transposable element

last weekend, i bought a tagalog cartoon dvd for jan, allegedly the first all-filipino animated series on dvd. well, i wouldn’t know. i don’t know what the kids watch back home.

anyways, i got it in the hopes it would help jan learn the filipino language, and well, introduce him finally to the pleasures of sitting in front of box. afterall, he’s more than two, and he’s probably the only child i know who doesn’t watch tv. well, ok, not strictly true; he watches the evening news with his dad. ngek!

so there i was, eagerly feeding the dvd player (yes! we found the receipt and got the kaputt player replaced!) and checking it out. wow! the tutubi patrol animation comes to a par with disney or looney tunes! and with english subtitiles, it might even help hubby to learn some tagalog, as well. it’s difficult to believe this is all-pinoy!

except that… i saw it in black and white. apparently, our dvd player and jurassic tv are strictly PAL and play films made with NTSC system in black and white. shit.

and i watched dekada 70 last week, thinking it was ingenious of the director to make the film in black and white. double shit.

i mean, what is this with these various systems? why make some PAL and some NTSC? why make some region code 1 and some region code 2? why make some DVD+R and some DVD-R? why some 110v and some 220v? arrrrgh!

one thing i love with going on a short holiday is that it free’s me up from cooking. see, i’ve lots of cookbooks, but i hate the actual cooking. i’m a member of and have been getting newsletters from del monte kitchenomics since the late 90’s. i read food blogs and marvel at the creativity and passion sassylawyer, celiaK and karen describe their dishes and the stories behind them. sometimes i even lull myself into believing i could repeat those dishes, copy-pasting and even printing the recipes. but guess where these print-outs end up? jan draws on the backside of the papers.

i do cook, out of necessity. however, i see it as a chore. a means to an end. something that has to be done to nourish the body. i hate breaking my head over the week’s meal plan (so i gave up and now go carpe diem!). i don’t like the endless peeling and chopping that comes with it. i see the time spent hovering over a simmering pot as wasted time. i hate the smell that clings to my clothes. so more often then not, when i do cook, i almost always make something swift and easy, preferrably something that i can just slide in the oven and forget for the next half-hour.

today, it’s the end of the week and the last time i stood in front of the stove was on monday. so how does our family stay alive? well, thank zeus i married the man i did!

i’ve about one week til christmas starts. yes, folks, it’s a month long celebration over here, starting on the first advent sunday. thing is, i’ve got to whip up an advent calendar for jan, with small gifts marking each day of december til chiristmas day, and i haven’t a sinlge thing, yikes! easiest would be to put a winter chocolate or bonbon inside each of those packets, but we’d like jan to steer away from sweets as much as possible. we’ve just been to the dentist and although everything’s a-ok, we don’t want to cut that sweet tooth just yet. hmm, think, ruth, think!

on the other hand, i think i’ve found the perfect gift for hubby this christmas. if only someone can tell me how to subscribe to this new men’s magazine.

someone sent me an email with this below her signature:

No one falls in love by choice, it is by CHANCE.
No one stays in love by chance, it is by WORK.
And no one falls out of love by chance, it is by CHOICE.

it’s THE long weekend, folks. wish us a good weather and see you next week!

Exhibit A: left: jan, 6 months old. right: dad around 5 months old.

Exhibit B: left: mom, around 10 months old. right: jan, around 7 months old.

from the above evidence, your honor, i move to declare that when he frowns, jan looks like a carbon-copy of his dad. when he smiles and shows off his cute dimples, he looks more like his equally cute mom.

kayo, ano’ng husga nyo?

yes, we’re back, and thanks to my genius of a fairy godmother, this blog is more or less back to normal. just a little more tweaking with the index template and it’ll be just like it was before the… er, don’t ask me what happened. i’m not sure i understand either.

i’ve used an old copy of my template i happen to have saved eons ago on my c drive. back when my links list was still half of what it was a week ago. will update it asap, but if you don’t find your blog link on my right panel and you want it there, just give me a holler!

our dvd player has been kaputt for several weeks now and as i just saw a piolo back-to-back before it went bonkers (no thanks to my dearest son), i didn’t really miss it. but when i realized that it’s still within the warranty period, i urged hubby to find the receipt and get the thing replaced. after afterall, even if dvd players come so cheap nowadays, it’s still not easy to find a codefree one like ours. after several weeks hearing him say “yeah, later/tomorrow/on the weekend”, i got fed up, muttering how the man can’t find 2 minutes to find that slip of paper. so i took the bull by the horns, and opened the drawer where he keeps the receipts. uh-oh. after rummaging through cash-register slips and receipts for every single article he bought within the last four years — books, grocery, beer, socks, plants, carrots from the weekend market, and every single liter of gas/diesel from the filling station — i can’t help but ask why he kept all of them in the first place! unbelievable! gosh, he’s not intending to return a faulty boxer shorts 3 years after the purchase, or?

i mean, i love the guy and he has a brilliant mind (even if it’s enclosed in the hardest skull i’ve ever had to butt my own steel-encased one against). but there’s no denying it: a first-rate packrat, that’s what i married!

around 6:30 pm last night, i looked out the window, and wow! our first snowfall of the year! i hurriedly wrapped jan up, we went out and gee, the wonder in his eyes as he watched the magic of the gently falling snow— absolutely priceless! we held our faces to the snowfall and drew circles on the ground. it was only probably less than a centimeter of snow, but that didn’t stop jan from frolicking! aaah, to be able to see it all again from the eyes of a child….

the second issue of pinoyexpats is out, fresh from the oven! go and enjoy while it’s hot, folks!