A pensioner is a person who has retired, and now collects a pension for living. In my family, anyone who is above 50 years of age is considered as a pensioner, even if they are still working.
Day-to-day life, I am constantly surrounded by pensioners, mostly my aunts, Alang and Tanti and sometimes Pak Lang, after he comes back from work, who would often indulge me in various forms of conversation raging from current news, politics, sports and what the heck, even on American Idol. We are indeed a very close knit family. I once told my husband when he proposed marriage to me that I not only have one mother, but several instead. And we are so close to each other so much so that according to my other half, I got my looks and artistic nature from my father, my fair skin from my mother, the passion to cook from Alang, and also my "3-suku" not so logical - logic from Tanti. Furthermore, according to them (the pensioners) apparently I am their Friday girl, their angel, their candle shining in the dark. To them, I can never do anything wrong.
Well, well,well, what can I say? I am truly blessed indeed :).
Despite their age, wisdom and maturity, more often then sometimes, I have this very strong feeling of protectiveness over them - just as how a parent would have over her child. I worry about them constantly - be it when they got lost and call me to ask for directions to the same restaurant which I have taken them again and again in many numerous occasion. Or the fact that when I was asked on my personal opinion on the current political turmoil in Perak Government, they reacted as if I had told them of my intention to commit apostasy instead. They reminded me of young children sometimes, very giving, carefree and occasionally, emotionally driven. At times, they can be quite overwhelming indeed however most of time, they are my 'little' darlings. My bundle of joy.
I often try my best to keep them abreast with the current "happenings". Be it from the latest movie craze, e.g. the Twilight series or even on the social networking scene, e.g. twitter, facebook, friendster etc. My intention was to teach them this new knowledge to help them to understand my world better as they have often taught me about theirs during out numerous outings together.
However, as similar as we are in many ways, we are also different from one another. They are from the Ahmad Jais and Elvis Presley era, on bell bottoms and disco antics. I am from the era of McDonalds and Starbucks, of Sesame Street and that once upon a time, NKOTB was the best boyband in the world. Sooner or later, our worlds would have clashed, one way or another.
Once PakLang asked me if I have a "Blueberry". After questioning him further, I found out that he was apparently referring to President Barack Obama's communication device, the "BlackBerry" which he used well during his 2008 Presidential Campaign to communicate with his team.
The following are some of the many 'hillarious' interpretation by my children:
1. BlackBerry --> Blueberry
2. Wi-Fi --> Wee Feee
3. Facebook --> Face-Off
Hehehehhe, indeed, "kids" do say the darnest things sometimes ;)
