Open House @ Armanee

From left : Alymiey, Nurul, Rush, Airry

Alhamdulillah, syukur kerana majlis rumah terbuka yang diadakan pada Oktober 31, 2006 berjalan dengan lancar. Majlis diadakan di event hall Armanee Condominium, Damansara Damai where Liza (my eldest sister) has a condo unit. Kalau nak buat at her condominium herself or my apartment di Bukit Jelutong, Shah Alam memang tak muat to fill all the guests. I was very pleased that majoriti tetamu jemputan yang terdiri daripada close family and friends dan bloggers dapat hadir termasuk a Sarawakian friend yang dah about 3 years aku tak jumpa.

Early bird guests yang sampai were fellow bloggers - Rush, Xis and Rush's friends, Almiey and Airry (Hope I got their names right). I wasn't expecting guests to arrive till 8 p.m. tapi about 7.40 p.m. I received a call from Xis asking for direction as they were already nearby sedangkan aku masih tengah taking my own sweet time bersolek and yet to get dressed. By the time I reached the event hall, they were waiting in the car at the carpark. Felt so guilty making them wait instead of aku yang menyambut mereka. When they came out of the car, immediately, I could easily recognized Rush as he looked exactly like his pics, just that didn't expect him to be that tall. I couldn't tell which one was Xis and when I asked, Rush suruh aku main teka-teka pula. Sukar jugak nak cam sebab his pics on his blog tak terang and if I heard correctly, when Xis called he introduced himself as Nik. Itu yang confused sekejap.

Baru nak mula bersembang dengan mereka, aku sudah mula menerima panggilan telefon dari guests yang lain meminta road direction ke majlis open house dan had to leave the table several times untuk menyambut mereka. Terkilan juga sebab tak dapat hold decent conversations with them to get to know them better without being interrupted by calls from other guests asking for road directions. Tambahan pula, bila friends yang lain mula sampai, naturally banyaklah perkara yang nak diperbualkan dan layanan and attention pun had to be divided amongst all the guests. Hopefully, in future all of us including bloggers yang tidak dapat hadir dapat meet up and get to know each other better. Dalam pada itu, as I expected, timbul juga soalan cepumas dari a few relatives and friends. Those singles will know apa soalan cepumas itu. Eventhough I told them the honest truth pun, masih ada yang speculate juga.

Anyway, menu that night mainly consisted of typical Raya dishes - lemang and rendang, nasi impit with kuah lodeh and sambal, and other dishes - chinese fried rice, asam laksa, roti jala and kari ayam, satay and kuah kacang, cucur badak, fruit tartlet and kordial and tea as drinks. The food was catered from this caterer I hired whenever I organize functions which involved makan-makan in my previous company. I was relieved that the guests including my relatives commented that the food served was delicious although aku sempat merasa dua cucuk satay dan dua potong lemang dan rendang sahaja. Itu pun sempat makan bila most of guests dah pulang.

As Rush and the gang about to leave, I gave badam potong for Rush, Xis and Tyah seorang satu bekas as diorang pernah cakap nak merasa kuih tu. So, bila orang dah berhajat, aku cuba tunaikan mana yang mampu. Insyaallah, sampailah hajat Tyah nak merasa bila Rush pulang ke Miri nanti. Aku buat additional badam potong ni a day before I came back to KL/Shah Alam. Merata juga aku mencari a couple of bahan-bahan kuih ni di TI sebab dah out of stock at most kedai dan supermarket, maklumlah most of them do not replenish the stock selepas Ramadhan. Alhamdulillah, memang rezeki mereka, akhirnya aku jumpa bahan-bahan tu.

Majlis ended at around 11 p.m. and by the time I reached home it was almost 2 a.m. Aku ucapkan terima kasih kepada all the guests yang sudi hadir walaupun majlis diadakan in the middle of the week and most of them had to work the following day. To Helen, thank you sebab unexpectedly bagi ole-ole - I truly appreciate it. Aku juga ingin meyusun sepuluh jari meminta maaf kalau ada cacat cela, terkurang, terlebih, tersilap bicara atau terkasar bahasa sepanjang majlis yang tak seberapa tu.

Kepada Shahril, another blogger who was invited, I am touched with your politeness making courtesy call and sending SMSes apologizing for not being able to attend. To other bloggers yang tak dapat hadir juga, kalau panjang umur dan diizinkan Allah, insyaalah kita akan dapat bertemu suatu hari nanti.