Friday

 Hi Natty!  What's going on?  Shopping?  I wish I could go shopping, but I never seem to have money to do a satisfying shopping spree.  I placed my very first online order the other day, I thought I would give it a try.  I'm generally the "get what you need from what's closest by" kind of guy, but I'll have to say that there are a lot of nice goodies online.  I don't expect much, though.  I bought a USB condenser microphone for Mary, I'm expecting to receive some cheapo crap.  I didn't pay that much, it is my first online order after all.  Otherwise, there's not much going on over here other than the usual.  Lunch was scrambled eggs and fried eggplant with sliced bread, then I had to attend the Friday prayer.  Dinner was white rice with chicken fried in basil and sesame seeds.  Super simple stuff.  My tummy has been very pleased with me lately, because even my experiments have been simple.  I hope your tummy is happy with you too.

I'm sorry

 I'm sorry about all the waiting, Natty.  I know it's no consolation, but I tired to warn you about this.  No, I don't know how much longer you're going to have to wait.  I beg you to please forgive me, and to please trust me.  Allah will bring us together somehow, inshaAllah.  So please be patient and pray.  I know it's no consolation, but I have been waiting much much longer than you for us.  I know it's no consolation, but even if you had never known me, you would still have to do a lot of waiting.  I am really and truly sorry about this, and there's nothing I can do except wait along with you and pray.  You are so beautiful, and I love you with all of my heart.  Please forgive me.

Me:  Are you sure you like this outfit?  It looks kind of white trashy.

Mary Unknown7:  I think it's a nice change, and it makes me laugh.  I do like it.

Me:  I'm sorry I didn't have a photo of a trailer park for your backdrop.  I'll get a stock photo from Google.

The factory of endorsement

 Hi Natty!  How are you doing today?  Oh, those young girls are jealous of you!  Well what to do, it's tough being number one.  You are number one in my heart, Natty.  You are MY girl, not them.  I love you with all of my heart.  I will marry you, inshaAllah.  Don't worry about being friends with everybody.  That's impossible.  Just be.  OK?

Ack!  I'm not bothered with cooking today, but I have to feed myself.  I've been on a simple streak lately, and I don't think that's about to change anytime soon because I like it too much.  Even my complex recipes are becoming simpler.  Lunch was just white rice with a couple of sunny side up eggs and green beans, with hot sauce.  No soy sauce.  I cooked my dinner in the evening after killing stumps with a hoe.  Swinging that hoe sure kicks up a lot of rock shrapnel.  I had to go put the goggles on.  Dinner was eggplant and beef Sloppy Joe.  All that was in the Sloppy Joe was eggplant, ground beef, salt, pepper, and a little ketchup for color.  It worked though, so alhamdulillah.  I ate it with a loaf of underdog sliced bread that I bought at the sundry shop.  I also bought some banana cake.  I like banana cake.  I think you would like it, too.  I did however make some salsa in the morning.  That was quite complex, I guess.  Roasted hot peppers, fresh onion, cilantro, tomatoes, lime, salt and pepper.  The only flavor of corn chips they had at the supermarket was curry flavor.  I couldn't taste the curry past the salsa, though.

Rice salad

 Hi Natty!  How are you feeling today, my love?  Please try to keep calm, just relax and enjoy the ride OK?  I hope you are keeping yourself safe and healthy.  I was driving home from the gas station yesterday, when I noticed this guy sitting alone at the side of the road, selling produce.  I knew instantly that it was home grown produce because of the shape of the eggplant: factory farm eggplant is always perfectly straight and shiny.  So I turned back and checked on the prices.  I went home with over 3 kilos of produce for RM5.  I love home grown produce!  I bought tomatoes, eggplant, and large hot peppers.  And the guy threw almost a kilo of green beans in my bag.

I'm not really attracted to fresh greens because I hate salads, but the girls loved my salads when I was forced to make them at the pizza joint.  My mother told me to just fry the green beans.  I bit into one just to taste what it was like raw.  It wasn't bad.  Tasted refreshing, like jicama.  When I fried the green beans, it was only for about 20 seconds because I didn't want to lose the snap and the flavor of jicama.

The locals are absolutely hooked on steamed white rice with mixed entrées.  I find this eating to be extremely tedious and laborious, because each entrée can be complex and messy, and has to be prepared and seasoned individually.  So if you were to have 5 entrées on the table to go with your rice, that would take at least 3 hours and a stroke to prepare, not to mention the time and labor of eating and cleaning up.   I thought perhaps I could simplify the entrées then serve them on white rice like a salad, with a salad dressing.  So I fried the eggplant in chilli powder and salt, the chicken in salt, pepper and sesame seeds, and the green beans with just salt, put them together with the rice like a salad, and used the hot sauce I made this morning as the salad dressing.  I got the entire task done in about half an hour, including steaming the rice.  I'm happy to report that it was a success.  Dinner was filling and refreshing, with a lingering taste of fresh, clean water.  I think you would like this, Natty.  You can even use Italian or Ranch dressing, and it would taste great.

Someone kept shooting Mary Unknown7's avatar today, so she wasn't able to be on stage at the karaoke joint.  The stream was unaffected though, so I doubt anyone outside of Second Life would have noticed the disturbance.  We went back to the karaoke joint an hour later and the varmint had cleared out, so Mary was able to sing and dance onstage again, and show off her new boots.

You can leave your boots on

 Hi Natty!  Wow, those are nice boots.  You look awesome.  You're so beautiful my love, and I love you with all of my heart.  And I suppose those are your mother's boots in the next picture?  Are you still wearing your mother's clothes?  I guess a girl can't have too many clothes.  You should try to guess how much apparel Mary Unknown7 has.  I have a question: shouldn't you have a cowboy hat to go with those boots?  Please do me a favor then.  If you can only afford one hat, then make it a black hat.  If you can afford many hats then that's fine, but at least have one black hat.  That's because Shadowplay is a black hat band, thus we are a black hat family.  I suppose Mary's next outfit is set.  She only has one pair of Western boots though, and they have high heels.  I'll see if I can buy another pair for her before before I meet her for our wardrobe session.

Never give up

 Hi Natty!  How's my beautiful princess doing today?  I'm sure the atmosphere around you is electric right now, and people are very excited.  Do try to keep yourself safe and healthy OK?  You're MY girl, you belong to the both of us now.  I'm not really into politics, myself.  I'm a musician, not a politician.  But I'll have to admit that this US election is an interesting one because of the virus and all that.  The past few days where they had been counting the last votes have been pretty dull, though.  I didn't catch all of Biden's victory speech.  The only part I caught was what was blaring out of my Dad's TV when I was mopping the floor in my mother's bedroom, when Biden was yelling out, "AMERICA NEVER GIVES UP!"  It's almost like he's telling Trump not to give up.  Well, yeah.  The last part of the elections was really boring.  We all need more entertainment.

Sunday is supposed to be black!  But I forgot, and I chose Halloween green instead for Mary Unknown7.  Tomorrow will be black to compensate.

Movie night

 Hi Natty!  How's it going?  Are you having fun waiting around with the others?  I think people are getting bored.  Anyway, I hope you are keeping safe and healthy.  It's another routine day for me over here, doing more of the same old same old.  I cooked up some lentil fritters and fried curry noodles for lunch.  I wanted something really simple for dinner, so I made teriyaki chicken on white rice.  How's about a movie?  I think I posted this movie before, but you didn't get to watch it.  It's on YouTube so it's free to watch, but it has no subtitles.  Don't worry, I'll write up a synopsis for you to help make this movie easier for you to digest.  It's called "Sumpah Orang Minyak" (Curse of the Oily Man).

Once upon a time in an ancient Malay village at the turn of the 20th century, there was a deformed hunchback named Si Bongkok, the son of a man who allegedly committed crimes towards the village.  As such, he is persecuted by the locals but he makes a friend of a sidewalk dress merchant, who discovers that Si Bongkok has a talent for art and fashion design.  Si Bongkok makes another friend of a pretty local girl, who saves him from local thugs.  He falls in love with her and tries to deliver to her at a party a portrait he made of her, only to be hounded again by the locals. He escapes the village, and eventually finds himself at the mercy of a magical tribe.  They shower him with luxury and women (they said they are to help him because God told them to), and the boss told him to choose a spell out of a magic book that would grant him one wish.  He chooses to become beautiful and after the wish is granted, he is told never to kill anyone.  He then goes to show himself to the girl he loves, then she gets killed by the head of the local thugs, and he then kills the head of the local thugs.  The boss of the magic tribe revokes his gift, and Si Bongkok becomes invisible.  He flees into the jungle in shame only to be confronted by the devil, who promises Si Bongkok would regain his beauty if he becomes an Oily Man and assaults a certain amount of women.  Si Bongkok agrees, goes on his oily rampage and is eventually caught by the boss of the magical tribe, who imprisons him in a glass jar.