Pollyana Cowgirl

The Streetside Eatery

Valentine's Day came and went. I am rather late with this post about the inaugural February 14th 2007 in Jakarta, and on hindsight, it is starting to feel like a good thing. Else the post would be nothing more than a smorgasboard of gushing and cynical ramblings about love and life.

I had an invitation for dinner on that mid week Wednesday that coincided with that red cocoa day. It was entirely up to my imagination if I wanted to regard the dinner as a testimony of the importance of the day. I could also choose to ignore any implicit or explicit innuendos, chillout and just go along for a mid week hiatus from my rudimentary cooking abilities.

The morning of Wednesday was spent wondering if he would say anything about dinner. Perhaps he forgot? Perhaps he would decide to make my life a bit simpler and tell me where we are going so that I would know what to wear. A casual remark perhaps? All that came my way, was a cursory "I`ll come by at 6:30pm.". Certainly more than I could ask for. Right.

Time always seems to stall when one is in a state of anticipation. For my case, I was thinking about my best laid plans for the 'overdressed' or 'underdressed' scenario. Imagine the embarassement if I overdressed for a casual friendly dinner. Imagine the dread if I underdressed for a romantic dinner. The pendulum can swing both ways and I was in a rather tight spot. In the end, I decided after a process of elimination to deck myself in a casual dress that, in my humble opinion, steered cleared of being dressy, and was an intended reflection of how I would approach the dinner.

He came by, I peeked into the pinhole. Great, he is dressed in jeans and a polo shirt. So far so good! Spell c-a-s-u-a-l. Spell r-e-l-i-e-f. The female intuition was right for once (especially for my rather lost-in-the-woods sense of the male perspective. aka: mixed signals).

I thought we would proceed to the basement to get his car, instead, we walked out of the apartment and I was starting to feel a tad bit unsure because we were just walking and not hailing a taxi. Walking along the streets of Jakarta at night aimlessly is not something people do.

Bajij. Indonesia's answer to Bangkok's infamous tuk-tuk. The world's answer to lung clogging smog. Our night's answer to transportation. We stopped by a bajij and he decided to formally introduce me to the chauffeur of the night. The bajij driver. You see, he decided to book a limousine for the night. I was starting to break into a little grin, he remembered that I wanted to have a thrill-ride on a bajij. We hopped on and I started to break into giggles. This was starting to be fun!

The 'restaurant' of choice was a street stall. A hole in the wall. A truly authentic Indonesian eatery with stray cats, flies and a rural interior. I wiped perspiration from my brow with delight! It was not turning out the way I thought it would be, this is the subversive reply to February 14th. With an air of nonchalance, he decided to deride all notions of what should be, and opted instead for a road less-ordinary.

Life is full of 'moments'. A moment I had, when I tucked into ikan bakar, kang kung and cumi with careless abandon. We laughed, we had fun and I had my moment.

Prince Charming digging in!

Sometimes a seemingly ordinary day can turn out to be a life changing moment. Sometimes an action can reap consequences that might sting for a long time. Sometimes a decision can open up a can of worms that was otherwise left forgotten.

Life is always filled with 'moments'. There was a moment, at least there was one for me.

I hope you had your moment too.