Non-Bowler

It's confirmed. I am not a bowler. I hurt my ring finger bowling last night. It's now swollen around the knuckles.

I also pulled my left thigh muscle delivering my first ... bowl or whatever you call it?

Then I saw this video that really put me to shame.

Money Down the Drain

That's exactly what happens when I go bowling. : (

Happeeee!

...'cos my 'bee is coming back in less than a week!

My Actual Birthday

Today is my actual birthday which makes it an occasion just waiting to happen. I simply cannot allow this day to just go by without any fanfare so I created one. I decided to have a laksa party at the office.

My dearest sis ordered, collected and delivered the laksa. Although darling hubby begged to disagree, everyone declared that it is simply the best laksa in town. Someone liked it so much that she ate four packets!

All the prepacked laksa

My dearest sis, who turned laksa lady for the day

All busy enjoying the laksa

A few were on the other side of the hall

It's good!

Another thumb's up

Since hubby went without lunch, he took me out for tea when he went for his late lunch. I thoroughly enjoyed the roti kiap with kaya and butter (actually margarine) with kopi O peng for my tea time treat.

Teatime

Then we rushed back to the office 'cos my colleagues had promised me another cake to make up for the tong chiang cake that was such a disappointment to me on the day of my party. But first they made me close my eyes. Then they led me into the room. When I opened my eyes there was no cake! Those rascals hid the cake.

Close your eyes. You can open them
when you are in front of the cake. All tipu wan!

All was forgiven when I laid eyes on the cake. It was such a pretty daisy cake that we put the candles around the cake instead of on top of it in order not to spoil the lovely flowers. Despite all the care taken, we eventually destroyed all the flowers when we devoured the delicious carrot walnut cake.

I like my pretty daisy cake

Closeup of the cake

The cake with candles around it

In front of my pretty cake and surrounded by friends

A compulsory siao siao picture for the occasion

Hubby joins in to sing "Happy Birthday"

Then it was time for presents. I had to act surprised 'cos I was actually given a budget from my colleagues to shop for my present so I knew what it was. But where is the fun if you open a present without a look of surprise, right?

My presents

I think I did a good job of acting surprised

A pair of Nike Lunarswift to get me running

So after eating non-stop the whole day I guess it's time to put on my running shoes. But not today 'cos, after all, it's my birthday.

Birthday Highlights

It was the best birthday party ever because my guests gave of their time, talent and treasure to make it a fun and entertaining celebration. I emailed the night's programme to all my guests so they know they cannot be late 'cos it's an action-packed night and it worked! Everyone came on time, except for Darwin whose bus broke down on his way back from KL and Shida who was supposed to pick him.

Gifts for all my guests. China powder for the ladies
and a choice of either Popinjay or Sandalwood soap for the gentlemen

A lovely bouquet of roses from James Bond
and a box of chocolate-coated macadamia nuts.
Just perfect for someone who's nuts over nuts!

The opening act, before the dinner was served, was a spectacular number "For Your Eyes Only" – A Romantic Red Rhumba for Restricted Audience by Ruby and Rambo! RRRrrrrR!

"For Your Eyes Only" actually features James Bond
and his gorgeous Bond girl

Then it's makan time! E&O Hotel prepared a lavish buffet spread for us to feast on. I made a number of changes to feature more nyonya style dishes in keeping with the theme for the night. For example, instead of coleslaw I requested for pasembur and it was a really good exchange. We had huge prawns and soft shell crabs among the ingredients of the pasembur!

And the cream of mushroom soup which replaced the cream of pumpkin soup was a hit with all the guests. Some of them went for 3 or more servings of the soup which is made of real blended mushrooms. Yummy Assam Prawns replaced the grilled lamb chops and the beef rendang was simply superb. So tender. And I indulged on the best sago with gula melaka and santan ever.

Everything was delicious and the food was more than enough. Unfortunately we did not take photos of the buffet spread. However, here's one showing some of our girls making off with the many types of tea available at the end of the evening.

Caught red handed!

After dinner it was show time. I was MC for the night 'cos I planned the programme and I'm the only one who knew what was going on!

To encourage the performers that none of them could do any worse I embarrassed myself by singing "Enjoy Yourself" which is meant to be the theme song for the night. As usual I did not have time to practise, I sang a capella, I don't know the lyrics and and I'm not sure of the tune so it was kinda disastrous. But everyone still clapped and I think I managed to get across the message of the song. That was all that mattered.

Then the real show began when DANJER took the stage. Now we know that we've staff moonlighting as magicians and that their sifu is Master You a.k.a. Youtube. Anyway these two guys tried to set fire to my kebaya but I foiled their nefarious attempt at arson 'cos I was wearing a fire-proof kebaya that night!

DANJER with their card tricks

Trying to burn a hole in my kebaya with a cigarette!

Jewel and Jason performed a special special for me. I am so touched. I loved the dance which is made up of a medley of tunes from Lady Marmalade to Greased Lightning and the dancing was so fun! Even they had fun performing it.

Go, Greased Lighting go!

Then Mel sang a special number "Someone to Watch Over Me." Her singing was superb but the mp3 got cut off and so she had to complete the song a capella. No problem for her.

Following that we had Laksa Lemak to perform a rhumba to Laura Fygi's Historia Amour.

Rhumba by Laksa Lemak

After that we had an intermission to cut the cake.

My tong chiang cake doesn't look all that bad
after being transformed by Lillian

All the ladies in kebayas

The gentlemen. Hubby donned a batik shirt. A special honour!

The second half of the programme kicked off with Peter singing "Think of Me" from Phantom of the Opera. Then he taught us a Scottish jigg. Most of my guests joined in and worked off some of the calories accumulated over dinner.

We had such fun trying out the jigg

The Ding and the Dong then brought us the Beh-Sing Opera. They sang a Chinese number even though one half of the duo doesn't understand mandarin!

Beautiful expressions from the Ding, or is it the Dong?

I booked the original Wonder Girls. Unfortunately they had a prior engagement to perform in KL on the same night so I ended up with our very own Ken Ray-produced Wonder Girls wannabes instead. They decided to call themselves Babi Pongteh. Don't ask me why.

Nobody, nobody but you!

We all decided to learn the steps

Shida and Darwin arrived just as we were going to say good night. Despite being so tired, after the long trip for darwin and long wait for Shida, they performed the zouk for us.

Zouk

I am so blessed to have friends and loved ones who took the trouble to dress up, to practise and to perform in order to make me a happy birthday girl. Thank you everyone from the bottom of my heart!

My wonderful colleagues who dressed the theme
and sacrificed many lunch hours to practice their performances

Men and Women

Got this in a forwarded mail today.

A man is a person who, if a woman says, "Never mind, I'll do it myself,"" lets her.

A woman is a person who, if she says to a man, "Never mind, I'll do it myself," and he lets her, gets mad.

A man is a person who, if a woman says to him, "Never mind, I'll do it myself," and he lets her and she gets mad, he says, "Now what are you mad about?"

A woman is a person who, if she says to a man, "Never mind, I'll do it myself," and he lets her, and she gets mad and he says, "Now what are you mad about?" says, "If you don't know, I'm not going to tell you."

- Katherine S.Beamer

Sometimes it is as simple as saying what you mean and meaning what you say. But we seldom do that. Therein lies the problem.

Birthday In Brief

I had the bestest birthday party ever yesterday. Those who could performed a magic show, a song or a dance, some even many dances. The rest who could and would joined in whenever participation was called for.

The food was simply sumptuous and the service tip top. E&O Hotel is the best.

However, my kebaya-inspired cake was a total, complete and absolute disaster. For the past few years I've been ordering the most beautiful and delicious royal icing cakes from Sunflower and every time they have delivered to my satisfaction and even beyond my expectation. But not this time.

The cake was hideous and so "tong chiang", as my 'bee would put it. The colours were so jeng and the best way to describe the flowers on the cake would be something you would see on those paper houses at Chinese funerals.

And I am so touched that almost all my guests cooperated by turning up in kebayas. For some of them it's their first kebaya purchase so that's my contribution towards July's Heritage Month celebration. So sweet of them.

As you can see there are no pictures in this post because they are all in other cameras. More updates later.