It hurts that you no longer matter to the person who matter the most to you. You have become a mist that dissipated.
And a mist no more.
How do you know you exist? If you no longer exist in memory, do you still exist?
Ooh yeah so I needed to upgrade some hardware to be able to cope with Windows 11, which would f*ck me up when I shift to it. Because company IT may ask us to do it sooner or later since support for Win 10 will end 4 years from now. And our entire system is unfriendly to non-Microsoft users. Integration with my Android phone is pretty bad, but it’s worse with Mac OS and iPhone. Linux? Don’t get me started.
I opened up the Acer gaming laptop I hijacked from J and cleaned its guts. Look at that exhaust fan. Ugh. I used a thin but stiff paintbrush to clean it and all the vents. I used my vacuum cleaner (good thing I bought a rechargeable one and ditched my old clunky one) to clean the rest of my laptop-turned-desktop’s innards.
Then I checked the RAM slot if I can still add. It currently has 8GB, which is decent for Windows 10.
I still can, so I ordered another 8GB DDR3, 1600 Mhz SODIMM RAM stick fron Lazada and I think by next week I can already plug it in that second slot.
The laptop runs on Core i5 5th gen (we’re already on the 11th gen; my new laptop is 10th gen) but I think it will still be all right. When Microsoft says min specs should be 4GB, that means you have to have 8GB of RAM for your computer to be serviceable, 16GB for it to be comfortable. I remember they said minimum for Windows 8.1 was 2GB and my hybrid tablet only had that and was running on Intel Atom. It was killing me. I had to run Outlook on it and MS Teams and it was freezing. All. The. Time. I only bought that thing as a backup to my Asus when I worked in Japan for two weeks in 2017. Which was wise of me because my Asus became temperamental during the most critical time.
Anyway, I spent majority of my Sunday (yesterday) poking into laptops. I just installed a fresh copy of Ubuntu in another laptop that my househelp uses for her online school.
Then the rest of yesterday was spent on revenge shopping. So don’t ask me how I ended up buying a new area rug and new pillows. 🤦🏻♀️ I only intended to buy a gas regulator for my LPG tank.
Speaking of which, I thought it was my regulator that’s problematic. It turns out it’s my stove! It’s a Rinnai stove, by that Japanese MNC whose gas stoves are so ubiquitous in Japan. But then that stove suffered so much abuse that it’s about time that I retire it.
I am now eyeing this model that is common in Japanese kitchens, the one with an oven to cook fish and a grill on top.
I no longer have to grill skewered meat outside. Or yakitori. Or dried squid. But then no one is eating dried squid here anymore… So dried fish is it then; I could shred and make an olive oil-based pasta dish.
So it looks like the rains will continue for the rest of the week, if the cloud system hanging over most of Luzon remains like that. Highly probable as the typhoon up north and the one forming in northeast continues to pull up the southwest monsoon.
The leaking stopped in the laundry area as my landlady’s worker cleaned the rain gutters of debris (mostly leaves from the mango tree in front of the apartment). Hard to dry clothes and bed sheets still.
Because I’m too lazy still (Metro Manila is flooded!) to go to the hardware store to buy paint and a gas regulator for my LPG tank, I busied myself this morning with experimenting with my new Linux distro, Fedora.
It’s basically the same as Ubuntu but the command line on terminal is a bit different. Instead of using # apt-get, you use # dnf (formerly # yum). Therefore, I have to master some basic command lines because I find using command lines easier when tweaking and installing drivers and programs on Linux compared to GUIs.
My girls are very comfortable using Linux, whatever distro, as I started them on this OS. That’s good since this means I don’t have to pay for expensive OS and hardware whenever Microsoft or Apple forces people to upgrade and find that their hardware cannot cope with the system requirements. And yes, I’m talking about Microsoft releasing Windows 11 this October and supporting Win 10 only until 2025. I just bought a new laptop, for crying out loud!
I was only forced to use Windows again because my company is unfriendly to non-Windows users. Even Mac people complained. I used to work exclusively on Linux and our IT guys were surprised that I was using it, the only one they encountered using it for whole of Asia Pacific. Because of this, they couldn’t help me with workarounds to specific backend problems. Why would they study troubleshooting Linux-company system problems just for one nerd in the company? So I had to switch to Windows 🙄
Since we’re dealing with biblical calamities all at the same time (pestilence, flood, earthquakes, volcanic eruption) it’s high time that I reorganize our emergency bags again. You’ll never know when you needed to evacuate. One bag for each of us containing basic necessities like flashlights with whistles, clothes, toiletries, biscuits or crackers, medicines, and water bottles. These bags should be ones that you can easily grab and go. Then another bigger container, if you have time to grab, are stuff for longer term evacuation like tent, sleeping bags, portable stove, canned goods, water purifier, and solar lamps. I already have all of these except for the plastic container to hold the tents and sleeping bag. I need to buy more sleeping bags.
I once told J that if he wants to survive Armageddon, he should stick to a Filipino since more or less we are used to Armageddon regularly so we know how to go about it. We’re like cockroaches, we can survive disasters. This is also one of the reasons why I drive manual transmission vehicles; mechanics on roadsides in all provinces know how to deal with manual cars. Automatic transmission cars are good as dead, especially if computer boxes get wet.
I am talking from experience; I was in the middle of Pasig-Cainta when Tropical Storm Ondoy submerged Metro Manila underwater for weeks in 2009. After a month of the disaster, I saw a lot of new AT cars dumped on roadsides of Manggahan Floodway ready for scrap recovery because they were already useless. For MT cars, you just push it through flood while the driver revs the gas pedal on first gear until you get to dry land. That’s what we did to our cars to get out of Pasig-Cainta when that area was like Waterworld. This is also the reason why I don’t want to buy sedans, if I can help it. If it’s already the end of the world, you may at least want your getaway car to be able to cross flooded areas. That’s why I am still not letting go of my old Isuzu Crosswind; I was able to drive through Super Typhoon Haiyan ground zero with that, about 2000 km to and from Samar-Leyte. Plus you can sleep at the back of the car if I just push the passenger seat further up against the back of the driver’s seat.
Ok, I must go out today to buy: 1) butane bottles for the portable stove; gas regulator for my regular LPG stove; one or two emergency lamps; rain boots (I don’t want leptospirosis adding to our worries) and wall shelves. Because I’m bored and I want to add shelves in the cooking area. And hanging plants.
Speaking of boredom, my girls are reading again. Yey.
Daughters were craving for junkfood. So I made junkfood. Home-made hamburgers.
Comfort food for rainy days.
Roof is leaking again at the laundry area. Sent my landlady videos of the waterfalls happening at that back room. I hate it that whenever the monsoon season sets in, I’m never totally dry. I’m so done with renting old places.
Meanwhile, the government is starting to tighten restrictions again as the Delta variant has locally been transmitted. Fast. Some cases have come from OFWs coming home and no social distancing protocols practiced, especially during wakes.
Why can’t people understand that 1) traveling exposes you to so much pathogens that you should stay away from people for a long time and 2) in the process you are endangering a lot of people around you, multiplied by 8, as is the case with this Delta variant?
Soon we will be overwhelmed again just like in the first half of 2021. When will we ever learn?!
Because it had been raining nonstop for days, my girls are left with nothing to do so Twin I pestered me to teach her how to cook a side dish that she will feature during their Nutrition Week. (They started the school year two months earlier than public schools, which are scheduled to start by September). I thought of the easiest side dish I can think of: buttered mushrooms with garlic and bell peppers.
The world has shrunk for me again with this incessant rains. So I began digging again into the rabbit hole that is Youtube. And found myself watching hours of chiropractic videos.
And I was living vicariously through the patients. I must schedule an appointment with my chiropractor in Makati whom I haven’t seen in almost 10 years.
Right after giving birth to twins, my back ache was 9/10 as it turned out pregnancy worsened the S- curvature of my scoliosis. After the course of my treatment, the back pain was reduced to 1. And the pain on my hands disappeared.
Let me just get through next week and let’s see if I can make that trip to Makati.
I have revisited Lord of the Rings recently and got enamoured again by Eowyn, the unlikely hero of the Battle of the Pelenor Fields. She has a small role in the entire lore, even just in the Third Age, but she left a lasting impression on me.
A sword rang as it was drawn. ‘Do what you will; but I will hinder it, if I may.’
‘Hinder me? Thou fool. No living man may hinder me!’
Then Merry heard of all sounds in that hour the strangest. It seemed that Dernhelm laughed…. ‘But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Éowyn I am, Éomund’s daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him.’
She went into the battlefield incognito and only Merry knew who she was (in the movie; but in the book Merry didn’t know who she was until she revealed herself to the Witch-King). Eowyn went to her doom to protect the people that she loved. And Merry went with her, thinking that she shouldn’t die alone.
I’ve been feeling down lately, maybe because of the weather. I needed some pick-me-up, like a good book or movie so I went to read and watch LOTR since it is both a good book and movie/s. I want to tap into that inner Eowyn in me and be badass when the sky seemed so dark. Funny thing was, for 20 years, I used Lúthien Tinúviel as my pen name instead of Eowyn, the White Lady of Rohan. Now I don’t know why I wanted to fashion myself into a half-royal, half-divine entity when Eoywn is more kickass. I’m not even attracted to the Tale of Lúthien and Beren; they just figured in my subconscious mind because Tolkien associated himself and his wife Edith with Beren and Lúthien. It’s even written on their tombstones.
I’ve been known in our house as the Tolkien geek. My brother even gave me an illustrated notebook of LOTR as a birthday gift more than a decade ago, which I still keep. It’s where I wrote the character sketches for my novel that I worked on but burned and deleted 10 years ago.
I read all the Tolkien books (including Silmarillion and all the appendices) every year during Christmas breaks before I had children. (Once you become a mother, you don’t have time for other things, such as reading epics). I tried keeping tabs on the genealogy because lineage matters in these books. And oh, Tolkien’s being a Catholic is all over the Middle Earth lore, maybe that’s why it brings comfort at times.
“Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”
There are criticisms that Tolkien doesn’t flesh out his characters well and he is more into the events and lore. Perhaps it is true. His weakness in drawing characters is compensated by his larger vision, the narrative, and his ability to transport me into another world—his world—with his words. His stories are about the journey and not the destination.
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
My cats. My obnoxious and destructive cats. This is my version of “Teacher, my cat ate my homework!”
Look at that. And she stayed there all morning. Shameless cat. 🐈
The sky was so dark this afternoon and my body is not cooperative because I have my period. I would have wanted to just stay in bed but I needed to drag my girls away from the computer so we went to Booksale in Cubao.
We took our time as there are really good books there if you’re not against rummaging through the stacks. I didn’t buy any for myself because I have 20+ books on my shelf that I have to finish. I keep buying books. I must stop until I finished all of them. I still have books I loaned to my mom that I must get back.
I recommended to my daughter to get the Cornelia Funke book because I already owned two of her books (Inkheart series). I really, really need to get my hands on Nancy Drew books for my girls. The book sellers in UP used to have them but of course they’re no longer there since the pandemic started. I miss the book sellers 💔 I miss Bookay-ukay 💔💔💔
I used to have a lot of science fiction and fantasy books but they’re mostly in my mom’s house. I hope she hasn’t given them away… She gave away a lot of my books before because she said they took up so much space 😭 I think I have completed all the Diana Wynne Jones books. For the life of me, I cannot stand the Robert Jordan books. I don’t know why.
I am now scouring Carousell for Nancy Drew books. Instead of buying, I ended up uploading a big leather bag that I barely use to sell. Proceeds would go to buying a smaller leather bag. Hehehe. Talk about capital recycling.