i'm a little bit tired

I'm a little bit tired from my weekend in LA. No, I did not party...it was just the drive back was so long. i guess that's because I left Pomona at 1 a.m. Monday and drove straight to San Fran to work. I arrived at the office at 7:30, changed clothes, and started working. By 3 p.m., I was sooooo sleepy. So I've been catching up on my sleep and by tomorrow I'll be all good!

Funny thing that happened at work last Monday - We have a client who's coming in after her move from San Fran to San Diego. I told her that I'm originally from San Diego. So she asked me for a referral to a good dentist in San Diego. After I gave her one of the names of my previous employer, she then asked me for another referral...but for a gynecologist this time. I just looked at her funny! I just said, "Sorry but I've never needed one so far. I don't know any." She turned red and said, "Oh, what am I thinking? I'm sorry it's just hard finding all these new doctors and not knowing anyone in this city." I just told her that I understand how it is. Or do I?

Shout-out to grade school friends - Just in case somebody google these names, maybe they'll be redirected to this blog and get in touch with me. Seems like a lot of people are google-ing to find long lost friends (or even potential dates). Yeah admit it, I'm sure you've googled yourself too. So here's a shout out to my grade school friends from Highway Hills Elementary School! Hello to Virgilio Viana, Carlo Buenaventura, Alexander Gabriz, Arli Bumatayo, Jimmy Pamintuan, Lani Lacanlale, April Bacud, Cherry Fernandez, Cindy Tan, Marjorie Jo, Fatima Caparoso, Paulino Peregrino, Philip Pesebre, Arvin de Guzman, Alex Arcilla, Amelita Ranola, Arlene Ercia, Maria Elena Feliciano, Dulce Pumareja, Romeo Lanuzo, Edgar Tilla-in, Sheila Roque, Rose Natividad, Rowena Racelis, Veronica Quesada, Bernadeth Mia, Enrique Paulino, Reyden Roa, Jorina Barroga, Alberto Garcia, and Maribel Villanueva. I'm sure I forgot a few...but I'll keep on updating these.

i'm off to LA for the weekend

Sex toys, anyone?

It's a slow Thursday and I didn't feel like doing anything here at home. I was tired of the Olympics coverage on TV and I really didn't want to clean the house or start on a new project. So, I decided to go thrift store shopping. I was not looking for anything in particular but if something would catch my eye, then I would buy it. I mostly looked at furnitures. I'm not talking about antique stuff here, but merely second-hand stuff that could be turned into something. After looking at three thrift stores, I came out empty handed. There were a few desk that I saw as possible "projects", but knowing myself, it'll probably just end up lying around in the garage. Then I'll probably just end up disposing it too.
Feeling tired and defeated (that I'm not as creative as those folks in HGTV and TLC) from my window shopping, I decided to go to Goldilock's for some merienda. So I got an arroz caldo (rice porridge in ginger with chicken) and kamote-Q (fried sweet yam on stick). I also got the most recent issue of Asian Journal where it had an article about a thriving sex toy store in Manila. Sex toy store? Now, why didn't I think of that? Having lived in Hillcrest (San Diego) and San Francisco, I should have thought of this business in Manila. Anyhow, the article said that the store can be availed of through appointments only and they now have a website where they do the bulk of their business. One of their biggest seller is a penis enlarger, which made me laugh. And the story continued to say that it's the women who buy it for their partners, which made me laugh even more. It's a pretty interesting article, I only wish that I would have thought of it first.

Chona In the City

Funny as hell. (Not that I've been to hell...) Chona In the City

It could have been My Carabao Life

For those of you who have been reading this blog since the very beginning know that CafeAmapola was not the original name of this site. It used to be simply called Don's Raves and Rants. However, after the first three or four posts, I noticed that I was neither raving nor ranting. So I decided to change it to Cafe Amapola.
So why the name? CafeAmapola is a screenname that I was already using in Yahoo and MSN. I'm using it as a tribute to my favorite watering hole in Baguio City during my college years. I also want to name my restaurant, if I ever open one, Cafe Amapola Bar and Grill. (Yes, I do have a dream.) I have a lot of memories in Cafe Amapola and had great fun in this restaurant/bar during my freshman year with my blockmates, dormmates and partymates from Alliance of Concerned Students. Unfortunately, the establishment came down with the earthquake in 1990. And after the quake, the building it was in was condemned and demolished and it never reopened, rebuilt or relocated for that matter. I eventually found other hangouts in the City, but Cafe Amapola will always be extraspecial to me.
I thought of and considered several names for this blog...and there were plenty. But there's one that still linger in my mind: My Carabao Life. Now, how does that sound? I thought it was cute because it reminded me of a cover we had for Habagat, the Filipino Literary Magazine I edited in high school (Yes, I considered Habagat, too.) But I decided against it since it didn't really relate to me. I was born and raised in Manila and I don't want to falsely project an impression that I grew up living and riding a carabao. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I wish that I did, but the truth is I just don't know much about our national animal (except that we use them for plowing the fields).
So there, now you know the history of the name Cafe Amapola.

Lost, lost, lost

I can't believe it! I am so pissed! I just lost the post I was writing. It was already like four paragraphs long and now...s**t! My computer screen just froze and then all the open windows/browsers closed by themselves. Ahhh, I don't want to write on the same topic again so I'll rewrite that some other day. Now, just bear with another freeflowing stream of consciousness.

Kay and I have been together for six years now. Wow, can you believe that? We met in August of 1998 and six years later, we're still together. Before her, my longest relationship was 11 months. Or 4 years if you consider the long-distance relationship I tried to keep with my ex-girlfriend in the Philippines. Now I have a six-year relationship and it keeps on getting better.

For a while there I thought the whole family would be here for Christmas. Now Jay-R has decided against taking a leave of absence from Ateneo and will probably come here next summer instead. Well, Mom and Dad might still come before the end of the year. Yeheyyy!

Happy Anniversary to Kapatirang Anno Domini! Brods and Sisses, you know who you are...and thanks for all the good times!

It's been quiet at Barrio Alimasag. I would log on and there would only be 2 or 3 active users and they're not even posting. This has got to change! Anyhow, it's still my current favorite hangout in the web. It's a bulletin board for down-to-earth, simple-minded Filipinos here in the U.S. and back home. Check us out and join our little community on the web.

It seems like all the relatives in San Diego are doing some home improvements. Granite countertops. New hardwood floors. Stainless steel appliances. New furnitures. I wish I can be doing the same here in Sacramento but I don't have the money for it right now. And I don't want to spend money in this house if I'm going to move to Pomona anyways. But I'm still undecided on that. Now if I would only get all six numbers in tonight's lottery drawing...

Just for the fun of it, here's my playoff picks for the upcoming NFL season:
AFC- Colts, Chiefs, Patriots, Bengals, and wildcards Jaguars and Chargers (hey, I can wish, right?)
NFC - Seahawks, Panthers, Packers, Eagles, and wildcards Buccaneers and Rams
We'll check back in January and we'll see how I'll fare

Don is out of the office

I'll be here in LA until Thursday. I'll also take some time to visit San Diego. Have a great week everyone!

I had a burger today

Thinking aloud:
"Where is my checkbook? I need to pay some bills. I can't remember where I left it."
"I need to clean my room. I need to do the laundry, too."
"I don't want to go to work tomorrow. It's so boring!"

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Okay, let me talk about the Seattle trip real quick. We really had a great time. It was very relaxing although we did a lot of walking. I think the only drawback was that we didn't like the hotel that we stayed in. Edgewater Hotel was advertised as the only waterfront hotel in Seattle, and I think it was true until last year when Marriot Waterfront opened. We should've just stayed there instead. For the rates Edgewater were charging, it was a real letdown. (We actually complained to the front desk and tried to find vacancies in other hotels, but in the end we jst decided to stay and concentrate our effort in having fun, fun, fun)

But our idea of fun is mostly eating. We went to Elliot's which most of the locals recommended as the best seafood restaurant in the city. We unfortunately arrived at a different conclusion. We also tried Icon, a new trendy restaurant that is mostly known for the 200-something glass-blown-lamps adorning the ceiling. Food was good, too, but I would take any upscale San Francisco restaurant over this in a heartbeat (Think Lulu's or Asie's) We also shopped and ate some more at Pike's Public Market.
We also wanted to go jetskiing but we found out that even though seattle has a waterfront, the beach is actually 2 hours away! So we went sailing instead and it was very relaxing. We just laid there in the boat for about two hours and enjoyed the sun and Seattle's cool breeze.
The downtown's landscape is comparable to San Francisco's Union Square. A lot of shopping buildings standing side by side with business high rises. It was great just to walk the city streets and act as one of the locals. I was mistaken as a local once, and people assumed we're from Alaska. Kay said that's because I look like an Inuit. It must be my dark features and long hair!
Seattle's a city I can see myself living in. If Frasier can live, so can I!

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Work was so boring today. It was slow and there was nothing for me to do. I was just online all day posting in the Barrio. I need to find something more challenging, but then again I'm lazy anyways, so maybe not. I'll just kep on collecting my paycheck. Hoping my boss doesn't run into this blog.

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Speaking of my boss, he just separated from his wife last April after being married for almost 20 years. It's sad but they are still in good terms and both said that they knew it was going to happen. Now he wants to start dating again at 52. I was shocked when he first told me it about and until know I just can't believe that they are now separated.

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Oh yeah, and I had a burger today. In-N-Out, baby!

Sundays with the family

Nowadays I spend my Sundays in front of the TV and the computer. I usually wake up at 11 am, get some coffee and look for something good to watch on TV. If the NFL season is in progress, then it's a no-brainer that I would watch whatever game is on. I root for the SD Chargers but they are hardly on TV since they are on a different TV market. The hometeam for the Sacramento market is the Oakland Raiders, but you can't watch them here either because their games are on blackout since their homegames are never sold out. So I'm really held hostage to whatever NFL puts on Fox and CBS. Okay I've digressed, that's a whole different post and will visit the issue again once football season starts...

This morning I thought of how I spent my Sundays growing up in Manila. 'Twas a lot of fun and it revolved mostly around the church and family. If I remember it right Sunday service at HHUMC was at 9:45. And although that means we have to leave home around 9-9:15 to make it on time, our Sundays really start at around 8 am. We're not allowed to sleep in and our mom would wake us up so we can all have breakfast together. Breakfast would usually consist of fried rice, pan de sal, eggs, fried spam, daing (dried fish) or corned beef, with coffee (instant, not brewed) or Milo (have always preferred this one over Ovaltine) and orange juice (no, not freshly squeezed but Tang...yes, Tang). Typical Filipino breakfast.

After breakfast either my older brother or I would wash the cars. This would take a lot of time because my brother and I are very thorough in washing the cars. After that I would shine my Dad's shoes, which I actually like doing. My sister on the other hand would start getting ready for church since it takes her a loooong time to get ready. Then Mom would prepare and start whatever we're going to have for lunch. She'll leave it for our maid to finish while she gets ready herself. Once we're all ready, we all drive together to go to church.

Oops, wait up...that's actually not true since the whole family wontfit in one car (there's six of us). Most of the time my brother and I would leave early to join in the choir. I'm not really good at singing but since the youth group (the MYF) is in charge of the church choir, I would participate once in a while. Sometimes we'd leave early, too, to attend Sunday school. If I feel like not going to church, I just wont get ready and by the time the family's ready to leave, Mom and Dad wont have time to argue with me about not going to church. Which is really never a big deal because we're never forced to attend church anyways. But I still make lame excuses sometimes like not having anything to wear.

Church service in a Methodist church can be long. It's typically an hour and a half long. But there's more activities after that. My Dad will have the United Methodist Men's meeting, my Mom will have the monthly board meeting or the weekly kababaihan meeting (for the life of me I can't remember the name of the women's group in our church), and my brother and I will have the United Methodist Youth Fellowship meeting. We'll usually discuss the youth activity for that afternoon, or if there's no activity we'll have a meeting about the next meeting and the activities for the rest of the week (Choir practice, Prayer Meeting, Bible Study). Boy, there were a lot of meetings!

Again, the whole family would be together for lunch. It's also typical for a Filipino household to have the TV on during lunch. And during this time it would usually be on Spin-A-Win (I'm really dating myself here for those Filipinos who know when this TV show was on), or Germspecial (which eventually became GMA Supershow). These are Game Show-Variety Show-hybrid similar to those that can be seen in Univision and Telemundo (think Sabado Gigante). If there's no church activity, my siblings and I would just watch Lovingly Yours, Helen or I would spend the afternoon with church friends (Angel, Benjie, Bong, Eric, Jimmy) and go to a mall or see a movie. My Dad would usually take an afternoon nap and Mom would go to the store. My sister? I don't know what she does on Sundays but maybe she can comment here and enlighten me or freshen up my memory.

Sundays are fun for me. I have great memories with the family and with the church. Funny now that it's been years since I went to a Sunday service. It's also been a while since our family had a Sunday lunch together. Well, that's part of getting old and having separate lives I guess. We just all live so geographically far apart. But we're still a family.

It's an Ichiban night!

*Yup, I'm just having a ramen tonight for dinner. Ichiban, my favorite noodle brand.
*Got back from Seattle yesterday. It was a nice trip but maybe just a day too long. I think three nights is enough to see most of downtown Seattle.
*Pike Public Market reminded me of the wet market in Edsa Central. Passing by those seafood stalls and fruit stands brought me back to my days in our tindahan. It was fun to be thrusted back to my childhood days.
*There's something about Northwest food that doesn't sit well with my taste buds. I think the lack of taste of the food is what it is. Northwest food is a little bit bland for me. I'm just a spoiled Californian.
*Work was busy today...just in case you're asking. But I survived my first day back. Gotta do it all over again tomorrow.
*Peja wants to be traded. I can't imagine Sacramento Kings without Stojakovic. I guess he 's not happy that the Kings didn't try to keep Divac. Peja won't be traded though...
* Miles is back posting again. It's her blog that got me started in weblogging.
*Can you tell I'm forcing myself in trying to come up with something in this post? I'm afraid it's not working.
Okay, have a nice day everyone! I'll try to gather my senses and write a better post next time.