Tuesday, January 18, 2011

i tried to be like grace kelly.....

totally random, but here i am sitting in a half dark room watching tv and browsing the internet when a blog post somehow reminded me of something i read in a book a few years ago (actually i've read this book quite a few times before but then i always gave this book to friends - yes, it's a very good book - so the last time i read it was a few years back).

the book was called "what's so amazing about grace" by phillip yancey, and in it he tells stories he read or heard that was so incredible he just had to put it in the book. tonight i'm reminded of one in particular.

during the world war 2 this american soldier was called to a hospital. the nurse explained.. this german soldier was dying and he wants to confess his sin, talk to someone jewish. she couldn't find anyone jewish at that time, so she called him, an american, a christian. he didn't know this german soldier, but he went in anyway. but what the german soldier told him was so startling. he told him about all the unforgiveable things he did in the name of war. at one time he helped rounded up the people of a village, locked them up in a barn, and they burned the barn down, shooting everyone who tried to escape. the german was crying when he recalled this incident.

the american soldier felt so sick in the stomach that he didn't realize the german had finished and was asking him something. "sorry?" he said. the german had asked him if he could (in the name of the jewish) forgive him for the things he did. he knew he was dying, and he needed forgiveness so he could die in peace.

the american - the christian - didn't know what to do. how could he forgive him knowing all the terrible things this man did. so he left without saying anything, leaving the german to die alone. afterward he felt unease.. as a christian he should've forgive.. that's what God would've wanted him to do. but yet how could he forgive such a condemned act?

this was just one of the many stories i read in the book. have you read about babel's feast? or les miserables? they all speak about grace. how wonderful, how grandeur, how humbling, and yet how hard it is.

Monday, January 3, 2011

raise your glasses, people

aah. it's a new year again.

so what have i been up to last year? hmm. a lot. marriage, move to another country, baby, quit job, vacation to another country and spending almost all of my savings on that trip.. not necessarily in that order of course.

so far marriage life has been great. oh we've had our arguments and times when we (i, mostly) feel like biting each other heads' off but most of the time we're having a blast of a time. and baby's now turning 10 months. can't believe it's been 10 months since i huffed and puffed and pushed in the-rather-nice hospital room (my first hospital stay since birth). i can still remember that day like it was yesterday, thank God i can only vividly remember those first month of no sleep and feeling like a gorilla.

after moving here i developed a new hobby: trying out new cupcakes recipes. i've always been a bit obsessed with cupcakes but buying them seem so extravagant (they're so expensive) so now i have fun making them. hmm.. there's a thought. maybe i should share my cupcake project here.

safe to say in 2010 my life changed drastically, but i wouldn't say for the worse. quite the opposite, it's getting better. i'm enjoying every moment of it. let's hope 2011 is better than 2010. cheers.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Tuhanku gondrong.....

found an old writing of mine. jadi kangen nulis lagi. kapan ya?

-----
Tuhanku Gondrong sih...

Sebagai dobel minoritas yang hidup di Negara berkembang, saya paling sebel kalau ada yang nyombong-nyombongin agamanya di depan saya. Ganggu! Padahal saya bukanlah orang yang terlalu religius. Kalau ada yang bertanya kenapa saya beragama Kristen, saya pasti menjawab dengan bercanda “abis Tuhannya gondrong sih.. funky.” Atau “soalnya bisa makan babi.” Tentu saja ada alasan lain, tapi biarlah itu jadi urusan saya. Kalau ada yang protes dengan jawaban saya diatas, biarlah itu menjadi urusan mereka.

Jadi lain urusannya kalau ada orang yang berusaha meyakinkan saya kalau agama mereka lah yang paling benar, paling yahud, paling canggih, paling toleran, paling begini paling begitu. Segala ‘paling’nya dilihat dari mana dulu nih? Tentu saja banyak syarat yang mengikuti kata ‘paling’ tadi. Paling benar menurut si A. Paling yahud karena tidak perlu repot menjalani berbagai macam aturan. Paling canggih karena doanya tidak perlu diucapkan. Cukup dengan mengisi formulir saja. Paling toleran karena boleh makan segala jenis makanan yang ada, tanpa pantangan apapun. Wih, enak sekali kalau ada agama yang seperti itu.

Dulu waktu SD saya bermusuhan berat dengan seorang anak pendeta. Saya masih ingat, namanya Denny. Kalau ada pepatah mengatakan bagai anjing dan kucing, maka bagi kami pepatah itu tidak berlaku. Kalau anjing mengejar kucing, maka saya dan Denny tidak saling mengejar, tapi langsung berhadapan dan saling perang, entah itu pakai sapu, kemoceng, atau malah langsung tampar-tamparan dan gebuk-gebukan. Permainan keji ini baru berakhir kalau guru melerai, atau bel masuk kelas berbunyi. Setelah itu masing-masing akan menyimpan dendam dan strateginya untuk waktu istirahat berikutnya. Sebetulnya tidak jelas apakah yang menjadi pangkal permusuhan. Saya bahkan tidak ingat kenapa harus dia. Saya cuma ingat, setiap orang dewasa yang melerai pasti bilang “masa kamu berantem sama anak pendeta?” Loh .. memangnya kenapa? Apakah berantem sama anak pendeta bikin kualat? Apakah anak pendeta punya status yang lebih tinggi dibanding anak insinyur, atau dokter?

Sewaktu lulus SD dan masuk SMP, ternyata saya satu SMP dengan Denny. Karena gak kenal siapa-siapa, kami pun secara otomatis berbaikan dan mencari kelas baru berdua. Tidak, kami tidak sekelas, tapi sejak hari pertama di SMP itu kami berteman baik. Saking baiknya sampai semua teman sekolah mengata-ngatai “iih.. hebat loh pacarannya sama anak pendeta.” Loh? Sorry ya, pertama saya gak pacaran sama dia. Kedua, memang kenapa kalau pacaran sama anak pendeta? Apakah itu berarti saya jadi lebih suci? Ah kayaknya gak juga deh.

Sewaktu SMA saya berteman erat dengan 4 orang yang bervariatif baik dalam kemampuan otak maupun kepribadian. Ada yang Buddha, ada yang Kristen, ada yang Islam, ada yang Katolik. Kami tidak pernah mempermasalahkan agama, karena pada saat itu saya bersekolah di SMA favorit yang sebetulnya dikhususkan untuk anak-anak berotak encer. Saya, yang sebetulnya berotak encer namun tidak punya kemauan keras untuk jadi pandai, tentu saja jadi ngos-ngosan berusaha menyamai posisi teman-teman dalam perolehan ranking. Kalau tiba waktunya bulan Ramadhan, teman saya yang Islam santai saja berpuasa, sementara kami santai saja makan di depan dia. Pada saat itu, agama bukanlah satu hal yang penting buat kami. Lebih penting memikirkan siapa yang kali ini dijadikan tumbal untuk dikirim ke olimpiade fisika berikutnya.

Dan kami baik-baik saja. Pertemanan masih tetap terjaga sampai saat ini, dan bahkan setelah teman saya si Islam itu menanggalkan keIslamannya (karena alasan pribadi, saya tahu sebabnya tapi kalau anda ingin tahu, silahkan Tanya sendiri sama dia), kami tidak lantas menuding “Nanti gak masuk surga lu…” Biasa saja. Dia tetap teman kami, terserah mau beragama ataupun atheis. Kami malah lebih kawatir akan ke-antipati-annya terhadap lelaki dan pernikahan.

Karena itu saya gak pernah habis pikir, kenapa ada saja orang-orang yang ngotot membela agamanya, sampai pada titik dimana ia maksa orang lain harus menganut agamanya juga.

Dalam benak saya, ini tak ubahnya seperti orang jualan.

“Eh kamu tau gak, TV Sony yang terbaru, Bravia.. keren banget loh. Aku baru beli kemarin. Wiiih gambarnya canggih bener. Kamu mesti punya juga. Gak nyesel deh.”
“Ah masa sih? TV ku Sharp, masih model lama sih. Tapi ok-ok aja kok buat nonton.”
“Sharp? AAhhh.. ketinggalan jaman tuh. Beli Sony dehh. Asli, Sharp mah gak ada apa-apanya.”
“Tapi aku puas-puas aja kok.”
“Percaya deh. Gak bakalan puas kalau udah liat Sony.”
“Tapi kan mahal..”
“Ya ampun, ada uang ya ada rupa lah. Kualitas meen… lu pentingin kualitas apa kesehatan mata?”
“Apa hubungannya?”
“Ah katro. Kalau kualitas gambar Sharp kan gak sebagus Sony. Nanti mata lu cepet rusak. Daripada nanti mesti operasi mata, mendingan skarang boros dikit, beli Sony.”

Atau ada yang pernah terjebak ditawari bisnis MLM? Saya pernah.

“Cita-cita lu apa?”
Tentunya ini pertanyaan jebakan. Namun karena saya cukup lugu dan tolol, maka saya jawab saja sekenanya.
“Jadi kaya raya.”
Tentu, siapa yang tidak mau? Dan memang benar, tanpa malu saya akan mengakui kalau cita-cita saya memang jadi nyonya besar yang kaya raya. Amin.
“Nah. Lu pilih mana, jadi kaya pada saat elu umur 80 tahun, atau jadi kaya sekarang?’
Lagi-lagi jebakan batman, dan lagi-lagi saya cukup lugu dan tolol untuk menjawab dengan lantang:
“Ya sekarang lah!”

Dan setelah itu saya harus menghabiskan 2 jam waktu saya menghadiri seminar MLM dimana semua orang terlihat antusias dan hiperaktif, gigi-gigi putih berderet rapi tersembul dari mulut yang tersenyum lebar, dan ruangan penuh dengan suara tepuk tangan yang membahana setiap ada yang berdiri baik untuk memberikan presentasi, menerima penghargaan, atau sekedar mau ke WC. Belum cukup itu, saya juga harus menghabiskan waktu 6 bulan kedepan untuk main petak umpet dengan teman saya yang menawari itu. Semua karena saya tidak tega untuk bilang apa pendapat saya mengenai bisnis MLMnya itu.

Lucu? Memang. Tapi tidak lucu kalau yang ditawarkan adalah agama. Coba bayangkan percakapan ini.

“Agama gua lebih enak Ren. Gak sekolot dan sekaku yang orang kira kok. Buktinya banyak kok yang pindah ke agama gua, dan betah. Malah kadang mereka yang pindah sekarang malah jadi lebih taat daripada gua yang asli dari lahir.”

Jawaban apa yang akan anda beri sekiranya ada yang ngomong gitu ke anda? Kalau saya sih akan menjawab dengan santai. “Aduuh.. gimana ya? Di agama lu Tuhannya gak gondrong sihhh.” Karena kalau saya menjawab dengan serius kenapa saya menganut agama yang saya anut sekarang… wih bisa panjang akibatnya. Bisa-bisa waktu 6 bulan saja tidak cukup, dan bukan tidak mungkin malah akan terjadi perang nuklir karena saling ngotot agamanya yang paling benar. Cape kan? Lagipula daripada nanti saya dibilang kualat lagi, mendingan diam saja lah. Apalagi saya juga bukan orang yang sabar dan telaten dalam menjabarkan sesuatu. Lebih gampang untuk menjawab yang singkat dan undebateable aja.

Jangan salah, saya tidak melarang orang pindah agama. By all means, silahkan. Asalkan memang yakin dengan pilihannya. Dan kalau sudah yakin, ya mbok dipegang keyakinannya, supaya nantinya kalau datang yang lebih bagus dan kinclong, hati tidak mudah goyah dan tergoda. Saya juga tidak melarang kalau ada yang berusaha menggaet saya masuk keyakinannya. Sah saja. Asal jangan marah, ya, kalau saya bilang Tuhannya situ gak gondrong.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

cap jempol

on status: yep. it's finally official. i'm a permanent resident of the united states. yayyy!! 5 months from applying to getting approved. now all i have to do is wait for the card to arrive in the mail (the officer said it'll be between 2-3 weeks, but might come sooner), and then i can apply for a social security number. woohoo. i feel so americanized now. :P

on patrick: he's learning to stand up already!! woohoo. mommy so proud. he's been learning to stand up for quite a while now, once he mastered the sitting position from crawling. now he can crawl and follow me to the kitchen, or just approach the dog food whenever it's feeding time. and he likes to hold on to the coffee table and peek what's on top of the table (and pull them to the floor). so annoying yet i don't mind. :))



and he's starting to eat finger food now. the other day hubby and i ate grilled ribs for dinner, and hubby gave him a piece of bone. oh boy oh boy, he gnawed it like there's no tomorrow. and he doesn't have any teeth yet!! and yesterday we went to tucson and ate at a korean restaurant. patrick was fussy and wanted to grab whatever we're eating, so hubby gave him a piece of parsley. lol. boy that was a funny sight.

can't wait to see him walking around real soon.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

stuff hubby said

hubby, on why he doesn't want a baby girl.

"with a boy, i just have to worry about one p*nis. with a girl, i have to worry about all the p*nises in town!"

i can't argue with that.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

of snow, sun, soup and shopping

so here i am, at home with hubby on a saturday night watching titanic for the thousandth time. boring. then i realized i haven't written anything about my recent trip to yellowstone, Wyoming. not that you all care about it, of course. but i'll pretend you do just so i have something to write and to spare you from any suffering, i'll keep it short.

wyoming is so far away it took us 2 full day of driving just to get to the nearest town from the south entrance of yellowstone, which is Jackson in WY. it was past 6pm local time when we arrived at the campground, so we had time to do some laundry (not that we needed it, but hubby was fussy about the bedsheet...). the next morning we left for fishing bridge campground, where we'll be staying during the week.

to get to yellowstone via the south entrance we have to go through grand teton national park. it's not big and although it's beautiful, it's nothing compare to yellowstone. the view was just breath-taking. and to top it all off: it was snowing when we arrived at yellowstone. simply perfect.


the campground was ok, good sized although probably a bit small now that we have the bigger trailer. we couldn't fit into the site we were assigned to so we asked for a change. i had to help hubby park the trailer while it was snowing. how fantastic was that?

after that every morning for the whole week we're there hubby went out the door at 5.30-6am to hunt for wild animals to photographed while i and patrick stayed in the trailer and get ready. at least that was the plan. but of course nothing worked according to plan, ... the heater fan broke on the first morning we were there. so patrick and i had to spend the morning almost frozen. 49F. it's funny cos just less than 2 weeks before then me and patrick had to spent a really hot day in the trailer ... at 90 something F. talk about extreme!! a repair guy from the campground couldn't fix the fan, and so after that we had to spend almost every morning freezing while waiting for hubby.

apart from that the trip was excellent. the sun was all out for the whole week. saw boat load of creatures running wild (elk, bison, canada geese, bald eagle, hawk, black bear, coyote, grizzly mommy bear with her two cubs, wolf (from so far away that hubby called out "LOOK!! a SPOT!"), deer, and idiots) and we had fun making fun of people ("look at that grandpa trying to take picture of that spots - bison far far away - with his tiny little camera pocket.. teeehehehehhehe"). too bad we didn't see any trumpeter swan that are native to that park, and no moose either.

all right, enough about yellowstone. after the heater incident we went back to tucson last thursday to get the trailer fixed. so as usual we stopped by at the asian grocery to buy some asian food. i went berserk at the fresh veggies section and bought fresh beansprouts, kailan and bokcoy and long bean (kacang panjang). but now i have to finish them all quickly before they deteriorate (and that means: within a week!! EEK!). trouble is i don't really know how to cook those except by stirfrying with a little bit of garlic or oyster sauce and hubby doesn't like it that way. hmppph. gotta find another way/dish to incorporate those veggies then. right now for dinner i've settled with soto ayam and tomorrow i'll be cooking seafood claypot (without the claypot..haha). we'll be eating all asian/chinese food this week. hope hubby can keep up.

i'm also a bit excited about my bro-inlaw's upcoming wedding this nov. been browsing online for dresses and went a bit gaga on oldnavy.com. wanted to buy a few long sleeve shirts and tops and cardigans and jacket ... and a pair of boots but i've just spent more than $200 in target so i'm quite broke now. oh well, i'll have to go to tucson again on oct anyway so i'll just stop by old navy and buy the things i want, if they fit. *cross fingers*

Monday, August 30, 2010

my smart boys

brady (left) and max, in the truck, ready to travel

as you probably have known already, i have two dogs: an english mastiff and a yellow lab. max - the english mastiff - is a very observant dog. whenever he's outside he'd notice things. birds, trees, bugs, flower petals blown by the wind, deers, bridge above our boat, .. . whenever we take him to a new place he'd sniff out new smell, see new things and mark his scent as much as he can.

brady, on the other hand, is a very ignorant dog. as far as he's concern there's only two things that interest him: food and water. nope, not drinking water, but water deep enough to waddle or even swim in. he loves to ride in the back of the truck, sure, but he doesn't notice things the way max does (max would bark at passing trees and tries to catch them). brady just likes the wind in his face and knowing that we're going somewhere fun. once he sees the lake / river / pond, he'd go straight to the water and make a big splash and swim around before we even get there.

the same trait goes when patrick (my baby boy) is around. patrick's learning to crawl, and everytime he's down on the carpet, wiggling and waddling, max would want to come closer and sniff. he's very curious at what patrick's doing, probably thinking it's a new game. but brady would just sit in his corner, asleep or sometimes watching idly.

but there are something i've noticed with brady. a few months back i was sitting in the living room and patrick's already in the bedroom, asleep. my bedroom is hidden in the back of the house, and to get there you have to go thru the kitchen and laundry room. i know, weird. but it's a small house so it doesn't bother me. anyway, suddenly brady stood up, facing the kitchen, ears upright. and when i said "brady, what's wrong?" he just looked at me and then resumed his position, alert. at that moment i could faintly hear patrick crying. apparently brady heard him.

today it happened again. patrick's asleep in his crib, in the dining room (his day bed). suddenly brady stood up, looking up at me. not alert, but he was trying to get my attention. again i asked him what's wrong, and he turned his head toward the dining room. so i checked on patrick. apparently he's having a stuffy nose and was asleep with his head buried between his hands, so his breathing was heavy and i could hear a faint squeaking everytime he inhales. i switched his head position so that the nose would face outward, and the squeaking stopped. brady relaxed and resumed his nap.

me and hubby agreed that when it comes to intelligence, brady doesn't have much. he's pretty dull. but it gives me great comfort knowing he takes care of patrick and would let me know if something happens to him.

smart boy. i'm a proud mama.
 

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