Author: Doris

Well, we are here and this is my 49th States where I have visited. The only States that I have not visiited is IOWA.

So Vince got sick at school today and started mumbling about wanting to go home, so I picked him up in a taxi at about 3 this afternoon. He’s a bit sick and homesick at the same time. I have a feeling that I’ll pull him from the all day childcare and have him come home after lunch. This 8-5 deal is too much a shock to the system.

Today, I welcomed Rukia into our house. She’s our new housekeeper who will clean the floors and the bathrooms and kitchen once a week. We discussed the time and what equipment I’ll need to purchase. I told her about Ruby… She’s Muslim, so apparently you aren’t suppose to touch dogs, especially their tongue, so I guess Ruby and Rukia aren’t going to be spending much time together. I made sure that touching dog hair wouldn’t be a problem.

Apple makes a two button mouse!

I’m taking off to Dublin tonight with Ronnie, Larry and Josh. We’re slightly disorganized and I’m not sure really that any of us are super sophisticated travelers. I think we’re just staying at the hilton or something. Laff. Anyhow. It should be fun.

We’re getting to London on Friday, and Arif’s “Big Moment” will be on Saturday. There’s going to be a Dinner on Sunday too. I’m not sure where this leaves us in terms of doing things, but hopefully during the day there will be a lot of time.

Yeah.. Interesting…. we’ll see how it goes.

So today I arranged for Jeremy’s shirts to be laundered. I called a phone number and they were at the apartment within 30 minutes and the shirts will be clean in 4 days. Woo hoo! I never have to leave the apartment.

I was a little worried about Vince and his school because yesterday there was some sort of “accident” with a scooter and Vince ended up crying and the teacher told him not to cry and that only babies cry. Hmmm, not exactly an American reaction… Vince repeated the crying line a few times during the evening, it seemed to trouble him, so I was worried that he was a bit stressed at school and that the 8-5 schedule was going to be a bit too long. But he tumbled out of the bus today happy and telling me he had a good day.

Edda appetite is continuing to improve. She seems happier these days in quite a while. She ate most of a pork chop and was cheerful and happy.

August 2

So, now I’m relegated to waiting in front of the complex for Vince to come home at 5 pm. This is what I got out of him today. There was some argument today with his teacher over a scooter, some sort of accident and crying and not crying. There was a shower. There was the performance of “The Hokey-Pokey”. There was a discussion of shapes. The peas and carrots and rice for lunch were good. The cream puffs were the bomb. There were mushrooms being made and left at school. Nap time did not result in a nap. A good day overall.

Edda really enjoyed her day at home with one-on-one time. She was especially pleased at the spaghetti dinner. Thank goodness we are starting to eat at home again. She’s been eating less and less since we moved to SGP, she was sick last week when Jeremy was out, so now things are improving.

Jeremy made a dash to IKEA, again, this time without the kids and I think we have pretty much everything we need. Of course, everything he picked out is orange, the color of Jeremy.

I explored a little bit more, I found the post office (long line), I found a music school, Vince and I can start piano lessons whenever we want to. I just came back from a nice swim in the huge pool right outside my window. I’m so pleased with our internet phone.

Today, we packed two cars with stuff to Washougal & Denver and left a lot behind for the movers. Mom drove all the way to Washougal using Crown Victoria, great. We are going to stay two days here before going to Denver on Tuesday morning. So far so good.

Guys, our New York number is up and running via our internet connection, so don’t be lame and not call because you can’t figure out how to call Singapore. Go ahead and call 845-790-5321, of course, we are 12 hours off EST, so don’t call in the middle of the day or anything. Apologies to Donald for calling at 6 am today, I forgot that it wasn’t 9 am in california.

Vince is so excited about school tomorrow, he’s having a hard time sleeping tonight. The meals are provided at school, get this, tomorrow he’s having honey cereal with milk for breakfast, chicken casserole and veggies for lunch and seasonal fruit and for afternoon tea, he’s having cream puffs!

We still have to get crap for the apartment, the landlord furnished the whole thing in white upholstery (including the dining room chairs!) and with two kids covered in peanut butter and chocolate, it isn’t going to stay white for long. So we went to IKEA to buy new slipcovers and all this other crap. I have to say that I love the idea of public transport, but moving with 2 kids without a car is really kind of a bummer. It’s like, all of a sudden you need to buy a toaster, rice cooker, rugs, laundry baskets, trash cans and how are you going to hold all that crap plus the 2 kids who hate shopping.

We live about 1 minute away from an MRT (subway) stop and at the MRT is this huge mall called Lot 1 and it has everything in it, a McDonalds, a grocery store, a nursery school (which Vince didn’t like because you couldn’t ride a school bus there, it’s that close), a post office, a library, for the kids: chinese lessons, english lessons, dance lessons, math lessons, music lessons, a movie theatre, a bookstore. One wonders why anyone has to go anywhere else. It’s pretty weird to think that everything one needs is within a one block radius, it’s still hard to carry the bag of rice home though.

Well, we are moving to Denver today. But, first have to move the windstar and some stuff to Washougal. We will leave for Denver from Washougal directly. Rena finally got a layoff notice after bargaining with her ex-employer HR. This way, there are a lot of benefits came along with it. She can ship two cars back or 40c a mile plus 20c for the second one, can be packed & stored by mover and all stuff can be shippped back to Washington DC. be reimbursed with $90 a day while travel for 9 days, etc. We also have the moving expense from our new employer. I don’t know how to straight it out and get the max. The ticket I used to fly in yesterday is part of my ex-employer package too. Well, the bad thing is only 3-6 months, the good thing is we both have our per diem. So essentially, we can save one per diem. I will definitely go to Nebrask and Iowa from Denver to cover all 50 States on the ground.

Mom is very happy about the move and be together. Last night, she laughed loudly while sleeping and woke me up. Of course, a big smile on my face. I am happy too.

BTW, there are a lot of fruit trees with fruits in our Washington DC home.

Sign off for a while and talk to you later.