Fasting. Fasting. Fasting. Dates.

Before I knew it, I was fasting.

Damnit, no more sleeping naked for a whole month.

Yes, the Ramadan has once again embrace the world, and here I am stuck with hormones whenever I see my husband's nipples be bared against the cold reality of my sight. Just when we declared our undying passion with one another and vowed to have daily sexual intercourse, fasting days are pimpin' their weaves at us. Ah yes, being the newlyweds that we are, emotions are going rampant on our crotches.

However, I can always resort into something that has been a passion of mine for ages: COOKING.

Dates (the fruits), are quite the annual treats when it comes to Ramadan in Indonesia. It's like chocolates on Valentines' Day in Japan, roast turkeys on Thanksgiving, and flashing boobs on Mardi Gras for beads. Really, the overexposure is enormous and you can't help yourself from complying along with the rave. During the whole month, is all about date cheesecakes, date wafers, date green teas (I really suggest you to avoid this at any cost), date pies, date brownies, and it goes one and on and on. The good thing about this particular type of fruit is that because of its near-extreme sweetness, usually result the absence of cane sugar in the final food product. Meaning that we could simply rely on fructose alone instead of glucose.

I like to eat and make balanced food, and by balanced, I mean food which taste got that perfect mesh between the spices/ingredients being incorporated into it. If it's a sweet base, then I'd prefer something either semi-contradictory as in salty or something neutral such as creamy. If it's a savory thing, then I mix and matches of all kinds of herbs, and never a focused flavor. Now, in the matter of dates, I add the existence of cheese (be it cheddar or cream or both, heehee) right in between a sliced-open piece of Medjool date. Ah, 'tis perfect.

I do wish I have pictures to present, but... well, excuses, excuses. 

-Tev-

Prenup Agreement Syndrome

Yesterday afternoon, a young lady came to my office. She held the usual appearance that every stereotype bar-girls (if I made up this term, I want a royalty) in Jakarta are strutting during the day. High-lighted hair, dark skin, coloured contacts, cleavage display, short cargo pants, gold accessories, and heavy make-up. Maybe there are more typical descriptions for me to choose, but I think I'll settle for those mentioned above. 

For now.

Anyway, you do know that particular feeling when you're just so used to your job and what you do for a living, right? One look at a certain type of client would turn you into a knowledge machine of what that person wants out of your services. The sort of aid being pursued under my league of capacity falls under legal service category, and looking at the lady, I can too clearly see that what she wanted was nothing too far from the word "Prenup".

Sure enough, she then explained about the current situation she's having with her future husband. Starting from the fact that he's a foreigner and how that condition prevents him from buying (and owning) a land in Indonesia. She then went on by telling me that even though he can personally own the land, it has to be under HER name instead, and the purchase needs to be done with the existence of a prenuptial between her and her future husband. At least, that's what she claimed her lawyers had said to her before. I agree to this of course, feeling rather peachy since by that, she understood her position well enough. Unfortunately, the peachiness doesn't last very long as she then told me her disagreement to such procedure.

This part, I find disturbing.

She finds the prenuptial agreement's separation of assets between spouses as quite an objection to hold, saying this could be a liability if by any chance they decided to have a divorce. I calmly disagree to her saying that even though, God forbid, they do decide to separate, she'll have what she owns in the first place and that he would be unable to take what's not his from the beginning. This is where it gets ridiculously tragic and funny, though. The lady, with all her pretentious bluntness of figuring things out, continued on by saying that the separation of assets on the prenup agreement would then prevent her from owning HIS personal assets back at his homeland prior to the marriage.

I think I blinked a couple of times because of this. And NO, I'll save you the trouble by not elaborating furthermore upon what I've gruelingly established with her. It's fascinating how apparent her motives are by this marriage she'll be having in the near future. How clear as day her intentions look to a professional legal official, and how shameless those eyes were justifying that very aim.

This seems to be a pattern for most of her kind. The group of girls that relies on the svelte lines of their bodies, and the clench of their privates to have foreign men lured in having them as their wives. For me personally, it has passed a borderline of irony when it comes to dealing with their sorts and going with their demands. Trying to be as effortless as I possibly can, I kept a professional manner and provided her with the many advantages of a prenup agreement, and to my surprise, she eventually decided to have it at the end.

Problem solved, you stupid, materialistic bitch.

-Tev-

Graves - The Next Gardening Trend

One day, my husband and I was passing down a graveyard somewhere down one of the most populous streets in town. By populous I mean, is a condition of being immensely prone to traffic jams before, during and most importantly, after office hours. He, being the person unable to locate even the slightest bright side on traffic issues, started to rant about how that particular bus kenek (assistant to bus/truck drivers) is driving his knuckles itching, or how that motorcyclist needs to kiss the asphalt from acting out on the road so much. It's not something that one would consider naturally wise, but my husband is from a different breed of men, and therefore need something out of the ordinary in the matter of handling. As I watched small drops of sweat came tricking down his temples, and then veins starting to pop out, the decision to engage a conversation came as idle and swift as it could.

I started on prompting him to recite a small line from an Islamic culture whenever we pass graveyards, and he complied semi-calmly. Seeing how that intro went along nicely, I continued with my desired subject. The question that began rather nonchalantly was about the existence of graveyards in Jakarta. It is of my knowledge that the people who died and then buried on local graves continue to be an expense to their surviving family members by having them pay for the "land-rent" on an annual basis. I asked my husband what he thinks about this, and surprisingly, his discharge of the current stressful rush hour effects came relatively at ease. He opted an opinion about how the land prices would be at an escalating threshold as years go by, and that it would be such a nuisance if once we passed away, the necessity to continuously have our burial grounds be paid to the government would fall to those we left behind.

I paused at this, momentarily thinking about cremation and the sort until he (the hubby) went on about having our future graves on our own backyard. Being surprised is another thing, but I think I've passed that stage at the time, and replied him only with a blank stare. It's true that most villagers I've ran their houses into have graves or tombs of their deceased somewhat decorating either their front or backyards, but I thought it was simply a cultural thing and not more. He then continued about us nor our descendants to not be obliged in paying for the previously mentioned land rents if we have an independent location for our graves, and that the children or close relatives could just pay visit without being hassled by either flower sellers, or opportunistic grave caretakers that swarm all over. I quietly hummed an agreement when hearing all this, and being the eclectic dreamer that I am, I added some ideas concerning this particular thought.

Watching a brilliant movie called "Nagabonar Jadi 2" a while back ago, I came to a conclusion that graves are quite supple enough to be turned into something that goes far from a haunting or spiritually intimidating atmosphere. I asked my husband on the idea of turning our future graves into some sort of gardening art and the many things one can provide to beautify our house yards. This time, it was his turn to give me a blank stare against my sparkling, "sure-we-can-do-that!" radiant eyes. The traffic was not a problem anymore since we've passed it by going inside a mall, so his concentration was quite at point. I think I looked rather stupid at that time, but he didn't say anything but, "Okay... go on..."

That got me excited as I rambled on and on about creating a clean mound with swirly small fences around it with floral decorations for my personal designated last resort, while he could get a minimalist Japanese wood and stone furnish to his. The blank stare continued to aim at me, but that dumbfounded look on his face is too precious to dismiss, and I know that deep, deep, deep down in himself, he thinks this is a good idea as well. I added that we should also consider a Zen touch with white sands and yellow bamboos and thin lineups of grasses along the line, but as he quickly discovered a parking spot, the conversation had to end. In short, we agree on yet another thing despite our different approaches. As he pulled the handbrake of our car, and turned the engine off, he looked at me for the last time before unlocking the door and then quickly leaned over me to land a brief kiss on my forehead.

"You're nuts." he said with a coy smile.

-Tev-

The Jakartan Monologue

It's smoggy, crowded, dyslectic  between annoyingly humid and steaming hot, populated by rude people from the village areas who don't give a rat's ass about hygiene nor manners, frequently smells like a messed up fusion between carbon monoxide and septic tanks, crowded with unlicensed drivers driving all kinds of public transportation, controlled by local authorities who treats bribery like gods, and a whole lot of other wrong things you could imagine in running a city in a Third-World country. 

The funny part however is that those things mentioned above are frequently paired with the paradoxical counterpart that miraculously go hand-in-hand in the name of coexistence. A parasitic coexistence, that is. To call it ironic would be too bland, and to label it devastating would be a slight-hyperbole. We, the Jakarta people, tend to name our city's issues as something that goes along with the unnamed sequence from bitching to eventually dismissing it into a "whatever"-infused state. Just imagine New York's poorer, adopted, lazy, procrastinating, mentally-unstable, masochistic sister who constantly gets pregnant with bastard embryos while finding out that she's the only one left out from a will inheritance. That's Jakarta in a nutshell for you heathens. Teeheehee.

Who needs this city, really? Our beaches are dark green with a black tint up, unlike Bali. The weather offers nothing but overacting conditions such as when the sun scorches your skin during the dry season, while the monsoon hands giveaways in the form of floods. The traffic made you wish you were James Riady with his endless hordes of helicopters. The local state officers makes you wanna reach an AK-47 and turn them into target practices with their so-called version of public assistance. The criminal activities are so intense that it's actually starting to get a bit funny whenever you see a pickpocket being bludgeoned to a pulp by the angry mass on some local TV program.

At the end, a rant is just a rant.

Alas, I hate my city the moment I realize that I can't live without it. They say that hate and love are like two opposing sides of the same coin. They were right. 

And I share this sentiment with the rest of my fellow Jakartans.

-Tevia-