Moving New House 2006: In God, We Trust Part 2

I thought the difficult part of shifting to the new house was done and over but I was wrong; it did not turn out exactly like that.

Read Part 1 here

As the prayers for the new house was set on Sunday morning, I took a half-day off on Friday to collect some items for the prayers – that included some new deity pictures, sweets and clothes. Total cost for the day was about RM600.00. On the way back (before the crazy traffic jam starts), we gave a call to the flower man, milkman and the caterers (all vegetarian food, duh!) to ensure that they did not miss out the date and time for the function.

The next day, we turned up at the new house early to clean up the house. We had washed the interior last week but another turn of washing would be good (yes, this was just an excuse). I really wanted to get that floor and wall tiles to “sparkle” for the guests, so I took the extra effort of sitting down and wiping the tiles with a piece of clean white cloth (very unlikely of me but since it is my own house, I did not mind doing it).

We fixed the lights “DIY” style and the taps for the bathroom and made sure that it was working well. We also made several trips “transporting” essential items such as table fans (essential for my son), clothes, things that we have purchased for the prayers, pillow, etc to the new house as we expected to be there for 2 days.

We also purchased 5 bottles of 5 litres drinking water for cooking and drinking. We had no choice as I have yet to install a water filter and we do not want to be hero, drinking the tap water directly.

The new altar for the house arrived later that day – it cost me RM1,800.00 for a medium-size altar for the prayer room (quite a bargain considering the free items that came with it and the free transportation cost). The installation was fast and clean.

As there was nothing much to do, we left for the “old” house to catch a quick nap (as much as possible) as it is going to be a long night tonight.

After a short nap, we left early for the new house – we could have left late but we were too excited that we eager to leave early. When we arrived, we were surprised to see a banana tree, sugar cane sticks and other things has been put up in the car poach by one of the family friends.

That saved some work for us and the friend was kind enough to arrange for a lorry to transport the banana tree and got some friends to help to tie it up. He refused any payment but we managed to push RM50 into his pockets.

The prayers start at 4.00 am on Sunday morning. So, we had nothing much to do.

We brought a portable CD player and had it running with Tamil Songs (yes, all 80’s songs) whilst my son was playing on the “huge” hall. My sisters were busy with their “kolam” whilst my wife and my mom had her hands full taking care of work in the kitchen and at the altar.

The time was ticking at 12.00 am when I looked at my watch. Damn, another 4 more hours to go and I am already feeling very sleepy. Unfortunately, I could not take the risk of taking the short nap because I know it will be very difficult to wake me up later (my wife will know this better). So, I pushed myself to keep awake by keeping myself busy with the cleanup, decorations and photographs. Time was indeed moving slow.

To be continued in Part 3…