“I once sat down to write what turned out to be a pretty good story, though only the first sentence of the story had offered itself to me when I began it. For several days I’d been going around with this sentence in my head: “He was running the vacuum cleaner when the telephone rang.” I knew a story was there and that it wanted telling. I felt it in my bones, that a story belonged with that beginning, if i could just have the time to write it. I found the time, an entire day- twelve, fifteen hours even- if I wanted to make use of it. I did, and sat down in the morning and wrote the first sentence, and other sentences promptly began to attach themselves. I made the story just as I’d make a poem; one line and then the next. Pretty soon I could see a story, and I knew it was my story, the one I’d been wanting to write.”
Reading: Nutrient Dense Food on a Shoe-String Budget
I was calm today when we went to the Queen Victoria Market. The only time I audibly gasped was when I saw a stand selling bratwurst on a good-sized baguette and with sauerkraut that reminded me of insipid atchara. I’ve been here three times so it wasn’t at all startling to see mounds of antipasto (six kinds of olive, octopus, apricot stuffed with sweetened mascarpone), french pastry, cured meats and pale-pink langoustine cooling on beds of ice. I had the bratwurst and then $10 worth of what locals call chicken ribs (which is really a chicken’s scapula, the meat on which is part of the breast) which has a bit of crispy, rendered skin and a good enough sliver of meat). And it wasn’t even 9:30am.
But I tell myself, I’m on holiday and of course, normalcy goes out the window.
And that’s good because at some point, you’d really want to go back to the normalcy of ‘normal’ food. It’s cost-effective (I got a $20 sliver of truffled manchego cheese) and healthy (the last time I had greens was four days ago). In the afternoon, rummaging through a clearance book centre I found what I thought was a good $3 deal for a cookbook or any book for that matter. Nutrient Dense Food on a Shoe-String Budget by Arabella Forge won’t win you Master Chef, but that’s the whole point of real cooking- simplicity, flavour and practicality (guess how I could buy that Gucci bumbag I’ve been eyeing? Yup, by savings from preparing basic meals, a compromise which to me, is a win-win).
Basic in this sense, means the right kind of food; unprocessed, fresh, nutritious and cheap.
Looking forward to:
Making my own DIY bacon
Shifting shopping sources to local farmer’s markets
Stricter food planning
Making natural sauces
Baked apples stuffed with mince and peas
Making kim chi
Making lemon curd cheese
Pickled salmon (yum!)
The front-facing camera shoots at up to 32MP with a 4:3 aspect ratio, although this drops down to 20MP if you want full-screen images. You can set it to shoot when the subject smiles, and to shoot when you tell it to -- handy if you want to run around and be in shot, and don't want to use the self-timer.
The main Leica Quad Camera array will shoot up to 40-megapixel images, although the default is 10MP. The quad array consists of: a 40MP sensor with an f/1.6 wide-angle lens and optical image stabilisation (OIS); a 20MP sensor with an f/2.2 ultra-wide-angle lens; an 8MP sensor with a 'periscope' f/3.4 lens, 5x optical zoom and OIS; and a time-of-flight (ToF) camera that delivers the information needed for depth-blurring effects.
Huawei has taken a novel approach to capturing colour information with the 40MP sensor, replacing the standard RGGB (red, green, green, blue) array with a RYYB (red, yellow, yellow blue) setup. The idea is that yellow allows more detail to be captured, resulting in higher-quality images -- especially in low light. The maximum ISO rating is now a massive 409600, compared to 102400 for the previous-generation P20 Pro (https://www.zdnet.com/product/huawei-p30-pro/)
Huawei is 'able to make splendid things'...
Translated, Huawei according to Wikipedia means ‘splendid act’. It can also mean ‘China is able’. So let me mash those together and say that Huawei is really ‘able to make splendid things’ like perhaps the most spectacular camera-phone ever made yet. Let’s face it- phones are now cameras in which we all communicate in visual short-hand via emojis, Instagram, Snapchat. I have always been after the perfect image, the most compelling shot and in in lieu of the written word, I take photos instead.
And so now, I carry two phones with me which is kinda stupid isn’t it?
It's funny..
You could repeat every line and word from the last post from Jan 11 and it would describe exactly what every week and month was since then.
Literally wash, rinse, dry, repeat. April is nearly done. I turned a year older, actual age irrelevant. Matt will be 22 in May and spends his days ordering food via Uber. Leila should’ve stayed behind in the UK. Dagupan burned in the summer-heat. Elections are coming up in the Philippines and the only reason I care is because for some strange reason, I even bothered to sign up to vote even when we know that it’s POINTLESS. When I think of it, it makes me want to vomit bile; it makes me think of horrible things I would like to do if I only had the means because the truth is this- NOTHING HAS CHANGED. What does it take to remove a mountain blocking your path? YOU BLOW IT UP (God, forgive me).
(Breathe)
I need to put this aside because another truth is this- it’s no longer my life, even part of my family is still there; it’s no longer my reality. When I putter around the house that I bought and see a sunrise across the Pahurehure inlet where the Auckland Southern motorway runs through, it is something that absolutely does not remind me of anything of the life I left behind. It feels that I am starting again, that this is finally, the life I actually want.
Everything is both new and old. I am both old and young.
And then it starts..
A whole work-week finally done. What did I accomplish? A lot actually. And the thing is, no matter how much I love my job or how interesting it is, I’ve never really blogged about it. It’s enough that after I clock out (while actually still doing snippets of work after work, on the weekends, on the bus, on my vacation…) there is little enough (just in my mind I believe) time or energy for personal stuff which is funny and ironical because the stuff I like to do after work is the same thing I do for work (insert that laughing emoji with tears).
But this week I managed to maintain a decent work-out routine. It helped I think that I got new shoes to motivate me (insert that laughing emoji again with the tears.)
I also got my new glasses and at the bus stop today I struggled juggling the damned things- take out the reading ones to read texts; put it back and put on the distance ones to check the bus time-table; put everything away and take out the sunnies because the bus is coming.
After having vowed never to buy Wayfarers again after having lost my fifth pair, I bought a new one (OMFG, insert that laughing emoji again with the tears ) because they were 60% off. Who can resist that tell me?
Plum Cake
I’m not much of a fruit-person really but it’s hard to ignore fruit when they’re growing everywhere; and Kiwis don’t generally care if their yard is carpeted with fallen fruit just rotting away. So what to do with a bagful of plums from Jong’s garden and from the neighbours at Wattle Downs? Make a plum cake.
This recipe- and there are a million recipes for this cake- is from Chelsea Sugar’s Recipe Club Bake-Off winner and uses almond meal which I think gives this cake (and fig cake which I’ve done before) a lighter, airier texture which I like.
Ingredients:
10 dark red plums
3 Tbsp white Sugar
300g butter
1½ cups white Sugar (I only used 3/4 cup)
3 eggs
Zest of 1 orange (I didn’t have an orange so didn’t include this)
1 tsp vanilla essence
½ cup milk
1½ cups flour
1 cup ground almonds
1 tsp baking powder
Icing Sugar for sprinklingMethod
Preheat oven 180°C and grease a 26cm tin. Cut plums, discard stones and put into a bowl with 3 Tbsp sugar. Set aside.
Beat butter and sugar until creamy. Add eggs one at a time and then mix in zest and vanilla. Stir in milk, flour, almonds and baking powder.
Spread into prepared tin and then place plums over the top. Bake for 1 hour.
Sprinkle icing sugar on top when cool
The eyes are the window to your (body)
I had my yearly eye-test today which is sort of confusing because it’s supposed to be every two years, but I’ve been bombarded the last couple of weeks with reminders by OPSM, the eye-glass retailer that I’ve been going to since I started wearing prescription readers, to get one and so I did.
I’ve been obsessed with getting a pair of Tom Ford readers as well and hemmed and hawed all through-out the holiday season about getting one, but the prices never really got any lower (starts at $380). And because OPSM is quite expensive, I wasn’t about to spend nearly a thousand dollars bringing in a brand they don’t carry (which they should because they carry everything else like Prada, Armani, D&G etc) on top of putting new prescription lenses on them.
But I forgot all about the Tom Fords when I went into an OPSM shop and saw the lighter RX series of prescription frames by Ray-ban and of course I just had to get a new pair; I picked this one:
I got bi-focals last year but in that space of time, my general vision has deteriorated a bit. Below is how I see things; left is without glasses on and right, with glasses. It’s even gotten to a point where I bump into door-frames, protruding open shelves, table edges and basically everything at the periphery of my unaided vision.
The good thing about eye-exams is that they can also reveal whether you’re sick of something else like glaucoma, diabetes, cataracts etc. I had none of those thank God, but my cholesterol levels needed to be checked because the eyes can show cholesterol deposits as well and surprise, I have quite a few.
But that’s life- there’s nothing you can do with normal ageing and its effects, but you can manage what you eat.
Media Noche 2018
The theme for this year (and the new one) is: less carbs. Well, I’ve been doing this for decades really but I guess it hits home when you try it and seeing for yourself how dramatic the results can be as Jong has found out. We had grilled lamb, pork and chicken, a salad, shrimps. For desert, Doyet baked a cassava cake- we tried to look up Erwan Heussaff’s recipe- but with half the sugar. Over-all, the meal was satisfying and the clean-up, a breeze. Less is definitely more.
New Year's Eve 2018
The good thing about celebrating the New Year is that it’s not burdened by sentiment- that’s reserved for Christmas. You start afresh. There’s promise of a new beginning (whether you believe in that or not). The day literally transitions from an old day to a new one- and so can you.
The worst thing you can do is to mentally believe that nothing has changed.
Ten very Eddie Garcia Things
I like Eddie Garcia. First thing, he looks like dad. My dad was like him in so many ways except for one thing- a distrust of our very mortal bodies. This was one man who was incredibly fit and incredibly conscious of his health. If my dad had been more of the same, he would most likely be still alive today.
About fifteen years ago, I read an article about this and how he supposedly takes more than a dozen vitamins and supplements a day. I’ve done the same thing since then and never questioned the cost or the efficacy because if there’s ever a guarantee for things whose outcomes are not certain, it’s consistency.
Be consistent on maintaining a healthy lifestyle and the results would be optimal; be consistent in eating crap and sitting on your ass the whole day and well, you know how that story turns out…
Eddie Garcia is 89 years old. That's almost nine decades (and just 11 years short of 100) on this God's green earth, and, as we found out during our candid interview with the legendary actor, he's made sure to lead a disciplined but colorful life.
What you could do today, you should do now so you could do something else tomorrow
Tiime and discipline are important
On directing and editing: be definitive on what you want
Passion is important. if you can’t find passion in your job, find something else (for nearly 70 years I continuously did movies because it was a job i really liked)
Money earned but not spent is really not your money
The reason you earn is because you want to spend it
Women should be put on a pedestal (Ryan: and pray that they’re worth it)
Cheating (when you’re in a relationship) is wasting time
Only set goals that are realistically achievable
On legacies: if you’re dead, you’re dead. Who cares if nobody remembers you?
I’ve also done an Eddie Garcia on skin-care because what’s the point of living up to a very old age but look like you’re already dead and decomposing??? Again, it’s consistency; just as I never miss taking my medications, I never miss slathering something on my face before I go to bed or before I go out. Brands change, but at this point, I always have something for my eyes; for night, I have a serum, a moisturiser and a facial oil; for day, I have another serum specific for day and a sun-screen with an SPF of 50.
Noche Buena 2018
I should be grateful and not moaning about the fact that my camera was not getting the shots I pictured in my head. My go-to answer is always- buy another one..but I won’t. Christmas done, and for New Year and my main resolution- be smarter; work and study harder. Much as I’d like to believe I’m already doing that, I’m actually not. I could do so much more- we can be so much more.
Currently Reading: Jesus' Son and a missing (American) president
Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson is as far removed from the Christian tradition as anything. It’s a collection of short-stories linked by a troubled narrator who is an addict. In one story, the narrator hitches a ride in a car he somehow knew before-hand was going to crash- supernatural prescience? Too much drugs?
There was a time in the 90s and all the way to the early 2000s when all I looked forward to on Christmas eve was to drink alcohol at friend’s houses. I started on my street and finished off at my best friend Eric’s before staggering back home and putting out the food 30 minutes before mid-night. Things changed when we all became adults. My parents had always been a team- left to their own devices, they would have coped happily whispering sweet-nothings to each other without having to worry about keeping up tradition for their adult children. Alcohol and the company of friends made the night more bearable.
But things swung back to how they were when the kids started to come- there was Matt and several years of Christmases when all the gifts under the tree were his; then Yanna but all too briefly because Al & Binky already lived abroad; then Toni and Jay’s kids.
Christmas is really about the children, no doubt about it. When Chini grows up, I think finally, I can have that Christmas I’ve always only recently, been thinking of having- to be alone, somewhere cold (or hot it wouldn't really matter), happily coping with just memories, and drinking tons of alcohol because this time, I’m actually happy at the thought that the holidays- unburdened by glossy memories of the past- is finally mine and mine alone..(does this make sense?).
THE PRESIDENT IS MISSING, by Bill Clinton and James Patterson. I remember one Christmas break when I read The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy and it affected me so deeply that I was in some weird funk for weeks. So never again, and this time, something you’d read with a popcorn in hand. I think this is the first novel of James Patterson’s that I’ve read- everything else I’ve probably watched as a movie. This is the kind of fiction that has brought this man over $750 million.
The best eats of 2018
All the best meals and food items for 2018 in photos because why not- you’re a compulsive photo-taker of your food since 2003!
It's Christmas: what did you give yourself?
How can you be generous to other people when you can’t be generous to yourself? I’m still mulling over getting a pair of Nike Air Zoom Pegasus 35 Shield Water-Repellent running shoes but then who knows?
I could...
Finally, the holiday break. I could breathe. I could vacillate between wanting to do something creative/productive or simply curl up in bed watching Netflix (I’m aiming to finish the entire run of ‘The Originals’). I could make a list as I’ve always had for the past 20 years- and I did below…
Get fit (finally get to the gym everyday or commit to finishing 100 push-ups a day, stretching and and exercises).
Study the features/functionalities of the camera I bought (Lumix G9).
Write a really, really short, short-story collection just to flex those flabby creative muscles.
Cook something I’ve never done before (wanting to bake a black-forest cake, but since sugary cakes are out of the picture…)
Do facial skin treatments every-night
Complete my transfer papers to a new doctor/GP
Post actual Christmas/New Year cards
Get another eye-check
Read five new books
Sort clothes
This is what Doyet’s fridge looks like 3 days before Christmas
Your Christmas menu
Days before Doyet was asking me if we could find a ‘sugar-free cake’. So search I did and felt confused when I came across confections that still had sugar, but that the sugar was ‘unrefined sugar’. And of course I had to be sure so Googled it I did and thought, when did the act of eating become so complicated?? The right thing to do was probably NOT to have a cake for Christmas; save the money (natural, organic cakes cost three times more) and save your health gains.
Two movies
I watched two movies in the last 24 hours. Eric Matti’s BuyBust was on Netflix and I was worried that I would see right through it as I normally would with Filipino movies, but it was either too good or I hadn’t seen a Filipino movie in a long time that it actually was good in my eyes. The movie made me so angry that I wanted to log into an old Twitter account just so I could troll some people. Fortunately I couldn’t remember the password anymore or the email that I used to open it. After a while, I felt really stupid. And horrified- what if I had gun? Would I be one of those people?? Apparently, I think I have one of those ‘tendencies’.
The next morning, the kids and I (minus Toni) went to see Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindewald. We got on the wrong bus and we had to get off at Manurewa to catch the right one, but we made it to the mall with time to spare. After about an hour, Chini says to me, ‘is this an adult movie'?’ and I said that it probably was even if half the theatre was filled with kids. It felt like the later and darker Harry Potter movies that we dragged the kids to, I think more for our enjoyment than theirs. The movie turned out to be as the trailer portrayed it; frenetic without the thrill and magical, but without the joy. It was a good thing Chini was preoccupied with popcorn, an orb-shaped, hard to hold (for a child) coke container designed for the new Grinch movie and a bag of Maltesers.
Five minutes towards the end, Chini had to go to the bathroom (I had told her to hold it in 15 minutes earlier, but she couldn’t any longer) so we had to leave and the funny thing was, I didn’t really care if I missed the ending.
Sometimes, I just want to disappear into the woodwork
We were on one of our usual road-trips for work and we stopped by this town called Woodville. Now I’ve lived in New Zealand for nearly a decade but my perception of life is still distinctly different; ‘just get on with it’ does not always cut it, like I will not go to a wedding in jeans and a short-sleeved shirt. And so a town derided as being hicksville is for me, actually charming and serene; of week-day afternoons walking down the empty main town-centre and stopping by at the cafe for coffee. I wouldn’t mind living in hicksville, in a ‘bucolic’ hovel filled with books (or an iPad filled with books), with a comfy bed, and an over-grown garden. In reality however, I cannot account for how I’ll survive- what to do for a job (maybe rely on the benefit system?) to pay for Internet (not sure if Woodville has fibre connection), for proper heating in winter and for food because I honestly have no idea on how to create and sustain a garden.
But that is the clear picture in my head coupled with a sense of relief that I probably wouldn’t have to worry about ‘just getting it on’ with what to wear to a wedding; I would have no need for fancy clothes nor score invites to weddings. I would just be this old Asian person shuffling about town with the same regularity as everything else.
Does that sound sad? I actually think of it as a possibility, an outcome and I neither fear nor dread it.
It could be worse- like a future you never anticipated and in which you’re too old and too fragile to cope with even the simplest things.
Why not leave it at that?
I have been very busy which I guess, is a good enough excuse to miss blogging. At some point I begin to question the whole point of this, and then ultimately, to question every other thing that I do that is not about work, or living (like eating properly, exercising, taking your meds, putting on moisturiser followed by a serum and then another moisturiser). I am after all, my work and I think, isn't that enough? It puts food on my table (good food), guarantees some security in my old age, makes me smug in the belief that I am actually happy.
So why don't I just leave it at that?
Meh
I started writing yesterday a post about how because of work and the winter season, I was on the road to catching a bad cold, but because I did my usual pre-emptive scorched-earth barrage of medication, I was able to arrest it- when I realised that I had written about this before. So here we are, millions of grams of drugs and pitchers of hot lemon-honey water later, feeling up to it I think. I'm off to a work thing down the much colder south island for three-days so taking the precautions and saying my prayers that my body holds.
Will my body hold? Such a fragile thing we think, but the sense of fragility is most often in our heads. A thought that crosses my mind every morning when I look in the mirror is, God I'm old- but of course it's a fact that no one is exempt from this.
So when I tuck into my kale and tuna salad at lunch even if my whole being is screaming for fried chicken and rice, I try to hang on to the belief that there is indeed something more to well-being than just a smooth face and taut limbs.