I lived with the Husband's family for 3 years after we got married.
Together with his parents, brother, sister and the family dog of 10 years old.
It's quite a lot of people, isn't it?
It's my first time staying with so many people under one roof.
It was fun.
Really.
6 people + 1 dog.
Though my sister-in-law insists that Mickey (the dog) is also a human member of the family.
The Husband is the eldest.
So that makes Mickey his youngest brother.
Mickey Ng.
My youngest brother-in-law.
For the first time in my life, I got to see a full-time housewife at work.
My mother-in-law.
Breakfast, lunch, tea snack, dinner and supper seem to appear by magic.
Laundry comes folded and ironed.
The fridge and pantry are never empty.
There is always hot water available.
My mum is a career woman.
These are things that I never experience in my own maternal home.
Mum-in-law works so fast that I have to be very quick in washing my own clothes and not leave it in the bathroom, or she will have washed it for me.
There was once the Husband went to ask his mum,
"If you have a whole day to yourself, what do you want to do?"
Mum-in-law thought for a while before mumbling,
"I want to clean the house."
Both the Husband and I couldn't understand why she doesn't want to, say, go shopping or something more pampering, instead of engaging in such a mundane task.
3 days ago, someone in the house fell sick.
So sick that even his voice was reduced to almost a mousy squeak.
And me, being missus of the house, have to play caretaker.
I tell you, it's really no mean feat!
Wake up, cook kway tiao soup.
I've been having this for 3 lunches.
I love noodle soup, but 3 days in a row?
Sick people don't eat much and I hate having leftovers, so I have chuck whatever remnants into my tummy.
Imagine soggy kway tiao and noodles because I take a real long time to stuff everything in.
On a sidenote, yong tau foo and kway tiao/noodle from the wet market really taste the best!
很新鮮可口！較軟的口感因爲沒有防腐劑！
Only qualm is can't keep them in the fridge till next day.
With no preservative, they go bad real fast.
So that means marketing for 3 days straight...and tomorrow again.
By the time I'm done with lunch and washing up, there is the usual laundry to hand-wash and hang up, sweeping of the home and the general finding fault with the home: here not clean must wipe, there dusty must wipe, the shelf looks untidy must pack, aiyah, everywhere is a mess, let's pack everything!
Now I finally understand why my mother-in-law is never satisfied with her home.
There's a Martha Stewart lurking in every self-respecting housewife!
There's 2 Ikea tables in almost brand new condition that I've been wanting to donate to Salvation Army.
Salvation Army does collection for bulky items but they are charging me an optional S$60 transportation fee to defray their expenses
I have the option to pay or not pay.
After seeing the detailed explanation on why Salvation Army needs to charge the fee, I'm not so thick-skinned to not to pay up.
Yet, S$60 sounds like an amount that I can save.
So on Friday night, in the midst of my 3-day springcleaning, I coerced nicely ask the Husband to squeeze the table in his tiny hatchback and drive it to the Thrift Store at Upper Serangoon.
He was extremely unwilling.
Husband: " "The table is SO big! How can my 小黑 (my name for his tiny black car) take it?"
Me: "No, I measured the length of the table. It's 1.2m, should be able to fit!"
Husband: "I don't know the width of 小黑. Cannot cannot, my car will break down."
Me: "Can! I imagine the table to be the back of your car. If I sit down on one end of the table, your car space is still more than the remaining length of the table!"
Husband: "How am I to carry the table by myself?"
Me: "It's not solid wood! You sure can carry!"
Husband: "What if the Thrift Store doesn't want the table? You still expect me to drive it back?"
Me: "Erm, you can just put it downstairs at the dump, maybe?"
Husband: "Wah, that will be 2 rounds of heavy transport! I already went one round with your bags of clothes today! Tomorrow, I still have to bring the bags of household decor and stuff to the Thrift Store!"
Me: "But it's so wasteful to just throw these away! Look, I've cleaned it inside out! It looks new, doesn't it?"
The Husband continued to pout.
I refused to budge.
Me: "Then you pay the S$60 for the transport fee. That means one table is S$30."
He glared at me.
My turn to pout.
"Okay lah okay lah! You always ill-treat 小黑！"
And off to the thrift store the table went on a Saturday afternoon!
The Husband was so dismayed (I think it's a psychological thing) at the state of his car afterwards that he sent it for car wash and interior cleaning.
 |
| 小黑去沖涼了！ |
Taking care of the patient, recovering from heat stroke, also entails buying watermelon quarters and slicing them up.
A watermelon quarter from Cold Storage costs S$1.90.
It's very juicy and thirst-quenching for this blazing summer.
A watermelon quarter from the wet market costs about S$3.
And omg, I didn't know buying watermelons from the wet market make a difference too!
When we took our first bites into the watermelon bought from the market, everyone exclaimed:
“哇，很甜哦！” (Wah, very sweet!)
“果肉很細！” (The flesh is so fine!)
“很多汁，很好吃！” (Very juicy, very yummy!)
“和Cold Storage 的很不一樣！” (Different from Cold Storage's)
“整個西瓜的肉都是紅通通的，而且紅的很均勻，這代表它很甜！”
(The whole watermelon flesh is evenly bright red, which means it is very sweet!)
I was the last to eat the melons (cleaning up in the background as usual).
Hearing all these effusive praises and even detailed analysis, I was thinking, "Drama over some watermelon."
But when I tasted it, it's really omg-it's-so-nice-why-is-there-only-1-quarter-bought!
In between slurping kway tiao soup, doing housechores and chopping watermelons, there's still dinner to cook.
This starts almost as soon as the lunch dishes are done.
Soups need about 1.5-2 hours to brew.
For 3 days and counting, I've been cooking lunch & dinner.
I've no qualms about replying emails straight for 3 full days.
Actually, I've been doing that for 2.5 years.
But cooking and cleaning up the house? I'm so dog-dead tired everyday.
Time flies when you are busy with the house.
Before you know it, it's time for dinner, and after dinner, more packing & cleaning, daily chanting homework, and it should be bedtime but there's still emails to tend to!
Time flies when you are busy with the house.
Before you know it, it's time for dinner, and after dinner, more packing & cleaning, daily chanting homework, and it should be bedtime but there's still emails to tend to!
Gosh, I've newfound respect for my mum-in-law now.
To sacrifice their interests & basically their lives for the fulfilment of others, housewives really deserve an award!
Randomly, I saw this outside an NTUC supermarket, the day just before the 15th day of the Lunar Calendar.
Did you know that Cold Storage also sell 發糕 and extra more flowers around that period?
I think it's great that supermarkets are making preparing for such offering rituals easier for devotees.
While getting my dosage of calcium from Mr Bean, I stretched my hand to pinch the fat bean on the right.
It was so not me to do that!
But I have always had a soft spot for Mr Bean!
It is one of the best-designed mascot/logo for a local brand, in my humble opinion, evoking the sentiments one would expect from consuming a soyabean drink.
The beans plush toys of different expressions and the little leaf on top of their bean heads are just so adorable!
Actually, is there a leaf on top of a soyabean?
Actually, is there a leaf on top of a soyabean?
I asked the Mr Bean aunties for its price.
It is retailing at S$16.90.
The aunties were very friendly and wanted to bring it down to show me.
“不用緊，我拿給你看啦！看一看咯！”
“不用，Auntie！ 真的不用！”
I didn't intend to buy it, so it's not nice to trouble the aunties.
Been thinking about them the last few days.
They look like they will make a good back cushion for my work chair.
Or, sleeping with soyabeans, anyone?
Metta,
欣雨 Xinyu
