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Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Taken Over

I have blogged about our new helper, M, before HERE. It must really be a once in a lifetime lottery strike to get a helper like her. She is so conscientious that I have slowly been eased out of many tasks that I used to do.

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:

Anonymous said...

Would you be willing to share the brand of pressure cooker you purchased? �� still satisfied with it?

Petunia Lee said...

Hi... I bought the WMF Perfect.

Anonymous said...

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.

Coco said...

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!

Petunia Lee said...

Thank you Coco... you are very kind.
Anonymous... thank you too.