A perfect dinner

I have my old friends coming over at home for dinner this weekend. They are my high school classmates and it will be the first time we will see each other again after 17years. I am so excited and nervous at the same time for I want this get together to be perfect. I already asked my mom in law to come over to help baby sit our kids. I went to do my grocery and this is the menu I imagine to serve:

Grilled shrimps
Binagoongan with green mangoes
Pork barbeque with home-made atsara
Fried Rice
Almondigas
Buko Pie
Mangoes and bananas

yummy :-)

Magnanakaw, magnanakaw....

Would you dare shout; burglar, burglar when you have the occasion?

Yesterday, I saw my cousin. She told me not to call her anymore from her celfone nor his husband. At the beginning I thought she was angry at me but when I heard the entire story I felt scared. Apparently, the day before when she was sleeping together with her seven kids, like any other night she leaves the main gate unlock so that his husband who works late at night can enter freely without disturbing anybody. Since she was so tired she taught it was his husband who went inside their house. She said she even saw the guy from the back wearing a jacket. As she was so sleepy, she just told his husband that the dinner is on the fridge without even standing up she continued sleeping. When his real husband entered the house, an hour later she was still under shock. Because anything could have had happened if she discovered that it wasn't really his husband. Everything portable was taken from their house: their 4 celfones at home, wallets and their CD player. She was pissed for losing such stuff but was happy that the burglary didn't end up catastrophic. She promised never will she leave her house open again.

Little frog prince...

While we were sleeping last night. Our house transformed into a horror ride with the howling of my sister-in-law's voice in the living room. We don't actually have an extra room to accommodate guests passing by so everytime the occassion knocks we make them sleep in our living room. We thought everything went well. We prepared our portable and foldable bed to accommodate her for a night or two in our place. She was a bit apprehensive to sleep in the living room as it is the one closest to our garden.

At around 3 in the morning our baby like sleep was literally torn by the horrified howl of my SIL. Guess what happened. She woke up there was a big toad sleeping on her belly. It made us all laugh. :-) She was too scared going back to sleep fearing that this amphibian will climb back to her. We were wondring where it came from, definitely from the garden.

Run baby run....

I had a wonderful dream. I was the saviour of the world. Everybody depended on me. I woke up and noticed that the sun was already up for our room was already well lighted. I literally jumped from our bed when I realised that I didn't hear the alarm clock. I was already late by an hour. I woke up my husband and did my morning ritual at a speed of fifteen minutes. Which means taking my breakfast, washing my face and brushing my teeth (impossible to take my shower at this occassion). Half heartedly I endorsed my husband taking care of our kids hoping everything will be alright during my absence.

I knew I only had five minutes left to reach the finish line, I mean the fx line. For the last rip going directly to the place I work will leaves at 9:00 I still took my chance. I ran. I felt like my heart will explose. I suddenly felt that I was like Elma Muros or Lydia de Vega defending my title. I ran with all my strength and all my spirit could. When I reach the fx station, there was only one fx left and one seat left. Oh my God, thank you for being there. I arrived late but I arrived at work. And that is what really matters.

I'm a millionaire

Dreaming of becoming millionaire......

If there's one dream I believe common to us all is becoming a millionaire. As I was surfing on the net last night, I never realised the amount of articles on the net written on this topic. It could be successful stories of people who become milllionaire with their inspiring stories from rags to riches.Or a sort of a manual teaching people on how they can earn money faster and easy way. It is normal to dream of becoming a millionaire specially considering how harder it is to survive day to day's life. But unfortunately, most of us hopes to become one the easy way. I dont know how many times we heard stories of big time swindling stories (the most recent one ) is the online thing hoping to double and triple your money investments. I remember my dad who often tell me as a kid to better admire chinese as they are the best businessmen in the world of all times. They have the capacity to think in the future and knows well how to calculate risks. When I think about it, my dad could be right considering how many rich chineses live on this earth. I personally I think its nice to have a dream but knowing how to perceive then and knowing our own boundaries is the most important things to remember in this quest for being millionaire. Other than that, we could all probably join television quiz game with one million worth of prizes. :-)

Are marital disputes healthy?

Two weeks ago I came across a blog discussing how healthy it is for couples' to have arguments from to time to time. Never imagined that what I read will be put to much good use eventually that fast.

It was late at night yesterday when my husband and I had our big fight. Its quite rare that our small misunderstandings end up into something serious because automatically there is somebody that will give way and let the other express him or herself. But last night it was different, we were both tired and irritated considering all the bills and money problems that we had that even a small issue of discontentment could definitely result into something big. The culprit: the television remote control. He wanted to change the channel but she doesn't want to give him. This simple scenario aggravated and for the first time they had their exchange of nasty words. She decided to sleep instead of fighting. But how the hell can she sleep when she knows there is something bothering her. At around 1pm there he came, he didn't apologized but just hugged her. She eventually fell asleep and the next day everything is forgotten.

Breast enlargement, anyone?

What cup size do you have?

Everytime such question pop, women like me who are not bestowed by nature's richness prefer to avoid replying as the answer is quite obvious. Although I am personally confident of myself and happy despite I don't belong to the league of the likes of Pamela Anderson I assume there are plenty of women out there wishing and dreaming to be blessed with such. Peer pressure, society's judgement or much even worse their husband's or boyfriend's look pushed women of all kinds to cross this barriere and opt to undergo such chirurgical procedure. Do not think that this is a paid advertisement but I just thought of writing about this when I heard that one of my closest friend has been preparing since last month to undergo such operation much even to my surprise with the blessings of his husband.

She organised last night a small gathering among us her girlfriends so as not to shock as of the eventual augmentation of her breast. Well, when she announced the news we were all quite shocked. The truth, I don't think she ever needs it. She is already beautiful and has a well proportioned body. She doesn't need it to attract guys' attention, she will definitely succeed without going through this scalpel. But she said she really wanted it eversince. She is grabbing the opportunity now that his husband agreed to finance it. I don't want to judge her. We are all free to do what we want to our own body. Had it been his husband's idea, I will definitely give my piece. But that wasn't the case. I am just sad to realise how people can be unsatisfied and unhappy despite all the blessings that they already have. It's human nature to want what we don't have. As I look at myself this morning in the mirror, I realised how I even appreciate myself for who I am and for what I have. :-)

Sautéed bagoong a real comfort food

As I was chatting with my pregnant neighbor this morning our conversation ended up on how savory bagoong (fermented shrimps) could be matched with almost anything. It is funny that no matter how stinky the scent or how salty its taste, for filipinos bagoong is really a delectable comfort food. I personally enjoy eating it with unripe mangoes and fried eggplant. Interesting how its saltiness perfectly harmonizes with the acidity of mangoes and the blandness of egg-plants. I remember when we were kids my parents meager resources resulted into making us eat bagoong and grilled egg-plant everyday. At the beginning we find it difficult but we eventually loved its taste. I would blame that as the reason why I was ridiculously fat when I was teenager. :-)

As I was imagining the goodness of bagoong matched up green mangoes and egg-plant the barker of the fx angrily shouted at me, "stop day dreaming Ma'am". Whew, I just replied with a smile on my face and thought that I will definitely cook bagoong tonight for dinner.

First love never dies..?

I'm pretty sure, we all had our puppy love. I remember in high school how many times I blush everytime I see my crush passing by. I had this classmate of mine, who happens to be the cutest, the most intelligent and the most gentleman of all my classmates. My infantuation for him keeps growing everyday because he used to seat close to me. We grew to become best of friends but he never knew nor discovered that I was indeed in love with him for years. Until of course we parted ways when we bought pursued our different courses in university. How time flew so fast. Sometimes I imagined what could have happened had I had the courage to tell him that I liked him all those years.

As I was lining up in a pharmacy to buy my son's vitamins, when all of a sudded I noticed this guy staring at me for quite a while now. He approached me and told me, that he was indeed my classmate and he used to seat beside me. I was so shocked. For all those years never imagined we will cross path again. I was so shock too to see that he has changed so much. The guy next door image he used to have metamorphosized into a grown up fat man. Ha hahaha, my husband is still better looking than him. We exchanged numbers and promised each others to keep contact.

Movies and pop-corn

Yesterday night my hubby was really sweet. He cleaned the house and cook our dinner. I was wondrin if he was doing this as his late valentine's gift for me. Probably I guess, coz we didn't do anything yet. He cooked all my favorite dishes and the best part of it he even baked some brownies for me. He was really sweet, I hope everyday is like this. And the best part of it, he rented some horror movies and we ate some pop-corn.

The only bad thing, with all the horror movies we saw I had the hard time sleeping after :-)

I won I won

As I was lazily watching the television late afternoon, I received a text message from an unknown person. When I checked the message it was telling me that I won a rice cooker in "draw lot" contest of their shop. I thought at the beginning that it was a joke because I don't know how many times I already received unbelievable messages like that claiming that I wont thousand pesos but I need to contact certain lawyer. I normally ignore the message but since the prize was just a small stuff it couldn't be fake. I tried to call the number they gave me and was quite surprise it was really true.

Upon pondering I just realised that it was like few months back that I furnished an entry form for this shop and little did I know I will win one of the major prizes. Of course what is a rice cooker when I already have one but the idea of winning something is still great!

How do you pick up a fight.....

It was already past ten in the morning. I told my superior I just needed to rush to the nearest post station to send a very important parcel for my grandmom. I told her it won't take time. I was a bit surprised she allowed me. I thought that she probably had a good valentine evening with his husband contrary to mine (i'll probably blog about this one of these days). When I arrived in the post office, unfortunately there was a long line up of people.

So imagine myself carrying my big parcel where there are about thirty people squeezing in with their parcels too at a small office of 30° celsius, you will naturally be in the mood for fighting. As my stress start to climb for it's been 10 minutes I'm stock in this place, the woman lining in front of me saw a friend of hers. Guess what she did. You guess it right, she invited her friends to cut the line and to be with her. I would normally pass a moment like this unconcerned afterall I'm not the last person on the line. But with the heat and stress of breaking my promise to my boss to be back on time, I shouted at this girl and scolded her. Well this ended up a really bloody bickering between two desperate woman at their fighting age. I'm sure no need for details :-)

On eating adobo...

Murphy's Law, "Whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time, in the worst possible way".

We were all in the kitchen, hubby is helping me out in preparing our dinner. I have been craving for adobo since the other day so I opted to prepare it that night. As I was cutting the chicken and pork I realised that we don't have any soy sauce anymore. Hubby decided to rush to the nearest sari-sari store to help me out. I was a bit worried for its been like ten minutes already that his been gone knowing that the store was just two blocks away from home. I thought I could probably starting boiling the pork and chicken with the rest of the ingredients thinking I could add up the soy sauce when he returns. As I turn on the stove and put my casserole, I heard the neighbor calling my name. I rushed immediately outside to check who he was. It was Jake our neighbor telling me that I needed to rush to the nearest police precint for my husband is there. What? He was apparently been on a wrong place at a wrong time. Police were apparently chasing a burglar wearing denim jeans and a white shirt. They thought it was him. I went immediately in the police station with the kids. Hubby was there being questioned. It took one good hour before we suceeded in convincing him that it couldn't be him. As we went back home this police interrogation incident totally shocked my hubby. I consoled him that what matter now is that we are going back home and we will have a good dinner. As we enter our house, there were smoke everywhere, that's the only time I realised that I have forgotten to turn off the stove. As we enter the kitchen the place is invaded with a disgusting smell of a burnt casserole. That night despite our hungry stomach, we only ate bananas and bread.

Neighbor's saga part 2

The next day, as expected the entire family of our neighbor's wife were there. As I often say "never never wash dirty linens in the public", well this one has really way out my league. The drama scenariao attracted almost all the gossipers in our street. The father despite his age who was a retired soldier, literally wrenched the husband from their "lovey dovey nest". The mother was there calm as she console her disheartened daughter. I almost feel like crying but seeing all our neighbors enthusiasm as if they are watching a basketball match where the other team is leading with ten points lead, I couldn't helped but smile.

I feel so sad for my neighbor. She is a nice, timid girl that I often exchange small smile and look. Sometimes, why bad things happen to nice people. Finally our barangay captain arrived with a handful of policemen. The husband was on the ground crying for pardon. If you were on my neighbors shoes would you?

On spying the neighbor....

Truth hurts.

I don't know how many times I've heard about this line. I don't know how many hearts have been broken all in the quest for truth.

Yesterday my sleepless night become even more intense with the usual fightings of our friendly neighbor. I am normally used to hearing their "nasty and soury" words thrown against each other but last night it was really different. I normally don't have the habit of eavesdropping but it has been already a long tele-novela series to me. I do not want to miss the climax as I put it. I stood up and really put my ears close to the wall to hear clearly what they were saying.

I still couldn't believe what I've heard. I always say that sometimes the reality are so much surrealist it is always hard to believe. Spying on the neighbor made me discover that wife was not really the wife #1 but the wife#3. Do not judge immediately for it wasn't her fault at all. The husband apparently has three identity and used three names to succeed in marrying different woman in different places. Ouch! I wonder what's gonna happen tomorrow.

What if the next Pinoy Idol is your best-friend....

Singing is my passion. I would rather say I sing more than I talk. If my life is a theatre it could be a musical one. When I heard about the success of British Idol which was eventually imported in the US, American Idol I was waiting impatiently for its turn in the Philippines.

Although the Pinoy version is less extravagant and spectacular our local candidates' singing prowess are not left behind by their international counterpart. I have plenty of foreign friends who often told me that filipinos indeed are good singer. I would say this is true for we love to sing. Nobody parties will ever be complete without the karaoke or singing festivities involved with it. Ever since Pinoy Idol was launched, I have always dreamt of participating. But I am too shy to be seen in the boob tube. I guess I'm never really made for that. I sometimes imagine myself passing for an audition, being insulted and rejected. That would be fun. I remember when hubby pulled a joke on me registering me in a singing competition. It was really a stupid joke on his part. But it made us all laugh.

Just a moment ago, I received an email from my best-friend, claiming his in the finals of the Pinoy Idols Singapore. I wish he will make it!

Good news, bad news

I don't know how many times we've heard of this: good news, bad news. When you are to announce news like that will you start with the good one and finish off with the bad one? Or vice versa? Anyways, It's always hard to make the decision for the end result is always the same. This was my feeling when my best-friend phoned me yesterday.

It has been seventeen years that she was searching for her long lost eldest sister. It's never been easy to be far away from our loved one specially when it was a deliberate decision to flee from home. She left home when she was 19 years old when their mom decided to re-marry. Everybody was against their mom's decision but it was her the only one who really had the guts and the eldest at that to really stand firm on their decision. The day of their mom's wedding was the last day they saw their eldest sister. Their mom didn't do anything to search for her hoping that one day she will decide to go back home and forget this "stupidity"(as her mom's calls it). The only thing it seventeen years before this thing really happened.

I remember she often tells me how she misses her sister and how she hated her mom for doing that to them. So when she called me and announced me the good news that her eldest sister is finally back home I was quite surprise to hear her voice sounded the contrary. I thought, that probably it was due to the fact that the seventeen years of absence made her feel indifferent with her or probably it created tension at their house. Imagine her mom and his new husband. Anyways she told me that they already kissed and made up. Her sister is much grown up and a mature person now. I told her that it was a great news. And she even told me her sister showed up because she was planning to get married and she wants the blessing of her mom. I told her that these are all good news that I'm hearing how come she wasn't happy.

Then she told me the bad news. During that long seventeen years, her sister has been molested by lesbian that eventually caused her to become one. She's been living in Japan and since then she had undergone operation to become a man. She or he just decided to be back in Philippines to process her documents on changing her identity. I would admit that until now I'm still shock about this news. :-)

A wedding and a funeral

I'm pretty sure you have already seen the movie that launched the career of Hugh Grant in Hollywood, 4 weddings and a funeral. This week I felt like I'm living this film in reality. Do not think I'm playing the lead role cause I am already married. Let me say I'm playing the role of one the friends. All these started, 2 months ago when my friend announced to us the good news that she was finally engaged to marry his long-time boyfriend. Naturally we were all excited because among our circle of friends she is the only one remaining to be single. And you know the pressure for a single girl at her age, is really quite tough. We don't know how she succeeded in convincing his boyfriend to engage in this serious thing but we were really happy.

Last week I finally received the invitation card for the wedding. Since she is from a well off family I knew that her parents are willing to spend a lot of money for their one and only daughter. And I was right, the venue for the wedding is in one of those five star hotels I knew I will never imagined I could set my foot. I was really excited but I knew I needed to prepare well for this event. I don't want my husband and I to look miserable among the other invitees. Unfortunately my husband doesn't want to come. Not even the lap-dancing I did for him convinced him to come with me. Nonetheless it was fine for some of my friends decided to show up too without their husband and kids.

When we arrived in the church it was really touching. I was so moved to see so much flowers and candles decorated only for this one hour ceremony. We sat close to the exit door to have more fresh air as there were really too many people in this small church. The one hour ceremony seemed to last too long, since it wasn't my wedding or let me put it this way. I couldn't even see their facial reactions. Anyways, we couldn't stop from laughing when we heard the voice of the priest. I don't know why our friend chose a priest that has speech disability. He cannot pronounce very well certain syllables. The solemn mass from time to time echoed small laughter on the background. Apparently, the head priest was sick and he was the priest from the other parish that pitched in. Anyways, we were all excited to finish this mess when all of a sudden we heard a screaming voice from the background. Apparently there was one of the guest that loss consciousness and collapsed. The mass was halted and everybody when to the rescue of the old woman.

Good thing there was a good samaritan doctor in the crowd who didn't hesitated to re-animate the old woman. But all the efforts were futile, because the woman died at that instant. Everybody were so shocked a wedding that suppose to be a moment of rejoice turned into a nightmare.

Year of the rat and corruption controversies....

I am not a chinese neither my husband, but chinese influence is really strong in our country. Yesterday, I bought home some tikoy, as always it is such a head-ache to cook them if you dont use eggs. Anyways the taste is always worth the chewing:-) Well for those who are already familiar with Chinese Astrological signs, this year 2008 is actually the year of the Rat. so what is in store for us this year, (according to my researches on the net) this will be a year of hardwork, activity and renewal. so for those wishing to change job, get married or planning to launch a new project this is the best time to do it! But of course to guarantee one's success it is important to have patience :-) Happy chinese new year to all!! And probably you must have heard about this latest controversy on Malacanang First Gentleman, if not yet I'm sharing you this. Let the video speak for itself.


On losing one's ...................... wallet:!

Have you lost something really important to you..like your wallet? I know It sounded so materialistic, but it wasn't definitely my day yesterday.

I had an important appointment with doctor for my son's vaccination. We woke really early because I know that commuting is never easy specially when you are travelling with a baby. I prepared all my stuffs and my baby's stuffs. I was so much in hurry, that I didn't notice that my wallet fell from my pocket. I only realised I lost when I arrived in my doctor's clinic. I called my husband to verify if I really took my wallet with me. When he announced me the bad news, I knew I was up for a bad day that day. He needed to fetch me and our son to the clinic, because I don't have any means to pay the doctor neither to go back home.

As you expected, during the entire trip going back home my husband scolded me like a little girl that lost her doll. Maybe not just doll but a very expensive doll, I should say. I was so pissed imagining I have to call my bank to cancell my card. I was so disgusted to imagine I needed to go through those tedious processes to re-apply for all my important ID's and documents. These were all the thoughts running in my head, when my phone rang. It was a girl claiming she found my wallet.

Whew, thank God there are still honest people on earth!

Sigmund Freud SOS!!!

Have you ever wonder what does our dream means? What do they represent in our real life?

Last night, I woke up in the middle of my dream. I was terribly scared. I remember very little of what I lived through while I was sleeping but I knew it was terrifying. My husband tried to calm me down. He gave me a glass of water and told me that everything is gonna be fine. I tried sleeping, but I couldn't. And then all of a sudden I realised that my eyes are getting heavier and heavier. And I don't remember anything.

"I was garbed with a beautiful long dress. I stared in the mirror and it was not my face. I had a very long black hair and I look tall. Somebody arrived, and it was my dad. He doesn't have the face of my dad at all. But in my dream, he was my dad. He is very stout and small. I would say he looks like about 65 years old. Everybody is calling him mayor. When we went down in the beautiful, winding staircase. We were welcomed by a handful of guests in the big living room. There was a music playing in the air. And everybody were so happy. The chandelier hanging on the ceiling shows the elegance and the affluence of this house. There were waiters serving canapés and apperitif to all guests. It was at this ambiance, that I tried to sneak out of the gathering. I tried to went down in the basement. The hallway looks really dark and the stairs keep on descending. When I finally arrived, I saw plenty of naked people chained from one another. Everything looks really dark and they all look very sad and helpless. ......"

I opened my eyes and I saw my husband smiling at me. "Sweetheart its already 6 am you need to wake-up if you don't want to be late. Now I know why I was so terrified. Because for the second time I saw the continuation of my dream. I don't know what it means but it could easily pass for a horror movie.

A long lost friend

I wasn't too akin in using those social networking sites such as Friendster and Facebook. But this weekend, I finally had a time for myself to enjoy the net because my in-laws dropped by at the house and they helped out in taking care of my kids. Let say I finally had a weekend and I was free to do things for myself. My mom-in law volunteered to cook our lunch and dinner. I was so glad they came for I really felt pampered for the first time. I didn't hesitated to tell them I have been longing to go to a beauty parlor for a haircut. I spend my Saturday morning having hair cut and buying clothes and books for myself. As I was lining up to pay for my books. I was so shocked to have seen my long lost friend lining up too. We ended up chatting for hours and hours over a cup of coffee. She told me I could check out her family photo album thru her Friendster account. Although it wasn't the first time I heard about this. I have an account but I haven't really explored it yet.

When I went back home, a delicious lunch was waiting for me at home. Sound's like a fairy tale story to me. A delicious chicken soup, fried fish and she even baked some brownies...oh i hope my mom-in law would stay longer. She is always welcome. After lunch, the entire afternoon I searched for all my long lost friends in Friendster.

These cynical eyes

People are probably wondering that I love less my husband. For since I started blogging, I have only shown him as a portrait of a lazy and unemployed husband. I must admit that the only thing hundred percent true in this sentence is the fact that he is jobless. But on being lazy and unemotionnal I must probably exaggerating a bit. You could probably picture our couple's relation on the famous all time favorite now defunct comedy series of John & Marsha where Dely Atayatayan would attack incessantly Dolphy for being a poor husband of her daughter. How I miss this series!

Well, In reality it is my husband who haild from well-off family. Part and parcel to be blame of this callowness he has over the hard and difficult realities of life is the way his family brought him up. But nonetheless, he is a loving husband and father to our children. Let say it these eyes of mine that sees this glass half-empty.