Three Months

Our third month started without much fanfare. Things seemed to settle down nicely and my asthma attacks rapidly reduced when my parents cut their vacation short. The attacks were caused by stress of having to manage two households. We finally managed to get our groove back and started managing our home better. (The secret is Mom's cleaning lady who comes in half a day once a week).

No more mishaps! Or so we thought.

By mid-month we were faced with the most disgusting home problem, a septic tank that was probably ready to blow up. The drain at our first floor bathroom was bubbling up the grossest debris imaginable. Thanks to Maynilad and our land lady, the problem was fixed within a few days.

We enjoyed the rest of the month though. The boys ran their first marathon during the Unilab Wellness Run and the rest of the month was spent preparing version 2 of dishes, puttering around the garden with Mom, squeezed in some time to go to Tagaytay, and playing Plants vs. Zombies as a family! Whew! The septic tank problem was as nerve wracking as the washing machine and smokin' sink issues, but I'd say these are just tiny things that make married life more exciting.

Plants vs. Zombies

I try to stay away from playing games because I end up getting addicted to it. The last time I got hooked was when Miguel was a kid and the culprit back then was Pokemon. My parents weaned me with books for distraction instead of playing video games. The only gaming gadgets they bought me were a Pacman watch and a Game & Watch. I only managed to play Super Mario rarely when I was allowed to go to the neighbor.

It was Miguel who got me to play Plants vs. Zombies. I indulged him because he was talking about PvZ a lot and I couldn't relate to him anymore. He coached me the first few games and actually still managed to stay away from playing. I actually stopped playing because my wrist hurt for a few days.

But...

Sometimes things could just get frustrating and you just want to kick some b**t. The poor zombies didn't have a chance the past 2 nights because my frustration level was beyond its normal limit. It was exhausting though and it took a few hours before I fell asleep.

Ayun, puyat din si Sweetie.

I wish I could be a chomper and just chomp away all those annoying zombies in our lawn called the Philippines.

The Tricycle School Bus

Saw this tricycle filled with 8 kids plus the driver the other day on the way to the post office. Yes, EIGHT KIDS were in this tricycle. Good thing though traffic was a bit heavy so the kid at the back managed to hang on pretty well. Obviously, safety is the least priority of the driver. I wonder though why the police didn't flag them.

Hang in there kid.

Ipanema's Colorful Sea Collection

Ipanema launched its newest Gisele Bundchen collection last week. Dubbed as "Colorful Sea" the new line will help raise funds and awareness for Brazil's turtle population and our own local marine life. The Philippine Ballet Theater made an awesome performance during the event. Here's a short video of the show -



During the event a WWF Philippines Vice Chair and CEO Lory Tan gave an impactful presentation about climate change. He shared projections about what may happen in the coming years as a result of global warming. He showed images using maps on what may happen to our coastal lines once water eats up 12 meters of land. Boracay will be halved. Caticlan Airport will disappear. Mactan will go underwater. Most of our airports and ports will disappear and other possibilities. He said that it is not enough to give donations to causes or sign petitions to do stuff, but each of us have to do our part to prepare for this catastrophe. (I know I should've asked for a copy of that preso!)

Here's a couple of (trying hard) photos I took during PBT's performance -

The collection's really cute! Check `em out at Bambu (Glorietta) and I also saw some at The Landmark.

Election Entertainment

This has got to be the most entertaining Philippine elections. Check out this vid by MommoyPalaboy with Sen. Dick Gordon.



At least we know he has a sense of humor.

Happiness is...

It took me a year to get over my allergy. But I can happily say that I can now drink Coca-Cola again! Weeee! Tuloy ang ligaya!

Tenant Be Good, Tenant Be Bad

My frustration level rose up several notches last Monday when my Network Magic detected an intruder in our wifi network. I promptly blocked off the intruder and realized that I needed to protect our home wifi network from being leeched. We keep it open because we use different types of devices with different OS' so we've been using Network Magic to keep the buggers out.

Tuesday came and I was still quite annoyed at the intruder, so I spent some time cleaning up the network map and securing our network. My attention was soon taken by our first floor bathroom. For some strange reason septic tank debris was coming in through the shower area drain. It was really disgusting to clean up. Several hours passed and it happened again. Cleaned it up immediately since my Mom was visiting to help us out with re-potting the plants. Soon after she used the toilet almost 2 inches worth of debris bubbled up from the drain. I felt like I was in Dante's Inferno (the third circle). Good thing that the water subsided after dinner so it was easier to clean up the shower floor (thank God for long brush brooms!).

I could not help but feel bad for my 80-year old landlady. She's my Mom's friend and her daughter went to school with my Ate. She is such a sweet Tita and has been a caring landlady. Sweetie and I decided to start renting the place before the wedding because we wanted to start moving stuff. Our landlady tried to have everything fixed before we moved, but she had difficulty because she can't move around that much, so essentially we had to take the initiative to have things repaired.

It was quite unbelievable how much stuff we had to have repaired. All the window screens had to be replaced, the doors and cabinets had scratches, the bathroom sinks were falling off and leaking, the toilet innards had to be replaced, the stairway banister wasn't attached to the wall anymore (still have to have it fixed), a broken window glass panel and the house was full of roaches (to name a few repairs). It was heartbreaking to recount all the repairs that had to be done to my Tita.

I was honestly shocked with how the previous tenant used the house. It was my first time to move in my entire life and my Mom saw to it that whatever was broken at home was fixed immediately. My Mom explained to me that such people exist. They just don't care about other people's property because they feel that since they are paying rent they can do whatever they want. I feel really frustrated because I feel that the last tenant deliberately left the place in disarray. And I failed to mention that the last tenant left unpaid PLDT bills. Kainis diba?

I'm glad to report though that we had repaired most of the stuff save for the stairway banister and the shower floor needs grout. Hopefully the drain will be fixed tomorrow and that Maynilad will show up to clean out the septic tank. Unfortunately though the cause of this inferno is just around the corner.

Lesson learned: Aside from taking care of property that isn't yours, be wary about leaving a place in disarray because who knows the next tenant might know that you are someone popular.

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Update: The septic tank revealed some gory secret. Kwento is here.