midnight visitor

'Twas a strange night.

 In the middle of the night, I heard noises coming from the kitchen and initially thought it was a kid going to the loo (albeit very clumsily!), so I ignored it and went back to sleep.

Then later, the loud noise of things falling about woke me up and made me imagine thieves and horror movie characters! Lol!

When I finally had the courage to peep (it was around 4am), I saw a small silhouette on the floor next to the fridge. It looked like a bird!!

It couldn't be a bat. (That has happened before in our previous unit, by the way. You can read about it here). Bats don't go banging into things since they have echolocation. 

I was still really creeped out, it was pitch dark at 4 in the morning and there was 'something' crashing about in my home!! So I got Sidekick to come with me! Heh :)

Indeed it was a harmless bird. A pretty green one even! It had injured itself crashing about and was bleeding a bit on its forehead. I wonder where it came from and why it was banging into walls. Was it unwell, or blind or just desperate?

Anyway, I did entertain the thought of keeping it since it was so pretty, but the tragic fact that all our pets die prematurely and also the thought of bird flu made me tell Sidekick to leave it on the balcony.

It stayed on the balcony until it became bright enough and then it flew away.

Too much drama for 4 am...

more maid drama

The maid drama in this household is never-ending. Hubby says it's expected, as having a maid is borderline enslavement, and thus goes against human nature! I guess there is some truth in that, so that makes me a slaver?! Yikes!

Well anyway, moral philosophies aside.. here's what went down...

Sidekick wanted to go home before completing her 2yr contract. With another 3 months to go on her contract, we agreed, only if she wanted to stay another year. Otherwise she could just go home upon completion of her contract. Well, she said she wanted to continue, so was due to go home on 3rd June.

We were about to leave for our diving trip to the Maldives on 25th May, when Hubby realized USD900 was missing from the money we converted for the trip. He had passed me the money which I left in my bag in my bedroom. Up until then, I still naively could not believe she would steal such a large amount of money, as I trusted her. Hubby was sure she was the only possibility, even calling the money changer to make sure there was no short change that day.

I confronted her, showed her the remaining US currency and asked her if she took any of that money. She denied, and said all she had was the RM2000 I gave her for her trip back. She showed me the ringgit for good measure.

So we asked her to open her bags, which she had already packed and locked. I never like going through people's things, it feels wrong. But what choice had we? So, I went through her things while Hubby brought her and the kids to Headquarters, where they were to stay for the week. I looked through her clothes, still half believing that there was another explanation for the missing money. I even checked pants pockets but came up with nothing. I did however, find quite a few items of clothing belonging to the kids which she stole. I realized I hadn't seen these clothes for quite a while, so she must've kept them hidden!! Anyway, I searched all over the house for the money, thinking she might have hidden it somewhere, planning to retrieve it before going home. I even looked into the toilet cisterns!

The consequent events were pieced together from phone calls, messages and explanations received much later, as we then left for our holiday. We thought there was no way of retrieving the money anymore and considered it gone.She could've already passed it to someone? Or have it in her bra?? Obviously she planned to leave and not return... or to return and steal more money??? So many questions...

Well, Hubby told SIL about the missing money and she was determined to investigate. She purposely went over to stay at Headquarters and Sidekick was surprised to see her. It seems that Sidekick asked Popo to send her home so she could get her money; the RM2000 I gave her. She already had it with her, but Popo didn't know, and moreover Popo and Kung Kung are softies and have always been very good to her.

So anyway, she went home and got a small packet out from her clothes in her luggage. The very same one I dug through. (Apparently I won't make a very good detective!)

After that, SIL noticed her clinging onto her handbag wherever they went, at church, at restaurants... She also overheard Sidekick on the phone in the car gloating about her money!! She thought SIL would not understand Indonesian, but she caught the numbers like '900', '2000', and 10 million'!! SIL was convinced that she was the culprit. So when they got home, SIL quickly chased all the kids upstairs to take their bath, and Sidekick had to rush after them, leaving her handbag behind, in the living room.

Super sleuth SIL quickly rummaged through her handbag and when she found nothing, she felt along the lining of the bag and found another small compartment! Bingo! She found a small rolled up package, wrapped in white paper. When she opened it, she found the USD900 and Singapore dollars as well! We hadn't even noticed the missing Singapore dollars, and that proved that she had been digging around our room (we kept it hidden) and stealing since a long time back.

SIL then quickly kept the money and messaged Hubby. We were amazed at SIL's super investigative skills! The money we had given up on had been retrieved, with bonus Singapore dollars to boot!

Now we were worried about Sidekick's next move after finding out 'her' money disappeared. Our only concern was for the kids' safety. So Hubby called her and told her that we had already retrieved the money and added that though he wanted to call the police, I had stopped him (just to scare her). He told her that she was to wait for us to get back, then we would pay her the remaining salary and she could go home and never come back.

That night, SIL slept with the kids and Kung Kung checked on them hourly!

The next day, SIL had to go to work, but still called home every 2 hours to make sure everything was alright! That afternoon, Kung Kung brought the kids and Sidekick out for lunch. After lunch, Sidekick told Kung Kung that she wanted to buy some shampoo, and insisted that they go to Everrise to get it. So they went to Everrise and she went off to get her shampoo and never came back. Kung Kung and the kids waited for almost 2 hours before giving up. They went back to our house and saw that her luggage was still there.

That night, Sis No.3, SIL and Kung Kung all went to our house and found that her luggage was gone. Apparently she came back for her bags but luckily did not take anything else. So we had the locks to the house changed and I guess it was better that way. Our main worry was that she would run away with the kids!

All this happened while we were on holiday! What drama! I wonder what else she has stolen all the time she has been here. Whatever it is, the important thing is that everyone is safe and well, and we are so blessed that we have family to help us with the kids when we are away.

Well, right now I have had enough of maids. I am going to try going without one... let's see how long I last. One of the first things I did after we came back from the holiday was to get a cordless vacuum cleaner and a clothes steamer. ( I HATE ironing)

Wish me luck!

disaster magnet

I am right now full of negative energy!

*sigh*

Just found out that one of my staff has been stealing money from the cash register. I suppose it is also my fault, for trusting them too much and not checking the paperwork thoroughly. By the time I realized what she was doing, she had already pilfered more than RM1000 over the past few months.

This has happened before, many years ago. The last time one of my staff did this, I closed one eye and gave her another chance. I improved the cash handling procedures and also installed a CCTV system. She has since become my most trusted and efficient worker and has been with me the longest.

Well anyway, this time round, I got really 'hot', because I confronted this other girl and she made up more stories! So, I fired her on the spot and now I'm left short-staffed and will have to stay at the shop until closing time myself! I could have lodged a police report if I wanted, but I don't think it's necessary to go that far.

I've already faxed a vacancy ad to the newspapers, so hopefully I'll get a replacement soon!

I must get rid of this negative chi, otherwise I'll attract more disasters! I think it started yesterday, when Annie dropped an envelope containing RM255 for her Kumon tuition fees! We went back to look for it but it was gone! Gone with the wind...

Or maybe it started when Hubby lost his BB. If so, and if it's true what they say, that bad things happen in threes, then hopefully this streak of bad luck is over.

Okay, it's just money. I'm happy and blessed that all my loved ones are safe and healthy! I'm grateful that the current protest in Papua New Guinea (where Hubby is right now) is a peaceful one and not like the 2009 anti-Chinese one!! *shudder*

Kids no.1 and 4 are sick now, but I'm grateful it's just a seasonal flu thing and that my kids are all basically healthy, smart and able-bodied.

I'll count my blessings...

BB be gone

Hubby's Blackberry got stolen!

He's in Singapore right now. Yesterday, he had placed his phone on the table. Then he turned around to look out for his companions and when he turned back, his BB was gone! Yes, apparently, there is crime in Singapore too!

Poor baby. It was quite new and he was just starting to get attached to it! He most probably attracted this incident unto himself though, because he has directed a whole lot of energy into cursing this phone!! When he first got it, he wasn't used to handling it yet and was so frustrated for the first week! He wished he had bought an iPhone instead and kept blaming his friend who advised him to get a BB over an iPhone! I guess his phone resented all the negative energy and ran away!! hehehe...

He said this himself, "Be careful what you wish for!" :)

Abused

Do you remember the Korean neighbour I mentioned in my older blog? The one who kept complaining about our renovation noise?

Well, the day after we moved in, I was carrying Solomon and looking out the window. Our play room window overlooked her balcony and I saw her maid putting out clothes to dry. I was shocked to see her withdrawn face was blue black and strained to see if they were injuries or perhaps birthmarks.

Straight away, I asked Hubby to come and have a look. Our window was rather close to their balcony, and I'm pretty sure you could see us peeping from there, but she seemed not to care and was totally emotionless. Hubby also thought they looked like injuries, but we were not 100% sure of anything yet.

Later, I asked my maid if she had seen the maid next door. She said no, and I told her what I saw. She was aghast and immediately told me she heard her screaming and there was also someone shouting in Korean about a week ago when she was cleaning our new place. (She has also worked for a Korean family in the past.)

I guess this strengthened our theory that the maid was being abused, what more with the aggressive nature of the lady, which we have experienced ourselves. I was deliberating on what to do. We couldn't leave a fellow human being to be abused like that, yet I didn't want to cause too much trouble. She could end up in jail and she had two primary-school aged children to take care of (her husband is abroad). Also, if she found out we reported her, she might just go crazy and harm my family or something!

Hubby was more decisive and insisted straight away that we inform the Indonesian embassy. That night, when we came home, there were police cars outside. When we reached our floor, there were quite a few policemen outside the lift with the maid and the lady. She was aggressive even with the police! She was shouting at them and pushing the officers!! She was seriously one tough nut!

I hurriedly brought the kids inside and closed the door. I saw her children looking on from the corridor with another Korean family and one of them were crying and I felt some guilt and sympathy for the kids. My maid saw the state that the other maid was in and was so shocked she looked like she was going to cry.

I knew then that we did the right thing. It is our responsibility to uphold the basic rights of our fellow homo sapiens and we have to be strong and decisive when the oppressed are in need. After all, we claim to be such civillized creatures! *sigh* Yet we can treat another human like an animal just because he/she is different in race, culture and/or religion!

So anyway, we found out later from newspaper reports that she was indeed abused and sometimes not fed, and if so was given rancid food. The important thing is that she has been taken away and is now safe and sound. We do not know what will happen to the Korean lady after this. I suppose she deserves the penalty, but I hope it will not be too harsh, for her children's sake.

I also really hope she doesn't stumble across my blog!! :)

Anyway, just knowing we helped the girl (she is only 19) makes me feel better. Here's a pic of her in an online paper. (Imagine it was your own daughter! I'd go beat the lady up myself!)

Locked out

Did you read my older post about Solomon loving keys? Well, the gist of it is; Solomon loves keys and fitting them into keyholes.

So anyway, we got home a couple of nights ago and Solomon as usual insisted on having the house keys. I was carrying him, and just when I stepped into the elevator, he dropped them. That would have been a small matter, had the keys not drop directly, spot on, into the gap between the elevator floor and the lobby floor!!!!

In desperation, I went down to the basement and peered into the gap to see if the keys were 'fishable'!! (When we were young and locked out, my siblings and I regularly fished out the house keys using our dad's handy fishing rod! That's a whole other post...) Unfortunately, all I could see was a black void!! My house keys were in an abyss; totally and utterly, un'fishable'!!

*sigh*

Clever me has spare house keys in the house, the same house which now cannot be opened. Clever Hubby lost his set (again).

At times like these I wish more than ever that I had Hubby around! It was night and the management office had already closed. So, I called the guard house for help! They were not very helpful and kept repeating that the office had closed and that I could only wait till morning for the elevator maintenance people to rescue my keys! I was getting rather pissed, what with visions of my kids sleeping in the corridor running through my head! (I'm overly dramatic sometimes! My imagination especially.)

Anyway, I kept my cool with them (they being my most likely saviours) and asked them what other options were there. They said that they could call one of the maintenance men who lived close by to see if he would help, but I would have to pay for his service. I of course agreed and asked them to try and contact him ASAP.

So, we went upstairs and camped at the corridor while waiting for the man to come. Luckily our Korean neighbours came out to play bubbles with the kids to keep them occupied. (Coincidentally their mum also locked herself out 2 days before! Apparently she has done it a few times!) I tried picking the lock with a credit card to no avail.

Then the guy came with some tools and started hammering at our doorknob. After quite a bit of noise, he added a screwdriver to his repertoire. He placed the point of the screwdriver at the keyhole and banged on the other end of the screw driver with the hammer. After some time, the door finally opened!!

Alleluia!!!



Solomon is no longer allowed to hold the keys in the elevator.

Marvelous Manado

It's been a loooong... week. Hubby and I came back from a diving trip to Manado, Indonesia, only last Friday, but it seems like ages ago! The reason being, we now have no domestic helper and we're taking care of all 4 kids by ourselves and working at the same time!

It's super tiring, obviously, but it also has it's plus points, can you believe? We now spend more time with the kids and they are also better behaved. The house, shop and car are all so much cleaner, as my standards of cleanliness are much higher than my maid's (bordering on 'obsessive-compulsiveness'). Daddy also has to be with the kids more and is not able to go for Happy Hour sessions! Muahaha!

But, I cannot neglect my shop for too long and hubby will have to go traveling sometime, so we are now on the hunt for a new maid before I pass out from exhaustion. All the maid service agencies I know do not have any maids available at the moment. And it doesn't help that Malaysia and Indonesia are at odds regarding Indonesian domestic workers' welfare; Indonesia has temporarily banned the 'importing' of their domestic workers to Malaysia... hip hip hooray... :(

So anyway, how did I end up 'maidless' you ask? Hubby and I got back from our diving trip to find that Paula our maid had been complaining of stomach pain, among other things, and had already seen the doctor twice (this includes a middle of the night trip to the emergency ward!)

After taking plenty of medication, she seemed to be getting worse and was in bed the whole day. We were genuinely concerned and ended up bringing her to the doctor another 2 times. By the last trip, the doctor confirmed that she was acting. That was when my concern turned into plain rage. She didn't care and was still moaning so loud at night, she almost woke the kids. I wanted to box her already that night! She said she was so very sick and wanted to go home, and if it wasn't a Sunday, hubby and I would've driven her straight to the agent.

Initially she was quite a good worker, but when she got a handphone, she started turning from bad to worse. We discovered a second handphone and found that she had been spending a lot of money reloading her phones. While we were away for only a week, she spent RM140 buying reloads from the shop next to mine! Obviously it was not her own money. Even though she was too sick to get up and bathe, she could still charge her phone and send text messages!

On Monday we sent her back to her agent and even though she was 'dying', she could dress herself up in her new t-shirt and shoes which I bought from our holiday! I'm just happy to be rid of her and do not want to know what else she was up to when she was living in our home.

Alright, enough about my disappointing 'side-kick'. Think happy thoughts...

Manado... Thank goodness she left after the trip and not before!! Otherwise we definitely would not have been able to go on the trip, and it was such a blast!

Feeding fish was way fun


Initially my fear of diving was caused by my fear of not knowing what is down there; underwater. My imagination would then go into overdrive and I would be half expecting something to grab my legs and pull me down into the deep blue... Don't ask me what, an evil octopus or a giant squid maybe? Hey, when you're scared, details don't matter.

Anyway, I was pretty much over that fear, having been down there and seen that; no, there are no evil octopi or giant squid living at 30m below water...but 50 m and more? Who knows what strange and fearsome creatures lurk in those depths?? :)

This time, it was a different kind of fear. The water there was crystal clear, so when you jumped into the water and looked down, it was like looking down from an 8 storey building! The only difference was that there was nothing solid under your feet! So this was more like a fear of heights!

However, this fear was quickly replaced by awe, as you find that you are not falling, but instead floating gracefully! It is indeed a wonderful feeling, to be 'flying' essentially, through the beautiful clear waters.

Waterproof camera casing


Oh, the coral reefs and amazing sea creatures were magnificent! Hubby bought me a waterproof camera casing, so now we could bring our trusty ol' camera down with us. We took many pictures of the colourful fish and cool sea life to show the kids. We saw rare and amazing sea-life, like Hairy Frogfish, Mimic Octopus, Flamboyant Cuttlefish and Pygmy Seahorse, to name a few.

The other 'monkeys' in our group.

We planned a total of 18 dives over the course of 6 days. This included three night dives, something I found really creepy! I managed to complete all but one day dive (I was too tired)! Night diving was made less scary because I had hubby with me and knew he would keep an eye on me. It helped that there were 8 of us and another 2 local dive masters. I just held on tight to my torch and made sure we didn't get left behind all alone in the dark!!

Simply stunning...

The part I love best about night dives are the spectacular sunsets before the dive and also riding back to the resort on the roof of the boat! The stars were amazingly brilliant and I wish I had brought my glasses so I could pick out shooting stars!

Local food. (they also eat dog and cat!)


Manado is a small and quaint place. Other than scuba diving there isn't much else to do. I find the people there very friendly and polite. They like to honk their car horns when driving, and their gentle honks mean, "Hello" or "Excuse me". Nothing like our angry honks here which usually mean, "Get the *&%# out of my way!"

Lunch on boat roof


Anyway, I think I've got the diving bug now. It's a great past time and a good reason to visit beautiful parts of our world. I can't wait till our next trip!

This is the life...

Grey's Anatomy

This week, we saw our share of medical drama! On Thursday night, Sis no.2 called and frantically asked me to go over to her house. It was an emergency, her hubby had found their Indonesian maid unconscious on the floor of their outdoor wet kitchen! They could not get her to wake up and the ambulance was on the way! I was to go over to help look after the kids so she and hubby could go to the hospital.

So hubby, the kids and I (we were all at the supermarket shopping for bbq stuff for the next day's party), 'Formula 1'ed to Sis no.2's house.

When we got there, the ambulance had already left. The maid had regained consciousness before leaving for the hospital. Sis no.2 then said that actually her hubby could go to the hospital and she could stay at home with the kids, so there was really no need for us to be there! In her state of panic she wasn't thinking straight! :)

So anyway, we speculated that she might've slipped and fell and knocked her head then fainted, or, she could've fainted then fell, and knocked her head.

In the end, the doctors found no concussion, which means she never hit her head at all! Apparently, she was not feeling well and was running a fever. She was also having her menstrual period so most probably had postural hypotension and blacked out when she stood up too fast.

Anyway, at least it was nothing too serious! We were already imagining internal haemorrhages and the likes!

This reminds me of the time when our maid Mossy was in the garden, under the durian tree and a durian fell on her head! Talk about luck (or rather the lack of it?)! It sounds quite funny, like a comic strip scenario; 'durian dropping on head'! But it's actually really painful!! (you don't say...) She was dazed but fortunately conscious. There were thorns embedded in her scalp and Grandpa had to pick them out with a pair of tweezers!


After seeing the doctor, we observed her for 24 hours and luckily there was no vomitting, fever, severe pain or drowsiness. This means there was no internal bleeding. I guess the force of the dropping durian was distributed by the thorns, so it wasn't concentrated on one spot. That means the thorns were actually a blessing in disguise!

Anyway, the next day, i.e; yesterday morning. Another medical drama unfolded. At around 8:45am, my staff from the shop called to tell me that Nopian, my supervisor who has worked with me the longest, just had her water break! She was super pregnant, with her due date on 19th May.

So I told them to tell her to go to the hospital lah. It turned out that her husband was on a work-related field trip and could only get back at 11am and she had no other transport! So hubby and I, after sending kids to school, 'Formula 1'ed again to the shop to get her to the Sarawak General Hospital.

This morning, at 8am, she delivered a healthy baby boy. So, congratulations to her and her hubby! Hope she gets lots of well-deserved rest.

Boo hoo... I have no supervisor for 2 months! *sigh*