June 10, 2006 – Pinay New Yorker

Our windows were always partially opened the past couple of days because of the summer heat. It suddenly feels like fall again so I’ve closed the windows because it’s getting chilly in the house. The wind has been relentless outside, and starting to go dark at just 3PM. I guess that takes care of our plans lto go to the McDonald’s in the neighborhood to grab some french fries and allow Angel some time to play. While it’s not that long a walk, I don’t want to get caught in pouring rain blocks away with Angel on a stroller.

I also have a gigantic headache I can make no sense of. Maybe it’s because I slept at almost 3AM this morning and the boy woke me up at 6AM. (Of all days for him to wake up early, it had to be a day we didn’t have to go to daycare and I can actually oversleep.)

I’m not complaining. We’ve been spending a ton of quality time together today. He’s been asleep for an hour now and I hope he sleeps some more. You know how kids can get cranky when they don’t get enough sleep during their afternoon nap. Mine is no exception.

At least I am sorting my postcards here and there. I’m trying to pull together all the postcards Alan and I have sent Angel whenever we were some place else, be it on business or for pleasure, whether he was with us or not. Time to put them all together in an envelope or maybe even an album so he can see them when he’s bigger, and he can see where we’ve been though and how we were thinking of him going back there when he was older like Paris. As a postcard collector, it’s an important way for me to keep these souvenirs.

I have quite a handful now because I never send him just one, except this one time from Manila. And it’s not even a viewcard but something from The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. At least I have one coming!

Time to brew some Jasmine tea.. I need a cup to warm me up.

I can’t sleep. I’ve been trying to chat with one of my dearest friends, Demi, on Yahoo Messenger, but my connection has been rather erratic. We finally had to give up when Angel stirred and I had to lull him back to sleep sometime midnight and Demi decided to grab some lunch.

I washed the woven placemats which is rather tedious considering they are thick yet delicate. I rolled them up and put them up standing on the dish rack. Tomorrow I will hang them to dry.

I feel like I’ve had a productive evening. I have enough adobo for lunch tomorrow, and I plan to work on my beef short ribs with Mom’s new slow cooker. I haven’t quite made up my mind if I will cook some sinigang or if I will fish for my Korean Beef recipe and try that instead.

It’s been raining again and the wind has been blowing. While washing my placemats, I couldn’t help but try to go back to my first Saturday back home. I couldn’t remember what I did for a minute there, but it came back to me soon enough. I brought Angel to visit Dad at the parlor — had my manicure/pedicure, then off to lunch to have Congee at Luk Yuen in Greenhills. We bought some groceries at Unimart (which, to my horror, no longer accepts American Express!) then home to get ready for Dino’s party in the evening.

Congee, chicken feet.. back to the place I grew up in — I couldn’t go shopping as much as I wanted to because Angel fell asleep soon after we arrived in Greenhills, and the Greenhills tiangge crowd isn’t exactly hospitable to strollers. I got so paranoid that people coming at me from the opposite direction might ram my boy in the stroller, so I commanded one of my siblings to walk ahead of Angel and me. That brought me to the reality that yes, I’m in Manila — where pedestrians are afraid of motorists (and not the other way around like here in the US), and people walk with no regard for children in strollers or the elderly.

Still, it was good to be home. The congee with the wonton flakes tasted as good as I remembered it. The chicken feet was okay but I didn’t even get to finish it. Lunch was with Dad, Nikky, Ofie and Audrey — and that alone made it a treat in itself.

Time to hit the sack now, I guess.