randoms

quarantine week number whut???

i hardly even know what day or date it is already ever since the beginning of june. the only time i'd have a grasp of the date is if i have something scheduled but since there's practically nil, well, it's hit and miss now. 

regrets, i've had a few...

one of which is not knowing how to drive. i've said it before and i'll say it again: with metro manila traffic and public transportation being the way they are, which is pitiful, i see no need in learning how to drive. and as pitiful as the public transportation may be, there's an abundance of it even when you don't want any so yes, there's no need to go to driving school. 

then the pandemic came, and the world shut down. quarantine time would have been the perfect time to learn how to drive. and let's say i already know how to drive before everything went crazy, then at least i'd be able to drive my folks over to manila bay and breathe in the fresh air.

practical recluse amongst social butterflies

being cooped up in one place with loud, social, and extremely high strung and sensitive individuals for long stretches of time can be quite the challenge. i am highly tempted to join the nuns who have taken a vow of silence. 

what fresh hell is this???

is what runs in my mind each and every time i read or hear something on the news and even social media. yet i keep checking my own pages. so for fun, i share foolishness and light to temper the loud, loud people who think what they believe is the right thing. doesn't matter who they are and which side of the fence they're on. they make me want to bang my head on the wall. they're that deafening. 

solo convos

yet this is not to say i've lost hope. it's very easy to be cynical in times like this and i have always been cynical since the beginning of time. but there's always that little kernel of hope that bugs me every now and then that says, just hang in there. 

and then señorita cinica retorts, until when, eh?

and then hope says, basta!

so i say, ewan.

haaaa.

christmas all the time

i thought i'm the only one who does anything christmasy any time other than christmas time itself. turns out my kumareng gemma is doing something festive this month with recipes people normally use around christmas. but for me it has something to do more with music rather than fragrant, spicy-sweet baked christmas goodies. 

people who are and have been around me would know that i listen to christmas songs any time i felt like it. i've had people laugh at that but who cares, i want to hear britney spears sing 'my only wish this year' on the aircraft speakers. 

so anyway, i was doing laundry the other day and was listening to a random christmas playlist on spotify when the clear and youthful yet sultry vocals of eartha kitt warbling 'santa baby' filled my ears. 

a new song in my christmas playlist then, yeah? 

of course. 

and a new musical obsession. 

christmas does bring gifts beyond christmas.

barrage of baking

what i love about mareng gems (feeling close lang talaga lol) is that she generously shares all that she's learned from her years of experience as a pastry chef. i enjoy the tips and tricks to make something out of ingredients on hand if you don't have the actual ingredient, such as making powdered sugar, making buttermilk, cream cheese, sour cream, condensed milk, and so on. 

so far i've only tried the buttermilk and powdered sugar due to necessity. buttermilk turned out great but i have to fine tune my powdered sugar making skills. ha. 

in line with christmas in any time, i tried baking apple cinnamon rolls instead of plain cinnamon rolls. for the apple filling i used the applesauce i made days before. recipe was for plain applesauce but i added a generous helping of cinnamon in it because i love cinnamon so much. so one can just imagine the scent of baking apples combined with the overload of cinnamon just wafting through the house on a cool evening. 

again the rolls were baked stovetop so they were pale except for the top and bottom parts which i browned. the finished product looked ok and the taste was ok, equal parts tangy (from the applesauce) and sweet (from the cream cheese glaze). i just have to make more improvements as to what bread type will i put the applesauce next time. could be buns or pockets next time instead of rolls. will see.