October 2008: Happy elsewhere

One whole week with my sister and three nieces! I think I did more eating and shopping (alright, my sister shopped, I walked with her) in that one week than I did in the previous six months. I loved baby-sitting the girls so my sister could spend some undisturbed time with family and friends. I hope they can come back next year, and for a longer period!

Before they arrived, I squeezed in five performances in three weekends. Hubby-dear had to watch more. Much more.

La Bohème
Philippine Opera Company
http://www.philippineoperacompany.com
Music by Giacomo Puccini • Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Helen Quach • Directed by Floy Quintos

Disney's Mulan Jr.
Repertory Philippines
http://www.repertory-philippines.com
Directed by Joy Virata • Choreographed by Denisa Reyes

Piaf: Love Conquers All
MusicArtes
Written by Roger Peace • Director, Designer, Actor: Naomi Emmerson • Piano Accompaniment by Carmela Buencamino-Sinco

New Beginnings
Ballet Philippines
http://www.balletphilippines.org
Night Creature
Choreography by Alvin Ailey • Restaged by Elizabeth Roxas-Dobrish • Music by Duke Ellington
The Hurt We Embrace
Choreography by Max Luna III • Music by Jan Ap Kaczmarek
Mga Awit
Choreography by Max Luna III • Music by Michael Dadap • Lyrics by Nelson Navarro
Thresholds II
Choreography by Alan Hineline • Music by Jerome Begin

Master Class
Philippine Opera Company
http://www.philippineoperacompany.com
Written by Terrence McNally • Directed by Michael Williams

September 2008: Happy elsewhere

My very late chronicle of what I watched in September.

West Side Story
Stages Production
Book by Arthur Laurents • Music by Leonard Bernstein • Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim • Stage Direction by Menchu Lauchengco-Yulo • Musical Direction by Gerard Salonga

Isang Panaginip na Fili
Dulaang U.P.
http://www.upd.edu.ph/~dup
Written & Directed by Floy Quintos • Music by CJ Javier • Choreographed by Van Manalo
Photograph by Joel Reyes

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's The Magic Flute
Philippine Opera Company
http://www.philippineoperacompany.com
Directed by Kokoy Jimenez

La Revolucion Filipina
Ballet Philippines
http://www.balletphilippines.org
Music by Ryan Cayabyab • Choreographed by Agnes Locsin
Photograph by Victor Ursabia

September is also when I met with blogger friends Cheyenne and Christine. Chey came to Manila for a week and we met for lunch at the People's Palace restaurant, where we had a Thai curry overload. It was great meeting you, girls!

Also during this month, I learned a lot about the inner workings of online and cellphone payments—much, much more than I ever wanted to know.

Of blogs, time, and family

First of all, I would like to apologize for not logging in for a couple of weeks. When my sister told me around mid-October that she and my three nieces were coming to Manila for a week-long visit, I decided that I wanted to spend all that time with them and I asked for a vacation leave from work. Which meant that I had to make sure that I tied as many loose ends as I could before my leave started. Then I also had to have the bathrooms in the house repaired—something I'd been putting off for some time—which meant going out to buy all the materials and fixtures needed then scheduling the plumber.

The week that they were here was wonderful! At least, for me. I can only hope that 'my' girls had a great time too.

I'm back at work now, and of course I'm having to catch up with everything.

And not just at work, but also at home. My clothes are just stacked up on a dresser and I have yet to store the mattresses properly (I wrap them up in black plastic to keep them safe from pests, dust and humidity—perennial problems in Manila). I've also just realized that it's already November and I better start giving away the early Christmas presents which I bought back in February (gosh, how time flies!).

Finally, I also have to catch up with my blogs and those of my friends.


I've been pretty faithful in posting to My Manila (though I haven't been able to respond to any of the comments there these past couple of weeks either), which is now part of the City Daily Photo portal, but I've slowed down quite terribly with Happy at Home. I've never considered myself a writer and I actually started Happy at Home as a challenge to myself, aside from wanting—no, needing—to share what I've learned over the years. But generating ideas for blog topics can be time-consuming, sometimes I need to research, and I still don't find writing any easier even after a year of semi-regular writing. A photo blog is so much easier to maintain. The text can be minimal and it won't matter much, and the photo itself gives my writing focus.

Anyway, I hope I can get back on track soon—with all aspects of my life, not just my blogs. I seriously have to rethink how to spend the limited time I have to myself. I guess it's something we all have to go through every now and then. And that's good.

Excellent Excellence

In November of last year, I wrote about my preferred brand of hair color, Revlon's ColorSilk, in "My whites are showing." I've recently just changed brand loyalties. Now, my hair color of choice is L'Oreal's Excellence Creme.

What made me switch? The number one reason is the fact that it is a cream, not a liquid. No dripping! It's wonderful! That alone would have been enough reason to make me switch. The second reason is the conditioners that it comes with. Note that I used the plural. It comes with a pre-color conditioner aside from the regular after-color conditioner. It's an additional step and makes the process a little longer, but for someone like me who always struggles with dry hair, it's a very welcome step. And the after-color conditioner: L'Oreal has packaged Excellence with a small bottle of its Color Vive hair conditioner, enough for two or three applications. The applicator bottle also comes with two nozzles, the regular one-hole kind and this small comb where each tooth has holes in the sides, not the tips.

I love this new discovery. I've already bought my second bottle and it's waiting in the toiletry cabinet for my next application, about two months from now—just in time for the Christmas parties.

Sweet chili shrimp

How do you explain to someone who doesn't cook, or who can cook only with a recipe, what goes on through your mind when you're deciding on what to whip up?

Take this dish, for example. I had one kilo of shelled, deveined shrimp thawing in the refrigerator. I had moisturizing gunk on my hair and scalp and wanted to keep it on the whole day so I didn't want to have to go out to buy ingredients. So I was running through both the refrigerator and the pantry in my mind (I was reading blogs at the time and didn't want to get up to check). When my mind got to the bottle of sweet chili sauce, it stopped. Ah ha! Okay, shrimp sautéed in sweet chili sauce. But a kilo of shrimp isn't a lot—what can I use to extend it? Ooh, I still have a pack of fish tofu in the freezer. So I get up, take it out of the freezer and put it in the refrigerator to thaw. And as I do that, I see the carton of quail eggs—that'll do. Better boil those now so they'll have plenty of time to cool—I hate peeling hot hard-boiled eggs and scorching my fingertips. Much later, when the eggs have been boiled, cooled and peeled and it was almost dinner—I expected the cooking time to be less than 30 minutes—I bring out the shrimp, tofu and sweet chili sauce from the refrigerator. My eye gets caught by another bottle of sauce, chili garlic this time. Ooh, that'll add a little more kick to the dish—the sweet chili sauce hardly has any. So there, ingredients complete and all I have to do now is cook everything.

I think almost everyone here can follow the thought process, but I don't think I'll ever be able to describe how I know that one ingredient will taste good with another. Will "You have to imagine how they'll taste like together" help?


Anyway, let's cook the dish now.

Since the tofu pieces were pretty big, I cut each piece into quarters. I also cooked it first because it's not pure tofu and is actually a little starchy so I figured it would need to be cooked longer than the shrimp. In a wok, heat a teaspoon of sesame oil, add a teaspoon of chili garlic sauce, stir until mixed well. Add the tofu and sauté until the pale sides are a bit brown, adding a tablespoon of sweet chili sauce sometime during the sautéing. Set aside.

Add more sesame oil and chili garlic sauce to the wok and sauté the shrimp, with one and a half teaspoons of salt. Add sweet chili sauce during the sautéing. When the shrimp's more than halfway done (that is, it's losing its transparency), add the tofu and continue sautéing. When the shrimp's cooked, add the quail eggs. Toss—lightly, so the eggs won't break—to mix the three main ingredients well and to coat the eggs in the chili sauce (add more chili sauce if necessary).

August 2008: Happy elsewhere

Noli at Fili: Dekada 2000 (Dos Mil)
Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA)
http://www.petatheater.com
Written by Nicanor G. Tiongson • Directed by Soxie Topacio

Otelo: Ang Moro ng Venecia
Tanghalang Ateneo
http://www.tanghalangateneo.org
Written by William Shakespeare • Translated by Rogelio Sicat and Luna Sicat-Cleto • Directed by Dr. Ricardo G. Abad

The Golden Child
Tanghalang Pilipino
http://www.tanghalangpilipino.com
Written by David Henry Hwang • Directed by Loy Arcenas

August was also the month we spent a long weekend in Baguio City, which calls itself the Philippines' summer capital because of its cooler climate. I posted some pictures in my other blog and if you'd care to see them, click here.

Dracula meets Sweet Valley High

I just got suckered into reading Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight." Blame two of my college girlfriends. One has a grade school-age daughter whose friends were all so into it, my friend decided to read it just to find out what it was about. And got hooked. The other one has a more convoluted story involving her older sister, the sister's colleague from a large Philippine corporation, and the colleague's daughter. Anyway, she got hooked too. And so did all the moms who read the book their young daughters were reading. In my case, my friends told me about the book series on Sunday and the first said she'll lend me her daughter's copy if she and her girlfriends were done with it. And the very next day, she came by the office to drop it off!

My regular reading fare is science fiction, fantasy, history and historical fiction, with a smattering of contemporary fiction, the classics and all other genres. I also happen to like young adult fiction. About the only thing not included in my reading list is romance. "Twilight" is young adult, fantasy and romance. Two out of three. So I read it. And in the middle of reading another novel too—something I rarely do, but this is a borrowed book and I wanted to be able to return it quickly in case any of the young girls still haven't read it.

I really hate to say this, but I thoroughly enjoyed the book! I wasn't kidding about the title of this post. "Twilight" really is Bram Stoker's "Dracula" meets Sweet Valley High. (I was actually a little too old for the latter when it came out, but my younger sister had a few and I read a couple.) In Tagalog, we have a word for what I felt while reading it: kilig. I have no idea how to translate it to English. But you know the nice little shivers which run up your spine during romantic scenes in movies and books? That's it.

It was fun feeling like a high school kid again. But I think I'll quit while I'm ahead. There are three other books in the series and my friend said she'll lend them to me one by one. Thanks, Ces, but I think I'll pass on the offer. I might end up feeling like I did after I read Dan Brown's other books—I should have stopped after "The Da Vinci Code." Well, except maybe for the last book. I would like to know if Edward gives Bella what she's asking for and how.

Looking for an image of the book's front cover (which I found in Stephenie Meyer's website), I discovered that it's being made into a movie. None of the cast is familiar to me, and I've never heard of the director or producers either. But I think I'll brave the hordes of giggly pre-teens who are sure to watch it. It's coming out this November. I doubt very much if my husband will watch it with me, so Ces, Beng: it's a date?