Georgetterox

D’ya know what’s catchy of being a wedding public relation? At least you find out who still cares about you and who doesn’t.

After sending hundreds invitation of my cousin’s wedding  to the kins, colleagues, and fellas, finally we got a reply from my grandpa’s sista, Aunt Reby, 69.

She phoned and said that she was so glad to hear that my cousin Ryth, 25, getting married.

And she apologized that she couldn’t come next week.

Me: “How come? Does the stupid mud at Porong stand in your car’s way?”

Aunty Reby (embarrasing): “Nope. My son Wayne is taking me vacation.

Beside her baby-daughter just already able to walk. I wanna watch her playing sand-castle.”

I almost laughed to hear it. For your information, I always laugh everytime someone offends me.

Whatta weird reaction, I know. And this time I’m really offended that our invitation’s  rejected.

Me: “Well. Would you tell Om Wayne to bring her daughter playing sand-castle at our backyard, please?

My cousin Ryth doesn’t get married each year.”

Then after I insisted my aunt Reby, she said that Uncle Wayne preferred vacation than accompanying his Mom to the wedding.

Aunty Reby: “I don’t think he’s comfy. However, he’s not invited.”

Me: “What are you talking about? I’ve sent one to your address.”

Aunty Reby (careful): “Kiddo.. You send only mine, not my son’s.”

This time I really laughed. Laughed in blue. How could I have as this stupid as my aunt and uncle?

Of course I wrote in the destination column: “Prof Noel and family.”

And family!

It means, Uncle Noel, Aunt Reby, their children Wayne-Inde-Warde-Nauty with their children-in-laws and those little toddler devils. Not just Uncle Noel and Aunt Reby!

I knew that their four children were already married, but it was absurd for me to send five envelopes of invitations to the mansion. Stamps-wasting! Besides..

Me (pretending of being unguilty): “I don’t know that Om Wayne has already had an address to live in.”

I know it sounded ridiculous.

Everybody in our family knows that a marrying son has to move to his own house and can’t live with his parents.

Aunty Reby: “Wayne’s already moved to his new apartment.”

Her speaking sounded a little proud, but I swore that her son’s success didn’t impress me much.

Me: (pretending of being interested): “Oh yeah? Since when?”

Aunty Reby: “Two years ago or three.”

“Er, I’m sorry, Eyang, but we don’t have Om Wayne’s new address.

We send the whole family the Eid Mubarak and Christmas cards every year, but Om Wayne never sends me a thing.”

Aunty Reby just shat up. I felt terrible that I had blamed her son. It’s clear now who stops keeping in touch.

It’s nobody’s fault. Uncle Wayne moved to a new house, and he didn’t tell his cousin about it.

His cousin, it’s my family, doesn’t know that Wayne’s already moved out, so we didn’t send any invitation to his new address.

No wonder that Wayne felt uninvited and he felt offended, so he preferred not coming.

D’ya know, this little trouble can make a sensitive issue.

THOUGH IT WON’T BE THIS CRUCIAL IF ONLY HE WOULD SEND US AN EID MUBARAK CARD.

Or a Christmas card. Or a Valentine card, whatever.

After I write this blog, I’ve gotta contact my ex that I haven’t phoned for years.

Maybe he’s married already and he couldn’t invite me coz I didn’t tell him that I’ve changed my number.

Hon, where art thou?

There’s something funny as I drove my cousin’s wedding invitation this week.

My aunt had me drop an invitation to her colleague’s, a midwife at Singosari district.

So I knocked the house and gave the envelope to a girl who met me.

I said, “Good afternoon. I’d like to send a wedding invitation from Midwife Ninx for Midwife Yetty.”

When I reran the happening for my aunt, she just corrected me, “Vicky, don’t say Midwife Ninx.

It’s supposed to be Mrs Ninx.”

I didn’t listen to her. Then I dropped other invitations for two directors of a midwivery academy.

I gave the invitations to the security and said, “Excuse me, I’d like to accompany wedding invitations from Midwife Ninx.”

Again my aunt corrected, “Vicky! It’s not Midwife Ninx, but Mrs Ninx!”

I’ve just already got it that my aunt means it. But then I get confused.

“Why isn’t it Mrs Ninx? You’re a midwife, not just a common lady.”

I’m not kidding her. I always call the other staffs in my hospital with their titles.

Doctor Zul, Midwife Sri, Zooster Tia, et cetera. Not Mrs Sri, Miss Tia, or even Mr Zul.

I even minded if they call me Miss Laurent, not dr Laurent or dr Vicky.

(Except by my colleagues who are almost jet lag after doing surgery all night long: “Miss Laurent, stop reading that damn records, why don’t you come with me drinking in the ward room?”

And I always reply, “Doc, I’ve had all of those cans..”)

Because, school for reaching the title is really difficult, so the profession must be appreciated by mentioning the title before we call the name of the person who belongs to the title.

Even if we could, we should call an expert of railways Engineer Johnsen, not just call him Mr Johnsen.

Call your French teacher Prof Martin, not just Mrs Martin.

Because lecture for being an engineer or a teacher is difficult.

Not like we call a gardener by the name Mr Sarwo, not Gardener Sarwo.

For being a gardener doesn’t need education!

I told about this profession-appreciating to my aunt, “Bu De, I appreciate midwives. Midwivery school is hard. That’s why I call it Midwife Ninx.”

My aunt rejected. The calling sounded weird for her.

She has been long ago becomes a chief for the association of midwives, and the position has led her become a VIP at the town, but she’s still never called as Midwife Ninx.

We deserve to be called as our professions. I’m not Miss Laurent, but I’m dr Laurent.

No more Mr Fawzi, but it’s supposed to be Lawyer Fawzi.

My maths teacher isn’t Mr Maman, but he’s Teacher Maman.

If your ears hear it strangely, then you’ve gotta get used to it!

Would you like to ride my beautiful balloon?

This isn’t the jingle of Play with Beauty commercial of Lux, but this song has become my sister’s soundtrack. She owns a balloon park in a mall on my city.

The song has been sung by my sister more intensively, especially since the recent days she got upset, because behind her balloon park, now someone has just soft-opened a new playland.

What’s wrong? The new playland is opened exactly behind her balloon park.

It’s larger than her park, and it’s really worrying coz now the children in the city rush in the playland, and practically drop the omzet of my sister’s park.

Someone else’s luck is better? No, that’s not the point of the jealousy is about.

The problem is, my sister who’s been long juggling around in business of toys, has a set of playland that as complete as her rival’s got, completed with the cars and the horses, too.

Long before, the owner of the mall where she puts her balloon park, has offered her to open a playland in the ground floor of the mall.

My sister refused it, coz on the upper floor of the mall, someone has opened a smaller playland earlier.

She concerned, if she also opened her big playland at the ground floor, then the playland at the upper floor will get bankrupt coz the visitors’ children won’t be interested to ride an escalator there.

“Don’t take someone else’s luck,” she said.

And she decided, she’d rather open a balloon park only at the ground floor, better than open another more-extravaganza-competitive playland.

And now, after she opened her balloon park at the ground floor for months, now someone else comes and opens a big playland right behind her balloon park.

A really attractive playland, with mannequins of primitive animals, and artificial vehicules to ride. Practically, the playland which tuned earlier at the upper floor, becomes sparse.

And it’s really damn coz my sister’s balloon park now isn’t as solemn as before of visitors.

Is it what they call money politics? Can’t we make business without ethics?

WHY MUST YOU SNATCH AWAY SOMEONE ELSE’S LUCK?

My sister massaged her chest. She’s really mad.

If she knew from the start that it would be like this, she’d open her big playland earlier, and abandoned someone else who’d opened a small one upstairs.

And now she didn’t know what to do.

She couldn’t come to the boss of the new playland, and punched him on the face with her Prada pouch. Prada again! Prada again! Why do I speak about Prada more often recently?

God says, the luck is His business. We just need to rescue the luck and accept it.

So all we gotta do is praying and doing efforts.

And now her staff in her another playland outside the town has just already phoned.

Her staff complained coz tonight the amount of the kids who come to that place has erupted twice. He demanded my sister to hire someone else to assist him.

My sister almost laughed and cried at once.

Laughing because the luck still reaches her another business though one of her own is being stucked.

Crying coz she harsh her staff, why he phoned this late, and how will she coordinate her other staffs for sending someone to that place to become a playland attendant?

Don’t take someone else’s luck. Just mind your own area. God has His own plan, hasn’t He?

It’s true, that about picking up the bride gowns, please don’t ask me.

The problem isn’t that my taste of fashion is unreliable, coz I’m not overacting when I say that I always watch Fashion TV.

But the trouble is, just because my head is always full of ideas that I copycat from my favorite tv station, all the wedding stylists get upset if I pick up the wedding gowns for their clients. The Javanese stylists, I mean.

For the example, as my sister, 25, brought me to the wedding kebaya rental last week.

She needs three kinda kebaya: one for the midodareni, one for the akad, and one for the reception.

The kebaya stylist was very delighted of showing her collections, and told my sister to try them, one by one.

It was strange, coz everytime she tried one and asked my opinion, I always put expression of disagreement.

She took a gold one, but I disliked the decorating flowers at the front, coz it was too bling-bling.

As she changed it into the pale-yellow one, I nodded agree, but absolutely the bottom part was too short.

Finally she turned it into the bright-brown one, but I didn’t like the decorating threads that split-hanging on each of the sides.

The kebaya stylist said, the decorating threads gave glamour accent. But inside my heart I said, it sucked.

WOW, WHY IS IT VERY DIFFICULT ABOUT PICKING UP THE WEDDING KEBAYA?

The problem was worse when we gotta pick up the kebaya for midodareni.

If you don’t understand Javanese customs, midodareni is the event when the bridegroom and his family come to the bride’s house and bringing gifts (hooray.. when can I make my brother-in-law bankrupt again?).

The special one is, the bride is locked inside the room, so the bridegroom don’t see his virgin bride (bullshit, can’t a marriage be preposed by a test-drive first?).

My sister don’t like this concept coz along the event she can’t leave her room for tasting the food (huuu..!)

So why does a midodareni need an extravagating kebaya if people can’t see the girl who wear it?

But my family is very narsistic and loves capturing its own kin, especially if they’re wearing odd costumes.

My Dad has already prepared the camera for capturing my sister along the midodareni, so my sister feels that she has to wear the beautiful kebaya, too.

And her taste is just like me, she picked up the red kebaya.

The kebaya stylist disagreed.

Coz the bride is still virgin, why does she wear red?

The impression is, very come-to-me-I’ll-eat-you alive!

Me and my sister complainted. Red rocks..!

Said the kebaya stylist, virgins don’t wear red in her wedding night. Taboo!

So virgins don’t wear red. Very disappointing.