21

ants in a jar full of sugar

Someone on Twitter was asking where the cicadas were and how quiet these long summer nights have been, and today, they’re loud enough for me to actually notice them.

And ants are back too. I saw a trail from the banana peelings I had left on the counter and followed it to the area where we have our tea and coffee stuff and sure enough, black ants had found their way into a partly open jar of white sugar.

So I placed the jar onto a deep plate with water in it and suddenly realised, what was the point of this really?? While it solves the problem of preventing more ants from going into the jar, what would you do with those already inside?? Would they be enticed perhaps to go out of the jar and be dumb enough not to notice the water and drown?

But this is a habit that I’ve been doing since I was a child. My mother was always equating wastefulness as a sort of sin so we were encouraged to be thrifty as much as we could. We cut toothpaste tubes in half so we could scrape the remainder inside. Leftover food was eaten two or three times until it was gone.

And as for jars with ants inside them? We had to scrape off as much of the ants inside that were on top and salvage the rest of the sugar.

I started to do this when I realised that we don’t really use white sugar. I haven’t even drunk real coke in over 15 years and use stevia for my coffee. We only had this sugar leftover for when I baked something (which I don’t do often).

So I took the jar off the plate and put it under the hot tap, washing out all the ants and the sugar inside.

Bye.

Dec 24 2021

The tricky thing about Christmas in New Zealand is that because the season falls on a southern hemisphere summer, it’s like being in the Philippines- though more than ever, tropical typhoon season has crept closer and closer, and for some like the people in the Visayas and Mindanao, it’s celebrating the season in the destructive and tragic wake of a typhoon.

I wish I could stay longer, but the kids are all grown up; they don’t really need anyone. And Chini- the baby who made the last six Christmases joyous and happy is no longer a child. So I’m left to my own devices which suits me just fine- no chores to do, could finally relax a bit, caught up with a bunch of shows.

And the meals- they do bring you home. All those lazy afternoons with a feast of grilled pork and fish, a seaweed salad with green mango and tomatoes or sauteed mung beans thick with fat slices of ampalaya and malunggay…

mmmmmmm..

Squatting in Chini's room

I've missed this- munggo beans

Pork barbecue

Seafood boil

Midweek

Had lunch in the city- yum char- and the 1st time since lockdown started in August. It was a quick, I’ll pick you-up on a day of light traffic and whizzing through 12 little courses, then goodby, happy holidays, I’ll drop you off thing. It’s good to reconnect (I stopped myself from talking about work which is what we always do these days) with people you actually trust, yet are not in your personal life.

They trust that you bring the same kind of efficiency and skill that you have at work to your personal life, and I’m glad to say that they’re at least 90% correct. And i’m always working on the remaining 10%.

A friend dropped us a goodie box of various succulents. She said they’d be fine in the box until we find the time to plant them. But 24 hours later, they don’t seem to look so good- not so succulent looking. So we took matters in our own hands, cleared up a patch of soil at the back and stuck all the succulents in.

And apparently, that’s all it takes for them to take root and grow. It’s a pity you can’t eat them.

Back to work then nek minute..

The daily commute (Uber mostly), the question of what to have for lunch, machine-made lattes…then 5 minutes later, it may be back to lockdown again because of Omicron..

16th December, Thursday

Of course I’d resign from work if I won the lottery. But not right away because not only would that be rude, but I’m not that sort of person.

But I would definitely fly home to the Philippines and to hell with MIQ. Maybe I could fly to Australia and find a yacht to hire and cross the Tasman, as some have done it that way. Imagine quarantining in the ocean, eating lobster and drinking champagne for breakfast.

But I do need to go home. Mom had a small accident recently doing something she could have done at another time and I’m beginning to see myself in the same situations- loving independence, proud of my efficiency and checking off chores as if my life depended on it. Like my mom, I hate relaxing and my idea of it, is having finished a million things and to be finally in bed watching something or reading.

But she needs to slow down. I need to slow down.

With a couple of extra million, money you don’t really need, maybe it would buy some time to put the manic work and life ethic away for a year or two.

I could:
1. Revisit drawing and painting
2. Write that novel and not worry that it turns out to be shit (I’m pretty sure it won’t be).
3. Build a body good enough to grace an ‘influencer’ Instagram account
4. Visit old relatives in the US (though still wary of Covid).
5. Rebuild the old house in Pangasinan
6. Rebuild my dad’s ancestral home

2nd Dec/Thursday

It’s so hot that my armpits feel as if something sticky is plastered on them (the anti-perspirant which does nothing anyway). For the longest time, I used this anti-perspirant called Old Spice Endurance. It was so industrial strength that not even soap could wash it off. I would use it everyday without realising that I was creating this layer of product that eventually transferred onto the armpits of my clothes, staining them white and ruining the; and my shirts aren’t necessarily cheap so..

I switched to a spray one that promises no staining but now I’ve learned to live with sweaty pits; I just need to remind myself not to raise my arms in public to stretch and displaying wet pits but who the fuck cares.

The more you worry about it I realised, the more you actually sweat.

Anyhow, it’s only 22 degrees in Auckland- but feels twice that and I’m thinking, I won’t be able to live in the Philippines anymore unless I confine myself in an air-conditioned prison. But no I don’t want to anymore to be honest.

Anyhow, welcome to the last 28 days or so for the shit-show that is 2021 (the world that is, and not my life).

It’s been so hot, Lily has taken to hanging out back where the sun never shines and sleeps on the cool concrete

27th Nov

22 Monday

Shoulder-day

When you eat or have sex or buy a pair of new shoes, the pleasure is immediate; it’s a shame that when you exercise, it’s not. You have to wait afterwards, and only if you’ve done it right.

I never liked exercise, but it’s all a matter of conditioning your mind. There are days when I give in, but that’s rare now and are usually the days when I need to rest anyway and recover.

I don’t have a six-pack yet, or a 25-inch bicep (that would make me look way asymmetrical so NO), or big legs (I’m short at 5’8 and I don’t want to look like I came from a farming family- and not the one who owns the hacienda- not that there’s anything wrong with that 😅), but I actually feel good, and that’s all you’d ever need.

Ugh

Friday should be a day of celebration, because it’s the end of (another hard) working week; but then life just continues to be the suck-fest that it has been since 2020. Like one of my favourite singers of all time, Carrie Underwood is a vaccination card non-carrier because she’s not only anti-vax, but also anti-mask, and most likely voted for Trump. They’re all the same really that fun bunch.

And to cap off a long work day- even if I get off at 2pm- the 3D file I had been working on for the last three days suddenly won’t open and I may have to redo the whole goddamned thing again.

FUCK YOUR STUPID EXPENSIVE PRODUCTS THAT WON’T WORK PROPERLY ADOBE!

Sunday extremes

From a chilly 10 degree morning to a sweltering (1) 21 degrees. It was so hot that doing chores felt like swimming through water. This is why I can never live in the tropics again.

Even Fridays can be exhausting

Because that’s life.

• It rains when it shouldn't.

• You get a spot of sunshine for your run and it’s too humid that when you get home, you fall into a fitful nap.

• You have a fitful dream you can’t remember when you wake up, but leaves you too tired to do anything but scroll through stupid TikTok vids.

• Work is relentless and you can’t help but be relentless (even when you’re on leave) because you’re super fucking competitive and the winner has to be you.

• Everyone decides to jump the government just because it had a bad week, half of which is not even its fault and you feel like wishing these useless people to just drop dead but you can’t because you’re being Twitter good, even if that and all the Facebook/Instagram policing will not change the fact that people are nasty (like you are when you choose to).

• You can’t get fireworks even if it's Guy Fawke’s Day because the regulations get tighter and tighter and I just don’t get it. You want to allow marijuana use but ban fireworks?

Be (stylishly) masked

But of course! Though I wouldn't go as far as buying and wearing Will.i.am’s dystopian looking Xupermask. I’m actually lying- I would actually buy it (at $299, it’s far from being the most expensive non-essential thing I’ve bought) if I could compete with the bots (it’s all sold out). Will is your poor man’s version of Steve Jobs/Jony Ive (remember the Puls smartwatch and the ugly ass Dolce Gusto coffee machine?), but I’m liking the aesthetics of this mask.

But moving on, I’ll settle for something cheaper like $30 masks from Herschel (+ get one free as per a product promotion). I love Herschel- have a couple of their bags- but sometimes I wonder if I still fit their demographic (high-schoolers to freshman college).

The masks took a million years to ship from Australia, but they’re here and while they seem a bit flimsy, the fit around the nose is what matters most; it curves downward which means it doesn’t allow your stinky breath to fog your glasses, yay!

I took a snapchat of them and while I was putting in my topic labels, a couple of similar ones popped up like #maskssuck #masksoff. A suggestion for people who are inclined to use these hashtags; try snap chatting how cool you look in a hospital bed dying from Covid coz that would get a million views…

A whiff of summer

It was warm today, very warm. An almost tropical-like 22 degrees.

When you hear of climate change, it seems inconceivable to think of temperatures so unbearable that it goes beyond being annoyed that your armpits are soaked; that your face and head are oily; that your thighs are sticking to each other.

Even as recent as the mid-2000s, I was already consciously reconfiguring my life around the heat; most of my clothes were Nikes as they had that sweat-wicking fabric; I secretly had baby powder pressed inside a hanky to absorb the oil on my face, not to mention the habit of washing my face at least five times a day. But of course, I only realised later that the best remedy was to leave the tropics altogether for a country with a temperate climate.

Auckland however can still get hot, but just enough that makes you think- shall we shell out $$$ for an AC? But not yet. We hope, maybe not in the next 5 years, two?

When the sun drops, so does the temperature to 10 or 8 degrees and that is still cold for me. Rare are the nights when it gets so humid that you end up in your underwear (I can’t remember a time that I DID NOT use the duvet which I still use 24/7).

Anyhow, enjoy the pleasantness while it lasts.