Dinner at Home

Aunty Alice told me during dinner the maid called up this morning to tell mum she would only be back at 6p.m. tonight. Mum told her if she came back at that time, then she cannot have dinner.

So she reluctantly came back by 5p.m. which meant she was out for a total of 48 hours. If I am the one who gives her the pay at the end of this month, I would deduct one day of wages.

Today thieves broke into the neighbour's house, the one who likes to rear dogs, from behind. Kinda scary because it happened during daytime. The thieves must have observed very carefully. I think they must be staying or working around here.

Absentmindness

I did not know that there would be lunch fellowship after Canaanland Celebration today. I was glad I had just enough money to pay the caterer.

Tonight I wanted to open the locked drawer in my room to check how much $ left in the Canaanland account but the key was missing from where I usually hide it. I panicked and turned some of the things upside down but still could not find it. I prayed and I still could not find it.

I had an idea and used the key of another drawer to try to open it. It worked after I forcefully opened it. Kinda scary come to think of it because that means anyone can just open it.

I shifted the things in the locked drawer to the one with the key and vice-versa.

As I was about to finish shifting suddenly I saw the missing key on top of my bed. That means the key had been there for one whole week. I opened the drawer to get out my driver’s licence on my return from KL a week ago. Thank God the maid did not see the key and therefore nothing is missing from the drawer.

Talking about the maid, she went out for her day off yesterday. I saw her walking out to the bus stop on my way home from work around 5.15p.m. When she saw either me or the car, she felt like ducking. I smelled something fishy.

Anyway tonight when she did not come out for dinner, I asked mum and Aunty Alice what had happened. They said she was only coming back tomorrow morning at 10a.m. Her grandmother or grandfather passed away and these Timorese are having a gathering.

Ok I do not mean to be disrespectful of the deceased. For goodness sake, the deceased is not even in this country for crying out loud and these people are gathering for like 40 hours. I wonder if this is really in their culture. It is like they are doing this every few months ie. someone close to them is bound to die every few months and they would have a gathering.

House Maid is Back

The house maid is finally back today after going home to Indonesia since 25 September 2008, a period of almost two months.

She was sick when she arrived back in her village and her father had the audacity to scold my sis-in-law when she called the maid to enquire when she was coming back here since she was supposed to go home for only one month. She has the history of gastric and therefore anything could have happened after she left our house on her journey back home.

She arrived back in Kota Kinabalu three days ago but was sick again and therefore she decided to stay with her relatives before coming back today.

House Maid on Holiday

Since last Saturday, our live-in house maid Yofin (when she first came to work for us my nephew Alistair called her dolphin haha) had gone home to Indonesia-Timor for three to four weeks.

Mum has decided not to employ the former maid Duane part-time. She is charging RM30 for half a day and she could only come on Sunday, the only day I could sleep in the whole week.

So mum has been doing almost everything besides the usual cooking for dinner. It is not that I do not want to help, but after slogging at work for 9.5 hours every weekday, I do not fancy to do anything when I come home except washing the dishes after dinner and putting clothes into the washing machine to wash at least once or twice a week.

The thing that I do not understand is why mum is so protective of Chloe?

When I was her age (11), (I do not mean to brag here) I not only knew how to boil water & cooked rice and fried egg; my paternal grandmother was training me to cook dinner for the whole family. I was not merely helping her to cook but cooked the whole meal. And the food was edible.

So I think it is high time for Chloe to be trained likewise. When I asked mum why she does not even allow Chloe to wash the dishes, the answer given was ‘she may not be able to wash them clean.’ Well she has to start somewhere and as long as mum is so protective of her, she will continue to be oblivion to whatever that is going on around her and concentrates on watching television that is not of benefit whatsoever to her. Besides being good in creative arts like drawing, painting and singing, she has to learn household chores so that she could be independent.

Maybe Chloe does not have to start doing these chores now but during school holidays. The time is right for her to gradually learn to do something.

But one thing I have to give honour to mum was that when I came home yesterday, she told me to put away my clothes which she had ironed into my wardrobe. And for that, I had to say that she is one in a million mums.

I plan to iron my clothes or more like my pants because I still have working clothes to wear for the next fortnight or so, during the weekend. I did not ask mum to iron for me. She did it voluntarily and I do appreciate what she did.