Ok. I am here in my crib in Cebu. On the flight halfway to Korea, I had this sudden burst of anxiety, because a thought suddenly occured to me. Something is wrong with this picture: why am I travelling all over the world away from the people I care about? I have a daughter I left behind, I have 2 men I deeply care about (yes 2, sometimes 3) but they're not with me, nor am I flying towards them. I felt like blacking out as I tried hard to calm my nerves and  sort out the information that was fed to my brain out of nowhere.

Anyway, I'm ok now. Except that I am bumming off on my niece's computer because my new computer will not allow my wi-fi stick to work. It sucks not being able to go online when I want to.
As soon as I get set up, I will post pictures. I don't know what pictures, but I will post something and also tell you more about my day ---because I know you're dying to know about that. (you can laugh out loud here)

Until the next time, you are loved.

A Canadian Journal

Date: Sun, 3 Nov

Ah,yes... O Canada, Our home and native land!



Dear Diary



Aug. 12 - Moved to our new home in Canada. I am so excited. It's so beautiful here. The mountains are so majestic. Can hardly wait to see them with snow covering them.

Oct. 14 - Canada -- it is the most beautiful place on earth. The leaves have turned all colors and shades of red and orange. Went for a ride through the beautiful countryside and saw some deer. They are so graceful. Certainly they are the most wonderful animals on earth. This must be paradise. I love it here!

Nov. 11 - Remembrance Day. Deer season starts soon. I can't imagine anyone wanting to kill such a gorgeous creature. Hope it snows soon. I love it here!

Dec. 2 - It snowed last night. Woke up to find everything blanketed with white. It looks like a postcard. We went outside and cleaned the snow off the steps and shoveled the driveway. We had a snowball fight (I won). When the snow plough came by we had to shovel the driveway again. What a beautiful place. I love Canada!

Dec. 12 - More snow last night. The snow plough did his trick again to the driveway. I love it here.

Dec. 19 - More snow last night. Couldn't get out of the driveway to get to work. It's beautiful here but I'm exhausted from shoveling. F#cking snow plough.

Dec. 22 - More of that white shit fell last night. I've got blisters on my hands and a sore back from shoveling. I think the snow plough hides around the corner until I'm done shoveling the driveway. Asshole.

Dec. 25 - Merry F#cking Christmas! More frigging snow. If I ever get my hands on the sonovabitch who drives the snow plough, I swear I'll kill the bastard. Don't know why they don't use more salt on the roads to melt the f#cking ice.

Dec. 27 - More white shit last night. Been inside for three days now except for shoveling out the driveway after that snow plough goes through every time. Can't go anywhere, the car's stuck in a mountain of white crap and it is so frigging cold. The weatherman says to expect another 10 inches of the crap again tonight. Do you know how many shovels full of snow 10 inches is?

Dec. 28 - That f#cking weatherman was wrong. We got 34 inches of the crap this time. At this rate it won't melt before summer. The snow plough got stuck up in the road and that bastard came to my door and asked to borrow my shovel. After I told him that I had already
broken six shovels shoveling out all the crap he had pushed into my driveway, I damn near broke my last one over his f#cking head.

Jan. 4 - Finally got out of the house today. Went to the store to get food and on my way back a damned deer ran in front of the car. Did about $3,000 damage to the car. Those beasts should be killed. The bastards are everywhere. Wish the hunters had exterminated them all last November.

May 3 - Took the car to the garage in town. Would you believe the thing is rusted out from all that salt they put all over the roads.

May 10 - Moved to Florida. I can't imagine why anyone in their right mind would ever want to live in such a God forsaken place as Canada

I needed to edit my previous post when I said "last Thursday of November" it's not the last Thursday--my bad. But because I am using this desktop, for some reason I could not make it do what I want it to do; I can post but I can't go back to edit. Oh well.

I have 3 days left here in my apartment and I'm still unable to shake off the sadness, inspite that my brain is able to process the truth, that this too will pass. Which makes me more convinced of why we should tackle life just one step at a time. Last night when I started to get anxious about my laptop crashing, I told myself: why worry, I may not wake up in the morning to need a computer. And it worked; I stopped worrying about it and I went to sleep. But I woke up. And I'm here typing on this lousy desktop. So I tell myself again: be grateful for this day, be grateful for that left over turkey leg in the refrigerator. Not to mention that I am able to have an appetite.

Everything I learn, I learn from Chat. Lately, when I ask her "what are you going to do..." she'd say, "Mom, my plan only goes so far as to what I'm going to have for lunch today. I can't plan that far ahead." Which really makes sense, I think. I have a list of things to do today, but right now, I only plan to open the refrigerator and eat that turkey leg. So what about you?

Happy Pig

Omg. I have to scramble and work this desktop that I haven't used in ages because my Netbook crashed and I don't know how to fix it or where to begin to fix it. And it's setting me up for a major panic attack especially with all the things I have to do at the last minute. But then again, I could have a "banger" (my Irish friend told me it means a heart attack) and who cares then about this other small stuff.  So I breath in and I breath out and I tell myself, as what I would tell my friends, "have a normal amount of perspective".

Ok. Think. Feast. Turkey. Pies. And grilled pork belly. Omg.  Yes, today is November 22, 2012, last Thursday of the month of November and it started out being called Thanksgiving by whoever those people are. But now, I think everybody just calls it pig day---we hog down and then sleep.

Allright everyone, before I go, let me share with ya'll one more time the principles I have started to apply in my life (I say started because I wasn't born nice and giving). 1. Giving does not always have to involve money. 2. Giving does not make you poor, hoarding does. 3. Black Friday is an appropriate use of word because every Friday after the first week of January, your weekend will always be black when you realize that there's more Fridays than there are dollars in your bank.

Remember: eat and sleep. Don't shop. Happy pig day everyone!!!

Ok, I'm on my last week here in my apartment in Dallas and I  woke up this morning feeling really sad, anxious and almost inconsolable. But I also know that once I'm in my farm, I will be ok-- atoned and reconciled back to my elements. I just need to get through this week.

This is one of the things I love about being here. The night before Chat and I left for San Francisco, we went to see Anthony Bourdain. Dinner first.

Chat got us a 'meet and greet' pass but we didn't go to it, because I have the attention span of a cockroach and it doesn't matter if it's Anthony Bourdain or Gerard Butler, my butt just won't sit through past 45 minutes. Next week, I will be eating like this.

Or this.

And I get to snuggle with my main man again.

And then back to reality. Work in the farm.

I am back home from a 4 day vacation in San Francisco. I love San Francisco; it has culture, a quirky personality and lots of  good looking men. Oh wait. Good looking and fashionably correct, but am not sure if they're men.

Within minutes on the taxi ride to our hotel, I was immediately aware  that I have left Dallas. (Remember this is my first time in SFO) My eyes were taking in the buildings with that old world look, rich in decorative detail and the residential homes that looked like square boxes with built-in windows. And how much did you say? I had to ask the taxi driver to repeat the cost of those houses. In case, I didn't hear him correctly. I made a quick mental calculation and I figured that if I had owned one of those boxes, and I sell them, I could buy 2 real houses in Dallas, the new Fiat  and have plenty left over to buy more farm land in the Philippines.

San Francisco is a beautiful place to visit, but as long as I'm in the market for a husband I don't want to live there.  "And why is that?" Chat asked. "Well, I feel like swearing off men because I have eyed 7 already, and then find that the men they're walking with are not their drinking buddies." Really.

Oh well. Nothing that food can't compensate for. breakfast on the plane 7a.m.

Lunch at the wharf.

Cocktails on the plane heading home.

As I am winding down to the  day I am supposed to leave to go back to the island, I am feeling this edginess, a slight touch of anxiety. I never feel this coming back here in the US, in fact, I get so giddy and feel high as a kite thinking of my landing in Dallas. I know why.

Leaving the island means I am heading in the direction closer to Chat, while leaving Dallas means farther away from her. Because I stay in this constant state of restlessness, regardless where I am, being close by Chat tempers the intensity of the angst. And if there's anybody who can transform my angst into a full blown euphoria, it's her.

Yesterday, she called very early. "Mom, if there's any place you can go to in the US, where would  it be?" "California." What I really meant  was San Francisco. "Oh good. This Saturday I will take you to San Francisco." When Chat says something like that, I don't wonder, it's as good as done. What I miss from a rich boyfriend or a rich husband she's more than fulfilled.  I've never been to San Francisco except inside the airport, so when she mentioned of the eating activities she has planned; crabs at the wharf, brunch at Pebble Beach and tapas bar, my stomach started growling. "Then to get your palate ready for the Philippines, we'll go to Kusina ni Tess." Oh Lordy, do I really need that?

2 Greedy Italians

Mushrooms  has a history with me because growing up, my dad would send me out all the time to gather mushrooms which were prolific in the bamboo forest near our house. He taught me how to identify the edible from the poisonous ones, and he cooked it simply by wrapping it with banana leaves, sprinkled with coarse salt and grilled.
This is food porn, if I may say so.

I love simple foods. By that, I mean foods simply cooked without so much preparation and so much ingredients that I'd have to wonder and ask if I'm eating chicken, fish or beef. This is because I grew up with a mother who cooked our food only 2 ways: if it's vegetables, she boiled it, if it's chicken, she boiled it with vegetables. Beef or pork? We hardly had them unless someone got married or died.

So when I see this over inflated, overly celebrated cooks, I don't know how to take them. Unless. It's Anthony Bourdain. Not so much because he can cook, because really, anybody can cook because as far as I'm concerned, the principle of cooking is very simple: If it's to be eaten raw, then you don't have to cook it. If it's supposed to pass through the fire, then build a fire and make sure it's dead before you swallow it. I love the culinary bad boy Tony because let's admit it, the man is not bad on the eyes and..... he can write.

Another thing that doesn't sit well on my palate is the highly exalted, much feared food critics. Seriously. (Just because they write for the New York Times or Huffington Post.)  But then again, that's just how I roll. Yeah, yeah, I go from one extreme to the next. Here's another bad boy I like. Is he an artist cook? or a cook artist.