The novel virus now has a proper name

Virtual schooling begins....WEEK 1 VIRTUAL LEARNING

Ah yes, March 16th 2020 - first day of virtual learning and also first Monday of school that we are allowed to sleep in. The sense of foreboding did not sink in fully. I had always thought that the school might be closed for 2 weeks maximum or at least until the Easter Break.

My boys had their school work come in via See Saw or Show My Homework online platforms - they went smoothly. I even did a yoga session - thought of myself as Zen, calm and centered. virtual schooling? Nothing to it!

I even wrote a list of things I could accomplish or spend time on during this upcoming potential free time that I had on my hands.

The list :-

1. Temper my temper

2. Repair what’s broken with Jan-Farris and Martin

3. Closer to God

4. Work that telescope (Birthday present from Martin - still not used since I didn’t know how to align the damn thing)

5. Lose weight and get to a size 36 (hardest of goals to reach I would find out later)

6. Puasa  (Fast)

7. Master Spanish

8. Walk every day

9. Start Face Yoga

Very ambitious but raw and honest - no?

Only the days wore on...the workload started to come in and I realized quickly that my youngest son needed some supervision to set up the first Zoom call, to download folders and documents for him to work on - I got frazzled pretty much by the 4th day.

Around us, cases of the Covid-19 infections were inching its way into Harris County. By this time, New York and California had a massive spike in new cases as well as deaths. The government started to take notice - I guess even Trump rolled out his fat, orange belly to stand up and give a fuck.

We were cocooned in a lovely house in a nice community with a lake. We had a pool, full stocked pantry, a lake view and a park just outside our community - this is paradise!

Only I realized that having the kids as well as Martin home meant that now snacks and lunches were my responsibility - no longer the cafeteria’s. The shit hit the fan pretty quick then. My kids were constantly ravenous and starving. Yoga mornings were abandoned because my sleep was anything but restful. I would wake up - tired and sluggish as before.

Fuck this virus.

Fuck Covid-19.

WEEK 2 - VIRTUAL LEARNING

Uneventful - still staying above water with all the schoolwork and deadlines. I even squeezed in some sporadic yoga sessions.

Harris County began reporting some cases and for quite a few days there were nasty rumours about how the National Guard were brought in to enforce a lockdown in Houston. These fear mongers were real assholes hyping everyone up like that.

The Texas Governor Abbot left it to the various counties on how they choose to enforce the restrictions. And so, on the 24th March, Judge Hidalgo enforced a stay-at-home order for Harris County - effective until end of Easter break. So it began. Took some getting used to (albeit a relief to not have to go out for groceries anymore - opting instead to have them delivered). Martin had a tiny hoarding mentality because he would still go out to buy groceries - usually on a Sunday and would return with more toilet paper (!), kitchen towels and lots of frozen pizza. Our freezer was filled to capacity and we were worry free - food wise.

We would go out for walks now and then. The boys would play football, go out cycling -  I joined them for walks sometimes but realized that I got worried and apprehensive each time we met others along the tracks. The track is narrow enough but we would distance ourselves as much as we could (short of flinging ourselves into the bushes) and act like it was a perfectly normal thing to do and not because I was-terrified-that-you-were-harboring-the-virus. It was odd. I started to just stay home instead. I would lounge by the pool, gaze out into the lake, meditated etc - it was enough for me.

If I was anxious- it was not obvious. We all took it as a chance to take a step back to reconnect with our family, be at one with nature and slowing down the pace of life. There were inspiring images on how a normally filthy Venice Canal turned pristine clean and clear, how clean the air was in the big cities in China - Mother Nature was healing, humans were the culprits who were now being locked up. This is going to turn okay in the long run if you ignored the massive number of deaths in Italy, New York and California.

My bedtimes were normal enough and I even had an extra hour in bed as there were no more school runs to make. But I would wake up each and every time absolutely exhausted - like I was fed through a meat grinding machine. Every inch of my body ached.

It was only during a phone call with a good friend of mine that shed light on the possibility that perhaps our sleep was not restful because deep down we were anxious and terrified at the sweeping no-mercy fatal power of the virus. I worried about our mortality and the mortality of my mom so far away in Malaysia.

If I get sick in the US, where do I go to get tested? Can I even get tested? It’s allergy season in Texas - every running nose, or sore throat would be for me as a sign of imminent doom. I was asthmatic - I would never survive if I were to get hit by the virus.

 America was so unprepared - a President so callous, uncaring and a con man. No reassuring words came out of his mouth - just self promotion and attacks on the press. I was so fed up of living here! Is it any wonder why anxiety came knocking on my door?

These are strange times

It started innocently enough - in China -In a story sensationalized by the Daily Mail and with just a squeak of a mention in CNN, if at all. As Daily Mail is my first go to source of news every morning, the darknet of the Corona virus was giving Wuhan a bad name and had shed spotlight on the supposedly disgusting wet market of all exotic meats under the sun that the Wuhan residents seem to be so fond of.

As days went on, things started to change - little by little but the no of infections started to spread and the number of deaths were rising. Here in the USA, the virus’s namesake was the source of many jokes - most notably how some dumbos were emptying all Corona beer bottles into the sink. We smiled and laughed then. Thinking back, maybe it was nervous laughter.

This was back then in early January....Wuhan was still the epicenter of the outbreak and Hong Kong as well as Taiwan were reporting their first few cases. We seemed to be insulated from them being so far away  in Houston. Folks were getting the Chinese New Year celebrations ready and school life carried on as usual.

My first cause for alarm was when Martin was about to go on a business trip in mid February and I was asked to get some disinfecting spray as well as gloves for his plane ride - just in case. The pharmacies were out of them and on Amazon, you could not get them in stock unless you were prepared to pay an arm and a leg. At about the same time, a friend from school had an acquaintance who could get surgical masks as well as N95 masks. The word got around the Malaysian/Singaporean community in our school and we promptly placed our orders. I think at the time, we were having the first inkling that this was not going away and our sense of urgency and preparedness set in.

Slowly but surely, I started to buy the disposable gloves, disinfecting wipes and since hand sanitizers were clearing off the shelves, I bought the ingredients needed to make our own sanitizers i.e rubbing alcohol, Aloe Vera gel by the bottles - always trying to anticipate and staying a step ahead. Within our community, we would inform each other if a supermarket or store had hand sanitizers in stock, or we would show each other our pantry to see if we had missed out on the essentials. Letting the panic slowly overtake my senses, I started placing orders for Germicides, Chlorox as well as disinfecting cleaners. Martin was already in Germany at this point in time - and must have wondered about the huge charges on this credit card.

I also started to buy pasta, rice, canned food, toilet paper, bottles of water ( the big gallon bottles were all sold out, so I bought loads of smaller drinking bottles). Our garage was slowly filling up with goods, the pantry was filling up.

Then one picture of a lady in Singapore who had loaded her cart full of instant noodles hit the internet and this struck a chord with me till today. It was not the toilet paper hoarding that would be the sign that this virus was upon us but rather this instant noodle lady. In Australia, the toilet paper hoarding had begun. Germany began reporting a spike in the number of people being infected. Alarmingly close to where Martin is.

In school, we were seeing hand sanitizers being in installed everywhere and the mantra about washing your hands for at least 20 seconds to the tune of Happy Birthday was being implemented. Some cases were appearing in the USA but the sense of urgency did not yet arise.

Martin arrived back from Germany on the 6th of March and I remember being apprehensive as to whether it was safe to kiss or hug him. Martin thought at the time that wearing a mask was overrated (me thinks that he was too embarrassed to wear them) and we went out to celebrate my 51st Birthday at a fancy steak house in City Center. Little did we know that that would be one of the last times we would be patronizing a restaurant for a long time to come.

A week later, Martin who had ignored all my pleadings to remain at home due to the virus now appearing in Brazos Bend County (not too far away from our county) appeared at our doorstep around lunchtime because HR had sent a memo asking everyone who had travelled abroad in the last 2 weeks to go straight home. It was about 200 folks sent home that day.

It is hitting closer to home. Some feeling of uncertainty has started to swell up in me and everyone. We started to take a step back with the normal way of greeting. No kisses on the cheeks with my Latina friends. During a house viewing for example, Martin preferred to not shake the realtor’s hand - just to be on the safe side. On the same day, Marc-Harris had a play date with a bunch of friends at a trampoline park and I remember feeling very uneasy at the large number of people there.

School carried on but now posters were appearing everywhere advising the kids as well as the parents that clinking shoes or touching elbows were the better way to greet each other. I found both methods off putting preferring to Namaste them instead or to greet them with my right hand placed on the heart and bowing my head down slightly - the Islamic appropriate Malaysian style of greeting. Nevertheless, our school carried on much to the chagrin of some moms. Public schools decided to extend the mid term break for an additional week - making our private school a safer place to be.

One of the last lunches I had was with a good friend at Phat Eatery - normally crowded but this time, we could get a table straight away. My days were spent stocking up again and again - to the point of exhaustion.

Alas, the school succumbed to the pressure and decided to close the school starting on the 16th March. That Friday 13th was then the last day of school, I attended the parent choir and we video recorded our efforts singing Sweet Child Of Mine. It is a bittersweet memory now to me because unbeknownst to us, we would not be singing together again till the end of the academic year.

Back home, the realization has not really sunk in - felt like we were just home for the weekend, we even went out for pizza! How careless we were...

And so, virtual learning begins......

Houston has a problem....

It has been a good 7 or 8  years since my last post - forgive me if my English is out of whack and my writing style simplistic. I am no longer living in Germany and no longer a mother to a wonderful boy but TWO.

Husband is the same character that I have moaned about before - frog turned into prince and turned into a toad - kind of thing - but the biggest change has got to be that I am now living (well for the last 4 weeks anyway) in Houston, US of A.

Nope, it was not on my account and neither did we willingly emigrate but rather my hubby was told to come here or.....(mind boggles to think of the alternative) and so we packed up ( such a simple word belying the tears, endless lists, organization, trips to the recycling center, the uprooting of our what was our home and base for the last 10 years - whew!) and here we are - our cat Georgia included.

First few days were good - it was just numbed by jet lag. I forgot for awhile that I am now even further away from Malaysia, in Trump La-La Land and in Ku Klux Klan territory (aka the South) - what could go wrong right?

Plenty as it turns out - all 4 Categories of it. Meet Hurricane Harvey Category 4. The aftermath after he made landfall exactly 7 days ago, is catastrophic to say the least. Words like Hundred Year Flood, Biblical Proportions seem sensational to say but in truth, they don't even begin to describe the destruction and misery that Harvey had unleashed upon us.

Suddenly, Houston is in news everywhere - not so much Rockport or Galveston or Corpus Christ when Harvey was a full brute Category 4 Hurricane but Houston - when Harvey weakened to a Category 4 Tropical Storm and dumped trillions of liters of rain on Houston - causing massive floods.

I thought at the time "Why now? When we have just arrived? Some welcome Houston - thanks"

It is enough for me to have a flash of all of us (Georgia) included making a beeline for the airport and hightailing it back to Dusseldorf. Even better in Germany than USA? That's saying something!

We have been spared from the floods - though the danger was never that far away. Maybe God didn't want to scare us too much and complete disillusion us - but my state of mind is shaky to put it mildly. I seek comfort but don't know what gives me comfort.

Where is it?

...this self worth of mine? Systematically hacked, gnawed away at the foundation one painful slash at a time until it's almost gone...if not gone already?

On some days I feel feisty and am so full of spirit that literally I feel I can move a mountain a pebble at a time and rebuild it again pebble by pebble, at another appropriate location...and still have the strength to admire my handiwork...

on some days, like these last couple of days, I feel trapped and unable to move....mostly because I am too afraid too venture out or to fight because I feel so small, so tiny that the others will surely trample upon me by mistake because I can't be seen or be heard?

I think I fully realize now who I am or how my husband sees me ...I am housekeeper and nanny and oh, when times are desperate, someone to shag.... After the shag, you will be surprised how fast he reverts back to his cold, unfriendly self...

How else to explain it? We had a 6 hour car journey before us. I had already adhered to his very specific packing instructions that I spent the day before indoors whilst he and my son spent the day outside enjoying a beautiful sunny spring day. I had gotten into the car after checking that the house was properly locked and secure and he greets me with "My God! How much garlic have you had?!"

(I had been consuming whole cloves of garlic in a desperate attempt to harness on its antibacterial properties to annihilate my oncoming pneumonia). I was so taken aback with the tone and manner in which he chose to express himself that basically, my breath stinks to high heaven.

I looked at him, this man with the white skin with his huge Ray Ban aviators covering his reptile cold eyes and thought " This is it. This is definitely it. He must really think shit of me to not even attempt to disguise the contempt in his voice, even in front of our son" And so, with my self worth reduced to a heap and with his uncanny way of setting the tone for the holiday that awaited us, we started the holiday.

I thought at the time. " Wow. He must be patting himself on the back for firing such a hurtful salvo that it reduced me to absolute silence" Yup, silence... for the next 6 hours to Zurich. He had the whole time, this smug look on his face that I found myself thinking ho - terrible, mutilating thoughts...toward HIM. Deep down, after the initial violent thoughts , I cried, banged my head on the wall thinking "Stupid, Stupid, stupid! Why do you even stick around this piece of shit?! Why do I let him treat me this way?!"

All these...only because he caught me unaware and I was unprepared for that. But what kind of a life is it having to be always on the defensive and always on the alert? When you love someone and that someone loves you, aren't you suppose to feel secure? How does it go? That you can finally EXHALE...? Here, I am holding my breath in the same way I always do before a dentist is about to administer a jab...because I always think that it will lessen the pain that I expect to follow afterwards....

Bubbling close to the surface

My husband can be a real asshole sometimes. Imagines himself to be God's gift to women. When he prances around with that pout which is supposed to convey an aura of being very, very cool, I think he just looks like lip Botox procedure or similar gone wrong.

When he hardly listens to whatever I say or hardly converses with me, I think how I would love to deck him across that Goddamned face!!

I feel so stuck in this rut - this whole gamut, range, plethora of emotions just whooshing in me, that I just feel like throwing my head back, open my mouth and just scream until I am all screamed out!

How does someone that you used to love turn out to be such an ASS?!!!! It's all about him at the moment - denies me my home trip this summer only for my son and I to sit around watching him leave us to entertain ourselves while he runs, or plays tennis or goes on his endless business trips. And yeah right, I am supposed to sympathize with him that these business trips are hard on him because he "would rather spend time with the family" Each times he says that I can always see that her's about to break into a smile. That's how insincere it sounds...

He is on a get young and stay young mission. The only person I know who would admire himself in the mirror and actually say " I look good don't I?"

And I think hodoh nak mampus instantly which made me realize that I have a lot of anger brewing up in me.....

question is--what will I do when I huff and I puff and I blow?

Quite a while ago, I was engaged to be married to a damned jerk. He had started out all romantic and atentive - until the Jekyll and Hyde syndrome started to kick in - because he started to be such an ASS. Anyway, whenever I watched a romantic movie, I would be filled with such a sense of longing - because in that hellish relationship that I was currently in at the time, I was not feeling THE LOVE.

Until I met my current hubby - oh how he swept me off my feet and pushed all the right buttons. Because I was so incredibly suffused with lust which later transformed to love.

And now, many years later, when watching a romantic movie - I feel that sense of longing again. For the one who whooshed me off my feet was a temporary illusion - now he takes pride and pleasure to deny any show off affection or love. I read the first chapter of 'Eat, Pray, Love' and all´I can think is "This is all sounds incredibly familiar". How she loved and despised her hubby at the same time. This is how I feel right now.

My God! That's it till the rest of my life? Is it enough? Can I live with someone knowing that he is trying to cure the incurable romantic?

I am thinking...

Is it still there?

8 years ago today, my father passed away. And its amazing how different husbands change once the sole male figure in our otherwise all female family is no longer around.

For one, the husbands lose their respect for you and take liberties and become reckless and careless - who is to reproach them?

Who are you gonna tell little orphan girl? They seem to taunt - your mama? Why do we let them actually?

Papa taught me better - those fighter instincts? They seemed to dissolve when he died. Or maybe got buried momentarily under all that mourning.

Is it still there? In me - somewhere?

Yummy Mummy and Hugh Jackman

It was the most breathtaking dream ever and so vivid. I will write it all as I remember it - so here goes...

I was in a normal looking bar - nothing fancy - when a friend told me that Hugh Jackman was about to arrive at the bar soon I was also having a white sheep on a leash - I remember that now!

I was very excited to meet him - in the dream - it was as if he was a very good friend of mine - and that we have not seen each other fore quite some time. More people came in into the bar and it was getting fairly crowded. Suddenly, I heard from my friend that Hugh had arrived.

He was dressed in a midnite blue shirt, long sleeved and with a suede vest over it as well as matching brown pants and had an Australian hat on. I made my way thru the crowd to him and with a smile on my face - I was delighted. Upon seeing me, he took off his hat and gave me this tremendous smile that seemed to light up his blue, blue, eyes.

I recall also that I was asking myself " Why is it that i am moving towards him and not him towards me? Don't I look too obvious that I like him more than I let on?"

So there we were face to face and we hugged each other. I felt so overwhelmed with happiness and my pent up feelings that I kissed his cheeks several times - was supposed to look like a friendly gesture - when his face changed. He had stopped smiling - and held me by the shoulders and looked me straight into my eyes. His face was full of passion and it was like at that moment that he realized that he loved me too....

Because we kissed - oh how we kissed - passionate, tongues mingling and he pressed me downwards, kissing me passionately that I lost my balance and actually, we both fell crashing to the floor, but our lips still locked.

He looked surprised that we had ended up on the floor. We both scrambled to our feet, I said something like " I did not realize that I was that heavy" and let his pull me up back to my feet.

We continued kissing again - and I remember his smell - so clean and heavanly, at that spot just infront of his ear. I inhaled deeply, remembering the smell.....

like freshly washed cotton sheets - no cologne smell but just nice and fragrant without the need for perfume...

and then i woke up but the smell still lingers on..

what a fantastic dream and kiss that was - until now, my whole body is tingling just thinking about it....

Yummy Mummies go Thai...

First Yummy Mummies meet since the year 2010 rolled in and we were all bundled in one car - the four of us plus a cutie munchkin - headed towards the other side of the Rhine River - a place I had never ventured into. The drive was about 20 minutes and of course, with all ladies abound, we started talking - how we had spent New Year's Eve, how the kids were doing etc, etc - and something funny had occured to me.

We were four non German ladies - real foreigners, not even European - but we were all chatting and conversing in German - can you beat that?!!! We did not realize it because it had become almost second nature.

So to the nay sayers out there who think that we try our damned hardest to not fit in - F**k you! We would not have bothered talking in this language if we were not even remotely interested in blending in.

Anyhoo, our hostess had conjured a nice, hearty soup with goose meat. It had turned out that it was a 5 kg goose (which explains why Germans do away with the 5 kg turkey for Easter as well as for Christmas). It was delicious and I had piled on the garlic and dried chili flakes on my hot steaming bowl and right there and then, it cleared my sinuses.

Thank God for Yummy Mummies - I was starting to feel a bit funky about my life and the things I have achieved as well as the things I have yet to achieve and the amount of time left to do it. What if the list never got around to being completed?

It is no bucket list mind you - its just that I had come across an old friend of mine who went on to accomplish things that I can only dream or imagine about in my wildest dreams. I felt envious - in comparison, my life is so cushioned and so well, dull in comparison.

I keep getting the feeling that surely there must be more to it than what I have done so far? It's not about making more money or having more money - it's asking the dreaded question - am I happy where I am right now? Or so numb with the mundane routine that I don't even realize that I am not happy? Just not feeling one way or the other...

I feel like digging and excavating into myself - with my bare hands, dredging up all the dirt and cobwebs and clogged dirt and screaming " Where are you?! Where are you?! I KNOW that the real you is hidden in here somewhere!"

But who is the real me? Buried too far down it's just best left that way?

Yummy Mummy at the threshold of 2010...

Just standing at the threshold mind you - not celebrating in any way shape or form. The last days of this year 2009 was so full of good feeling but also so much bad karma that I feel like imploding inside (is there such a word? - when you burst inwards?)

Christmas started innocently enough with the same routine - the carload of goods and presents and clothes for the trudge up to in-laws who love a 40-minute-drive away. The cakes and coffee that greet us and the usual "Oh-what-a-nice-tree" oohhhs and aaahs..

The service or do they call it mass - at a church so dimly lit - I am all for subdued lighting but it looked like the church was just a step close to a power blackout and the slow, organ music and the hymns - does God all Mighty even love these dreary, lifeless hymns being sung in His honour? No offence but surely something along the lines of Harlem Gospel lifts the spirits and lightens the heart more right?

The dinner was okay - a rather tough lamb stew and an ambiguous cooked cucumber thingy- was just sad that my son's appetite was more or less treated like a secondary thing because he had lots of bread, bread, bread...

It was my mother-in-law's behaviour that was exhausting and my hubby did not help much to make Christmas season an occasion to remember...

For instance, why is it that when hubby is at my mom's place and this - never for more than 3 nites at the last count, he gets to lounge around, sleep in while I am the one who is in the kitchen? And I am still the one who is stuck with the same routine when I am at his mom's place? It is the epitome of male masochism - I tell you.

So there I was - up at the crack of dawn because of my son's internal clock and I had to rack my brains to make conversation with my mom-in-law and the thing is - when I start to tell her something - her attention is - for want of a better word - transient and flimsy. She would always interrupt me with " I have got to ........blah-blah in the kithen/laundry room/ bedroom/bathroom and will be right back" And shen then practically sprints out of there - leaving me in mid-sentence and you know? she never comes back.

When she did come back, she would not bother to ask me to continue where she had cut me off.

But when SHE starts on a story - it is so mind numbingly dull that I want to stick my whole fist in my mouth to make myself go into a MEGA RETCH!!! It's about some neighbour who did something normal like - I dunno - hammer a nail in the wall to hang up a picture or something along those very boring lines and I make sure that I keep this "That's-a-very-interesting-story" face the whole time. I did not interrupt her the whole time. I let her come to a natural finish-without-the-flourish.

But next time I will...

and that's the resolution for me this time around...

...to be happy....

....and anything or anyone, who is a potential hindrance to me achieving this resolution ...will be discarded to one side or told off in the most direct manner, respectively.

Yummy Mummies go Mexican..!

the third Yummy Mummies went Viva la Mexico this time around...substantial breakfast and no evidence of the wispy, barely there Continental Breakfast which I detest..

And this time around, we had a full quorum - and the spread was spicy, chocolatey, cheesy, guacamole, filled tortillas...

the conversation was rapid and topics were discussed and tossed around in rapid succession...but the ultimate was

"How do you like it here in Germany?"

And you know, when a German asks me this question, I will automatically say "Okay" but as the question this time was asked by non-Germans, the answer was honest and frank with no-holds barred.

We all agreed that the first years are the most difficult and trying. Another point that was interesting to note was that the more we resisted blending in with the German culture and way of life in Germany, the longer we end up staying in Germany.

Examples in our Yummy Mummies group were :

- One Thai lady said that she only wanted to stay for 3 years maximum but is now currently entering her 6th year!

- one Irish sweetie said that she was adamant that this phase in Germany was temporary but now is currently living out her 8th year as well and sees no end in sight (perhaps the fact that her hubby had just bought a house compounds this no light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel gloom)

- moi? This is my third year in Germany - and hubby is currently marking realty pages as Favourites -

...the outcome is obvious isn't it?

I am just not going to say it in case it gets misinterpreted as a fervent prayer and God goes Amen...

When lines of communication get crossed..

...it is unerving...and irritating...

This must be the second time that I have purportedly "misunderstood" what was said..

I know that I am 40 but my grey brain cells are still in fine operating form...

The Yummy Mummy was conceived a few weeks ago and it was specifically stated that it would be open to people who we think are lonely and would like to be part of a group...

So I have this acquiantance .- who I had said I would like to include into the Yummy Mummy group - at the outset, at the conception so to speak..

And now, when I call to tell the host of the next Yummy Mummy soiree that my acquiantance will be joining us - she nows reveals that she could not remember what was said.

This is not an exclusive club and there is no need to be high nosed about inviting other people into the group. The objective of this meeting is NOT about eating and stuffing our faces but about mingling, talking, communicating, chilling out and for us to know that despite being in this strange land we call Germany, that there is an outlet for us to just be ourselves and let down our guard.

I am disappointed - from someone who anyway did not think too much of the idea anyway of Yummy Mummies in the first place.

Maybe it is just the bad vibes that I have been inundated with in the first place that's making me feel like this...impatience with petty people...

I am not forgetful - some people feign forgetfulness...one time too many...

When Yummy Mummy gets mad...

...it gets molten hot deep within the core of my being...

... and the strongest of emotions - HATE - gets whipped up in a frenzy...

...what turns a sibling into someone that you don't know anymore and wished to God that she wasn't related to you in any shape or form...?

...that you start to get angry with God for letting this sibling unleash her tyranny upon her family....without retribution

...how is it that she is so blind that she can't even see that her son is now withdrawn whilst she wallows in nothing more than self pity ...and

...is relentless in her betrayal of her mother and of me...again and again and again...and AGAIN?!!!!

The wrong can win? What kind of a world is this?

Rain, rain go away...

I am running out of patience - can this typical November German weather please get the hell out of December?!!! I have put up all Christmas decorative lights I had in my arsenal and all the ornaments, Santa statues - trying to gloss over this naffing rain but it's not helping.

The weird thing is ...its not that cold - I mean I can live with 7 Celsius - its just the wet, wet, wetness of it all

Got the results of my endless tests and procedures that I had endured or put myself through the last 2 weeks - including strapping this BP reader machine on my arm for 24 hours - a few days ago. It must have taken about 70 readings over the course of one day - even while I was sleeping. Problem is - each time, the strap started to cut the blood circulation to my arm to make a reading, the tips of my fingers started to hurt - was very uncomfortable.

Anyhoo, the results were made clear to me the next day - during the day, the BP readings were high - at some point, I should have really been wheeled into ER but during the night, the BP readings were quieter and normal, normal, normal

What is it that i do during the day that is spiking up my BP? Am I really just a bundle of stressed up anxiety the whole day even when doing something normal like watching Gilmore Girls?? I do not understand it.

I just realized during the course of today that mostly and normally, I actually clench my jaw without realizing it. When I actually purposed relaxed my jaw, there was a major difference. What is it? Have I been 99% tense without knowing it?

Is it being here in Germany that is just riling me up quietly? When I wake up every morning, do certain receptors in my brain send out "Oh no! Another day in gloom and doom"

My doctor reckons that its hereditary - since my blood work did not reveal any kidney diseases which could have led to the high BP, my lungs are clear (no cancer! Thank you God! I swear NEVER to social smoke again) and my heart reveals no damage or problems - its just hereditary.

So I get medication prescribed - once taken and that's it for the rest of my life and I just hate that idea.

This dependance...and the idea that this medication will not address the cause of my high BP, but rather just suppress the symtoms - in other words, it's not a cure and sure as hell not natural in any way shape or form.

Made me question also my own mortality - I know i am being morbid here but I realized that turning 40 comes with a big responsibility - that is to take good care of oneself...

Thots are just forming in my head on this point so I will pen off for now and think this through...

Looking downwards...

Yummy Mummy does not feel so yummy these days. Everytime I head to the gym to work out, squeaky-voiced-damn-her-to-hell-and-back fitness trainer keeps asking me if I have measured by blood pressure. Whenever I say no, she just gives me this look like I am just sealing my death sentence.

Whenever I did allow her to swing me into taking my BP, the reading had turned out to be so high - Stage 2 Hypertension already - that she had harked very loud and clearly for all in the gym to hear "Ooops! That's really high!" and on and on and on. When I proceeded to do the workout, I tell you - I am anything but relaxed or happy. She thinks - just hop to the doctor - get some pills prescribed and pop them in my mouth for the rest of my life and that will be it.

As I get on the stepper or on the machines and do the motions or moves, I keep thinking in my head "I'm dying - I'm dying - I'm dying" in rythmic tandem to the music. She keeps asking me if I am feeling okay - "not faint or anything?" that I have this urgent need to pull up her paunch all the way up to smother her face and shut her up!!!!

High blood pressure? Me? How? When? What now? Is this the beginning of the end?

Two kgs that crept up during my last trip to Yummy Mummy homeland - have taken permanent residence on my tummy and hips and despite being given notice to evict, they are defying my orders and staying put.

I keep looking downwards and see how much of my feet I can still see. If I start to not even get a glimpse of them, then I know I am way too big. Muffin Top? Seven Waterfalls? I can soooo relate.

I feel not so yummy also because suddenly i am the only one in my family that is not a member of the la-di-da tennis club. My hubby is and as of last Sunday, so is my 4 year old son. And moi?

Hubby's answer was " Oh well, the club management said that since membership is expensive, why don't you let your wife try out a few times first whether she likes it here before making the commitment to join the club?"

How concerned these people are, how considerate - what a load of crap!! Nobody at this club said that! They are just happy to get more members. The creator of this nonsense is none other than hubby himself - I am sure of it.

So, Yummy Mummy is a tad chubby, a tad depressed, a tad more than hypertensive, a tad insecure and have been kept away from the tennis club community. For what reason? The only logical excuse that comes to mind - that while hubby is happy to parade our son at the club, he is none too happy to parade me.

I guess because he is ashamed of me? I dunno...not white enough? Not slim enough? Not la-di-da enough?

Yup, ain't feeling too Yummy these days.....and the weather here is just so gloomy and cold - perfect accompaniment to my glum....

Geared into action...

Whew! Since the last post, my schedule has been packed. My house, before my sanctuary, Padded Room, Jail Cell, is now just a diner stop - or maybe more like a motel. I zip in and out - sometimes even relishing 5 minutes of quiet time.

Anyway, the Yummy Mummies met up for the first time for breakfast - congee and coffee. As you can guess, the Yummy Mummies are anything but German - so we can do away with the whole Continental Breakfast aka Nothing Much bullshit.

Allow me to digress here a trifle bit but what IS the deal with Continental Breakfast?? I do not get it - juices, muesli, yoghurt, fat free milk or half and half - dull and utterly pointless. I do really think that when forcing oneselves to feast on Continental Breakfast - this whole pinky-sticking-out whilst drinking coffee from a cup just makes me want to pull my eyelashes hair by hair. It's all the tink-tink-tink sounds that drives me up the wall!!!!

The good thing with Yummy Mummies is that we can put Danish snaily shaped buns, croissants (so flaky and buttery - they are just irritatingly messy), muesli (which is just a fancy word for low grade cardboard really) - out of comission and feast on the food that really makes us feel worthwhile. Congee and coffee, or the fried noodles, or nasi lemak or roti canai - now those are breakfasts fit for a king and the only ones worthy to start the day.

The only downside to the Yummy Mummy meet was the weather - wet, gloomy, miserably cold. Even my silver Toyota could not shed more pizazz into the gloom but that was where the congee came in handy - it went down silky smooth - into the red lanes and warmed up every iced up pore.

Topics discussed were various - we even touched on income tax declarations - a bit dry admittedly on that score - but at least, we were being pragmatic. Admittedly, we got into discussing as to how a discounted Burberry light down jacket was just the thing to have in between seasons - a bit longer than expected - but the discussion then turned to issue that we all face in real life.

At times, I felt that it was unreal - I hear my voice - but is it me really talking and laughing at all the right places? Too early to tell - but I will observe these facets more as we go along.

For now, I do relish that tomorrow morning is appointment free. No gym, no coffee, no errands to run in the city - I am free to ravish my Padded Cell.

Day One..

It wasn't always like this - not too many moons ago, I was just scrap heap - overweight, jiggly, half a centimer tall, paranoid, clingy, tired, scared and above all, lonely.

Entering Duesseldorf felt like being thrown into the streets of Pamplona - during the annual bull run. Smack in the middle of danger and no idea where to run.

So you just try to walk really fast and pray that you are heading in the right direction. It would have been okay if enthusiastic spectators were abound - pointing the right way to safety and cheering you on. But it was not okay for me - because though I had a spectator - my husband - he was jeering instead of cheering, pointing the way to more dire danger instead of to safety.

And I was lost, wounded, "stabbed" countless times, bled tears - for a good amount of 3 years. It was a very long bull run.

So one day, whilst recounting my bull run and how it was still a bull run for me - right then, up to the minute with no let up - to my very good friend, Endoo - I came forth with the idea...

Would it not be great if the regular coffee ladies - at any one time, mostly the five of us , made it a point to meet up once a week for coffee - like a Stammtisch of some sort?

How to define Stammtisch? - Let's see - direct German to English translation would mean MajorTable. In Germany, a Stammtisch is an event where a specific group of people would meet up - once a week, once a fiscal year, once a fortnite, every full moon - at a specific location to just talk and of course, drink. Mostly, to drink but that's beside the point.

It's the company, the camaraderie - the casual banter and jokes and anecdotes that you share with people that you have a mighty lot in common with. Everyone leaves at the end of the Stammtisch do - somewhat relieved, somewhere enlightened and I believe, somewhat happier. The happy hormones - perhaps given a smooth passage by the beers drunk beforehand - are deeply saturated in your body, in your mind and in your system- so you feel like you flow....and by God - ready to face the onsalught of bulls till the next Stammtisch!

I will report as events unfold....in the life of a Yummy Mummy...