Daily Diary Monday - The Almost Flood

Monday started in the same way as all our weekdays. A 6am start, a 7am school drop off and walk and an 8am snooze to recover from the 6am wakeup. Except this time at 8 am ex came knocking at my door and proceeded to tell me that a cleaner was due any minute and he was going to work. He mumbled something about not giving me much notice and left.

I've been waiting for him to organise the cleaner for a couple of weeks now, because we need someone to clean the security grills which are heavy with dust and the drains need cleaning out. She arrived 5 minutes after I got up.

"Boleh cakap Bahasa Inggeris (can you speak English)?" I ask her "Tak Aunty (no aunty)" "OK, saya boleh cakap Malayu sikit (ok, I can speak a little Malay) ."

She goes to work and I work alongside her. Picking things up, showing her how I want it done, trying to think of the words I need to tell her what to do next. She cleans all the grills, ex's room, the kitchen and my room. She sweeps and it looks like I haven't done that particular job in months, even though I did it a few days ago. She leaves the dirt lying on the floor while she starts another job and I need to tell her "habis semua menyapu dulu, kerana saya nak jalan disini - finish all the sweeping first because I want to walk here." The words are right, but not sure about the grammar. I also get her to help me remove the sofa frame from my room because it's bugging me. Ex has the mattress at the office and was supposed to take the frame as well but hasn't got around to it yet. My floor is incredibly dusty and I'm embarrassed about it, so clean it myself. She cleans out the cupboards and wipes away the grime and grease. In five hours she's done jobs that would take me days to do. Later she washes out the outside drains and clears away all the leave from the durian tree behind us.

A little later, sweet Mrs Ong, the mother of one of my students, calls past to give me something for my itchy hands. The cream turns out to be hand sanitizer, which I politely accept because she's so sweet. She says when she has itchy hands the sting of the sanitizer makes the itch go and she likes it. It very good she tells me. I take it and try it out and my hands sting like crazy. Ouch. The itch goes away.

Ex comes home and brings lunch. It's pork and rice and deliciously sweet. We eat and leave and the cleaner is left to finish up outside. Son is dropped off at school, ex is dropped off at the office and I am left to go shopping quickly before I need to pick up my daughter. I shop, getting the things that, with all my anxiety, I'd forgotten to pick up yesterday. I pick up daughter and go to the pharmacy to get some Benadryl for her cough. She has this annoying (for her) cough at the moment and nothing is helping her. She's not sick, she's just got a dry cough that keeps happening. The doctor does not know what is wrong. At first she had a sensitive throat, then a post nasal drip, now it's a sensitive gullet and no matter what medication they prescribe for her, she's not responding. So, I'm giving her Benadryl, which I grew up on, for the next week to see if it helps. 3 times a day for 7 days. If there's muck there, Benadryl will fix it. If not, at least it will soothe the cough. If this doesn't help, I want to take her to a pediatrician because a cough like that is not normal I tell you.

Back home, in my room, I am reading my new book and she is doing homework. My student has canceled for the afternoon. I hear thunder and lightening. It starts to rain. Drop, drop, drop-drop, drop-drop-drop, and then the downpour begins. Heavier and heavier. Daughter is worried and goes to look outside and comes back to tell me that the drains are filling up fast. We go into 'possible flood mode'. First, get the shoes in because if the compound (yard) floods, they will float away. Next, clear anything that can float away and get caught in the drains, adding to the problem. It's raining even harder now and the drains are at capacity. We take a walk outside with the umbrella and go to look at the roadside drains.

The umbrella proves useless and we get very wet. The drains are all full and overflowing and the excess water is rushing into our yard like a little river. I can't do anything about it but prepare for the worst. We go back and I change into shorts and an old t-shirt and start clearing the house floor. The water is now lapping at the doorways, the bathrooms are filling with water (the outside drain back fills into bathrooms via the drain). We get boxes and things off the floor and onto the tables, just in case. When it's all clear, we go back to reading and homework but I can't concentrate and walk around monitoring the two doorways. The car sitting in the driveway has water a third of the way up it's wheels and I make a note to check the brakes when I go out. Though it's still raining hard, it's not getting worse and after two hours, the water slowly starts to recede.

By 5.30, the whole drama is over and I'm back cooking dinner as per normal. 6 o'clock comes and we're off to pick up son and ex. Son has wet socks and shoes from walking in the water because the schools drains cannot handle that amount of rain, despite the drains outside the school being refurbished last year. Ex tells us the story of how his upstairs neighbour left the windows open and the rain came in and turned the stair well into a waterfall. Everybody has stories and we're buzzing from the excitement. The small river near our place, Sungai Genuang has reached capacity and my thoughts drift to stocking 'flood food' - canned goods and rice, water and an extra gas bottle.

Later that night, dinner is enjoyed and we start thinking about upcoming birthdays. Homework is completed, 4 loads of washing has been done and is drying, the house is clean and the air is cool. Ex is subject to a cockroach attack in the bathroom (LOL) - 3 cockroaches are in there and proceed to run up his jean leg and the kids are screaming, son is naked because he was about to have a shower when the creepy little bastards appeared. It's all I can do not to laugh, so I walk away! Aircon for sleeping is not needed tonight and as ex again steps out for a drink (I guess he needed one after the cockroach fiasco), I make myself a cup of tea and watch a rerun of American Idol, season 8, smiling to myself and think how much I hate roaches and how far Adam Lambert has come.

Good night.