A clean sweep

So Viv and I have collectively lost some 30 kg in the last few weeks.

Old clothes, old shoes, old appliances, old files, old kitchen stuff -- you name it, we threw it.

These things are like bad memories. It seems like you can never get rid of them, but when you have to, you just go ahead and do it. And then they're gone from your life forever.

We're moving to a new place. Our place. Actually, not so much our place as Standard Chartered bank's place, but in about two decades or so, we hope to change that.

So in between all the throwing and packing, and more throwing and more pa(ni)cking, we suddenly remembered - we had to get the Remyfication of both places done! Nope, that was not ramification misspelt, nor is it slang for sprinkling holy water in the houses or something. There truly is a whole vocabulary we have created in honour of Remy. Remy the freelance domestic helper who has been helping me clean the house every time I moved in the last five years. Remy, the ultimate grease and grime repeller. Remy, the goddess of shiny kitchen tiles, unclogged drains and sparkling bathrooms. In fact, I truly believe that the phrase 'Cleanliness is next to godliness' was coined after her.

Remy has seen me through thick and thin. I still remember the first house she cleaned for me. I was sharing it with two girls who had jobs, and I was looking for one because I had just quit a job where the boss was a racist psycho. It was a very bad time for me, and I was about to hit rock-bottom when a publisher agreed to hire me as an temporary editorial assistant at a measly 60 dollars a day, with the challenge to prove myself worthy of the editor's position in two weeks or get my engineer ass back on the engineering track. I still remember watching Remy scrub our floors at $10 an hour, and wondering, "Wow man. Remy makes more than I do..."

Then there was the time I had to move to the western part of Singapore because living in the east was rendering it impossible to carry on with my part-time Master's course. Unable to find female housemates, I settled for two guys (who actually turned out to be pretty decent housemates). Even then, I could not wait for that one year to get over so I could get back to the east, back home. Remy saw me through all of that, cheerfully scrubbing away with me.

So today, as she, once again, scrubbed away the grime of my life in the old house and made my new home sparkle, I thought to myself - she is truly one of the women I admire the most. Not just because dirt and grime are literally afraid of her, but also because of her grit. Her husband is in the Philippines recovering from a heart condition, her kids are in university, and she's the only earning member in the family. She has a fulltime employer whom she lives with, and on her 'free' days, she freelances her superior cleaning skills.

Her English is a bit shaky (it's quite cute actually) and I'd blogged (here and here) about a few laughs I'd had with her. But her work is so good that Viv and I often say that you can walk into a room and just know that it has been freshly 'Remy-fied'.

The most amazing thing is - you never really see any signs of the hard life she is going through. In a world where we struggle to find people who inspire us with their positive attitude towards life, I'm fortunate to have found one such soul right here in my house, scrubbing my tiles.

And every time I meet her, she makes me want to be more positive.

Today, for example.

I had taken leave so I could oversee the painting of the new house, as well as get some cleaning done with Remy's help. After an exhausting day's work, I asked her, "Tired from all the hard work, Remy?"

She smiled at me and said, "No no. Exercise."