April 5 - 11, 2010: Breakaway

On the very first day of this week, my main helper, Kakay, went ahead with her planned vacation. This was expected but I am at never prepared for this scenario. I am just thankful that with recent problems with household helpers, I was able to find replacements just in the nick of time. I have been looking for a long time for a replacement for another helper who left our household months ago. It’s not easy but the turn of events made it unnecessary to get another helper for awhile

Since the new helpers were just recently employed, we are actually still into an adjustment period. I have to go to the office not knowing what to expect. Kakay was still there when I left as she was leaving sometime in the afternoon. When I arrived in the evening, that’s when my realization finally set in. We have enough help in the house as MIL decided that she and her assistant would be staying in the house while Kakay is away. MIL gave her blessing to tap her assistant for some housework. It was agreed that her assistant would be in charge of cleaning the rooms upstairs. There is Mandy, our new helper, who told me she knows how to cook and who I put in charge of the laundry as well as cleaning the ground floor. Cheryl, another recent hire, is the one in charge of rearing the birds and the dogs. MIL’s assistant would assist her on those days when she has to bathe the dogs and other pet stuffs. Mandy took care of the fishes in the pond and garden and in the aquariums spread all over the house. They would help each other out on some chores like clearing and cleaning the garden, the service areas, and the garage and other areas outside the house. Dish washing is also a shared task. All in all, there was a good plan in running the house even without my main helper except that there are some expectations not met. I still have to monitor things and put some controls to enable them to establish an acceptable routine.

Sometime in the week, there are some irritants that I had to address. Being new, Mandy, committed mistakes in cooking a number of our meals and some other chores that seemed to earn the goat of hubby. He would complain endlessly and I can sense that he was just nitpicking. I had to put my foot down one morning while we were having breakfast as I pointed out to him that we are left with no option. I asked if he wants Mandy to go but told him at the same time to find a replacement. After this, I no longer hear complaints from anybody. Well, I had to tell Mandy about the mistakes as it could turn out costly if it keeps on happening.

The most exciting occurrence this week was when my new friends and I bolted out of a music site for being too constricting. We used to hang around that site practically the whole day listening to music as we go about our business. It was a novelty in a sense that the founder of the site made the music that we love in our youth, available 24/7, like a radio station in another platform. The good thing about it is it is interactive. It was no surprise that the subscribers of the site are mostly baby boomers and some gen x because we share a love for the music of 70s and 80s with a sprinkling of 60s and 90s, generally a love for music. In time, we would develop friendships within the site such that we would converge at a certain time and have fun while sharing music. It got to the point that there was comforting ease that we were boisterous, cybercally. Perhaps, to the extent that some fans of the site and we learned later, some of the administrators were not very pleased with our presence.

This is what we do not understand. Why those fans or admininistrators minded that we were interacting in the site as we develop friendships. Isn’t this a natural consequence of the interaction encouraged by the site? Besides, there is always a choice – if you don’t want the interaction, you can ignore it, period. And go straight to the music. But not us…..we want more than music. At first, we tried to let things ease up a bit without necessarily putting a stop to the interaction. It is something that cannot be controlled among people who found common interests, situations, and peculiarities. I tried to avoid being in the slots of those admins who do not welcome these interactions. It came to a blow one morning when a new admin, who we would discover to be a brother of the founder, got our ire by his careless remarks towards the end of his slot. This led to comments posted by a friend and myself expressing exasperation over the uncharacteristic rudeness of the new admin in the last song he posted in his slot. After a few minutes the entire post was removed by the site administrator. I guess they saw apocalypse coming. We were gone about the same time and have not returned to the site since.  Surprisingly, the new admin no longer mans a slot in the site.

The following day, the more cooler heads of their admins appeared to be making appeals to get back to the site with an invitation to have more open interaction and fun. But we were too hurt and not biting the bait. But we needed an outlet for our songs and further the friendships started.

Initially, we were mimicking the admins of the site by posting songs in the walls of two friends and made sure that the admins of the site would see what we were doing…….. mean but we were mad. Sure enough, we got a reaction when one of the admins sent a sarcastic message to one of my friends . So we’re sure they were seeing what we were doing. We also can see what’s happening to the site. As soon as we left, it was like somebody died in there. They want it quiet. They surely got it.

With a yearning of a child who was robbed of his candy, we gave birth to our very own site, aptly called 24/7/11 ministop Fun Hot Muzic, on Thursday without any plans or program. When we first thought of the name and agreed on it, it is a spoof on the old site but essentially describes the environment we want in our site that there is a lot more to enjoying music than music itself. In no time, we were joined in by some other friends from the old site who might have missed our noise. They would shuttle back and forth the two sites. We found no problem with that but soon the other site’s admins appeared to have been affected as they branded their site as the Intelligent Choice…..whoa! My reaction was so intelligence is needed in appreciating music???!!! I don't have to overanalyze my music and simply clear my mind and closed my eyes to enjoy it.

Unprepared with the responsibility of managing a site, we were fumbling in the weekend on manning chores but managed just the same. It’s a good thing it was a long weekend as Friday was a holiday. Friends gave a lot of encouragement as more people joined the site, some are our friends who told us that they enjoy the music, some are unknown who might have stumbled on the site and liked it. We barely made it through the weekend with very little sleep.

Personally, I missed doing a number of chores due to this new development. But being a hardcore music lover, I needed an outlet and perhaps, it’s worth the sacrifice. There is still a lot to think about but for now, let me just enjoy sharing music……….