babble mix

Bringing It Back

It’s been almost a year since my last blog entry and needless to say, so much has happened. I’m just glad I have a full day to stay home and do nothing (on a Friday! Thank God for birthday holidays). Yes, I can finally bring back blog-loving-feelin (whoow blog-lovin’ feeling – sing it with me!) and share blog-worthy thoughts from over 9 months of hiatus.

Mamang Sorberterow
May 2006
I didn’t think I can find a Mexican sorbeterow (spoken with an LA accent) here in LA. We were on our way to pick up second-hand furniture for our apartment when we found mamang sorbetero under the shade of a tree. Of course I was curious to know what he sold – could there be a pinipig crunch? To my surprise, there was - $1. Now if can only find a dirty ice cream cart around here…

Wow Asia
July 2006
One of my Italian-American co-workers came back from a vacation in HongKong with “the most enriching experience” of her life. She raved about the food, the “sights”, the cheap shopping and how she had boobs over there compared to all the other female Asians. That broke my heart a bit (not the boob-comment, tanggap ko na yun eh), because she had no idea that there is more to “Asia” than HK, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and all our other neighboring countries – there’s this little group of islands called the Philippines, too. I thought about how much richer my own country is – of nature, people, food and culture – and yet nobody here seems to know about us, until I tell them about it from my own personal stories. It crushed me that our tourism promotions are just not strong enough to encourage these foreigners to go and explore our beautiful country which I am so damn proud of. I honestly hope that someday, we can put ourselves on the same map of what people here call “Asia.”

Pronounciation Lessons
July 2006
I was in Disneyland with Nino and Gena, my dear ex-officemate who was then vacationing in LA. We were lined-up at the haunted house when we saw the “graveyard” with really funny names, like this:

I laughed out loud, because I thought only a Filipino must have come up with the name of a Filipino hairdresser. Only later on did I realize that it was supposed to be said in English: “reincarnation.” Malay ko ba.

Las Vegas Oven
July 2006
I thought summer in the PI was the worst kind of heat you can put yourself through – that was my definition of hot, until I spent summer in NY. 40-degree-celcius weather?! That I thought was the worst. Until I went to Vegas in the summer. 55-degree-celcius weather, baby. While we were driving to vegas, I touched the window and got burned. Joke. It wasn’t THAT hot, but the windows were really hot enough to burn me if I kept my hand there. We could probably fry an egg on the street concrete if we wanted to, but of course we didn’t because we’d have to stay outside and clean it up. Now I know when NOT to go to Vegas – it is the desert after all.

Weird and Loving It
September 2006
I brought fresh lychee to the office one day and my co-workers were intrigued.
“What the heck is that?”
“It’s lychee, it’s like a fruit.”
“It smells weird…” “…like a flower or something…”
“Wanna try one?”

And they agreed. I show them how to peel one and took a bite. They did the same.

“This tastes like flowery-soap.”

Their lychee ended up in the trash can. Only my co-copywriter who’s Asian-inside and very familiar with lychee enjoyed it with me and only a few of them even attempted to try it – the “flower smell” was too strong for them, they said. They thought I was weird because I liked to eat flowery-soap and because of a lot of other things in their long list of “Mel’s Weirdness.”

• I love ketchup with pizza (Somebody asked, “is that a Filipino thing?” I just said, “No, it’s a Mel thing.”).
• I love ketchup with spaghetti (now that is a Filipino thing).
• I love ketchup with corned beef and egg (yummy!!!)
• I put salt on cherries (and they hated me for convincing them to try it)
• I love cantaloupe melon and chocolate
• I eat squid flakes (they said it tasted like fish food)

I love my Filipino weirdness (and my Mel-weirdness, too). It just means I won’t need to share goodies with them – they’re all mine!

STRAWBERRY (deep voice)
January 2007

I just had the freakiest strawberry I’ve ever seen.

Labels: 9 months, feb 07

posted by meL @ 2:50 PM