Father's Day 2012

Father's day always falls on the third Sunday of June. The kids know it. But, fathers (or maybe only my father) probably don't know it. So, on the SECOND Sunday of June, one of my dad''s friend wished him Happy Father's Day..... OBVIOUSLY my dad felt disappointed that 'his friend' wished him but NONE of his kids did! I was in Langkawi at that time and I received a text from my mum about dad's displeasure. This kind of thing pisses me off!

Anyway, OBVIOUSLY my siblings and I WILL do something for OUR father on Father's Day. My brother returned from Penang. I bought a shirt for dad in Langkawi as a present. My younger sister was in charge of making the Father's Day card.

We planned a dinner at home instead of going out for one. We celebrated on a Saturday since my brother had to leave to Penang again on Sunday evening. I invited my grandfather and aunty for the celebration. That night, I found out from my aunt that my grandma's birthday was on 12th April, my older sister's birthday was on 12th May, and my grandpa's birthday was on 12th June! I didn't know my grandparent's birthday for the past 20 years or so.

This post is longer than usual because I am using my laptop to blog instead of the iphone. Since coming back to KL, my laptop refuses to work with Unifi connections. Hence, the lack of my existence in Skype, msn, replying emails...etc. Using the Iphone to blog can be a pain at times because the photos uploaded are not allowed to be in between paragraphs. Only at the bottom of the post. Furthermore, the chances of a typo is higher.

Anyway, back to the Father's Day celebration, the menu were as below:

APPETIZER:

Two types of spring rolls and my brother's special sauce.

For appetizers, we had samosa spring rolls and crabstick cream cheese spring rolls. The sauce was a last minute concoction by my brother, which was brilliantly delicious :)

MAIN COURSE:

Tom Yam seafood - crab, prawns, fishball

Mummy's beef rendang

DESSERT:

Dessert was two types of cheesecake. Daddy gets the heart shaped cotton cheese cake, while grandpa gets the rich cream cheese filled cake.

The food looked little but it was actually very filling and satisfying. Nothing beats homecooked meals :)

Grandpa had a cake too because we decided to have a belated birthday celebration for him.

Grandpa is 75 years old now!!

Grandpa with his son and daughter

The family

In the kitchen preparing the dessert and washing dishes

Daddy and us!

3 generations of Che

It was my first try writing words with melted chocolate onto the cheesecakes.

At the end of the night, dad, gx, ty and hazel played ginrummy. Grandpa left early because he wanted to go home to watch football, while my aunty had another function to go to. I was pretty tired.

Bff...

..because we are sisters!

Puffin

GUEST PHOTOGRAPHER: Birgir Gilbertsson

Happy 17th of June Independence Day, Iceland! Today we have a guest photographer, Birgir Gilbertsson, an optometrist at Optical Studio in Smáralind who has an excellent eye for Icelandic nature!

Here's what he writes about this very pretty puffin photo:

This picture was taken out at Dyrhólaey and it was the first time I ever went there. There was a lot of Lundi there and they were so used to have people close to them, that they didn't even bother. This one bird was a little bit closer than the others and I crawled slowly towards him. I managed to get very close and was very exited about that, started taking pictures and got that great shot :)

I love the moments when you have your camera with you and you get "lucky"! 

I've never met Birgir, who is also a triathlete and an Ironman finisher in his spare time, but through a twist of fate where I mistakenly thought that he had taken a certain gorgeous photo* and contacted him to see if I could use it, we began a light correspondance. Since he is also into amateur photography, I thought it would be fun to have him share his work here. He sent me a few shots to consider, and when I saw this little lundi I knew it would fit right in here on Iceland Eyes : )

*The photographer who took this shot admits to having added Photoshopped in the water and the reflection in it of our Harpa concert hall. It's a stunning shot and well conceptualized, but not reality.

Fatter as years go by

I just looked back at my photos in USA and I can't believe I used to think I was fat that time. Now, I look at my recent photo, I am definitely fatter now. Dear me, what has Malaysia done to me.. Time to head back to USA *hint hint*

Langkawi trip

I just came back from my four days trip to Langkawi. I love the island so much that I visit it every year. Will blog more on it soon!

Blómadagur

Someone told me that it's Blómadagur, or Flower Day, again on Skólavörðurstígur, though I'll have to
go wandering about myself to find out how reputable my source is since I can't find anything on the interwebs to confirm it.

In the meantime, here's a reposting of a classic Iceland Eyes photo from June 2006. The original text read:

The Saturday before last was Flower Day in Reykjavik. I went for a stroll with Óðinn in his belly pack and noticed that just about every woman I passed on Skólavörðurstígur (the street leading up to the big church) held a rose in her hand. Valentína, who was holding a tombóla with Marsibil at the top of Skólavörðurstígur told me when I went to visit their enterprise (they made over $25 each that day!) that someone was handing out flowers to women downtown, though she didn't know who. I didn't make it far enough on my walk to find out, but I did see this charming group of people with their watering cans. It must have been an acting troupe....they were very cute and kind of pranced about watering things like parking meters and garbage cans. We definitely more of this type of urban attraction here in our little city!

Have you tried Dynamic Viewing yet? Five new views in all. Use the blue tab at the top of the view page to check them all out : )

Ain't No Homos Gonna Make it to Heaven

A couple of days ago a child, identified as a four year old, was invited up to the pulpit in the Apostolic Truth Tabernacle Church in Greensburg, Indiana.  There he sang the following passage three times:

The Bible's right, somebody's wrong.
The Bible's right, somebody's wrong.
Romans one, twenty six and twenty seven;
Ain't no homos gonna make it to Heaven.

Leaving aside the grotesque crimes of the double-negative and the verb-noun agreement, the Christian congregation burst into cheers and cries of support, effectively rewarding the child for spouting forth this hatred.  The video can be watched here.

It is quite clear that the child is a victim in this.  Just like children in the 3rd Reich, indoctrinated to revile the mythical Jew figure, he presumably has no understanding of what a "homo" has.  He and other children will grow up hating them, whoever and whatever they come to represent to him, his family and the community of his church.  Pity him if at 13 or 14 he discovers he is one himself.  Pity any other gay person he ever comes into contact with, including possible family members, later in life.

Apostolic Truth Tabernacle: if this is truth, God help us

The anti-gay hatred that is being whipped up across the United States currently is following the political movement to give same sex marriage equality.  The struggle follows closely the pattern of the civil rights movement in the 1960s: states on the East and West coasts pressing on with equality whilst large swathes of the middle of the country resist.

The epicentres of hate are once more small rural Christian communities.  Substitute "n****r" for "homo" and we are right back there again.  Racism was justified on the basis of scripture for centuries.  The Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa claimed political apartheid was part of God's commandment until the early 90s.  Christian preachers in segregated communities lectured on the evils of "black" music such as jazz and rock and resolutely supported the oppression of a minority based on Jesus' word.  Of course the perversion of - at least what I understand as - actual Christian teachings is breathtaking.

As I have quoted before on this blog, in the short history of the civil rights movement there is one recurrent truth; the group fighting for equal rights, sooner or later, wins.  Legal battles in Washington will determine the outcome here once again, but the damage being done is immense.

The debate on marriage equality has been (for the large part) conducted here with much more British reserve.  Those at the vanguard of opposing it have, of course, been Christians, but there has always been a sugar coating that people like the Archbishop of York put on it.  This, yesterday on Twitter, was a rare slipping of the mask:

(Tweet since deleted by the author)

Those against marriage equality in this country, like it or not and deny it or not, are aligning themselves with the likes of people at the Apostolic Truth Tabernacle.  They are seeking to discriminate against a group of people on no other basis than "we have it, so you can't."  I perceive attempts to stop same-sex marriage as a direct homophobic attack on me, my friends, and on my community.  To deny us this is to say we are different, second class, deserving of less - however you dress it up.  You may politely  say "You know, I fear this may in time undermine the basis of a long standing institution" over a nice cup of tea, or you may stand up in church and shout and cheer to "Ain't no homos gonna make it to heaven".  You are saying the same thing.

The language of hate is vicious, it affects people in unknown ways and it sends long lasting ripples around the world.  It is 2012, not 1964 or 1933.  This has to stop.

If you have not already done so, please visit the C4EM website and fill out the government consultation on same-sex marriage.  It only takes a moment and there is just over a week left.