We all have our own special hauntings. An ex, a mistake we once made, and if we’re that unlucky, we get to see those mistakes on a fairly regular basis. We’re all haunted by the past, from simple memories throbbing in our own heads to actual physical embodiments of the decisions we made in the past.

I don’t know why I keep turning to the past when I’m confused in the present. I guess it’s just a reflex, the “What the f__k did I do to get to this point in my life” question just keeps popping up in my subconscious every time I have time to think. Usually this happens on the way to, or way home from, work. The solitary commute gets me thinking, if i did this, or didn’t do this, would I not be on this mrt home alone?

Saying “I’m only human.” would not only be a cliche, it would also be a huge cop out. I am a thinking being (well, sometimes) and I have made most of my decisions without the urging of others. Sometimes I make them at the direct opposition of others smarter than me, or sometimes they just have a better perspective I guess. But when it comes to things concerned with feelings or even the four letter word I won’t even mention right now, I am an idiot. That I admit. I think. I reason. I know what will happen in the end. And even if I know I’ll be bruised and battered in the end, I soldier on. Coz I’m all about the short game. What will make me happy in the present, who gives a flying fig what will happen after that.

But I digress.

I am giving up the ghost. All the ghosts. Moving on, letting go of the past. Coz that’s just what it is. The past.

Bring on the future.

So after mass on Sunday, we just had to head to Chocolate Kiss to try out the new menu and to really check if that Sunday was a fluke. Of course we had to go, I love the place too much to write it off. So with excitement and a bit of trepidation we ordered. I had the ribs (again), Joannaman had the new Shrimp Aligue Pasta, Mom had the Margerita, Esther had the salisbury steak.

We were all pretty happy with our orders, the ribs i got were back to the nice flavorful easy to eat ribs I remember, Joannaman liked the new aligue pasta, albeit she felt the effect of the rich aligue afterwards. Esther could eat anything, and even ate everything since we couldn’t finish our orders. Mom raved about her pasta, it was simple and tangy and she loved that. I’m happy to report that THAT Sunday was a fluke and i am back to being a Chockiss regular. I wanna try all the new things on the menu.

Last night I was in bliss. Dad came home from Batangas bearing stinky gifts from Davao. Apparently Tito Monching, one of his best friends brought home durian from Davao. I know how people react to durian, it’s either they hate it with a passion or they love it. I happen to be one of the latter. The stinkier the better I say. And since the package stank to high heaven I was excited at the promise of the rich goodness of the fruit I hardly get to eat. One, it’s quite pricey. Two, you can’t exactly find it just anywhere, and three, if you do find it, all the people on the public transportation you’re gonna ride home in will resent the fact that you did. So the only time I get to eat it is at home, when one of the parental units bring home some.

The first bite brought almost a choir of hallelujah to my ears, I missed it so. Its rich, sweet, sinful and oh so smelly flesh is an experience to say the least. The fact that only Mom and I could stand it was sweet sweet victory (More for me yay!) and i savored every bite.

So if you haven’t tried the stinky prickle covered fruit from down under, i suggest you do. You might find you like it. And if you don’t I’ll give you my address. Send me the rest.

So last week was a slow task week at User Experience. Me being the masochist I am, I browsed my favorite local food blog all those days, which is my own special brand of self-torture. And even if it was Dessert Comes First I found myself craving for a slice of steak. Although I could not afford the place that she went to, (Elbert’s, looks blissful but way above my price range) I went searching for a different place to indulge my craving for a slice of red meat.

After a day of research and finding out our salary just came in, we (RC, Kiko, Ren and me) went straight to Alfredo’s in Tomas Morato after work. I was thinking, simple, in my price range, and mom recommended ever since I can remember. True I may not agree with my mom on some food recommendations (turns out I am not a fan of churros), this we agreed on. Got the Mediterranean spiced one, Ren got the same, Kiko got the Chateaubriand and RC went meateater on us and got the 300 gram tenderloin. Loved that each order of the steak came with bread, soup and a salad. I also had to get an iced tea to wash all the meat down, and funnily enough, their iced tea blend tasted like Cyma’s iced tea, which I love. We were all pretty happy with our orders. On the waiter’s suggestion we all had it medium rare so it was still a little pink in the middle, and true enough it was the perfect texture, just done enough so I don’t feel like a lion gnawing on raw meat, but tender so i don’t need to chew for a couple of minutes just to gulp it down.

So after that I realize I am a major meat eater. And I’m craving steak all the time now. More than sweets now really. With the voice inside my head telling me to cut down on the sugar, how can you crave it 24/7 still?

But since Kozui, the green tea place people were telling me to try, was like a brief walk from Alfredo’s and Kiko was saying it was good, we still went for dessert. Ordered the Anmitsu at the recommendation of the waiter, we sat down and enjoyed our Japanese version of halo halo. It was good good good. Not too sweet. And did i say yet that I love green tea ice cream? (Green tea frap too, but that’s besides the point) It was so good I was telling the guys that we should go back the next day.

That was the 14th.

On the 16th, we didn’t feel like going home yet, so Kiko RC and I went to Tomas Morato again. This time we went to Jozu, this Japanese place in front of Guilly’s island. The sushi menu looked good so we (Kiko and me) tried that. RC tried their yakisoba. Kiko and I were happy. RC wasn’t. Haha. So we went to Wheatberry, this bakery cafe he was telling me about for ages to soothe his annoyed highness. RC got the silvannas, Kiko got apple pudding, I got cheesecake. Can i just say I wasn’t surprised that my order was the sweetest of the bunch? But i was really surprised I couldn’t finish it. It took a long time, and a lot of bites from RC before the slice was gone.

Then went over to Ren’s to annoy the heck out of him. He was out of the office for two days coz he got sick coz of something he ate. After that, went back to Kozui. Split an ice cream.

Now this is the kind of hangout I missed. And also the reason why I need to go back to the gym.

Maybe I’ve been single too long, maybe I’ve just been looking at the negative side of relationships too often, or maybe I’m just a freak who takes her friendships too seriously, but the other day I came up with the borrowed time theory while on the way home from work.

What is the Borrowed Time Theory? Well it’s this idea of mine that the time our friends spend with us is only borrowed time from their significant others. Like for instance, they can only hang out with friends coz they have no plans with their SO. Or the fact that some people have to “ask permission” from their SO to go out with their friends.

Is it that ridiculous to think this?

Maybe yes, but I’ve heard the “I can’t go, we have a date.” reason quite a lot, for several years now. Maybe this is why I sometimes get jealous of my friends’ time with other people when they’re too busy for me. You have to admit I have a bit of a point. Coz a person with an SO always considers that person as their first priority, with friends coming a distant second, or third if you count family).

What is the upside to this theory? For those people who believe it, their SO can rest assured that they are the first priority in that person’s life (plus, no need for jealous fits or fights coz they know the aforementioned fact).

Perhaps this is why I’ve never been the jealous type when it comes to a SO, but when it comes to my friends I’m this paranoid eejit.

And to all those I call my friends, sorry. Hahaha.

Jason, our family pet (he keeps insisting he’s my brother, whatever hahahaha.) Turns 20 today. That’s 20 years of my life i’ll never get back. And why esther? Long story. Just greet the person in the picture if you run into him in the street).

There I stood. Agape at the audacity of what was happening in front of me. I thought, “So this is what pure unalduterated pain feels like”. I don’t know what I did to deserve it. I didn’t know how to react. So I ran. I ran to escape the humiliation of breaking down in public. I hid, as girls often do, in the safe haven of the ladies room as I tried to compose myself. And like a scene from a bad soap opera or a b-movie, I stared at myself in front of the mirror and let the tears flow, cursing my fate.

When i could finally breathe without wheezing, I stopped. I realized I was the victim of a hell of my own making. I wanted to be there. Nobody held a gun to my face to go. Told myself to suck it up, be an adult and face the consequences of my decisions. So I splashed water on my face, redid my makeup and walked out smiling, hoping no one could see the traces of a momentary loss of composure.

Then he reached out and hugged me. Suddenly everything was worth it.

Fiction.

The princess of Team Gastos who’s half gangsta half diva turns 23 today. Happy birthday!

So are we having blueberry cheesecake? hahaha.

Sunday morning. I had like 2 hours of sleep under my belt. I had to go to mass. With two words, Joannaman perked me up instantly. “Cyma tayo“. I dragged my tired body and even if I wanted to crawl under a rock and wake up the next day, went to mass earlier than I planned (I was planning to just go by myself later in the day) coz of the promise of the lunch after it. See I loved Cyma the first time we went. Clearly evidenced by my blog post found here. And nothing can soothe my tired soul like a good meal. Ordered basically the same things, and since we had mom along, ordered a couple more. Tonnos salad is feta cheese, olive oil, tomatoes, and a whole lotta other stuff with seared tuna. Got the solo coz we knew from experience that the solo was enough for two people. Also ordered the tzatziki, which is cucumber dip, with pita bread. This was my favorite. Joannaman’s too. We both said we wanted to come back to Cyma and just eat that. Ordered the flaming sausages just so we could order an OPA! thing on the menu. (When it’s marked with an OPA! on the menu it means the dish is flaming and all the servers shout OPA! when they serve it) And since mom couldn’t get the chicken gyro she originally wanted, she ordered the Roka pasta instead.

Everything was gooooooood. The clean flavor of the tzatziki was the perfect contrast to the greek sausages we ordered which I can only describe as hearty. The pasta with arugula and pine nuts and olive oil, way oily but good oily. The salad, bliss. And in true form, we tasted each dish but couldn’t finish a single one. We ended up taking home a little bit of everything. All in all a hazy meal but a good one, which I washed down with their iced tea, which is one of my favorite blends of iced teas out there.

All in all a perfect ending to a whirlwind weekend.

The Chocolate Kiss Cafe in UP Diliman is one of my favorite haunts. This is clearly evidenced by my former blogposts here and here. It’s quiet. It’s like a hop skip and a jump away from our house. It has simple, unassuming food that’s not too expensive. It has my favorite blueberry cheesecake.

But my last visit two Sundays ago with the family had me sorely disappointed at the quality of the food there now. I haven’t gone in a while (like a couple months) and the triumphant return I envisioned was a bitter defeat. I don’t know if they changed the chef, or they’re just using lesser quality ingredients, but gawd. Everything was different from what we knew. Ordered the usual Hungarian sausage and penne pasta, baby back ribs, and chix in a basket. All our usual favorite orders. The sausage in the pasta was different, the ribs were lesser quality and smaller, only the chix in a basket was almost the same quality. And that’s only coz we almost never order it.

Thank God the cake was the same. But we left feeling gypped. What happened to Chockiss?

I have not told everyone I know to visit this blog yet. I am still at the stage where I’m figuring things out, and until I have, I will not be linkbuilding, ym-statusing, or anything. Of course I want to debut this blog at its finest and that includes full design and descriptions. And as i am a newbie at this, it’s taking a bit more time to fully comprehend.

As is my new job. I’m a little lost and I’m still finding my way, but I’m love it. I love the excitement of learning new things and the idea that I’m going to be more involved in the inner workings of the office just thrills me. Call me a geek but that’s just how I am. I was like a giddy little nerd nodding away at the things I now needed to absorb. Not that I’m dissing my former job. I loved being an Internet Marketing Specialist (AKA IMS), but this is something I’ve been quite fascinated with for a while and I hope to someday be as able to answer as much questions as Sarah my teammate did earlier today, in the meeting where I was nodding my head not really understanding what was happening around me.

Tucked away in “exile island” I never really noticed how interactive people at the office were. IMS kind of works by itself, we get our work from our team leads who get it from the Search Engine Optimization (aka SEO) team, but everyone else, from the Design team, to the Copywriting team all kind of mush together and coordinate every so often in a week that they’re sort of one collage of a team. I’m kinda sad that the IMS team didn’t work with other teams more often, but why would they need to? They’re kind of self-sufficient and aren’t really dependent on other teams to do their work.

Guess that’s just how things work.

Yes I miss being in the thick of the gaggle that is the IMS team. I was in the middle of the testosterone charged everyday conversation, due to the geographical location of my workstation. It was silly it was weird it was sometimes demeaning but I loved it. Now I have to walk all the way to the other side of the room to hear it, but it’s worth it to get the laughs I get. Even if sometimes it’s at my expense.

And i do realize so far all i’ve posted about is me me me. But until I get all this figured out, I won’t be sharing my usual food reviews, movie reviews, and rantings and ravings about anything.