Overcast and Amoebic

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Yesterday was a quiet day. In the morning, we and Briton went for coffee and pastry before doing a wee bit of grocery shopping at Gourmet Garage. Following that, we picked Caiden up from Day Care School, as we call it, and went home for lunch. The rest of the afternoon was spent working hard at nothing. Jon and Carter had doctor’s appointments in the afternoon, so Jon was home from work early. We found out today that he has an amoebic infection which, unlike D’s fungus, will require him to take a 10-day course of ‘real’ medicine. In the meantime, he can’t have alcohol and will probably be careful about his diet although the latter may be a matter of interest, not necessity. To round out the medical report, MA is now taking antibiotics for her cold, so things are normal.

Today, we let Jon and Carter have a ‘normal’ morning and left them alone during the breakfast/getting off to school routine. We were up with Caiden and kissed him off to school before we went shopping. Today’s foray was to the Pasaraya mall, a gigantic indoor shopping center in which, in the Asian style, each floor is dedicated to a different type of merchandise. Naturally, we started at Starbuck’s but took our drinks with us as we shopped.

Our first destination was the crafts floor which is exactly what it says – an entire floor given over to alleged handicrafts. We bought a mask here two years ago and saw plenty just like it today. By now, however, so many masks look the same that we were careful not to get something that we would discover was already hanging on “the wall.” First, however, MA spent time with Briton looking for gifts for an assortment of people. While they browsed, and purchased, D wandered around looking at masks in the vain hope of finding something unique. We had seen some wooden carvings last week when we were shopping and decided to concentrate on something carved other than a mask. We finally found one we liked: it is a likeness of a woman who, we thought, was part of the Ramayana story we saw in Yogyakarta; however, the clerk told d that it was simply a carving of a woman with a hand mirror. Regardless, we liked it and it is different from everything else in our collection and was only 290,000 rupiah [$30].

D also saw a carving he liked, but it was priced at 725,000 rupiah, about $75 at the current exchange rate. The lowest price we could get for a credit transaction was 580,000 rupiah, so we left for more shopping. Briton was looking for Cars toys to replace one which has apparently disappeared. She was unsuccessful in her search but was able to find Halloween goody bags for the boys to carry when they go trick-or-treating this weekend. From there we went to Rotiboy, home of Briton’s favorite pastry. Since we had to wait 10 minutes for the buns to bake, D went off in search of an ATM and then, armed with plenty of rupiah, he returned for the carving he wanted. The price was now 500,000 for cash, about $50, the most he can remember ever paying for a piece of woodwork. Still, it was 1/3 off the list price, so he was happy. When we got it home, we found a sticker on the back of the piece which priced it at 1,250,000 [approx. $125], so we don’t know if the clerk made a mistake or the tag was wrong; either way, we like the piece.

By the time we got home, Caiden was already down for his nap. We had leftover pizza and Rotiboys for lunch. If we had known how good the Rotiboys were, we would have skipped the pizza.

Once Carter got home, around 2:30, we piled into Greenie, the family van, and headed to the movies to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Jon joined us for dinner afterwards; we let him pick the restaurant since it’s his stomach which is currently in distress. As a result, we ate dim sum, small plates, at a restaurant in the shopping center next to the theater. We each had some kind of soup and shared steamed dumplings. We were home by 7:30 – 7:45. Carter went to bed promptly; Briton went off to her book club; and Jon managed to stay awake until 9:45 when he started out for bed.

Tomorrow, we may take Caiden to a playground while Briton is at the gym before taking him out to lunch. Stay tuned.