MISCELLANY

We have a long weekend courtesy of Hari Raya this week. In our household, this inevitably translates to cleaning time.

Nope, can’t get away from it. This comes of being born into a cleanliness/neatness obsessive family. My mother is somewhat anal about cleanliness and neatness, and she is one the few persons I know who employs a maid and does all the cleaning herself, because said maid does not meet her standards. My dad now is less severe, but he absolutely cannot stand clutter, so he is always packing things things away so surfaces can be cleared. And half the time, we can never re-locate the stuff again, because no one (including himself) remembers which hidden corner he has put the things away in.

Even SB has her OCD streak when it comes to this whole neatness thing, and I remember nothing but cleaning, and dusting and admonitions to clear up when I visited her in her dormy in Tokyo. I am the slob of the family…but thanks to genetics or simple osmosis, I also have certain tolerance levels when it comes to clutter and dust. So clean away I do.

I just noticed today while wiping down my bookshelves, that yet another shelve is on the verge of collapse. I managed to shore it up somewhat, but I am starting to panic a little. I have no idea how the shelves are going to hold up for the next fifteen years that I intended to. It was a good thing that we ruled out those mickey mouse IKEA furniture when we were renovating. There is no way those flimsy DIY stuff will ever hold up under my precious collection.

Nice collection eh? The visible books are only about half my entire assets. All the cupboards below also hold books, like this:

I haven’t updated my records for a long time, but a reasonable estimate would put the number of books in the room around two thousand. That’s a lot of words….

Speaking of assets, my father got me a new one….a new Asus EeePC….in the most gorgeous casing ever….

This comes of having a father who loves new technology. With this addition, we now have one desktop, two laptops and a netbook at home, not counting SB’s Mr Mac and Baby Acer. That’s a total of six computers for four people, one of whose only claim to computer literacy is knowing where the power button is on his Toshiba….seriously. This person is now making noises over the dinner table about the new Macintosh OS like it could invent the cure for AIDS, solve Obama’s headache over the US health system, and resolve the conflict in Afganistan all at the same time. I totally foresee a new Mac something coming our way in the near future…..