Wow

Amid all the despair and sadness of the past few weeks, I managed to find something really beautiful. I thought God gave me this day to tell me that things will be better.

My niece had lost her 3-year battle with pancreatic cancer the day before this video was taken. When she was first diagnosed I was about to leave for my India/Bangladesh vacation in 2012. I remember that clearly because I phoned my brother just to give him a heads up that I will be out of the country for a month and our elderly mother who lives with me has all the sitter she needed at that time. I always ring my brothers and email them later whenever I leave so that they know my whereabouts and at the same time ask if they could drop by the house to see mom, as she gets sad when I'm not around.

Anyway, when I rang him he said he's in LA because my niece is in the hospital. They discovered something in her insides they don't know yet, but likely cancerous in nature. She was a very strong intelligent woman with 3 small children, ages 10, 7 and 5. The tumor was small when they found it in her pancreas, chemo blasted it or something. She had a few months of health. But it came back, more aggressive or something. I don't know really what happened. I get different versions depending on who I talk to. Needless to say, pancreatic cancer is tough to beat.

Long story short, she kept battling until the very last breath. My SIL (her mom) told us that under the respirator she mumbled: IT'S TIME. She bravely chose her ending. I don't know how she did that, but you know I'm not very surprised because while alive she's been doing things I'm afraid to touch with a 10 foot pole. And while technically I am her aunt, our age gap is merely 7 years and we're more "cousins".

She was in the ICU for a couple of weeks before she passed. We saw her on the first week and she was without respirator, but by the next week she just couldn't breathe on her own. The chemo made her lung linings (pleura I think) very thin that enabled water to fill her lungs making it very difficult to breathe. She had tube on her side, or back, to drain fluid. She was suffering too much.

Anyway, when the plan to take a short weekend trip to the mountains she was in status quo. Nothing was said about taking the respirator off. On Ash Wednesday, my hubs phone rang while we were in church. I stepped out to take the call and my brother said it's bad news. Her ICU doctors said they cannot do anything else for her. The husband asked if he could take her case in Stanford for second opinion. My travel plans were hanging in the balance until Friday afternoon.

We decided to push through with the trip on Friday evening. When we were leaving for our trip on Saturday morning, I rang my brother to check on them. They were arranging funeral services. That was when I found out that my niece and her family decided that she would go that Saturday, respirator would be taken out at 2 pm.

With our bags packed we drove to the hospital to say our last goodbye. Other nephews and nieces picked up my mom and drove her to the hospital for their last goodbye as well.

The whole drive, I had one eye on my phone. By 2 pm, I texted my nephew to ask if he's still in the hospital. By 3 pm, I got a text saying she passed on. It was a tough road trip. Road trips usually give me boost, a therapy for whatever ailed me in past.

The snow was unexpected. Days before the trip I kept calling the lodge to inquire about weather. When all I heard was sunny skies without chance of snow, I packed accordingly. Then on our second day, we awoke to this.....

I captured our travel buddies going to their car to get to the restaurant for breakfast.

Not my first winter wonderland experience, but it's the first in a very very long time.

Who knew snowfall can be very comforting and therapeutic?

I was thinking about curve balls and other things......

Well on Friday I was so keen on blogging here that I started to write the post in my head. It was about life throwing me another curve ball. But as usual before I can even put thoughts in paper or in this case in my draft folder, life righted itself and curve ball wasn't thrown at all. Again, it's just me reacting first before thinking. Heavens! When will I learn to read everything first before reacting violently and panicking for no reason.

If you want to know this is what happened. We are on the process of planning for our trip in the fall. We are actually doing 2 cruises, yes I know too much noh? The thing is though when you go to Europe it seems a waste to just stay there for a week, after all you paid that much for the plane fare and traveled all that way just to stay for a week? Or in this case cruise for a week?

The planning for a cruise involves mostly excursions or day trips during port days. This was what I was planning on doing, getting really serious about research and all. And THEN all of a sudden I looked up the dates of our second cruise and voila, I couldn't find the cruise anymore? Instead there is one for the cruise ship but with a different cruise date. Major panic button pressed and bells started to ring in my head.

By the time I had the hubby know of my concern, he said I must be mistaken because well, I'm always mistaken. I don't read everything well, I always skip paragraphs when I read, etc etc.

Turned out the husband was right, as usual I was wrong. Well, I was so relieved to find that I was wrong. Now back to normal programming of research and such.

Also this summer we have finally gotten the time and courage to enroll in swimming lesson at the local swim center. Aside from the husband there are two friends of ours who joined us to learn swimming. There were more people interested in getting lessons when we were talking about it, but in the end there are just the four of us. It comes as no surprise that of the four I am the one that is lagging in progress. I still have to master my courage and curb my fear. I'll get there. I told the college-aged instructor that my goal is to learn how to float and to kick. Simple right? Then my husband told him that it would be the instructor's major achievement if he can teach me how to swim. Yes, I admit I find it really really tough. One more week of lessons to go.

In addition to all these things, last weekend we had our church camping at Samuel P. Taylor State Park at the Madrone Group Campsite. Despite my apprehension of not enjoying it, I did. After all I like everyone who came to camp with us; they're my church family. Someone from church loaned us her bigger tent so there was plenty of room for the two of us, except that we were sleeping the wrong direction and I was rolling off to my side. Also by the second night the air mattress was losing air :)

Summer is nearly at its end but the weather around here is starting to get hot. OMG hot! I cannot stand heat. And by the way we had humidity here, not too much now, but last week I believe it was. Another thing I cannot stand.

Since I'm writing, yesterday to beat the heat we decided to watch a movie when it was the hottest time. We went to see Mark Wahlberg (love him)in the new Transformers movie. How can he be playing a dad to a 17-year-old hottie, he's far too young. Plus, how come he has no love interest in this movie?

Oh I spent today (Sunday) bingeing on tv via ON DEMAND. I've seen the first 3 episodes of the Halle Berry starrer EXTANT, really interesting and good casting. Also in my menu for today was THE STRAIN, watched 2 episodes. I was very interested in both shows which only mean that I am a big sci-fi nerdie now :)

Okay I think this is all for now. This blog is like an old friend that I wanted to share things/activities with.

Winter, Olympics, AI and other projects

2013_05_27_28_29 185, originally uploaded by M'roy.

It's been a weird winter. Drought in California and endless snowstorm in the East, Midwest and some parts of the South. I know the rest of the country can't wait for spring to come and snow on the ground to melt, but I'm a bit anxious of the arrival of both spring and summer. If the trend continues and we don't get any significant rainfall between now and summer, I'm pretty sure we will see water rationing. I never experienced having water rationing before, full time. I remember when my brother used to live in Makati, they get water from about 5 am to 9 am and then again from 6 pm to about 10 pm. They collect water in a large bin in the bathroom and more bins in the kitchen. They have the faucets continuously running during those hours and the pressure wasn't great but the household water needs were met. You learn to make do with the available resources I suppose.

In other news, I've been enjoying the Olympic Games so far, although I've been getting impatient with women's figure skating which is finally tonight. I'm not checking online for spoilers as I know the short program is completed earlier in the day.

Additionally, American Idol is back! I'm loving Harry Connick Jr as the moral fiber of the group, so to speak. I really really like him and this early I could see that the trio of judges gel together well, unlike the ragtag team of last year's judging panel. Really dislike Mariah and Nikki Minaj.

I went shopping crazy a few weeks ago. I went to my closet and found that my pants were one by one disintegrating. They have been used so many times that they were dying on me. No other choice but to shop. So I bought 5 pants and 3 tops. Now the pants need to be altered, I mean shortened. I usually buy pants labelled "short" but this time around they didn't have those. So the pants were sitting in my closet accummulating cat hair until I convinced the hubby to invest in a simple sewing machine. Great timing K-Mart was selling a "simple" sewing machine, yes that's what it's called, last week for $79. So we bought one. It's Wednesday now and the only action that the sewing machine had seen were scratches from the cats curious about the heavy box sitting at the foot of the bed. I can stitch two fabrics together, I know how to use a sewing machine. My mother did not teach me how to cook - although she was a great cook - but she taught me how to sew. So my project now is to shorten the pants. I am giving myself a week to complete this project.

In addition, I still have that cross stitch project that I agreed to do with my San Diego friend. She and I will do a cross stitch project at the same time and will check on each other's progress online. Unfortunately she had to go home to the homeland because her mother passed away. I think today is her arrival back stateside.

That's all for now. I'm getting lazy putting my thoughts and feelings on writing, so there's less and less stuff here.

Award, Weather, Movies

The supremely talented PRINSESA'S ANATOMY has bestowed upon me another blog award. Well to be precise the award went to my meme blog, FRANKLY MY DEAR. However, since I have been using that solely for memes, I thought I'd acknowledge the humbling honor that she passed on to me.

Muchas gracias mi amiga!

And now to the talking points for this post:

WEATHER:

It's silly that I'm even talking about it, considering the impact that bad weather had on other people all over the globe. The terrible snowstorm that's happening on the other side of the USA for example; or that deadly typhoon in the Philippines a month ago. Yet, it's been cold here. Freezing. Over the weekend, I don't think the temps have reached 50 F. It's cold! I'm worried about the outdoor cats in our neighborhood. My hubby has put out boxes in the yard in case cats want to get out of the elements and hang inside the box. Also we had that rainy day that downed a lot of water, then raced out of here like an unlicensed sidewalk vendor at the sight of a policeman.

And as crazy as it may sound, last evening we hang lights in the backyard, in freezing cold temp. Hubs said we've been postponing this task for weeks now (we've been truly busy), it was now (yesterday) or never. So we dressed warmly (or so we thought) and went to proceed with the task at hand. Needless to say I was shivering the whole time and my fingers froze even though I had gloves on. My jeans were no match for the biting cold. Well at least my body burned a lot of calories trying to warm me up.

MOVIES:

I've been very lucky with movies lately, both on Netflix, cinema, or on tv. I saw this old movie on tv that featured Michael Douglas called Solitary Man. I liked it a lot.

Then on Netflix I've seen Oblivion, which is good too. This one's with Tom Cruise. Have I told you that Tom Cruise rubs me the wrong way, so as long as I can help it, I don't see his movies in the theater and wait for the dvd if I ever was going to see it? But this one's a good one.

Also on Netflix I saw Taken 2, sequel to Taken of course. Maggie Grace is a 30-year old actress who can play a teenager, good for her. I think there is a part 3 to this the way the story went. A special bonus for me in this movie is its location. It was sorta travelogue for Istanbul, a bit, and I like it.

What else did I see on Netflix? Lemme think.....Oh I've seen Argo. What an excellent movie, no wonder it was the talk of the town at last award season. If you haven't seen this, go rent it.

Finally, I got to see CATCHING FIRE, which I thoroughly enjoyed every second of the movie. I am beginning to like Jennifer Lawrence after seeing Silver Linings Playbook (also courtesy of Netflix) and this second installment of Hunger Games series. I don't know what the ending of the movies is since I haven't read any of the books, but I hope that Katniss ends up with Gale. You know why I hope that? I've got a miniscule crush on the actor playing Gale, Liam Hemsworth. So happy he's no longer with that Cyrus girl.

That's all for now.

Are You Ready For Fall?

Three more days and we're officially in Fall Season. Well, when kids returned to the classrooms and the freeways got jammed again, it felt like Fall Season, but our weather here has been more summer like, very typical of our Indian summer.

Anyway, I'm trying to digest this fact. I'm not ready yet. All summer long I have been telling myself to pull out the box in the garage where the fall (halloween and thanksgiving) decorations are stored so that I can decorate on time.

But it's only three days and I haven't located the box yet. I know I am disorganized like crazy.

But I am ready for fall.

With Fall, comes cooler weather, boots, jackets, sweaters, scarves. Hot chocolate drink before bedtime. Soothing jasmine tea. Piping hot coffee.

Likewise, my fall shows are coming back. Person of Interest, Revenge, Once Upon a Time, The Good Wife, Castle, Haven, Big Bang Theory.

I'm also very ready to move on from summer. Summer has been a heartbreaker for me and I'd like very much to just leave all the aches and pains of summer with summer.

What are you looking forward to this fall?

A Weird Few Days

I've experienced something I don't recall having experienced before as a resident of this wonderful region. We have had a string of humid days. Humidity! It's here. In the Bay Area.

Humidity and I we don't get along well. I'm Miss Cranky Pants when humidity makes an appearance. And while I'm really brave vacationing at locations where heat and humidity is the norm, I can be assured that when the vacation ends I could go back to my drylandia.

But these past few days were crazy. So humid. My house was too hot and humid and it's not even that hot outside.

Anyway, because there is so much water in the air, our skies were so pretty, something like this. This picture was taken a few months back, but this cloudscape reminded me so much of what we had this weekend.

Changing topic here. I finally got a taste of Indonesian cuisine courtesy of PADI in Berkeley. Our dining group (for lack of better term) met up at the College Avenue location, the website said they have another one in San Lorenzo, and partake of the 12-course group meal. I really enjoyed a few of the dishes, but there is nothing that I would brag about here. My hubs on the other hand was really impressed.

Good food and good friends was a great way to end the holiday weekend. But that's not all.

After dinner we decided we wanted some ice cream for dessert, even though our 12-course meal included a delicious dessert.

So we bravely queued up at ICI, which against my better judgement turned out to be a good idea. I don't like lining up for anything, much less ice cream. But the ice cream was made in Berkeley, I don't know exactly if it's in this location, but it's artisanal and quite good.

They have different flavors everyday and from a list of about 6 on the chalkboard, I had a scoop of burnt caramel, which was quite subtle. I wanted a bit bolder caramel taste. The hubs had a scoop of ginger creme brulee; hardly brulee taste and very strong ginger taste, which overpowers the flavor. However, it was good.

So after 20 minutes in line our group of 9 including 2 kids had our scoops and ate them standing on the sidewalk chatting the night away.

It was about 9 pm and we thought we'd be able to go from Berkeley to cross the new span that night, but the bridge didn't open until after 10 pm so we just went home and got ready for another week of work.

It looks like our dining group is indeed going to do it monthly this time around. S reminded us that the last time we met up for dinner was some 6 weeks ago at Dixie; however, there were only 4 of us that were able to make it that time.

Now with all these eating (we didn't even bbq for Labor Day) I must do something about losing all these weight.

Humidity, meet the Bay Area!

I know I am going to talk about the weather. Again! Just humor me. One of the many reasons why I enjoy living here in the Bay Area is the no-humidity factor. Okay, low, very low, humidity. It's not even a factor.

The past couple or so days however humidity made an appearance around here. And in the first week that I got back from Cancun, where it's not only hot, it was also super humid. It's a big deal around here, because we don't get the muggy feel. It is now. When we have temps rise, it's a dry heat, much like desert heat. Which I prefer. I can endure dry heat. I hate sweating like a pig. I'm a big sweater so when it's humid I don't feel pretty at all. I am not pretty, I only feel pretty all the time. Ha, ha, ha!

This is just me talking.

We are just into the 5th month of the year and I'm already on my second bout of colds. Yap. It's not going to be a fun year, will it? Last year I was thinking out loud how I've managed to be colds-free for a number of years consecutively. I remember the last time I was in bed nursing a cold and fever - flu - it was the year 2000, yes it was that long ago.

This year, I already stayed in bed because I was too sick to get up due to colds - sore throat, cough, body aches, low-grade temps, chest and head congestion. I refuse to lie in bed this time around. So here I am. But to be honest, I feel horrible.

Change of subject to a more cheerful one. Our weekend was fun. On Saturday my mother freed me from my duties to drive her around while she runs errands, which she does on a weekly basis. She also runs errands with my brothers, but I have to drive her when it's my turn, which is Saturday. But this particular Saturday, she was a little under the weather, arthritis is acting up and walking is a pain in the ass, so she decided to sit it out.

As it turned out, last weekend was the first weekend of the month, which is when Bank of America sponsors free museum days. We've been wanting to infuse some fine arts and culture into our life once again, so we hightailed it to the city on that beautiful warm sunny day.

My bad because I didn't jot down the addresses of the museums we planned on visiting (Legion of Honor and De Young Museum). So when I put search Legion of Honor in my GPS, it took us to city college Legion of Honor. Who knew there were two Legion of Honors in the city. Turned out that the complete name of the museum is California Palace of the Legion of Honor. Whew! That's one long name to enter into the GPS. But we managed to find it and also find a parking spot. Truthfully though, without the help of the GPS, we know where it is and we know how to go there, we just want to see if the GPS can find us a quicker way to get there.

By the time we were entering the museum, the fog has arrived and overtook the neighborhood. Gone is the sunny warm upper 70s just an hour ago. We took cursory look at the exhibits, but it was the same things we saw before and artworks didn't keep us there. I didn't even entertained the thought that I might be taking pictures for the sake of a blog post.

What I was aching to photograph was the newlyweds having their photo shoot by the portico. I really really wanted to photograph them, but well I exercised supreme restraint on my part. I don't want to be rude and ruin their moment.

From here we drove to the Golden Gate Park where the De Young Museum is located. However, the park is closed off on weekends in some areas for sole use of pedestrians and bikers and rollerbladers, which meant we were to walk about 15-20 minutes from start of the road closure to get to the park. It was a good walk, but the wind by now had picked up and it carried with it cool breeze. Thankfully, I always leave a little jean jacket in my car for such emergency. My husband wasn't thinking ahead as I was.

At the De Young Museum, we only had one thing in mind. While the general admission was free courtesy of BofA, the special exhibits were not and we did not flinch when we paid the admission to see THE GIRL WITH THE PEARL EARRING and other collections that belong to Mauritshuis, the museum at the Hague. The collection is here while their home museum is being renovated.

The entire collection is amazing. Rembrandt and his co-horts paintings were incredible, but the centerpiece of the collection is the one called the DUTCH MONA LISA. It's really well made, beautiful. As a shortie, I managed to squeeze in and stand in the very front staring at it, and being in awe of the beauty of the painting.

I have a problem with paintings in general. Why do I have to stand there, look at the painting and think what the artist was thinking when he painted it, or what he was conveying. I do not like that.

This is why I like photography. If you look at a photographer's shot, you stand there, look at it and make your own interpretation of the photograph. That is why I prefer photos over paintings.

I simply don't have time and knowledge of the arts to fully comprehend the artist's interpretation of the piece. Having said that I spotted a Salvador Dali - I believe it was at the Legion of Honor - that I truly enjoyed.

We were cold and hungry by the time we reached the car, despite walking for 15-20 minutes. Then we remembered the little bakery/café we stumbled upon a few months ago in Balboa - the Cinderella Bakery and Café. The suddenly cold weather was asking for a bowl of hearty and piping hot solianka.

Again, we don't exactly know where it is in Balboa or what the nearest cross street is, and we plugged it in the GPS, found ourselves driving towards the water. Who knew Balboa is such a long street. I think its from one end of SF to the other end, which is the water.

Anyhoo, we found it, parked a couple of blocks away and found the place packed with hungry patrons. It's a very small place. Two tables inside with a little barstool/bar on one side plus a few tables on the curb. People were definitely enjoying their pickeled eel salad, which I was tempted to buy, but at $10 a tub, I wasn't ready to shell out that money for something I might not like. Perhaps I should have asked for a taste.

Since it was packed and we didn't want to sit outside and freeze to death (although there weren't any seats available), we got our soup to go along with a cup of hot coffee and a slice of cake and a cabbage piroshki.

That was Saturday.

Sunday was for church as usual. Also it was our massage day. It was my first time to have a massage with a guy, always have a female masseuse, but it was no big deal. He was good and the pressure he put on his fingers was just fine, although I was sore the next day.

We capped Sunday with a hearty home-made Mexican dinner of grilled chicken tacos and grilled chicken huaraches. BTW on Saturday before we visited the museums we made a stop at the Alemany Farmer's Market for a little lunch which consisted of a huarache. That's where the inspiration was to make huarache at home. The dinner was not complete without a margarita. It was Cinco de Mayo afterall.

Almost Perfect Day

I was going to blog yesterday about how sleep eluded me on Sunday and I had to go to work on Monday feeling like a zombie. BUT, a big but, then I got busy like Monday always is and combine that with the heat, then it's a potent concoction that would definitely render the disinterested useless.

It felt like summer here the past three days where temperatures range in the mid to high 80s with clear blue sky. "Please let's not do gardening and house chores today. The day is so beautiful to waste on cleaning the house." That's what I said to the mister as we drove home from church service on Sunday. We have after all did chores all Saturday including vacuuming the car under the 80-degree heat. I almost melted.

He was crazy not to listen to me. I felt he too needed a little break. So we phoned our friends to see if they were game for a little afternoon out. Turned out they were free.

Thirty minutes later we were all driving towards the beach. Our destination was Rodeo Beach at the Golden Gate National Preserve. And you guessed it, we weren't the only ones who thought the beach was a great place to be that Sunday afternoon.

We packed in some munchies and some cold ones, the husbands laid in warm sand, I was walking up and down in my bare feet trying to soak up the heat from the sand while my upper body is cooled off by the cold breeze. We stayed there for about two hours, did not attempt to dip our toes in the water, because going towards the water the wind was blowing really hard, typical San Francisco Bay Area beach weather, what can I say.

On the drive back home we stopped in Sausalito, parked the car, grabbed some ice cream and coffee (perfect combination) and walked towards the waterfront and did a little browsing at the store windows that we passed. Likewise, Sausalito was packed with tourists, 9 out of 10 was walking around the city licking an ice cream cone. It was definitely a day made for ice cream.

Perfect day wasn't it? Almost but not quite. You see when we left Rodeo Beach we decided to first go to one of the lookout points to gander at the jewel of San Francisco - the Golden Gate Bridge - where clear vistas of the bridge only come rarely. We photographed the bridge and the city with excitement of a first-time visitor, which I'm sure the others with us in the vista point were thinking of us as tourists. We posed with the bridge as the background just like any tourist would.

Here's where the wrinkle happened. When I uploaded the pictures in my computer that night, all my photos taken that day, all 268 of them, were grainy. Grainy!!!!! How could that be? I didn't fiddle with the setting. I made sure the lens is clean and free of fuzz. I checked and rechecked if it's set in auto focus and I always either shoot in landscape or automatic. But apparently the camera had a mind of its own and decided to change the settings on me. The hubs swore he didn't change any setting, and I didn't. So it could only be Buster and Emma (the cats) but knowing their thumbs haven't made an appearance yet, that left me no choice but to say the camera did it.

Apparently, the whole day I was shooting in jpeg instead of RAW as I normally do. I was so frustrated. A whole day's worth of photos wasted. Garbage.

The good thing is I live here. I can wait another season or two to time the perfect clear blue sky over the Golden Gate Bridge and have another try at it. Plus it's not like I've never had opportunities and photos of it before. But still I was so stoked to photograph it on Sunday. Another consolation is the fact that I also brought and use my little point and shoot camera, whose photos turned out okay as usual.

Spring It Is

Our forecast for the entire week calls for 70s. All the way to Friday. Can you believe that?

I've brought a jacket, light one, yesterday and today just to be sure. I hate getting caught unprepared when suddenly the temp turns cold and I'm there freezing. Okay enough, it is exaggeration we all know it.

The weekend was also in the 70s. Two days I was weeding and planting. We planted the mesculun, which is the salad greens, and five tomatoes and lima beans. We also planted 4-5 strawberry plants.

The backyard is looking a bit better. The weeds keep growing, help! Anyhow, we've been doing a little at a time, but so far it's looking a lot better than before. Our rose bushes have new red leaves. I love it when the leaves are all red, they look so fresh and so vibrant. I don't mind the leaves turning green because I know the pretty blooms are coming soon.

Our cymbidiums are also blooming. Although unfortunately they were a bit neglected in the fall, so they are not as prolific as they can be in the past. I intend to remedy that this fall.

The weekend was also a time for friendship. On Saturday we had our monthly activity at church, this month it's a movie night. The night consisted of a spaghetti and salad dinner and a movie called HAPPY, which is a wonderful documentary that shows happy people and what makes these people happy. Incredible movie. You'll learn a lot, I sure did.

On Sunday we went out for lunch, after church, with a group of friends. We first went to an Indian-Pakistani restaurant, but we were too early. Then my hubby suggested we go to the Thai-Lao restaurant. They too were still closed, but we persuaded them to let us in and we'd wait until they officially open, which was 15 minutes away.

We chatted about politics and economy and the root causes of why people are happy - to tie in with the movie we watched the night before. We had wonderful array of curries and fried rice and eggrolls and other appetizers and of course pad thai.

I know we don't like to eat out two weeks in a row but it seems we have this time. It was unavoidable.

I started my third book, BRIDGET JONES DIARY, which is entertaining. I had lukewarm feelings about the movie, but I am loving the book so far.

Daily February: Day 15

Day 15 already. The month is half way through. Geesh!

Still not fully healed. Back to work for two days, followed by a 3-day weekend on account of President's Day on Monday.

I'd like to go out for a little hike on Monday, but I'm considering what people had advised me to take it easy because the cold bug this year had been very difficult to shake off.

People get better one day and then the bug would be back a few days later. I certainly don't wanna be sidelined by this again.

Thankfully, no more appearance of vertigo.

People tell me they have it with their colds too. Why didn't I hear of it before?

And there's more people who had vertigo more than I expected.

Anywhoooooo....

The weather has been warmer than usual, but I peeped at the forecast it seems like rain is on the way.

I'm looking forward to seeing the new installment of the DIE HARD series, I cannot remember the name.

I lost my desire to read again. Oh no!

As I write this the tv is showing an old movie PENELOPE, Buster is sleeping on top of fresh laundry while my husband and is snoozing on the bed with Emma in between his legs. I love these quiet moments like this.

I am blessed.

Weekend Reporting

Time for weekend reporting again.

It was a 3-day weekend in this country, well for some people. My dear hubs had to work, they never get Martin Luther King Day as a holiday.

Here's how the weekend went:

Saturday:

• Lunch at China House with Mother.  This is one of her regular go-to places to dine.
• Drove out to Vallejo to get some supplies, like empanadas and puto bumbong from Valerio's Bakery and a stop at Andrea's for some cooked food for Mother. 
• When I finished running errands with Mom, which included stops at a shoe store and grocery store, my hubs and I went food sampling at Costco .  Oh we did some shopping too.

Sunday:

• Church in the morning.   Lunch at a little Cambodian/Vietnamese restaurant in San Pablo where I had to make sure my stomach was full for the sake tasting at Takara Sake.  I particularly don't find sake tasty and only have it when I'm in a Jap restaurant and sake is free with the meal, but I scored this really good deal from one of them (Travelzoo, I believe).  So we bought an extra voucher so we could have  dear friends come with us.  What was very fascinating about this whole deal is that I would not be persuaded to come here otherwise; therefore I would have missed learning about sake making (video show was informative and interesting) and looking at all the instruments/utensils needed in the tradional sake making process.  The sake tasting part itself is pretty educational.  They have menus on what to taste and of course I chose to taste the sweeter variety of sake.  While I enjoyed one or two kinds of sake from the tasting, I don't think I would be buying a bottle soon.  Also included in the package is a set of 3 little bottles of three different sakes.  All in all what a wonderful experience.
• The sake tasting took up most of the time that we're supposed to watch the football game on tv, it being a conference championship and all.  By the time we got home, it was 9 minutes left in the 4th quarter.  Fortunately, the local team, the Forty Niners emerged victorious, which means they'd be playing for all the marbles in 2 weeks at the Super Bowl.  Hubs is thinking of hosting a viewing party for that.  No concrete plans yet, but we'll see.  We're not even avid fans, just casual onlookers, but a party is fun.
• Plans for watching The Hobbit went down the drain after the game, as I felt a bit sluggish after all the sake I tasted/ingested.  Spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in front of the computer.

Monday:

• Our church had a Clean-Up The City program in the morning in connection with the MLK Day as well as the National Service Day (?).  Members of our church as well as high school kids from the neighboring town's High School (the same high school kids that helped with our Tenderloin Project over Christmas and then some) came to church at 10 am and by 10:30 we were all signed up and have our routes mapped and with gloves in hand and the other carrying a trash bag, we walked away from the church to our clean up route.  I was with three lovely ladies from church - Chris, Susan and Margaret.  We chose to clean creekside and the levee side.  But it was really clean, hardly anything was picked up except for cigarette butts.  It was a lovely upper 60s day with lots of sunshine that we felt a bit guilty about not filling our bags with trash because well there wasn't any in our route.  So we decided to veer from our route, which according to the leader of the program is okay, and headed to the little park by the waterside.  I told the ladies that I have spied a group of kids going that way earlier.  I was right, the park was clean as well.  We chose to return to church and see if there are any routes that needed more cleaning.  We chose another one that we had in previous clean up programs picked up the most trash. It was clean, must be another group had finished collecting trash.  Back at the church, our lunch consisting of hotdogs, cole slaw, cookies and potato chips was ready.  The firetruck came that moment to the delight of the children.  The firefighters were very accommodating to the children, they let them climb up the truck, ask many questions, begged to fire up the siren (which they did eventually ONCE).  With food in hand, we all trooped inside the nave and watched MLK speech, which was introduced by our deacon, who was at there when the speech was made.
• Came back home to see the kitties sleeping in the master bedroom (where else?) and decided I'd join them.  Planning on napping with them, but I wasn't too sleepy or tired, so I switched on the tv and decided to check out what's ON DEMAND and thankfully I did because I saw there's a new epi of my show, SMASH.  The new season is in February. 
• Hubs came home from work to say, "Let's go to Happy Hour."  I wasn't really feeling it because I think I may have eaten more hotdogs than I could handle (2), but he was insistent and so we did have a little drink and some nibbles at La Revolucion.  While we had high hopes for this restaurant, Latin/Spanish fusion in this part of the Bay, we were disappointed.  Only judging by the bar bites menu, we will not be in a hurry to return. 

I just realized after writing this down that I ate too much this weekend.  The month is halfway over again, way too quickly, isn't it?

Bullet time

What's going on?  It's been a week since my last post. 

A few of the things on my mind lately:

• Cold here. Having a cold snap.  It's 36 F (2C) when I went to work this morning.  I love the cold weather.
• Looking forward to having sake tasting this weekend with another couple, friends of ours.
• Might miss the SF 49ers game though.
• Watched the entire 49er V Packers last Saturday.  Must admit that Kaepernick is pretty good.
• American Idol is back tomorrow.  Are you ready for another Idol season?
• The Golden Globes was Sunday.  Happy but surprised that Ben Affleck bagged the Best Director award.  I am so looking forward to watching Argo.
• Personally, I feel blah - physically, emotionally, mentally.
• I think I need baseball to perk me up.
• No concrete travel plans for 2013 yet.
• Must plan vacation times this year, deadline for submission at work is by the end of the month.
• Zoom lens for my DSLR still broke.  Boo hoo.
• Need massage, ASAP.
• Pancit palabok from Red Ribbon was dinner last night, courtesy of Brother #1.  Thanks Kuya, I needed that!
• Dreaming of Mendocino this year. 

Well that's all folks.  Still not in the mood to blog here. I don't know why. 

Catching Up

Let me try to catch this blog up with what's going on in my offline life.

Seasonal cooling has begun shortly after the clock turned back an hour. So now it gets dark really early. The cooling feels so good especially last weekend as I was doing my errands the breeze was cold and there's definitely the chill in the air associated with the season.

Also had the second offering of our Monthly Night Out program at church where I am a member of this committee. My husband co-chairs the committee. For our second monthly night, we had GAME NIGHT. People come with board games and we spent the night, well at least 2 hours, playing games. Every event is with a meal and this time around we had sausage and salad with spiced apple cider. I played uno and jenga. There were a group that played monopoly, another cloo, another scrabble, and blanderbash I think it was, and also chess. It was a fun night.

Last night we went out for dinner. It was Veteran's Day weekend so I had the day off, but hubby didn't. Veteran's Day fell on a Sunday so the town activities were on Sunday, but gov't employees had Monday off.

We went to Curbside Cafe in San Francisco. I throughouly enjoyed my night out with the hubby. We met up with another friend and her hubby and their two boys. We weren't seated together in one table, because of the fine prints of our dining vouchers, but that didn't matter anyway because the place was very cozy - small - we were like dining in the same table.

The decor was Parisian (it's a Parisian bistro), very quant and charming. I totally adored it. The food was excellent. I have to do a separate posting for this here. I'd love to go back to that restaurant.

The dinner ran long and we were late at our church meeting. We barely made it to the meeting. We probably sat for the last 20 minutes of the meeting.

So that's what's been happening. I have so many things in my plate right now. And as usual my lack of time management is making it extremely stressful on my part to handle this time of the year.

I'm about ready to pack my bags again and travel. But first I'll have to help hubby fix Thanksgiving Dinner at home.

I'll tell you more about my trip in the coming post. My flight won't be till after Thanksgiving.

Day 23 (30 days of June)

The sky was this gorgeous today. A lovely day altogether with 70 F and a little breezy.

Day 17 (30 days of June)

You saw how hot it was yesterday right? Well, as I said yesterday we went to a beach. Not as pretty as this one photographed here, but it has it's own charms.

And today, the temperature dropped significantly and the breeze came back in full force. Thank Heavens.

Day 16 (30 days of June)

It was hot here today. So what did we do? We drove about an hour to a little beach town called Bolinas. It is our first time there, we always pass by it, but today we spent time dipping our toes in the cool water. Needless to day, the beach was crowded with people kayaking, surfing, waterboarding, swimming and people soaking up some sun.

It's 11:20 pm and it's still in the 80s here. Really hot.

Day 10 (30 days of June)

It was a beautiful day today. Hot and sunny, typical summer day. We hit the 90s, can you believe it? So after church and church meeting, hubby lit up the bbq and we had a little yam and ribs. I miss the grilled yam (camote).

I wonder how long our heat will last before our natural airconditioner (marine layer aka fog bank) shows up.

Faster Than A Hummingbird's Flapping Wings

IMGP0932, originally uploaded by M'roy.

The weekend that is..... don't you all agree? But despite all that, the weekend was gorgeous here, weather wise. We saw a high of 75F, very high for March, a temperature we seldom even experience in the summertime. I think it's a hot year, you know what I mean?

Among the things we did this weekend was attend a fundraising White Elephant Sale to benefit Oakland Museum. The rummage sale was held in a 96,000 sq ft storage near the Oakland estuary. This would be my second year in a row coming here.

List of our loot: books, mostly old, some are even in the 1800s, nothing fascinating. It's not for reading, we just want to collect it. The binding was interesting, mostly typical of the era I believe. Although there were 2 of them about Russian tsars, a bit interesting read I think.

There is also another book with a dedication in the front, dated 1939. Can you believe it? Someone gave this book to somebody in 1939 and 73 years later it's in my book shelf. Fascinating.

We skimmed through the art section, spent a short time there compared to last year, and still managed to buy three or four prints.

In the bric-a-brac section, I had no success. I was looking for some cat figurines, but they only have bigger ones and I saw only 3 or 4 of them. Where are the cats stuff?

Also catching our eye was the display of old Avon perfume bottles. I remember this, in the 70s my brother would send me Avon perfumes and the bottles were really interesting. They were works of art. I had a teddy bear, a little house, and other interesting bottles, I cannot remember. We gave the bottles away though when relatives asked for them. Mom couldn't say no. We have them displayed in the sala and everyone can see them. Of course I used up all the perfume, so mom thought it be okay to give away the bottles.

Anyway, these ones were doll figurine bottles. They were so cute and only a dollar for each one. I was tempted to buy the whole lot, except that the hubby was there with me and he usually put the reins on my shopping sprees (good to do). Hence, we only took 3 of those glass dolls, we chose the prettiest we could find.

As always the jewelry section was crowded, I just made a cursory round of the display. We went there in the afternoon and not enough time to browse the 96,000 sq footage of goodies. As we were leaving we spotted this beautiful and charming soup bowl, we always wanted to get one, at $8. So we bought it. We probably spent under $40 in total. Next year, we plan to spend the whole day there :)

Moving on, after our exciting rummage sale, we were scheduled to watch THE DESCENDANTS starring George Clooney. We had a discounted ticket at Shattuck Cinema in Berkeley, which is a short drive from the rummage sale. Now, this cinema is not a multiplex. It's a real cinema that I haven't been on one before.

The screening room is quite small, roughly 50 people capacity I believe. The seats are nothing like multiplex seating. At each aisle they have a couch like seating with leathered cushioned seats with leathered pillows as backing. Our seat was for two people only. It was like watching a movie in your own home. How cool is that???

The movie where George Clooney won best actor at the Golden Globes award this year was outstanding. That Clooney guy can really act. The story telling is superb, the cast was good. And Hawaii is so amazing. So dreamy. I want to go to Hawaii!!!!

Let's leave this post at that last sentence, that's like a shout-out to travel gods. That Sat went by fast so did Sunday. Hence, here we are again Monday workday. Hope the week runs smoothly for everyone.

BTW, we were awaken early morning by an earthquake. Scary!

Buzzzzzzzzzz

Oh I'm busy. Going to be even busier. I cannot believe I have to schedule my movie-watching activity. It's funny how I never realized how my 2012 is shaping out to be a really hectic year, until my hubby asked if March 3 was good for us to watch a movie. Can you believe that? Penciling in an activity that should be done spontaneously? And before I could answer, I walked up to my calendar to check if I already have something penciled in for that day! Sad isn't it?

On second thoughts, it's good that my year is already scheduled; my calendar is littered with meetings. Oh yeah, I have to curb my bloghopping too. I'm trying to find a way to squeeze this in my daily schedule. So far, I'm so behind in my bloghopping. I'm even considering temporarily putting a hold on my "meme" blog.

In other news: 

I'm sure you're all aware that Whitney Houston has passed over the weekend.  I'm pretty saddened by this fact.  Not a fan of hers, but I love her songs.  Please note that my fave singers are very few.  These are the singers who I love regardless of what they sing.  I have a lot of songs I love; I love Michael Jackson's songs, but he's not my fave. You get it?

How I found out?  Well, it was like this.  I went to the spa after a 6-hour meeting. It's Saturday, I know.  You see how busy my schedule is.  So my facial went longer than I expected, which is really good.  The more pampering the better so when the aesthetician took longer in my treatment I simply did not complain.

I swung by my favorite take-out Mexican restaurant for a little burrito for mom and carne asada plato for hubby and I.  As I was driving away from the parking lot, I was listening to the radio and the announcer said what a sad day it is today with Whitney Houston passing.  I was shocked.  I went home and turned on the tv and scour the stations for a little news. 

Rest in peace, Whitney!

Oh by the way, while Europe is buried in snow, the USA is seasonably warm.  So warm here in Cali in fact that our spring flowering trees are abloom.  I know the picture is old, but our apple is blooming now just like that in the photo above.

And around the neighborhood we're seeing blooming trees in February.  Early even by Cali standards.