Retro

Connection between PLDT and Globe (for both Globelines and Handyphone) were cut today - unintentional or otherwise. I can't call my travel agent through my mobile phone and landline! WTF! Sabotage? Since I had to follow up my plane tickets and travel voucher, I had to do it the old school way. I had to line up and use a friggin' phone booth!

Take note - hindi na tatlong bente singko ngayon. You need 5 bucks to make a landline call.

This makes me stroll down memory lane.

Idol!

'Been watching Moro Gandawali compete in surf competitions since last year.

What can I say? Idol talaga.

I know there's a competition this coming October. I wonder if he's competing.

I shall be rooting for the Moro!

When I grow up, I will glide through water the way he does. Ambitious! Hahaha.

Surf's up!

I've got bruised legs and knees. I've got a scraped shin. When I woke up this morning, my entire body is a-achin' like a surf board paddled and hit me a hundred times over.

But it's all good, because...

I don't know about you, but this girl can surf.

Falling off my board on the first few attempts.
Yes, I got wiped out. Several times!

Awkwardly balancing on the board

Woohooo! Glide, glide, glide.

Bringing it on shore

On fighting form

Surfer dudette!

Yes, I can really surf.

It's your birthday, we're gunna party like it's your birthday...

No verbosity needed. We had ubeeeeeer fun celebrating Arlene's birthday!!!

Happy birthday Arlene! Cheers to more fun, more alchy, more friends and more parties together.

'Nuff said.

25 shooters & cocktails from Shakers Big Punch

Winner ang mobile bar!

Go Gail!

Bring the flamers down!

Moi & Teng - no we're not yet drunk.

Moi & Arlene - we're both Fire Snakes!

Winner party friends. Si Spocky walang kupas!

Benjie & Sandy

Cheers!

I'm inggit

The legendary couple that became Woodstock's iconic photograph in the late '60s are still together - after 40 years. Bobby and Nick Ercoline, who were a couple at that time of the Woodstock concert, are still married to each other until now.

That's a happy reminder that relationships can last.

If their generation can still believe in ties that bind - why can't we?

Happy, happy, joy, joy!

3 joyful things:

1. My Yaya is coming home! After a week's stint in Bicol with Ninay, they both felt homesick. Normally, she stays there for a month at least, so this is such a pleasant surprise. I've got my Yaya back. Yey!

Not good for my calorie count since she cooks kick-ass sinigang and adobo, but very good for my soul.

2. Wine night - I shall indulge in my favorite vice. After the gym, that is.

3. More notebooks! Ecojot notebooks made of recycled paper, cat journals and MILK notebook from Chapters, Canada. Saya!

Another one of those...

conversations with Arlene.

Me: As for me (and also for you), if happiness is elusive, then I will run after joy...the joy of enjoying what I currently have. It is possible. I don't want to revel in misery for a long time.

Arlene: Just had a big lunch. And that's something to revel about. I got a big, boozy birthday coming up, that's something to revel about. We got a surfing weekend coming up, and damn if it ain't that good. There are rewards yet for us, Abril. Even if they do not necessarily mean the ones we had worked for, hoped for, or prayed for.

Amen.

Sometimes, I actually want to hit myself on the head. I forget to be grateful.

The weekend was happily spent with friends. Saturday was a good Binondo day tour with Teng, Yoj, Mela and Nabeth. We were akin to fattened pigs being fed all kinds of dimsum that we can lay our eyes on and grab by their wooden containers.

Dinner was spent with Arlene, Drei and Teng, gorging on the sumptuous feast of kansi, Ilo-Ilo's version of bulalo.

Sunday was quietly albeit enjoyably spent with Arlene, going to church (yes we are church-goers), eating Jap at Rai Rai Ken, killing time in Starbucks and finally getting massage. Happiness.

The good part about this is that my lakwatchero friends are single now. Teng is the ultimate kaladkarin hangout buddy and Binondo tour guide. 3 years of single-blessedness, he never fails to be my knight in shining humor.

Arlene - oh well - there'll be more drinking sesh and lakwatcha moments.

What do you know? I'm going to tick off one of my to-dos this year - surf's up!

Damn right it is!

I confess...

I'm severely attached to my Yaya Cita.

I only realized the gravity today when she left for Bicol. When she called me that she was already in the bus terminal, I had to choke down tears.

Dyahe sa office!

But cry, I did.

Ate Cita has been staying with me regularly for almost 2 months now.

I probably got used to waking up with breakfast and coming home with dinner already prepared.

She's been my yaya since I was a kid and she never married. Her entire life was dedicated to the family. To me, specifically.

Ayan. Naiiyak na naman ako.

She'll only be gone for several weeks but I'm already feeling melancholic, not because I will be incapacitated without her. I just got used to her being sincerely there.

I will miss her --- the one who cares for me like her own --- regardless of bloodline.

Hurt, hurt, go away

I severely hurt.

In more ways than one.

If there is such a thing as reliving death everyday – this is it for me.

He feels the same way. I know he does – in his own miserable hole.

This great divide is so isolating.

Friday partaaaay

'Got cocktails and dinner with myGlobe girls tonight.

Arlene just called and asked me to join her before midnight. We're attending another party.
Okaaaay - another spur of the moment invite.

Looking forward to margaritas with the ladies and some QT with my bestie.
Not sure if the party's gonna rock -- but let's see.

Not bad. Not bad at all!

Lieu de refuge

In difficult moments, I find comfort in life's simple pleasures.

I don't want to stop being grateful.

I don't regret the best friends that I kept... and the ones that I lost.
They were kept and lost for good reasons.

Very simple things give me simple joys as of late, but I do cherish them.

I'm glad I met Emy and Aileen. The superficial conversations about our design work make me forget - no matter how temporary.

It is not schadenfreude but I'm comforted that someone truly and sincerely understands what I'm going through. Arlene may not know everything and I may not know all the details on her end, too, but it's a relief that someone is with me in the process.

Kyle lets me fulfill my nurturing instincts. I don't ever regret getting him and spending so much for him to recover.

I'm glad Ate Cita is there to sincerely look after me and hand me the tissue when I cry, pretending that it's because of Ally McBeal or Lipstick Jungle reruns.

My mother is my cheerleader.

This will be another long, arduous journey.

If I can't get away from it, I might as well embrace what is bound to happen.

But thank you.

Thank you for the momentary recluse.

Thank you for the inner circle who may not know why, how, what I'm going through - who respects the privacy I requested for yet swore an oath of allegiance to be there.

Thank you.

You are my crutch.

Dark cloud

Another one of those conversations with Arlene.

Me: 'Can't help but think we died at age 31. Too young. Too preemptive a strike.

Arlene: We died too young, and we will be buried too late.

Death can be sudden. Nobody really knows for sure what is beyond death - is it just really a flat line or is there really salvation?

The thing with emotional slaughter is you wake up every morning to relive the pain of losing your hope... your future. Over and over and over.

We may have died, Arlene.

But is there hope for resurrection?

I'd like to think so.

Busy

... is the understatement of the month.

My newly-discovered creative outlet and hobby is both time-consuming and expensive.

Who said costume jewelry design wasn't?

Enrolling in advance classes ain't cheapo, but it's worth every damn penny! I met a lot of new friends and fellow jewelry designers who share my passion and interest.

I'm eyeing the mixed media and polymer clay classes in August and September. I hope my classmates will join, too. The advance wiring peeps were so much fun!

Inggit ako - Emy and Anna already have their websites. I don't even have time to photograph!

To-dos tonight: finish my design portfolio to be presented to a prospective client on Friday and hopefully take photos. I need natural lighting, though.

Let's see how late I can stay tonight.

Ang eyebags!

Quotable

"Wala. Bingi si God, may sipon ang Universe at duling ang karma."

- Arlene's reply to my question: "I thought karma was a bitch? So why is this happening to us?"

I really wish otherwise.

C'mon, God. Isn't it our turn now?

Shiny, shimmering, splendid

I braved the rains today to jazz up my freshly acquired toy – a new iPod Touch. I got him a new red leather case and scratch guards for both front and back.

Why I didn’t get an iPhone instead?

1. This is a gift. The giver knows I’m not so hot about the iPhone.

2. I’m waiting for the Palm Pre. The one and only handset for me!

The ironic thing: I gave the giver a first-gen iPod Touch last year, along with a hard case and a small speaker. Now he gave me the 2^nd gen!

To be honest, I was really looking at the new Creative Zen MX. I wanted to rebel against the quirkiness of iTunes and try something different.

Lo and behold, I realized that my docking station is a Bose, which is exclusively for iPod!

Oh well – the iPod Touch is not bad, I have to admit. Yet again, the Zen MX is handsome!

Thank you, thank you, thank you, R. for my new audio and video player. I know this is a make-up gift but I appreciate the thought that came with it.

Yes – my old iPod is Jurassic.

Playing my RnB files while writing.

Random thought: Pharrell Williams of N.E.R.D. is cute! I've always liked him.

Back into Palm’s hands

Had a wonderful weekend.

It was Ian’s birthday last July 8 and by default, we partied in his house on Saturday night. It’s an effort not to get sloshed when I’m celebrating with high school friends. Going home at 3:30 am –-- is early.

While Kyle hovered around me and treaded on the keyboard of my notebook in his attempt to seek attention, I was diligently configuring my favorite handset.

What can I say? I’m a Palm freak. Two weeks with the HTC TouchPro and I just had to give it up. There were too many user experience errors because the TouchFlo 3D interface hangs and lags behind the inputted actions.

I like phones with great touchscreen that merge the functions of telephony and organization. I like the original Palm OS – with its notes and to-dos apps.

It’s quite disappointing that Palm has failed to come up with great phones in the past 2 years. Thus, the greatest anticipation for the Palm Pre. I’m not happy with the Windows OS, either, so when Jenelyn found the Palm Treo Centro in one of the cabinets where we kept our handsets – I was ecstatic!

I’m lovin’, lovin’, lovin’ it.

I’m still watching out for the Pre, though. I can’t wait to get my hands on the new Palm Pre! Too bad they started with the CDMA handset first.

Palm Pre, come to Momma!

Time

… is what I don’t have enough of lately.

I’ve been sleeping at 2am – the earliest – the past few nights and waking up at 6:30 am to go to work. I seriously wish there are 27 hours in a given day.

I have so much on my plate – blame it on nobody else but moi.

Idle time is something that I don’t like. I can’t keep steady. If it is even remotely possible to forego sleep, I would because sleeping is like a waste of time for me. I wish I can just blink and recharge in that minuscule amount of time.

It’s our mid-year evaluation, I’m doing RFI with my international vendors and I’m creating new training modules.

On top of that, I have to create several jewelry design studies for my class, notwithstanding all the preps that I need to do for my advance design class that will start next week!

Super good luck to me!

I’ve prepared several design studies that I keep lying around on my desk. Friends just keep snitching them! Some would even literally filch the necklace on my neck!

So after several nights of toiling and erudition, I still have zilch. Admittedly, it is a happy problem since girlfriends buy my stuff and I have not even prepared an entire collection!

Thank you, thank you – for supporting my passion and creative outlet. Please continue to support me once my consignments are out there already, because by that time, I need a steady base of clients!

I have gazillion of things on my to-do list that I wish I have time to do:

1. Read all the books that I got from Powerbooks. Happy that I finally got Rachel Zoe’s book. Anyone who has Nina Garcia’s?

2. Redesign my office cubicle so I can integrate my atalyer stationeries and wallpaper.

3. Open my new iTouch, jailbreak it and re-configure. Thank you, R., for being thoughtful and giving me a new mp3 player when you found out that my old one is going bonkers already. You didn’t have to.


4. Set my new pink alarm clock with time projector on the ceiling. This is another toy given by R. It’s really the epitome of geekness. I like!

5. Create more costume jewelry design studies and complete a collection. This one, I really gotta do. And I gotta do fast!

6. Spend more time with my girlfriends and my besties. Coffee sessions squeezed in between a heavy workload ain’t enough.

7. Spend more playtime with my Kyle. I need to schedule him for neutering very soon, but before that, I really want to play with him and sleep beside him more often.

8. Spend more quiet moments with R. We have a lot of catching up to do, a lot of things to talk about. Actually, there’s no need for a reason. I just really need to spend more time with him.

That is not even 1/8 of the list!

See… I need time. More time.

And it’s not helping that I’m still blogging now!

Off to hopefully tick off some boxes in my to-do list… or not.

Hope for the flowers

I still believe there is.

This is for me and Arlene.

Hang in there.

We may not know the reasons now - but have faith.

Hang in there.

Sometimes, good intentions are not enough

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

No matter how many good things you promise, if you fall short of fulfilling, words uttered are simply that - empty promises.

Wanting to be good is never enough if it's just in your head.

I don't know why there is a predisposition for mankind to need and want a rude awakening first before doing the right thing.

Do we all need to be shaken to our core first before doing what's right and give people what they truly deserve?

That's probably why they call it a wake-up call - because we need to be woken up first before we get to our feet.

I hope we wake up one day - very soon - to realize that we don't need a rude awakening to celebrate life, to love, to commit, to fulfill our promises.

I will celebrate the day when good intentions are fulfilled into real life commitments.

The quest for authentic Indian cuisine

The thing about gastronomic satisfaction - is that it is extremely preferential. As for preferences, everything of course, can be very subjective.

This is what R. and I had just proven, as we went on a quest over the weekend to find THE authentic Indian cuisine in the metro.

Ariel and John C. both raved about Queens at Jupiter for having the most authentic Indian cuisine. According to Ariel, I have got to taste Queens' biryani to gauge what real Indian rice is.

Other friends also gave their testimonials and vouched that Queens really tops the list.

R. and I, though, beg to differ.

Although Queens' offerings are quite tasty, we find New Bombay's dishes tastier, more flavorful, albeit more authentic.

All in all, we enjoyed this gustatory expedition. Both restaurants offered good food - we just had to take sides. =)

Here's a comparison of some of the food in the menu:

From New Bombay:

Almond Lassi - unique taste, with real almonds on top.
We uber loved this!

Seafood curry - the shrimp is not overcooked, with the cheese on top
of the dish delicately fusing with the curry of in the dish.

Chicken biryani rice - very tasty, with the rice grains not sticking to
each other. This is how we like our rice!

The naan bread can be eaten by itself.
Without the curry sauce, it tastes a little bit sweet.

The bufra enjoying the sumptuous feast

The aftermath of famine

New Bombay's chandelier. It has an old, classic feeling that I like.

From Queens:

Queens Menu - which is pretty exhaustive.
More than Indian cuisine, it's actually Asian fusion.

Us while waiting for our order

With me Mom. She stayed with us over the weekend.

Lassi - Mom liked their fruit-flavored lassi. But I do have to say
R. and I prefer New Bombay's almond-flavored.

Udang mayonnaise - basically fried and breaded prawn with mayonnaise.
R. liked it.

Chicken tikka makhanwala - now this one, I like!
I like the spice and the curry.

Their version of Chicken Biryani - the rice was a bit soft
and sticking with each other. R. said it tasted like paella.
This one fell short - we prefer New Bombay's.

Rotti channai and curry - both Mom and R. liked it.
I think Penang's rotti channai is better.

Queens' modern take on the chandelier. Nice!