My Left Foot

It's been 2 weeks since I posted, and thanks to everyone who has been supporting my site. This month has been hellish for my left foot or should I say leg. last week I was walking to my dentist and I don't know what happened but I accidentally fell and was practically spread eagle on the sidewalk, all the stuff I was carrying flew from my hand including my umbrella. The worse part was that I even ripped my good Levi jeans, I wouldn't have minded as much if it was my "cheap china-made jeans" I was so embarassed because the traffic light was on red, so there were like at least 20 vehicles who witnessed my embarassing fall. Surprisingly I only had a small bruise. Then a few days later, I was headed to Quiapo to look for chorizo bilbao for my mom (she was planning to add it to her paella), I headed to this sausage factory that I saw during my previous jaunts there, and as I was about to enter into their store I didn't see that there was a gap between the sidewalk & their entrance, and BAM I stubbed my big toe into the concrete. Damn was it painful, I could literally see the blood just slowly filling up the entire toe, it was turning blue! GROSS! But unfortunately me the trooper, still continued on my chorizo search despite my "injury". But owing to my previous experience of the same nature, I thought that I could handle this new "dead toe" like before. But 1 day turned into 2 then 3 and it seemed that the condition of the nail was getting worse instead of better. The last straw came last night when I was awoken at 3am by stabs of pain on the toe, I could see that the surrounding skin around the nail was getting swollen. I administered some first aid and took a antibiotic tablet, fearing the worse like tetanus or something. I decided that I would go see a doctor that morning to ease me out of my misery. I ended up going to this surgeon at Hi-Precision Lab and he explained to me that he would have to extract the entire nail in order for the pressure building up from the puss formation to be released. I was like "just do it" I already knew that that was pretty much the only solution to help me. The entire procedure took like less than 30 minutes, and the doctor made it as painless as possible. Good thing my shoes for the wedding is closed toe!!!

my bandaged dead toe

image of my extracted dead toenail

Biologically 59!

I accompanied Uncle Harry to the Wellness Institute the other day, and since I knew that he would be there for most of the day, I decided to have the BTA (Biological Terrain Assessment) done. The BTA began in Europe by Prof. Louis Claude Vincent, and through his research he believed that healing can be done through the body's biochemistry. The test is done by taking a sample of blood, urine & saliva on the day of the test (12 hour fasting is required and you can't brush your teeth) afterwhich they are assessed by the special computer that monitors the values of pH, oxidation-reduction (the electron potential and enzymatic activity) and resistivity (molecular ion movement) of these bodily fluids. The test provides vital data about the way the body is actually functioning and offers valuable information concerning the biochemical dynamics of the body. The other cool thing about the BTA is that it tells you what your biological age is. I was more or less sure that my test would come out bad, so when Dr. Gonzales saw me and said "you better be around later to hear your test results" I knew that I was in trouble. So after a very nice lunch at Santis with Uncle Harry & Christiane, we all headed back to Wellness ready to hear the "bad news", Dr. Roy was the one who briefed me and informed me of my biological age. I WAS 59! Then to make it worse I find out that I was even older biologically than my Uncle Harry who was 56! Was I surprised with the results? Not really I guess. I knew that I hadn't really been taking care of my body as well as I should, but I can't really say that I have been abusing it with alcohol or lack of sleep. It's more like eating all the good stuff (which is usually bad as you can see on my blog) and not exercising much. But the good news is that my problems can be easily fixed by drinking more fluids, at least 10 glasses of water, no pork or caffeine and taking some recommended supplements. This test was an eye opener for me and hopefully I can turn over a new leaf in terms of my eating habits amongst other things.

Mango Madness!

This picture of my auntie Pilar's mango pudding pie may not look like much but I swear you haven't lived till you try this special dessert. Sad to say, my aunt doesn't sell it, she only makes it during special occassions. The only way I can describe it to you unfortunate souls who will never in their lifetime sample this wonderful concoction is that it's as if you were eating mango ice cream - only better! One bite and you get that burst of flavor from all that wonderful mango, and mind you she doesn't use flavoring, this is the real deal, no shortcuts at all.

The Diary of Alicia Keys

Got a chance to catch the concert of Alicia Keys on Saturday, I hadn't been to the Araneta Coliseum in a long long while so I was really surprised to see how much has changed over the years. A lot of new restaurants can be found all around the coliseum which I think is a great idea, but unfortunately everyone else but moi (I wanted to try cafe Bola) decided to go to KFC instead. So after a quick dinner we headed to the concert. Our seats though not at the center were pretty ok. Front act was Luke Mijares & Kyla who were both really great singers though they were seriously lacking in stage presence & personality. I love going to concerts organized by my friends of No Curfew, they are really pros at what they are doing, the concert started almost immediately after the front act. Alicia Keys really set the mood by playing Phil Collins' most excellent song which I love "In the Air", it got the already pumped up audience even more energized by playing that as an intro. The crowd really went crazy by the time Alicia got on stage, I never knew that there were that many Alicia Keys fans in the Pines, I heard that and from the looks of it, the concert was totally sold-out that night. I was so surprised to discover what a great performer she was, she was so full of energy, she sang, she danced, and damn can she play that piano!! It was a great night!

Shower Surprise

Here are some of the photos that my sisters mom-in-law Louise sent just recently. They were taken from the surprise bridal shower that she threw for my sissy last Sept. 18. So sweet of her!!

my sister was definitely in shock with the surprise bridal shower!

Here's my sister with her fiancee Will & mom-in-law Louise

Here she is opening up presents.

Here she is with the lovely "congratulations" cake

Mid-Autumn Mooncake Celebration

I couldn't wait for Saturday night to roll around, I had been stressed & had probably stressing everyone else (especially Lesley) involved in planning the Mooncake Celebration, I had volunteered to make invitations (I don't know why but I love making invitations!)which was not the norm in previous "cultural nights", and to order & pickup the mooncake, and to research & printout the history, & to buy some of the prizes. So as you can see the stress was actually self induced. Saturday night finally arrives and it was so great to see everyone really dressed up in their pajamas/sleepwear, some were cute, some sexy, some fashionable & some downright hilarious complete with curlers, night cream - the works! We started the night with a great dinner courtesy of Jackie & catered by the legendary Quik Snak from Binondo, we chose this place bec. we knew that they specialized in authentic Fookienese delicacies, dishes we knew most of our friends weren't very familiar with. After dinner we started the main program which involved some games that we thought up, the first was the trivia game - I had printed out individual cards about the history of the moon goddess, the mooncake & the dice game & distributed them for everyone to read, then we had questions based on what they had read & gave out prizes to the winner. our next game involved chinese writing, Lesley earlier in the day picked out a phrase that contained 5 characters, the game involved 5 volunteers who were given 10 seconds to memorize the sequence of the said characters that was being flashed to them, we then jumbled up the characters and they had to write it down, most everyone got the right sequence so we had to judge the winner based on best handwriting. our last activity for the night was the judging for best in sleepwear. during dinner we had already discussed our top 3 picks for male & female, so the 6 finalist who were Mae, Dina, Grace, Billy, Rodney & Carlos had to strut their stuff to the enthusiastic crowd, Dina & Carlos were named winners although it was actually sudden death with Mae & Dina who were neck & neck in votes, they had to play one round of rock, paper, scissors before Dina could emerge victorious. So now we reach the nights main event, the Mooncake Dice game. Jackie starts out by reading the rules, making clear the possible winning combinations. So after a slow start everyone seemed to get really into the game mid way through, there was yelling, cheering & lots of laughter, with most people content to winning at least a "champoy" rather than nothing at all. But the night ultimately belonged to Mia Jimenez, she was the only one who hit the winning "cheong guan" not once but twice - even outranking herself on her 2nd win!! And to think that she & her sister Ana (who was also a big winner) weren't even going to come at first, I'm sure they were glad that they changed their minds. The game finally ended but the night continued on with the free photo session complete with chinese costumes, it was so great to see everyone hamming it up infront of the camera. But as they say alls well that ends well, everyone gave us a big applause as the party winded down, so sweet of them. There's already plans for the next cultural night to be hosted by the "teens" in the group, this time complete with a halloween theme. can't wait. Click for pictures Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3 and Part 4