BAU Again

The home group of our church resumed last Friday. Mel and Hooi put together a quick arrangement and agreed to meet up at Jason S’ and almost everyone turned up. That showed we have all missed it over the past 2+ months. We carried on till almost 10.30pm before heading to church to pick up kiddo who has also just kick started her youth program. We all headed home just after 11pm and hit the sack not long after that.
 
Saturday was another day of throwing me around the house with the Hoover (actually a “Nilfisk” or something like that). I had resigned to a long term relationship with the vacuum cleaner and each time I tap on this relationship, I had to comfort myself that the house does look and feel cleaner after the bout. Notwithstanding the recent cooler weather the cobwebs continue to threaten. Every time I come across one of those long thin legged spideys, I literally sucked it up with venom because I so dislike the cobwebs. Somehow kiddo’s room attracted a disproportionate share of spiders in the house. I picked up one each in our room and the guest room but had 7 of them in Kiddo’s. The undrawn blinds and many of her stuff strewn about in different heaps were the obvious reasons so I shot off another round of lectures. The bathroom and toilets got their treatments with the cleansers, scrubs and were ducked good and proper in addition to the vacuum and a good 4 hours later it was time to clean myself up.
 
Tress and I then went to the nasi lemak place near the corner of Canterbury and Springvale roads, to catch up with an old family friend. He had just moved to Melbourne from KL less than 6 months ago and we had caught up with him soon after he came over. His wife and 2 kids joined him about 2 months ago and he rang on Friday night. His wife had worked for a high profile corporate figure. When she walked in the shop and saw Tress (shop was only round the corner from our home so we arrived there early) she immediately recognized Tress from Arthur Andersen days (now defunct accounting firm, Enron-ed). I think that explains why I still have the hots for Tress after all these years – she hasn’t changed very much at all.
 
After lunch we dropped Kiddo off for her class, did some shopping and when that was done we got home around 4pm. The ironing was a lot to go through so that took us to 6pm.
 
When we finally settled down to some rest all I could do was put my feet up and reach out for a cold one I had popped open and had left there on the coffee table for close to half an hour. We watched a couple of DVDs – Sweeny Todd, Tim Burton’s bloody but brilliant piece with Johnny Depp (watched large chunks of it while ironing) and Simpson the movie. To my chagrin, I found myself laughing at Homer’s gaffes as well as some very funny scenes (like the one where a polar bear kicked away a wolf in disgust after being denied its lunch in Homer). Tress had cooked some bah kut teh (with chicken) and after we ate some of it, we watched the Iron Chef. We went for another DVD after that and watched Stardust. De Niro was very funny and I thought the movie was very enjoyable as a whole – definitely a great family entertainment piece.
 
I reluctantly crawled out of bed just after 7 on Sunday. There was to be a lunch after church and I had to cook something. We had decided to do an eggplant and prawn sambal so the hardest part – figuring out what to cook – was done. Tress and I washed, peeled and cut and I guess because we are more or less used to all of this by now, most of the steps and processes were second nature to us and very much within the hour the dish was done and we could still have our normal weekend brekky of freshly ground and brewed coffee with toasts and make it to church very much on time. That was important to Tress, who had invited a few people.
 
We finished church and lunch just after 1.30, stopped by the shops to pick up a few stuff and got home just after 2pm. I buckled down to do some work and closer to 5 we made our way to Ruffey Lake Park in Doncaster for a picnic meal with some old friends from the church in Klang. Quite a number of families showed up and the kids ranged from tiny tots to university going youth. Loads of food, kids playing soccer, cricket and just mucking around with the playground facilities. We were all making use of park facilities and ensuring that the park fees we paid through our water utility companies provided some returns. We left the park close to 8.30 just as it was starting to get dark and a little chilly.
 
We got home, I fixed lunch for the next day and Tress helped kiddo with the last minutes touch-ups with the packing. Kiddo is off to camp this week. Tress and I will enjoy the quieter times but I guess only for the first day, or including day 2 at best. We’ll miss her sooner than we think. Already I’m looking forward to when she gets back on Friday afternoon. In the meantime….the silly season is slowly but surely closing out; business-as-usual has in many ways, returned