My cats are fond of laying on things I am working on, like my daily diary because I’m scheduling my life in the next 3 months. Photo by CalleMeCreation.
I sent J yesterday the last batch of his stuff he left behind. I saw on Grab it was delivered but there was no word from him, no thanks, no acknowledgment. Nothing.
I was miffed. Like what did I do wrong to this person to earn this kind of treatment??? I was just being nice!
But then a friend reminded me, this is not about me. “It’s not you. Nothing is wrong with you,” K said.
Then I reminded myself, yeah, he has a problem. He could not be nice to me, until the end. He’s not really a nice person 😔
I just had to vent out to my friend and then move on. I slept on it. I’m ok now. As I told K, I am loved by my family and friends and a lot of people appreciate me. They sent their help and love to me when I was really sick with Covid. Then that means nothing is wrong with me as a person.
My girls kept on making me cards, sending their love. Reminding me of the most important thing in this world: my children.
Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Choose people who choose you.
That’s the lesson I learned from this experience with J. I should love myself as much as I loved him. If I had more self-confidence and self-love, and didn’t think that I had to do more and become a doormat to earn his love, I wouldn’t have gone through the ugly last six months of our relationship that crushed my self-esteem.
I think I have finally let him go, in the truest sense. Like whatever he does that is not connected to me will no longer affect me. He no longer has the power to hurt me. I have taken that power back.
Happiness is a choice. I choose to be happy. I will love myself more and enjoy my life as I ought to.
This is what you call dynasty graft and corruption.
I don’t want to dwell on this today because it’s my day-off and I’m not supposed to stress myself.
Oh Lord, let me have the strength to last the 2022 elections. Or survive the Philippines. 🤦🏻♀️
Last night, it’s my other daughter’s turn to cook. Taught her how to make meatballs
She mixed ground pork, salt, pepper, egg, soy sauce, and bread crumbs. Photo by CallMeCreation.com Formed them into balls and rolled onto a floured board. Photo by CallMeCreation.com And then fried. Photo by CallMeCreation.com Made gravy from an instant mix. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
It’s their dinner. Since I no longer eat heavy dinners, I just had a small sandwich.
Then I continued with sewing masks to give to friends who sent their love when I was sick.
Look at how fine my hand stitches had become. A lot of practice, I can soon emulate the Victorian seamstresses who are rather particular about their hand stitches.
I feel stronger today, like my old energy is back so I tackled home cooking today. Or rather I taught my daughter, Twin I, how to make omurice and miso soup.
First she cooked leftover rice that was in the fridge overnight with some leftover tocino and leeks. Normally you put dollops of ketchup in the rice but my kids don’t like ketchup. Photo by CallMeCreation.com.Then I taught her how to make a plain and thin omelette. Photo by CallMeCreation.comWe assembled the rice first then covered it with the omelette and shaped it like this. Topped with slivers of leeks. Photo by CallMeCreation.com.
I also taught her how to make miso soup using soybean paste and kombu or dried kelp. Omurice and and miso soup for brunch today.
Then I felt more energetic than I expected so I tackled my container garden that was already so neglected that it looked like a forest full of detritus and detritus feeders.
First, I tried to save my birds of paradise plant from falling over because it was being pushed down by the neighbor’s trash. Then I’m teaching it to lean the other way. This is already the daughter plant (that grew from a sucker). The mother plant that I bought from my hometown in December died as it was not able to acclimatize in the city. Good thing the daughter survived and is growing another leaf. Tonight I transferred it to a more shady part of the courtyard so the leaves won’t be burned by the noon sun. Photo by CallMeCreation.com Then I tackled the dried leaves that kept falling from the old mango tree and the soil that was dug up by neighborhood stray cats. I took out the neighbor’s trash that they stuffed between their motorbike and my pots. Annoying really, because there was a lot. I pulled out the dead plants that I neglected and some weeds. The big one at the back is a taro plant. I tried pulling it out to check if there’s already taro but that damned thing was stubborn. The bigger plants at the back are fruit trees that I learned to be lanzones, kaimito and rambutan. And they will all go to my cousin who has a garden. I don’t have a place to transfer my fruit trees from my pot. The wire shelving was pulled out from my laundry area and it was just languishing there. It used to hold my pots and pans in the cooking area. Some survivors are my birdseye chilis. I will be sowing some vegetable seeds in the empty pots tomorrow. Photo by CallMeCreation.comHere are some of the surviving birdseye chilis that I quarantined as some of the other surviving siblings are being attacked by some kind of pest, maybe aphids. At the back planted in some old upside down plastic Coke bottles are some Sansivieria bacularis that I started to propagate. The ones in the water are the other bacularis that I separated from the mother plant that will be transferred to other pots when I have the chance to buy potting soil.These are the mother Sansivieria bacularis. They started as small plants in small Japanese cups that we bought from Quezon City Circle gardens for PHP 35 each in 2018. They were dying indoors probably because of lack of light so I took them out and transferred them to bigger pots. Look at how they have thrived outdoors. I think this unruly mother plant would have to be thinned out and I propagate the daughters. I planted seeds of ornamental flowers in these recycled mineral water bottles. These are next to my front windows so when they start to flower, I will be looking at my flowers through my window every morning when I have my breakfast.Since everyone is stuck at home, my neighbors in the apartment compound also started growing plants in pots and plant boxes. Yup, that’s my bike that I haven’t folded yet. I’ll probably clean and oil that tomorrow. My neighbors also are growing papaya trees, some Malabar spinach (that vine) and moringa tree. They said I can freely gather the leaves if I want to use them for cooking.
Tomorrow I will be composting some rotten guyabano fruits and cantaloupe that I wasn’t able to eat. I will gather the seeds first and let’s see if I can grow them. My squash died during the non-stop monsoon rains in July and August. Also some neighborhood stray cats started digging into my pots. Next time I will make some trellises so my squash would have somewhere to crawl or attach to.
Later tonight I will be ordering 20 meters of solar-powered fairy lights from Lazada that I will twirl around the mango tree then hang across the container garden towards my apartment’s overhang and hang it loosely there. It would be very pretty every night so my girls and I can sit outside while we grill or just hang out since the heavy rains have already stopped. Plus Christmas is coming soon. I will be ordering more curtain fairy lights to hang against my curtains in my living room window.
I now have somewhat sunken cheeks or my cheekbones became more prominent and my face more pointed. I did not weigh myself because it’s too exhausting to excavate my weighing scale under my bed. Not being able to eat well for two weeks will do that to you.
I call it the Covid weight-loss program.
But then–kapoof! I celebrated today with food because I was able to publish again today and edit three stories. It got out of hand though…
No meat. Vegetable salad, pinangat (taro leaves in coconut milk and chilis), noodles and a bit of omurice. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
To celebrate the fact that I can already taste some food, I wanted something spicy and so I had pinangat that some Bicolano friends of mine sent me when I was in the middle of my Covid-induced sleep marathon. I ate a lot tonight so I have to refrain from doing that if I want to keep my current post-Covid weight.
I am now used to not having breakfast and only a shot of Berocca to start my day. I should keep my Covid appetite.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll try some crunches, if I am not going to chase my breath. But fixing my dinner tonight took a lot of effort on my part and it kind of left me breathless so let’s see.
My boss couldn’t help it. She messaged us on MS Teams, flabbergasted, after reading the news that boxer Manny Pacquiao is running for president next year. And other clowns like Panfilo Lacson and Tito Sotto are also vying for the president and vice president seats. Then here comes wishy-washy opportunist Manila Mayor Isko Moreno and this Willy Ong (where did he come from???) announcing their candidacy yesterday.
Isko’s announcement crumbles the idea of a united opposition. I guess he is another weapon by the Marcoses so the opposition under Leni Robredo’s banner–if she decides to run for presidency–would be broken. He is, after all, a politcal butterfly. Isko knows he doesn’t have the machinery to win but if he is under the good graces of the Marcoses, his future by 2028 would be assured if Bongbong–God forbid!–wins next year.
And Duterte is running for VP, without a president yet, so he will be assured that graft cases and ICC human rights cases would not be heaped upon him if an ally wins the presidency.
How do we solve this problem of ever worsening politics in this country? Everyone should probably read the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, so the intelligentsia would understand that we are not the ones who should be teaching the masses but rather we join them in learning how to get out of this oppression through their own experiences and social construct. I first learned about this during my theater + activism years, when we have “teach-ins” and when I attended classes for community theater. It’s not easy; it would take a revolution to change all this. (And I now sound exactly like my father!)
I don’t know how we would end this rotten system.
Meanwhile, I’ve been getting better but I easily get tired. Today is the first time in two weeks I went out of my room to take a shower and do my bathroom business at day time. I had ordered a new car battery to be delivered and installed at home because my old one died and my car wouldn’t start. I edited a story and wrote my own story, albeit a simple one, without my brain bleeding. I still had this headache after lunch and tried to sleep but I couldn’t so I just stared at the ceiling, at my ipad, at my cat.
I had been imbibing Berocca the past two weeks, the supplement that helped me get over the flu-like symptoms of Covid, especially the sniffles.
Berocca, every Philippine business reporter’s friend. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Every reporter I know has this in her/his bag when we still roamed the metro digging for stories. We still worked even if we were sick. Nowadays it sounds so reckless…Oh wait, I’m working even if I am sick. Oh well.
One of my best recent discoveries on Youtube is Rajiv Surendra, a very curious and very creative person who is like a Renaissance man. His enthusiasm for art was like that of mine before I lost myself in ugly relationships. Rajiv, however, is more talented than I am and I just attended classes and apprenticeship because I could, not because I was talented.
I remember attending writing workshops in Philippine High School for the Arts, script writing for play workshops, theater directing workshops, theater workshops, song writing workshops–all classes and workshops I could attend because I was curious and wanted to learn. Because I wanted a creative outlet. Just because.
Watching Rajiv reminded me of those times that I got excited by art, by beautiful craftsmanship, by learning new skills. I want that again–that zest for life. I remember I used to make my own writing pads, my own notebooks (I learned book binding in school), and I used to have sketchpads and watercolor notebooks with me. I lost all that.
I suddenly realized that I’ve been dead for 20 years.
Now that I live solo (I mean without a partner), I can rediscover that part of me again. To be curious again and have that eagerness to learn. To be creative again.
The Marcoses have showered money again on all those social media trolls trying to revise history–Facebook and Twitter are sooo full of them right now. The Marcoses are also hiring actors and “influencers” to propagate their lies, especially that Bong-bong Marcos is running for president next year.
In service of the Filipino people, I am making available this book by Primitivo Mijares, a book which caused him to disappear (and his body was never found) and cost him his son’s life. I bought a hard copy for my mom on Amazon several Christmases ago. This book was not made available locally for a long time.
Today is the 49th year of remembrance when Ferdinand Marcos, one of the world’s greatest crooks, imposed martial law in the Philippines.
September 21, 1972. #MarcosNotAHero #MarcosMagnanakaw #NeverForget
I’m supposed to write something today and/or tweet on Twitter but I got so stressed with all the trolls that I abandoned the idea and focused on taking care of myself instead. Maybe next week. I need to get better because, as one of the people who got imprisoned during martial law told me via private message last week, we need to fight another day.
So today is my last day of confinement in my room. I don’t think I have the strength to go out and withdraw cash so I will have my househelp do that for me. In any case, all my transactions these days are online so cash is not a top priority right now. I finally was able to order meat from Monterey Community Market and have it delivered here. The transaction was seamless as well. I have yet to order vegetables via Facebook Messenger. Some friends have sent me food packs and groceries with fruits. One sent her love all the way from Singapore.
Sushi is as tired as I am. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
My cats never fail to visit me and keep me company everyday. They love scratches behind the ears and underneath their chins.
Kimchi in her odd sleeping position again on their cat bunk bed. Photo taken by the girls’ ate.
I edit two stories a day–the maximum I allow myself to do these days. Doing more would make my brain bleed. I still feel dizzy at times and have some random headaches. I need to sleep by lunch or early afternoon. I don’t know how long I will be like this. It seems like my biking to and from UP to buy vegetables is a lifetime ago.
