Sri Lankan time change
Half hour back, now match region
Everyone still late.

So my haikus suck. Deal. :p

Here’s the deal.

A bunch of years ago, Sri Lanka’s time was GMT +5:30. Then President Bandaranaike, the nutjob whacko woman, was elected, and it changed to GMT +6. The fact that she’s a wacko probably has nothing to do with changing the time. Unrelated information.

So for a bunch of years, the time sat at +6.

But now, with a new president elected, it’s been changed back to GMT +5:30.

Why?

Well, it would seem that a. it matches the time zones in the rest of the region and b. so everyone won’t be late anymore.

Because everyone’s used to getting up and going to work or school or wherever at a certain time, but always late, so theoretically, they’ll now be on time.

Yeah. Good luck with that.

I recently came across a site that had a listing of free language learning resources, including this one for Sinhala.

*gulp*

I guess I have no more excuses, eh?

Just, ya know, whatever you do, don’t tell Fahim. Please.

Fahmi hired a driver for the next few days. What with everything going on, I gather the general consensus is that, given that only Fahmi and their mother drive, and they’ll be busy, it just makes good sense.

So, because we have a large and largely unoccupied house, and Fahim’s parent’s house is largely occupied because of the wedding with no room to squeeze in more people, the driver stayed at our place last night and will continue to stay at our place until the end.

This also means that we can get moving to the in-laws earlier in the day than we could if we were dependant on hiring a van.

So, last night was day one of the driver staying at our place.

So, this morning, we head to Fahim’s parent’s place for breakfast.

Have I mentioned that Fahim’s mom is a great cook? She’s a great cook.

In other news, I met a boatload of aunts and uncles… It was confusing. Never mind that there were less than a half dozen of them…

And Fathima, Derrick, and the girls arrived today as well. In the middle of the night, since that’s when overseas flights all seem to come in. So they rested for a while before coming over - a very smart idea when you’re talking about young children who need their sleep. Which is pretty much all young children.

Just a little…

Not too much. I could certainly use more if anyone else wants to spoil me. Although that’s not required, of course. I’m just not dismissing the possibility, that’s all…

With weddings here, it’s culturally expected that the parents and family of the groom will give gold jewellery to the bride. Gold is the jewellery of choice because of its high resale value. Silver, white gold, platinum don’t have as high of a resale value because it’s not in as high demand. It’s a self-feeding mechanism, but, you know, whatever.

Let me see if I can put this into context…

For a very very long time - hundreds, if not thousands, of years, people in this region have used gold jewellery as a savings account of sorts.

I’ve heard tales of how women in the middle east and south Asia will, when hard times hit, sell links off their gold chains as needed to buy food or pay bills.

When good times come, they’ll buy more gold jewellery. Their walking savings account.

Social status is affected by the amount of gold a person wears, and at weddings, it’s expected that a woman will wear her expensive gold jewellery.

Anyway, then there’s me. I’m allergic to gold. No, not nickel. Gold. And no, I’m not mistaken. And yes, I’ve had people tell me - not suggest, not ask, but tell me - that no, it’s not gold I’m allergic to, because it’s Impossible to be Allergic to Gold, but it’s the nickel instead. They’re wrong. I’ve read that gold allergies are more common than previously believed, and may affect up to 10% of the population. Personally, I don’t believe it’s necessarily that high… And I’m also not the only one in my family affected - there are three of us that I know of.

Anyway. Back to jewellery.

So the parents of the groom are expected to give gold jewellery to the bride, as are the other family members. Fahim, if he wasn’t married to me, probably wouldn’t be expected to give gold jewellery - he would fall under his parent’s gift-giving umbrella. But because he’s married, we, as in Fahim and I, as a family unit are expected to give gold jewellery.

And as a part of that, Fahim’s parents gave me some jewellery. I didn’t expect it and I personally don’t find it necessary, but then, it’s not a part of my culture. I do find it nice, however. Oh, c’mon, did you expect anything else?

Fahim’s mom wanted to give me my jewellery before the wedding since Fahim and I were married first, and from her perspective, that’s only appropriate and right. (I have a much more relaxed attitude towards all of this, but I can also understand where she’s coming from.) There were thoughts on taking me jewellery shopping to make sure I liked what I got - they’re not familiar with my taste entirely yet - but then, they opted on getting Fathima to buy something in Dubai (jewellery is cheaper there - as in, gold and silver) and bring it with her when they flew down for the wedding.

So, Fathima handed the box to her mother, who then handed it to me. Silver earrings and a silver necklace with semi-precious gemstones. (Have I mentioned I’m a sucker for colored stones? I love colored stones. Not a huge fan of diamonds because, well, there’s no color. But sapphires, rubies, emeralds, or other colored gemstones… Well, hey, yeah!)

It’s a little tight on my neck. Not quite to the point of choking, but it would be more comfortable with a necklace extender, so that’s something on my list to get. But that’s a very very small point.

It’s beautiful, and I love it.

Wedding stuff commences…

Fahim took off the next few days because of the wedding and the possible help we might be able to give to his parents and brother. So, we head over to his parents place. Bright and… not so early.

First, we run a few errands, including stopping off at the thread & notions store, the little hole in the wall shop where I get my stuff. All told, I spent the princely sum of Rs. 380, or around $3.80, and got myself…

• 6 fancy green buttons for sari blouse
• spool of thread to match sari blouse
• 2 plain jane buttons (for an apron)
• 2 metres of elastic for Fahim’s waistbands
• 4 metres of white cording for pants (drawstrings)
• 6 spools of silk embroidery thread
• a seam ripper
• embroidery scissors
• an embroidery hoop, wooden, about 8" in diameter
• bias tape
• about ten zippers, 10 or 12" long, for various handbags that I plan to sew

Yeah, not a lot of money to Norte Americanos, and yet… That’s more than I paid my maid for a day’s work. How’s that for perspective?

We also stopped off at the fabric store to get some fabric for the pants and shawl to go with some crinkly fabric I got and am making into a shalwaar kameez top. I also picked up some white cotton sheeting for lining for the handbags and a meter of this really really stiff fusible interfacing. It was way, way stiffer than I expected, and I suspect that I could make a stand-up model out of the stuff, it’s that stiff. I’m not sure how it’s going to work with the handbags - I’ll have to use it only for the ones I want to be stiffer.

Well, really, I’ll give it a try on one, see what I think of it, possibly curse a bit, and then figure something out.

We’ll see.

Purchases at the fabric store? Less than Rs. 700 total.

After that, we went to Fahim’s parent’s place and hung out and basically tormented Fahmi on his life ending.

Yay! *snicker*

I finished sewing the crinkly cotton purple/pink/yellow kameez this morning, although I have a leetle bit of picky detail work to do around the neckline. Yay!

Sometime, when I’m feeling energetic (read: not right now) I’ll take photos and post ‘em. It ended up looking pretty good.

And then I sewed a pair of black pants for Fahim to wear to the wedding.

Fahim was all set to wear jeans with his sharwani.

The man.

I said no. Of course.

So remember last week or something I modified the black pants that came with his kurta. Well, those pants have really narrow legs, so not as comfortable as Fahim would like. I think he’ll wear them with his kurta, though, but he wanted looser pants for the sharwani.

And that’s where my sewing comes in. He had one pair of black pants so he could have worn them on both days if necessary, but the pair I sewed today means he’ll wear something he likes better.

Yay!

And now I have to go bake a chocolate cake. For Fahim’s mom. At her request. Because there will be people coming and going at their place all week.

And since today was Fahim’s last day at work for the next week, we’ll be heading over there ourselves tomorrow. Morning.

So. Cake. Bake. Tonight. Must.

I tried out a new chocolate cake recipe here. I haven’t tasted the cake, so I don’t know yet what I think, and same for the icing, but either way, it’s all done.

Yay!

My icing was going all lumpy on me and wasn’t mixing properly, so… I got out my largest liquid mixer thingy for my chopper/grinder, added the whipping attachment, and hoped for the best.

It worked. Never mind that it blew the overheating trip thingie twice. Or was that three times? *shakes head* Either way, it worked, and beautifully.

Double yay!

—–

Dark Chocolate Cake

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 3/4 cup cocoa
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup boiling water

1. Heat oven to 350°F.
2. Grease and flour two 9 inch round baking pans or one 13×9 inch pan.
3. In large mixer bow, stir together dry ingredients.
4. Add eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla; beat on medium speed for 2 minutes.
5. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour into prepared pan.
6. Bake 30 to 35 minutes for round pans, 35 to 40 minutes for rectangular pan or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.
7. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pan to wire racks.

——

GREATEST Chocolate Icing

• 1/4 lb butter
• 1/2 bag powdered sugar
• 1/2 cup cocoa
• 1-2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 dash salt

1. Melt butter in pan- remove immediately and add cocoa.
2. Mix until smooth.
3. Add milk, powdered sugar, vanilla and salt.
4. Can add more powdered sugar to make thicker or more milk to make thinner depending on consistency desired.

—–

Seriously, 1/2 a bag? How the heck am I supposed to know how big your bag is? Is that a 1 pound bag? 5 pounds? Maybe you buy yours by the industrial packaging and it’s a 20 or 50 pound bag. Sheesh! Could you be more vague and wishy washy?

For the record, I put in 1 1/2 bags of 500g icing sugar, so about 750 grams of icing sugar, or about 1 1/2 pounds of icing sugar. Approximately.

Given how non-specific this recipe was, what, I’m supposed to get more exact? Pshaw!

I dunno, I think I’m the only one…

I got an email today that cited something I wrote in one of the online forums I frequent, emailed directly to my email addy, obtainable by hunting down my domain and finding it through there (my forum settings are set to email me through the forum) from a guy in Australia who wants my help, payment offered, to meet hairy Sri Lankan women.

Uh, no. Never going to happen. Never.

Not ever and not for any amount of money.

So if you’re reading this and thinking of emailing me asking for my help in meeting people here, hairy or otherwise, save yourself the trouble and don’t even bother emailing it to me.

***

Am I the only one who gets odd requests?

Crinkly fabric shrunk.
What to do? Oh, what to do?
Stretch it out, my dear!

Pink shalwaar is done
Next cut out crinkly fabric
Pink, purple, yellow.