THE WEEKEND THAT WAS

It is now mid-week after the weekend at Booth F1.03, Amcorp Shopping Mall. I am sitting at the Corner table just next to the glass entrance / exit door at Good Ground Bakery. Soft, soothing, piano music is coming from a single, light-colour, small, round, multi-directional speaker, sitting on a table behind the counter. It goes unnoticed by most people. The music is loud enough to fill the whole room but not loud that you would have to raise the volume of your voice to speak to each other.

The weekend at the booth seemed to have gone by (what should the filler word to describe the ‘speed ‘in time be? [1]) quickly. We set up our booth by 10.00am and before long, we had visitors stopping by. The Batik Influencer was busy from the word “go”.

We had many first timers visiting us at out booth. They also became customers or would be customers. I sold multiple diecast vehicles, including Hotwheels. When I first started selling off my Hotwheels and diecast vehicle collection, I had well over 500 vehicles. Now, I am left with less than 100. I’m glad the vehicles have found homes with their new owners. All those who purchased these diecast vehicles from me, are all collectors themselves.

People browsing through the pre-loved, well kept items. Sold many more Hotwheels, and other brands of diecast vehicles.

Trying on a JEANNIE’SOWN Batik Cape creation to get a feel. She bought.

As we went through the second day, Teacher Annie, Laura’s pre-school teacher at Beaconhouse, came by our booth. It was so nice to meet with her after all these years. Annie remembers Laura well and asked after her. We brought each other up to speed of what we are doing now and also about our families.

Timeless

Look who showed up. Teacher Annie, Laura’s pre-school teacher. Looking good as always.

One of the highlights of the day was I purchased a green Fudora. Another was that Jeannie acquired a beautifully crafted copper bracelet, decorated with colour stones. The bracelet is a birthday present for Laura as her birthday is in a couple of days.

Guys from La Salle Klang re-unite. Mervin Gomes (front), Terence Singh (back) and I.

Towards mid-afternoon; Mervyn Gomes dropped by, bringing with him a fellow Klang La Sallian; Terence Singh.. Terence’s brother is the famous singer, guitarist, song-writer, performer; Gerard Singh. Gerard is well known as the guitar man.

Terence, who resides in Johore (2); usually meets with Mervyn quite often. Terence whipped out his smartphone and called another old friend, John Stotdard; on Whatsapp video. It was good talking with John. It has been many years since we last met. These guys were neighbourhood friends in the 1970s and 1980s. They are several years my junior, more my youngest brother, Malcolm’s, age group.

The author writes: Just short of singing our alma mater La Salle School, Klang’s anthem. Mervyn Gomes (front), Terence Singh (back) and me, the Hatted Writer. Mervyn is in a typical La Salle Klang pose (I think😉)
This beautiful hand made copper bracelet the Batik Influencer bought as a birthday gift for Laura, our daughter.
Nice bag.

I had the opportunity to meet with many BMW owners and enthusiasts. We touched on many topics of BMWs. Most of them, including me; are more “old-school” BMW guys. Today’s BMW models seem to have lost its plot. Moving into electric vehicles (ev), they look just like any other ev. Hard to tell them apart from say a Chinese make.

The Batik Influencer, showing some of her “JEANNIE’S OWN” Batik Cape Creations.

And the nicest smile goes to…

I had the opportunity of meeting with several readers of leatherpotato.com. They have been supporters for a long time. One of the best comments I received was, “Your writing is definitely by a human. We can feel the humanness in the way you express yourself and put your views across”. Another comment received was that she liked how I “toyed” around with the English language.

Listening with attentiveness as the Batik Influencer explains and demonstrates the multiple ways of using a JEANNIE’S OWN Batik Cape Creation.

The Batik Influencer explaining the various ways of using the JEANNIE’S OWN Batik Cape Creations. It can be worn for all occasions.

Trying on a JEANNIE’S OWN Batik Cape Creation.

Looking very royal with a JEANNIE’S OWN Batik Cape Creation.

Before we knew it, it was the end of the day. We packed up (took us nearly an hour to pack our things) and headed back home. On the way home, the question….that question…”What do you want to have for dinner?” “Anything”, was the answer. Great!

NOTES:
1. “Very”, “rather”, “alarmingly”
2. Johore is the southern most state of Malaysia.

DINNER UNDER PALM TREES

The opportunity came and we took it. It isn’t often that we get to do “fine dining” (though most of the time we are fine when we dine😂). Here when I say, “We”, I mean my family: Jeannie, Laura and I. Our dinners are usually rushed or “on the go” as we try to meet our scheduled “to dos” planned for, after that. With all the technology, available to us, especially the new buzz phrase, “A. I. or Artificial Intelligence” coming to our rescue or aiding us in freeing up our time each day, we shouldn’t be rushing. However, with this time saved, which we are sold on the idea that it should be for relaxing; we usually cramp more things to do in our schedule. So, we are always rushing.

Earlier on in the Merdeka afternoon, I suggested to Jeannie and Laura that we go for a nice meal since our evening schedule looked fairly clear. The question of where we should have dinner was quickly thrown back to me. It was between “Jake’s charbroiled” in Damansara Medan (quite a distance away), or Las Carretas. I was more inclined to Las Carretas as they are famous for their margaritas. Las Carretas it was. It is also less than 10 minutes away from home.

I want my food!😂 Notice the cactus. Symbol of “Me-hi-ko”.

The very friendly waiter showed us to our table and handed us the menu. We placed our order and had a nice, “slow everything down”, no rush conversation. The setting, the ambience was just right, pleasant and quite quiet, too. There was music, Mexican, that is; softly playing in the background, though it sounded a bit Spanish.

I was also having a short text / messaging / whatsapp discussion with my La Salle school friend of 40 years, Lee Seng; on the side. Its been a long time since we last met in person. The saying, “The apple does not fall far from the tree” has some merit to, it: Both Lee Seng’s sons were top students in school, as was Lee Seng, too. Somehow, in the midst of the non-verbal conversation, I thought of my classmate, Lourdes Nathan.

Jeannie and I met Lourdes with his wife, and another schoolmate, Gilbert Chin for lunch, a few months ago. The last time I met Lourdes was some years back. I was shocked to see Lourdes with a big patch on his neck. He said his voicebox was removed due to cancer. Now he communicates with a device on his throat – and holds a sort of tiny vibrator next to this device when he wants to talk. This mimics his voicebox. Other than that, Lourdes still has his famous smile. He told me that he has read my posts especially about Laura’s swimming and studying abroad. My take from Lourdes is that he keeps abreast with the latest from our schoolmates. He acknowledges he has a health issue, not ignoring it. But he is always forward looking. That’s the stuff that made him School Captain and a great leader.

We did not have to wait long for our meal order. Our orders all came at the same time. The texting with Lee Seng ended then.

One for the Mexican album.

Jeannie’s dinner – “Muslo de Pollo Cocinado en Salsa”

Jeannie had the “Muslo de Pollo Cocinado en Salsa” – a whole chicken leg with Mexican rice, side decorated with jalepenos and lettuce. The chicken was slow cooked, giving it the “roast” look, I think. The rice was a sort of reddish-orange in color. It looked great. Tasted as good as it looked.

Pollo Loco with black peppercorn sauce, with baked potato.

Laura and I ordered the same, “Pollo Loco” (crazy chicken?😉). It was charbroiled boneless(very important) chicken chop, with a not too pepperish black Peppercorn sauce. It was served with baked potato (we were given the choice of fries or baked potato).

The black Peppercorn sauce was smeared evenly over the whole chicken. The sauce was not over-powering. We still could get the black pepper effect on the chicken. It looked presentable. The chicken was tasty, inviting to the palate. I liked the baked potato minus the sour cream. The taste of the baked potato seemed lost with the sour cream on it. Other than that, it was excellent!

The food was so good that neither one of us three eating, added and salt or pepper or anything else to enhance the taste of our meal.

Mojito is definitely not iced-lemon tea with a mint leaf or two.

I thought we were going to have margaritas after our dinner. I ordered a Mojito by mistake, while waiting for our dessert – “Home made brownie” with ice-cream, to arrive.

The home made brownie

The vanilla ice-cream was a nice touch with the homemade brownie. It came with a bit of a strawberry, mint (mint again?) leave, a squish of whipped cream and zig-zagging of chocolate sauce. Really not too sure why this is done. Presentation on the plate served.

Mojito

The Mojito looked like iced-lemon tea with a twig of mint on top for deco. However, it was not. It had a nice zing of rum, with sugar and lime juice. A good after dinner drink.

The waiters were always checking in on us, once in a while to attend to our needs. They were a bit witty, too. Must have been a pre-requisite when applying for the job.

As we came to the 10.00pm mark, we called up our long time friend, Richard Kok; to come to our house for coffee. He said, “ok”. We made a zig-zag line back home, shortly after that. Maybe, it was more zag than zig, as we had a few turns to make to get to our house. Jeannie was driving, – designated driver.