No.88

~ Mom's Journal ~

No. 88, it is a house we create the stories of our lives.

If memories are gifts from time then the house represents the physical environment that bonds the souls that inhabit the house.

An ordinary day would start with the children preparing for school. As early as 6:30 a.m. a group of school children would passed by in front of our house. Another group would prefer to walk on the main pipeline or "palong" behind our house, balancing with ease for the distance of about 100 meter. It can be quite tricky after rain. Either way they would exit at the main road and thereon would continue to walk another 500 meter to reach the school.

After school or weekends the children in our street would play together. On birthday, they would enjoy a game like this:

"Pass the parcel" game

My son's birthday

Solving the 1000 pieces of puzzle

Camping fun!

Back in the garden, the sound of birds chirping would bring the cats scouting for prey. In actual fact the cats are looking for an excuse to exercise as many of the rest would just continue to curl and slumber in the flower pots, against the walls and any other place they fancy. Our old-fashioned swing, apart from the place for our children to play, it is also a place for the cats to nap.

1990's

We are quite used to the idea that cats would adopt us wherever we go. They would go back to their house to eat and come back to our house to play and nap. My second daughter did adopt a cat from the shelter for animals. She named it "Tigger". Tigger is a tabby cat with beatiful gray stripes and green-yellow eyes. Tigger seldom goes out and prefer to stay in-door. Whenever my daughter studied late into the night Tigger would faithfully stayed by her side, sleeping. Hmm... not much of an Einstein cat.

Caught red-handed!

After Tigger, a shy and hungry stray cat came to our house. After feeding it for a few days, it decided to stay and we called her "Dayang". Thereafter for a short while we have the company of "Grammy Nominee", "Angel" and "Wira a.k.a Kiddo" all of them adopted by my eldest daughter. The month-old Wira actually slept in the hood of my car and I only discovered it after sending my youngest daughter to school. Thankfully it managed to secure a good place in the engine compartment and did not drop along the way. Phew! My car which we name "Grissom" has an affinity for cats. Even my mechanic said he found cats furs in the engine compartment and also at the rear bumper of the car. Guess Grissom has to decide whether it wants to be a car or a playpen for cats.

A cat named Putihah 

Copy-cat

We never run out of names to name our neighbour's cats that would always come to our house. Ordinary Malay names like "Mak Meow", "Gebu", "Labu", "Labi" and sometimes a bit fancy name like "Super Force". The owner would of course called them by different names.

Good morning?

Rabbit named Wabbit

We had pets like rabbits, fish that range from "ikan puyu" or climbing perch to gold fish and arowana. The ikan puyu would jumped out of its bowl while practicing its jumping skill. The gold fish didn't last long while the graceful arowana managed to grow to about a foot long. We also had two yellow birds named "Abang" and "Kakak".

My youngest daughter, then an 8 years old, would offer a prayer or Du'a when they passed on. She would said "Ya Allah, saya ada dua ekor kucing dan burung yang bernama Tigger, Dayang, Abang dan Kakak. Tolonglah jaga dia orang baik-baik. Saya harap Allah terima permintaan saya ini. Tolonglah Allah Yang Maha Besar, Penyayang dan Pengampun"

Translation: Oh Allah, I have two cats and birds named Tigger, Dayang, Abang and Kakak. Please look after them with care. Please fulfill my wish. Allah The Great, The Merciful and The All-forgiving.

We remember many stories about the cats. One of them, Lima-er, is a legend. One day to our horror we saw it fighting a snake in our garden. Lima-er was quite old by then but she won. She ate the head and left the body for me to dispose. Horror indeed!

Lima-er the Cat

In daytime we can see squirrels with their acrobatic maneuvers and feisty chattering chasing one another. The cats are quite used to them and hardly made any effort to chase or catch them. I guess cats prefer birds. Sometimes small birds would come in flock to search for food in our garden. Once, I placed a big round shallow flower pot in the garden for the birds to drink and take a dip. Unfortunately they became fresh meat for the cats. I then planted waterlily in the flower pot. At times I saw one or two birds drop by to take a sip and quickly flew away as the cats would occasionally drank from the same flower pot.

The garden is not the only playground. The telephone line is also a cable for the furry animal which we believed to to be "musang" or civet to come to our roof. We didn't think it was possible until one night we saw it hanging upside down as it glided along the cable. There were rambutans and mango trees in our neighbours' gardens. They are to be shared by humans and animals alike. And so, when we saw bats and an owl made themselves at home at our backyard, we were not particularly surprised. Once, a racoon was caught wandering inside our house on that one particular day. That definitely surprised us.

We also had monitor lizards cruising our garden. Apparently they are friends with Lima-er the Cat. Sometimes they came right to our sliding door and looked inside. They must be thinking that it's a trip to the zoo! It's all about perspective. Just before we left, a baby monitor lizard, we named him "Baby ML", paid us a visit perhaps to update us about his family. Have a good life baby ML and family. Farewell.

We all have many stories in our lives. Memories are made of these.