing ping pong... am i am oldie too then???

PreciousPearl said...

LOL! face it, DaBoss, we are over the hill liao!
at least Pn Ting & Pn Kong are game enough to play against/ with their parents & the other infamous S'wan OAP kelab :)
was my ma there too? i think she can beat me at ping pong with one hand behind her back ;)

monay said...

yes, PP your ma was there too.... Pn Ting and Pn Kong were no match for these smashing grandmas....

AJ7 said...

daboss... we are the new oldies. PP... yr ma was smashingly good. Like monay said.. all of them were smashingly good! So paiseh.. the new oldies lost.

PreciousPearl said...

lol... shall have to tell my ma not to buli the newbies!

Broken?

Education in doldrums... An already broken education system given a really hard whack by Covid-19.  I used to read about pandemics, that a b...