Wednesday 31.1.24.
The last two days had been frantic. A 3-year-old piggy bank was located, an old hand phone needed to be replaced, and sad news kept coming up. They kept me off the tv altogether.
Cleaning up the mess under the ol' writing table, I found an old piggy bank under a pile of papers. It contained only 1-dollar bills. These can't go into the ATM. So I took them to Maybank, Jalan Rahang. The crumpled up plastic notes had to be forcefully flattened out, the bank clerk muttering under her breath about "don't do this next time" and so forth. After nearly an hour, 5,000 were banded up, with about RM 15 change returned to me.
Then I rushed to the Gateway Seremban to the Celcom shop. Last week they told me to come yesterday to renew my 2-year service contract and get a new phone. I had to pay RM 57 additional fee for the additional features on the brand-new "Honor" model (made-in-China, they're all this now). "It's worth it" was the answer to my question whether to accept this side offer. But I had to take it to a mobile service shop in Terminal 1 to transfer the data. Celcom has no staff and time for this. As of now, the new gadget still confounds me.
At 4 pm yesterday I waited at the appointed rendezvous for the other 2 blokes to arrive as promised. Foo came after 30 minutes, Mokhtar 10 minutes later. Obviously their sense of punctuality don't match mine. But we managed to reach Pantai Hospital, Air Keroh before 6. We saw Sainy one at a time. Two days ago he had hemorrhage of the brain. Today we saw him conscious but with limited verbal communication. His is a serious condition, and we impressed on his sons at the hospital to decide right now on the medical advice, or get Sainy out to a Government hospital pronto.
In Foo's car on the return journey, I learned that Daman Idris, my old classmate TMS 1958 - 60 had died last week in Paroi Jaya. I didn't hear about it. He was buried in his kampong. Boting, Kuala Pilah. He would often reach school well past the school starting time each morning because he cycled to school, TMS, and Boting is at least 7 miles away. His last post that I know of was the Post Master, Tanjung Ipoh.
Then we were debating about the current political turmoil, with Anwar intent on seeking revenge from his old enemies - Mahathir and Daim. Anwar seems unbending in getting his pound of flesh, digging through all the dirt, all these long years. Our failure to get the MB's ears about our problems seems doubly devastating, seeing how PKR with 5 seats got the MBship, with UMNO having 14, DAP 11, PAS 2, BERSATU 1, Amanah 1 and MIC 1. Obviously Zahid is cowed by Anwar. Mat Hasan is not even UMNO State Liaison Officer anymore.
And at lunch at the Lake Club today, it was sad to see Hamid Arshat with the walking stick and the wheel chair. We were classmates, though he became a Specialist Medical Officer. I have to get him to buy my book.
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