Cleanliness is Next to Craziness

Another guest blog by The International Man of Intrigue. I've been busy trying to see if Alice from The Brady Bunch is willing to relocate.

How can I say something like, “our full time housekeeper had the gall to ask me for a raise two days after I threatened to fire her unless she started coming to work on time,” without sounding like a pretentious douche?"

One might respond, “International Man of Intrigue, you cannot say something like, ‘our full time housekeeper had the gall to ask me for a raise two days after I threatened to fire her unless she started coming to work on time,’ without sounding like a pretentious douche.” I, however, beg to differ.

Six months ago we hired “Jasmine” as our housekeeper. It was as much an experiment for us as it was a necessity. We were moving into a huge house with more rooms than we knew what to do with and we had no idea what the daily upkeep would require. Had we known it would involve rodents, floods, and indoor scootering, we might have looked for someone with experience as an EMT.

In the beginning our arrangement worked pretty well. Jasmine speaks Sinhalese and translated for us when bribing the garbage men. And, it turns out that living with squirrels necessitates a full time housekeeper. On top of all that, she does a great job keeping the floors clean in a house where the outside often likes to come inside. Dorothy would add that Jasmine has some mean bed-making skills, too. Plus, she adores our kids and is very trustworthy.

Sure,she has her quirks, and many are endearing. She and Arthur Dent seem to share a common language. She brings treats for the girls after payday. She tells Dorothy CSI: Colombo crime stories in gory detail that she hears from her brother. Wait, that last thing isn’t endearing: It’s kind of scary.

However, as the weeks passed, reality started to surface in our domestic dream. Dorothy and I joked that Jasmine is actually a Cold War-era spy that never got the word it was over because no maid could actually be this bad. Jasmine had never used a washing machine (for clothes or dishes); she had never used a vaccuum; she hates to iron and hid unfinished laundry in the spare room; she used the underside of our spare bedroom mattress as a no-interest savings account; she often left daily tasks unfinished or put certain work off for days; she commonly exhibits a very regional opinion that when things go wrong it is never her fault (even when it clearly is, but a discussion of societal differences of guilt and personal responsibility is an entirely different topic) and she developed the horrible habit of coming to work later and later.

I can put up with a lot. I can even put up with a maid that is no good at maiding, especially in a country where there is a very limited social welfare system and people who want to work ought to be given the chance. Tardiness, however, seems to be my tipping point. And that brings us to the present. I told her last week that she needed to come on time or she couldn’t not-work here anymore. Among some other things that needed to change, I emphasized Dorothy’s continuing commentary that the house begins at a certain time, and Jasmine said, “yes.” However, two days later we were out of our norm and I was home in the morning instead of Dorothy when Jasmine popped the question: “I should get a raise, now, sir?”

A raise? Really? As much as I like the fact that Jasmine is trustworthy, I just can’t bring myself to pay her more money for crappy work. Call me crazy. Call me an educated economic student of Smith, Ricardo, Freeman, and believer in good old fashioned supply and demand. Call me anything, but please, call me after breakfast when I’m waiting for our housekeeper to show up and chasing squirrels from the dining room.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

Back in May, my wonderful and beautiful super-smart engineer friend who we'll call Hedy Lamarr came to visit. As the first visitor to the Intrigue home in Sri Lanka, she won a rather fabulous prize: the opportunity to guest blog. I really wasn't sure Hedy Lamarr was going to accept it. The prize didn't come with an expiration date, happily, so when I found this in my inbox this morning, I was excited to share it with you. Oh, and no matter what she says, she's qualified to write. I made a couple of very minor corrections before posting this. I told you she was smart. Also, growing up, she and I had a series of English teachers who were very serious about their craft.

Warning: The following blog post was written by an engineer. Given the choice between classes where one wrote papers and classes where one solved difficult math problems, I always chose latter. Aside from my ability to correctly use the words their, there, and they’re, I’m not really qualified to write a blog. So when Dorothy asked me to guest blog, I laughed. Then I realized that she was serious and being the good friend that I am, I decided to give it a shot…

When I learned that the Intrigue family was moving to Sri Lanka, my first thought was, “Cool, I should go visit!” My second thought was, “Where exactly is Sri Lanka?” After consulting my trusty Google map, I was able to confirm that it is very, very far from Houston, TX. It is also relatively close to Singapore where another friend of mine is currently residing. A little coordination, and I had a trip to Sri Lanka and Singapore planned. A couple months and a few vaccinations later and I was on my way.

About 23 hours and a quick stop in Moscow after leaving Houston, my plane landed in Singapore. It was 6 am on Saturday morning. Since my flight to Colombo wasn’t until 17 hours later, I had made arrangements to hang out with my friend in Singapore for the day.

It was a busy day which thankfully started with a shower (24 hours on a plane and you really, really, appreciate a nice shower), and included cable cars, Merlions, shopping malls, a short nap, casinos, and of course, food. I did get stranded in a subway station when my friend jumped on a train before I could follow. Luckily he’s a good friend and came back for me.

Later that night it was on to Sri Lanka.

Day 1 started off according to schedule with some GoNuts donuts. (Did I mention that The International Man of Intrigue provided me with an hour by hour color coded schedule for my visit? I’m glad someone did some advanced planning because I sure didn’t!). They do know how to make some good donuts in Sri Lanka. A great start to my visit! Then on to the National Museum where I learned important things like Sri Lankan history and the proper proportions for a sitting Buddha. Later that day Dorothy, Amelia and I got to take a tuk-tuk to the Gangaramaya temple. Everyone should get to take a tuk-tuk at least once.

Day 2 in Sri Lanka started off with some shopping (I believe this was the “chick shopping stuff” part of the scheduled activities) and included a little fashion show for Amelia and Gertrude. They didn’t like anything I tried on that wasn’t pink. I bought the yellow skirt anyway. It’s cute when 3 and 5 year olds dress themselves, maybe not so cute when they dress you.

The next couple of days were a mini vacation in Bentota, starting with a quick stop at the sea turtle hatcheries. The baby sea turtles were cute but I couldn’t help wondering if they were anything like the box turtles we used to play with as kids, the ones that peed on you when you picked them up. Oh well, we played with the baby sea turtles anyway. (Thank goodness for wipes and hand sanitizer!) After that we headed for our hotel and spent most of the afternoon lounging around the pool overlooking the Indian Ocean. The day ended with the grownups drinking beer on the balcony. Vacation doesn’t get much better than this!

Day 5 was supposed to be a tour of one of the china factories but we were never able to get it scheduled so instead it was more shopping but this time the kiddos stayed home with dad and it was just Dorothy and me, just like old times! It’s been way too long since I’ve gotten to shop and spend money with my former roommate. Clothes shopping, china shopping, all kinds of fun! We did go and run a few errands later that afternoon with the rest of the Intrigue family at the local shopping mall. On that excursion I learned that there are three types of stores in the Columbo shopping mall: one third are DVD stores, one third are cell phone stores, and the remaining third are everything else. Really? How many cell phones and DVDs do people need? Of course DVDs are only $1-2 so I guess that helps. I thought the fact that they are all on DVD-R was a little unusual but apparently that’s just how it is in Sri Lanka! (I’m not sure you could buy a legal DVD if you wanted to.)

Day 6, my last day in Sri Lanka. It started out with rain and a leaking roof. Fortunately there were no leaks over my bed. Unfortunately there was one right over Amelia’s bed. Other than that it was a pretty uneventful day at the Intrigue Compound. The highlight of the afternoon was the scooter/bike/foot races around the dining room table. (I swear I would have done better if I hadn’t been scared of breaking an arm or leg and ending up in a third world hospital.)

Alas, all good things must come to an end, and late that night my visit to the Intrigue family came to its conclusion as I headed back to the airport and on to the next leg of my journey. I had a wonderful trip and can’t wait see them again!

Monsoon Dinner Theater

Who wants to go to a boring snooze fest of a dinner party and sit around and stare at the other guests, trying to make polite conversation without yawning over dessert? Not the Intrigue Family! We decided to gather up a couple of families with kids and have a casual, kid friendly afternoon and evening at our place. In that regard, we invited a couple of friends over. For the sake of anonymity, how about we call the first family George and Martha Washington, due to their Virginia/D.C. connections? (Yes, I know that D.C. wasn’t the capitol when Washington was POTUS, but it is named after him, so work with me.) The second family, we’ll call The Livingstones since they lived in Africa for a while. We also hosted a friend on leave from attending a school in Pakistan who we’ll call Ed, because…that’s not his name. With a combined half dozen kids, that rounded out the evening’s attendance.

I planned on keeping things simple, which is unusual for me. Stateside, I look at having people over for dinner as having a captive audience to try a new recipe and make a bunch of appetizers. Over here, I seem to have lost my cooking mojo, so I made pasta salad and decided to marinate and grill some chicken breasts. Since we didn’t bring our grill with us, I bought a one time use grill at Arpico Supercenter. That’s also where I did battle at the meat counter for the last of the boneless chicken breasts. Shopping over here is a lot of work, Fellow Adventurers.

Anyway, after we sat around enjoying each others’ company and some frosty adult beverages for a bit, it was time to fire up the grill. That was the first folly in our little dinner party. Once out of the package, it was apparent the thing was thinner than a single use aluminum pan. Hmm. It also included charcoal and “special igniting paper” and looked like it might hold two chicken breasts at a time. We all got a good laugh out of it as I sent The International Man of Intrigue outside to try to light it while I dodged scootering, biking, running and crawling children to get to the kitchen to fire up the oven as a Plan B. It’s a good thing there was a Plan B because the “special igniting paper” on the grill didn’t even light, let alone the charcoal. Into the oven went the chicken.

Thirty minutes later, the chicken was done and it was time to convince the house full of Little Explorers to stop moving for five seconds and at least eat a bite before running off to play again. About that time, it started raining. Good thing we went with Plan B—I don’t want to grill outside in a monsoon! Just as the grown ups started filling their plates, it happened. It started with Mrs. Livingstone and I putting chicken on our plates and saying, “Did you feel that mist coming down from the ceiling?” The next thing we knew, Mr. Livingstone and Mr. Washington had sprung into action, grabbing the “Waterfall Preparedness Kit” aka, buckets, (leftover from this crisis the other night)stacked in the corner and shoving them under the stream of water coming in from the skylight. All the gentlemen got the table and chairs out of the way and got buckets set up while we moved the Little Adventurers upstairs for movies and the grown ups into the family dining room to eat.

This was when the biggest tragedy of the evening struck: The chicken was bone dry. It tasted like sawdust with Italian seasoning on it. Ugh. Never mind that the steady stream from the roof had turned into a deluge, forcing Mr. Washington, Mr. Livingstone, The International Man of Intrigue, and Ed to empty 10 gallon buckets and 16 gallon tubs, lest they overflow and add to the lake forming on the tile floor of the formal dining room. The chicken was dry, people. Dry.

Despite that obstacle, dinner went on and soon enough it was time for dessert. The waterfall in the dining room had even turned back into a small stream. Perfect. Rich people pay big bucks for water features in their houses and we have one that everyone can enjoy over dessert. Then, just as I was brewing coffee and passing out water for tea, the power went out. Total darkness engulfed the house. Luckily, before we could even find flashlights to go out and fire up the generator, it was back on.

Once the power was on and dinner was finished, the Little Explorers all figured out that splashing in the dining room was oh, so much fun. The little Washington boy was even jealous that he didn’t have a waterfall and puddles in his dining room.

After everyone packed up and headed home to deal with their own ceiling drips, I put our Little Explorers to bed while The International Man of Intrigue finished bailing the water on the floor. While we did the dishes, we remarked that, even though it wasn’t your typical dinner party, it sure was funny.

(In all seriousness, as I post this, tornadoes are ripping through my home state of Kansas. I hope all my family and friends are safe and sound and not hosting a dinner party.)