The alarm goes off at 6:45 every morning. Your alarm. Then mine goes off, two minutes later and we really have to get up. You switch off the fan while I wander outside to fetch our towels and turn the water heater on. We stand over the toilet bowl, one trickle of pee followed soon by another. Tinkle, tinkle.
You put toothpaste on my toothbrush, hand it over to me, then repeat with yours. We don’t speak, only the sound of bristles and foam, then spit and rinse. We drink water from our mugs and we strip off our clothes. You get in the shower and I put my jogging gear on. You will steam up the entire bathroom, then take five minutes too long getting ready for work, which shirt to wear, which cologne to spray, the darn hair.
While you wrestle with these decisions, I’m hitting the pavement, the small roads of our neighbourhood. Kind slopes, a small hill. Every house built the same way, the same period as the next, yet they all grew up different. Pad, pad. The sun comes up. I hear some birds chirping (I’ve given up my iPod; music is unnecessary when you have nature). A couple of dogs barking, the usual. I know the houses they are confined in; I recognise the Indonesian domestic helpers who are out early, washing their employers’ vehicles.
By the time I reach the guard house of our condominium, you would have been ten, twelve minutes on your drive to the office. We miss each other by this much, every day.
Kenny Mah believes in the good in people. He has been blogging for over ten years. No, his hands aren't tired. Yet.
I recognise the Indonesian domestic helpers who are out early, washing their employers’ vehicles….
Haha it’s really a ritual what u described & on sentence above – witnessed this at my brother’s house
Happy new year 2012
@MRC: Ah, maybe your brother lives in my neighbourhood too! I ought to start waving at the domestic helpers as I jog by every morning – we’re all doing exercise in our own ways!
Wait, you didn’t finish peeing, Kenny and Devil! Omg!
@Rad: Nonsense. *snickers*
morning rituals, little pieces of every day life. that’s the stuff that make up our lives. thanks for sharing, i enjoyed the sneak peak into your morning!
@luuworld: Thanks for reading as usual, bro. All we need is just our normal, everyday lives. Mundane is good.
Ah… morning ritual :) Well, I guess probably most people usually don’t interact too much in the beginning of the day (except for those families with small kids that need to be pampered). Anyway, with this kind of morning weekdays ritual, weekend and holidays mornings are worth to be looked forward, right? ;)
@Selba: Weekend rituals? We just sleep in… and I mean really sleep in. *chuckles*
oooo, 6:45. means i actually woke up earlier than you both this morning. for hopefully the only time this year. wanna zzzzzzzzzz now, so sleepy :D
@Sean: You woke up before 6:45am? How on earth is that even possible, Mr. Doesn’t-Even-Enter-the-Office-till-the-Afternoon?
Do you actually mean you never got into bed in the first place? That scenarios seems far more plausible, really.
I foresee lotsa jokes at our next gathering on the tinkle tinkle little pee. HAHA! Oh, morning runs are refreshing, aren’t they? :D
@HairyBerry: Don’t you tinkle tinkle pee in the mornings too? Ahem.
Oh yes, very refreshing runs indeed. (Or walks + jogs in my case; I’m no marathon runner like you yet, bro.)
hello, today was malaysia’s biggest news day in many, many moons. i had only four hours of sleep (couldn’t adjust my circadian rhythm to fall asleep earlier). and i was in office by 8am, though that is certainly not as bad as others who reached the kuala lumpur high court at 6am. am now barely awake and still stuck in my cubicle prison, but luckily, i have a coffee engagement this evening! :D
@Sean: Oh ya hor. You were there getting the latest scoop? Bravo, my brave journalist pal!
Now, for a more interesting scoop – what evening coffee engagement? *winks*
i was in the office writing the story. the keyboard is where my talents lie, not the field :D
it’ll be coffee in a building you’ve become intimately acquainted with in recent weeks, i think. the place with the name that sounds like ‘pubic hair’ (sort of) :P
@Sean: It’s hardly a scoop when you aren’t there in person to do the actual ‘scooping’, right? You really must go out to the field more; you are Sean Yoong, the secret identity of Eat Drink KL (a little reverse Clark Kent/Superman thing going on there)!
You need a tagline: Reporter-at-Large or something. Something snappier/catchier. Help me out here…
And as for the public
haircoffee engagement, is it at a café I’ve frequented before? Or a new one? Let me know if it’s good cos I’m probably heading to that building tomorrow morning! Heh.Think I roll out of bed, shower, change and grab my cereal in less than ten minutes every morning haha.
@Paul: Less. Than. Ten. Minutes? How on earth do you manage that? Your secret identity wouldn’t happen to be The Flash, would it? Hehe.
Someone once told me, “If you tinkle it more than twice, you are playing with it”
Heh.
@unkaleong: Oh is that how it works?
*pauses to consider*
Tinkle. Tinkle. Tinkle.
Hehe.
Kenny Ken, help me with a good idea of a blog post I can write about. Not that I have no interesting things to talk about. I’m lacking the mood a lil bit.
@Rad: Just write about whatever is going on right now. Whatever is present.
(How did you think I ended up writing about Mission Impossible and morning peeing rituals? Hahaha…)
And what does the expression ‘snickers’ mean? Heh
@Rad: Let’s see what the Internet offers up in terms of an official definition…
snick·er /ˈsnikər/
Verb: Give a smothered or half-suppressed laugh; snigger.
Noun: A smothered laugh; a snigger.
Synonyms:
verb. snigger – giggle – titter – chuckle
noun. snigger – giggle – titter – tehee – neigh
Oh I will talk about me peeing too then! But I pee alone and ummm my non existing partner is umm somewhere out there doing things or waiting for me hehe
I will try to post something tonight. It won’t be long or that interesting.
*whispers: I somehow feel guilty if I don’t post something in my blog when I feel like I should*… Ooh, *whispers again: I feel bad I haven’t posted any comment on the number one Malaysian restaurant foods eater’s recent blog posts. I’ve been quite busier*
@Rad: Oh dear gosh. Tell me I didn’t just trigger a mass of blog posts about peeing. *chuckles*
And I wonder which Number One Malaysian Restaurant Food Eater you are talking about – I know so many of them…
*cackles evilly*
Ooh I know giggle! I’ll keep using the word and maybe should try snicker too ;p
Thanks Kenny Internet teacher!
@Rad: Internet teacher? More like Google copy-and-paster! Heh.
Sean is the only person in Malaysia who eats out at restaurants everyday!
@Rad: Unlikely. There must be tons others who eat out every day in Malaysia; Sean may be the only one writing and blogging about it daily though. He’s certainly brilliant.
LOL! Now I don’t even have to imagine – unlike in your “Water Runs Deep” post.
@Jemima: Sometimes it’s better to leave things to the imagination, right? Hehe.
I would say that nothing means more to me than the mundane, every day rituals. Don’t need more in life than these.
Yes!
@Rad: Yes to Sean being brilliant or Yes to Sean being probably the only one eating and blogging daily in KL or Yes to both?
Heh.
i wonder if a guy would write this about me someday. that would be really sweet. :)
@Michelle Chin: I’m sure one will, one day.
*pauses, considers*
…wait, you want a guy to write about you peeing? Uhm…
“… we don’t speak, only the sound of bristles and foam, then spit and rinse…”
nice~~
@fufu: Thanks, bro. Back in KL?
Awww… Lovely! I will do that one day!
Happy new year Kenny!
@Steph: I am sure you will, dear. You two are the loveliest couple ever. *hugs both of ya*
Happy New Year, Steph!
I finally came up with a random topic to talk about in my most recent blog post! ;))
@Rad: You have! Hurrah! (I fear my propensity for random-and-unrelated blog topics must be rubbing off on you. Haha.)
Whatever you do is inspiring, master Ken! :p
@Rad: Uhm, trust me – I do a lot of things that are hardly inspiring. Like watering the plants every morning. *chuckles*
Omg that is the most inspiring thing I’ve ever heard!
Okay… Actually not. Hehe
Still that’s a good thing that should inspire everyone that we should care for plants
@Rad: The only reason I’m watering the plants is cos they are herbs I use in cooking like rosemary and mint. No free meal (or drink as it were) in this world. Heh.
Kenny that is so cruel! I feed my cat but I’m not investing in the meat!
:p
@Rad: You certainly could. Feline flesh is a delicacy in certain countries, I believe. Lightly grilled is the way to go apparently with meow-meat.
Oh Mah Kenny…
You’re serious…
@Rad: That’s Mr. Kenny Mah to you, young man – chuckles – and no, I wasn’t serious. (Though what I said above could well be true.)
I was gonna say oh ma God!
Eww I will never eat my cat
Eww eww ew…
@Rad: Let’s hope for your sake, your cat feels the same. (Otherwise beware felines that look upon you askance – you may be their next meal!)
Oh! That’d be super scary.
Can you like write a book about scary stuff? Like humans eating felines?
… This was my first time to use the word felines
Thanks, Master Kenny!
@Rad: Cats eating humans / Humans eating cats – neither scenario may return much of their horror when you realise both have happened throughout the history of mankind (and catkind, as it were).
Just news, not horror.
Wait so it’s felines or cats?
Ok I’m going to stick with cats again now.
@Rad: Poh-tay-toe, poh-tah-toe.
Hmmm okay…
Toe May Toe!
@Rad: No, no – what I meant by “poh-tay-toe, poh-tah-toe” was that it really didn’t matter whether you said cats or felines; it’s the same animal.
Oh!!
Omg!
@Rad: Or one could always call them ‘kucing’ and be done with it. Heh.
Ehehehe
That’s our language, Master!
@Rad: Indeed it is. Bahasa Indonesia/Malaysia (depending on which country we’re talking about).
Poh-tay-toe, poh-tah-toe!
@Rad: Okay..?
aww..always so sweet. you forgot to write abt the bed..who’s tidying it up? hehe..
@lena: Haha, we take turns with that. The mundane task is a joy, too.
It’s nice just waking up next to each other, isn’t it?
@Michelle: It’s pretty amazing, yes. *beams*