MEComposing

My parents being here... not good. Not good for me. Especially my Mom.

And I really don't want to turn this blog of mine into a telenovela of every little enabling thing that my mother does for my brother.

Enough.

Enough.

Leave it to a Catholic Priest to come up with yet another reason for a feast.

The Parish Priest in our barrio in Lipa instituted a new tadition three years ago. Aside from the parish feast (which we celebrate every 2nd day of January), he assigned a saint to each barrio whose feast day should be celebrated. We got San Lorenzo Ruiz and today is his feast day.

My cousin was the Hermano for this year... and he solicited from my aunts and uncles abroad to fund the lunch that he (our family) is going to host for the barrio.

Sure, there was a Mass before lunch... but I ask you, could an extra feast really bring back the people into the Christian way? Heck... it actually gave people another reason to act non-Christian because men binged on booze and people showed up for food they didn't work for.

You would think that because all/most women menstruate and go through all that PMS sh!t that they can live in the same house or be in the same group and be able to tolerate each other's menstruation-related tempers.

So yeah, hail to the men who put up with us.

Right now, my cousin is in a bad mood because she has her period. And she's entering menopause. I, on the other hand, have bad PMS cravings and crabbiness. Talk about waking up on the wrong side of the bed. Poor son, I can't help but be short on him too.

I spent the whole day on the verge of flying in a rage. I was just that restlessly mad. Ugh. Hormones. I only calmed down after half a block of chocolate. Tsk. Sugar aggravates PMS, I know, but twas the only thing that worked!

I used to have PMS cravings. I used to have menstruation-related irritation and b!tchiness. But never this bad. This is soooo weird. Plus, i'm delayed again but am pretty sure am not pregnant. The thought that my cycle likes to skip a month each time just drives me nuts because the PMS is just worse.

Sorry. Rant.

But somebody deliver me from this evil!

I am loving the second season of Gossip Girl, and looking forward to Heroes (Villains), Grey's Anatomy and The Amazing Race.

But I see some TV series tag happening in blogs about old TV series that you wouldn't mind coming back. Well, here's a list of my former guilty pleasures.

Beverly Hills 90210
It's been revived but reviewers only really liked that Brenda Walsh was back. Other than that, it supposedly stinks, and its starlets are all verging on anorexic while the guys all seem too pretty to just be metrosexuals. Spoiler alert though, Dylan had a one-night thingie with Kelly which resulted in he being a single Mom.

Charmed
The first three or four seasons, at least. Okay, I have a thing for Shannen Doherty, so sue me.

The Nanny
But there's a marathon of old episodes going on in Disney Channel (I think) every Sunday night. Anyway, love Fran Fine's atrocious (but sexy) outfits, her long-suffering and equally-nasal Jewish Mom, and the tension between Cece (?) and Niels.

Touched by an Angel
Loved how they tackled modern-day issues in a spiritual way, like teenage pregnancy and surrogacy. Sure, it was very spiritual but I loved Monica and Tess!!!

J.J. Starbuck
This is another inspirational one... but it was no-nonsense in its charm.

Just the 10 of Us
I hope I got the title right... just love the family dynamics!

Married... with Children
Who here didn't love the Bundys?

3rd Rock from the Sun
Ugh... I was in love with French Stewart fo a while.

Growing Pains
My personal fave episodes are what I call Swept Away episodes, when Kirk's character fell in love with this Hawaiian girl and always, the theme song played is Christopher Cross' Swept Away... hehe

X-Men
Awww... I miss that series. I don't like the new cartoon versions, not even the movie versions. X-men in the early 90s had me in love with Gambit and Beast (and okay, Wolverine).

Ally McBeal
If only for that quirky guy who remote flushes the toilets... and that arrogant guy whose fetish are wattles (?) and loose skin.


I still see a lot of Friends, Seinfeld, and Will & Grace. I also still see a lot of Mr. Bean. I don't laugh anymore over the Three Stooges. And I think Living Dolls was stopped for a reason.

Back when I was still working, computer and printer supplies were sometimes an issue. Due to bureaucracy, red tape and corruption (are those one and the same?), it sometimes takes months for our Procurement Office to get hold of cartridges for the printers they have issued to us. What's more, they kept purchasing colored inkjet printers which usually do not just require two different cartridges (black and colored) but four individual ones (black, cyan, magenta and yellow). And of course, printer manufacturers made sure some printer models would refuse to work if just one of the cartridges was running low on ink.

We also couldn't use generic ink on those printers because that would mean losing the warranty the printers came with.

And also because of the bureacracy, it takes ages before procurement proposals are reviewed and approved and actually purchased, so we'd also sometimes end up with outdated models where it will take twice as long to find compatible inks.

And I have not discussed repairs/maintenance hassles yet. But I hope you appreciate how getting our hands on office supplies can be a challenge sometimes. I don't think our Procurement Office even had an office supplies cross reference system to utilize.

So it would really have been cool if there was a local counterpart to Answerco.com's printer supplies cross reference system, which not only generates information as to where computers, printers, copiers and digital cameras even are available, it also offers price comparisons too.

What's more, it's even now offering a widget which bloggers can use to give their readers access to the price comparisons. Earning a commission from any Amazon sale is also a great bonus. This is particularly nifty since a lot of bloggers and blog readers have started home businesses which could benefit dearly from these office supplies. Better, faster printers for your printing business? The widget is sure to land you some great buys!

So maybe I will try that widget out (hopefully it will work with my classic template because not all widgets do).

Amazing how before, the only heavy things we caried were our backpacks, and we could put those down without being cried to and feeling guilty.

Amazing that we could eat with dirty hands and off each other's water bottles but would probably shriek if we see our kids doing the same.

Amazing that we used to be more concerned of rain than the cold, and we didn't bother about clean beddings and shirts, and mosquitoes didn't concern us more than leeches would. But now, we're all OC in our own way. And all missing the mountains that we used to commune with all those time years ago.

We used to be mountaineers. We're hoping we could be again someday soon. But breastfeeding and being stay/work-from-home Moms (without help) isn't exactly ideal for leaving a child behind (or in Jah's case, two kids and one on the way), no matter how many bottles of pumped milk you store.

I guess our mountains conquered is all figuratively for the meantime.

... hopefully, our reunion will be a better one than all the rest before. This means, however, we wouldn't be complete again this Christmas since my Mom has to go back in a month's time.

I hope my parents will spend a lot of time with their grandkids. I'm not really expecting them to take my son off my hands for extended periods of time but it really saddens me that my son is growing up not enjoying his grandparents as much.

On a maddeningly annoying note, my uncle has been calling everyone already asking if my Mom is already here. It would have been sweet if he was doing it because he couldn't wait to see my Mom, but we all know it's because he's expecting to 'borrow' money again from her.

So I guess the P20k my Mom already gave him to use as capital didn't yield any returns.

Families... sigh.