Late October Pics

Nanowrimo has completely taken over my life this month, and Michael has been extremely supportive in helping with housework and taking care of John (well, he's always like that, but this month it's more apparent) so that I can make a mad scrambling dash to the finish as we near the end of the month. I'm something like a ridiculous 8,000 words behind right now, but I wanted to relax and update the blog instead of stressing about writing, so here we go about some of the cool things we did this month. (Granted, they are few and far between because I've mostly been writing.)

One pretty cool thing that comes to mind was a recent visit we made to the Cultural Craft Complex on Jalan Conlay, near KLCC. We posted pictures of it on the first visit we made a while ago and we wanted to go back to see our friend Fauziah who was making us some batik Christmas cards. We took a taxi to the complex and when our driver pulled in, there were guards standing in the road who wouldn't allow him to pull up to the front of the building. We thought that was odd, knowing there hadn't been a problem before, but noticed several buses standing by and assumed they needed the room to accommodate some large groups. The taxi pulled off to a side driveway and we went over to see Fauziah, letting John run around for a while. Before leaving, we decided to step into the main gift shop, something we hadn't done the first time around. There were still a few odd things we noticed, like that fact that there were a few members of the press wandering around with badges, and that there was a small group surrounding the front entrance playing instruments. Not giving it much thought, I left Michael in the gift shop to wander around while I found a bathroom where I could change John's diaper. When we came back, Michael grinned at me, saying

"I figured out the reason for all the security, and why they wouldn't let us pull in the front." I was confused because I really hadn't given it much thought, but he quickly explained,
"Uh, the Prime Minister is here."
Blank stare from me. "What? What do you mean?" Pregnancy makes me sort of slow.
"I mean the Prime Minister is here. Of Malaysia. He and his wife are right over there."
"Huh?" I still didn't believe him.
Sure enough, glancing in the corner of the store, I saw a small entourage of about 10 people gathered and I only assumed the Prime Minister of Malaysia was one of them because I had absolutely no idea what he looked like. I felt like I was intruding on some sort of private ceremony and wanted to get out of there. Honestly, I was surprised they even let us in the building. I think having John with us makes people think we look harmless.

Anyway, we sort of crept out, thinking we'd go see some other parts of the building, but right behind us came - lo, and behold - the Prime Minister himself with his wife. And their entourage of course. Well, at least now I sort of know what he looks like. After wandering a bit themselves, the PM and his posse left, quickly swept away in several plain, black cars.

The whole place seemed to relax after that and I noticed several large groups of brightly dressed performers swarming toward the buses we had seen at the entrance, chatting noisily as they boarded. Apparently we had missed a great cultural show of some kind, although I'm not sure we would have been allowed in anyway. John could not have possibly cared less. He found a small pond full of goldfish and he happily busied himself pointing at them making fish faces and exclaiming about the bubbles they were making. So that was our big experience that day. We went out to buy Christmas cards and ran into Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. Go figure. Oh, and as is standard fare, we didn't have our camera with us.

OK, honestly, that's the only exciting thing I can remember to write about now. Pregnant Erin needs to remember to write things down quickly after they happen otherwise they are lost to oblivion - or else I have to rely on Michael's memory, which is just as bad as mine. Below, I've posted a link for some Halloween pictures we managed to take. On Halloween day John still hadn't recovered from the cold he got while we were in Thailand and he had developed a pretty nasty chest cough, so we didn't want to take him out. Which was really too bad because one of our friends was having a trunk-or-treat at their apartment complex (they live in a large American ex-pat community) and a bunch of kids from church were going. But John had to miss out (good thing he's too young to care) and we stayed home making cupcakes and eating frosting instead. His pathetic "costume" consists of a sheriff badge I made him that says "Woody" and a plastic gun we got from friends at church. I love the fact that he's only 21 months and was totally enamored with his sheriff star. Kids are so easy to please.


Oh, that reminds me of another funny thing to report... a couple of weeks ago we were at the swimming pool of our apartment and we noticed an ENORMOUS rat climbing around in the bushes next to the pool area. For such a large sucker he sure could move fast, skittering around like... well, vermin. We finally scared him away, but I refused to go push the button to start the bubbles in the "jacuzzi" (just a small section of the pool that happens to have jet streams) because it sits on the wall where the rat was slinking around. John just got really excited, pointing and shouting about the mouse. Now whenever we go back to the pool, he looks over there, saying "mouw! mouw!" because he wants to see the adorable little rat again. Ick. (That was also the same day I saw a young girl, maybe 14 or 15 years old, in a full-body swimsuit covering all of her arms and legs, and some sort of waterproof veil on her head. At least she didn't have a face-covering... I'm sure that would have posed just a small drowning threat, don't you? Just when we think we've seen it all...)

Well, even though it's Thanksgiving, we hope you had a good Halloween. I'll try to be more on top of things once November is over. (And we'll post some pics of BOTH of our Thanksgiving dinners... one of them traditional, one not so much.) Being away from home will actually relieve a ton of stress that I normally feel after Thanksgiving once it is officially the Christmas holiday and we might actually just get to enjoy the spirit of the season! What a novel idea. Happy turkeying everyone!

Halloween (& more)