Old Habits Die Hard!

Old habits die hard, so I've relapsed into the shopping thing...no, actually, all of the new pieces I have gotten so far this year, I've received as gifts, the latest being a pair of (verryyy) skinny Seven's from Kumar, of course. Seven Jeans are another one of those things that Kumar gets dirt cheap for himself courtesy of Harry Rosen as one of their employees, which is great for him, but kinda sucks for me. But then again, I never really cared too too much for Seven's anyways inspite of all of the hype around them, which is a good thing, otherwise I would have sunk into a deep depression a long time ago! Surprisingly, though, Kumar's Seven's aren't even his best pair of jeans, in my opinion, at least. I honestly prefer his tapered dark wash American Eagle Apparel jeans, that he got for a whopping $30.00 Cad. They look awesome dressed up with one of his shirts, sports jackets, dress shoes, perhaps a scarf, and a day's worth (max!) of stubble!!!

But Kumar still wanted me to have my own pair of Seven's, and with the January sales going on, there couldn't have been a better time to get them, so he asked me my waist size out of the blue the other day. "Uh, 24" I replied, I then overheard him talk to the shop owner, and then relayed over to me, "they're out...the next size is 25." "25 should be ok, huns..." I assured him. So he got them, and when he arrived home later that evening, I tried them on, lol: I had to lie on my back on the bed just to button them (and I wanted a size 24!) that's how tight they were! I'm still not sure whether they're just made really really small or if the problem lies with me and my burgeoning belly and backside?(hmmm...) "Break them in, wear them around the house, go to Adonis in them, walk around, they'll stretch, you'll see" Kumar insisted. So I wore them last Monday, and felt physically ill by the end of the day:( Yes, the lengths we women will go to in order to look good! And today? Well, today I totally ignored the little voice in my head begging me not to subject myself to more pain, but this time, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the jeans have stretched somewhat as Kumar promised they would, which really made all the difference in the world! They're starting to grow (literally!) on me and I think Kumar is right this time when he predicted that "they're going to be your next favorite pair of jeans!" We really dig each other, Kumar and I!

Always Laughing at My Own Expense

So last week's revelry (lol) at my brother's basement which lumped everyone into one sweaty shuffling, heaving mass, kinda rekindled my interest in Latin Dance, and prompted me to take down my (professional!) ballroom dancing shoes (lol) that I thought I had hung up indefinitely a few years back, pre-babies:) Those of you who know me from high school, probably remember that I couldn't dance to save my life -(that was epic!) well, yahh, pit me against Caryl and Vivian, where the heck was I supposed to stand???? But in my defense, a horrible dancer by Filipino standards is surpisingly a pretty good (italics mine, oh, the whole post is mine!) one by arthritic North American ones (no offense, my "white" friends!) - good enough, in fact, to have even impressed none less than my Russian (Bolchoi!) instructor (lol) so I've broken out the old Aventura CD and have been Bachata-ing away (much to Maya & Jaden's and especially Kumar's amazeee..musement!) these past few days: Spanish is definitely the language of love, not Tamil, nor Tagalog...heck, no! Spanish is muuyyy romantiko....swoon, swoon....("Cuban Motion" gyrating hip movement lol!) Have a "muuyy romantiko" week everyone!

Another New Endeavor

I wanted to share a mini-documentary of Scott Schuman "The Sartorialist" which I found to be very inspiring. In reading some of the comments made by people on the documentary, I came across one saying how watching it made the person "feel happy" - a sentiment that I share! This is exactly the push I needed to convince myself to seriously consider and finally bring to fruition, an idea that I had been toying with for sometime now.

No, it's not like I'm going to wander around Montreal streets, camera on hand, in search of willing fashionable subjects (although, I know there is no shortage of them in these parts!) It won't be necessary, I have my subject: none other than Kumar. I don't think that it's presumptuousness or vanity on our part to believe that Kumar is camera-worthy, although I might be a bit partial! The process is not completely new nor foreign to him, having been asked already a few years back to pose for a Canadian photo-blogger, paralleling the work that of Schuman, as well as by the Montreal Gazette.

This photoblog will cater to visual learners, I say learners because it's going to be a guide to better dressing for gentlemen (with short attention spans!) Watch out for its launch!

First order of business: nothing exciting to report, oh, except that I got socked in the eye (again), by Kumar. Haha, no, it's not a case of conjugal violence, not in our household, here we just name-call (cough). Actually, it's an infection, which I must've caught from Jaden who picked it up from one of his pint-sized buddies at the daycare around two weeks ago. We didn't have any other choice than to just let the condition run its course. Jaden wouldn't let us anywhere near his eyes again, after the first time we tried to treat them with drops, when we had to pin him down and pry his eyes open, the poor thing. It's either I got it from him, or I've slacked off on my scrupulous borderline OCD eyecare regimen, or both. They're both surefire ways to get pinkeye, ickk, don't you just hate that name??? Now I've inherited the drops and have the pleasure of using them (they're sterile, ok?) - it's loads of fun. I'm stuck too with my beer-bottom glasses, it's like high school all over again (sob) and I've also had to relinquish the eye-kohl for the past two days - it sucks when you're practically legally blind because of a genetic predisposition towards really bad eyesight as an Asian, but I won't sweat something that was beyond my control, besides it's manageable. What's really funny, is how Kumar's got me and my towel quarantined, God forbid he catches it too. I'm really feeling the love. He might be in trouble, though. Old-wives' tales have it that you can get it by merely looking at someone with it, sounds logical, hahahaha - ah, me and my first world problems...zzzz....

So, I'm getting a real kick out of my article being published in the Filipino Forum, a relatively small-time paper serving the Filipino community of Canada with a readership of...OK, I will shut up now, one knows better than to bite the hand that feeds you, even if it's just your boss from your part-time/freelance job.

Well, I'm just very grateful to have been given the opportunity and never expected for this to be, uh, actual paid work, and get remunerated, lol, in fact, when my editor said he was cutting me a check, my altruistic side prompted me to refuse it and tell him that it wasn't necessary, after all it was my first article, and I really just wanted to help, he was swamped, but he insisted, and so I conceded:)

Filipino Ka Ba?

So you know you're Filipino when you feel that your time is more important than other people's and purposely try to arrive *fashionably* late unawares that your gracious host/brother outsmarted you this time by telling you to come two hours before the party actually started to have you *in house* at the right time (hah!). You single-handedly decimated the "lumpia" which were also meant for the nineteen other guests besides yourself, ooops! Cutlery is optional. Belching is ok - I promise you, no one will so much as bat an eyelash if you did! Ever prolific as a people, there's always a sizable representation from the 0-5 age-group (two of which are yours) at every gathering such as at this one. Your Tita whose thick *Pilipino* accent hasn't diminished one bit from the day she left the old country to live in Canada only some thirty years or so ago, coaxes/cajoles/commands you to eat some more of her special "pish" and "leche plan." Sometime during the course of the evening, when dancing finally gets old after some (very energetic and spasmodic???) cha-cha-cha, salsa, boogie, and swing numbers, someone by the name of either Jojo, Jun-Jun, Boboy or Nonoy conveniently breaks out the karaoke he literally had on his person and of course, after having imbibed a nice drink or two you feign reluctance at first but then after shamelessly hog the microphone for the rest of the night paying no regard to *unwritten* karaoke etiquette, kicking off the show with your excruciatingly shreiky, emotional, earnest and off-key rendition of Avril Lavigne's circa 2003 "I'm With You" - driving even your poor hard of hearing Tito almost to the brink of hara-kiri and the dog skittering up the stairs with its tail tightly tucked between its hindlegs. And finally after downing another drink "for the road" and saying your overly drawn-out melodramatic goodbyes to each and everyone, you embark on your journey home across the bridge, laden with Ziploc baggies filled with more lumpia and sticky-rice desserts that will keep you constipated for no less than a week after you've eaten them and on the verge of tears, whiningly demand from your hapless non-Filipino husband what better be a plausible reason for his non-support of what you insist is your very promising singing (and dancing!) career. Now, how was your (mandatory) end-of-the-year family time???? Peace! We love you guys sooooo much! And, no, Babes, we weren't secretly plotting your *mysterious* disappearance all evening, although, you might want to sleep with one eye open tonight ;)

Hello Kitty Syndrome

Rest assured that you're at the right place, well, not that you're too too worried, yup, it's still the same blog, just with different "skin." I'm sorry, my blog should really have come with a disclaimer of sorts that reads "subject to change without prior notice" or something. I apologize for not giving you guys a heads up, but once I realized that I needed to make some minor adjustments, it couldn't wait, not even just until the new year which would've been apt, I guess.

The reason is still in keeping with my previous post. Although I had explained before the whole significance and rationale behind Jessica Alba, or her as Sue Storm, that is, I still didn't want the prominent display of her face like that to be miscontrued by some, as some idolatric tendency on my part - hence, the change to the little temporary japanimation thingy which I myself find, if anything, is even more distracting and detractive and is probably even downright annoying to some....I promise to change it...eventually - blame it on that unshakable slothdom of mine!