Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Hershey's = Happiness

It doesn't exactly make for healthy eating, but I do love Hershey's chocolate. (Who doesn't?) But I don't enjoy the entire bar. To be precise, I eat just one-fourth of the bar, no more, no less.

Weird?

My three kids and I share one whole bar, so each of us gets one-fourth. It's an informal "tradition" that we've been doing for, let's see... maybe one or two years now. I don't buy Hershey's often because none of us needs the calories, but when I do, we enjoy it at night in front of the TV. Ritual-like, we gather around the coffee table. Then one of us opens the bar and carefully divides it into four, while the other three watch with anticipation. Then we each grab our portion and relish it slowly.


Alden almost always lets the chocolate melt on her fingers, then holds up all five chubby, chocolate-tipped digits for all of us to see and admire. Then she proceeds to lick each finger. Jigme invariably sighs with disgust at the sight. I also protest and say, "Alden, kadiri!" But I'd be laughing inside.

As you can see, it's not really the chocolate, but the ritual that makes it so delicious and enjoyable.

Or is it?

Monday, April 5, 2010

"Pooling" Around

It's summer! Anyone who lives in the metro knows how unbearably warm it is these days. We are itching to go to the beach, but sadly, that isn't workable. Bringing three active kids on a five- to six-hour trip is too much of a hassle (I already have enough wrinkles on my face and stress in my life, thank you). And the expense involved is far from negligible (the bills I'm paying now are enough already, thank you).

Then I thought, if we can't go to the beach, then we must bring the beach to us. Makes sense, right? Right! So, with just a little prodding from Alden (my youngest daughter), I consented to buy a 12-foot-diameter pool to replace our old hole-ridden 8-foot-diameter one. It cost me 4,000 pesos, plus another grand for the air pump and other accessories.

The next day, at barely 6:30 a.m., Alden was shaking me awake. "Ma, come on, it's time to set up the pool!"

It took me an hour to choose and prepare the location (the ground must be relatively flat and smooth), open and "spread" the pool on it, and pump air in. Not bad, I thought. I relished the fact that the manual pumping provided some much-needed exercise for me. What I didn't like was that it took the whole day to fill it up with water! Maybe that's because our water supply was weak and slow, or maybe the pool was just so big (to my thinking, at least).

Two full hours after I set it up, the pool still looked like this:


Then, one more hour later, the kids couldn't wait anymore. They jumped right in (or rather, waded in), unmindful of the low water level.

It was much better the next day, when the pool was more or less full.

Alden and I had a great time. Too bad Raj couldn't join us because of her cough, and Jigme was in school.

Alden was practically in pool heaven. Anyone can tell by this picture :-)

And I felt like I was in some five-star beach resort. Ha-ha.

Summer is fun, life is good. I am blessed indeed! :-)

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Not in the Mood

A few years ago, I started this tradition of creating a blog to mark my birthday. And so today, about a week shy of my __th natal day, I'm writing this first post in my new blog.

But truth be said, I'm just going through the motions. I've been despondent lately, kind of in a rut, maybe even a little depressed. Nothing I do seems to make me happy. I don't feel passionate about anything anymore--and this is strange, because I'm one of the most passionate people I know. Worst of all, and perhaps at the core of this whole thing, I'm still trying to recover from a devastating breakup. Yeah, I get tired of saying it, and it makes me ashamed that I still haven't healed up to now, but what can I do? That's just the way I am. I did say I am (or was) passionate, remember?

I try to be patient with myself. I rationalize this is the "seventh cycle" blues which everyone goes through just before they add another year to their age. I've read somewhere that the monthlong period or so just before your birthday is supposed to be your weakest and most vulnerable time. Your health--mentally, physically and definitely emotionally--is at its lowest. So there. It seems I just have to wait a few more days and things will be better... I hope.

Writing has been therapeutic for me in the past, and this is another reason why I started this blog. Hey, already, I feel better after just these few paragraphs.

Hmmm, there's definitely hope for me!