Ahead of the Rain

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoThe week began without fuss, which I'm choosing to read as a good sign. Last night's United result had left me somewhere between mild and resigned. A draw gives you nothing to celebrate and nothing quite to mourn, like a parcel marked "out for delivery" that then never turns up. I woke still turning it over, then let it go, on the grounds that a second look wasn't going to change it.

Work was gentler than I'd braced for. Rounds were done early, before the morning had made up its mind about anything, and I had the unfamiliar feeling of being ahead of the day rather than chasing it. That held until the afternoon, when clinic settled in for the long haul. It was a steady, unbroken run, and no single patient was difficult. There were simply a lot of them, one after another, for a long time. By the end the room had that dry stillness a full afternoon leaves behind, and I noticed I'd stopped hearing the air conditioning some hours earlier.

Outside, the weather had ideas of its own. Rain was coming down hard over Subang, the sort that turns a road into a river and every driver into a nervous philosopher. I've learnt, slowly and at some cost, that the trick with heavy rain in the Klang Valley is not to be on the road when everyone else is. So I left early and got home ahead of the worst of it, watching the brake lights from the dry side of a window instead of the wet side of a windscreen. It felt slightly smug. I allowed it.

Once home, the first job was the NFL scores, which I went through in the order they'd finished, like someone opening the post. A few results were what I'd expected and a few weren't. There's an odd comfort in reading about games you didn't watch. The outcome is settled, and nobody can let you down any further.

That left Reacher, and the final season at that. I've been with the show long enough that its ending carries a little weight, though it has never been one to make a fuss about itself. A very large man arrives, a local unpleasantness is politely explained to him, and matters resolve along the lines you'd expect. I watched with the rain still going outside and no reason to be anywhere else, which is more or less the whole appeal.

Not much to report, and I'm fine with that. The week has started, the traffic was avoided, and somebody in a fictional town got what was coming to them. It'll do.

Rain on the Way to a Wedding

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoThe weekend came into view at last, and with it a morning that started smoothly — no early alarms of the urgent kind, just the gentle beginning a Saturday ought to have. There were rounds to do, of course; the ward doesn't observe weekends, and there's something almost meditative about the quieter weekend version of it, the corridors calmer, the pace more forgiving. I worked through it without event and emerged into the rest of the day feeling I'd earned it.

I caught up with the football, naturally — that ongoing ritual of reassembling the night's results, the World Cup still unspooling across distant time zones while we sleep. By now I've stopped fighting the rhythm of it. I take my football secondhand and slightly stale, and I've come to find a certain charm in arriving at the drama after everyone else has gone home.

Then out to Kota Damansara for physio, that standing appointment my right shoulder and I have reluctantly entered into. The session does its work — somewhere between massage and mild interrogation — and I leave each time feeling marginally improved and considerably more aware of muscles I'd rather not have been introduced to. Progress, they assure me. I take their word for it.

A quick bite afterwards, grabbed in the gap, and then the heavens opened. Properly opened — the sort of tropical downpour that turns car parks into rivers and reduces every driver to a crawl, wipers labouring, visibility down to the next set of brake lights. There's a particular resignation that settles over the Klang Valley when the rain arrives like that: everyone simply slows, accepts the delay, and waits for the sky to finish its business.

The evening's main event was a wedding dinner — the son of one of Anita's old friends from her UiTM days, held out at Le Meridien Putrajaya. There's a lovely continuity to these occasions, watching the children of long friendships arrive at their own milestones, the parents now seated in the role their own parents once held. Anita moved easily through the reunions, that warm rediscovery of faces not seen in years, while I did my contented part — eating well, nodding along, enjoying the gentle theatre of a Malaysian wedding dinner in full swing.

The drive out to Putrajaya in the wet had its own slow patience to it, but the destination was worth the journey: those broad ceremonial avenues looking rather grand under the rain, the hotel warm and bright against the weather. It was the kind of evening that asks little of you beyond presence and appetite, both of which I supplied generously.

We finished well after half ten, which by my current standards counts as a genuinely late night. The drive home was quiet, the rain finally easing, the day's long arc settling at last into tiredness. A full Saturday — rounds, physio, a downpour, and a wedding — and a good one. I went home damp, well-fed, and ready for sleep.

When the Day Lowers Its Voice

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A slow start to the morning — not by design, exactly, more by quiet consensus between body and bed. Some days announce themselves with energy; others arrive in soft focus, asking only that you don't rush them. Today was the latter. I obliged.

The traffic, of course, had no such gentle disposition. Heavy from the outset, the kind that turns familiar roads into unfamiliar tests of patience. There's an art to sitting in KL traffic without losing your composure entirely — somewhere between resignation and acceptance, with a thin veneer of optimism that the next light might change everything. It rarely does. But you keep that hope going, because the alternative is despair, and despair makes the journey feel even longer.

By the time I reached clinic, the day's pace had set itself. Slow. Unhurried in that particular way clinics sometimes are, where each consultation stretches a little longer than expected and the rhythm never quite picks up. There's no fighting a slow clinic — you simply move through it, give each person the time they need, and let the morning unfold at whatever speed it's chosen. Some days you're the conductor; other days you're just keeping time.

The afternoon brought rain. Proper rain, the kind that arrives with intent rather than the half-hearted drizzle KL sometimes attempts. The sky went grey, the temperature dropped a degree or two, and everything outside took on that washed, slightly muted quality that rain brings. There's something restful about working through a downpour — the world outside busy with weather, you inside getting on with things. The two activities seem to balance each other.

By evening, Anita and I went out for dinner. Nothing grand, just the simple pleasure of being fed somewhere other than home, sitting across from each other without the small distractions of one's own kitchen. The rain had eased by then, leaving the streets that particular shade of glossy that makes everything look a touch more cinematic than it has any right to. A good meal in good company on a quiet weeknight — these are the evenings that don't make headlines but quietly hold a week together.

Back home, we settled in for another episode of For All Mankind. The show continues to be a steady companion — ambitious, occasionally devastating, the sort of television that rewards attention rather than demanding it. There's a particular pleasure in watching something properly made, the way each episode builds on the last without rushing or showing off. We watched, we discussed, we paused for the inevitable "wait, who was that again?" moment. Standard viewing protocol.

After that, the evening just drifted. No agenda, no second activity, just the slow wind-down that a tired Thursday deserves. The week is nearly done, the rain has cleared the air, and tomorrow is close enough to feel within reach. Tonight, though, asks for nothing more than a soft landing.

And a soft landing is exactly what it gets.

Rainy Hazard

Peak hour traffic in the heavy rain was never fun. There might be water logged road, slow traffic and slick driving surface. There is another hazard in Lembah Kelang however especially on the highways.

Motorcyclists!

They smart danger in clearest of weather but during rain, they tended to stop as a group under shades of bridges. This morning, they occupied the two left lanes along Federal Highway under a few of the bridges as I was making my way to work.

It happened on both sides of the road ...This created extra jam as the lanes were practically closed. Imagine if you were driving fast having to apply your brakes on such atrocious conditions.

Federal Highway has their own motorcycle lanes but they were not well maintained and tended to be closed at areas where constructions were going on - which in KL meant everywhere! Ten year back, motorcycles were banned on rolled inner city highways. But the ban had been lifted since. They use the highway for free and weaving in-between the fast lanes will create problem.

A few months back there we're mbps ends where a car ploughed into this crowd of cyclists causing a few deaths. I guessed the lessons were never learned ... I am not campaigning that they were banned again but a solution must be found and the way I see it, they need a dedicated lane for themselves as well as proper shade stops during rain. Good luck to that ...

Heavy Downpour

This is the stuff of nightmare during Ramadan. Late afternoon rain and flash flooding. That was what exactly we had this afternoon.

Anita was stuck at Bangsar Village buying groceries and food for berbuka. She was not able to get into the car and had to wait in the mall. When the rain finally let, the traffic were building up. It took her half an hour to get back to the apartment which was only less than a couple of kilometres away. Such was how bad the traffic was.

I was lucky since I was able to get out of the hospital early although I got stuck in heavy rain along the highway. It could have been worse ...