Why ?

On my way to work, I passed by several trash cans which all have garbage strewn right beside it.

And this is not a one-time thing. I see this often. Probably every other week or so and when I do see this, it doesn't only involve 1 trash can... it's ALL trashcans in a 2 block radius.

Why and how does this happen ?

Pakiusap

S chatted me up last night and this was how our conversation went:

S: Uuwi na kayo diba ?

Me: Yes

S: Sige, mag iisip ako kung anong papabili ko.

Eh ? Na stump ako doon sa sinabi nya, parang ang daming mali sa sinabi nya.

Una, hindi ba dapat tinanong nya muna ako kung pwedeng magpadala o magpabili ?

Pangalawa, wala pa pala siyang kailangan ipabili, so please, hindi naman kami nag ma maka awang magdala ng gamit mo kaya wag mong pilitin ang sarili mo kung wala kang importanteng naiisip. Ok ?

Pangatlo, naisip mo ba na kung saan saan pa mamamasyal yang padala mo ? Ilang beses pang paulit ulit naming bubuhatin ang mga maleta at kahon na kinalalagyan nyan ?

- bahay hanggang sasakyan (nasa 2nd floor ang tinitirhan namin)

- sasakyan hanggang sa check-in sa airport (NJ)

- pagdating sa CA airport, papuntang sasakyan

- galing sa sasakyan papasok sa bahay ng kapatid ko

- mula sa bahay ng kapatid ko papuntang sasakyan

- sasakyan hanggang sa check-in sa airport (CA)

- pagdating sa airport sa Maynila, papuntang sasakyan

- galing sa sasakyan papasok sa bahay namin

Yan e kung maipapasok namin sa bagahe namin na pang-check in. E kung ma overweight pa kami ? Edi bubuhatin na lang namin para hindi kami mag bayad ng additional na fees, tandaan mong pamahal nang pamahal ang bayad sa bawat karagdagang bagahe na ipapadala sa eroplano.

Kung hahawakan namin yan, aba, edi mamamasyal pa yan sa stopover namin sa Atlanta!

Kaya sige, kung importante ang ipapadala mo, walang problema sa akin ang magdala. Gamot ba yan ? Mga bagay na hindi nabibili dyan ? O kaya's sobrang mahal pag sa atin binili ? Pero, kung di naman talaga kailangan, pakiusap lang, wag ka nang magpilit na magisip ng ipapadala para lang merong maipadala. HINDI KAILANGAN, ok ?

Hindi talaga.

Love declarations

A guy-friend and I were talking and he tells me that his girlfriend (his first, he started this relationship early this year, they are both in their 30s) asked him one day, "Hon, how would you feel if I told you that I can't wait to spend the rest of our lives together?"

His response ? "Duh, dunno."

Needless to say, he spent the next few days trying to appease a very unhappy gf. He tells me that he should learn the art of pambobola lest he spend a significant portion of his life in the future trying to appease and/or get his lady to forgive him.

So this got me thinking... and I was challenged - and I do love challenges! How does one answer this question without compromising oneself?

Guy friend says, he should've answered back, "I can't wait to live with you," and that would've cut the conversation short.

And I tell him that while it gives the impression that he does want to marry the girl soon, it still does not sound right. And he expected the conversation to end at that statement ? On the contrary, that would've sparked even more conversation - one that leads to something he may not be ready for yet - because if I were the girl and I were in a mood to get a ring on my finger, I would've responded with a "I'm glad we're on the same page, I want to marry you and live with you too. Let's start wedding preparations," and with that sentence, he'd just (sort of) proposed because how many good girls live with their guys w/o the benefit of marriage ?

How would I have answered the question ? Guy is serious about their relationship and want this to end in marriage eventually, not now. So I would've answered with honesty but I would've thrown the girl a bone to make it less brutal, something like:

"You know that I've liked you for more than 20 years, right ? Every day when I wake up, it still amazes me to think that you and I are in this relationship. I still cannot believe that you are my girl, that I am your guy and that, finally, after all these years of quietly loving you, you now love me back. So please forgive me if my brain cannot process and answer your question yet, it's still trying to catch up with my racing heart.

O diba ? Mala-pelikula.

But girls... really, we should know not to ask leading questions like these unless we're quite sure of the response. Otherwise, you just might not like what you hear. Okay ?

Mommy talaga...

My mom keeps gushing about Swe-cha and how good-looking he is. Of course, it makes me - the mother - very happy.

A few days ago, Mom was looking at Swe-cha laughing while watching videos.

Mom: Ang gwapo talaga ni Swe-Cha, sobrang gwapo.

Me: Yay! Thanks :)

Mom: Talaga, totoong totoong gwapo. I'm not just saying that kasi apo ko. Gwapo siya maski di ko apo.

Me: Heehee, thanks talaga.

Mom: Di ko talaga ini-expect. Di ko akalain na magkakaroon kayo ng ganito ka-gwapong anak.

Eh ?

Me: [thinks - teka, insulto yata yun ah] Mommy, ganon ba kami kapanget ?

Another one ?

First, US Airways 1549 crashed on the Hudson. Fortunately, all passengers and crew got out safe and sound.

Now, I hear that Continental flight 3407 from Newark to Buffalo crashed last night, all 49 passengers, crew members and even a person in the home that it crash landed on were killed.

Scary, no ?

Ill-bred

We were out looking for Snow pants last weekend and decided to drop by Walmart on the off chance that they might be selling some, we didn't want to have to drive all the way to our favorite outdoor gear store - Campmor - because it was so much further.

Now, if you've been to Walmart, you should know what I'm talking about. For my readers who are in Manila, think SM garage / parking lot on a payday weekend. The parking lot - which was huge! - was full and you had to wait to get a slot.

Now, we must have been idling in our section (no other waiting cars in sight) for around 5 to 10 minutes when the owners of the SUV beside us started to back out. Yay! Just before we were about to slide into our slot (we got delayed because this SUV who was leaving blocked our car while he was trying to turn his vehicle towards our direction), another vehicle came from the other lane and stole our slot.

Mad, I decided to march down and confront the other car. Hubby tried to stop me, but I was seeing read and was unstoppable. I blame hubby a bit too because at this point, he saw another vehicle about to leave na pala but he didn't even mention that. If I had known that there was a better spot coming up, my anger would've been abated.

So I know on the car window, the passenger was a woman who looked to be in her 40s, she said "Yes ?".

"Miss, you took our spot, we've been waiting for parking a long time and this should've been ours."

and she replied in a VERY SARCASTIC TONE, "Sorry, we got here first!"

Ha ? I was so surprised at their utter lack of manners & conscience that I was speechless for a few seconds. I didn't know what to say. Eventually, I found my voice and said "okay, I see that it's useless to talk to people who are very rude."

AS I turned to walk away, she had the nerve to shout back, "I don't like talking to stupid people too!".

To which I retorted "then you must not like talking to yourself then!" and I left.

...

Thinking back, I should not have confronted them anymore. After all, what else was there to say to people like that ? They obviously did not have a shred of courtesy, they have no manners. The most surprising part was that these were middle aged to retirement age people. Obviously, uneducated and very uncouth.

My brother tells me that I should not even have lowered myself down by talking to them because by doing that, I am bringing them up to my level (or bringing myself down to theirs). He's right.

But the best comment that I heard was from someone else - "never mind, they're old people right ? just keep in mind that they'll probably die soon anyway so they don't have that much time annoy people with their rudeness." And THIS, made me smile.

...

And thinking back some more, I now realize that this is such a petty incident and shouldn't even worth a second thought. After all, there are more serious issues and tragic events that we can think about such as holodomor

Coupon Discrimination

I've talked about coupon clipping on and off these past several months and obviously, I am a coupon-clipper. So far, I've seen different reactions from store clerks whenever I present my coupons. Most of the time, they don't care. It's a common enough practice and it's no big deal.

Every so often, I do encounter raised eyebrows. Just last night, hubby and I went to Dunkin Donuts. We had 2 coupons - one for a free Dunkaccino and another coupon that lets us buy 2 donuts at 99c.

When I handed the coupons to the clerk, hubby was right beside me. We were told that we weren't allowed to use both because the coupons are limited to one per customer per visit, I then pointed out that hubby and I were 2 customers.

For a fraction of a second, I think the DD staff had his eyebrows raised. I felt a bit insulted and thought that he was looking down on us because not only did we come in with coupons, we came with 2!

He did let us use both of them and it was sort of funny too. Remember, it was one coupon per customer ? So, I gave hubby the other coupon and handed mine in first and said "I'll use this". He gave me a free Dunkaccino (no purchase required).

When that transaction was done, hubby then handed his in, selected the 2 donuts and when it was time to pay, he paid from his wallet. The total came to $1.06 with taxes, hubby didn't have coins so I got some from my wallet and gave that to hubby so that he can hand it to the cashier because after all, it was his coupon and his purchase.

And you know how you're supposed to tip baristas, right ? The change usually goes into their "TIPS" jar ? Now, I am an avid DD fan and drop by whenever I get the chance. I usually make sure that I give a chunk of change especially when I get good service. This time ? I paid $1.10 and got 4c in change. 4c went in to the TIP jar, just to annoy him (and no, we don't plan to drop by that branch in the near future, there are plenty of other DD branches in our neighborhood). If I had been a little bit more annoyed, the 4c would have gone back into my wallet.

Now, as I'm typing this up, I can't shake the nagging feeling that I might have been in the wrong. Is it shameful ba ? or embarassing to use coupons ? I do know some Filipinos who refuse to use discount coupons because its embarassing. Or did we, perhaps, abuse the system when we maximized our savings when we used 2 coupons in one trip ?

Strange

I was just going over the pictures that we took during our vacation in California and I came across these pics that we took at the memorial park where my Angkong is interred.

We were quite surprised to see a lot of graves with seasonal decorations - check out the Christmas trees and the smiley face. This is a strange custom indeed.

Hacked

I turned my desktop on this morning because I wanted to scan some documents before I shred & throw them away. After scanning, I just left it on, thinking that I might need to print something out later on.

Now, I work from home during the day and when I lifted my eyes from my (company-issued) laptop and glanced at my desktop screen, I saw the mouse pointer moving! Surprised, I got the mouse and tried to get control of the pointer. When I stopped moving the mouse, I saw the mouse pointer move to click on the Start button, then it went and looked at the programs that are installed one by one before it finally settled on the icon for IE and clicked on it.

While I was watching those actions, I was thinking that it might possibly the hubby who was accessing my computer from his office. He has this thing about leaving PCs / laptops on all the time and then just would just connect remotely to retrieve files that he needed.

Anyway, when IE went up, I realized that this could be a hacker so I pulled off the internet cable. Then, I disconnected and turned off VNC.

I called up hubby to confirm. It wasn't him.

I thought that with a random (or so we thought) password for VNC, firewalls and an internet protection suite installed, we'd be safe. Apparently, not.

From now on, I will be vigilant and will shut down computers in the future. I've also turned off the wifi in our laptops, will just turn them on when we need them.

Grabe, *bleep* hackers.

May Contain Nuts

Nothing beats a hot fudge sundae on hot days. We dropped by McDonald's today for a sundae fix after a long day of house cleaning.

Floors and kitchen counters have all been scrubbed clean - all furniture and appliances moved out of the way while the surfaces were being soaped and washed - and everything is so smooth now. In fact, I think the floors are too clean / smooth because I almost slipped twice. We've wiped down all the cabinet doors and surfaces with Pledge too. Saya.

All day long, hubby and I keep telling each other that we should have visitors more often, para ma force kami mag general cleaning. Rugs have been beaten, vacuumed and/or washed and everything has been dusted.

Tomorrow, we're going to the supermarket to stock up and will probably declutter the house by moving some boxes to the basement.

I'm telling ya, we deserve that sundae!

Anyway, we also found this package of peanuts (sundae topping) very amusing. Check out the allergen warning / information at the back of the package where it says "May contain tree nuts".

MAY CONTAIN ? E peanuts nga eh. :-P

Kulong ?

Imagine our surprise when we decided to drive to a nearby McDonald's to get some Mickey D's Sweet Tea (our new favorite drink) and saw Ronald behind bars. Check out his friends, they were behind bars too.

Useless

My 4p conference call just got confirmed and guess what I did ?

I went and brushed my teeth (again ah, I already brushed after I had lunch) AND GARGLED! Gargled!

It wasn't until I got back to my desk - in my home office - when I realized the futility of what I had done. Haha!

Oh well. One can never go wrong with good dental hygiene.

Truck convention ?

I had some errands to run at the bank - okay okay, I admit it. I miscalculated our bills for this month and I had to make habol and transfer some funds from another account so that we don't go below the required average daily balance and get penalized.

I decided to walk the 0.7 miles to the bank. My hubby, the dear dear man, even reminded me that I could just drop by Dunkin Donuts' on the way to the bank for some iced latte - he means well, really,... but I've gained so much weight that an iced coffee (with whipped cream) isn't really a good idea.

I figured, how hard could it be ? My friends who work in NYC walk much further than that on a daily basis, I could do it too.

Halfway down the 0.7 mile mark, I was panting.

That was how out of shape I was. I wanted to cry and began to yearn for those years when I could do 3 hour aerobics sessions at the gym and still have the energy for weight training afterwards.

Btw, I have been walking briskly since I left the house. I figured that since I was walking anyway, I might as well make the extra effort to raise my heart rate so I could claim to have exercised as well.

Anyway, I took the reminiscing part as an excuse to stop and take a breath. Aliw rin because when I looked around (I had not been paying attention to my surroundings below), I saw what appeared to be some sort of a UPS convention.

There were 5 huge UPS tricks, arranged in a semi circle (this was highly unusual because there isn't any UPS hub / location / office in the area). I approached the parking lot, half-expecting to see some sort of show / meeting / soiree (haha!) taking place in the middle of the half-circle. There were none. Ay. :(

Disappointed, I walked the rest of the way to the bank. I did see a cop point his speed radar gun towards oncoming traffic and I saw him flag an SUV down. Haha! Seeing this one vehicle get a ticket for speeding kinda makes all those times when hubby & I make an extra effort to observe the speed limit even if we're in a hurry all worthwhile.

and no, I resisted the coffee urge. yay!

Annoyed

I ordered a Micro SD card from Buy.com last 6/10. The media arrived on the evening of 6/23. I opened it and tried it and it worked. Two days later on 6/25, as media cards are apt to do, it stopped working.

I emailed Buy.com to request for an RMA # and this is the response that I got:

Thank you for contacting Buy.com regarding order #xxxxxxxx.

Unfortunately, we are not able to honor your request for a Return Merchandise Authorization number (RMA#) as the 14 days return time frame is over. However, some product manufacturers offer warranty replacement or repair services.

Diba kainis ? When do you start counting the 14 days ? It took 13 days for the product to get to my house (and I can prove that by the tracking information available on FedEx) so I only had 1 day left to test the product ? Tama ba yun ?

I didn't want to waste my energy complaining anymore. I went directly to the manufacturer's website, Kingston.com, and submitted an RMA. Ayun, I received one, free shipping pa. Hopefully, I get my replacement soon - my SD card has a lifetime warranty.

How did you get engaged ?

Back when the hubby & I were still dating, I remember dropping subtle hints to the bf by telling him engagement stories that I've read or heard about. I would tell him stories of proposals where there were flower petals strewn across the room, or proposals where the ring was hidden in a bunch of flowers.

I wanted it to be special.

and memorable.

and I wanted a story worth telling.

and I wanted to hear ooohs and aaaahs when I tell the story of my engagement to my girlfriends.

Most of all, I wanted balloons.

Anyway, things didn't turn out that way. I don't really remember the details but I think it was really done during an overseas call where he said "I think we should get married" and I said "okay, it's about time" - or something like that. Our exchange back then may not be exactly the same as what I typed here now but the gist is the same.

I didn't get a ring until much later, when I finally got back home to jump start our wedding preparations.

Now, reading this article "Honey, will you marry me ? ...Oh.. Never Mind" where a man hid the ring inside a balloon and then have the balloon blown away ? uh... Never mind.

Poor guy.

Poor gal.

Lucky person who finds the balloon :) After all, it's a $12k ring!

What's that in the car ?

Hubby and I went to Home Depot to get a quote to replace our kitchen countertops (no, we're not going through with it). As we were leaving, we saw this in the SUV which was parked across us.

Yes, that is a pigeon perched on the headrest of the driver's seat.


Hubby and I actually sat in the car for 5 more minutes, snapping pictures and trying to figure out whether this pigeon inside the SUV was intentional or not.


Did the driver know ? Was the bird in a cage and got out ? Did the bird fly in while the guy was loading stuff inside ? Will the bird poop inside the vehicle ? on the seat ? On the driver ?

We debated whether to wait for the driver to come out but left after 5 minutes. We had to groceries to buy, after all. :-)

Cart-a-lator

I'm currently in Massachusetts for a week-long training at our company headquarters. Will be staying over the weekend for a meeting on Monday, after which, uwi na! Yehey!

After today's classes, we decided to go to a nearby mall (note: no sales tax in New Hampshire!) for dinner and some shopping.

Guess what I found in a Target store ? It's an escalator made especially to transport your shopping carts.


You start by pushing your cart onto the cart-a-lator (I just coined this word right now *smile*) and the conveyor belts does the rest.

Then you just step onto the corresponding (regular) escalator.



Voila! Step off at the end of your escalator and wait for your cart.

This is so cool! I spent at least 10 minutes at this area, waiting for a chance to snap some photos.

Rent a husband

Saw this sign along the road. Rent a husband ? Do I get to choose from a catalog ? *wink*.

I've taken a leave of absence from work for the rest of the week. We really really do need to tidy up the house and start packing up for our tentative open house this weekend (I say tentative because we have not gotten a confirmation from our realtor yet).

Our plan is to clear up the basement by getting rid of stuff that we don't need anymore, box up a few more unused items from the house and then move all these boxes to the basement. From the way things are looking, being the packrat that I am, we need an extra "husband" to help us out with the packing and the carrying. Heehee.

Boobtalk

My sister likes to give me updates about my nephews everyday. She tells me about their grades in school (syempre magagaling, am a proud aunt), their antics, and their activities.

The other day, she tells me that she and our uncle were talking and making kwento... the little one (Lyle) was sitting on the floor with his toys. So my uncle starts telling my sister about this lady that he saw, she was dressed inappropriately (too sexy) for her age and stuff. Basically, it was adult-talk and they didn't even know that the little boy was listening until he jumped up and shouted - with a grin and a knowing look - "hey! you said boob! you said boob!" and he started running and dancing around while chanting "you said boob!".

Hangkuhlet! *smile*

Kinda makes one wonder how kids have this radar for bad words. You could talk to them and use a thousand words and they'll focus, instinctively, on the one bad word that you said. Galing no ?

This reminds me of the time when Sammie visited me at home and I was so sleepy and had to take a nap. I gave Lance (my elder nephew), whom I was babysitting at the time, to Sammie and they went to watch a video. Later, I'd wake up to Lance shouting in my ear "A-i, I'm a man-horse!"

I was puzzled, of course, but didn't think much of it until I asked about the video that they watched. Apparently, they'd picked out Deuce Bigelow: Male Gigolo to watch and guess what ? Man-horse turned out to be a mispronounced man-whore. Haaay.

Just goes to show that we should always monitor what the kids (and babysitters) watch and we should always be careful of what we say or talk about when there are kids nearby - they have very big ears!

Are you smarter than a 5th grader ?

Hubby loves watching this show and the questions are quite intriguing too. Sometimes, this even kind of makes me want to go back to my old textbooks and go through them again.

Lately, I've realized that watching quiz shows has also helped me discover a few more things about my hubby - things about him that I didn't learn about in the 20 years that we've been friends and bf-gf. First of which was that he likes maps. Magaling pala si S sa geography and I didn't even know until I'd see him answer geography questions easily.

As for me, I can easily answer the grammar, English and Spelling question and while I'd consider myself to be good in math & measurements, I'm only realizing that I really am not. How many pints is in a quart again ? and how many milliliters are there in an ounce ?

This blog is really inspired by the show that I saw last night (we have Tivo so I have no idea when this was actually shown), the contestant was the girl whose grandfather invented mood rings. One question for 1st grade spelling asked how many consonants were in the word "vowel". So she talked through her thought process...

V-O-U-L, and I know that vowels are A-E-I-O and U and sometimes Y. So the O and U in "vowel" are not consonants, so there are 2 consonants in "vowel". My answer is 2 and I'm gonna lock that in. *pushes the button*

Wrong! Okay, how can anybody not know how to spell vowel ? Pwede ba yun ? And she was like " Ohh V-O-W-E-L, like as in Bowels!!!" Hay nako. *roll eyes* Where did she go to school again ? I am so avoiding that school like the plague.

Fortunately, she was saved by her classmate, a fifth grader.