.. the magic of reading and massages

It's not a very great day in my football calendar because Man Utd drew 1-1 with Man City in the great Manchester Derby. Sepatutnya Man Utd boleh menang game ni tapi aku rasa macam ada kurang something. Maybe the fact yang Sir Alex rehatkan Roy Keane kot. I have to admit every time Keane doesn't play, aku akan jadi risau sket. He's the anchor of the team, the link between the attacking midfielders, strikers and the defenders. Tapi malam ni it's not all bad. Boro did manage to beat Arsenal 2-1.. Hehehe. Aku dah cakap, kalau takde Henry memang Arsenal ni susah nak menang… 2 defeats now for Gunners and it looks very good for me..

I barely had a good sleep last night. I had this awful, stinging pain in the right, lower side of my back. Aku dah sapu Yoko-yoko tapi still rasa sakit. Aku rasa macam tak boleh bergerak pagi tadi. Rasa macam semua pergerakan aku akan membuatkan aku kata 'Aduh!'. Aku rasa ni semua berpunca daripada ketidakselesaan aku masa naik van Unser balik daripada T'ganu ari tu. Maybe belakang badan aku memerlukan sentuhan magic Pak Haji Bidin? I can hear u asking me 'Sapa Pak Haji Bidin?'. I'll elaborate on him later.

Despite my back ache, I manage to gather myself up and went to Borders, Berjaya Times Square with my girlfriend. She was a little bit concern about my back. Tapi aku fikir kalau aku dok terbaring kat umah pun sakit belakang aku tak hilang jugak. Lagipun aku dah lama plan nak gi Borders with her. Bukannya nak beli buku, tapi baca buku. We really love this idea of spending one whole day together doing nothing but reading. And Borders seems like a very good place to start. It has all the latest books, its very spacious and comfortable, huge collection of reading materials and they provide really nice chairs for people like us to read. U can even bring the books that u want to read to Starbucks that is located inside the Borders premises. So now you can have free reading while sipping on your Rhumba Frapuccino. Now that's a good marketing strategy if you ask me.

I love reading. It has always been my hobby. It runs in the family I guess. Aku masih ingat arwah ayah aku setiap pagi akan keluar beli 7 jenis suratkhabar for the whole family to read. So after breakfast u could see every member of my family gathering around the living room doing a newspaper reading marathon. Walaupun sekarang dia dah takde, tapi that tradition still goes on everytime semua abang dan kakak aku balik kampung. The whole family loves to read. My dad had this huge collection of political books. My sister with her romantic books. My brother with his automotive books. And I had quite an impressive collection of Enid Blyton and Hardy Boys books when I was young. Bila aku meningkat remaja, I start to collect entertainment magazine. Mostly film and music magazines. And I bought quite a lot of those action mystery novels. That habit continue on until today. But sekarang ni aku tak banyak masa. Masa aku dipenuhi dengan kerja dan belajar separuh masa. Susah nak cari a quite time for me to sit down and read. That's why the trip to Borders is important. In some part, it's like going home.

At Borders I pick up some novels to read while my girlfriend is at the Computer Section trying to scout reading materials for her office library. At one time, I was drawn to the Music Section and then found myself hook to a very detail book about the grunge and alternative music scene in Seattle during the 90's. The 90's rock was the music I grew up listening to (hence the name of my blog) so you could imagine my interest in the topic. About 2.00 pm we were getting a little bit hungry, so we went to Laksa Shack for lunch. Laksa Shack by the way has this amazing Curry and Asam Laksa so I recommend everybody to try it. After lunch we went back to Borders and continued reading. My girlfriend pick up the infamous 'The Vagina Monologues' to read (although she's a little embarrassed to held up the book while reading because people could only see the 'V' word at first glance.. hehehe). I pick up some amazing art books and some technical books on digital camera. By 6.30pm we were ready to leave and I bought some magazines. As I was leaving I saw a book at the bargains section entitled 'Edgar Allan Poe : Writings and Poems Collection'. And the price was only RM29.90.! Damn.! Maybe I'll buy it next month. My girlfriend and I decided that we should come to Borders again as often as we can. Kalau tak boleh every week pun, 2 kali sebulan pun orait gak kan. Tapi aku terpikir jugak bila girlfriend aku tanya, ramai ke orang beli buku kat Borders ni ? It seems to her that everybody is reading not buying. Aku pun tak tahu. Tapi yang aku tahu kalau nak datang next time kena cari parking yang murah sikit la.. Parking kat Times Square mahal siot! Any suggestions for cheaper parking fees around Times Square during weekends? Anybody..?

Now on the subject of Pak Haji Bidin AKA Pak Din. My officemates suggested to me to go and see him. Dia ni tukang urut yang quite famous around Serdang area. Diaorang dah pernah gi jumpa Pak Din ni and they were waxing lyrical about his ability to massage with only one finger. Yes ONE finger. Satu jari sahaja. So I was keen to find out what the fuss is all about. Last 2 weeks aku ikut bebudak ofis aku gi jumpa dia. It was around lunch hour and it was a 25 minutes ride to Serdang. Sampai aja kat sana Pak Din baru aja habis urut sorang laki ni. And he relax a little bit while telling us stories about his trip to Shanghai. Aku rasa Pak Din ni banyak jugak kumpul duit dari mengurut ni sampai mampu pergi bercuti ke China, walaupun upah dia tak spesifik. Ikhlas katanya.

Lepas 2 orang kawan aku habis mengurut tiba pulak giliran aku. Aku pun salin pakai kain pelikat yang disediakan oleh Pak Din. Aku bagitahu dia yang kaki aku ni bila bersila kejap, cepat sangat rasa kebas. So dia pun pegang sikit kat betis aku. Pastu dia cakap 'Ni dah teruk ni?'. Aikk? Pegang sket dah tahu? Magic. Dan lepas tu tak ku sangka-sangka mulalah detik-detik 'seksaan' aku. Dia letakkan jari hantu tangan kanan dia kat sisi lutut aku. Farrkkk...!!! Aku menjerit kesakitan. 'Adoii..!!' Jari hantu dia tu macam pisau Rambo yang menikam lutut aku. Sakit dia Tuhan aja yang tahu. What made it worst is the fact that Pak Din was laughing and kept telling me things like : Aku pegang aja ni.., Aku lalu aja ni.., Aku letak satu jari aja ni.., and the worst one : Aku main gitar aja ni..!, sambil dia 'main gitar' dengan urat-urat kat kaki aku. I was screaming like a girl for 15 minutes and at one point i even told him 'Rileks dulu Pak Din..!' but he just looked at me and laugh. It doesn't help that I could hear and see officemates aku tengah ketawa macam tengok sitcom Senario. Sial..! Tapi apa yang aku dapat pastikan ialah memang betul Pak Din ni urut pakai satu jari. Dan jari dia tu macam ada pisau lipat seposen terselit. Sebab bila dia lalukan jari dia tu atas kaki aku, memang aku boleh dengar (and of course rasa..) urat2 aku ni meletup-letup. Dia bagitahu aku yang urat aku banyak dah tersumbat. Darah susah nak mengalir. Banyak angin. Dan dia mintak aku datang lagi kalau nak totally OK. Itu yang aku tengah pikir ni. Perlukah aku gi jumpa dia lagi hari Isnin ni? Kalau belakang aku still sakit by Monday, I think I might as well go. Tapi aku teringat jugak betapa 'seksa'nya aku bila dia urut kaki aku hari tu. You have to feel it to believe me. It was awfully painful! Bukan main-main lagi. Tapi kaki aku pun dah kurang kebas sekarang.. So I guess you have to endure the pain in order to feel better huh? Shit.