Read/Reading
The barrio life
The barrio life is too 🥵.
Eight o’clock in the morning feels like high noon; like summer on the Australian Gold Coast (which is why I only cross the ditch in winter). The climate has changed, my brother says.
Who has the energy to cook three meals? But they do and I’m glad for once, not to be the cook and two, to sit down for another meal.
A shower doesn’t help, especially when your skin is used to at least three layers of creams. I just settle for a facial sunscreen, and being topless for most of the day, use the same cream for my neck, arms, hands and feet. The humidity clings to you like a needy lover and half the time, I flee from it and seek refuge in an air-conditioned room. What was once a luxury, is now a necessity; taking the Skyway in Manila, ugly and dilapidated shanties sport rows of condenser units.
If there’s nothing to do, there’s the pool, but even that sticks out in your mind like a red flag. We didn’t grow up with AC and swimming pools, or heat that has arrived like a guest that has stayed on permanently in your home.
You just make the best of it or in my case, sad as it makes me, bear with it for a bit longer before going back to my own home.
Words with friends
Maintenance
HMO
Retirement car
Retirement
lipid profile
Generation Z
Consistency
Unapologetic
Diplomatic
China
Much love to this one and happiest of birthdays
Happy birthday mommy
We were shocked and laughed at the decor (hope they weren’t offended) but then realised, this is the Philippines in 2024 and the road to the Lingayen venue had changed drastically in the last seven years we were here last. The speeches were long and florid, the display of affection genuine and the sudden dance turns on the floor both bizarre and impressive (for people in their 70s who complain of a million and one ailments). But in the end, what mattered most was seeing people again who continue to hold a soft spot in your heart and memory.
Gochujang Spam
I saw this on Insta where it was described as ‘elevating Spam’. I loathe the word ‘elevating’. Pretty much the only things that elevated somethings manage to elevate are your expectations and 9 out of 10, it comes crashing down anyway. If it’s beneath you to eat anything out of a can, then fuck you lol.
When I bring Spam to work for lunch, I get a lot of comments but not because Kiwis are precious or anything; processed meats haven’t really been part of the gastronomic landscape.
But this recipe really works when generally, stuff from social media are not properly kitchen tested, or worse, fake.
Goals
Not to be toxic
Which is like thinking that all our efforts to mitigate impending climate change disasters can actually work. It’s sort of too late and we’re too far gone. Everything and everyone is toxic. But have hopped off that bandwagon after realising that I wasn’t getting anything tangible out of it. Pay me $5 dollars- no, let me negotiate that to $20 - and I’ll probably do it. Maybe.
Time is money AND a commodity
I’ve started Ubering all the time when I saw that my hourly rate was over $70 (before taxes). I can’t be sitting at a bus stop waiting for the next one in 30 minutes because it’s simply a waste of my time, I reasoned. I’m too good to wait. And now, Uber rides have gone up like 25% and I’m thinking, I could have used that added fare for an extra bottle of Emma Lewisham Supernatural Face Elixir. So I’ve started bussing again and simply readjusted what I normally do like prepping meals the night before so that when I got home, I could start on the meal at an even earlier time. And today, I managed to take public transport, finish a gym workout in 30 minutes, dropped by the supermarket for some stuff and got the same bus back, all in under an hour (we have a 30-minute lunch-break and morning tea and I just worked through those). Save me nearly $30 had I taken Uber.
Be healthier
have to admit that I’m slightly better with my health than my finances. However, I don’t want to be super aggressive about it and end up as a cautionary tale. I secretly revel in the fact that all my medical stats are good. But during my recent check-up and blood work, I got a younger doctor who thinks that my stats are rubbish. He straightforwardly told me to my face that I had the worst of luck because genes determine 75% of me, and that, it seems, there’s nothing I can do about it—except medicate, that is.
“Maybe it’s my coffee drinking,” I told him.
“How many coffees do you have in a day?” he asked.
“Eight to ten espressos.”
“Is that a lot,” he asked, “compared to a latte?”
I blinked. Mmmmmm.
There’s an earnestness there that’s missing from my regular GP, who I think is in her seventies.
“I think we can get this under control,” he said.
“What’s our timeline?” I asked.
“A fortnight- and if we don’t, we’ll find another strategy,” he said cheerfully. He has thin, ascetic features and wears rimless glasses. It’s the comforting, generic face of a doctor who believes that nothing is impossible in medicine.
I have my doubts, but if you’re receiving subsidized health care, your job isn’t to doubt it.
“Let’s do it then,” I said, smiling back.
Photo dump
Comforts
After working over the weekend at one of our shows, I spent a few days at Doyet’s. We had plans, but a drizzle that fell late Sunday and actually drenched most of the country stayed put and so did we. There’s nothing more intrinsically sad and lethargic than bright autumn trees drooping and sodden with rain.
I had the small heater on the whole day in the spare bedroom. I worked remotely in the morning and went to the gym in the afternoon. I had coffee on-tap. I took long, sweet dreamless naps. I ate Doyet’s food which always perfectly aligns to my memory of how they’re cooked back home in the Philippines. I couldn’t have gotten a better vacation no matter how brief, or basic.
Just the three Fs- food, family and fitness.
state of things
Laughing
Aurora
the week that you left
the skies celebrated;
a glorious, vulgar display of colour and light.
You would have shrugged your shoulders
ignored it for Temptation Island
and a bit of burrata on toast.
Or you could have dragged
someone out to the ocean
where you can revel in the celestial show,
washed down with a bottle or three of Tui.
But from where I’m standing
in the darkness of our deck
vainly squinting at the horizon,
I don’t see anything.
I don’t see you,
didn’t really know you.
All I see is blackness.
All I see is nothing,
and the vast empty night sky.
Saturdays
Some days are exactly what they are in photos.
A good day
Popeyes didn’t open and the cake wasn’t what you expected. But these are not really problems.
It’s still a good day.
Today
A full head of hair is over-rated
A good friend is hard to find
Bacon can kill you
Stick to the truth no matter what
The past is pointless if all you do is look back and remember
Moderation is under-rated
Imagination is king
Kindness should be your baseline behaviour
Loving is so EASY
Hating is so HARD
Hating is not worth your time and energy
When it’s time to let go of something, you’ll know
I need to eat more
The last couple of months since going back to the gym, I’ve been feeling hungrier than usual. I had a couple of moments when I felt that condition that Filipinos call ‘nalipasan ng gutom’- you’ve eaten (like your first solid meal of the day at 5pm) but the weakness lingers.
So I did a food diary which I had intended to do for at least a month. I stopped after over a week because every-day (except weekends and special holidays) looked exactly like this:
Morning
Coffee (two espressos with almond milk, artificial sweetener)
An espresso around 10am topped up with water, no sugar + a cookie or two from the office kitchen pantry
Afternoon
Packed lunch (usually a protein and rice)
Watered down espresso after lunch and around 3pm
Evening
Pre-workout drink
Protein and a cup of rice after work-out
Espresso!
A protein shake if I remember it
So yeah, I need to eat a bit more!
Food notes
Dream 1
It’s always this dream and variations of it; I’m somewhere which in my dreams is an amalgamation of all the places I’ve been in my life, and I’m trying to get home but I can’t. I get delayed by something or someone. Something doesn't work. I walk and I get lost. I take a car and it doesn’t move. But it’s never clear to me really where home is. In a variation of the dream, I am home (in the Philippines), but I’m still trying to leave, to flee.
And the dream never resolves itself. I wake up and it’s small comfort at least in that moment when you’re half-awake, that you’re in your bed, in the place that feels and smells like home.
A Good Sunday
Not too many chocolates
An empty gym
Getting to sort your clothes
A nice, sunny day
Great lamb
Being at peace with your choices in life
Choices!
A Good Friday
Good for value Korean BBQ
People who stay at home and don’t clog up holiday traffic
Denis Villeneuve
Dune 2
Auckland’s unpredictable weather
Kind strangers at the gym
Filipino crew at McDonald’s
The Easter Bunny
Fifteen years in and I’m still haven’t totally warmed up to the idea of bunnies, chocolate and a deluge of hot-cross buns.
The part that I do like is preparing something nice for Easter Sunday dinner, and (Easter) Monday as well. We’ve always done the usual roast lamb, but this year, I saw a nice Merino lamb oyster shoulder already cooked (sous vide) so I thought, why not do birria tacos? I would’ve gone for beef but inexplicably, it’s hard to find a whole beef chuck roast online.
For dessert, I was thinking of something that involved Biscoff, two tiers and icing, but then thought, I didn’t really want to do something complicated; so ended up with good old Tapioca pudding!