Last Week

I had sleeping problems last week as I usually do when I return from a completely different time zone. I slept well on Sunday night probably because I was so knackered but had problems dozing off on Monday night, the night before I was due to return to office.

I went to work on Tuesday feeling wozzy from lack of sleep and a little self-conscious with my tanned complexion. Went to the clinic and asked for some sleeping pills. The nurse told me she couldn’t give it to me over the counter so I had to make an appointment to see the doctor. She gave me a total of three pills which I was under strict instruction to take before 10 pm or otherwise there’d be a ‘hangover’.

Elle called me from down under that evening and in my excitement, I forgot about the pills. When I finally sat for dinner, it was past 9.30 pm. Never mind, not 10 yet, I thought, and popped one in in between my chews.

Of course I slept soundly that night. So soundly in fact that I vaguely heard my alarm and when I finally opened my eyes, it was almost 7 am! There was a sense of déjà vu of my last morning in Lisbon as I literally jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom.

I didn’t have much problem falling asleep after that and didn’t take any more pills; see, I was yawning all the way home and apologising repeatedly for it for the next three working days. Once home, it was all I could do to stay awake until bedtime. If I even as much as close my eyes, I’d be dozing off to sleep, yes, even while performing prayers! (The last time I recall dozing off while performing prayers was back at boarding school during tarawikh prayers).

On Friday night, I decided to rest on bed while waiting for prayers, ‘Only for three minutes’, I thought. When I next opened my eyes, an hour had passed; I had dozed off. I was still groggy when Abah called shortly after to inform that they would be coming early Saturday morning to drop off something and that a friend of Mummy’s would be coming along. That call was all it took to jolt me awake – and spur me into action (tidying up the house, cleaning kitchen surfaces etc) – well into the night.

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Thankfully I had some frozen curry puffs in the freezer so I decided I’d fry them on Saturday morning for my early morning guests. Unfortunately though, to my dismay, the curry puffs were sticking to each other and when I tried to pry them apart, I ended up puncturing some of them, exposing the filling. The end result was a semi-burnt plate of curry puffs (blame that on the induction cooker) that didn’t look like they were of the pre-prepared frozen kind; rather they looked like the result of my pathetic attempt at making curry puffs from scratch.

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I came back to the office to find a Facebook friend request from someone from my past, someone I once had a major crush on. Needless to say, things didn’t work out (obviously) but hey, there is a lot of water under the bridge and has been so for a long time now. And so I accepted his friend request because we are still friends even though things didn’t work out.

Then towards the end of the week, I received another friend request from yet another person from my past. I don’t think we parted on good terms and I was convinced she didn’t want to have anything more to do with me. Yes, you read it right: it was a ‘she’. (I’m sure you’ve heard of students from the same-sex boarding schools ‘dating’ each other and this person in question was my pet sister. It was all harmless and it doesn’t mean those involved in this are gays). I did try to follow up on her developments the first few years after leaving school but soon stopped. So it was a pleasant surprise to receive that friend request from her after all these years.

During the week too, yet another person from my past (what was it with people from my past? Maybe there should be a reunion for them all) asked a mutual friend to convey his regards to me and he requested that she informed him of my reaction when she told me about it. I was surprised to say the least and reacted accordingly. I mean, lumme, what was that all about?!

Anyway, there was a very kind and thoughtful gesture from someone from the present – he told another colleague to inform me of it. For the moment though, I’ll just accept and appreciate the gesture instead of reading too much into it.

What a week it was!

P/S: The chap of the Mom-and-Pop stall operator at our food-court passed away on Friday noon shortly after suffering a brief stroke. From what I gathered, not much was done to save him except for the call for an ambulance by the Security initiated by my mate (the ambulance was late in arriving – what do you expect when it had to brave the mad Friday lunchtime traffic?). I was aghast to hear this and dismayed. Yes, I know that his time had come but I feel there should have been more effort put in into saving anyone in similar situation, common stall operator or whatnot.