•{Breakfast ☀ For ☀ Lunch}•

I've been holding off on the corned beef craving, as the one on hand is not fresh but canned. Being that, it is not healthy, as per Mother. But the Pure Foods corned beef in the pantry was beckoning, relentless. So I gave up the pretense of control and gave in to the temptation. 

We had left over mais (or maize in the Western front), so I decided to make garlic rice too. I used butter instead of oil. Took a small portion off the block, just enough for the the melting butter to touch base with the frying pan's surface.

Chopped up garlic, lots of 'em. I'm the kind who can't get enough of garlic, bad breath can be managed. Heh. I was going to use some in the corned beef anyway.

This is my favorite part, sautéing the garlic. I looooove the smell of sautéed garlic, a whiff of it will make my belly churn in hunger.

Then I put in the crumbled mais. To keep the granules from sticking to each other, one needs to hold the turner straight down onto the pile of rice and mix.

This is not the way to hold the turner.

Now the corned beef. You can see there's some purple in it, that's the chopped up onions. And I didn't forget the rest of the garlic either. I used the same pan that I used for the garlic rice and didn't add any more oil. Doing so would have been too much.

I was too frisky with my meal -- took a spoonful before taking a shot of the once perfect plate.

Craving satisfied.

•{Shindig's Aftermath}•

With the four gallons of left over from last night...

Why should I not have vanilla ice cream for brunch? 

No, nothing's gonna stop me. Not even calorie counting. And I promise to make up for it with a fifteen-minute balancing act of a perfect half moon. Cakewalk.

•{Kawaii}•

I discovered Strapya-World after scouring the interwebs for a casing worthy of my phone, i.e., a casing that is so snug that I can finally stop replacing my screen protector for the nᵗʰ time. Being that the company is based in Japan (as opposed to one based in Nigeria), I knew right off the bat that they were going to be trustworthy, online transaction-wise. The Hubb was wary, as he usually is when it comes to buying stuff online. 

To pacify his worries, I first set out to check the company's Facebook page, Strapya-World Fan Page, see if it was legit. There, a smorgasbord of comments, all positive. eBay-wise, this was a seller with 100% feedback. I wanted to be absolutely certain for when I present my case to him who is wary, so I emailed their customer support. I was delightfully surprised when I got a very quick reply! Detailed one, at that; they answered all my questions straight to the point. 

I was satisfied. And with my persuasion + feminine wiles, I uprooted The Hubb's wariness.

Strapya-World's customer support strongly suggested that I avail myself of the Express Mail Service (EMS). I checked up on the implications of EMS and found out that it was going to go through our post office, PhilPost. Here is where I got wary. Our post office does not have a good track record and that is based on personal experience, not just from blogs but GMA News itself, which can be found here (it's a four-year old news but the fact remains to this day). The good thing with EMS is that there is a tracking number and if you're neurotic like yours truly, you'd check at least ten times a day despite the no change in the status of your parcel.

True to its word, my parcel did arrive in our area within three days. And sticking to its track record, I didn't hear anything from our post office. I was way too excited for my stuff to wait for this inefficient Phililppine postal service. I went there with a print out of the tracking site, showing that my parcel had arrived and is under their custody; gave the grumpy girl at the post office's claiming section my tracking number; and got my parcel. I brisk walked to my car and tore the package open.

Happy, happy, joy, joy.

SwitchEasy Colors in Viola
Charm Apli Sweets in Vanilla Ice Cream
Food Sample On The Spoon in Rice with Sunny Side-Up Egg

That sunny side-up egg looked so real, I almost took a spoonful! And that miniature vanilla ice cream got me craving that I bought one on the way home. Finally, my screen protector can focus on protecting instead of sticking. Strapya-World, you are everything I want in an online store! And then some.

•{On Missing You}•

Rainn Wilson will I follow, for I ♥ Dwight Shrute!

In my case, I put on one of The Hubb's shirts.

Got hitched. Shacked up. Cooped up in a bed. I got so used to having Sailor Boy within arm's reach. It was nice. I enjoyed cuddling in all its suffocating-glory. Hah! It was too nice. I got so comfortable it resulted to total loss of control of my jaw muscles which caused me to snore. Fact. But really now, I'd slip into bed, under the covers and there I felt protected [mostly because my husband is 6" tall and a beast]. Then I'd fall asleep, safe and sound.

Reality never fails to check in though. It's sad that our married life is predisposed to long distance.

Sleeping is hard to get by when he isn't around. I sleep, restless, not knowing what I'm antsy for. I wake up feeling robbed, Hypnos did not indulge me. When we're in different countries, transition is made easy with the help of Skype. We keep it on, giving us the illusion when we wake up in the middle of the night that the other is just right there beside us. It's as close as we're going to get, the next best thing to the real thing. But when the whimsical ship calls and commands for an underway, it leaves us with nothing -- our bubble is popped. Destroyer, you capricious little thing. Our bubble bursts.

So I try to repair the bubble just like I used to do with those plastic balloons I played with as a kid -- I take the torn ends together and purse my lips tight around it -- I put on one of The Hubb's shirts. To complete my fool's paradise, I top it off with a spritz of Touch. 

Thus have I created in my paradise, a quasi-comfort. 

•{À La Last Supper}•

[Breaking this into two parts.]

On a Tuesday, I met up with Jelian and Mike for lunch. It was exclusive, just for us three, with one common denominator: an impending doom. And though we had doom looming over our heads, we managed to have a good time at Café Old Cul-De-Sac.

We each ordered different dishes, that way we could try out three of their entrées. Mike had the chicken curry,

Waiting for his curry.

Hail, the chicken curry.

I had the osso bucco

Osso bucco.

Me, with my top matching their table cloth.

while Jelian ordered their pork chops in white mushroom sauce.

And to sum it all up:
a.) place is quaint but not cozy;
I have a thing for fancy knicky-knacks. The pieces I loved the most at the café was this clock:

"Bouquet of Memories From the Heart."

and their fireplace, of which I wasn't able to get a picture. We went there after Valentine's Day so the place looked like it was still hung over from the Hallmark occasion.

b.) service was below par;

The waiters were glued to the boob tube showing this movie with KC Conception and Richard Gutierrez. I am not the kind who wants to be waited on while eating, I can't enjoy my food that way. I do think waiters should be attentive. The place is small, twenty diners would make the café cramped, yet it required us to call out for their attention for something we needed. You do not want to be loud in a place so small.

c.) food was good; and

Osso bucco (is Italian, translated "bone with a hole") was unheard of for me, so I was excited to try it. True to the raves it's been getting, it was delight to my palate. The meat was just right -- soft and tender, retaining its whole piece. It tasted very much like our kaldereta, might be a move on the café's chef to give it a touch of Filipino. Chicken curry was rich with the flavorful spice. In this section, an exception must be made for the pork chops in white mushroom sauce. Jelian wasn't so impressed with it as the meat was hard to chew. If not for that, I thought the sauce was right on the spot -- creamy, but not trumping the distinct taste of mushroom.

What we unanimously loved was their pumpkin soup.

d.) conversation was overflowing what with our wavelengths a'jibing.

•{I Am Sailor Boy's Island Girl}•

Growing up, I swamped myself in a sea of Sweet Dreams and Love Stories and Harlequin Romance and my favoritest, Judith McNaught. I was never without a romantic novel (novel, because those by Judith McNaught were ream full of words embellished), I brandished them out from my purse whenever I had the chance to sit down and then I would read, like so...

and so...

I devoured the books. From the moment the heroine and her prince charming crossed paths; to the pursuit; their first kiss, vivid and elaborate to the minutest of detail that one can gather from tonsil tennis; the drama (insert big sigh, right about here) to puncture the lovers' bliss but never too big of a damage so as to always bring me to the denouement -- sweet as the creamiest vanilla milkshake of a reconciliation. One I especially liked was the anti-heroine touch, contrary to tradition these women fended off the unyielding knight, and my favorite was Whitney Westmoreland. In the end though, the anti-heroine isn't so anti after all; but, she yields only to the most worthy of men and submits to he who doesn't break her spirit but nurtures it instead. I soaked it all in.

Yet something happened that led me to put the romance and the butterflies in my stomach to rest. It finally came to me, what Janice had time and again told me with matching roll of her eyes, that the romance I've been pining for can only be found in books and movies. So I kissed all my daydreams of the Duke of Claymore, Jr. goodbye and left them in la-la land. Soon I came across Gabriel. Met up with Neil and I let him whisk me away to the Dreaming. Dated Christopher because he was too funny to pass up on. Chuck too, because he was curt yet engaging. And I chanced upon Haruki who made me feel bizarre all the time. I also tried getting to know Kurt, because of his drawings and he always had outrageous up his sleeve.

Then The Husband came along. Short of a whirlwind romance and nothing less of a super exclusive long distance relationship "I do'ed" him a year later. 

With him, the knight in shining armor from my romance novel past came to life. He caught me off guard and those who are privy to our story will maintain that he came to my rescue at the nick of time. But I didn't want to be his damsel in distress! [Anti-heroine twist, check.] Still, much to the cynic's denial in me, he brightened up my dreary life. He did. The cynic's wall was jaded-thick yet he sought to make his way through it. Then one day, I heard his voice on the other end of the line after a week-long underway, it made my ♥ smile and I actually heard him smile too. I'd have bad days and seeing his face on Skype gave me as much comfort as if I had his arms around me. The wall had crumbled and he gave me my storybook love.

Now, waking up to his "Good morning," makes my day. I love coming home to him and falling asleep with his "See you tomorrow." Wrapped in his big bear hug feels like home to me. And nothing, nothing beats his "I love you" amidst a tiff or in mid-outburst. He has made all the clichés become simple facts of life. He also made cheesy excusable.

Here's to my hero, my best friend, my lover, my partner, my wonderwall:

Thank you for bringing me some pixie dust for happiness, a splurge of magic for daydreams coming to life and a whole lotta love to last forever.