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September 4, 2007

It's Tuesday, the day after Labor Day. Not that Labor Day is
celebrated here. It was an ordinary work and school day here in
Jakarta. Alissa was in her office at 6:30 am, having left the house
at 6:15 am. Yes, the new office building is just around the corner,
thereby cutting almost 45 minutes from Alissa's morning commute.
And it cut from an hour and half to two hours off the commute
home in the evenings. She is exceptionally happy about this
change of work address. Although the elevators are "smart" and
therefore completely slow and annoying, and the temperature is
nowhere near cool enough in her office, none of these glitches
can quite dampen her enthusiasm when she leaves the office in
the evening and is home in 10 minutes. She is still putting in
twelve hour days, but now those twelve hours are spent in the
office, without adding an extra couple of hours for a commute.

Arianna has been back in school for three weeks now. The fall
soccer league just had its first games on Saturday. Arianna is on
Team Brazil. They won the first game 5-3 against Team
Indonesia. And last night she and some other 8th grade girls
scrimmaged with the High School JV soccer team, and held their
own against them (beat them, actually). Weekend after next is the
8th grade weekend trip to the Puncak. The Puncak is the
mountainous area just to the south of Jakarta. Many people have
weekend houses there so they can get away from the city and
breath clean, cool air.

Christopher is busy supervising (he hates it) the workers that have
been doing various construction and refurbishment jobs around
the house since June 9th. We are pretty sure the landlord must
be paying by the hour, because it is difficult to understand how so
little work can be accomplished in a day. The last two tasks to be
completed are 1) polish the floors and 2) regrout the pool tiles.

All this work is being done because the lease on the house was up
for renewal and that means ... wish list time. When a lease is
taken on a house in Jakarta, all the rent for the three (or
sometimes two) years is paid upfront. Therefore, zippo repairs are
done to the house as the landlord has absolutely no motivation to
do so. It's pretty much a 'take the money and run' situation. So
when a lease is to renewed, the tenant makes a list of all the major
and minor things that need to be done to the house. Our list
consisted of: 1) new guest bathroom tile and sink with cabinet; 2)
cabinets in our bathroom and the girls' bathroom 3) new shelf
above the washer and dryer; 4) grass in the inner kitchen garden
area; 5) raise the kitchen counter-tops (they are so low, our backs
hurt when we work in the kitchen); 6) new kitchen faucet; 7) new
staff kitchen faucet; 8) new staff bathroom tiles and shower; 9)
new tiles for pool area; 10) polish the floors; and 11) shelves in
the storage room.

September 9, 2007 (con't)

Our wish list was pretty well-received, with only new tiles for the
pool and raising the kitchen counter-tops being denied. But the
pool tiles have now been regrouted and look much better. The
floors have been polished and once again gleam and are slippery.
The downstairs bathroom is quite nice, and the cabinets in the
other two bathrooms are wonderful. Finally, a place to put things!
And the staff bathroom is excellent. It is no longer dark pink and
tired-looking. Instead, it has cream-colored tiles and a shower
rather than just a bucket and pitcher. See below for photos.

It's Sunday morning, and Alissa has finished packing for a
business trip to Kuala Lumpur. She'll fly away this afternoon and
return Tuesday afternoon/evening. Christopher has been seeing
the physical therapist here in town. He is working on increasing
flexibility in his knee, as well as breaking down some of the scar
tissue that has developed. And last night was a big step. Or
should one say, "a big dance step." Last night was the annual
ANZA ball. Christopher and Alissa went, Christopher in tuxedo
and leg brace and Alissa in a winter white gown. He danced three
dances. Unfortunately, as is often the case at these functions,
there was too much microphone-talk and not enough music and
dancing.

And what of Annaliese, you might ask? Ah, Annaliese! She's off
at university. You'll have to catch up with her separately. My
Space or FaceBook or one of those sites...!

Javalogue 32: Summer Slipped Past 2007

the Javalogue

September 16, 2007

Ok, ok, this is the slowest compilation of a web page in quite a while.
That said, we have been busy.

Arianna seems to have had a good time in Puncak. She was very
tired yesterday, so tired she fell asleep on a raft in the pool. She also
played a soccer game yesterday. Two, actually, as she played in the
morning with the varsity high school team and then again with the club
team in the late afternoon. We tried out the new camera, and have
immediately resolved to buy a bigger, better zoom lens. We took
some pretty good shots (the kids will hate them!).

Yesterday morning, Christopher and Alissa went furniture shopping.
The good news is for the bank account... we went "company - leased -
furniture" shopping. The bad news is... we picked a houseful of
furniture in three and one half hours. It was exhausting.

The company provides furniture - Tables, Sofas, Beds, etc.. And the
contracts to the furniture companies are for a set number of years.
So when our lease expires, we must pick new furniture, because of
course the new furniture company is not the same as the old furniture
company. More good news... the new furniture company has a variety
of styles to pick from, whereas the old furniture company had one
style. Plain. And pack-rats that we are, we were able to find the
fabric samples from our initial round of furniture shopping back in April
of 2005. We worked hard to pick fabrics in colors similar to what we
have today for the living room. Otherwise, we'd need to change rugs,
paint, etc.. We will be repainting the upstairs play area as it is a
"BRIGHT" yellow whereas a softer, gentler, buttery yellow had been
the goal.

Above, on the way to the field to walk the dog. Below, the field and
soccer teams and a refreshments seller.

Below, Arianna asleep with a spoon hanging out of her mouth.
Lucky for her, the pool is fairly shaded.