Lula's Off

In between writing and editing and cooking for the kids and babysitting S, I found some time to meet up with friends. Getting out of the house keeps me sane, or else I'll drown in how to meet my deadlines and what to cook for mealtimes.



Met up with friends from the newspapers. I love newspaper people! They're so real. That afternoon, we were regaled with a love story that had a train station meeting and a waltz by the lake. But because this is a Pinoy love story, it was peppered with hilarious antics. I love it!




And because we went to Seven Corners, I stuffed myself silly with oysters! They were so yummy divine. I practiced restraint by ordering just four, but then a guy walked up beside me and got 12!! And so, your Lula went on a second trip to the oyster bar for some more of these pearly delights. Which is not to say that I just had oysters for lunch, I also had the rib-eye with mashed potatoes and gravy, shrimps, California maki, all sorts of pizza, soup and salad. I could feel the pounds!





And because it was E's birthday, the Thursday Karaoke Group gathered together to celebrate. Even though I'm still a bit upset with E, well, it's his birthday and everybody deserves a happy birthday :)














It was fun catching up with my karaoke buddies, talking, drinking, dancing, and singing Through The Fire. After some time, however, it just got too loud for me. And I realized this one thing: I may not be too old to babysit S but I am too old to hang out in a noisy bar.

Something You Love

A thousand years ago, I was with my friend photographer O at the old Summit offices in the basement of the rundown Sogo building. We were shooting a bunch of children's party favors, experimenting with the angles, playing with the light. We were still using Pola, would you believe? It took forever to get that one shot right but we didn't care. We were having fun. And while waiting for the Pola to cook, placing it under our arms to "heat" it up, we told each other, "Isn't it just amazing that we are getting paid to do something we love?" We were such hopeless fools!

A thousand years later, and we are still doing the stuff that we love. And yes, we are still such hopeless fools! Here, some shots of his swanky, new studio, which I'm sure will become my new favorite.













Here, with O's sexy-licious wife, B.

House-hunting

The house, it's a mess. When I got home last night, a load of dirty dishes were in the sink, silently calling out to me: "Wash! Wash! Swish! Swash!" Tiny bits of crackers made a trail around the living area, much like the ones Hansel and Gretel left in the woods. A plastic hanger, the one where a school uniform hanged from that morning, lay carelessly on the floor. And on different tabletops across the house strewn about like an abstract Pollack painting were school books, DVDs, a tube of facial cream, a hair brush, a nail cutter, a plastic telephone toy, an MP3 player, etc., etc., etc.

A few years back, I would have cleaned everything up, no matter how tired I was. I would have scooped up all those whatnots, swept the floor, washed the dishes, and maybe even moved the furniture around a bit before falling mercifully into my bed. These days, I let it be. After I've put everything in its place, they'll go crawling out of their cubbyholes in a random order anyway so, why bother?

Instead of getting mad or getting frustrated, I indulged in some house-hunting therapy, thanks to IKEA!




I love, love, love this white living area. Apart from the fact that it has space for my books, DVDs, and pictures, the way it looks so clean, fresh, and organized is truly appealing to me. So very unlike our any-which-way home. Take note of the comfy laptop holder. Cutie!





I like how the dining chairs are not all matchy-matchy. Note as well the pillow carelessly placed on the wicker chair and the throw clinging to the ladderback chair.





Finally, the bedroom where I dream my dreams. My walls are actually salmon pink and My curtains have the exact same color so I suppose I'm on the right track. The see-through closet is to die for. But I wouldn't put that hunky ottoman at the foot of the bed, I'd place it in the living room in front of the sofa before the TV. Heaven!


These are from the 2010 IKEA Catalog. Why we still don't have an IKEA here is just so frustrating!


P.S. Yes, the swish swash calls did overwhelm me, and I ended up washing the dishes though I was already dead-tired. Old habits die hard!

Roomie

And so the three days and two nights of Baby S came and went. Here, a couple of photos of my roomie :)



Smile!




Aylabu!




Wind-blown


And now, here's my daughter S enjoying her three days off. Don't you remember your college days when you spent your weekends drinking and partying and then cramming Sunday night for a test the next day? Awesome!!




E's best girlfriends :) Am glad she found a new set of girlfriends in school. E seems super happy these days.




Pool time!




In front of their villa




E and her college class :)

A Minute of Silence

I feel terrible. They were just taking their vacation, and this had to happen.

Let us take a moment to say a prayer to all who fell in today's tragic affair.

Babysitting Lula

I miss my bed! For two nights now, I've been sleeping on my daughter E's bed with Baby S. You see, as a belated present, I let E go off on a three-day, two-night outing, which meant I had to take care of Baby S at night.

Frankly, I was a bit anxious about the whole taking-care-of-baby-at-night thing. My youngest turned 13 this year, which meant I have not done this in ages! And you know how it is with babies, they wake up at that exact moment when you're just about ready to fall into that deep sleep phase. They go crying because they want milk or they want to be changed or they want to be sang to sleep... whatever. I didn't know if I was up for that again.

And so, the two nights came and went, and guess what? It wasn't that bad: maybe it's because Baby S only woke up once each night or maybe because I prepared myself for the worst. And when everything went smoothly, I was completely relieved.

I have one little complaint though: I miss my bed. Baby S twists and turns when she sleeps, and because I didn't want to wake her up unnecessarily, I folded myself into a corner to give her all the room she needs. And so, sleep though uninterrupted was not very comfortable. But sleep I still did.

Clearly, I'm not too old for this shit--but don't go telling that to my daughter!

Good night!

More on Amherst

One of the things that I absolutely love about Amherst is how sparkling clean everything is. Not a speck of dust on its walls. Not a piece of trash on its floors. To tell you the truth, the OC in me was silently freaking out: How the hell do you clean 24,000 sqm of space? I know that they've got self-cleaning machines, clean-in-place is their term, but what about the floors? I must talk to Ms. Adi and ask for cleaning tips!









Of course, everything must be clean to make sure all those life-saving medications are made properly. The above photos were not taken by yours truly by the way. We were not allowed to go up close and personal with the equipment; I think that's because we might contaminate the area. Some spaces actually have airlocks to guard against contamination. Each piece of tablet is checked and weighed and inspected. If it doesn't pass Unilab's standards, it is destroyed. Yes, you heard that right, destroyed.

It wasn't all science, of course.




We had a full breakfast of tapa, embotido, and fried rice at the Amherst canteen, which looked gorgeous. There was leche flan too, but it was too early for me.




After the tour, we headed to Conti's at Nuvali for a wonderful spread of a lunch: fresh lumpiang ubod, beef caldereta, grilled chicken, and some sotanghon.




We ended our Laguna trip with an hour's relaxing massage at Indulgence Spa: coolness! Thanks for the lovely day, Unilab!

Bloggie!

My day wasn't going all too well. Though I had fun meeting up with some newspaper friends for lunch, a little work snafu had me feeling a bit down. And so, it was with great surprise when I found myself the proud owner of a Sony HD Bloggie, a gift from a dear friend (Thank you very much, R! You made my day!). It's so cute, by the way, and it's just a little bit bigger than my phone.

Now, I will love my Canon PowerShot forever. I actually won it at a raffle sponsored by Canon, and I still remember when the president of Canon fished my name out of a glass bowl. It was fantastic! That was maybe three years ago. Since then, my PowerShot has been to countless birthday parties and numerous family get-togethers. And not only has it seen some really great places, it has also witnessed F's prom, K's dance, and S's intramurals. For a time, it was one hardworking dude, busy clicking away my daughter's Korean fashion inventory, my vintage finds, and my chains.

Needless to say, it has incurred some "injuries" along the way. It fell, quite fabulously, from a tripod in the island of Malapascua. Its screen got chinked when, well, my daughter doesn't exactly remember. It also got lost for a few days or so but miraculously appeared from out of nowhere. You can say we've got some serious history, my Canon and I.




Lately, I've found that my Canon had been faltering a bit. Something about the battery connection, one of the battery connector thingies had fallen off and I think my Canon needs some servicing.





And so, this little Bloggie comes at a most auspicious time. I can give my Canon a rest while making fun new memories with my Bloggie!

A Billion Healthy Pills!

I never really go to blogger events because one, I don't really consider myself a blogger. I'm just a person with much too much to say. Madaldal, in short. And second, I've done way too many "events" in my past life.

However, when one of the country's largest Filipino pharmaceutical companies sent me an invite to tour its state of the art plant in Laguna, I just had to go. The plant is wistfully called Amherst and the company is United Laboratories. In line with its Discerning Mommy campaign, Unilab opened its doors to a small group of moms to show us the care and expertise that comes in the making of each and every one of its products. Of course, the geek in me couldn't resist. I would find out later on that we were the first group of non-medical personnel to visit the plant. Naunahan pa namin si John Lloyd?! Sweet!







Inside this swanky complex is where they make a billion pills a year as well as liters and liters and liters of liquid medicine. The plant reportedly costs a billion plus pesos. Wow!





We had to wear gowns and shoe covers before going inside the plant. I felt like a teppanyaki chef. We were only allowed to go to certain portions of the plant.





I love, love, love Ms. Adi de Leon. She heads the Amherst Plant. When she starts talking about production and quality control, her eyes light up. She so obviously loves her job. And guess what? She's also a mom and a grannie just like me. And really, isn't it just the coolest that a woman, a mother more importantly, is in charge of making those billion pills? You know that she'd make everything right.





I love, love, love those cool machines in the background. And best of all, they're self-cleaning! I wonder how I can get my house to self-clean! Perhaps Unilab can share its secrets? Mwahahaha

Walking Stick

I was a flat-chested walking stick in high school. Like most athletically-challenged nerds (yes, as much as I'd like to believe that I was cool, I was, in point of fact, a nerd), I did not like Physical Education class all that much. I couldn't run fast enough, couldn't do enough crunches, and couldn't even manage two pull-ups. While my best girlfriends went on to play with the volleyball team, I couldn't even make an adequate serve. My really thin wrists would turn red at the exertion. I was pathetic.

I remember sometimes worrying about these things at night before I go to sleep. And if I could talk to my high school self, I would tell her, "You need not have bothered." I'm remembering all these because my son is also on the thin side. And he one day told me that he'd really like to put on some weight. Well, my son, don't worry, you'll put on those pounds soon enough.

You see, at our mini-high school reunion, my girlfriend G and I noticed that while the girls looked ten times better (maybe it was because we learned how to dress better and dumped Aqua Net), the boys either had receding hairlines or increasing waistlines. So, my son, be careful what you wish for because you might just get it! :)




The guys... do you notice anything? :)





Best friends forever!





We love black! Nakakapayat kasi! Mwahahaha





Punong abala





Still the cutie :)





Go, go, go!





Hotness...





And more hotness...





This post would not be complete without my mentioning my monumental snafu. I could not, for the life of me, remember this guy. Only when I went home and checked our yearbook did I finally recognize who he was but that's because he looked great that night. Sorry, E! Mwah!

Out of Time

Went off on another drive-by assignment: short, sweet, and filled with a thousand and one tales. While this type of assignment can be awfully tiring, I have to admit that I still get a kick out of the whole flying thing. When you're up in the air, time stands still. You can watch a movie, read a book, or nod off to sleep and you need not be worried that you have to cook lunch or catch a meeting or finish one thing or another. You're still up in the air: you have all the excuse you need.

I've got a hundred and one things that I need to tick off my to-do list but just for a precious few minutes in the sky, I am free.

We're on an express elevator to hell, going down!

Action flick buffs would readily recognize this line from Aliens. This is the one where the marine soldiers go down on the surface of LV-426 via a dropship and Hudson, played by a young Bill Paxton, shouts out his eventual fate with delightful glee.

My boys and I are certified action movie buffs. We can spend all day watching one heart-thomping, ear-stomping movie after another: the louder, the better. The other day, upon seeing a young Bruce Willis almost falling down the elevator shaft in Die Hard, my son F and I got to talking about how all action movies seem to have an elevator scene. Terminator 2 got a meet-freak by the elevator while Sarah Connor almost goes out of her mind. Mission Impossible killed off Emilio Estevez right off the bat. The Matrix has a nice one with Neo and Trinity riding up the floors by hanging on to the cables: "There is no spoon."

Here, some of our favorite elevator scenes:



Speed opened up with a bomb-on-elevator setup before Dennis Hopper turned it into a bomb-on-bus mission. I miss Dennis Hopper. I miss the way he makes such a good villain: "Do not attempt to grow a brain!"





The Die Hard series has a lot of elevator scenes: John MacClaine trapped in an elevator full of bad guys in Die Hard 3 and shooting them all down. John MacClaine dropping a bomb down the elevator shaft, blowing up the Nakatomi building in the process. However, my favorite is John MacClaine driving an SUV down the elevator, killing the beautiful Maggie Q in the process.





I was absolutely speechless when I first saw this... still am.





But my absolute favorite elevator scene is this one from Toy Story 2. Sweet! :)

Tinimbang Ka Ngunit ... Sobra

I have not seen a weighing scale in ages. When ours conked out many months ago, it never occurred to me to replace it. Not that I ever gave my weight much thought. I have never been on a diet in my entire life because eventually, I always go back to my fighting form, which is around 120 to 125 pounds; 125 pounds max!

And so, when my friends and I passed a weighing scale at a hospital (I was there to visit a colleague), I gamely volunteered. And guess what? I am now 135 pounds!!! WTF!! Goodness! I am 135 pounds! That's heavier, if I remember right, when I was pregnant with my first baby. Great!


Maybe it's because of all that cheese and pizza and creamy pasta that I always get at Cibo ...




Or maybe it's all those rolls of Peking duck that stuffed my face with in a Chinese restaurant in Cebu after interviewing around a dozen women for an assignment ...





Or maybe it's the bagnet, pinakbet, and dinuguan at La Preciosa in Laoag that we had for lunch after waking up at seven in the morning and going straight to a corporate meeting ...





Or maybe, just maybe, it's the frozen chocolates and churros at Xocolat that I had with A and B.




It doesn't matter.

L told me that I was going to gain weight in this freelance life. And well, she is absolutely right. But if 10 pounds is the price I have to pay for waking up whenever I want to, for being able to work on one cool project after another, for being able to hang out with my kids--watching movies and making fun of ants, and for living a relatively stress-free life, well then, bring it on!

Mommy's Day Off

Whenever one of my kids needs to ask permission to go somewhere or another, his or her voice takes on an almost-sweet and all-too-conciliatory tone. And so, when E said "Ma" oh-so meekly, I knew that a party was somewhere in the horizon. And true enough, there was not one but two parties that she wanted to go to.

After the usual who-what-when-where grilling, I said OK. E gave a big, fat smile and was happy all evening. The fact that one of her parties was a weekend outing with her classmates must have done the trick. After all, that's three days without having to attend to her mommy duties, three days without having to watch Elmo, three days without having to make yet another bottle of milk. I could so relate.

When I was a young mom, having a few hours to myself was heaven. And sleep, I remember, was the most precious commodity in the world. When my mom would take the kids off my hands just so I could spend a quiet day, I was grateful no end.

These days, I get to have all the time that I want to myself--after finishing all my deadlines, that is. And so, to my daughter E who just turned 20, here's a belated birthday gift! Go have a baby-free three days!



E at 20.

Baby's Day Out

A few weeks ago, Lula took Baby S out of her mother's hands and went with her to the mall. Of course, since Lula does not want to be carrying Baby S throughout the trip, she brought her two sons with her. Yes, it turned out into another family excursion. First, we visited the Lactacyd Baby Care Village where Baby S got sort of culture-shocked to see all these little kiddies. You see, she's the only little person at home. She doesn't know too many babies. And so, when this beautiful girl tried talking to her, Baby S didn't exactly know how to handle the social exchange.




That's the beautiful girl and that's Baby S not making her "pansin."




Baby S couldn't take her eyes off the humongous rubber ducky!!




Afterwards, we ended up going to all the places that my sons and I used to visit when they were still little. Here we are at the arcade...




We used to love playing air hockey.




A trip to Town Center would not be complete without dropping by Powerbooks. My kids and I used to be here almost every other weekend, attending reading workshops and arts and crafts sessions. Well, those were the days when they were young and all mine. These days they're off on their little adventures... which gives me time for mine.