I was about to leave the house and head north, first to P.J. to pick my wife, Jeannie; up from work; and then onwards to Kay El (1) (no, not from one of those Supermen movies) to pick our daughter, Laura; up from her work.

As I embarked on the usual long and arduous journey, I got a text message (“Whatsapp” for Malaysians and “Whats-up” for those that can see the word spelt as W-h-a-t-s-a-p-p but read it as “Whats-up”) from Jeannie saying that she was going for dinner with her colleague, Su Yin. Su Yin is a super wonderful person, a gem. She and I are now close friends for the simple reason that her birthday is 1 day before mine on July 9th. Mine is on July 10th.

So, since Jeannie was grabbing dinner on her own with Su Yin, I didn’t need to head to her office. The transport arrangement was that Su Yin would drop her back home after their dinner.

I headed straight to Laura’s office, reducing my travel time to and fro by about 10 minutes.

As we headed home, it was one of those (rare and becoming more rare) father and daughter alone quality times. As usual, I asked how her day was at the office. “Busy, but good”, she replied. Then she gave more details, especially how she and her colleagues are always encouraging each other, more so when they have project deadlines to meet. I was driving. Once in a while, I’d steal side glances to see that she was smiling and from the tone of her voice, she had a good day. And, she’d usually ask how my day was. And I’d tell her that it was good. Did most of the things that I wanted to do. Maybe could have done more… and at a faster pace.

It would have been more things on the to-do list, with the time saved. I wonder if it’s just me that I can’t see free time go to a waste without getting more work done.

Laura suggested that we’d go to Mackerdee’s for dinner. Laura ordered a Hot n Spicy chicken with French fries set. I went for a big Mac, coke and a chocolate sundae sort of ice-cream. She did all the touch screen scrolling up and down , looking for the best deals and hit the “confirm” (I think) button. It spat (more like rolled) out the receipt. We got a table by the window.

The food was good. The Chocolate Sundae was an indulgence, a sweet one I might add.

The father – daughter moments, time together were priceless. When I think back to all the father -daughter times I had with Laura from the time she was a toddler right up to now – nothing has changed much. The aura of the bonding relationship – timeless. We soaked in the moments of just being together and enjoying that time. This is the time when the world around us slows down and we enjoy the present, the presence of each other.

An hour and a half later, we made our way home. If there is one thing that we should do more often, amongst the many other things, is to have more of “these times”. We found the magic in our moments.

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My Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 Ultra was buzzing messages (more like hints) that it was now time to relax. Artificial Intelligence is what it is. I was not about to get into an argument with A.I.. Can we argue with A.I. or not? Shakespeare got his question wrong.

NOTES:
1. Kuala Lumpur or Kay El (the way it is pronounced in short) or K.L. (as it is popularly known by), is the capital of Malaysia.
2. Biasa is a Bahasa Malaysia word meaning “ordinary”.