Mel's corner

Yes thats what me and my sis use to call my mother’s mum… popo Kota Belud. I guess it was because she was from Kota Belud. My popo KB is with the Lord now and its been about 14 years. That was a long time ago and yet at times I still think of her.  

She was a real character When we were younger we would get really excited when my popo KB comes to visit. We know she’ll always bring goodies (food) to Tenom everytime she visits. I remember eating lots of kuihs, I especially remember eating some round kuihs brown in colour sweet, tasted like gula melaka…

She would then bring us (me and my sis) to the coffee shops and we could order whatever we wanted and if we asked she would buy anything for us. We would have the luxury to drink cola and eat keropok (by the way not to my mother’s knowledge as we were never allowed junk food when we were kids). Popo KB would give us 50cents each and we would walk round the shops with money in hand to buy whatever we fancy. I remember once me and my sis really fancied some pop pop guns. Its a small plastic gun where you have to put a roll of red paper with black dots on and everytime you pull the trigger it would make a pop sound and sometimes smoke will come out of the gun. So when popo KB took us out, we asked if we could have one and of course she bought it for us hehehehe. We would then play with our new toys and eat our keropok while popo KB chats with her friends. Aaaaaaah those were the good old days.

Oh and popo KB likes to hug and kiss kiss, I remember she’ll come over give me a great big hug and a wet wet kiss on the cheeks which I’ll wipe off quickly after. 

When I got older, I stayed with her in KK. She enjoys cooking for us and every morning she’ll make us breakfast, sometimes fried eggs, sometimes fried mee, fried mee hoon there’s always something to eat. If you ever mention you like something… she’ll cook it everyday or she’ll buy loads of whatever you fancy. Yes thats my popo KB.

I did say she’s a character didn’t I… well my popo KB swears *smile smile* Yes and she’ll say things like ‘tan ta lao’ *lol* and other obscene stuff. She pronounces library as ‘bibary’ or vacuum (for vacuum cleaner) as ‘cofuum’. She likes to shout too, my oh my she can shout… She’ll stand by the door and shout for me to come home if I’m at my friend’s house 3 blocks away and yes I can hear her ‘Liiiiiiiiiiiiissaaaaaaa sit fan loooooh’. hahaha

Oh thats my popo Kota Belud…..    

Kevin walked in the room holding a glass of Cola with some ice cube in it. He was shaking the ice in the glass making the all so familiar sound of ice hitting the sides of the glass. ‘clic cloc clic cloc’…

It reminded me of my daddy… Dad always likes playing games in fact I would say he’s addicted to sports. When we were young, he would go for a session of badminton in our local ‘dewan’ (in fact he still goes now). He would go right after work at 4pm and come back at about 530pm. At home he would quench his thirst with some fizzy drinks. I don’t know why but he would use a stainless steel pot put some ice in it and plonk a bottle or two of fizzy drink in it. He than shakes it a bit ‘clic cloc clic cloc’ gets a straw and starts drinking. Now while he’s doing all this, me and my sisters would be watching him like hawks with straws in our hands. Dad would then sit on a stool by the kitchen and start drinking… we would dive in stealing sips of sweet sweet fizzy drink. When he (or we) had finished me and my sisters would grab an ice or two and start munching on them.

But as we grew older I wondered what happened to that ritual…need to ask dad.