If you’ve been following my Tweets, or my Plurks (see the widget on my sidebar), you know that I’ve been pretty much under the weather. Okay – a lot under the weather. And today, well, the visit I’d been anticipating (read my second and third posts down) has already arrived. So there are two things causing my body aches and pains – acute upper respiratory tract infection (it’s not the flu, doc says) and menstruation. Ugh.
So after the doctor’s visit yesterday morning, I walked home. Good thing there was only a drizzle, so my teensy little umbrella gave me enough coverage. I arrived home and found my brother cooking lunch. I had thought he’d have gone by then, but his plans changed apparently. He was cooking an all-time favorite – Chicken Cola. The weather was perfect for having tinola but we didn’t have ingredients for it so kuya opted to make this other comfort food.
Yes, I consider Chicken Cola as one of my comfort foods. We all love it here. Perhaps not because of its sweetness, but because of it brings us back to our childhood. At least it does that to me. No, I don’t have images from the past going through my mind when I eat it, but the feeling is there. The simplicity of life, and the love of family. So when I don’t feel well, chicken cola can help pick me up.
This photo does not do chicken cola any justice. I’m guessing my brother didn’t add enough ketchup to make it redder. It looks quite pale doesn’t it?
Anyway, another comfort food I had yesterday was banana with cheese spread. Ahh. Simple pleasures. Who does not love cheese or cheese spreads? I mean even dogs love them right? And we’ve had Cheese Whiz on bananas since we were kids. I never get tired of it.
I realize now that the photo has some R-18 likeness to it, sorry that was never intended. Haha.
Eating gave me a temporary comfort, but the headache still came in the evening, causing me to miss out on AJ boy’s birthday dinner. I had all intentions to take photos of his well-wishers, his cake, and all his cuteness. But I slept through it.
I do have a photo of this sweet little boy from earlier that afternoon:
Mom decided to brave EDSA and drive herself to pick up Dad from the airport this morning. I decided to go with her, I knew it wasn’t going to be an easy drive. She only drives from home to work (and back), and that’s not even daily – only when Dad’s away and the car’s free.
From the passenger seat and with the belt safely on, I could sense that Ma was somehow nervous and of course we were going at a very safe speed 🙂
So with Dad back from his business trip from The Netherlands, there’s something for everyone in his bags. He got me a violet Ruth-Robin bag with Amsterdam written all over it, and I picked out this cellphone charm from the handful that he brought back:
Of course I’d take a photo of it and display it on my blog – this is my blog after all and I can talk about the mundane if I want to 🙂 But as soon as I looked at the photo I took, I wasn’t happy. And just as I’ve done so many times since January, I took shot after shot until I captured it the way I really liked to show it off.
I tried it this way:
But that didn’t make me happy so I tried another angle:
I didn’t like the edge of the table there though. I did like how the charm itself looks so defined. Still, I wasn’t satisfied so I tried another way:
Now that, in my eyes, was promising. It was clear. But the mini havs totally upstaged the Amsterdam building. That cannot be.
So try again I did:
That one’s close enough, me likey. 🙂 I am almost done then?
Even with the floor showing through, this is my favorite from the bunch. I love h0w the colors came out. I used a trick that Walter (an OM from work) showed me last week, it was using the internal flash (is it called internal?). The colors turned out softer and more natural than when you just use the flash like normal diba?
This past weekend was the longest I’ve had off work since our Bohol vacation last year. But this wasn’t a vacation; yes I was away from my regular job, but I was working too where I went. I need time to process my thoughts of the weekend. I just hope I don’t completely forget to blog about it like so many other things I’ve left for later then never got around to.
I had a long Thursday night at work – 14 hours straight! The closer shift had logged out at 2PM and I was just wrapping up at that time. I had intended to go to the hospital for the Spirometry results and then head on over to help out with the camp preparations at Asia ACTs. But I ended up with time for only one task – I had to choose the follow up check up.
At the Medicard clinic in St. Luke’s, I didn’t have to wait long to get the results or to be seen by a physician. The test results didn’t show any blockage, and my lungs were normal. So what the heck is wrong? The residen ENT was on duty and was just next door so my case was referred to her. I wonder why that wasn’t done earlier?
Anyway, Dr. Que was the ENT and she’s nice. She went through my records and asked me a couple of questions. Then she told me that she wanted to look inside my nose, using a nasal endoscopy. Man, it was long! I asked if it was going to be painful and she said it usually isn’t. I was relieved that she didn’t really probe too far in. Phew. It took just probably 10 seconds to look into both nostrils. She said that it was narrow up there, which is probably why I also have shortness of breath sometimes. Then she said that she wanted to see if it’s the anatomy that’s causing the non-stop colds, instead of an infection. If it was an infection, the antibiotics should have killed it, but it’s still around. So she ordered a nasal xray to be done on me. She further showed me illustrations of the nasal cavity, and what mine seems to look like at the moment. She also advised me to stay away from coffee and chocolates as it encourages build up of phleghm. Ugh. That is so hard to do.
From the doc, I decided to go ahead and have my xray taken, rather than go back on another day. If the three test I had were billed to me, I’d have spent over 5,000 Pesos already (more than a hundred US dollars), not including the medicine. Good thing that I have coverage. Anyway, the xray results were due for release the next day, but I’ll claim it next week when the doctor resumes work. It’s Holy Week and most people are on holidays (except us).
From the X-ray room, I paid my aunt a vist. She was rushed to the hospital the night before for extreme pain in her tummy. As it turns out, she has pancreatitis. She was discharged on Monday, but is continuing her medication so she can get even better. I hope it doesn’t progress to anything more serious.
I stayed there for about two hours, with two of my cousins. Ma called to say that she and Dad decided to eat out, so they picked me up from the hospital and we headed to Shakey’s. The mojos looked smaller than usual! I snapped a few photos, but I’m growing sleepy again. I’d leave the photos for another day.
On tonight’s (Monday night, I mean) episode of ABS-CBN’s Kalye, Atom Araullo featured Bingo and it’s seeming role in society.
It reminded me of Bingo nights here at home. I know, gambling isn’t supposed to be good, but… Haha 🙂
At first I didn’t want to join in and spend my money but it looked so much fun so I eventually got hooked too. Besides, how much do we bet? Probably nothing more than five pesos per game. More than the Bingo itself, and how you’d never know when you’d win, it was the chatter that I liked most about those nights. Sometimes my grandma would sit with us and join in, most nights Auntie Leesah would be there too. We each had our favorite set of cards that we’d use night after night.
Aside from my cousins, there’d be women from across the creek too who come over just to Bingo.
I don’t think any one of us actually play because we believed we’d win big. Mostly, we just looked forward to getting enough to pay for a snack, or everyone’s snack. I had winning streaks, and losing ones. But those are not what I remember most about Bingo nights. It was the stories each one brought to the table, and the laughter everyone shared in. Those were long nights too. Nights when you’d find yourself fast asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow.
These probably happened around the year we played Bingo for Christmas. That was for free of course, but there were real prizes. People donated prizes, including my mom. It was so much fun. I think it was Auntie Leesah who won the grand prize, and Lola too.
We should have regular Bingo nights again, not as often as we used to (which was every night), but a monthly or quarterly thing. I’m not sure if my cousins would be up for it, but if we can organize it maybe they would be interested.
I am cleaning up my Digital Scrapbooking Links and it is taking so long to go through the list. I realize that I have missed out on a lot of news from blogs that I used to visit at least twice a week. It’s nice getting re-acquainted though. It’s also very inspiring to look at all the lovely layouts showcased in many of those blogs. And of course, i’m happy to see all the freebies available 🙂
One particular designer blogger I was glad to have visited again is Vicki. She now sells at a new store with some of her friends, and that is amazing. One ad from her blog caught my attention, it was for Photobook Philippines! I checked out their website and things look promising. Kodak stations and Digiprint offer printing for photobooks and albums but if you choose bound ones, I don’t know if the photos will line up for two-page layouts (not that I have those). Photobook Philippines has a software that will probably help you figure that out. I don’t intend to have a book printed anytime soon, I don’t have enough layouts for that, but it’s nice to know what my options are.
OOohhh and looking at the various digiscrapping blogs have got me to thinking that I probably should be using templates more. Just a thought.
I still have a lot of mail to catch up on, but I’ve decided to stick it out with cleaning one particular mailbox for now. I have two email accounts that receive shares through sharing groups and I don’t get to see to them everyday. There are so many lovely graphics sent through them and it’s such a waste because I don’t get to see them right away. I probably should think about delisting from either one or both of those groups…
I’ve also tried to catch up posting Project 365 photos on DigitalMe. I’m still far from being caught up, but I know I must do this otherwise I will just forget why I took those photos or what they represented to me at the time. I wonder if I’ll ever scrap pages for those? Hah, I don’t want to say I’ll find time, that somehow jinxes things for me. Anyway, here are the photos I’ve added to the gallery:
You’ll see a photo of my big brother (who could be an Ely Buendia or John Lloyd look-alike depending on the angle haha), taken on January 16 at the entrance of San Benissa Garden Villas. We visited the site of our condo units to sign our contracts for the unit improvements. He and his girlfriend were actually back there yesterday to submit the signed contract for the property management office to take care of renting out our units to interested parties. I hope they find renters soon. That would definitely ease a bit of my financial woes.
There’s also the photo of my nephews and niece from my father’s side of the family (the other half of my family that hardly gets mentioned on this blog). The only girl in the photo is the beautiful Samantha or Sam as she is fondly called. She is so sweet, but also a handful! The whole time during the wedding ceremony, she couldn’t keep still. So endearing really. 🙂 Bench is the big boy here and he’s the same age as Sam. He talks a lot too and together, they can be a tough pair to care for. I have not seen these kids in a long time and it was good that they were there on my cousin Bryan’s weddin on the 15th of January. The baby in the stroller is Bryan’s little boy. He was christened right after the wedding ceremony. I don’t think I wrote a post about the wedding did I? Honestly, I think I kept myself from writing about it at the time, because I didn’t want to say anything nasty. But until now I can’t help it. I didn’t like the bridesmaid dresses! Haha. It was in bright green satin, a material that should never be used for such a purpose. I’m sorry, I really just don’t think it flattered anyone. The motif was green and yellow/gold. To be honest, the green and yellow combination in the linens and decor used in the reception turned out better than the bridesmaid gowns did. The bride was lovely though, no contest with that. And the wedding reception was held in a nice cozy place. Food was excellent too. Too bad we didn’t get to chat with my cousin (who is actually US based and only came home for the wedding) and his mom since we had to drive home already. We had to sleep soon since there was work in the evening.
The odd photo in the group is my March desktop. Both photos used here are ones that have me and my brother together. We’re six years apart. If you look at us now, you wouldn’t notice that age gap. Oh and I have to say this, I love that cute dress I had on in the bottom photo. My Lola Maggie (grandma) did that. She made us (me and my cousins) many lovely dresses while we were growing up, and she made some for my eldest nieces too when they were very small. I wonder if we have pictures of those? I hope so. They looked like dolls in vintage dresses. Seriously. Hehe 🙂
The last P365 photo is a very bad photo of my leg, to show off my ballet flats that I always wear to work. To be honest, I forgot to snap a photo for that day, January 17th, so I took a photo of the first thing I could think of. Hehe.
Anyway, I have a magazine to read and a letter to the editor to compose (haha). I really should go to bed instead, but it’s so darn hot!
UPDATE: I just remembered something that I tried catching up on today – Les Miserables, the book. Oh my god, I forgot exactly when I started reading this but I know I’ve finished at least two books since. And I don’t like doing that, picking up other books while I’m in the middle of another, which is why my to-be-read pile is just growing in number. It’s just that Les Miz is quite draining to read, with all the history and study of that time’s Paris society. And all that talk about the gamin of Paris is a reminder of the street children of Metro Manila at present day. And all the injustice in their prisons? Don’t those still exist today in prisons the world over? That’s sad. All I knew about Les Miz was a romanticized version of it I guess, and I wasn’t prepared to read all about the history of France or a study of it’s society. But it is a wonderful piece of literature, and I will finish the rest of the book someday. Haha 🙂
