Vanilla Ice Cream

Today marks the ninth year of my crazy, roller coaster relationship with my Mr. Curly Top.

It's amusing to see some people's reactions when they learn about my "very long engagement" with my guy. The exclamations of disbelief are exaggerated, bordering on comical. Sometimes it's a pain to have to explain to people how come we've been together this long yet we haven't settled down yet. There are those who are merely curious and mildly interested. These types are easy to handle. I give them a simple and brief explanation and they immediately get it. But every once in a while I would encounter someone who seems to have a better idea of how to live my life for me, and would insist on coaching me on what I should be doing, forcing their own views on how things should run in my world. I tolerate those people as best as I could. After all, everybody is entitled to their own opinion.

It was especially tedious today. It came to a point when someone analogized that it's like I'm eating vanilla ice cream everyday, since I've been with the same guy for nine long years, and I've never been with any other boy before that. This person believes it's laughable that I never gave myself the chance to try the other ice cream flavors out there. As soon as I heard that comment, I turned around and snapped, "Yes, we're a vanilla kind of couple, but I guarantee that our vanilla life is anything but bland and boring. The variety of flavors that we can cook up with our vanilla tandem would blow you away!"

I didn't really do that.

It crossed my mind, but since I'm a peace-loving citizen of Makati, I didn't. I just grinned and quietly committed homicide in my imagination.

I thank the heavens for the handful of friends who've known us the longest, those who were there to witness the budding of this romance, because I never feel the need to explain and defend myself to them. They just stand by us in the passing of the years, happy in our triumphs and supportive during our occasional breakdowns. I am also thankful for new friends who don't really know my Curly Top that well yet, but they can understand that I am happy with the life that I share with him.

Cheers to 99 more years!

Thank God it's Saturday!

I've recently come to love early Saturday mornings with a passion.

It's been four months now since I started working on a graveyard shift, and my work week ends when I get off the Friday shift at 11 AM. While most people extol the mantra Thank God it's Friday (allocating the night for good times and fun-filled night-outs with friends), I prefer to spend my Friday afternoon-to-evening-to-midnight-and-beyond comatose in my bed. Best of luck to any friend of mine who's looking to spend a great Friday night hanging out with me, because I'll be MIA, out of reach deep beneath the folds of my bed sheets.

After a 12-hour (or more) sleep, I usually awake from hibernation at around 3 or 4 in the morning every Saturday. My first requirements for the day would be food and coffee. After that has been satisfied, I would tidy up my room, and then get down to some serious Me-Time business. I would download the latest episodes of whatever TV series I'm currently hooked into. While waiting for the torrents to finish, I'd check my emails, like and comment like crazy on my friends' statuses and posts on Facebook, stalk some celebs on Twitter, lose myself on StumbleUpon, watch the latest Ellen DeGeneres clips on YouTube (and eventually getting lost as well, usually ending up watching a video of topless guys with rock-solid abs singing Call Me Maybe), read some of my friends' latest blog entries, or try to write something in my own blog. Once my eyes get tired of staring into the monitor, I'd momentarily abandon the laptop and grab a book from my shelf, and catch up on my reading.

I am currently reading A Storm of Swords, been at it for 3 weeks now, almost done but I really find it easier to watch the Game of Thrones on TV than read George RR Martin's thick tomes! I believe this is the only exception to my personal rule of "Read it before you watch it," when it comes to books being adapted into TV and the big screen. Also, I've started reading e-books! Anyone who knows me well enough would know that I prefer the hard copy over e-books. For me, having the copy of a book on your computer or iPad or Kindle or what-have-you is not the same as OWNING the actual, tangible book. But early this month a friend of mine emailed me a copy of the Fifty Shades trilogy, along with other chick-lit books, and I decided to download the Adobe reader for these types of files (I didn't even have an idea how to open the files at first, that's how ignorant I am of these e-books!), and voila! I now am in the process of becoming an e-book reader. (I'm still not converting, though. I'm just giving it a chance, hehe!)

 

Still trying to finish the third GoT book, only for the sake of randomly blurting out spoilers to friends who don't like to read the books but are anticipating the TV series' season 3!

So there, every Saturday morning, when the rest of the world is still slumbering, I am wide awake with my books, my TV series, my laptop and stable internet connection, my coffee and food, just basking in the peace within the four corners of my room, and rejoicing in the thought of not having to go to work today. As an added bonus, it's raining outside today, and I just love it when it rains, but only when I'm snug and comfy inside and am not required to go out!

Thank God it's Saturday!!!

Kaiser Elric

I'm now an aunt!!! Hooray!!!

Our little Kaiser Elric came into this world via caesarean section on Wednesday, July 11, 2012, just moments before 6 PM. My sister, Ate Mich, was wheeled into the labor room at 10 AM of the previous day. Her attending doctor attempted to deliver the baby via normal delivery, but my sister's blood pressure was higher than expected and the baby was losing a lot of water inside the womb so they finally decided to cut my sister open.

But enough of the gory details of childbirth! Here's the first glimpse of our precious little one who weighed into the world at 5 lbs, 8 oz:

Kaiser Elric, July 11, 2012

He is the newest addition to our family of 8, composed of our darling Papang and beloved Mama, ate Mich, me Lelel, bouncy teacher Chini, Harry Potter lookalike Eng. Glenn, chickboy Jicjic, and kulit bunso CJ. So far, baby Kaiser's Lolo Papang, tita Chini and titos Jic and CJ have only seen him through pictures and videos that we posted on Facebook, because they are all back home in Puerto Princesa. Only Mama and tito Glenn, who recently got hired on his first job here in Manila, (and me, of course!) were present to welcome our Ate's tiny baby boy.

I'm so looking forward to the day when baby will meet the rest of the family. Each one of us is already claiming that he looks like him or her. I'm sure this first grandson in the family is bound to be much more spoiled than his tito CJ!