It’s a busy day today, with expos and press conferences, and a dinner with some execs.

But before that, my bad kitty was being cute yesterday and I couldn’t help but take photos while I was changing sheets.

This is a very nice clip about redemption and forgiveness. Mel Gibson has hugged the cactus long enough, Robert Downey Jr said. I didn’t know that it was Mel Gibson who gave RDJ his second or third chance…

All of us have hugged the cactus long enough and yet we’re still waiting for our redemption. Waiting for someone to give us a break.

This resonated with me in some way and I don’t know why.

I may just be hormonal (perimenopause sucks!) but I really feel the world is conspiring against me. That nobody likes me. I’m just a mediocre pain in the ass.

I need to sleep this off.

Yep, very hormonal. I just discovered I have my period today. 😑

The older I get, the more unstable my emotions become whenever I’m in the PMS period or during the menstrual period. My gynecologist already gave me a chart of what to expect during this horrible stage. The hot flashes are really bad—I wake up in the wee hours drenched in sweat even if my aircon is on. I can’t have deep sleep.

Then there’s the frozen shoulder. My Shanghai-based Chinese colleague told me that frozen shoulder is called 五十肩 (wǔ shí jīan), or “50-year-old shoulder” in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), which is a common ailment of perimenopausal women. She said she had that on one shoulder and it lasted months or years and then all of a sudden it disappeared. Then her other shoulder became frozen right after. Then it disappeared when she hit menopause.

In short, I will be suffering for a while…

My sister pulled a strand of white hair from my head the other day. It’s legit white hair.

Ageing sucks because everything hurts. But it’s a privilege because not everyone grows old…some fade away young.

I chased a (global) CEO of a listed company last Friday and tried to extricate as much info the best I could. But of course, being a listed company, they won’t give you much, just enough to chew on.

Then the editor, who doesn’t know much about the intricacies of covering large Japanese trading houses, killed the story because the details weren’t minute enough for her. She said we must ask the CEO again. 🥹

I said the CEO already flew back to Japan. There’s no way to ask him in person. I want to add, ever. Instead, I just said I’m turning this over to our Japanese colleagues.

My Japanese colleagues told me CEOs of that calibre don’t do interviews like that when they’re back home. That’s why they’re only able to quote spokespersons and not C-level people. The heirarchy in Japan (even in Korea) is so strong that no one could do doorstop interviews with them like we do here or in the west.

I was like a deflated balloon. I worked so hard on that interview. I just didn’t want to fight back. I just want the weekend to start.

@kamonitall

i loved doing research for this! so much history isn’t known…hmm i wonder why… #jewelry #viral #filipino #trending #fypage

♬ original sound – kam 🐸

I thought I was just being a magpie for loving gold jewelry. Well, my ancestors, even the slaves, wore pure gold jewelry daily, together with their tattoos (hence the term pintados). I wear gold and pearls as a way to honor my ancestors… 🤣

Gold was everywhere in this country, that’s why the colonizers renamed several areas here after the Spanish word for gold = oro. Mindoro (mina de oro), Cagayan de Oro, to name a few.

I’ve seen some of the pre-colonial jewelry at the central bank museum and my oh my, the ancients really are mastercraftsmen.

@curiousbartender

🌴🇵🇭→🇲🇽 What do Filipino coconuts have to do with mezcal? Back in the 1600’s, colonial trade routes brought cultures and technology alongside goods and people. From lambanog to vino de coco to mezcal, this is a tale of ingenuity, resilience, and cultural fusion. 🎥 Watch the full episode with Esteban Morales to learn more about the unlikely link between the Philippines and Mexico’s most iconic agave spirit, as well as other theories on the origins of agave spirits. Links in bio – The Curious Bartender Podcast #Mezcal #Lambanog #Tuba #FilipinoHistory #MexicanHistory #Agave #SpiritsHistory #CocktailCulture #MezcalOrigins #CuriousDrinks

♬ original sound – Tristan Stephenson

Yes, I know the Mexicans came to settle in Central Luzon and there were more Mexicans than Peninsular Spaniards who came to live in the Philippines. But I didn’t know that there were thousands of Filipinos uprooted from their native land to plant and tend to coconut farms in Mexico.

And because Filipinos exported labanog-making or tuba-making to Mexico, the Mexicans learned how to make mezcal via the clay pots which we call palayok in Tagalog. It’s basically the Filipino distillation process that enabled Mexicans to produce mezcal, which is different from tequila.

History is fascinating.

I couldn’t sleep. Had too much coffee today… I mean yesterday. I arrived home a few minutes past midnight today from BGC to have dinner with a long-time source to catch up on what’s going on in our lives. I told him I already gave up my managerial duties so I can pursue more stories for myself. This is why I’m reaching out once again to people whom I’ve neglected to communicate with for years that I was so busy chasing after stories for my team members.

I’ll be doing more outreach in the coming days to re-establish my connections.

The price of home ownership.

My entire morning yesterday was occupied by overseeing the declogging of pipes for our gray water leading to the gray water tank. The catchments overflowed during the week-long storm/s. Of course, we couldn’t ignore that so I had to call several declogging and septic tank cleaners in our province yesterday early morning.

I knew it was from my sisters because the pipes came from their bathrooms. My bathroom drains have fine meshes that catch debris and hair so my conscience is clear that these hair didn’t come from us. Plus the pipes came directly from their house. 😏

Not sure how long they last had the pipes declogged because we weren’t still living here. This is one of the many chores that should regularly be done when you own a house, along with clean-up of rain gutters and roof check-ups.

If you’re renting, all of these are your landlord’s duties. If the landlord is such a cheapskate (like my former landlord), then you will have a leaky and flood-prone home.