The past three evenings have been super duper hectic for me. I’ve been training new part-time maids in between chauffeuring Alycia and Sherilyn back from school, to and fro tuition and dance classes, on top of revising with Cass who is sitting for her final exam this week. Dinners are normally at my work desk, sometimes swallowing a spoonful or two before rushing off to fetch Sherilyn back from school and only finishing it half an hour later, by then the food had already turned cold.
My most trusted and much loved part-time maid, Maria has gone back to Indonesia to get married. She finally summoned the courage to ditch her East Malaysian Chinese boyfriend of 10 years who has no serious intention of marrying her to marry an Indonesian man whom she has only known for a year. I hope that Maria will find marital bliss with her new hubby. And I pray that she will return to work for us after 6 weeks as promised. Maria has been a God-sent helper of 6 years to me and has brought a lot of joy and peace to my life. We treat her as part of our family. Life is tough without her coming over to help me in the evenings.
The new temporary part-time helper whom Maria recommended to me stopped working after just 2 days as she is afraid of walking home at 9 at night. She found her friend Wati, to replace her and thank God Wati seems very capable and has an amiable disposition. But the same issue cropped up. Wati is also afraid of walking home at night. Yesterday she asked if she could bring along a friend to work together with her so that she has company in her nightly walk back home. I was very reluctant but acceded anyway as I know the feeling of having to walk home alone in the dark. I went through this phobia for 6 years before I finally moved out from my rented room in Jalan Ipoh when my handbag was snatched by a scumbag motorcyclist and then bought my first car.
But this friend whom Wati brought along is O.M.G.! She looks like a hoyden of a thug who has ciggie breath when she talked. I almost wanted to blurt out and ask Wati whether her friend is a male or a female! She certainly does not look like someone I want in my house with 3 young girls and an elderly mil. On some nights, I have to leave Cass at home alone with the maids while I fetch the two older girls back from tuition, Muay Thai or dance class. I felt really uncomfortable just talking to that tomboy who even named herself ‘Din’ (a Malay name for males).
Long story short, I told Wati that I can’t accept Din to work with her in our house. Today when I Whatsapped Wati to ask if she’s coming for work, she lied to me that she has fever and can’t come. I was forthright with her and asked her whether she still wanted to work and she said NO.
Fine. This means I will be maid-less until Maria comes back mid of November, that’s if she ever comes back. In the meantime I tried calling all the part-time maids’ numbers stored on my phone but as fate would have it, all the numbers seemed to be out of service / unreachable.
I’ve had a maid almost half of my life ~ 10 years with a full-time maid and 7 years with a part-time maid. Now I have to adjust my lifestyle and learn to live without a part-time maid. I’m sure I’ll be resilient enough to live without someone helping me. Worst case scenario is to pick up the phone and order an hourly paid maid through a maid agency. Everyone in the house will have to sacrifice and help out to make the household run smoothly. I may even have to relook at our kitchen layout and engage our contractor to find a way to install a dishwasher.
Cass is sitting for her Science finals today. Breakfast for her today is pan-fried sweet corn fritters (cooked yesterday evening and heated up in the toaster this morning).
Lunch for her is takeout salmon shio yaki bento.
Dessert ~ cut orange, mango, organic cherry tomatoes and a glass of freshly squeezed grapefruit juice lightly sweetened with Manuka honey.
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