Hall-Reppens in Singapore: Tiong Bahru Market, Fiber Net Installation, and Getting our Vacuum Cleaner.

Friday was my last weekday that I would be in Singapore, before leaving to be at home in Chicago with my college kids for the summer. I needed to make sure that I had done as much as I could to prepare Rich for his time alone. Many things can only be done on weekdays, and Rich is gone on those days from 8:30 AM to 8 PM.

I started the day by going to the Fresh Market. I wanted to visit my vegetable, cookie, salmon, fruit, eggs, pork, beef, chicken and coffee vendors. I wanted to make sure that Rich was supplied with all the food he likes, and take pictures of all of my vendors, so he would know who to visit if he made it to the market. For the first time that I visited the market, my coffee vendor was not there! Now Rich will probably spend way too much money buying Starbuck's coffee!!

Michelle had very kindly and adeptly scheduled our fiber net installation that day. The men were coming to cut a hole in the ceiling in the hallway, and the installers from Starhub were coming to do the chunking, and connect the wires to our hub. The installation went smoothly, but took awhile. I worked on catching up my blog while they worked. Michelle was planning to come to oversee the installation, but had gotten caught up at work. She called to make sure that things were going smoothly, and offered to pick me up for lunch, but I declined, as I still had to get our vacuum cleaner. Just as the chunking guys finished, they told me that another person would be coming in 30 minutes to an hour to test the line. So, it was a good thing I had not gone to lunch with Michelle.

I ate lunch, worked on my blog, and waited for the line tester to arrive. Michelle called to tell me that he was at the front entrance, as he couldn't figure out the intercom system. I let him in, and he went to work. Unfortunately, when I went to get him, I discovered that the hydraulic catch on our apartment door was disconnected. I almost put the door handle through the glass of the kitchen door when I opened the door! That was very troubling. The line tester worked quickly and efficiently, and was on his way. I was finishing a blog entry so I stayed a little longer after he left. As I was working, I heard water dripping. I looked out the window to see if it was raining, but it wasn't. The water was coming from the air conditioner unit in the living room. I turned off the unit, cleaned up the mess, and called our air conditioner service company. Luckily, they had a cancellation on Saturday at 2 PM.. The good news was that I could make sure that the a/c was running properly before I left. The bad news was that the service men were expected at the time of Ollie's birthday party!

With these jobs done, I headed out to pick up our vacuum cleaner. The correct building was very easy to find, but the storefront that distributed the products was more elusive. I checked in and got my queue number; "1234". Picking up the vacuum cleaner was easy. The only complaint that I had was that I couldn't change premiums. I did not know that Rich had signed up for a vacuum cleaner as a "Thank You" gift, so I had bought a vacuum cleaner earlier. Rich called to see if he could get headphones instead, but was told that since the letter had been issued, it was too late. Rules are meant to be followed. Very discouraging. I didn't think anything of it, but people did look at me when I rode the bus back to my apartment with my vacuum cleaner in my lap.