Mama Bear’s Adventures

Glenn and I can rarely find time to go out, just the two of us. Last
week, I was able to make the necessary arrangements so that we could
have 2 days just to ourselves.

Two days of rest and relaxation! What better way to top that off than to have a couple’s massage.

After all the prep works, sauna, shower, foot soak etc., we were taken
to a room with two adjoining beds, just like any other massage session
that I’ve been to, but this time Glenn was being massaged beside me.

As usual, the legs and back were massaged first, so we were facing
down, we cannot see each other. I can only hear the gentle taps from
the other bed, and the occational question of the masseuse if the
pressure is right. When it was time to massage the back, my masseuse
exclamed, "Maam ang laki nito a. saka ang tigas!", refferring to the
knots (lamig) in my muscles.

After the whole thing was done, I realized, what if it was not me who
had those knots, what if it was Glenn, and his masseuse was the one who
commented like that? Would have been a funny scene hehehe.

Glenn and I had a chance to have a few days of vacation, just the two of us. We cannot take the kids with us because Karl is schooling already. To be fair to Karl, we did not take Ami with us too.

I was anxious to leave them, although I know the are both in good hands, with my father and sisters and my sister in-law to take care of them. I thought that Ami would be in a crying spell if were gone too long. Maybe she still has separation anxiety.

BUT, even before we get to Baguio(our usual destination), we discovered that we were the ones with separation anxiety. We haven’t even left NLEX yet but we miss the kids already. We called home to "check on them", but the truth is I just wanted to hear their sweet voices.

It was a bitter sweet vacation. We enjoyed the time alone with each other, but we also missed the kids so much that we were calling home 3 times a day for the duration of the vacation. Good thing we did not have our vacation somewhere out of the country, oh the phone bills!

I found a piece of code in the media box section of my profile. I was wondering who put it there. Glenn would certainly not do that. And Karl, as bright as he may be, cannot write codes yet hehe. Anyway. After some research, I found out that there is a worm which infects some friendster profiles. This worm will not let the owner view his/her profile, while other people will be able to do so and be infected by the worm.

I already deleted the malicious code, I think I caught it before it does damage. I can still view my profile. Hope no one else gets infected.

We were eating at Kenny Rogers’ when Ami spotted this …

She exclaimed, "Mama ang laki ng CD!"

Throwing what’s left of your cigarette and not caring where it lands!

This afternoon, a very inconsiderate man threw his remaining cigarette backwards when he was about to enter Shopwise Araneta. This cigarette, still lit, hit my 3 year old’s shoulder, good thing it missed her face. He didn’t even cared to look where the thing landed, he just went on. But the guard who saw the incident asked him to go back and check on our little girl.

He went back, said a quick sorry and sped off. That went so fast, we didn’t even have a look at him. Lam mo yun? Yung saying sorry para lang masabing nag sorry siya? Lagay nito, pasalamat pa ako kasi nag sorry siya. We were not able to at least give him a good toungue lashing because our little girl was screaming in pain, we focused on soothing her.

Whenever we have a chance to go out of town, our usual destination would be Baguio. But Baguio is becoming more and more crowded. So this time we opted for a less commercialized location.

At first, I just wanted to got to Hundred Islands, but upon doing some research, I found out that there are no beaches in Alaminos, except in the islands, which would cost P800 for a boat ride to one of them. There are cottages for overnight use in 3 of the major islands, but with very limitted resources, 1 barrel of fresh water, electricity coming from car batteries and would only last up to 10pm. And of course if there is an emergency, good luck… Oh, one of the islands has 24 hours electricity, and lots of water, but overnight stay would cost P10,000. So I decided to just have a day trip to the Hundred Islands but stay somewhere else.

Then in one of the tv shows, they featured Bolinao, so I did some research and, I was sold to the beauty of the place.

We stayed at the Rock Garden Resort. P1,500 a night, room has AC and shower/toilet. There are rooms with tv and ref for P2,500. There is a mini zoo, actually more of an aviary, plus some monkeys snakes and baby crocs. There is a kiddie pool and an adult pool. There is a beach, but sandy, but rocky (hello rock garden?). There are videoke machines open till 10pm argh P5/song! And there are billiard tables too, P7/game.

Day 2 we visited the Hundred Islands in Alaminos, boat ride for 5 people including
kids costs P800 if you will only visit the 3 major islands, and the "bankero" will drop you off in one island and will just pick you up in your requested time. However, should you prefer to have him wait for you throughout your trip and/or visit more than 3 islands, the fee is P1,400. We requested him to wait for us. We drove close by lots of islands, but we chose not to get out anymore, I just requested him to drive us around and drop us off at Quezon Island. Quezon island is one of the 3 developed islands, I chose this because among the 3 there are more marine creatures to be seen here. At about 2:30pm we were already tired, so off we go. Good thing we decided to let the "bangkero" wait for us.

Day 3, Bolinao

We visited the Enchanted Cave, we didn’t swim there because I don’t like caves :). We dropped by Cape Bolinao light house, there were no people there, no one to assist us, the gate to the lighthouse was closed. We found out that it was vandalized last holy week so now the do not let people up the lighthouse anymore. Then we went to Patar white beach, but the waves were too strong for the
kids, so we just stayed till lunch then we went back to the hotel.

Day 4, is spent swimming in the Hotel’s pool, well almost half of it anyway, since we need to check out by 12nn.

We had fun. There’s a problem with under developed areas though, you
have to bring lots of cash. Everything is cash only basis, the nearest
ATM is in Alaminos, which is about 40km from Bolinao. And at 7:30pm,
there’s hardly any shops and restaurants open.

It sucks to have something or a part of it taken away from you, especially if you have just acquired it.

I have posted my insights in one of the forums that I’m with, I am not an expert on this but sometimes great ideas comes from simple suggestions even ones with loopholes, so here it is again… These are ideas and some sort of suggestions…

1.  As with a lot of other people, I believe that we have find ways to control the continuous population growth. Religion and Human Rights is one big opposition to this. I would guess that human rights activist would say that even the poorest should have the right to have as many babies as they want. But they would not think about the children’s right to eat well, live well, education…etc. Then they will blame the government for not taking care of the poor. Bad… They need to be learn simple cause and effects.

2. We can only hope to slow down the increase of population, but what will we do to the billions who are already living? Livelihood programs, things like that? Just find something useful for them to do, if they lack skills, give them at least basic education, enough for them to be factory workers or whatever.

Problem is, most people wants to take shortcuts. Even if they are not skilled, they would not want to take mundane jobs because they will be paid less, they would rather be drug pushers, holduppers, swindlers, because it takes less effort but gives more proffit.

3. We have a beautiful country, most of us know that already. Improving tourism will bring more tourists of course, meaning more money, more jobs for the provinces, so less people will look for jobs here in the metro and will end up being squatters.

4. For the politicians. Is it possible to let the constituents know of the proposed projects, inluding the budget and procurement of materials BEFORE they are actually implemented?  I’m guessing it is possible, but this would lessen the income/kickback of some people so it is not implemented.

I had my hair rebonded last December. The one thing that one should not do with rebonded hair is to tie it. But with this heat???

According to BBC Weather, today we have maximum of 38C temp and a relative humidity of 57% which brings the heat index to 52.9C.

So I have no choice but to tie my hair up, otherwise I might suffer from heat exhaustion. Hmft.

It’s also ironic, yesterday there were black outs in Metro Manila, Bulacan, Zambales, Novaliches, apparently caused by the unusual high demand for electricity. due to lots of people using electric fans and airconditioning units. So double the trouble for some people. And this they say is a rotating black out that would last up to 4 hours. When our house will be hit, we don’t know, but I hope it is Glenn’s day off so we could go chill out somewhere.

Karl took entrance exams in 3 schools, St. Mary’s, Angelicum and Immaculate Heart of Mary. He is now elligible to enroll in all three schools. The remarks were almost the same. Karl, they say, is very bright, but he has to improve his handwriting. He was given an above average score in Immaculate Heart.

We are still waiting for one exam though. We applied for an exam in UPIS, which will be held in April. The results will be out by May. By this time, enrollment in these other schools will be over. Now we have a problem, should we play it safe and enroll in one of the three schools, or should we wait for UPIS? Unless they will be asking him to recite the multiplication table, do integrations, recite lines from Shakespear plays, I am quite confident that Karl will pass the exam, but the question is if he could make the quota. Only 40 students will be taken.

Haay…