A nice day with a horrid meal at the Intercontinental Hotel

Today was such a nice day. For starters I managed to get quite a bit of work done, and then around 10.00 in the morning Jehan called inviting me out to lunch. We met at the Galadari but decided to go to the Intercon instead since from past experience the Cafe Emerald the food has been pretty good.

It was lovely to see Jehan again. He had lost of bit of weight and quite proud of it too. He’d brought me presents from Kenya….. I can hardly wait to go home and open them up. I snuck a peek and there’s a gorgeous package of perfume though! The rest will HAVE to wait till later.

I must say I was deeply disappointed in the menu that was on for today’s lunch at the Emmerald Café. The spread was minimal, a couple of cheap salads, veges that I don’t normally eat ……there were no cold cuts, the soup was pumpkin and another of noodle… not as good as it looked unfortunately. EVERYTHING tasted so darned bland…. How disappointing! The meal for me was redeemed by the mashed potatoe and the cuttlefish.

The deserts on the other hand were as good as usual. There was a decent array of sweets including the hated bread pudding.

It was nice because we met up after such a long time, but the meal didn’t add anything at all to the occasion, though I suppose it DID give us something to grumble about. I certainly won’t be going back there anytime soon.

The Daily News Cookery Book

The Ceylon Daily News Cookery Book was a book I’ve seen and heard about from the time I was a child. All the great cooks I knew (all my aunts were absolutely fabulous cooks) seemed to have a copy of it. I, for some unknown reason, attributed their cooking skills to the recipes in the book. So at the beginning of this year I thought I too should get hold of this marvelous book. When Jehan wanted to know what I wanted for my birthday, I promptly remembered the book and asked him to get it for me.

Having gotten hold of it, I eagerly scanned its pages for ‘makable’ recipes. Imagine my disappointment when quite a few of the instructions seemed to be vague or missing or left instructions to experience or imagination I guess. I tried the ‘Chocolate Cookies’ and what I got was a horrible looking mess which I fed to the dogs… seriously.

I tried several more of the recipes in them….. and what I figured out is, that the book is either

a) HORRIBLE

b) Is meant for more experienced cooks (then why would they need this book pray tell?)

c) Leaves a lot to the imagination (what about those who lack imagination then?)

d) Written by people who don’t want you to actually succeed (???) doesn’t sound right does it?

e) I certainly can’t make any of those recipes (that sounds more like it – I thought)

Well, on my recent visit to see cousin Emma, who by the way is another great cook (and her husband is a well renowned chef to boot), we got talking about this particular book… and guess what???? She told me precisely the same thing..…. So maybe I was not too far wrong in my thinking then!

Ruani of Professionally Yours Magazine

Something made me smile today. I was walking along the Cargills corridor when an older gentleman stopped me and said… ‘excuse me… but are you Ruani….. of the Professionally Yours Magazine? I have been reading the past few issues from Beryl and recognized you and thought I must say hello”. We chatted a minute and parted, but he quite made my day …. Ruani of the Professionally Yours Magazine! Wow!!!

St Anthony’s Feast

Now it just seems to be part of our family tradition to go to St Anthony’s Kochchikade each 13^th of June and make an occasion out of it.

We were sorry that Uncle George had to go to Kandy for a funeral and missed it – I don’t think he’s ever joined us. So it was just us and as usual we met up for lunch and then made our way to the Church before the roads closed.

The Church was teeming with people. We made our way through to the pews and knelt to pray and then to sat back to absorb the powerful atmosphere that is so prevalent at St Anthony’s. My eyes roamed over the Alter and sanctuary beautifully decorated in white flowers and greenery while the rest of the church was brightened up with tinsel and streamers of red and gold. Thousands of people waited patiently in long, long queues to kiss the relics and statues while others made their way on their knees down the isle of the church making their petitions. I never cease to be moved by the simple faith of our people along with the utter desperation and even tears that could be seen on many a face. It makes me feel grateful for everything that God has given us.

After sitting there for as long as we desired, we made our way around the church, lit our candles, got our blessings from the Priest there, collected some holy water and squeezed out of the church.

The streets were lined with ammes with lots of sweetmeats which looked so tempting – Sunethra always wants to buy some, and I always manage to persuade her otherwise – those flies !!!

The roads take on a carnival atmosphere, and we walked through just looking at the people and things laid out. There were little clay playthings bringing back memories of my childhood, there were handbags, fruit, wadai, earrings and chains and soft toys a whole lot of everything spilled out on the pavements with voices competing with each other to sell their wares. I just love the hustle and bustle and the good natured revelry that takes place on those roads.

We had our look and even managed to get onto a bus before the roads closed for the evening procession which takes place so late in the evening that we had to give it a miss this time.

Golden Gleam 2007

Wow!!! Lucky Me! I was invited to the dance of St Peter’s College. My favourite band, Misty was playing and the theme looked Hawaain. I fished out my black and gold dress to go with the theme Golden Gleam and off we went to the Colombo Hilton.

We were greeted at the entrance by girls dressed in keeping with the theme and the ladies were welcomed with a fragrant garland of araliya flowers. I thought that added a lovely touch. The hall was decorated with huge palm trees while on each table stood half a kurumba made into a candle which burned steadily throughout the night.

There was a HUGE crowd. The old boys of St Peters had turned up in full force in support of their college. One choice table was reserved for Priests from the college I presumed. How sweet and thoughtful.

The large floor was always filled with dancers and unlike the last dance at the Galadari, the floor didn’t open up. And the food was amazing. Hilton had a good spread to tempt the palates of anyone, whether their fancy was continental, Sri Lankan, vegetarian or whatever. I noticed that the prawn counter was kept continuously busy, as was the hopper stall. The breakfast buffet was good too.

I enjoyed the dance very much. Misty as always played excellently. The second band Cosmic Rays was not too bad, though they did seem to favour a lot of baila even after an exhausted bunch dancers staggered off the floor huffing and puffing after their exertions on the dance floor! Clifford Richards was the compere again as always (in my opinion) talking too much.

They had a fabulous array of prizes for both the entrance draw and the raffle ticket draw. And 10 bottles of liquor for table draws. The raffle tickets had to be bought by the book though… no buying a couple of tickets priced at 100/- each. One sweet gent next to me was rather high, and told the girls who came around with the ticket books, that the college was smart in getting beautiful girls to sell the tickets, but that he couldn’t spend a whole 1000/- cos he had never ever won a single thing in his entire life!

The entrance ticket draw had two air tickets while the raffle draw had four air tickets and guess what?? Dorian won a prize (8^th? I think) AND the fourth prize – an air ticket to Madras. Wasn’t he the happy lucky one!

My Experience with Abans

Just over a month ago our TV decided to konk off on us right at the most ‘crucial time’ of American Idol and Survivor, two of our favourite programmes. Many a discussion took place as to whether to give it to our neighbourhood TV repairman or whether we should haul it off to Abans Repairs located all the way in Wellawatte.

We decided in favour of Abans.

On making inquiries I was pleasantly surprised when Abans suggested that I hand over my TV to the nearest Abans showroom in Rajagiriya and that they will send it on for repair. That seemed like a good omen. So on the 15^th of May, we toddled off with our TV and gave it to Rajagiriya. A few days later when I called them, they airily told me they had already delivered it to their repair shop.

Wow! What excellent service I thought… and gave it a couple more days and called the repair shop directly. They asked me for a job number – job number??? I thought blankly – I don’t recall any job number. A panic stricken call to Rajagiriya reveled that the TV MAY not after all gone to the repair center yet.

Of course! I THOUGHT it was too good to be true. Anyway the next day I got the job number and was told the repair would take two weeks.

After my former experience and poor Chandana’s recent experience with them, I resolved to give them a call every single day to see how things are ‘progressing’.

Well, it’s been more than a month already and I’ve spoken probably to everyone who works there. They efficiently take down the job number, call me by name and then say that the repair is not done yet and that they will call me back….. Only one guy ever called back to tell me it would be done on Saturday….. a couple of Saturdays ago… but we are still TV’less.

American Idol was won by Jordon Sparks who we were routing for anyway, and we’ve no idea what happened to Survivor… and still we don’t have our TV back…. Boo hoo.

Just yesterday I tried calling a Director from Abans and was very rudely and successfully barred by his dragon of a secretary.

I did however manage to get through to a manager yesterday, who asked me to call today that he will let me know what the situation is. I’ve been unsuccessful in getting through to him – maybe he’s out? I’ve even gotten hold of his mobile number….. still no response. Why am I not surprised???

Unfortunately, most of our household appliances have been bought from Abans…. What a pity - to my way of thinking… their service stinks!!!!

A Petal Pink Bedroom

The last weekend was a long one since Thursday was Poya. So Sue and I decided to take the Friday off too and paint our bedroom. It was coming to a point where the room was so messy that there was just a pathway from the door to the beds and that’s it.….. if a stranger ventured in and fainted through sheer shock, the person would never be heard of again cos he/she would be buried under a deluge of possessions!

Anyway, we knew we’d need the four days (I exaggerate not).

§ One day to clear the room and mess up the rest of the house with our things,

§ Another day to actually get the room painted. We used our genius in this area and roped in Uncle George to help (well…. Ummm.. I mean to actually do the painting). There was no fear of losing him under anything now since the room was cleared.

§ Finally the last two days to put the stuff back.

At the start, things went better than expected. We cleared the room in record time and by 3.00 p.m. on day one Uncle George was on the ladder painting the ceiling a pure white. Then we hit the snag… ever since we shifted into this place, we’ve always wanted to paint our room a girly pink. The original colour many hundreds of years ago was blue and despite many tries with pinky sounding names they turned out to be white. The last try was Rose White – and yes of course, it was white!

This time we bravely bought Petal Pink. Yes, you probably guessed right! It was very nearly white too! Many long discussions were held whether to sally forth and buy a violent pink (with Uncle George grumbling vociferously about the wasting of time) and finally decided it would be too long a process and batted ….. I mean… painted on.

The room looked marvelous when it was done, especially after the floor was polished too! I almost felt sad to put the things back.

The next two days proved a lot of hard work putting all the things back (hopefully not where we found them).

Was it worth all the effort? Oh yessssss… a definite YES!!!

Looking Ahead

Today’s message from the Daily Bread was on looking ahead - with the footnote

“It’s better to look ahead and prepare,

than to look back and despair”

Good words indeed.

The Master Fiddler – Janet Dailey

The second of Hyacinth’s books – this was a tad better than the other one cos it involved a stunning blond who was a spoiled brat, used to getting her own way by using her beauty and charm. She runs away from home to prove her independence and proceeds to crash into Choya Barnett's car and meet his motherless little son, who like all other males falls in love with her. She then loses all her money and is forced to accept help from Choya who seems to be the only one immune to her charm.

Bluegrass King - Janet Dailey

Hyacinth lent me two Mills n Boons and this was one of them that I read in one sitting. It was about a tomboy Dani (Danielle) who was happiest amongst horses and is then thrust into the model world by her father’s wish that she becomes more ladylike and with the help of the usual ‘bad guy’ Marshall who gets her into modeling. Of course she falls in love with Barrett King the kingpin and much sought-after bachelor of the county ........ and so on to the usual syrupy ending.

The Kiss Blowing Lothario

Just last week the strangest thing happened…. There was I, minding my own business hopping off the 175 in Borella and hopping onto the 190 and anxiously scanning the seats in the hope of locating one vacant one for my little ole self, when what do I see?.... this guy blowing kisses at me!!!!! I couldn’t believe my eyes! I looked blankly at him for a full minute until it hit my befuddled sleepy brain…. YUP he WAS blowing kisses to me. I made sure it was to me by looking wildly around to see if there was anyone else in the vicinity of the blown kisses. Nope.. Nary a soul but adorable me.

I wondered what I had done to inspire such ardor from someone I had never laid eyes on before in my entire life. I would have remembered him if I had …. He WAS kinda good looking too. I chanced another quick peek….. yup… there he goes again.. another handful of blown kisses and this time he batted his eyes at me too (that was the giddy limit – I thought ladies were the ones famous for fluttering eyelashes).

Humph I thought… and firmly turned my back on him until a seat in front of him got vacant. Of course I hastily took the weight off my feet and drifted into dreamland. A couple of minutes later I was rudely awakened by a tapping on my shoulder (none too gentle either). I looked around into lover boys eyes.

‘Ara parcele oyageda’? (Is that parcel yours?) he asks pointing to one on the luggage rack above us.

‘Naa’ I replied and turned away.
Another hard tap. Ouch.. that hurt!
‘Kaageda danna neda’? (Don’t know whose it is no?)
“Dannnaaa” I murmured turning away again.
Another prod on my poor aching shoulder … puhleeeeze.. doesn’t this man know how hard he is prodding me?

“We have to be careful these days no… people are leaving bombs and all.. don’t know whose it is ne?” he queried.

Luckily I was spared an answer when the man next to me growled that it was his, and snatched it off the overhead rack.

I sighed with relief and lapsed into my contemplation of nothing in particular. When Lake House loomed into sight, I quickly hopped off the bus without a backward glance and took two steps forward only to find I now had a shadow! What’s your name?? I was mute with astonishment at his persistence in the face of no interest.

“Aaaay what’s your name aney?”

Can you give me your telephone number?

Huh? Aaaai,??? aney???? (What the heck?)

Then he tried to push his phone into my hand saying….

“Here you can put it into the phone with your own hands. I wanna call you. (Guess it didn’t matter if I didn’t want him to call me).

When I still refused the man was almost jumping up and down in desperation telling me that he wouldn’t ever see me again and can I please, please, PLEASE, give him my name and telephone number?

Since he was trotting alongside me I asked him where he worked. At the WTC he informed me!!! Yikes!!!! That’s where I work too. He then went on to add that he had to go to a meeting on Bristol Street and that he got off the bus at Lake House just to talk to me (Oooh lucky me…. I was supposed to be flattered I think).

I curtly informed him that if he too worked in the same building (nope I didn’t tell him which office I worked in despite his desperate pleas) we’d probably bump into each other again and sent him dejectedly off to his meeting.

Phew!! What an ardent encounter. He didn’t recognize a no if it came up and punched him in his handsome nose!!! It certainly made Sunethra and Tushara laugh though when I recounted the tale to them… so guess there was some upside after all!

Mitsou - Collettes Intimate Diary of a French Showgirl

I read this book over the weekend. It was quite well written… quite a bit was in the form of a play and some of it in the form of letters, but it was quite sad and quite realistic too I guess. It was about the girl called Mitou who is pretty and warm and innocent and who has a gentleman friend who is called the ‘Respectable Man’ and who keeps her in style - if not in love.

Mitsou falls in love with an officer called Robert who is also smitten on their first meeting. Their love flourishes by mail but when they finally meet after their first initial fleeting meeting, he finds that he is no longer in love with the real woman, while she fatefully realizes it.

I was not happy with the ending cos there didn’t seem to be one!!! After all, the entire book was based on Mitsou and her fluffy friend, with her thoughts and love and emotions all recorded ever so carefully and then……. the whole thing is just left in the air. The final curtain raises on the lives of other showgirls, their acceptance of the lifestyle they lead, their fleeting romances and oft times single motherhood. Their dashing lovers leave them when they find them (the showgirls) lacking in finesse despite their beauty.

It was a book I bought from my little ole bookman and decided to let him have it back rather than keeping it. It’s not a book I would ever re-read that’s for sure.

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?