… I’m back at NAIA. While I was packing last night, Twin A asked, where are you going? I said, Singapore.

“Again?!” she asked in disbelief.

Yup, just rested for two weeks and here I am again, wasting my hours at the airport.

I realized during my trip to Vietnam that I had been very lazy updating my credit cards. I should have upgraded my credit cards a long time ago for the ones that give me access to airport lounges since I travel quite a bit. My bff has a Security Bank card that allows her +1 guest four times a year. I remember accessing one lounge at Changi a long time ago when I still had my Citibank cc (before Unionbank bought that business). I never bothered to update/upgrade my cards because it was cumbersome.

Since I’m already done with my refrigerator and car woes, I think I now have the mental space to pay attention to the small stuff like cc update. My wait at airports would be less agonizing once I fixed this.

I attended a conference on Thursday and I was so busy chasing people and writing that I didn’t realize that time flew by so fast. I looked at my watch and it was already 5 pm. I had to transfer to Mitsukoshi mall to have dinner while editing more stories. I looked like an idiot there sitting on a small high chair and bar table, trying to balance my laptop, drink, and rice bowl.

I told my Japanese colleague, whose work I was editing, that I need to transfer to another venue before sending back his work because the conference that I attended has long ended. He was flabbergasted to learn that not only was I editing onsite, I also still had to write a time-sensitive report. He didn’t realize that editors also need to meet the story quota.

So there I was, gulping my rice bowl because it was already 6 pm in Manila, 7 pm in Tokyo so I needed to finish this thing. I remember why we journos always end up with indigestion.

Yesterday was tamer. My brain refused to work in the morning because it was so exhausted from the previous day so I tackled the editing duties and the rewrite/edit of an analytical piece in the afternoon. Which was a wise decision because the stuff I had to deal with required so much brain power.

So now I’m at the autoshop to have my brake shoe springs and brake drum replaced. Thank God for the coffee shop next door, I have somewhere to wait.

Thank you to all the neighborhood coffee shops that have sprung up like mushrooms everywhere. Five to ten years ago, there weren’t any place where we can sit and leisurely drink our beverages without having to wolf down complete meals. This coffee boom, not just in my hometown but the whole country, is sustaining dairy businesses like Carmen’s Best. In the last briefing of Metro Pacific, they shared that the diary business is propped up by the local coffee industry because Filipinos have become coffee shop lovers.

Well, I say coffee shop lovers because we are really coffee drinkers but we consume coffee at home. Batangas barako coffee, istatchu? In the provinces they even pour coffee over rice to eat at breakfast. What we didn’t have is the coffee shop/coffee house culture that others have, like in Vietnam and Italy. But we are slowly catching on.

I love moments like this. Everything is still in my own little world.

I’m at peace.

With all the news about horrific road accidents the past few days, I feel like God is looking out for me.

I heard the squeaking noise whenever I stepped on the brakes and that got me worried. When I bought the fridge last Saturday, I heard and felt the tugging on my rear wheels whenever I released the brake pedal. I told myself I shouldn’t be driving my car anymore.

Monday was hectic because I was the only editor alive and everyone else was off because of Golden Week/Labor Day weekend off. Today was more relaxed so I finally was able to bring it to my go-to autoshop.

There you go, the rear brake shoe spring broke and it was scraping the brake drum. I have to have the brake drum replaced as well. The mechanic told me I can still drive my car since the front brake shoe spring, which is bigger, is still ok. They tested it and it worked fine so I can still go home.

I immediately ordered a set of brake shoe springs online and let the autoshop order the brake drum. I will have them installed on Saturday before I leave for the airport on the dawn of Sunday.

I won’t tempt fate. I’ll borrow my sister’s car for my coverage on Thursday.

Ah well, that’s all part of keeping a 20-year-old car with over 200,000 km on it.

Why am I not replacing it yet? Because I’m still hung up on having a solar power system on my rooftop. Still weighing my options.

I’m tired of ordering takeout. The other night we had pizza from Domino’s and I was so unhappy with it. I needed to eat real food.

Since I knew my new refrigerator would arrive this afternoon, I bought some greens that would last us until tomorrow. Then I will do a big grocery shopping tomorrow evening after work… If I finish early. 🥴

Last Friday I followed up my requests for meetings with people in Singapore and booked my hotel and plane ticket. Because I was so exhausted, I didn’t realize I typed my maiden name on my ticket instead of my legal married name which I haven’t used in 8 years. Now I had to jump through hoops to change it to my legal married name that matches my passport. Philippine Airlines is charging me USD 25 for that. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Good thing I mentioned this to one of my bffs, who was my travel partner to HCMC two weeks ago. She told me the Department of Foreign Affairs is allowing married women to change their passport name to their maiden name even without annulment. 🎉❤️

This is wonderful. However, I have to fix my birth certificate first because of a huge error my father made when he registered me. 🤦🏻‍♀️ This complication sprang up when the National Statistics Office was consolidating and digitizing records to become Philippine Statistics Authority and the agency flagged this to me. Long story short, I need to go to the Manila City Hall to fix this and I need a week off to do this because this entails a lot of back and forth between offices.

I will do this after my Kuala Lumpur trip in June.

I went to the SM Mall in another city and picked my fridge. I can’t last another month or another week without a fridge. But before that, I went ballistic on the local Panasonic service center and the service center hotline in Metro Manila. My patience has runneth over.

I wanted the pastel blue top-freezer model because it was slightly bigger and has a larger fridge-to-freezer ratio compared to this bottom-freezer model. However, they would have to pull it out of their central warehouse so it will take 7 business days before it can be delivered to me.

I can’t wait for another week. I’m so tired having no refrigerator for so long. 😭

The black one was available in their stockroom. There you go.

On the way home, I saw fruit vendors along the road and couldn’t resist the summer fuits.

I’m loving provincial life. Fresh food, fresh air, and more space to move around. ❤️