In which I did things... half-heartedly

I left the car in the driveway hoping it would rain this afternoon, because the windshield is spattered with light grey streaks and I don't have a squeegy to clean it with. The windshield got dirty as I was driving down the highway that leads from Bandar Utama to Putraghetto and I had to give way to a lorry carrying -- I don't know what -- clay or something.

Driving is such a pain. Correction: driving in heavy traffic is such a pain (driving is actually fun), and traffic tends to be heavy on the LDP and KL-Seremban Highway, which are the two roads I can get on and off the easiest and thus the roads I use most often. Yesterday my cousin drove us to town to get cheap DVDs and she took inner city roads on the drive back. It took an age to get home, but at least it wasn't busy like the highway. She took a road that went past an old pink hospital with a big field in the front -- no trees -- almost like the field we had at Alice Smith with buffalo grass and two goal nets on either end that we used for girls' hockey.

This morning I tried looking for the pink hospital on my map and, having not found it, made the split decision not to see Mak Ngah in Bandar Utama after lunch at KLCC, and so eliminating the need to drive. Instead, I decided to do a quick in and out by train.

It was a good thing that I chose not to drive, because it meant I lingered around the house a bit longer in the morning and was able to receive several surprise visitors, whose visits really should have been scheduled ahead of time. But I will let go of this oversight, because it all worked out in the end. Number one: After I had swept the car port and taken a shower, Mr. Ho showed up to do the doorbell. It had a choice of three ring tones - Für Elise, the William Tell Overture and ding dong. I chose ding dong. Not twenty minutes later, in between reading the online newspapers and getting distracted by my newest online buddy (father of three!) Mr. Liew came over and rang the new bell. He had arrived with his son to build the platform for the orchids.

He asked my opinion as to where to build said platform, as though my opinion mattered. "What do you think, Mr. Liew?" I said brightly. He said in front of the fan palms would probably be best, and so when I returned home this afternoon there were planks of wood neatly built up along the front of the garden. It is good to see progress in the garden, which over the past one and a half weeks has become untidy with neglect because I have been coming home late or not been home at all. Six is best for raking leaves and pruning.

Meanwhile the kitchen sink is leaking. But the necessary work has to wait until after Chinese New Year (Mr. Pang is celebrating in Perak). I would really like to have people over -- for instance today's lunch host and his wife or Dr. Manal from nearby, but it is difficult without a proper kitchen to "have people over". I miss being home-home, where everything works, things are spotless and I am comfortable.