Yay Coffee Morning!!!

Thursday came and I got ready to face another excursion.  People that know me know that I am pretty outgoing and meet people easily.  What is hard to believe is that I have a bit of anxiety before I actually get to the meeting people part.  While I'm still at home getting ready, I go through this whole thing in my head about getting to the place I'm supposed to be and trying to figure out how I'm supposed to be once I get there...you know, planning how everything is supposed to go before it happens.  Well this day it was even worse because right from the start I was having trouble.  I had called the taxi company and couldn't get a taxi to come to my house.  I was supposed to be at my friend's house at a certain time so that her regular taxi driver could pick us up and take us to the AAM office since it is very difficult to find and he has already been there several times.  So I called my friend and told her what was going on and told her to just go without me so that she wouldn't be late.  Instead, she called her taxi driver and asked him to come get her a little early so they could come get me.  How nice it that?

This is where the fun really starts!  Remember in an earlier post I had mentioned I live in new construction?  Yeah, well...unless the taxi driver drives in this area frequently they won't know where I live and with me being new to the area I'm not much help in the giving directions department.  I'm sure you can guess where this is headed.  I texted my address to my friend, Jacque.  She in turn gave it to her driver.  Keep in mind the coffee morning started at 10:00 and ended at noon.  Jacque and her driver started out at 9:15 and at about 9:45 they were in my area.  With morning traffic this is good time.  They did not find me until 10:30.  We did not get to the coffee morning until 11:00.  Now, I told Jacque twice in that time she should just go to the coffee morning but she said that her driver would not give up and kept looking for my address.  I have to say that I was very happy that he did!

When we got there we found that there weren't very many women there.  That could be due to the fact that we were late or just because not many showed up.  Either way, it worked out fine for us.  Only one of the ladies that we met at the first Friday lunch was there and it was one of the ladies that was hosting it.  None of the new ladies were there.  I did meet other really nice ladies though!

Jacque and I went to lunch with four of the ladies that were at the coffee morning.  They took us to an Italian restaurant that is on one of the most famous streets in KL...Ampang.  It is the street that the embassies are on.  I didn't take pictures of the meal because I'm sure you have all seen pizza before.  It was a really good pizza though.  The best part of the trip though was after lunch.  They took us to Ampang Grocery.  It is a very small store that is cram packed with everything, and I do mean everything, an expat could possibly want!  I found Baked Cheetos!!!!!  I didn't think to take the time to see if they had the Tazo Chai concentrate but as soon as I can I am going back to see if they do.  I was told that their stock rotates and if you find something you want you need to get as much as you can because they may not get it again for a while.  Don't think I won't buy them out of that if I can find it there!  The only draw back is the price is high because they know they can get it.  I paid $6 for that bag of Baked Cheetos.  But I am loving having them!

An interesting conversation took place between one of my new friends and myself while shopping in this amazing store.  A common topic of conversation between expat wives is what we used to do for work, especially since most of us worked before coming here.  When I told her that I was an Office Manager and loved my job before I left it she had a spark of interest in her face.  She asked if I did the books.  I told her I didn't, that we had an amazing bookkeeper that I supervised, but that I had experience doing books from past jobs.  She immediately asked me if I would be interested in volunteering with AAM.  I told her I would and asked her, a little skeptically, doing what?  She just happened to be the Treasurer and her husband was being transferred backed to California in February so they would be looking for someone to take her place.  She wanted to know if I would be interested.  I was kind of surprised that she was asking someone that she just met...I figured there would be someone they were already grooming for this position or at least someone that would want it so I asked about these possibilities.  I also asked about the responsibilities of the position.  She said there was no one in line and the day-to-day bookkeeping was done by another  person.  This position basically just supervised...a few hours a month to check postings.  I said I would be interested in checking into it to see what it was about and then we could go from there.  So, I could possibly have a volunteer job with the AAM!  She is on vacation right now but when she gets back we are going to start getting together to check it out.  I'm kind of excited about it...

So after all of that was over Jacque and I left our new friends to head out of town before gridlock hit.  I came home which meant no shopping...yay!!!  I know there is a little shopping scheduled for the weekend but hopefully not much...

See you next post!

Monkey update:  I have uplifting news!  One of my new friends has given me hope!!!  She showed me pictures of her and her husband actually WITH the monkeys!  Now I've seen someone I know with them and I have renewed faith that they exist.  She said they are about an hour and a half outside of town and she will take me to them!!!!  Unfortunately, she is leaving Friday to go to Vietnam for a couple of weeks to be with her husband who is working.  At least I am a little closer now than I was Wednesday...fingers crossed that I will have pictures soon friends!!!