Night Trip

Yesterday, Friday, September 10, was Edil Fitr, the day Muslims the world over celebrate to mark the end of Ramadan. And this was declared a National Holiday for us in the Philippines. So yay! It's going to be a long weekend for us!

Tilda woke me up again for her bathroom break. So this is how house-breaking feels! Sigh. We seriously need to call Arnel, our trusty handy-man to make her a dog-run real quick. It took me long to fall back to sleep since i started thinking about the design and logistics of her dog run.

This is the 5.5 x 4 m plot we're earmarking for Tilda's run. Technically it's not a run because its too short for her to break into a full-run...but its wide enough for her own dog-house, plus a lawn for her to "fertilize". It's beside the swing and the garage so she'll still be able to see if anybody is at the gate, but far away and safe from any poisoned food tossed from the road. We'll still be letting her out when we can watch over her, but this will be her pen for when we have visitors and need her not to be underfoot. Plus it'll keep her away from chewing all our wooden furniture and water pipes!

Tilda's new home will be both shaded (by the mango tree on 1 side) and sunny. The southern half gets afternoon sun, so Mama can still plant grass on it.

But come Sunday, Arnel will be putting up a fence in the backyard to keep Tilda and Mutt out of the old house where we store salvaged lumber and other construction supplies. We also have some boxes of old belongings lying around the old house and which Tilda is fond of dragging out to chew on! She has turned into a regular pest, so it's time she's kept out of bounds. But more alarming is her recent habit of going up the stairs to gain access to the roof of the back room...from where she looks out our back wall! One day I saw her up there after the cries of a neighbor's pup drew her attention! Should she fall or jump off the roof, she'll never be able to find her way back around to the front of our home. And even if she knew how to, she could easily get waylaid (or worse) on the busy streets around the block.

And once Arnel gets the fence up, he'll be able to work on Tilda's run. I can't wait for her to be let off her leash and into her own "house & lot"...and maybe then, we can sleep in peace!

I got up earlier than the DH to make our brunch. Then we went back to the bedroom to watch "Salt", the DVD we were supposed to watch the night before (but got sidetracked by our Internet play). Angelina played yet another kick-ass chick here. It had its implausible moments, but we already knew that from the reviews. Still, it was fun (we're pretty easy people to please, really, lol)! 

I was expecting my purple puto to be delivered a little after 2pm, so i grabbed a quick shower and was in time to meet Nang Malen who brought it over. :)

I dried my hair and changed into my black top and black denims. The top's strapless look was just asking for a necklace, so i reached for the mother-of-pearl set that the DH had gotten me when we were in Palawan for my birthday last February. Palawan is famous for its pearl farms, most of which are Japanese or foreign -run. They say that even the side-walk vendors are obliged to get licences from the local government to sell pearls. Apparently they're serious about their reputation, so you're almost guaranteed about the pearls you get there. 

The DH also got me a set in black (dark gray) mother-of-pearl...but I'm saving that for a seriously fabulous occasion, LOL.

I've never worn the white set before and thought it'd work for my outfit. It came with a cocktail ring, earrings and bracelet...but that would surely be over-kill! Especially since we weren't party-bound too!

I just had to snap a photo of my gorgeous necklace...thank you for the bling honey! The indoor light (or my camera setting) makes it look grayish here, but it's really a creamy white. Nice no?

Since we were expecting Beverly to pick us (to go to Izzy's father's wake) by 4ish, we decided not to start on a new DVD. I went off to check my mail and DL my craftcrave goodies, while the DH tinkered with the action figure he's customizing.

Our house is the farthest south of all, so it's the designated meeting place for when we head down south. So after, our other classmate, Teray, arrived with her husband and daughter Tin2. Richie and Tin2 were supposed to just drop Teray off, but they decided to tag along at the last minute. 

Tin2, who is also our goddaughter, was just drawn to our swing. Here she is with her dad.

Teray and Tin2 together.

And the little sweetie even tried it out solo!

She enjoyed watching and trying to pet the dogs in the yard, and even push at the punching bag hanging in the garage. Tin2 has the most adorable giggles and laughs too, soo cute!

Beverly was running late since she had to finish her rounds in case we came home late. Man-c arrived with her and soon we were heading to Sagasa, a barangay in the next city south of Bacolod.

 Izzy gave Beha(Beverly's chinese name) pretty vague directions...but we managed to find our way with a lot of stops to ask for directions. Richie overshot the turn-off point into Sagasa because Teray said he didn't want to ask for directions, and had to circle back! It's a guy thing Teray, the DH has that trait too sometimes!! What's up with that, huh?!

Since we were supposed to go to the wake by 4pm, the DH and i thought we'd be eating dinner back in Bacolod afterwards. But since we left really late, almost 6, when we arrived in Izzy's house, it was dark out. [But even in the dark, we noticed that the streets in Brgy Sagasa were clean and uncluttered. And they even had lots of flowers on the roadside...kudos to the brgy officials and residents, may your tribe increase!]

Unlike Western wakes, where visits are short, wakes in the Philippines aren't spared the "fiesta" atmosphere at all. Here, relatives and close friends are almost obligated to attend wakes and funerals...and they turn into impromptu reunions for the grieving family. In my family, they're fond of saying that kin may miss out on birthdays and weddings (happy occasions), but they should never miss out on wakes and funerals because their presence and support is more important then. 

So when we got to Izzy's house, there were people milling about and tents have been erected in the yard for a couple of mahjong tables.

And not that we planned it that way, but we were just in time for dinner! After Izzy introduced us to his family, he led us to the dining table so we could eat together. Now that I've thought about it, the poor guy didn't even eat with us! They had chicken adobo, fried bangus (milk fish), fish tinola and caldereta (a tomato-sauce-based goat dish) and we ate our fill. To make room for the other visitors and family, we moved from the dining table to the adjacent bar, where Izzy promptly played bar-tender.

Izzy is not really unhappy here, he's just distracted by my camera, hehe.

Beha enjoying her blue cocktail

Teray showing off her green cocktail

The DH is having soda here, but he soon spelled Izzy at the bar and mixed his own poison! :)

Richie, Teray, lil Tin2 and the DH

The DH, me, Man-c and Beha. Beha was really enamored with the beer tower (filled with some orange-y non-alcoholic drink) on her left, she asked Izzy to get her 1 the next time he's in Cebu.

Me, Man-c and Beha. 

I managed to stick to soda the whole night...but the absolut currant was really tempting, ugh!

We spent a couple of hours catching up...Izzy told us about the times he joined and won several cooking contests! And he is totally untrained in that field too: his degree was in Medical Technology(he shifted course from BSBio in our second year) and his present job is in Marketing and Promotions for Negros Navigation! We were just amazed to hear about his experiences. Then again, I've always known Izzy has so much untapped potential. Even when we were freshmen at uni, his brilliant idea to use over-sized props for our Science Follies entry turned us into champions! 

Beha and i had a quick visit with Izzy's mom in her bedroom because they were concerned about her, in light of her loss and her health. We chatted a bit , and counselled her and her care-givers (Izzy's niece and nephew who are nurses) about her food intake, blood sugar monitoring and medications. We all suspect she, more than the other family members, is feeling the stress and loss the most. But it's wonderful that she is cared for so lovingly by her family.

And the puto the DH and i brought was a huge success! Man-c even kidded about bringing some home herself, lol! And instead of giving the other visitors some of the puto, the consensus was to secret it away in one of the bedrooms...for Izzy's family's consumption only! Will have to remember to order more for them again.

We got home past 9 pm, and the DH and I settled in for another DVD:"My Lovely Bones" starring Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, and Stanley Tucci among others. The dvd was a rental that turned out to be a poor pirated copy...and which sent us on a merry musical dvd-player-hop: the DH tried it on 1 player and transfered to the 2nd when it started acting up 1/4th in to the movie. Then midway, it suddenly pixelated, so he ran a cleaning disk and returned it to the 1st player. Then nearing the end, we tried it out on my laptop but the audio was really faint (and we could only attach 1 set of headphones) until finally we had to go use the DH's desktop in the sitting room to its ultimate conclusion. But in fairness, it was both a disturbing but poignant movie. I'm a sucker for movies with fathers and daughters so it pretty much got to me. Then there was an excruciatingly suspenseful moment that drove me out of my seat! I went to the fridge to look for a snack because i couldn't stand the suspense! I'm weird.

We finally finished the movie around 2 am, so we headed back to bed for some needed shut-eye. :)