animal odd couples

found a very cute photo of a macaque and a pigeon.


and a dema with a sumatran tiger cub.

babies in the family

here's a picture of my nephew Joey (who will start his first day of high school tomorrow) holding my niece Sara (who can now hold her head up).


and this is our little pumpkin.


and our big ziggy...


who really likes to sleep.


pumpkin licking her nose.

new addition

This is Sara Christine Cook, the first niece in the family. She was born 7/11/07.

aftermath

I made chicken adobo tonight and James liked it! :)

I have now read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows twice since its release. My patience came more abundantly during my second trip to Rowling’s world. I managed to go through the tedious camping in the wilderness chapters without much groaning and complaining. Despite knowing how things turned out, I failed to keep my cheeks dry on certain deaths/events/chapters. It makes me sad that this is it. There won’t be another Harry Potter book in a long time… if any at all. So now I go back to my murder mysteries… with PD James, Elizabeth George, Dennis Lehane, Michael Connelly, Martha Grimes, Anne Perry, and maybe I will revisit some of Agatha Christie’s. But I shall miss Rowling’s characters very much.

goodbyes

My laptop crashed :(

I'll be on sequester this weekend...
no interruptions permitted because I'll be at Hogwarts.

native tongue

James and I watched a show on the Travel Network last night about exotic foods and the host (Andrew Zimmerman) visited The Philippines! They showcased balut, dinuguan, ginataan, fried frogs, crickets, tuna’s jaw, chicken intestines (is that called isaw?) and other exotic stuff. It was somewhat depressing to realize that I haven’t really explored the Philippines despite having lived there for most of my life. I haven’t even been to Quiapo even though it’s not that far from Binondo. They have tons of markets in Quiapo selling fresh produce (and according to my dad, also selling pirated DVDs). Not surprisingly, my palates have not tasted 80% of the food showcased on the show (the host actually tried all of them including live mangrove worms). Watching the show made me long for Pinas. I want to visit again. James also expressed interest in visiting the country again. He still resents me for not taking him to see the Taal volcano. He loves calamansi and developed a very strong craving after seeing it on the show last night. I’m craving for hilaw na mangga with bagoong, banana-q, turon, buko, and suman. :)

as the world turns...

The most talked about news in America lately is Paris Hilton’s jail experience. The most talked about news in The Philippines lately is the Ruffa-Yilmaz squabble. This is the world we live in.

house hunt

Our real estate agent wants us to look at 4 dozen houses. James and I will be very busy the next few months.

Happy (belated) birthday to Marie. The best sister in the world! You need to call me more often. ;)

french clay

Keeping my fingers crossed that it’ll be another Federer vs. Nadal final in Roland Garros. That should be an exciting match. As much as I like Rafa, I sure hope Federer will finally get his own French Open trophy.

crybaby

Been shedding buckets of tears over Khaled Hosseini’s “The Kite Runner”. Haven’t cried this much for a novel since McCullers’ “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” 3 years ago.