I Heard It Through The Grapevine

For a division, the Company (and its subsidiaries) is pretty humonguous. So, one would expect that a mere individual such as yours truly is just a small fish in a huge ocean. Am just a kucirat earning her keep, yadda yadda and all that jazz.

However, for the past 2 days, this Madame has found out that this Division has got one damn bloody efficient grapevine - too over efficient, if you ask me. The news has even gotten past the Malaysian borders to reach all the way to the Netherlands.

Sigh.
Can I please remain incognito and crawl into the nearest worm hole to escape it all?

*am wondering sapa lah mulut tempayan Company ni*

Roller Coaster - Day 4

Overnight, my roller coaster of a week continued its downward plunge.

OtherHalf's granddad passed on peacefully after almost 2 weeks post op. The tough ol' man who I highly respect has gone to meet the Almighty and also his dear departed wife.
Towards noon, felt my head banging to the beat of some invisible jungle drums.
After a nap, checked my office mail to find out some dodo head went and sent a vital document of mine all the way to HongKong - idiot fish.

Right. Tommorrow will be another dramatic day I believe.
Wish me luck.
Ciao.

Roller Coaster

Oh my freaking God. What a roller coaster of a weekend - and it's only Wednesday. Dramatic is an understatement. Where do I begin?

Met up with MarinadelRay on Friday night - had a quick teh tarik session to boost our spirits in anticipation of the weekend. Got my chenta hati arm candy as well - thank you Mumsie! Love you very very much.

Lazed around the whole Saturday morning before dragging my hiney off to one of the VP's for R&D Deepavali do with my Legal sidekick, MummySiKenit(s). Turned out brilliant. Met such lovely people, social butterflied with Company people, then sasshayed off to KayElSeeSee where we had a mini AmazingRaceALike, before chilling on some nice, comfy sofa chairs sipping icy cool drinks.

Sunday was spent packing up some personal belongings in office as we were about to move office space. Since no more could be done in the office - the new premise wasn't even fully painted yet! - I managed to get some me time by being pummelled (and thank God, not stomped on) by a chunky masseuse (who unfortunately was not blond and handsome and did not go by the name of Sven - darn it).

Monday onwards just went downhill-ish. The whole Monday was spent cleaning up the new office space and organising stuff around. Work done was almost zilch. The end of the day just got worse as this Madame agak ter-sentap with some crude, insensitive remark made by a colleague. Instincts almost made me unleash my kekadang-takde-insurance-nyawa tongue, but sanity took hold of me at the last few seconds as this was someone who I had to work real close with in order to get my way. Unfortunately, the crap mood encroached onto the correspondence I made with over the emails - they had to suffer with a rather sharp tongue transcribed into my emails (I even had a meek reply from HongKong acknowledging it, oh dear!).

Tuesday began calm-ish, but my calm-ish mood was provoked by a certain individual - name and identity withheld for now. Come just before noon, OtherHalf rang me up, calmly informing me that a small fire broke out in the kitchen. Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? Rush home after lunch to find out that, alhamdulillah, it was a small fire and the only casualties were a table fan, an extension plug and my kitchen curtains. Thank goodness the workers attending to my master bedroom renovation noticed the fire and managed to contain it. Thank goodness OtherHalf was at home. Worked from home, then went for a little breather at the BigBlue&YellowStore before getting another phone call from OtherHalf enquiring why on earth our eldest was not home from playschool. Picked her up en route Home to find out that the Principal and teacher-cum-childminder went MIA and the other childminder had no idea how to contact me. Sigh... Mood was not lightened up when even close to dinnertime, the master bedroom was still covered in thick, heavy dust.

Today, mood has not lightened up. Was put on a guilt trip by a Chairman's secretary who insists that all board members attend a board meeting which was nigh impossible to get a date for. Spent the whole morning wrangling a tentative date by calling god knows how many parties concerned and placating said Chairman's secretary, who almost had a fit trying to get a slot. In between arranging said Meeting, the newbie CluelessChick jangled on my already fit to burst, fragile nerves by constantly harrassing Ursula to check on this, check on that, get this, get that (this, by the way, has been going on for the past 2 weeks - I have been tolerating it so far as it has meant that Ursula has managed to get more work done in the last 2 weeks than for the last 3 months!). However, enough is enough. Today, she got my sharp tongue unleashed by her constant Where, Where, Where? and not using the God given senses to actually get off her (skinny, yet almost miraculously, heavy weighted) bum and search for the said items. By all accounts, I have been a nice enough boss and given her leeway and grace period for the past 4 weeks, but it's time she learnt how to look for things properly with her eyes and brain, absorbed my work methodology and not leave my files cluttered around when she has finished looking for things (only I am allowed to clutter my own workspace, spank you very much). Oh, and learn how to take the fast spaced instructions emanating from me on an ad hoc basis.

Oh, what a long half week it has been so far. Let's see where the roller coaster ride shall take me, aight? At this juncture, I bid you all adieu and bon nuit! Let's hope tomorrow will be a lighter, calmer day.

ps - CluelessChick should really go by the nomer CikPuanB*n**tB*r*t, but really, even I won't be so Evil Queen to refer to her as THAT name here. Woops.
pps - apologies all around, I still am in my Evil Queen mode, which looks like staying hard and fast for the remainder of the week. Sekian.

I Miss Being A Real Corporate Tai Tai

How time flies..

Can you believe it? It’s been almost a year since I’ve returned to the Motherland after spending almost a year in the Land of RobinHood&HisMerryMen. It’s been almost a year since I’ve been back in the folds of the Company. It’s been a great year, but lately I’ve been doing some thinking.

Sure, it’s great to be back as a full time career woman with a maid to assist me in the house cleaning and looking after the kiddies whilst I am at work. However, I can’t help missing the days when I was back in the UK where yours truly was truly a Corporate Tai Tai. Those days, it was nice to work at full speed for half a day, take the afternoon for some Me time with a spot of lunch and shopping, then spending the rest of the afternoon bonding with Inky.

These days, I have to admit I am pathetically trying to be the perfect Corporate Tai Tai, trying to juggle a rather demanding career and relatively heavy secretarial portfolios and just trying to be there my two children. It wasn't too bad when I had Inky alone - I felt like a Superwoman then, being able to do almost everything and anything. Now that Impy has come along, it really is a struggle to pay equal attention to both of them, whilst running the household. Whilst I used to be an early bird at the office, I now can count my lucky stars if I can arrive punctually through the front door at 8.30 am. By the time I leave the office, wade through the traffic and reach the Home gates, it would be Maghrib-time and there would be that very short stretch of time during which we could all have dinner together and horse around together. At the moment, I am surviving on precious little sleep as Impy is a rather light sleeper whilst Inky would hog the whole of the bed. The weekends will be spent juggling between paying attention to both parental units, the hubby, the children and running the household. And in between, I do have certain social obligations to fulfill to keep up with the world (no offence, but I'd rather not have my life revolve solely around the kids).

I do try my best though. I make sure Inky and Impy are well gomol-ed (in between my Cafe World addiction). I make sure that the Family gets a cooked meal from me during the weekends. But darn, it's hard.

Oh well. This might sound like a whiny post to you but heck, I'm getting pretty strained out. Wish the government would take a look at the possibility of introducing part time or flexi working hours to cater for working mommies in this country. So, the pay might not be as rewarding as working full time, but heck, at this point of time, I feel that missing out on bonding with the children is a huge opportunity cost to working full time round the clock. Nevertheless, having the maid is still a need for this Madame has she is not domentically inclined in the cleaning department (especially with a Home this spacious).

Well, here's wishing that things might turn out for the better in the near future. In the meantime, I think I need to plan for a well deserved break and put in some bonding time with my hubby and girly gals - sans li'il kiddies running amok around you.

Getting To Know You.. Getting To Know and Feel The Real You...

In taking time out from work and the perpetual CafeWorld obsession in me, I managed to fulfill one rather long outstanding date with...

MarinaDelRay!

Some of the old timer bloggers will definitely remember this rather prominent blogger who has taken a rather extended hiatus in the bloggersphere. This date has been a long time coming. We've known each other virtually since, oh gosh, donkey years ago, back when I started blogging in 2004. We went through singledome, getting hitched, preggy-dome, mommyhood, weight loss (and its subsequent gain) together all via the ole trusty blogspot. This virtual friendship lasted through the per-MukaBuku era via comments on each other's blog until today. Many a time we have set dates to meet each other in the flesh and it never materialised.

Until today. Finally, I managed to meet the very bubbly and vivacious MdR in the flesh, who was in my working neighbourhood for a week of work. Over our early dinner of beef pastrami sarnies and mushroom soup, we had the greatest opportunity to exchange stories in real time, as opposed to typing them out interspersed with many a typo and kiddie interruptions. Our one hour together was not enough, yet it was so entertaining, I can't even wait for nour next date together!

Of course, being the (once) dedicated bloggers at heart, a meet up between bloggers is never complete without a snapshot taken for prosterity and memory.

Hey, babe. It was great meeting up with you. And we will definitely set that play date between our daughters. Insyallah, if the opportunity comes up again, we will have a much longer, fun filled time together!

My Latest Addiction

Hi. My name is Izreen and I am a CafeWorldaholic.

*head bows down in shame*.... NOT.

And this was partly the reason for the hiatus on this site, heh heh. Be my neighbour folks, and I'll serve you yummy ayam golek, pot roast, triple berry cheesecake, onion soup, spaghetti and meatballs, and the like.

It's pretty addictive and infectious - I have spread the addiction to MummySiKenit(andKenitv2-to-be) and to Sis. Wooohoo.

So see you tonite then. I'll have spaghetti and meatballs with triple berry cheesecake waiting for my customers.

Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy there!

Goodness gracious me, what a record. Apologies for the almost 1 month hiatus, but well, hey, the workload has been piling up, it’s a pretty busy month on the secretarial side, the kiddies have been keeping me busy and I’ve been making myself busy running around like a headless chicken.

So, the Eidl’ftr has come and gone – that was pretty darn fast. And for some odd reason, even though I was back home with family all around me, I somehow missed the Eid I had with my friends back in Notts. Wierd or otherwise? Beats me. Anyway, we spent the first day of Eid in KL, then the second and third day embraced in the mass that had gone mad in Genting Highlands. Why Genting? Let’s not go there folks. Suffice to say that will be the first and the last time I ever go up Genting during a festive season. The highlight of the trip was actually the 3 hours spa session spent in the PedasSprings Spa up in the FirstWorldHotel. We did go back to Muar the week after for a cousin’s wedding, and to be sure, from this time onwards, our second and third day of Eid will definitely be spent in Muar. I don’t know about you folks, but to me, this year’s Eid was rather lowkey and a bit of a downer. For this, I blame the economic downturn, to a certain extent. Even the Parent Company has decided that their open house will be held right at the very tail end of Syawal. Nuts to that, but at least the lack of open house invites (or rather the laziness of this Madame to go to open house invites) to go to has pretty much contributed to the non-excessive weight gain the festive season always contributes to (despite which, this Madame has yet to lose all that pregnancy pap she put on six plus nine months ago, boo to that!).

Some pix



With the Syawal, Inky turned 3 on 7 October, Impy turned 6 months on the 27 of September. So, we took the opportunity to hold an all in one celebration for close family, friends and neighbours – Inky’s third birthday party, Impy’s aqiqah, the rather belated house warming as well as a small feast for the invitees. As we was working on a rather tight budget, I decided to unearth my crafts basket (together with my pretty dormant crafty talent) and decided on making the celebration do all from scratch – which was, really, the choccie bars, the marhaban ladies’ goodie bags, the kiddie’s party packs, the bunga pahar, the party banner, the potong jambul tray to, believe it or not, the staircase banister draperies and rosettes. Yes, it was pretty time consuming to say the least, but the satisfaction (and, not to mention, the cost savings!) was pretty much worth it. Alhamdulillah, it went well and smoothly, but I think I have sworn myself off ribbons and fripperies pretty much for the coming year (and more, perhaps). However, I think I will take orders for simple decor if people want me to do them. Oh, and thanks to all the pressies the kids got - I have to mention that Inky, the kakak, has also decided that all of Impy's pressies are also hers (smart girl, that one). Mumsie got Inky a gorgeous white birthday gown (also good if anyone decides to get married within the year and needs a precocious li'il flower girl bedecked in white with blue beadings on them), MakZ got her a gorgeous birthday cake, all bedecked in quacky rubber duckies and we, the parents, got her a proper bicycle with trainer wheels and all!
Pictures are still with the snapshooter, but Sis is getting pretty good at it herself, as evidence by this:-





Speaking of the said pregnancy pap, this Madame is kind of desperate to lug off a huge chunk of it, now that she has relinquished all booby feeding duties to Mr.BottleAndTeat. Impy, at the ripe old age of six months, decided that latching on is not enough and wants more and more sustenance, something that the milk factory could not keep up with. Oh well, so this Madame took the opportunity to go on a rather boring diet of soup and oats most days – much to the consternation of her colleagues. Nonetheless, she has been bringing brekkie and treats for the colleagues pretty much almost every day in order to finish off the home raya treats – am throwing of the nibbles which can be pretty darn tempting on the homeside. To my shame, this Madame almost decided on trying out that so health drink as a weight loss aid, but has, at the very last minute, decided to defer that decision (apologies FoxyFarah – I will get back to you once I have extra dough, which I currently am short of) on the basis that (a) she can pretty much make her own smoothies with the blender and (b) that the money spent can be put to better use.

Better use? Okay, this Madame admits that she is having a really bad craving for her very own eLVee. And this was post accompanying Mumsie purchasing her very own. But not the typical shoulder sling tote almost every single Jane, be it young or old, in KL is carrying about. No, this Madame aspires for the rather classic buckled tote, one that is smart and structured for the office, yet classy to wear with jeans and a white shirt. So, hey there – an eLVee Fund for the NeedyMadame has been created! So, if you folks are feeling rather generous, please do not hesitate to contribute to the Needy and it is to be hoped that this Madame will reach her target sooner than later. Heh heh. Am also thinking of cooking, creating, collecting for cash, so, if you do need something whipped up to your fancies, please do not hesitate to contact me. I can do things on a budget – trust me. And my target collection is around a thousand quid. So, help me, please! Contributions to the fund are much welcome!
My idaman hati, my desired eye candy. The Manhattan or the Beverly - hubby, please take note, s'il vous plait! Merci boucoup!



Alrighty ho. Am rather engrossed in the MukaBuku CafeWorld application (which is practically the main reason why this blog has been pretty restful lately, heh heh). So, am getting back to my three bowls of fruit salad that will be ready in about 10 minutes before I put on onion soup, just in time for breakfast (yes, playing this very much addictive game has also honed my time management skills – planning in advance is the key). Will blog more later on when other stuff materialises then.

Till then, au revoir and see you in Cafe World – hey, become my neighbour will you folks?

Salam Aidilfitri 2009

To all my friends, be them real or virtual.. have a great Aidilfitri to you and your loved ones. Maaf zahir batin and have a safe journey to wherever you all are headed to.

So what are your plans? As for me, we'll be starting off the Eid celebrations on the eve with a huge Adom clan makan-makan session at KgAmpang. The first day will be spent traipsing all over KL visiting families who will be spending their Eid in KL. On the second day of Eid, we'll be taking a drive up north for a family holiday with the in laws - way up in Cameron Highlands! Am hoping we can spend 2 nights up there, so will definitely be importing some lauk raya to be eaten up there.

Okie doke.. now I have to start ironing all our raya clothes and counting out the duit raya to be handed out. So, have a happy Eid and see you guys soon.
Toodles!