So yes, I had a sort of spacation. Nope, I wasn’t able to go to Makati because I woke up at 9:30 am and lingered on my bed for an hour or so.
Then I repotted my plants.
My container garden is bloomin’. Photo by CallMeCreation.com My roses are doing well so it seems like they like the sun. Photo by CallMeCreation.com Most of the mums did well. Photo by CallMeCreation.com Some are not well. I’m trying to nurse them back to health. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Regrowing vegetables from kitchen scraps like this Chinese cabbage on the left and onion leeks on the right. Photo by CallMeCreation.com Bell pepper seedlings that we grew from kitchen scraps. Photo by CallMeCreation.com Rehabilitated chili plant. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
My other chili plants like the birdseye chili is doing very well now that I’ve discovered how to make an effective homemade pesticide from a mixture of water, vinegar and handsoap/dishsoap that I spray on the leaves to prevent pests from eating the leaves.
Another cheery flower, still doing ok. Photo by CallMeCreation.com My cosmos seedlings in the recycled 1-gallon mineral water plastic bottles. Photo by CallMeCreation.com Twin I’s project: growing vegetables and herbsLike this coriander. Photo by CallMeCreation.com And onions. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
By the time I was done it was already 1 pm and then finished lunch and a long hot shower at 3 pm. I told myself it’s too much of a hassle now to go to Lasema or my chiropractor whose hours have shortened to 3 pm. So I just decided to book a 2-hr deep tissue massage + 30 min Thai foot massage via Zennya.
By the time the therapist was done with me, it was already 7 pm. So yeah, I had my spacation and therapeutic gardening session.
So what to do tomorrow? I’m debating if I should buy more flowers and have the car’s underchassis checked. Or go to Rustans Makati for some revenge shopping.
BUT
I don’t know if I’m already well enough to travel all the way there.
I learned an unhealthy but delicious food hack from a friend via her Instagram post. I copied this instant noodle hack and wrote my own. It was interesting.
THIS IS A GAME CHANGER. I got this from (name of friend) and this does not taste like Lucky Me Instant Chicken noodles!
First, you grate one clove of garlic in a bowl, then add the seasonings, one raw egg, onion leeks or green onions or whatever you have on hand, pepper, and a dollop of mayonnaise (Kewpie for best results ๏คค). Mix it all.
Cook the noodles in boiling water until al dente. Pour the boiling water into the bowl of the mixed mush that you have and let it rest until your egg is cooked. Add your noodles and top it with bok choy.
It’s as creamy as Ramen Nagi and the raw garlic was โค๏ธ.
I’ve been watching June Xie of Delish because she has so many food adventures with her budget eats. They’re labor intensive but you gotta do what you gotta do if you have a limited budget
Even here in Manila I can’t do the USD 25 a week challenge. I spend like PHP 725 (USD 14.50) on veggies alone for a week. Adding fruits mean USD 20 a week.
So yeah, planting vegetables is the way to go.
I’m dying to have an hour in an onsen. I’m thinking if I could risk a trip to Lasema in Makati tomorrow as they just opened the hot tubs for public use. I could have the Karada chiro-massage combination then dip in Lasema.
Or book a 3-hr treatment in I’m Onsen Spa for the same price. Their website says their hotel facilities are closed.
Or I visit my chiropractor, Dr. Ken Sison, in Makati then proceed to Lasema. He cured my back pain after 6 sessions 10 years ago after giving birth to my twins.
My spine and lower back have missed him…
It’s about time that I pamper myself to the hilt. With all the bullshit I’ve been through, yeah, a spine adjustment, hot tub and a massage are just right.
I remember spending one night and an entire morning in onsens one spring holiday in Kansai. I’ve never felt so clean in my life after spending the night in Kinosaki.
From the train station, I walked along the main road of this quaint little town that has been a destination for those seeking comfort from hot spring baths for more than 1,000 years. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I booked a ryokan there and arrived at around 5-ish I think. I was shown to my room and how to set up my futon.
Photo by CallMeCreation.com Macha and a rice cake welcomed me. Photo by CallMeCreation.com I changed into a yukata provided by the ryokan and flipped-flopped on my wooden sandals to try one or two of the seven old onsens.Photo by CallMeCreation.com Like this one. It was lovely. Temperature was dropping to 16-15 degrees Celsius while the water was around 40-50 degrees. Photo by CallMeCreation.com The ryokan didn’t serve meals so I went to the nearest kombini to buy a bentodinner. For a kombini dinner, it was good. Photo by CallMeCreation.com I went out again in my yukata and geta to experience the cool and quiet night. During the hanami festival this river would have been lovely, with sakura bursting along the banks. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Before retiring for the night, I had another hour at my ryokan’s own onsen. I felt so clean!
So for tomorrow, I just want to spend an entire day treating myself to a spa or just pamper myself with whatever wellness procedure I can have โค๏ธ
I read on Twitter that carmageddon was back last Friday, the eve of the Alert Level 3 (a.k.a loosening of lockdown to whatever) implementation. I am thankful that big events are still not allowed or else I would have been one of those suffering from a three-hour traffic jam on EDSA.
I have written numerous pieces about Metro Manila traffic and the car-centric culture that we have because our government since the beginning of time did not prioritize public transportation and kept on pandering to the oligarchs and the moneyed class–the ones who can afford to buy private cars. The Philippines was the first one to have a light railway transit in ASEAN, which was financed by foreign loans and helped the Marcoses get richer by the minute (just read between the lines).
Manila in 1984, during the time of Ferdinand Marcos, oversaw construction of the first electric rail line in ASEAN, but this system subsequently suffered from a lack of decent maintenance bringing a raft of problems. Finally it was repaired and renovated; in 2004 a second LRT line was added, and this was followed in 2005 by three MRT lines. Currently a one-line LRT expansion is in the planning stages. At present the entire rail system extends 47.9 kilometers.
Update: They have already extended LRT Line 2 up to Antipolo. MRT 7would also be completed soon.
So of course it was just a piece of trophy infrastructure project. Subsequent administrations did not prioritize public transport, and thus, we got left behind. Imagine, we were ahead of Singapore by three years and look at them now! I can get around Singapore without taxis most of the time there. Riding the bus there is not like going into a battlefield like here.
We used to have a 1,100-km railway from Manila to Legazpi City in Albay and my father used to take the train daily from Makati (where they lived during their first years of marriage) to UP Los Baรฑos where he was a research assistant). It was doable. The Philippine National Railway system fell into disrepair because of this neglect and wrong priorities of past administrations. Every year we get choked by cars on highways and small backroads because we don’t have enough trains. Don’t talk to me about the controversies about the financing of these various train projects because I’ve been writing about them for 15 years or so and bugging Finance and Transport secretaries year in and year out about this and the corruption surrounding these projects is frustrating.
So now we have carmageddon that is getting worse every year. It takes a huge toll on our mental health and it is not easing up anytime soon. Not being able to chase stories physically (via in-person news coverage) is a major drag during this pandemic but it has helped me get off that carmageddon agony for almost two years. I realized now that life is super refreshing, despite Covid, without the traffic jam that sucked my soul.
AND if the plan to build my tiny house in my hometown pans out, I guess my travel time will be cut into half but I would have to drive 65 km one way everyday to Makati. Gas and toll would eat into my budget but it would be better for my sanity I guess. If I leave early enough from my hometown (like 6 am-ish) and leave Makati by 5pm, I would be home by 6:30 or 7pm. If I leave Makati at 10 pm, I would be in our hometown by 11 pm. From Makati to Quezon City pre-pandemic I would arrive home by 9 pm if I leave at 5 pm.
I did the hometown-Makati-hometown daily for a couple of years when the girls were still babies. I brought them to my mom’s house and we lived there for three months every summer to cool off because our old house in QC was like an oven. Plus playgrounds and grassy fields where they had picnics every afternoon were just walking distance–without cars and pollution. I drove from my hometown to Makati four times a week if I can help it. It wasn’t that much of a hassle
Now that I don’t have to be in Makati regularly because we already have a permanent Manila reporter (while I do my coverage of Southeast Asia remotely), I can limit my trips to Makati in a week. I could have my meetings and coverage/conferences confined all in one or two days. What would change though is I need to fly to Singapore frequently or somewhere else in Asia regularly (at least once a month, if things go according to plan). That can be solved by hiring my mom’s driver to drive me in my car to the airport and take the earliest flight out of Manila and have him drive me back again from the airport in Manila back to our hometown. Right now I’m spoiled by Grab.
I like living where I am now because everything is convenient since I have two supermarkets within walking distance from my apartment, I have a lot of food choices within Grab distance. If I need materials, furniture, appliance or whatever, I can just pop in the nearest SM (which is like 3 km). In my hometown, I am confined to whatever is available in our tiny mall and choices are very limited. No Grab.
But I have mountains, trees, fresh air, freedom to bike anywhere, walk to anywhere.
I think I’m at that stage where I’d choose to live a boring life than suffer 6 hours on the road daily. I’m done with night life of my youth (I’ve had plenty of those). I can finally leave Metro Manila for good.
Late afternoon, Twin I and I went to UP to buy vegetables and then went to buy flowering plants and more gardening supplies. Because we like growing stuff. I love flowers but my allergies don’t love them. What the heck, I will have my flowers and there are always antihistamines.
I don’t know what this is called. Photo by CallMeCreation.comWhite rose. Photo by CallMeCreation.comDark red daisies. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
From Wednesday I’ll be having my break and will come back to work on the following Monday (25 October). I have plenty of time to repot my flowers and plant more vegetables.
Soon, I will have a 100 sqm garden, if all goes well.
You see, my mom offered to me a part of her property so I can build my tiny home. It will be 2-bedroom affair (around 60-65 sqm or 646 sq ft, which is around the same size of some condo units in Metro Manila) and it will be a duplex. I will take the upper floor. The construction can begin once the pandemic is over and I told my mom I have a friend (who went to another high school) who is now a contractor who can do this. We also talked about installing solar roof panels that will be hybrid, which means it can be tied to the grid but can run off batteries during power failures. I will also extend the water catchment system to water the garden, which will be at least 100 sqm (1076 ft). I can also have chickens for manure and eggs.
And finally, I can have a small dog again.
My dream of a small homestead is slowly within reach, if all goes well.
With the savings (because I don’t have to buy land anymore), I can finally let go of my old car and buy a new one (not a sedan!) so my daily drive to Makati, once the pandemic is over, will be easier. The hours I spend on the road from Makati to Quezon City pre-pandemic are more than the time I spend driving from Makati to my hometown on a good day. The parking in my future home will also not be a problem–there’s a huge parking lot in front of the property.
I can also rent a small studio in Makati as a crash pad or just rent an airBnB if I need to stay a night or two in Makati when there are late events or during bad weather.
My girls will now also have a chance to grow in a safer and healthier environment. They can take the public transportation without me having to worry about them. They can also ride their bikes to move around. The girls can also play a lot of sports of their choice given that it is within the university campus.
I will be able to join my high school friends in their bike rides around Laguna and Batangas during weekends. I can have a proper mountain bike or road bike since space to store that would no longer be a problem. Driving to Anilao will also be easier because I no longer have to go through South Luzon Expressway.
Because I’m saving all that rent money, I can also save up for a bigger plot of land or farm. Or a piece of land in Anilao.
While I was working late yesterday, the PC kept prompting me to restart because of some updates. Then there was a warning sign there that says my system cannot support Windows 11.
Then I checked…The minimum for Windows 11 as far as Core i5 goes is 8th Gen and as you can see mine is 5th Gen. So that means I only have three more years to run this perfectly working gaming laptop on Windows 10 before Microsoft pulls the plug on the support for its old OS. Then I will have to turn this into a Linux machine. I have three years to decide whether I would want to still run Windows (for seamless integration with my company’s system) so that means I have to buy a new laptop or desktop setup or work again with Linux using this machine. The bad thing here is there are some backend stuff by my company that can only be run on Microsoft Edge. Super annoying.
In three years, hopefully the tight supply of computer chips will no longer be a problem and the supply chain for tech will only a memory.
Angus beef burgers on my stove top gas grill. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Today I just want to do easy food because I’m lazy. After working my butt off on that problematic story I’ve been chasing the entire week, I guess I deserve a lazy day, no?
Mayonnaise makes everything better–June Xie, Delish. Photo by CallMeCreation.comThe burgers were so juicy because they were grilled. They’re smokey and oh so lovely. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
My cat seems to agree that we have the license to be lazy today.
Kimchi in her favorite sleeping position. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I went out and bought some medicines from Mercury and I am now inexplicably tired. Maybe because I didn’t take a nap today at midday. Will have an early night tonight.
We are inviting another surge. They’re opening everything up without the proper safety measures. Two years on, we still couldn’t get a proper contact tracing system and accessible testing. We are groping blindly in the dark and we just have to pray that our bodies would be healthy enough to withstand Covid. Even if you’re vaccinated, you can get infected again and again. One journo said the president of one of the Philippines’ largest conglomerates got infected thrice. He is still alive though.
And unvaccinated children are the perfect vectors.
By December-January, we will have another surge by the looks of it.
Meanwhile, an internal memo from CNN Philippines got leaked to Vera Files and got published. Well, good for the editorial team at the network for resisting the orders from the owners (or the real owner). But then the family that owns the network (in name only) is known to be a Marcos crony, but the rumored real owner is a beneficiary of the cronyism of the Marcoses. Very, very close associate of the late dictator.
Knowing some of the editors at CNN, I could very well picture in my head how they would have reacted. One of them took over the subject I used to teach in UP after I quit and I gave her some of my teaching materials and syllabus. Her reaction to this memo would have been priceless and I could hear the invectives she would have thrown around the newsroom.
Some founders of Vera Files are also teaching at my college.
However, CNN Philippines’ viewership is very limited because they’re an English-language channel. The people who should be reached by the truth are the C, D, E markets who comprise the bulk of the Philippine electorate.
Because it is in every dictator’s playbook, ABS-CBN–the one with the widest reach in the country and owned by the Lopezes, one of whom was imprisoned by Ferdinand Marcos–was killed on free TV last year. All the Filipinos can see/watch/hear now are the propaganda of the very Marcos-friendly GMA, the executives of which are Marcos allies. I remember writing the news about one case filed by Imee Marcos more than a decade ago before the SEC, claiming that the shares owned by the Duavits (Gilberto Duavit is the COO of GMA) were just “lent” by the Marcoses to them.
As I said, the real fight is not on social media but at the grassroots level. Those who want change must talk to the people on the streets, in the farms, in the far-flung barangays who do not have access to internet or even cellular phone signal.
My cats investigating the Christmas wreath I bought from Shopee two weeks ago. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
The crap that I’ve been buying have been arriving daily. I should stop buying stuff. I really need to get out.
Some of the good purchases I had were the watercolor sets and brushes so the girls would be able to put into practice the stuff they’re learning from Skillshare and Domestika. Twin A today was so busy painting. Good. She is off computer games, unlike her male cousin who has never taken his eyes off his Roblox game.
Twin A’s first watercolor painting exercise today.Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I told her if she practices and gets better at this, I will buy her the more expensive gouache paints so she can level up. She initially wanted to start with gouache painting but I told her she should start first with watercolors, learning how to control her brush, the water, and blending colors. I told her to always bring her sketch notebook and smaller watercolor pad with her so she can practice copying scenes around her so she can practice all the time. I told her I always had a notebook and pen with me in my bag while I was growing up so I can write during my idle moments–one way of practicing my craft. That habit has stuck with me until today. I have several notebooks with me all the time in my bag: one for work and another for my random musings when I don’t want to fiddle with my phone while waiting for my car to be washed, for my turn at the grocery store, or whatever.
I always knew from the beginning that her right brain is more dominant. However, she is overcome with insecurity as she is obscured by her twin, who is more of a left-brain child and articulate.
As a parent, I should nurture their talents and interests. If one is more introverted, I let her be. If one is more extroverted, as Twin I is, then I let her be. It’s about training them to be well-rounded people, with emphasis on their interests and talents.
The tricky balance here is how to keep nurturing them while I grow as a person and as a creative as well. Being a single parent is hard because I do not have anybody else to lean on and help me with the nurturing part. Everything is on me. If they fuck up, it’s 100% on me. I usually have to forego my own interests because their welfare is my priority. I salute mothers who have pulled back on their careers and interests for the sake of their children. It’s only when the children have flown out of the nest did these women pick up their lives. The sad thing here is many years have gone by and little time has been left for their own personal/professional/creative growth.
I wish their children have realized that before their moms became Mom, they were individuals who had their own desires, hopes, dreams.
