the 'help'

don't you love lazy saturday mornings? as i write, snow flurries are making their way down to the ground. i would have liked to go out for a run but since the weather is not cooperating i'm doing what any sane person would do when it's freezing (literally) outside - i'm cozying up at home. with some hot green tea and my buttermilk apple cake. and shall wait till it reaches 38F (at least) before i venture outdoors. in any (weather) event, we really don't need to leave the apartment if we don't feel like it since we got a whole bunch of groceries yesterday. a well stocked fridge and pantry is peace of mind, no ...?  ;)

speaking of running, we finally ran on the american tobacco trail on wednesday and thursday. i enjoyed both runs - despite the snowy patches. it was kinda like running on sand except that my feet got wet and super cold since running shoes are not waterproof. so as soon as we got home, it was straight into a hot hot shower. *aah* one day i'd like to do the reverse - jump into snow or cold lake after a steaming hot sauna. ;P

i finally read 'the help' on my kindle this past week. (i love my kindle!) click on the link for better reviews/summaries than i could ever write up - but basically it's set in the 60's against the backdrop of the civil rights movement, in jackson mississippi. we hear the story as it takes place through 3 voices:  2 black maids and a southern belle would be journalist. the trio with a bunch of other brave black maids set out to write a book - a collection of stories of their experiences as domestic help in a white household and their relationships with their white employers. it's fiction of course and if they'd been found out at that time, the consequences would have been dire. yet still, it's an fascinating read, and provides a  glimpse into the world of sanctioned segregation, the deep south and poverty - that is relatively recent in this country's history.

interestingly, when you remove the segregationist aspects ... the stories told by the maids are quite universal. i'm quite sure that most people who live in societies whereby having domestic help of the human variety is commonplace - would recognize some of the characters and even 'maid-stories' in this book. it's a sad truth - that there are many people who as a result of circumstances have to work as servants in other people's homes and look after their employers children, not their own. it's something that we accept as part of the cultural landscape. people need/want domestic help, and there are people for whom being domestic help is the best way they know to provide for their families' financial needs. oftentimes in this globalized economy, the domestic help are from a poorer neighboring country - and whether they are legal or not, have limited rights and are thus vulnerable to various manners of abuse. a situation not dissimilar to that of the black maids in pre-civil rights era.

a rather common facebook update i've noticed amongst my friends in m'sia/s'pore concerns their domestic help. it's quite funny/sad how people are rendered helpless when the maid goes on vacation or when they are in-between maids. even funnier is when other friends commiserate. but perhaps i might be more sympathetic to the plights of my friends if i had little brats kids and lived in a 2200sf house b'cos i cn't deny it is very very nice to have domestic help ... afterall, who in their right mind really likes ironing and cleaning bathrooms?! still, chores are really not that bad ... they build character i've heard. okm and i are jointly the maid in our 2 person household and we've managed pretty decently the last couple of years - granted, our apartment is just 780sf  but we do the cooking, cleaning, ironing, everything. no tai-tai dom here. no live-in maid, no part-time cleaner. the question is: will we be tempted to re-join the club when we return to m'sia? would we want to fork out the dough to pay someone to do the household chores ...?

well, these are questions to be answered another day. there are a gazillion questions of this nature when one is preparing to repatriate. such as, will i be able to run in the humid 34C deg weather - and will the pollution trigger off my asthma? (i've not had any symptoms the last 3 years - something i've struggled with my entire life. it's simply unbelievable!)

so in the meantime, let's put our feet up and enjoy the fact that we have a dishwasher and therefore did not have to do the dishes by hand last night after having guests over for dinner :)

seaweed barley risotto + citrus beet salad