Friends are like Angels

Was having such a lousy, lousy today…. Everything seemed to go wrong. The first call I get in the morning is from the printer who says that

A) he hasn’t laminated my magazines cos’ he didn’t know he had to? (huh??) what was he doing with the sample he was given? Using it as a pillow??

B) he was having some problem (again) with meeting with deadlines (again and again). How I rue the day we picked him as our printer. A darned good lesson NOT to always pick the lowest quotation.

This was enough to really muck up my day cos’ I had to spend a lot of time on the phone negotiating with the horrid little man too…. Anyways… don’t wanna go through thinking about all of it again… the reason why I started writing this was cos everyone in office sensed my mood (NOT a difficult task given my woebegone face I guess).

Rukshana went down to the bank and when she returned plonked down a delicious looking éclair on my desk asking me to cheer up. Well that she certainly managed to cheer me up somewhat …. Not with the éclair so much as with the sweet thought of wanting to lift my spirits. That certainly made my day! Thanks Rukshana.

BONDS OF LOVE

I still find it incredible how one person could love and feel so close to another experiencing all the highs and lows as much as the loved one. I remember experiencing it along with my mom and dad when Sunethra had to go to London for a long spell. I actually went with her just to make sure that she was ok, that she managed to take along with her all her books and clothes and warm clothes etc., and that her accommodation was safe, in a good neighbourhood and close to her university, that she had access to hot food and a million other little things only a person who loves and feels for another would feel.

Tonii confirmed this describing how she felt when her boyfriend took his first flight out yesterday. She had made this long list of things that she felt he should take along with him, cross checked that he had actually bought them and then felt horrible when she realized that she had missed a couple of things until pretty much the last minute – and felt even worse when he sweetly went to do her bidding in getting the things just the way she said.

She told me how she had sat down and ‘waited’ with him while he went with his brother to the airport, gone through the formalities of immigration, kept him company whilst he wandered around the airport, sat in the restaurant and talked with a friend, and then went into the boarding area. Obviously he felt pretty much the same cos' when their calls were interruped he quickly reconnected with her. When he boarded the flight, they were still on the phone almost until take-off to exchange a last ‘I Love You’.

She ruefully admitted that she barely slept a wink as she was agonizing over little nitty gritty details and aching for a word from him. She said she felt on top of the world when she heard his voice the next morning confirming that everything was fine. And all this, mind you - for a full grown man! Unbelievable!

I marvel at the bonds of love!!!

Breaking up??

Is it the trend or is it that I seem to attract tales of unfaithfulness, heartbreak and stories of breakdown of relationships??

Here was I thinking a good friend of mine and her husband were still in the pink of love, when I hear the devastating news…………… they may break up / separate / file for divorce pretty soon. Oh dear!! Once again my Mills n Boon romances and Barbara Cartland fed expectations of true and everlasting love takes a severe beating. Will true love win over petty (hopefully) differences? Will the cynical world applaud yet another failed marriage? I HOPE NOT!

I mean ……. whenever I visit their place they are so wrapped up in one another, so loving and comfortable together, share the same wit and humour, she would experiment her culinary skills and he would be the willing guinea pig before inviting us to endanger our tender tummies (I’m kidding – she’s a marvelous cook), they share similar hobbies and interests and are such a perfect couple that I would look at them and think ‘that’s what I want and I ain’t settling for anything less’! And now….. what do I hear????? That things are not as perfect as they seem and he wants out!!! HELP! Does SHE know that the marriage is not going all that well?? What’s wrong? Can we help in any way??? Is there (gulp) another woman or (double gulp) another man?? (THAT, I hear is a common cause for marriage breakdown).

Their family and friends (which includes me – the one with her head in the clouds, the one who still believes in all the romantic mush I’ve been reading most of my life) are shocked!

A few of us have decided to offer up Masses and pray that the two of them would be able to work out their problems and that things would go back to the wonderful normalcy that we are used to.

I mean, give US a break here…… they do have to uphold OUR belief in love and marriage don’t they? How selfish can they be to split up when all of us depend on them to stay together?????

Infidelity

Why is it that guys just can’t seem to remain faithful to one person? I hear that generally their raging hormones are supposed to rule their lives and that they probably don’t invest much emotion in their unfaithfulness at all except the satisfying of their immediate (and frequent??) needs. Still it is sooooo disappointing when you think about it. Here you would be thinking that you’ve met the love of your life and you start building your little castles (are there such things are little castles?) Anyway… I digress…. You would start building up those castles in the air imaging the two of you blissfully happy together forever and then comes the rude shock - your beloved has clay feet.

That, one would say admonishingly, is of course to be expected since not even we wonderful ladies are perfect (what a surprise!) and no matter how perfect or nearly so you think your ‘beloved’ is, neither is he. We all have faults and foibles and we are supposed to see them when we take off our rose-tinted glasses. We are supposed evaluate them, see if we are willing to live with them and the owner of the foibles (or not) and then go on with our lives either with or without the ‘foible-full’ owner.

As for little ole me, faithfulness is of paramount importance. I would understand the crushes on movie stars… I mean we all have them! I can understand the lingering admiring look at a passing cutie… or even anything female in a short skirt or hot pants, but what I would find very difficult to accept is the ability to switch off all reasoning (perhaps it has an auto-switch off ha ha) and fall for the first physical contact that comes their way.

Take Jay for instance… he has been attracted to his neighbor who has a boyfriend and a daughter who is in her 20’s for goodness sakes. He ruefully admits to the attraction though has never had the opportunity to do anything about it – Did I mention The Boyfriend?

Well it seems like recently the attractive neighbour has introduced her attractive friend to Jay. The ‘lady’ has saucily French kissed him when she was leaving! That for a first meeting is quite something by Sri Lankan standards (or perhaps by my old fashioned notions– I still place infinite value in handholding and loving looks and kisses which hold more love than lust in them).

The next we hear is that just in case he had not gotten the message, she had visited her friend again the next day, who had invited Jay again, and this time she had a little done more than just French kiss him and the poor little man is left wondering ???(I wonder!) what she wants…. Well hello… whaddya think a 40 something woman wants with a young man she just met and has French kissed??

Well… that’s that in my book of faithlessness. True enough he did tell his girlfriend about the lady, but why get into such a compromising situation the second time unless he wanted it?? He can’t expect his girlfriend to be oh so understanding and forget about it…. With men and their fantasies it will go even further the next time, and for sure it will NOT be a kiss and tell then.

Oh well…. It would make anyone lose faith in true love, romance, sweetness and faithfulness and love everlasting. According to some of my friends it still exists out there somewhere (yeah right, like the dinosaurs, I think sarcastically??). As for me…….. I will just continue waiting for the right one to come along (or not) and trust that I will know him when I see him.

More on the Prayer Meeting

Remember that prayer meeting I talked about in my last post? Well, I just got a bit of news that shook me out of my complacent ‘know it all’ attitude.

Priyanthi called me saying that she just couldn’t keep this to herself. Seems like neither can I!!

During the prayer meeting, the pastor talked about two people who were having tummy problems. Two ladies went up to him to be prayed over. One was Priyanthi and other was a lady who was diagnosed with fibroids and was due for an emergency operation on Saturday. Anyways even I remember hearing some curious things the pastor was saying like ‘you now feel better, you have been cured…. (those words, the sceptic Ruani had heard before), you can check with your doctor, you are healed.. you don’t need to worry anymore. These he said with great confidence. Then he said ’if you were to go to the ladies room now you will see a difference.. you are well and so on. The bit about the washroom check gave me pause and made my ears prick up cos’ that is not the kind of thing you would expect a pastor to be saying to a lady in the midst of a mixed bunch of people. Anyways even in my ramblings I didn’t think to mention cos it IS rather personal isn’t it? Talking about about washroom checks? Anyway I thought no more about it … till now!

Priyanthi was just bursting with the news. The lady had been to her physician for a pre-op check and he had been puzzled saying ‘thibba widiyata nemai ne thiyenne lamayo!” He had wanted her to do further scans and what emerged was that there were no fibroids at all just one negligent cyst. I have heard of such things taking place… but never experienced it so close. I mean we all saw the lady (I can still see her in my mind’s eye, in a green top and pants seated opposite me) and heard that she had this operation to happen. She was shocked with joy and shared it with Priyanthi, who shared it with me who is sharing it with you!

Still, as Gerard told me when I shared the news with him is that we should always have an open mind, that miracles do happen and it is a normal occurrence. It’s just that we don’t’ hear about them and believe them. Miracles are part and parcel of our lives! I still get goose-bumps when I think about it! I LOVE that. God does miracles and they are not rare occurrences … they are everyday things. YES, I DO LOVE THAT!

Prayer Meetings

Went to the Prayer Meeting today at the WTC. The Pastor and wife who came today had a very powerful message which despite of my aptitude for daydreaming at the wrong time, soon caught my imagination especially when he talked about the faith of the people of yore where even in the instance of the fiery furnace how strong was the faith of God’s people. So descriptive was he that I could see the four people walking about in the fire, with not a hair on their heads being harmed.

Then came the part where the Pastor called upon certain people and prayed for their particular need as moved by the Holy Spirit. I still can’t understand why I immediately freeze and put up a barrier with my mind going ‘this sounds so very fake’. The others seem to fervently believe in what is going on while I stand there like Doubting Thomas. Even Gerard was touched today with two messages addressing what he is going through in life right now. I kinda did an escape as soon as I decently could. Is it just me or are there others out there who do carry a message home from such a service, but feel so out of it when it comes to loud prayer and God granting visions to His chosen pastor?

Fishing Club Christmas Party - 10th December 2005

The fishing club Christmas party was held at the DBU on Saturday the 10^th of December, and I think for perhaps the third time running I was invited to it. After a hectic day of running around getting ready for the SLAAPS Members’ Day the following day, plus a hair appointment at Salon Nayana in Bambalapitiya, where a person called Samantha proceeded to carefully ruin my hair, I was ready by evening, for once wearing a bad choice. The black strappy top I chose was a bit too glamorous for the occasion plus when I jived around the floor, I had to keep tugging at the top just in case it slipped out of place!!!!

They started off with items for the kiddies, they had musical chairs, and burst the balloon, pass the parcel and other little games for the kids. Somehow I couldn’t enjoy any of it, perhaps because Charmain also happened to mention that I should have worn something ‘more casual’ than the strappy top I was wearing with my black pants. Immediately I felt like an overdone Christmas tree, albeit in full black :(.

So a suggestion to see the upstairs of the DBU met with my first spark of enthusiasm for the evening. The lovely wooden stairway led up to the huge wooden floored, hall with a lovely wooden ceiling, where a bar stood in one corner, some pool tables in an alcove, and furnished with several groupings of comfortable chairs, even a dinning table with about six chairs (I think) around it. Little corner stools held tiny Christmas trees around the room while a recently bought stereo set provided background music. There was even a piano in the room, though pride of place was taken by a 10ft tall Christmas tree, beautifully decorated and lit up. That rather lit me up too for a little while.

Having admired it to my hearts content, we all trooped downstairs to literally ‘face the music’. There we sat, around the table, talking desultorily until I was saved by my phone ringing. Chandana! Thank goodness! It was so lovely to hear his voice. We chatted in our usual way about everything and everything, me giving him a very detailed description of exactly how bored I was and how sad I was to be missing the Miss World Contest that had gotten so much publicity in the recent past. I stayed on the phone for as long as I decently could, out on the lawn. I even called home, grumbled again, and then bravely went in again.

There was a little music for dancing provided by an atrocious singer and his band. Raffle tickets were sold, and Dorian bought me a set. He was lucky for the first time since I’ve met him I think. He won two gifts. One was a bottle of Scotch, and the other an intriguing looking parcel which we all took turns in guessing that it might hold some bottles of beer. Udesh and Chairmain also won a bottle of scotch I think and a bottle of Cinzano, while the other family at our table also won a bottle of wine. So it was quite a lucky table. Udesh’s son was also really sweet, romancing a little girl, and dancing absolutely stunningly. He will be a MAJOR heart-breaker given a couple of years!

The food was kinda ok though all the salads seemed to have gone off and the pinapple was bitter. There was of course my favourite chocolate mousse and some good caramel.

A bit more music and then it all wound up around 1.00 in the morning. People hung around talking a bit and then Udesh Chairman and their little son, who provided most of the entertainment for me for the evening, all dropped me home. Sadly enough I didn’t quite enjoy the event as much as I could have :(

SLAAPS Members’ Day on the 11th of December 2005

As usual we met up at the Bambalapitiya Flats. There were two huge, air-conditioned luxury buses waiting to take all 68 of us to the Club Palm Gardens Hotel in Beruwela. For once (?) I was early and even had time to do a leisurely walk to Chariot and grab a snack and a nice hot cup of coffee before going back to the flats. What a nice time we had greeting all our old friends, most of whom we see just once or twice a year at events like these. There was ample space in the buses for everyone and once on our way, breakfast was served. An ample breakfast too I might add, a couple of sandwiches, a roll and a pattie. There wasn’t the usual inelegant rush for seconds… the one serving kept everyone happy.

Soon we were at the hotel, everyone in a flurry registering and collecting their entrance gifts. Entrance gifts were handy pen-knives – the project chairperson Hyacinth’s idea. There were also little handbag sized bottles of ponds moisturizer, some sachets of dove shampoo and latte tea.

The member of the year was selected and a well deserving Iyne Gunawardena was selected. She got a heap of gifts and a huge electric oven from the Association. There were flowers, wine, clothes, shoes, a silver dish and lots of other things. She got quite a good haul of goodies!

The game Fly to your destination (four corners – a game originally introduced to SLAPS by our fun loving Rajini and which has taken on many faces since then). The game is simple, effective for getting everyone on the floor, and also lets everyone dance and enjoy the music. Four destinations, London, Paris, New York and Sydney were placed in four corners around the dance floor and when the music stopped, everyone had to fly to one of the destinations. The destination picked out of a hat, is out of the game until finally, just one person remains. In fact everyone enjoys the music so much that they would dance on the fringes of the floor and when the music stops, would fly away from all the destinations!

Then one of Margi’s innovative ideas – insert the mouse! Practically everyone wanted to give it a try. Luckily Naomi was wearing a beautiful scarf around her neck which we borrowed as a blindfold. There was a picture of secretary at her computer with her hand poised over the table. The idea was to pinpoint the location or ‘insert the mouse’ into the appropriate place. Gosh what fun we had with the mouse running all over the place, on the wall, under the table, under the table on top of the monitor, over the keyboard, under her skirt (gulp!) on various parts of her face and anatomy.

We were given some free time to browse through the stalls or use the pool – though I must say no one made use of the pool, perhaps because the sun was blazingly hot. Most people seemed to prefer sitting in the air-conditioned lounge chatting and catching up with old friends, or indulging in shopping.

Gammani Mendis as always provided excellent music and soon had everyone on the floor. He always seems to gauge the mood of the crowd and during a slow time I even saw a couple of girls slow-dancing!

Lunch was then served and a very good one it was too. There was a really good spread of delicious food and desserts. Marie as usual hunted a few of the choice cherries to share with me :)

After lunch was the ever popular talent contest. There were people singing songs, Claudette danced her famous oriental dance and won the first prize for it. There were skits, songs, Hyacinth modeling an outfits from one of the stalls, Damayanthi making her debut in acting out a drunk, Sharon doing a make-up demo and best of all (in my opinion) something way out of the ordinary… a magic show!! Elrea dressed up and did some great magic tricks though unfortunately he had to cut it a bit short, cos time seemed to be flying on swift wings.

The mix and match game another perennial favourite, started by Margi had absolutely every single member participating calling out trying to find the other three people who would complete her picture and win the prize for four. This game is always a sure winner… everyone has such a marvelous time!

Finally came the baila competition where six people were picked. The judges had done a great job, cos the winners were all excellent! The baila music of course had almost everyone on the floor, the beat is so irresistible.

Margi as always wanted as many people as possible to carry some little gift home with them, so all the extra items left over from throughout the years’ projects had been packed up and placed in a box. Numbers according to registration were drawn from a box and the person drawn had the chance to pick one of the gifts. There were nearly 30 such gifts. I had coveted a necklace which I managed to draw… along with enough good natured ribbing for my enthusiasm in getting it!!

Then it was cake and tea and bye bye or rather the vote of thanks followed by the National Anthem.

We were back in Colombo by 7.00 p.m. ending another lovely Members’ Day outing.

Well done SLAAPS!

Poya tomorrow

Poya day is coming up tomorrow. It promises to be yet another day to laze around with nothing much else to do but snuggle into bed with a good book, especially given that the Christmas weather has set in.

I just finished Dan Brown’s Digital Fortress. It was absolutely fantastic. He writes so well, you just can’t put the book down. The pictures he draws are vivid and exciting….. Pity I don’t have another book like that to read tomorrow.

Friends are like Angels

Oh today has been a GREAT day. It feels wonderful to know that people care about you or are thinking of you and today many people made me feel so good.

First there were a couple of calls wishing me a good day, then, an old friend dropped by to see me. It had been absolutely ages since we saw each other and I was touched that he visited, bringing along with him with a piece of wedding cake from his sis-in-law’s wedding on Saturday. We had a lovely time chatting about old times and catching up on what’s been happening in our lives.

Then Tusha called to say that she had saved me some birthday cake from my little friend Mela’s birthday yesterday. So there it was again, another box of goodies for me. They were vastly welcomed, for Tusha does wonders with cakes and goodies.

Shirley had written a lovely newsy email of what has been happening with her recently.

Then another friend called to invite me to a dance on Saturday. Shall look forward to that provided of course that there are no serious problems after elections on the 17^th.

So all in all I had one lovely, lovely day.

Where does the time fly to?

Where does the time fly to? It seems such a short while ago that we were celebrating the New Year 2005 and then suddenly, we are at the end of 2005. Looking back …… I feel as if time has flown and I have stood still….. can that be? Yet when I look around I see changes in the lives of people close to me. Some of the changes they are making in their lives will certainly affect mine, and somewhat selfishly I don’t want that to be so either. Certain good things in life should remain the same forever. There should be rule about it!!

Stamp Albums

Dorian brought along one of his stamp albums to show me over lunch today. It was a beautiful leather bound (I think) large album which held the most beautiful stamps of England. The stamps came in sets backed by the legend of each stamp. There were stamps of the Queen Mother, Prince William’s 21^st Birthday, Princess Diana, Camilla and Charles. There were sets of double deckers, trains, animals, Christmas stamps issued for each year, flora, art and many more all grouped together. Absolutely beautiful!

All Soul's Day

As is now a ‘tradition’ in our family, we all met up at the cemetery to ‘visit with’ our loved ones who have passed away– Aunty Beryl and Uncle Jewel. There was Aunt Joan, Dulcie, Aunt Lotus, Kumar, so many people. During the Mass we remembered the others whose graves we couldn’t visit, our Grandparents and Uncle Hillary in Nuwara Eliya and Aunty Hope in Mt Lavinia.

Ravi and his family clustered around Uncle Jewel’s grave placing flowers and candles not only at his graveside but on all the surrounding graves too – “Dadda’s friends” he said in his typical Ravi manner.

After Mass, with the rains still holding off, we wandered into the dusk to light candles at the gravesides. The cemetery looked peaceful and beautiful with candles casting loving glows upon the graves. Sunethra and Dad both had loads of candles left over, so we lit a few candles at graves where no-one seemed to have visited. No flowers lay upon some graves, where the grass grew high, indicating neglect or the lack of anyone to care for them.

Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.

Golden Gleams Ball 2005

That was the theme of the SLANZA Dance held on the 22^nd of October 2005. I was soo thrilled to be invited. We had a whole tableful of friends, and I was happy that Sushilla and I met up after a long while. She had permed her hair and looked gorgeous. I told her, she reminded me of a movie-star, though I couldn’t put my finger on which one. Well, several others had told her she looked like Diana Ross – I agree!

Ranjith picked me up first then we picked up Dorian and then Sushilla. Udesh and Chairmain, Pushpa and her husband, the little old doctor couple made up our table of ten. I love the little couple. She adores dancing and he goes along to please her. Such a lovely, lovely thing to see in a married couple….. and a couple that has been together for such a long time too.

The music was provided by Sohan & the Xperiments and Pearl. Both lovely bands. Sush first complained that they were playing too much slow music, but the songs were so wonderful! Dinner was a ‘sit-down’ and the food was wonderful… though perhaps the wines could have been a bit better.

Sush wore her new purple long gown. This was a first, I’ve always seen her in short little dresses. Dorian was effusive in his appreciation! But really, she did look lovely. I wore my new gold and black dress – to go with the theme J

Unfortunately no one at our table won any of the draws ….. sigh! But still we had a lovely, lovely evening. The dance was over by 4.00 a.m. and I was home before 5. What I liked about it was that we had gone to a dance… and they gave us ample time to do just that …. Dance. Loads of competitions and speeches didn’t interrupt the smooth flow of music…… and there was plenty of good music for dancing. The baila competition was held in double quick time, leaving everyone quite pleased, including the participants. There were lots of known faces there. Faizal Bonzo was the compere. Angela was there, as was Prince Ratnam and Kevin Nugera. The Burgher Association Dance was on the same day too……. Pity we had to choose! But still it was an absolutely lovely evening and I enjoyed every single minute of it J

Home Makers Haven

That was the theme for the Housewives Association Coffee Morning held on the 26^th of August 2005. Ruveena, Margi and I decided to go and have a look to see if we could pick up a few pointers from them.

There were quite a large number of stalls. Loads of time was given for shopping. This had a good and bad aspect to it. On the one hand, those who wanted to shop, did so to their hearts content, and I’m sure it warmed the cockles of the hearts of the stall holders as well! On the other hand however, those who had a leisurely browse through and finished, found themselves feeling quite bored.

Sensations, was a dance troupe with a difference. It was the first time I had seen them perform…. They were absolutely sensational alright.

Kevin and his partner performed three dance spots. Kevin was great but his partner lacks that sparkle so essential for a performer I felt.

There was a jewellery fashion show with top models showing off jewellery from a popular gold store.

There were a couple of skits by certain regions or sections of the HWA. Those I’m afraid I found rather boring and childish.

Keerthi Pasqual and his soothing voice wooed the audience for a good while. And then they had a few prizes on the raffles and entrance and that was the end of the show.

The coffee morning was held at the Continental Hotel and the hotel served the most delicious coffee, though the mistake of getting the people to go to the garnet room to collect it was horrid. There was a rush and stampede with everyone rushing to get at their food and drink which was served at lunch time! That is definitely NOT something that aught to be done at our coffee morning.

View of the towers

Beautiful orange coloured orchids

The dragon fruit (looks more like a fish than a dragon though)

Toll gate coming up!

The opened dragon fruit