16 years

Happy Birthday to my Sister in Seattle! She's doing remarkably well in her new role as a mother, and even she must have been surprised at herself, at how much she has come to cherish being a parent.

I never forget my sister's birthday because 16 years ago, on this day, I had chicken pox, for the first time in my life. It started a few days before, and my whole body was covered in pustules and calamine, I had high fever and I couldn't bathe, and all I wanted to do was lie down naked and sleep underneath the fan and tie up my hands so that I won't scratch.

You must agree, a day like that would have been a very bad time for a wedding reception.

But the guests were already invited, and I did marry someone the day before, so a lot of people stood to be dissapointed had I been absent. (Have you ever heard of a bride who would ponteng her own wedding?)There was to be an ice carving (a big thing in those days), a Tengku Mahkota, and M. Rajoli reciting doa. How can we possibly call it off?

So I put on my wedding dress, put on lots of make-up, went to Taman Tun to find someone who'd dare do my hair (I don't know how to do hair), covered my face with a veil, took several deep breaths and walked into the reception hall with the my tuxedo'ed Saiffuddin. In a pattern that was to be repeated later in my married life, I neglected to shower, I wore absolutely nothing underneath my gown, and had relied entirely on the Love of God to get me through. Tengku Mahkota, who sat next to me during dinner, asked if my chicken pox was contagious, and I smile and said yes. He slinked away and didn't talk to me for the rest of the evening. Fortunately, he let us keep his wedding gift, or else we wouldn't have had a TV.

We didn't have pictures, save for a few blurry ones in which I hammed it up for the camera and every one looked like they had a good time, and in which my sister Dalia totally outshined the bride in a tight green number. Afterwards Saiffuddin brought me to a clinic in SS2, and the doctor gave me herpes medicine which totally worked, and when we went home, my husband rubbed calamine all over my poor body, on what should have been our wedding night.

Every year, during our anniversary, my husband tells me he would marry me again, and that he promises to give me another wedding, but since he wants a beach setting where we'd have a ceremony on the edge of the lapping ocean at sunset, and we'd be in bikini and small thongs, I don't think it'll happen any time soon.

Twenty years would be a good milestone to celebrate with a big do, yes? With plastic surgery, I think I'd be able to manage the thongs.

mokciknab muttered at 9:06 am ~ ~