It was raining when I fetched my car. Good thing I got Grab easily because Cainta gets flooded after a torrential rain.
Photo by CallMeCreation.,com
I was overjoyed when I finally met my car. Wohoo! I can finally do errands and go anywhere I want to go.
Photo by CallMeCreation.com
It almost looks new. This hasn’t been buffed and given a new sheen yet so I have to return it on Saturday. I would have the floor painted as well before I have the new carpet installed. I need to add fog lights below the headlamps so there wouldn’t be a gaping hole.
No more dents! No more scratches! They even painted the inside and the engine purrs like a dream.
Meanwhile, I’m busy packing for my trip to Singapore. Why this early? Because tomorrow we will be spending the night at Hotel Jen after the Red Velvet et al concert in MOA Arena. Then I would be running errands at the last minute the next day before returning this car to the shop for polishing. I don’t have enough time nor mental space for last-minute packing.
Yes, my clothes are all black. As black as my soul. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Sushi wants to come with my clothes. I’m a monochromatic person—I just wear black (or grey) like Steve Jobs. I don’t have time to bother with coordinating my clothes before I leave the house. I mean, I only have enough brain cells for my work and managing my home and children.
I was more harassed today than yesterday with edits piling up, stories to write, and coordination with the conference teams. Ghad, I still have two stories to write. Maybe I can write at the airport???
Yup, it’s almost a month since I went out of my 4-km radius. To make matters worse, it has been raining so I couldn’t ride the bike to go anywhere. Physically yes, I can bike under the rain but I don’t want to risk getting sick before I am to leave the country for the first time since July 2019 (Jakarta).
I can last a month without seeing other people. 🤔 The introverted side of me is ok with that.
So today I’m just stuck here as usual and I’m cleaning out my refrigerator so I’m using the last bit of ingredients in my pantry before I do another big shop.
Tonkatsu rice bowl with egg. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I made tonkatsu, which turned out good because I finally figured out how to do double frying as I’ve seen from Imamu’s Room Youtube channel. My kids loved it because it was crunchy and I seasoned the meat last night so the meat was savory. Since I don’t have mentsuyu to cook the pork with the egg, so I just made a runny sunny-side up fried egg to top my rice bowl. I paired this with miso soup with kombu.
For dinner, I made ramen and eggplant tempura and eggplant fritters.
Garlic pork tonkatsu ramen. Photo by CallMeCreation.comEggplant tempura and eggplant fritters. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I’m down to my last vegetable dish tomorrow (sauteed squash with string beans) and I’m thinking whether I should add coconut milk and a bit of chili flakes since I don’t have sambal. Oh, I should remember to buy sambal and bak kut teh spices when I shop in Singapore. (*Makes a mental note*) I should haul my ass out of this house tomorrow to shop for fresh veggies.
Cooking is some kind of stress-reliever for me—as long as I don’t have to do the wash up after.
Next year when it will just be the three of us, I would be batch cooking and probably supplement it by hiring my mom’s cook on weekends. (Ate C and I agreed that I would be releasing her from my employment and I will just finance her last year in college as my scholar with the usual monthly allowance, her tuition, and other school expenses. She would be staying with her sister until she finishes college. It’s just for a year). Imamu’s Room and Nami on Youtube have tutorials on how to prep bento lunches–packed meals for my girls and prepared lunches for me because I’m too busy with work to bother cooking during weekdays.
I will buy a robo-vacuum for daily cleaning and hire my mom’s bi-weekly cleaning lady for general cleaning during weekends. Besides, it wouldn’t be that hard to clean a 52-sqm apartment. The girls are already folding and putting away clean laundry as part of their daily chores and I would start them now with doing their own laundry with our automatic washing machine. How hard can it be?
The only thing that I dread doing starting next year is the daily litter box cleaning, because my critters are useless 🙄. When you are owned by a cat, you clean up after them for life. That is a fact.
Yup, I couldn’t lie on my bed because they have already commandeered it. I adjust 😂. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
We are in a scarier environment now with the China credit crunch unraveling further. While US economists/pundits are debating whether they are already in recession, China logs the slowest YoY growth in eons, registering 0.4% growth in 2Q22. Then here comes the threat of end-buyers/homebuyers not paying their loans because housing projects couldn’t proceed as real estate companies suffer from the Evergrande fallout.
China’s real estate sector is grappling with a crisis that has seen developers squeezed by eye-watering levels of debt, sparking a string of bond defaults among major groups including Shimao and China Evergrande — the world’s most indebted developer with about $300 billion in liabilities.
This is like the US subprime crisis of 2007-2008, just a different flavor and shown with subtitles.
When the world’s two largest economies are hobbling, then not far behind is probably the Great Financial Crisis 2.0. We are going to see a domino effect that could further weigh down emerging markets like ours, which are already suffering from sky-high prices of goods and services. I’ve been editing a number of stories that point to tightening of belts and external funding already coming in trickles. Soon the tap will be turned off for the time being as market chaos reigns. Huge valuation differences and forex issues (especially for the Philippines, which saw its currency weakening from 53 to 56 in just 30 days) are holding up deals.
This is a tough year; next year would be horrible.
I should move quickly and have my house up before December so if there is some kind of financial fuck-up that may happen, being homeless will be the least of my problems. I have logged a lot of paper losses from my investments and I’m kicking myself for not shifting my pure equity funds last year into fixed income because I was too lazy. I’ll just treat this market rout into a buying opportunity.
We should treat food insecurity with self-sufficiency and generosity. I will plant an edible garden and alongside that is encouraging people to do the same. A half kilo of minced meat and eggs with lots of vegetables go a long way for food-insecure families.
Primer. I need more dry days for the finishing and buffing.
Keeping my fingers crossed, praying for more dry days so the paint job will be finally done. The broken taillight will be replaced and hopefully I can take this home early next week before I leave for Singapore. ❤
There are still a lot to be done with this car: central locks and alarm, new carpeting, new tint, and sound system (but that is already the least of the things I must do). When my house is completed by December, I’ll start hauling my books and arrange it there. I found that when moving houses, the books are the most difficult to pack and unpack. I will be moving small items little by little so by May of next year, only the big ones will be moved. If the headwinds have died down and the economy recovers from this horrible stagflation, then I will sell this and get myself that new Toyota Avanza for minimal headache.
I’m still thinking if it’s still worth it to reupholster my couch or just buy a new sofa bed from Ikea. From a sustainability perspective, I should have my current sofa reupholstered so that there would be less waste. From a cost standpoint, I don’t know if it would be cheaper. Let’s see after I consult with the reupholsterer.
I think this would be safe from my cats.FYRESDAL Daybed with 2 mattresses, black/Ågotnes firm
Besides, Twin I also wanted this particular sofa bed and begged me to buy it for our house. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Why would I want a sofa bed? I remember in high school and college, we had a constant stream of friends sleeping over at our house since we had five rooms that can accommodate them. I mean, all of us children had short-term (friends’ homes are far and they want to take naps in between classes and a comfortable place to study) and long-term guests (friends from broken families who needed to get away from the chaos of their homes; friends with no family to stay with during Christmas breaks). My parents made our home open to our friends and I want to keep that tradition. All of our friends had fond memories of spending time in our house. My friends spent their Fridays with me, watching movies in our tiny second floor TV area when we were in high school. In college, our house is where my friends spent and got rid of their hangovers.
I made sure that in the new plan for my tiny house, the kitchen will take the center stage as I will be providing a lot of food for hungry teenagers—and for my sister-in-law and cousin who love my cooking. I’m not an excellent cook but I do some dishes exceptionally well. My friend K and everybody else in my family love my potato salad combined with grilled fish or meat.
Hotpot with mishua tonight. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I’m excited about the my prospects for the next 12 months. I’m already drawing in my head the plan for the back garden and the front garden. I already have the laborers in mind and the things that should be done (compost pit, growing beds, flower beds, irrigation system, and movable chicken coop).
And this is the goal:
And no one is allowed to rain on my parade.
A colleague asked me today why can’t I just ignore those catfishers? I said, “because I’m bored.” I also want to release this pent-up fury through passive aggressiveness towards unscrupulous strangers. I want to hit and hit ’em hard.
I know this will backfire on me but I just want to get even with the opposite sex, even though it doesn’t really make sense. It’s not even apples to apples but doing this cools my deep-seated anger. I recognize that this anger is unjustified but can you blame me for harboring it?
I texted the car shop and the chief mechanic said they couldn’t do the paint job yet because it has been raining the past few weeks, which I completely understand.
Lord, please give me at least two dry days so my car paint job will be done. I don’t know how long I can stay like this, not being able to drive to places, even do a big grocery shop.
Meanwhile, my neighbors had Mochi/Whitey cremated today.
Goodbye, Kitty, love. Photo c/o my neighbor.
With paw print and glass for the ashes. Photo c/o my neighbor.
It was just so heartbreaking that he held on so we can be with him at the last moment before he let go his last breath.
I really do love cats. When I was growing up until my first job, I thought I was more of a dog person and my salary just went to pay for my dogs’ vet bills. Now that I’m older, I think my temperament matches more with cats. I’m an ambivert but my introverted side appreciates my cats’ aloofness and pretension that they do not care about me but in truth they’re really nuts about me. 😂
Like this lovely critter here. She again offered me another dead mouse outside my bedroom door.
Sushi, who is fond of giving me love offerings.
She had been making noise outside my bedroom yesterday morning, made sure I wake up so I can let her in my room. But when I opened my door, she refused to enter. I wondered why she went through all the hoops to wake me up then she’s not going inside my room 🤔 Only when I saw the dead mouse and acknowledged it did Sushi finally saunter into my room with a smug face. 🐱
I screeched and asked Ate C to clean up the crime/crime scene.
We don’t harbor pests in this apartment but because our neighbors in the next unit are really messy people, they already have a rat colony there and some of them had crossed over here. Hence, Sushi’s new preoccupation.
Their landlord inspected their apartment recently and saw that leftover Jollibee meals were on the kitchen counter with small rats circling around these. 🤢 That’s how disgusting they are.
I couldn’t put rat killers around my unit because of my curious cats. That’s what my other neighbors suspected that killed Mochi/Whitey. 😢 I’m still figuring how I could get rid of the pests without harming my fluffies.
Meanwhile, I don’t have anything else to keep me occupied today so I spent the evening learning to sing one song. 🤣🤣🤣🤣 Ghad, I’m so boring.
Ocean – Lady Antebellum
At least this is better than trying to amuse myself by chatting with strangers, like what some friends suggested since they themselves are currently doing the Bumble thing. Especially this lawyer friend of mine who has been in the dating circuit in Singapore. She went through so many scrapes now because of Bumble and it seems like she hasn’t learned anything.
Anyway, I still can’t do that because I just discovered that I am not completely out of the woods yet i.e. I still want love and attention, which is fatal as this would lead me to the wrong person/people. So better I keep to myself until I become numb and heartless.
Maybe I would be able to do that dating thing when I am already nonchalant about everything, which I doubt I would be. Ergo, no. I would not be able to do it.
“Mommy, why are you counting the days without a car?” Twin I asked me when she saw me drafting a blog entry the other day.
“It’s like counting days without alcohol, darling. I’m so addicted to having a car at my disposal that I already forgot how to use public transport,” I said.
So it has been 18 days since I went outside my 4-km radius. It’s like a self-imposed quarantine or something.
Meanwhile, I had been struggling with sleep again for a couple of weeks now. My hours are upside down again and this time I’m keeping London hours. I don’t know how long I will be like this but this should be fixed once I get out of my house again. Maybe when I’m in Singapore my hours will be saner.
Speaking of which, I learned that none in my cluster in our company has been coming to our office regularly so I guess I really don’t have to drop by our office and I should just go straight to our conferences. I’ll just work in my hotel if I need to. Even my deputy hasn’t been reporting to our office because there’s no strict back-to-office order for us journos. That’s some kind of relief for me since I don’t want to be hopping from one train station to another just to show my face to people I don’t really need to work with. Those who regularly report to office belong to a different cluster. Well I could try to be friendly but my schedule is just packed and I don’t even have room for that.
One of the realizations I have in my healing process is this:
I now know that I am more than enough.
I am a treasure to somebody else and I no longer want to recall that feeling I had for more than 1.5 years that I am trash, hence, I was treated like trash.
I will never allow myself to be in that position again. It destroys you.
Now that I’m ok, I am able to parse things more clearly. I am thanking God everyday that I chose this route and resisted friends’ suggestions to put myself in the market to heal. That’s not healing; it’s escaping. The problem will still persist and you’re just applying bandage upon bandage on a wound that is undergoing gangrene necrosis. In the end it will kill you. You’ll just realize that you’re already emotionally dead at age 50 and you’ve never had anything meaningful all those years.
And you wonder where has the time gone.
I have now learned to love myself and realized my real value so I don’t need another person’s validation for that. I am beautiful, intelligent, funny, caring, and dignified and I truly believe that, not just lip service to myself. Now that I’ve reached that stage, I think I would have a healthier relationship with the next person since I am not looking to become a whole person through my partner. I am already whole, with or without that partner. I don’t have to bend over and backwards just to accommodate that person and make him love me.
Just be.
And these are lessons I have already imparted to my girls this early.
I didn’t want to think about what to serve my kids for brunch so I opted for the easiest, which is omurice with leftwovers combined to make fried rice. We’re supposed to go to the health center of a nearby barangay for my 2nd booster shot later in the day.
Omurice. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Surprisingly it was easier to book Grab today. Probably because our destinations are all nearby.
Coming back from the barangay health center. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Unfortunately for the girls, the booster shots for their age group haven’t been approved yet. So they just had to settle for a trip to the salon to fix their disastrous haircuts.
Twin I with a better haircut. She’s quite happy. Photo by her.
We had an early dinner at the nearby Vietnamese restaurant because I was feeling sick after the booster and was not in the mood to cook.
Pho and fried spring rolls. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I took a nap after this as I was already aching all over, my head was pounding and that my eyelids were ready to shut. I thought the booster #2 would be easier. Nope, I was still feeling sick despite having 4 vax shots now.
Meanwhile, my journalist group chat has been discussing that the Imelda Marcos-style living is back in Malacanang, without any regard for the citizens who are suffering from high prices and struggling with high transportation costs or the lack of means of transportation.
It will be a very long 6 years.
Right now I’m not in the mood to be sociable and I just want to shut myself in my room. The girls are going to be fetched by their dad in a few minutes. I’m so irritated with the world today. People think that just because you’re responding to them, they can just take you for granted.
I’m tired of it. It happens again and again. So no, I choose myself this time. Goodbye.
