Qur'an 20210110

 In the name of Allah, most Gracious, most Merciful.

1.  Say, "It has been revealed to me that a company of jinns listened.  They said, 'We have heard a wonderful recital!'"

The Jinns 67:1

Summertime

 Hi Natty!  How are you?  I hope you are healthy and keeping safe.  How's life in lovely Venice Beach?  I saw a recent video of the place when it was cold and foggy out, and it looked like they really cleaned up the area.  I wonder what they did with all the homeless.  Anyway the New Year brings summertime to this place, and the wind becomes violent plus it gets ridiculously hot.  Sure enough, the wind is powerful right now.  It hasn't gotten ridiculously hot, though.  Rather it's very cool, and last night it was cold.  Well, I can't complain.  I loathe hot weather, so alhamdulillah.

I made fried rice again today.  Yesterday I forgot to put my steamed rice in the cooler, but today I didn't forget.  Fried rice is best made with rice that has been sitting in the fridge overnight.  Yesterday I used chicken and broccoli, but today I used crispy anchovies and cauliflower.  I had plenty of anchovy bouillon, but I had no soy sauce.  Even though I put fresh basil, anchovies and green hot chilli peppers in there, this turned out to be the whitest fried rice I ever made in my life.  It was successful in flavor though, better than yesterday.  So alhamdulillah.

Buy! Buy! Buy!

 

Hi Natty!  How are you today, my love?  How's life in beautiful and clean Los Angeles?  I hope you are keeping safe and healthy, and practicing social distancing.  I had to sit away from the crowd, right on the edge of the ditch, when I went to buy "nasi lemak" for my mother this morning.  They were taking a long time making that stuff and honestly, I won't wait for "nasi lemak" if it were not for my Mom.  I would just go eat something else.  At least she bought me 3.

Today is Friday, and I had to got to the mosque for the Friday prayer.  Fridays are tough for me, because I have to climb over the crowd and get back to the studio as quickly as possible for Mary Unknown7's singing session.  Mary is usually there waiting for me but sometimes she's late too, she's "late because I'm late".  So we don't arrive at the karaoke joint until up to half an hour late some Fridays, and Mary has to sing cold.  Fridays are tough for both of us.  It turned out that I didn't spend any money today, other than the buck I put in the donation jar at the mosque.  I made fried rice in the evening.  My key to fried rice is that it should be light and refreshing, so when you make fried rice don't weigh it down with heavy flavors and oils.  I chose a stock photo that best represents this approach.  There are so many BAD versions of fried rice out there!

Treat or annoyance?

 Hi Natty!  How are you today?  I hope you are happy and well.  The weather here has been so comfortable lately, that I just want to indulge in sleep.  Dream all the time!  But no, I didn't do that.  I had a busy morning, I vacuum cleaned my mother's house then went to the supermarket for her.  I got back in time to make my lunch: ramen!  I love ramen!  I don't think you would love ramen as much as I do, so we're going to have to figure something out about that for our lunches together.  I also had time to make a batch of cat food.  Oh my God!  Fish prices have skyrocketed since I started making cat food out of mackerel and rice!  No problem, I have a backup plan that should please the cats just as much.  I won't tell!  I cut the grass in the evening.  It needed cutting after all that wet weather, it was attracting snakes.  I had a simple dinner to save time, just scrambled egg sandwiches with fries.  My boiled potatoes got waterlogged in the cooler, and I didn't notice that when I added the corn starch!  So I got frustrated, and piled out the corn starch to overwhelm the water.  If you didn't already know, corn starch and water makes oobleck.  Plus in my passion I mangled my fries that they became potato balls instead of fries, and when you deep fry oobleck it becomes hard.  So I ended up with potato balls with a crunchy coat, kind of like potato M&M's but not sweet.  I suppose some people might find that to be a great idea, but I just found it annoying.

A mysterious sweetness

 Hi Natty Honey!  How are you?  Are you excited?  It's a great time to be you, because you're so pretty and you're MY girl, and I love you with all of my heart.  I hope you are keeping safe and healthy.  Please try to avoid people while you are in SoCal.  Most of them are just jealous and shallow.

I had some fruit today.  It was a jackfruit of the "nangka" variety.  The other type of jackfruit around here is the "cempedak", which is sickly sweet.  The fruit I had today was sweet, but more of a refreshing sweetness.  Somewhat like a sweet grape.  I've had nangka before, but this is the best I've tasted so far.  The texture is like a combination of grape and apple, or perhaps a very firm grape with some snap to it.  A mysterious sweetness.  Alhamdulillah.

Don't heed Dr. Adolf Kitler

 Hi Natty!  How are you coping down there in SoCal?  I hope you are well, and life is easy for you.  I love you.  I had a fairly busy day today, doing a lot of driving around and running errands.  Dinner was sandwiches and fries.  Kind of normal I know, but it was a big dinner and I have some leftover, which I will finish later when I watch YouTube.  Would you like some?  It's a cheeseburger, but the burger patty is a mix of chicken and beef.  I guess I got the one that's mostly beef, because I can't taste the chicken.

My kittens Lily and Bro are all grown up now.  I feed them well, so they are strong and heavy.  Lily has kind of a stocky build for a cat, but she's a selfless sweetheart.  Except with her meals, of course.  She seems to be very detached about being in heat, almost as if she suppressed it.  Then one day, I saw it happen: her tail seemed to be bothering her, so she chased it.  Then from that the contractions began, and she went into a seizure.  This was last week, but she went back to normal after a while, while I petted her.  But the same thing happened again today, and she was noticeably scared.  Her brother Bro, aka Dr. Adolf Kitler, knew what the problem was and had a cure: he tried to have sex with her.  No Bro, that is not the solution.  The Qur'an forbids marriage between brother and sister.  If I took her to the vet, their solution would be to spay her which I guess would be the humane thing to do (possibly), but I don't have have a minimum of RM 400 for the procedure and more for the recovery.  Hell, I don't even have half of that to survive on.  The best I can do is to adjust the feeding and living arrangements so Dr. Adolf Kitler doesn't give her his treatment, and hope that Lily will have the strength to overcome her first heat.  For after all, all female cats go into heat.  I pray she doesn't get heart failure.  Ya Allah, please heal and protect all my kitties.

What's the rush?

 Hi Natty honey!  How are you feeling today?  How's life over there in SoCal?  Is it still raining?  I hope you are healthy and keeping safe.  I'm blogging a little early today.  Oh there's no rush, the sky is really gloomy outside so I'm not doing any yard work.  I did have to go spend some money at the night market.  Even though it's dark with rain clouds at 5 pm, the hawkers are still there facing the odds.  Sometimes it's dark without rain.  Maybe.  I bought some small curry pups and some sweet cakes.

The cake above is called "tepung talam".  It's sweet, it's made of flour, sugar and coconut milk.  I also have some leftover shepherd's pie that my Mom gave me last night, I'm going to heat that up and eat that as well.  So It looks like I'm not just going to be lazing around this evening, I'm also going to be stuffing myself silly while watching YouTube.