sunday currently vol.51

soooooo it's been a long time since i did this thing. 

Currently...

reading: come sundown by nora roberts. i'm happy to be reading once more 

writing: this! ha. and a bit of each of the three fanfictions i've been writing since the beginning of time lol.

listening: to jj heller's music. she is one of my top five artists according to spotify, and i couldn't agree more. she is also one of my musical discoveries for this year, starting with her song "meant to be".  

thinking: of how in the world will i ever get a job in my chosen field, preferably remote. (yep i lost my job no thanks to this pandemic but i'm still hopeful amidst everything else. i should be weirded out by this but nope.)

smelling: nothing. before, this answer would not have any bearing. but being unable to smell anything now might signify one has covid... then again, i'm nowhere anything quite smelly so i guess that's still a good thing. 

wishing: for all this to be over. 

wearing: pink racerback tank and blue batik pants. kinda cold tonight!

loving: i dunno, maybe still the silence. metro manila has definitely gone back to the old normal (puke) whilst trying to make the most of living with covid still lurking about.

wanting: for all this to be over.

needing: remote job or a job that will require me to leave this country. not saying it's safer than here, but i'd rather live in a place where it's less populated and less noisy (meron ba 'non?! lol). 

feeling: like my brain is going to explode. again and again and again and again and again. --> this was what i wrote in vol. 50. still rings true today. 

today

decided to go to church and meet up with some friends afterwards for lunch and whatnot. had a lot of fun chatting about anything that came to mind. enjoyed the unique burger meal i had in mo's burger. also saw an old friend from work, bought some stuff in the supermarket, and chatted some more with my friends with a few photo ops in between sips of our zen milk tea in kumori. then went home, watched a movie, cooked dinner, ate dinner with family. these activities make for a pretty regular sunday if you think about it. but with covid, nothing is really "regular" anymore. 

starting of course with the mandatory wearing of face mask and face shield within public premises. let's face it. it's difficult to talk to someone without having to ask them to repeat themselves because their voices sound muffled and hollow behind their own protective gear. so of course we move closer in order to hear each other clearly. so much for social distancing in that regard. 

next would be the completion of contact tracing forms in every single establishment before entry.  there are two ways for this to be done: by paper and by qr code. thus queues form especially if you are quite slow in writing down your information. they aren't that long actually, but to me a queue is a queue and i have no patience whatsoever with slowpokes. i am that slowpoke sometimes. 

lastly, the temperature checks and spraying of hand sanitisers. these, along with the wearing of face mask (face shields weren't required until just a couple months ago) were considered our first line of defense since february. 

now combine all those factors with meeting up with friends and family. this one is kept to the barest minimum. i mentioned in a previous post that i get that touch of guilt whenever i go out because there's always that underlying fear of catching covid or worse, passing it to people unknowingly. even when i strictly follow safety guidelines to the point of being suspicious at the slightest cough. although everyone had been subject to all these guidelines for the past eight months, there are just some times wherein it gets exhausting especially since some of our country's so-called leaders think they're exempted but that's a story for another day. 

so exhausting that when i see characters in old tv shows or movies interact closely with each other, i think, is that how we really lived before this madness? it seems like i have forgotten what a good old pre-covid day feels like. i told my friend so and she agreed wholeheartedly. having to live with covid hanging over our heads has done a number on us in so many ways. whether we like it or not, it has indeed part of our "regular" days until a vaccine is found. so until then, taking the utmost care will be the name of the game.

i would have zoned out on my friends with these gloomy thoughts had i not checked out this paper wrapper that contained my krone. 

and i am jerked back to what really matters: cherish the moments spent with loved ones. in the short time i was able to get out, i was able to return to church. had a great time bonding with friends who i hardly saw for the past eight months except online. and then things at the home front were calm. even the weather was really cheery. bright blue skies with cool breezes blowing which were rare in the past month.  

yep. today is a good day. 

la musique

it's the phantom of the opera's 34th anniversary! the 25th anniversary special was shown again on youtube this weekend starting october 9 and i couldn't be any happier. i was able to watch that in the cinema in 2011 and i must say, what a spectacle indeed the 25th anniversary performance was. it was every bit as colourful as the one i watched on broadway back in 2002, with all the pizzazz elevated a thousand times worthy of a 25th anniversary production. and yes, i so loved sierra boggess as christine! 

my love affair with this musical started during a vacation in the states just a little over thirty years ago. i could distinctly remember my cousin playing a cassette of the phantom of the opera in her car stereo and she was singing along with sarah brightman with the high notes and all as we drove on a freeway. it was those high notes that really got me and i never forgot that. not long after returning to manila, my cousin was kind enough to send me the two-cassette (yeah i'm that old so what lol) original cast recording. the ribbons on those tapes should have been torn to shreds from the countless times i've listened to them in my walkman. so many times i've listened to the recording that i've practically memorised every line. so yeah. i know which lines have been changed in the songs! ha! which makes me also... one of those people who have memorised lines of a favourite show that i couldn't help but sing/speak along with the actors. in this case, while watching the musical, then the movie version, then the 25th anniversary production. but being the ever-conscientious audience that i am, i mouthed the lines for the most part. but now i am watching the show by myself so i don't care if i sing out loud. ;p

the phantom of the opera opened last friday, october 9 at 7pm uk time and is available for 48 hours everywhere else save for the uk. it is still showing on youtube in my time (gmt +8) as of this writing so do head over there and let the spectacle astound you. :) this is also for a worthwhile cause so do check the links in the video's description.

here is my absolute favourite part. 

c'est la vie

today is the last day of the tour de france. how disappointing that i wasn't able to watch the race. our current cable provider doesn't carry eurosport where i watch all three grand races (giro d'italia and la vuelta being the other two). had to make do with updates on tdf's facebook page. surprised to learn that egan bernal withdrew from the race less than a week before the paris stage. he was a contender for both the white and yellow jerseys but eventually dropped out of the overall classification on stage 15 upon losing time, and then in stage 16. 

amazed that another young rider has won tour de france this year. thank goodness for video updates. congratulations, tadej pogacar!

missed froome and thomas in the race. what comes to mind now is that it looks like there won't be the usual team ineos champagne salute later. still, congratulations to team ineos and all the others who participated in this year's tour de france amidst the pandemic. it's not an easy task organising, let alone join a major event where everyone's health is compromised at every turn. this is a historical event in itself. hopefully next year this wave of virus will have waned so the tour can start in july as per usual and not september. i'm just happy that they were able to pull this off. 

looking forward to the giro and la vuelta later this month and in october. 

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have no idea why my back hurts so much when i do chores. as much as i would love to stretch out on my lounge chair the whole weekend, i have no choice but to still move and do the heavy stuff especially laundry and cleaning the house from top to bottom. 

christmas wish list: 

1. robot vacuum, whatever you call it. 

that's it for now. cos just let me cook and do the laundry, but clean the house? yikes no. 

up until now my back is still hurting. 

i'm just getting old, that's what. 

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lying and staring off into space all weekend sound very enticing. can't do that with a clingy sourdough starter which needs to be fed. 

anyway, said starter this weekend was quite active. even with half a cup of starter, the pancakes i made this morning was about a quarter inch thick and oh-so-fluffay! 

also made beignets this afternoon with the dough i made last night. felt so extra when i dipped them in yema, cream cheese, and choco hazelnut instead of dusting them with powdered sugar. well, i wasn't feeling that extra to make my own powdered sugar, so there. easier to dip them in ready-made spreads. ha. still yummeh if you ask me. for some reason i'm imagining purists out there who will want my head for deviating from the traditional. lol.

i also planned to make ube halaya but yeah, my back hurts so i only mashed the ube and saved it for tomorrow's cooking. after work. eep! 

made sure to buy only half a kilo so i would only spend an hour mixing it. my mum kept laughing at the idea of me making ube halaya since she knows how much elbow grease is needed to mix the halaya to the desired consistency. 

pag masarap ang gawa ko, ako lang ang kakain no'n! 

random ramblings

well, well. if it isn't the fourth post here this month. i don't think i've blogged as much as i've had in the past years. but as i always like to say, out of the overabundance of the heart, the fingers speak. a lot. and i really do have a lot to say. it's just that when it's time, i clam up. even my fingers refuse to type the words i needed to say. so whatevs. this would be just like the few previous posts (with the exception of the one before this). feels just a bit forced. i don't even have a topic to write about; just blabber on with some brain farts for good measure. 

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salamat, shopee! 

so i've just made my first-ever purchase at shopee last week. even with my trepidation and impatience with the somewhat messy interface of the app (that's just me, don't judge.), i went ahead and bought myself a zero gravity lounge chair. what brought this about, you ask? well, the weather was so good last week, i just had to bask in it. especially last saturday. it was so sunny but cool as well due to the nonstop breeze. i also love the sound of the wind rushing through the leaves so yes, the great weather made me do it. 

the delivery took just two days to complete, and i was so happy it came in wrapped to death in bubble wrap!!! others take their knitting to their favourite spot in the house; i pop bubbles on my spanking brand new lounge chair just feeling the breeze in the middle of the garden. 

two things: 

1. someone's competing for a chance to use my chair: my pa. it's just so funny to see him so excited about the chair because he's the type to just fall asleep anywhere. well, i can't use the chair in the daytime anyway since i had to work, so i let him happily use it any time he wants to. 

2. i did mention that i bought it because of the great weather we're having, right? well, i had to wait for an extra day to be able to use it outside since it freaking rained on and off all day yesterday. but good things come to those who wait and earlier this afternoon i was able to finally feel the cool breeze i was longing for. 

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ano? ano? pakiulit nga?

these are the words that i kept hearing while on the phone. wearing a face mask and a face shield on top of it makes phone conversations difficult. i had to speak louder than the usual and even then i couldn't be understood by the person i was talking to. better to text instead. 

wearing a face mask and face shield is mandatory now. just couldn't help but feel inconvenienced since it's warmer now around my face. i mentioned on last sunday's post about not feeling that awesome breeze on my face because of the face shield. the other day i went out on a longer errand and even if the mall had airconditioning, my face felt really warm all throughout. 

now i feel bad for feeling inconvenienced when our frontliners in the hospital are working nonstop in the heat of not only their face masks and shields, but their PPEs as well. if these little things are worth using for the sake of everyone's health, then let's use them. 

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i've always been quite proud of not feeling sick while riding on any transportation. the few times i felt carsick is when the driver keeps on braking especially in a traffic jam, or when i'm on a bus. i eventually got used to riding the bus when i started working. it's those oft-used brakes in cars that drive me to the point wherein i feel nauseated. 

for some reason, riding in cars lately make me want to puke. not because the driver is not good, but i think that not being able to ride in any vehicle for weeks on end is the culprit. i really had to buy some mints to help alleviate that feeling. 

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macaulay culkin recently celebrated his 40th birthday and to commemorate it, he tweeted this: 

for some reason i just imagined 10-year-old mack saying that. 

happy 40th!