Ok... maybe "eased out" are not exactly the right words. Perhaps, I should use the words, "muscled out" instead. I used to tend my plants, dispensing fertiliser and picking off worms. Soon, my helper would tell me, on the morning that I normally dispense fertiliser, that she had already done it at 6 am that morning. To compete with her, I would need to wake up at 5 am. So, I left it to her.
I then found that I couldn't even walk in my own garden without her hovering at my elbow telling me, "I have already done this. I have already done that."
When I bought a pressure cooker and was experimenting how to cook rice in it, she looked a bit anxious because she had been cooking rice in the thermal pot. She wondered if she had done such a bad job that I had had to take over the rice cooking. After 2 days of watching me cook rice in the pressure cooker, she told me, "I know how to cook rice. I cook rice today."
Yesterday, I wanted to make risotto. I went downstairs and said that I would cook rice instead. She looked at me funny and when I was making the risotto, she was hovering at my elbow... hovering... hovering... I almost felt that she experienced my rice cooking as a personal affront.
Frankly, I kind of felt that she did not want me in her kitchen.
This has never happened before. We have never had a helper of this calibre and character before. We have never had a helper that commanded so much of our respect by sheer weight of her character and intelligence. Her hovering at my elbow made me uncomfortable and I confided in my children my sense of unease. The children both said, "Mom, she is insecure. Like you, she is a perfectionist. She wants to do well and her measure of whether she is doing well is whether you leave it all to her or not."
So, after dinner, I had to have a heart to heart talk with this lovely lady on Google Translate. I explained that she is by far the best helper we have ever had in our lives. I explained that I cook because I enjoy cooking and that we all love her immensely. That made her ever so happy.
I REALLY love this helper. She is intelligent, good-natured and scrupulously honest. The only thing though is that I am afraid that my own skills will degenerate. What if I forget how to cook and garden? These skills need practice. If you stop cooking, you lose it. Gee... I don't want to become a spoiled tai-tai and if this helper takes over more and more of my tasks, that is what I am going to become!
5 comments:
Would you be willing to share the brand of pressure cooker you purchased? �� still satisfied with it?
Hi... I bought the WMF Perfect.
Maybe you should let her take over more things and blog more. Just joking.
Just to add I really enjoy reading your blog, very insightful.
Indeed... love reading your blog.. it's ME time every morning from 7-8, n whenever I start reading this blog, I will always want to click for more n start prep for work late! just love your down to earth nature! pls do not stop blogging!
Thank you Coco... you are very kind.
Anonymous... thank you too.
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