I guess I’m still a bit of shock. She was just full of life yesterday, playing in her pen and being the way she was, albeit slower because she was old..something I’ve noticed in the past few months. Then when I woke up and we began setting up her playpen, we realized she wasn’t moving inside her cage anymore. It was then we realized that she’d been dead…for quite some time. Probably during the night.

I was too in shock I guess, I just picked up her stiff cold body and placed it carefully aside as we took out the rectangular pot where her two other sisters lay in rest and began digging under that last one spot to bury her in. It still hadn’t sunk in that she’s really gone.

Some people will say I’m over reacting because she’s just a measly rodent, and not a cat or a dog. Well here’s a message for you: Go. Fuck. Yourself.

A pet is a pet, and simple rodent or not, she was precious to me as all my other pets were. I remember being such a mess when Yuki first passed away. I got lost driving around frantically trying to find a vet that won’t turn me away (because finding vets who handle small animals is rarer than hen’s teeth here). But when I finally got to my destination she passed on, leaving me in such a terrible terrible mess.

My experience with Suki was a lot more fortunate, we found a vet in time but I was told she may not have too long to live even with her medication. She died the next day while I was holding her.

I guess some people will say Mimiru was being kind, dying as she did quietly, without my worrying or stressing to see my favorite pet pass on. I don’t know what to think..maybe they’re right, that Mimiru’s final act of mercy for me was dying quietly away from my sight, sparing me from the stress and worry when Yuki and Suki died.

It doesn’t change the fact that she’s gone though and I’m left more than a little saddened, and a tad more heartbroken. I just hope where ever they are, all my princess are having a wonderful time together. At least now Mimiru’s no longer alone as she’s with her sisters now in pet heaven.

Know that Mommy loves and misses you all, so very very much.

Anyway last January 3, 2010 was our family reunion. Now normally I’ve never been a big fan of family reunions. They were always so noisy, in an out of the way place, and surrounded by people I’m not all that close to (and sometimes get annoyed with).  This is especially true with my cousins. I blame this to location and age-gap. We live a little out of the ways with everyone else and being an only-child growing up I was used to being on my lonesome (I was also fairly uppity).

But now, that all my cousins are older, I can get along with them better. It used to be so hard. Imagine being 18 and your cousin is like 14. Now most of us are adults, and out of school and we more or less have a lot of things in common. I still have my younger cousins still but at least I’m more secure on where I stand in the scheme of things.

In other words: I had an absolute fun time at the reunion, than I would normally not expect.

The reunion was held at my aunt’s house in Paranaque. Her family had bought the adjacent lot and expanded their home at least enough to fit five families or so. And naturally that meant a lot of food had to be set out.

It was enough to make dieters cry. Thankfully I was still recovering from the New Year’s asthma attack to be all that hungry. I mostly had the Pancit Malabon, some pork barbecue and some of that baked chicken (the first dish to quickly disappear).

If, I was any more of a photo whore, one would notice that a majority of the family members are female. Which is true. There were ten (10) men out of (18) women present in the reunion. None of my cousins carry the last name sadly, except for me and one other (who was in Bicol at that time), and we’re both girls. Once we marry it’s adios to the family name.

Unless of course my dad marries his girlfriend and gets her preggers (which is unlikely given both their ages), but chances are it’ll be a girl. It’s almost guaranteed.

Speaking of my dad, he brought along his Magic Sing, a karaoke device, and set it up in my aunt’s entertainment room. It was cute watching him (but not hearing him) sing and serenade his girlfriend.

Overall it was a fun evening. We ended a bit late (dad’s fault), but it was fun. My cousins are a darling to talk to, particularly my artistic cousin. It shocked me since I really did expect her to be a doctor like her mom but now she’s more artsy than I’ll ever be. I’m so proud of her…

This is us in this picture. I’m the ugly fat duckling to the left as compared to my other two cute cousins. And yes I know, I need to lose weight! I’ve already begun my diet and exercise routine (one of my New Year’s Resolutions). Hopefully my medication to regulate my hormones will help, but I do worry about my steroids (for my asthma). Bloating is no fun.

And that’s it. I’m actually looking forward to future family gatherings if that’s any surprise (as long as they don’t hit on my special days ).

I hope your New Year was a good one, mine was. Meaning I’m not outside being set ablaze by fireworks or inhaling the godawful smoke and triggering my asthma. Plus being thirty-two stories up means I get to watch all the fireworks from the safety of my apartment window.

Although really I spent most of the evening in-front of the PC than partying and the day was spent mostly trying to make sense of this baked pasta recipe I inherited from my mom’s previous nurse many years ago. It was not exact, neither was it complete nor was it organized. So getting it right is a hit and miss type of thing.

Regardless I pushed on. It was New Year’s Eve after all, and I guess it wouldn’t hurt to have something nice made for dinner right? So I decided to unearth this slightly incomprehensible recipe and decided to give it a go. Instead of Lasagna noodles, I opted to use the Rigatoni that has been lying around or cupboard for a long time. I figured why waste it right? Instead of lasgana, I’ll be having a weird baked mac.

Well given I’ve tried this recipe a handful of times, I still have yet to master it, unlike my mom’s famous macaroni salad of doom. So when it came out, it didn’t came out as…appetizing as I like it. It was also my mistake that I’ve used far too much black olives into the mix and added the laurel leaves too late. The cheese sauce was too thin as well, almost watery. So it was no surprise that it burned easily in the turbo broiler.

Thankfully it didn’t detract too much of the taste, but it wasn’t as tasty as I’d like it. Note to self: get an actual recipe and see if I can merge the two or something. :/

My next project involved using the essential oils I bought from SM Megamall.There was a lot of stuff I wanted to do but it’s hard to find ingredients. Who knew eco-friendly stuff are so ridiculously hard to get or way too expensive!

Using the recipe for I got from Reader’s Digest, December 2009 Issue, I gathered the ingredients for home made fabric softener.

Fabric Softener

• 1 cup (250 ml) white distilled vinegar (in this case I used American Garden)
• 1 cup (250 g) bicarbonate soda (baking soda)
• 2 cups (500 ml) water
• 10 drops rose geranium, lavender or lemon essential oi or eucalyptus oil (or whatever you want it to smell like)

Combine ingredients slowly and carefully over the sink, because the mixture will fizz. Pour into a plastic bottle and replace the lid.

Add 1/4 cup (60 ml) to the final rinse or place it in the fabric softener dispenser of your washing machine.

There you have it.

I still need to try this out but we figured we’d do the laundry when the smog from the fireworks have settled a bit. No use doing the laundry if they’ll get dirty again while hanging out to dry.

That’s it for now my loverly freaks. I’ll probably blog my New Year’s Resolution next time. >_> Happy New Year to you guys and here’s to hoping for a better year!

However he insisted and so there we were, enjoying the morning due to it being a holiday so there wasn’t a lot of traffic, giving us enough time to actually get a cozy breakfast at Cafe Breton by the Podium, before walking back to SM Megamall.

During the walk did I suddenly notice something…something so delightfully pink and white. In front of us stood the pinkest store called “Etude House”. The inner girly-girl in me couldn’t resist and dragged my suddenly hesitant beau into it.

It…it was very pink, and girly. The store itself was like a cross between a sweet-loli with shoujo anime. As my beloved has put it, “I could feel my masculinity being drained away.” Which I do not blame him. It’s so pink and glittery for a moment you think it was a Barbie Make-Up store. I was still convinced that it was marketed for the tweens to teens, it didn’t help that it seemed to be currently populated by pink school uniformed girls. Ugh.

I looked around, ignoring them as I focused on the cosmetics when I realized that perhaps I was a bit too hasty in my assumption. Looking at the product descriptions, I noted the presence of Korean writing and realized that it was probably a cosmetic and facial boutique quite similar to Faceshop, carrying price tags no one without a job can afford unless your family is very rich and their parents allowed their children to dress up like tramps. What am I saying, I just described half the parents of this generation. Heheheh.

I figured I’d get myself something, just to see if their product was any good. I looked around for a sales clerk and as I was approached, I realized to my horror that the the pink uniformed “students” were the actual staff!

I blinked several times. Okay, that was disturbing. I thought I needed another lasik treatment when I realized that she was indeed part of the staff and began to ramble off the typical cosmetic spiel they were probably made to memorize while I figured how creepy that they were dressing their staff to look like highschool students.

Weirdness aside, I figured I’d give their stuff a chance. Now I totally ignored the make-up, mostly because the demographic those were made for are like ten years younger than me. I’m too old to be wearing those outrageous shades and glitter at may age is only acceptable if it’s Halloween.

The ones I’ve picked up was the “Pore Diet Essence” which is basically a pore minimizer costing around  Php 578.  I tried it out when I got home, and felt a tingling sensation on my skin after application, and after an hour I did notice that some of the lines under my eyes seemed to have lessened which is a marked improvement over the stuff I got from Faceshop.

Another find I bought is the Oblique Brush for Eye line at Php 148. I will say this: GET THIS BRUSH. Why? Because I’ve been looking for an oblique brush for ages and this one had brush hair that feels soft and not *too* stiff like the stuff I get off Landmark. Less incidents of stabbing myself in the eye with the brush hairs.

The last one I bought is the Super Aqua Sun Guard at Php 298. It’s basically sunblock, plain ol’ ordinary sunblock. The other options had water proof for sports, waterproof and whitening (like I needed that! I love my mocha skin~!), and the last one that gave that glowy look, a.k.a. glitter face ala Edward Cullen–with my age and complexion? No way! For one, glittery lotion of that kind is for kids with really fair skin. I’m twenty-eight and morena, that’s like “trying-hard” right there. For my skin, a nice lotion bronzer would be more appropriate and only during summer at the beach somewhere.

In total I got like Php 1k worth of items (including the V.A.T.) and they gave me a free eye-lash curler for every 1k purchased in their store. I’ve asked about their store and found out that they’ve been open for roughly about a week or so and that they plan to open a branch in Alabang, no news about a Makati branch though.

Walking a bit further in the upper floors, past Meylin Noodle House was this tiny little kiosk called “Scent for Senses”.  Now you see, I’ve been meaning to make my own eco-friendly soaps and fabric softeners and the like, and part of the ingredients included certain essential oils that you can’t get for cheap unless you know a supplier and buying in bulk. I just need what? 15-20ml! Not liters of the stuff!

Anyway, I asked if they had any essential oils and the lady points me to their display cabinet that is filled upon rows upon rows of tiny bottles. When I asked how much the 20ml bottle was worth, to my shock I was told that it costs a mere Php 100, that’s LESS than a Starbucks grande drink!

I didn’t believe it at first. No way, that it could be *that* cheap! I’ve looked around stores and the cheapest I’ve seen was in Kultura (a Filipiniana store by SM) selling them at Php 600, and the most expensive at BodyShop for Php 900 bucks.

Still dubious I ask for a clarification, and ask why it’s so cheap. She tells me is because that’s all that they make, and that these were designed to be used in mixing with soaps and the like–which is exactly what I needed.

Kinda makes sense considering the shop sells 100ml to liters of the stuff. Funny side note I noticed they were also selling Frankincense and Myrrh, along with the usual incense sticks and various aromatherapy pots.

I decided to give it a try and bought three vials: Lemon, Citronella and Baby Powder (my bad I should have bought the Sage). Except for the Lemon, the store unfortunately does not sell any of the essential oils that I needed: like chamomile, tea tree, clove, and eucalyptus.  I was stupid enough to say no to getting a fourth bottle, because if I did that, I apparently get one more *FREE*.

*Smacks self in forehead* Stupid! Stupid! I should have bought the Sage when I had a chance! Well I don’t feel *that* bad since I can always get back and get it for like a Php 100 bucks right?

Whew! Okay it’s almost 2am, I must go sleep now but before I go I’ll have to greet my non-existent loverly readers a Happy New Year~!

See you in 2010! ♥

It was hard and unlike Yuki-Roo’s sudden death and the panic that happened prior, this time I was more or less prepared. I found a vet the day before but I was warned that Suki may not have long to live as small animals are hard to diagnose and generally start dying off around 2-3 years old. Suki and Yuki were roughly 2 1/2 years old.

But still the vet was more than hopeful and hoped that advice on how to make her comfortable and medication would hopefully help.

It did, sort of. Suki was more or less active and even ate a little but it was getting obvious as the hours went by that Suki may not make it. It was heart breaking seeing her merely sniff at her cerelac and try as she might to eat the cooked rice on the small plate. She’d haul herself on the small saucer and sit there, weak paws trying to grab a tiny morsel. I tried to help her eat, she’d take a bite and then stop, as if the act of eating itself drained her energies.

The next day, she was hardly moving, no longer resisting when I tried to give her medication. She barely moved even as I gently cradled her. I lay her down on a soft towel and watched, trying to get her to feed using the dropper. After a while of watching her, I’d see her body convulse, her eyes growing wide for a moment as it looked at me and give a small soundless cry of pain.

My heart broke, watching her tiny body slowly relax, her limbs still slightly shaking until she was no more.  I gently closed her eyes and I asked our help to get the planter box where I previously laid Yuki. I picked up their grooming brush and brushed Suki’s fur one last time and gently laid her into the small hole in the middle of the planter.

In the end, my only comfort is that Yuki-Roo probably got lonely, of all the roos she hated being alone, so Suki-Roo went after her litter-mate sister. They were always together, I remember how I spotted them in the petshop, so tiny and huddled together in corner away from the slightly bigger roos who threatened them. I knew then that if I only took one, the other would die either out of loneliness or being alone and bullied.

So I took them both, and into my home.

And it’s been more than two years and as tiny as they were, they were a big part of my life. Being pet-less since I was ten, they were both a blessing to me particularly after my mother died.

Now my only worry is that my last (and my first) princess, Mimiru is now alone. Right now her cage is a little subdued and looking a bit too big for her lonesome.

Suki and Yuki, I hope you’re both okay up there in Roo-Heaven. Know that both of you are missed. Mimiru misses you too so please watch over her too.

It was when the local pet shop introduced some new type of rodent pets: mini-kangaroo rats. They were perfect.

They were intelligent enough, at least more so than the average white mice but a little less than the big rats, they were also not as rabid biting machines as hamsters were. It also helped that one of their cutest features was their furred tail, and mine had white tips that reminded me a lot of calligraphy pens.

As pets they were perfect, and I loved them all.

This morning, one of my princesses’, Yukiru or Yuki-Roo the tiniest of the three roos I keep, had shown signs of being ill. She was isolated in the third floor of the cage away from her two roo-sisters. Unusual in itself as they don’t normally sleep too far away from each other. I had thought they were all just tired from the move between apartments just two days ago and didn’t think too much of it. It wasn’t until I realized she was responding weakly to any stimuli, and refused or perhaps couldn’t open her eyes that something was very very wrong.

That being a Sunday where everything is closed, I started to fret. In the first place I lived in a country where a great majority still see pets as status symbols rather than actual companions. There was also the idea that rodent type pets were undeserving of veterinary care, or rather were not as important as say cats and dogs, and for some insane reason their ‘normal’ vets can’t handle a rodent.

I wanted to shout at the woman who answered the call for telling me I had to wait for Monday, even when I said it might be too late for my pet then. Her reply was a mildly cheery, “yun nga lang, pero siya lang yung naghahandle ng small animals eh.”

As much as I wanted to pick a fight with her, I knew I didn’t have time. I scoured the directory and tried calling up the clinics. Most of them weren’t answering and could not be reached, one other place apparently moved long ago. In my desperation, I decided to take Yuki-Roo to a vet clinic in Tiendesitas. It was a little further away where I lived and it was the only place I know where real pet lovers  could be. I had hoped that I’d find a vet who can find a way to help Yuki.

On the way I got lost, my fretting and panic had led me to make bad decisions on the route I took. It took me longer and by then I’d notice that Yuki’s breathing became labored and just about I entered into Tiendesitas and parked my car, I realized that my precious princess had already passed away.

I was too late.

I burst into tears, my precious darling, my little excitable bundle of energetic fluff was gone. She had been the tiniest of them, I still remember the first time seeing her. She had been so tiny, and fragile but when I took her home and she began to adapt she shone with much energy and enthusiasm. Yuki was always the first one to explore new places, the first one not to be scared when handled. She did things first before her sisters did and took their power grooming with serenity. She may not been head-roo but she didn’t seem to mind.

And she was gone.

My beloved pointyman2000, met up with me Tiendesitas after hearing that Yuki was ill, and I’m so grateful for him being there for me. Together, we visited the Plants Store in and bought a rectangular planter and potting soil. I live in a high-rise so having a garden to bury her was not an option and callously throwing her body on the trash was OUT OF THE DAMN QUESTION.

I wanted to say good-bye to one of my friends, who kept me company and gave me more than comfort and company when my mother passed away. I buried her in the planter with fresh soil and marked it. It was a morbid thought but I wanted it big enough to accommodate her two remaining sisters in the future.

And when one day–and it’s a day I do not look forward to–when all of my princesses are gone, I’d use the soil where they were buried to one day plant flowers.

Littlest Yuki, your roo-sisters and I will miss you so much, I already miss you now. You were tiniest of the bunch but you lived your life with enough energy for two. I love you and miss you.

Rant aside, it’s surprisingly hard for me to find good authentic Chinese restaurants that isn’t part of a hotel’s list of restaurants or in Binondo (China town) so it was some surprise when my beloved Pointyman2000 and I were going around SM Mega Mall and we spotted this place right beside Tong Yang (the hot pot place we were supposed to go).

Meylin Pot and Noodle House gave us pause. For one it was rainy and wet and we were gunning for some soup (hence Tong Yang) but the temptation of trying some place new well…it appealed to us, that and the last time I’ve had hand-pulled noodles was in Singapore in one of those Chinese noodle houses in China Town five years ago.

So we gave it a go and we weren’t disappointed. For starters we had some radish cake, which was for once not deep fried to hash brown crisp. The center was still soft and I can taste the radish in the cake. So that was promising.

As you can tell we got some house tea and some soy milk. I just love soy milk, although I’ll admit Le Ching has better soy milk, lighter and less cream, not to mention less expensive.

Second to arrive were the steamed shrimp dumplings, we had thought it would the usual hakao, with it’s paper thin delicate wrapping and was instead greeted with the same hand made dumpling wrapper used instead. No complaints on my end though, it still tasted very good, if not better than the hakaw that I usually order. Plus it was neater to eat as well, the wrapping doesn’t tear easily.

My beloved then also ordered this cute little dimsum darlings. They’re called siaolung pao (Xialongbao), are also known as soup dumpling. From what my beloved says, the character translates to ‘little dragon’  but apparently Xiaolong also translates to “small steaming basket”.

They resemble miniaturized siopao or meat buns, but once you bite into it the resemblance ends there. For one, it’s not as bread-ish as siopao are usually.

Then come the noodles. Beloved and I both ordered the dinner sized bowls. Big mistake on my part. For one thing, I’ve have way too many dimsum in case you haven’t noticed, that and the dinner sized bowls are bowls the size of my head!

Beloved ordered the Ansio beef noodles as shown here.

If there’s one thing I would describe how their noodle soups taste like is that it’s “smooth”.

There is surprisingly very little after-taste even in my own spicy version of beloved’s beef noodle soup. The noodles being hand-pulled and made on that same day don’t have that chemically after taste that I usually get from other restaurants–it’s actually one of my pet peeves, I loathe the taste of chemically bleh noodles.

Of course the noodle soups taste wonderfully, although I should have gotten the ‘snack’ version of the noodle soup since I didn’t get to finish this one–it was way, way too much for my poor tummy to take.

Other than that I’d say our trip to Meylin was a success and will most definately visit the restaurant again in the near future.

But not this time! For the first time I was able to make something that actually looked good enough for me.

I’m actually putting my bento collection to use, the manly bento (the big rectangular one) belongs to my boyfriend, my sakura one (the roundish one) is mine, and the third one in the red plastic bento is for our friend (who we sort of consider our little brother).

As you can tell I got a little too fond with red. The upper bento has some tofu wrapped in bacon, Japanese rolled egg (tamagoyaki), stir fried mixed vegetables. The lower tier has the  tomato pesto.

I know it’s a little red themed and I realized that far too late. I should have probably gone for the basil pesto for the pasta instead, but still there were no regrets! The tomato pesto was delish~!

All ingredients I got from Landmark Supermarket in Makati–you can get bottles of ready to serve pasta sauces in one of the specialty food aisles there. The grocery is undergoing some renovation so there has been a lot of rearranging of the stalls and can get a little confusing. If you have the time I suggest buying the stuff during lunch or in the early mornings (the grocery opens at 8:30am) to avoid the crowds.

That’s it for now. Next time (hopefully) I can post more bento adventures in the future.

And on days like this I can’t help but crave for something warm and well soupy. Usually it’s Clam Chowder or Chili Soup from Soup Kitchen or some Pho at Pho Hua, but I’m not exactly raking in the dough plus those two places I mentioned don’t deliver (and there was no way in HELL were you going to convince me to trudge the rain just for soup).

So I rooted around the kitchen for something to make and found some freezer staples to go make soup with. Some opened bag of Mushroom balls, frozen mixed veggies, rice noodles and other stuff. I put them all together and came up with some warm delectable soup in just a few minutes.

Recipe for this soup is fairly simple that you can alter whatever way you like it to suit your taste. This one was a bit more Japanese inspired since I had these on hand and I wanted to make use of them as much as possible.

Mushroom Ball & Sotanghon Soup:

• Mushroom balls
• Mixed veggies
• Sotanghon
• 1 or 1/2 Knorr Chicken Cube (or you can just use Chicken Stock)
• 1 tsp of Dashi
• 1 Tbsp of Soy sauce
• 1 Tbsp Mirin
• 1 Tbsp Sake

Now just simply get water to boil in a pot, dump the knorr cubes and let it dissolve in the water. Then add the Dashi, Soy Sauce, Mirin and Sake and mix into the broth. Add the Mushroom Balls, Sotanghon, and Mixed Veggies. Cover the pot then let it simmer for maybe 10 minutes or until the balls are done. Just a warning: since I’ve used both Knorr cube and dashi, it’s important that you don’t add any more salt!

If you find the broth a little salty, just add more water. I would have added some spring onions or leeks but we were out. ;_;

For the curious, I got my Dashi from Sakura Grocery, located in Glorietta. They are thankfully packed in manageable servings in individual packets because the Dashinomoto usually comes in a huge box that unless you run a Japanese restaurant or cook Japanese food everyday, I highly doubt you’d finish. Another alternative is this Japanese grocery in Waltermart Makati, it’s in the second floor by the supermarket area near the escalator. Their dashi and other Japanese ingredients are a lot less expensive than Sakura (and the grocery surprisingly, their ebiko was a lot less cheaper than Cold Storage), so give it a twirl if you guys are ever there.

Well anyway, rant aside I was able to procure some interesting and what I’d call lucky finds. My roo princesses, are all bigger now and in need of space. Unfortunately finding big enough cages for them and a pen is hard to find in this part of the third world.

So I consider it much luck when I found all I need in Tiendesitas, a place I’ve scoured more times than my allergies would have appreciated when I found this.

It’s a three story hamster cage that I knew my princesses would enjoy, along with a multi-colored pen in which they can run around in when they aren’t inside the cage. Both items, I found out were the last in their stock.

I’m very happy to actually get my hands on them. Ever since they were banned from my bedroom due to my asthma (that came back, dammit!) they didn’t have other oppurtunities to go out, except for times I let them run around the shower stall.  So everyday, they now enjoy a bit of running space.

My second shopping oppurtunity came in the form of a surprise from my beloved Pointyman2000 when he brought me to Robinsons Galleria to visit Saizen, a distributor of Daiso. All items were priced around Php 85 which is both a good and bad thing as even a bento strap could cost that much when I know it can be bought for less.

Here are some of the stuff I was able to get from Saizen: Vegetable cutters, two (2) cat shaped chopstick rests, a felt pencil bag, underarm sweat pads (squee! no more using pantyliners to line the underarms of my shirts!), and two (2) sets of silicon bento cups and a bento strap.

The eight (8) items cost me a total of Php680 bucks. Yikes! So best be careful, considering there was so much I want to get there! Like the Hime (princess) cake forks, baking utensils, garlic peelers, etc. My only disappointment is the lacking of kitchen supplies and bento and bento accessories. I was hoping to find a better omelette pan here but apparently wasn’t going to be the case.

I just wish they would open a bigger branch closer to Makati instead. As much as I like Japan Home, all the stores sell the same thing with very little variety. You visit one, you’ve visited all and still not enough bento and bento accessories. Food seperators, food cups, onigiri makers, nada! It’s fairly disappointing. I’m still at a loss on where to find them without going through J-list.

Well here’s to hoping to better Japan living stores in the future.