"christmas" or "end-of-year" party?

from ChurchMice

(sigh...sad mode on)

How I would love to spend Pasko in the Philippines! At least there, Christ is not taken out of Christmas (at least for most, I believe). And "Merry Christmas" is not called "Happy Holidays." And Christmas carols are played over the radio on the "ber" months.(sigh and huge pout)Christmas parties, exchange gifts, Kris-Kringle, Monito-Monita. Santa Claus, Christmas trees, socks, Noche Buena, cold Christmas mornings.

Here? Christmas is NOT Christmas. It is the summer holidays. This is how we spend Chirstmas Day (Ooops, should be December 25...hope the Political Correctness Police don't know how to read blogs):

(photo from ShaneMacdonald.org)

Yes, as unbelievable as it is, we spend the day at the beach. Not at home to wait for inaanaks complete with left over food from Noche Buena and well-thought-out presents. Not even at friends' houses to chat the day away. Definitely not those.

December is one of the hottest months in Australia. Some days would reach up to 45deg. And it isn't the same heat as what we have back home. Here, you can actually feel the sun trying to peel through your skin, and I imagine, if we are just made up of combustible material, we'd have bursted quite easily like those LPG-converted cars (or DELL batteries, hehehe). No wonder a lot of Aussies develop skin cancer.

Suffice it to say, Christmas at the southern hemisphere, in a multicultural country, is totally different from what I have been brought up to believe. Christmas is supposed to be characterised by snow, beautiful white surroundings, chimneys with fresh dust from Santa Claus' early morning visit, of "people making lists, buying special gifts, taking time to be kind to one and all...It's the time of year when good friends are near, everywhere, there's an air of Christmas joy." Nobody said that in other parts of the globe, they celebrate the Christmas season with a barrage of political correctness agendas with beers and barbies along the beach!

(sigh and pout again) I think some kind of cultural shock is taking its toll on me. Or maybe I just miss home.

Which reminds me, I ought to book for a ticket immediately! Otherwise, I'm a goner who won't experience Pinoy Pasko until next year.

of neighbours and falling trees

And falling tree it was.

My boss had been having this drama with his eighty-odd year old retired and lonely neighbour who does nothing else but annoy everyone else in the area. One time, my boss was preening his garden of those pesky little weeds (oh, not the illegal ones) when this neighbour came up to him and offered his help as there was nothing else to do (it was a lazy Sunday afternoon in Sydney... read: boring!) . My boss, being the ever-friendly and ever-tolerable 40-year-old that he was, accepted such gracious offer. Little did he know that this neighbour of his had long been annoyed of his uncoordinated garden so made this opportunity to re-landscape the area! So, instead of just tidying up the garden, he uprooted the plants which, to him, were a tiny bit misplaced and ineptly planted. Maybe he was fantasizing about being a member of Backyard Blitz? Who knows.

As ill-fortuned as the Boudelaire children can be, my boss lived next door to this bothersome neighbour. And with those little vexing episodes laying the base for an ultimate incident that would break any kind of bond between these two gentlemen (like a blanched silverbeet bunch that serves as the bed for the various-herb-marinated lamb steak...pardon my analogy but I am starving right now), they finally culminated with the falling tree incident. Mr. Neighbour was irritated with this pine tree of my boss only because a few of its branches extended over the dividing fence, albeit way above it; way above his roof even. Not too much of a trouble, yes, but Mr. Neighbour claims, and appropriately so, that it was invading his airspace. As the Latin maxim goes, Cuius est solum, ejus est usque ad caelen et ad inferos--'he who possesses land also possesses that which is above it as far as the heavens and that which is below it to the centre of the earth.' (Round 1: a point for Mr. Neighbour).

To prevent anymore skirmishes that weren't worth a dime, my boss trimmed those problem branches. But no, being retired and alone and a little loony, Mr. Neighbour wanted the whole tree cut, not just the branches! But that was a ripe, old, endangered-species pine tree, maybe even as old as he was! All the same, he would not accept any excuses, thus kept on bugging my boss who would not give in to that pressure. Until one day, as he was about to drive off for work, he noticed that sign on the tree which said "DANGER FALLING TREE!"

Underneath that sign, almost half of the tree's bark was cut in such a way that a hard gust of wind could unbalance the tree and the part that still held it together would give up and so the tree would fall right onto my boss' house! That morning turned out to be made up of unprecedented commotion, from the Council's men to firefighters, from fire trucks to huge cranes, from solicitors to Mr. Neighbour admitting that he was the one who cut that tree, and they finally cut that blessed tree down.

End of story? NO! My boss had three other trees along that fence line that Mr. Neighbour had his eyes on! And he threatened that he will do the same to those trees when he had the opportunity. Imagine how freaky you would get? Well, extremely FREAKED OUT—that's what my boss had been. He would wake up in the middle of the night when he heard some hubbub outside, which would turn out to be nothing but a couple of possums wooing each other (in that possum-ly manner). Anyway, I would be freaked out o'ryt!

The denouement? He appealed to the local magistrate for a restraining order against Mr. Neighbour. Though I'm not that sure if that would even work. Mr. Neighbour might even gladly welcome the company of the guards in jail, coupled with free board and lodging in those hotel-like cells. After all, what is that compared to his four-bedroom-two-storey property which hones in on his loneliness? At least, boss would have some peace at last.

Aaaargh, the dangers of a falling tree.

caught in childishness

ok, so i'm nearly thirty and i still love watching children's shows. i remember my father asking me to stop watching cartoon soap operas (nelo, princess sarah, etc.) back in college, he said i'm too old for those kinds of shows. yet here i am, spending my monday morning in front of the telly, laughing, singing and dancing with....(dyaran!)


maybe, there is some psychoanalytical dimension to my obssession with cartoons (note: not just animes or simpsons or other for-adults-only cartoons, but bob-the-builder types). or maybe i am a psycho? nevertheless, i still enjoy harmony and raphsody's "dancing the sleep away" song as well as "the fairy dance time" and even their good bye song. they are so cute and cheery and a real good start to a gloomy day.

ummm...food blog?

finally, here are the fotos of the stuff i cooked last vacation.


here's my palabok. it was a little salty, but still, when you haven't tasted palabok for two years, it was still the best palabok ever.


this is the pinoy-style sweet spaghetti. talap!


this one is my favorite. it's a grilled tuna steak with creamy mashed potato and steamed asparagus, carrots and green beans topped with diane sauce (usually used for grilled beef).


this one is the picadillos (giniling) which i really enjoyed. i discovered that the key to this recipe are the crunchy red and green bell peppers.


this lemon chicken is something different. but i loved it as well.


this is the baked fish with sweet and sour veggies (na hulaan kung sweet ba o sour?). hulaan pati kung asan yung isda. hehehe.


and ito ang pinakanamiss ko...tapsilog! sobra. heaven.

brunette

i've just updated my blog template!
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and i'm loving her red hair.
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grinning like a shot fox :)

yay! got my dsl back at home, after a gruelling one month of dial up! finally, i can enjoy the comfy of lightning speed downloads and uploads again.

i've also just redeemed my credit card reward points for a new breville esp8b cafe roma espresso machine! woo hoo! can't wait for it to be delivered...then enjoy a freshly brewed coffee with overflowing frothy milk from the comforts of my home! i think i should also buy a new couch then dim the lights around the lounge...just for the overall cafe effect. hmmm....next project, i guess!

seven weeks, cooks and cameras

it's the start of another semester, hopefully my last in this particular course. i've had quite a lot of adventures over the seven-week break, doing basic housewife things such as budgeting, planning the meal for the whole week, shopping for the ingredients for that week, and cooking those planned meals on designated days. it was quite enjoyable, like a roleplaying performance, knowing that it would only last for the winter break, then back again to the usual whatever-is-in-the-fridge-if-none-then-take-away routine.

i know that neither cooking nor baking is a forte of mine, but getting the goal quite right at the end makes me a happy person. there had been bad attempts, and a little too many i suppose, such as the leche flan which is, indeed, leche! or the baked fish with (supposedly) sweet and sour veggies but turned out to be neither sweet nor sour. nevertheless, with me cooking for seven long weeks everyday, there were bound to be good ones (thank God!). and so we enjoyed eating palabok, pinoy-sweet-style spaghetti with italian-style garlic bread, picadillos (though i always called this "giniling"), chili crab (oriental style), sinigang sa miso na ulo ng tuna, third-attempt leche flan, pancakes with maple syrup (though the pancakes were made using a pancake shake mix...just add water!), nasi goreng (indonesian fried rice), and, of course, what i crave the most, tapsilog (tapa queen style! yummm!!!)!

because i haven't got anything to do during those vacation weeks, i also decided to get into photography. i downloaded lessons over the internet and attended an hour-long class. though i know that there wasn't any chance i would reach even the five-steps-away-from-a-professional stage, i was able to celebrate my two filling-the-time carreer. thus, i happily took photos of the dishes that i cooked (only those which were successfully done) and i can definitely say that i enjoyed it.

so, here i am, on the first week of my spring semester, celebrating what i have accomplished, wishing there could be another week to just cook and take photos. i know that in the future, i would look back to this, my almost-two-months winter break when i became an amateur cook and amateur photographer. wonder if i can write that in my cv?

cheers.