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Monday, August 15, 2011
My maid left yesterday, my parents sent her to the airport last night with her single small bag of luggage. She found out that her dad, or granddad, I forget which, had passed away and she wanted to go back to witness the funeral. However, the contract stipulated that only at the end of the first two years, once she finished her contract and decides to renew, can she then take two weeks of leave to go back home.
She made an advanced extension of contract and packed her things. Now there's only me in the house, and I suddenly recall the old days when we didn't have a maid.
Coming back from secondary school or JC, I'd have to usually check on the laundry. If it was dry, I'd need to take it down from behind the kitchen (hung on bamboo poles within the unit, because all sorts of upstairs neighbours liked throwing things down) and start folding it.
It would be lucky if Joel came back with me, or around the same time, because then we'd be able to share the load of folding. Even now when I think back about it, folding clothes gave me a sense of satisfaction when at the end of it, I'd have six neat piles of clothing ready to be shipped to different rooms.
Then there was the ironing of clothes, what an irritation it was in getting the right lines at certain places. Like my MJ top, which had two fold lines at the back. We vacuum cleaned the floors too, but the mopping was something my dad took up. Every few weeks for general areas and after every time (yes, every time) my mom deep fried, he'd be there with a pail of water and solution, ready to get down to mopping.
Sometimes I'd be called on to put in the laundry, but I've now forgotten how much detergent is good for a full load, something that got me into trouble once when I overloaded a shipboard washing machine with soap.
I think doing household chores, the whole lot of them, is a good practice for the mind. It's a step to realising how much can go into maintaining a household, and by extension how much goes into so many things in the outside world that may seem simpler at first glance. Also, it makes one more mindful of the mess he or she creates, because there's no one to pick up after them but themselves.
I guess more than just the chores, the temporary leave of the maid, Mari (don't we always like to shorten their names?) made me reminisce about my old home in Marine Parade Road, (5000L, #11-51, Lagoon View) and the good times I spent in it.
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Labels: nostalgia, thoughts
posted by joseph at 1:26 PM