The long weekend

Le week-end de la Fête du Travail a été une période de détente et de repos bien méritée. Le dimanche, nous n'avons rien fait de particulier - le linge n'a pas été lavé, la vaisselle s'est accumulée dans l'évier, les vêtements traînaient partout.

Je me suis levé tard, vers 10 heures, car c'était l'occasion de prendre un peu de temps pour moi. Après tout, vous travaillez tellement qu'il est difficile de vous convaincre que de temps en temps, il est tout à fait normal de ne rien faire.

Passer du temps sans rien faire peut sembler presque coupable, mais c'est en fait essentiel pour se ressourcer et se détendre, afin de revenir au travail avec une énergie renouvelée (AI wrote this).

Start of the week

The mornings are still cold. I’ve been wanting to get back to yoga, but trudging up the stairs for decaf at 5:30 am, I feel like I’m 65, my knees stiff, my hips locked.

In spring, the sunshine is at an almost level slant through the sliding deck doors. We’ve stripped off the worn UV plastic panels off them and within 5 minutes, you can feel the warmth seeping into your body. This is Lily’s favourite spot- she’s already soaking up the sunlight and for once, she’s silent. I join her, sitting at the edge of the wooden bench. One by one, I strip off my clothes- half the sliding door is covered by a thermal curtain so the neighbours don’t see anything.

I used to hate the sun, avoided it like a true Asian person (I draw the line though at using an umbrella as a shield). But now, I’ve mentally left the dark and over-cast universe that I’ve inhabited for the better part of my adult life.

And now I’m out in the light, in the sunshine.

My alarm goes off- 10 min to 8am; time to get to work.

Today

  1. Fine. Hold onto kindness as strongly as you can because sometimes (grudgingly), it’s the right thing to do.

  2. What does blue cheese smell like? I said, like an unwashed, uncircumcised penis which my friends took offense to, because 1) they’re not cut and 2) I didn’t know shit because I was.

  3. I said to someone today; work is actually easy. Life outside of work is harder.

  4. Have yet to do something creative on my desk space. Sigh.

  5. This is why I hate balconies, cliffs, and even small decks.

  6. I was asked, if I had the chance to live in real life, any three recent shows, what would they be? I replied: be the conflicted daddy in Euphoria; an aristocratic, Eton-educated, psychopath banker in Industry and a butler in Downton Abbey.

  7. Word of the week: CHOICES

  8. I fucking actually hate E.

Sunday aspirationals

So we had a sudden craving for chilli con carne for Sunday dinner and Farro Foods had a pre-made one that we had tried before and it was really good. So off we went to the branch in Mt. Wellington with the awful parking to pick one up and a couple of small things.

Entering the store triggered in me that irrationally exhilarating feeling I had when I had my first credit card with a limit in the mid-five digits- I just wanted to buy everything in sight that caught my fancy.

It’s the supermarket of my dreams; heirloom tomatoes that looked like they were made by a 3D printer gone haywire, new season asparagus as thick as sausages, niche vegetables like celeriac and witloof, at least seven kinds of micro-greens, store-made focaccia bigger than dinner plates, specialist cheeses, inidividual organic acai and fruit breakfast bowls and seasoning and oils from Europe and South America.

It was everything I didn’t really need but wanted to get.

We got the chilli and some good nacho chips to go with it, but when our basket started to fill up with, ‘oh look at this small treat’ stuff like pickle dip, bags of broccolini, Israeli couscous, and Appleby’s Strawberry and Cream ice-cream, we had to forcibly march ourselves to the check-out counter.

Someday…

Soldier on

The other week, I was acting like a crazy person and complaining about ‘chaos’, ‘entropy’ and ‘flux’. But it wasn’t anything intellectual.

I was simply tired of the fact that I was doing chores constantly; that there was no end to it; that no matter how organised you are or that you’re a couple of steps ahead, things always catch up with you and you’re buried again in disorder. And you’re tired, you’d rather do something else instead. Can you ignore it for a while? How long though? Is this even a good approach?

But within 48 hours, I was over it. Life moved on whether you liked it or not.

I got a good night’s sleep, cleared my head, bought new outfits for a work-related show and put on a niacinamide face mask (my complexion was starting to look muddy).

I had work to do, bills to pay, belly fats to battle, house renovations to complete.

I can’t afford to not be my best.

The weekend away

1. The sunset had its own show, its own crowd. We positioned ourselves right on the concrete breaker, hoisting one leg over the edge, but not really brave enough to have both on the other side. We sat facing each other and didn’t feel the least guilty that people who wanted to take photos couldn’t really invade our space to get a prime shot. Well, it’s first come, first served plus at the end of it we would have spent over $50 on Uber just getting in and out. For 15 minutes. Of a damn sunset.

When the tiny golden disk slipped into the ocean, everyone clapped as if it were miraculous.

Maybe it was.

2. We had Sal’s pizza and it was a beautiful day so we thought to eat it at the park. But alas, there was no shade and the noon sun was abominable, so we sat on the raised curb of the park pathways and watched the pigeons flying above Parliament Square. There was a pro-Palestinian rally on Bourke Street where our hotel was, and they were still there when we got back, all these people with their faces covered with a keffiyeh. We decided to check out the rooftop pool and fell asleep to the chants of ‘from the river to the sea. . . Palestine will be Free’.

3. The city of surcharges. NOT going to compute how much we paid in surcharges, but on some nights, we spent over $100 on cocktails. They were delicious though.

4. Found an oyster bar where you had to pick from a variety of oysters. I thought five was light, but it was strangely filling.

Post-weekend

  • Spending the next weekend in Melbourne just gallivanting and our to-do list is basically populated with eating places; anything-mochi, Pinoy-fusion (very expensive though), mutant croissants preferably haemorrhaging pistachio cream, what else? Also meeting up with a college friend to try some oysters. We’ve made a vow to eat simply in the next four days.

  • I should stop baking on impulse. Baking should be thoughtful and intentional, calming and serene. The social media accounts that I look at from time to time are all shot at 120fps with a colour grading that implies endlessly languid summer days spent creating moist, airy confections in large, artisanal kitchens bathed in sunlight. The marble countertop gleams and the KitchenAid mixer whirs silently. Well, our kitchen is shit, so when I bake, I always tend to try to get it done as quickly as I can. I had a brownie pre-mix in the pantry and thought that finally doing a cheesecake brownie would be easier with half the recipe coming out of a box. And it was, but the results were mixed; the flavour could be better. The cheesecake was kind of bland like it needed a bit more sugar (I used half of what the recipe called for), or some topping.

  • It was so windy on Sunday that when I left the backdoor open, the wind just slammed it shut and while this has happened heaps of times with no incident, this time, the bottom panel shattered. I was immediately gripped with a specific kind of anxiety, unique to living in New Zealand; the inability to do home repairs myself, and the cost of hiring someone to do it. But then I remembered- we have home insurance, hooray! When we had it sorted through insurance within four hours on a Sunday, I thought that it was better than Christmas morning.

  • Baby-back St. Louis pork ribs for dinner because why not? I just put on a good rub on mine because I hate the sugary, one-note bbq sludge that restaurants put on their ribs.

pre-Spring plant shopping

Plants are expensive. I wouldn’t balk at paying $300 for a pair of shoes, but to spend the same amount for a 1-metre high palm? Mmmmm. But with a couple of indoor plants certainly adding some organic, aesthetic adornment to the house, we always look forward to adding a couple more, but certainly not one that costs $300. Though if money was no object, I would fork out that much more for the appealing larger size of the plant rather than the rarity of it.

We wanted to put a plant out the newly rebuilt deck so off we went to perhaps, the best garden place in Auckland for great prices and sheer variety of choices, Roger’s Garden Centre in Mangere.

The whole set-up is outdoors- so wear footwear that can slosh through sometimes wet and muddy paths- with plants arranged by type and variety. There is a charming pavilion which houses indoor plants. In summer, it becomes a maze of luscious green vegetation and people pushing the familiar flamingo-pink wheelbarrows. In winter, it is still pretty like Sleeping Beauty’s garden, bewitched to sleep and stasis. Towards the back, a veritable forest of stick trees- peaches, apples and cherries- all bereft of leaves, seem to be waiting for that magical touch that would bring them back to life.

You always find something else other than the one you intended to buy, and for us, it was a couple of flowering shrubs that will be going to the front garden that M has been working on. And for me, I found a variegated miniature ficus; a steal (for its size) at $39.

The barrio life

The barrio life is too 🥵.

Eight o’clock in the morning feels like high noon; like summer on the Australian Gold Coast (which is why I only cross the ditch in winter). The climate has changed, my brother says.

Who has the energy to cook three meals? But they do and I’m glad for once, not to be the cook and two, to sit down for another meal.

A shower doesn’t help, especially when your skin is used to at least three layers of creams. I just settle for a facial sunscreen, and being topless for most of the day, use the same cream for my neck, arms, hands and feet. The humidity clings to you like a needy lover and half the time, I flee from it and seek refuge in an air-conditioned room. What was once a luxury, is now a necessity; taking the Skyway in Manila, ugly and dilapidated shanties sport rows of condenser units.

If there’s nothing to do, there’s the pool, but even that sticks out in your mind like a red flag. We didn’t grow up with AC and swimming pools, or heat that has arrived like a guest that has stayed on permanently in your home.

You just make the best of it or in my case, sad as it makes me, bear with it for a bit longer before going back to my own home.