The Entertainer

We all know that each child gets half his genes from his father and the other half from his mother. I am SO glad that the kids inherited the musical gene from his father. (No offense to my parents and our genes but we have other strengths.) Perhaps the closest I could contribute to their musical gene pool was the desire-for-music gene, the musical talent gene donor is mainly MacGyver.

MacGyver comes from a family of musicians, not the run of the mill musicians, but honest-to-goodness performing and on-stage musicians and entertainers. Both his parents love music. MIL graduated top of her class at Holy Ghost. She majored in Piano performance, is a dedicated piano teacher and is still active in their church choir. FIL, though an engineer, always loved to sing. Their children, MacGyver included, were all into music even if only one of them opted for Music as a second course in College. Some of them have been on stage performing at one time or another. The credits include a sister who played the piano for Andrea Bocelli's Asian tour as well as several theater productions including Miss Saigon with Lea Salonga, two other sisters who were back-up singers for Martin Nievera in the show Martin After Dark, a brother who won the National Amateur Competitions for Young Artists (NAMCYA) when he was in high school. They were often at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, as children, performing on stage with Imelda Marcos in the audience. MacGyver recalls their uncredited participation in the movie Maynila: Sa Kuko ng Liwanag. Max Jocson, who made the music for the movie, was MacGyver's brother’s NAMCYA trainer and was making the movie at the time. Mr. Jocson did some taping of the siblings singing at Project 7 which he incorporated into the movie somehow. (At least that is what MacGyver remembers.)

I seriously asked MacGyver if being good in music was a prerequisite for our marriage. He teased me that the requirements were either to be an engineer or a musician, and since I had graduated from Engineering, that'd do.

At the onset, none of our children seemed to be inclined towards music. The farthest we had gotten was GI singing "we'll count our blessings instead of sheep" during a Christmas program for FIL and MIL when he was 3. However, as time passed, GI found himself drawn towards playing the guitar, primarily due to 3rd Year Christian Living teacher. We were happy to support this interest. He started off with an acoustic guitar. Then at a certain point, Father gave him an electric guitar when he had seen GI's reaction to a cousin of mine playing the guitar. Given the musical genes in his system, it didn't come as a surprise for us that GI is able to play the guitar so well. Though his initial teacher is his guitarist uncle, GI continues to teach himself new pieces by reading (and writing his own) tabs in the computer.

With GI busy with the guitar, we encouraged RD and MyGirl to find the instrument of their choice. They opted to learn how to play the piano from MIL. Since MacGyver plays the keyboards, we were happy that the children decided to go for the piano. MIL has a baby grand in their house. This is where the children had their lessons. The children went through book after book after book. MIL was ever so patient to teach them how to play.

As the time for us to leave the country approached, MIL made sure that the children had some sort of recital to mark the culmination of their lessons. It was held in the living room at Project 7 and was captured on video by MacGyver. She was quite pleased with the children’s progress. She wasn’t sure whether their interest in the piano would be lost as we moved away. I don’t think that she expected the children to pick up from where she left off.

One of RD's piano pieces was "The Entertainer." When MacGyver told RD that there were several parts to the whole piece and that he'd only mastered the first part, RD was determined to learn the rest of the piece. The first part was all that MIL had been able to teach RD given the time. RD took the initiative to search the internet for the other parts of the piece. Then when we arrived in Australia, RD would listen to the music, read the notes and practice on the keyboards available to him.

'The Entertainer' is a nice entertaining piece that even MyGirl and one of their other cousins decided to learn the simple piece. They all enjoyed playing this piece so much that their older cousins issued a decree banning them from playing it. The penalty must not have been so severe because this didn't stop the kids from playing. And moreover, it didn't stop RD from volunteering in school to play the piece for their week 7 walk-in.

Yes, it is true. RD actually volunteered to play in front of the WHOLE school.

Every Monday, all the children of the school gather in the hall for assembly. As the children enter the hall, they have one or more student perform in front until everyone has entered the hall.

Here we have RD in his first public piano performance.

And his encore. (There were still some students entering the hall so the Assistant Principal asked him to play some more).

Vitamin Deficiency

We bought vitamins soon after we arrived in Australia.

One evening, RD read out the details found in his Vitamin C container.

He read it out loud, "A great tasting chewable form of vitamin C with no artificial sweeteners that's suitable for the whole family," then promptly popped one in his mouth and swallowed the tablet whole.

I let out a cry which made him realize what he'd just done. (RD, chewable means you are supposed to CHEW them.) Oh, well. Que sera, sera.

Several days later, I decided to check out the vitamins which MacGyver had picked up. They were Cenovis ONCE Daily Men's Multi. I read the DIRECTIONS FOR USE. It said, "Adults swallow one capsule daily with morning meal.

On the label, this was immediately followed by the WARNING: When taken in excess of 3000 mcg retinol equivalent (R.E) (10,000U), Vitamin A can cause birth defects. If you are pregnant or considering becoming pregnant, do not take Vitamin A supplements without consulting your doctor or pharmacist.

This must be a warning for men like Thomas Beatie (the transgender man who gave birth twice), or perhaps for women who think that men get their figures from taking men's vitamins.

Off Target

It all started with this baby -- the H20 Vac Turbo.

I had just lost the bid for the Karcher DS5500 vacuum cleaner, remember? But I still wanted a decent vacuum cleaner that used water to collect the dirt. (Gosh, I wish I had bought that Karcher back in Manila!) Anyway, there was a Rainbow vacuum cleaner up for auction on eBay. It was still going at a reasonable price, except that there were 2 more days to go. I had posted some queries to the seller and his replies were enough to make me dream that I could win the bid.

Well, as can be expected, there is an inverse relation between the price of an item up for bid and the the time left to the END DATE. The next thing I knew, the Rainbow vacuum's price had doubled and was out of my budget.

So I googled WATER VACUUM and somehow this led me to that H20 VAC TURBO, which seemed like a possible solution to my vacuum requirements. And hey, it was available at Target!

There is a Target at Castle Towers which is less than five minutes away. This is good.

While I was at the Target site, I chanced upon Corelle dinnerware. Hey, there is a Christmas Sale and the Corelle sets are selling at a discount.

(Yes, I know I sound like one of my son's Facebook message which said, "I'm not easily distract... ooh a cookie!" and this is essentially what happens when I go window shopping at the malls -- my mind races from one thing to another.)

Anyway, I found this set nice but it was $10 more than the other designs and in these difficult times, every penny counts.

OK.

This other set is fine for $29.
It is fancier than the Winter Frost (plain white) ones and they will match our Country Violets set.

I had seen some Winter Frost Corelle plates at K-Mart the other day and hesitated to check the prices. Truth be told, I shouldn't really be shopping for plates. We would survive on the incomplete set I had brought from Makati plus the plates we had gotten through FreeCycle. That is how we have managed for the past two weeks we've been at Northern Views. We use the Corelle for breakfast then we use the other set for dinner. Everything goes into the dishwasher at the end of the day. The other set is heavy and is glass. I was hoping to get more Corelle plates since they are easier to handle.

Oohhh... I was all excited to go to Target the next day. I wanted to check out vacuum cleaners and Corelle sets and more.

True to the female shopping bug, I kept on surfing. I had tabs with eBay, Target, productreview.com.au, google, etc. After a while, I wondered whether the items I was interested in would only be available online. I worried that if I dropped by the store, they would say that the products had a different price or something.

I went back to the Target site. I decided to check the possibilities of buying it online.

SHIPPING & POLICIES. Click.

SHIPPING & DELIVERY INFORMATION. Click.

SHIPPING & DELIVERY ESTIMATES. Click.

Nothing seemed to be helpful. I decided to try a different tactic.

FIND A STORE. Click.

Enter your city and state or ZIP Code to find a Target store.

NSW 2154

Sorry. The information you entered is invalid or incomplete. Please check to make sure you entered the correct address, or try your search again.

OK. That didn't help.

VIEW ALL TARGET STORES. Click.

Great! I got a list of all the 50 states from Alabama to Wyoming (apparently there is no Target store in Vermont, and Hawaii was not among those in the list) and the heading "We have a store near you".

OH NO!!! I'm in the wrong country for this Target site.
Bummer!

So there goes my dream of getting a vacuum cleaner and additional Corelle for the moment.

What is the moral of this story?

a. When you see the vacuum cleaner of your dreams on discount, buy it!

b. If you think you will be using a dishwasher to do your dishes, have more than one set of dishes.

c. Before you get your hopes up by window shopping online, check the site for your country code.

(I honestly can't decide. Maybe it is all of the above.)

Do You See What I See?

No, this won't be about the night wind and the little lamb. This is about GI coming home from school this afternoon.

There was a lot of things going on at Northern Views this morning since we had reported a possible problem in the bathroom upstairs. The plumber did an initial inspection last week and announced that they would have to tear up the shower floor and check for leaks. Work was to start first thing Monday morning.

When Joseph the plumber arrived at 8am this morning, he started with the bathroom upstairs. After a while, he said that they would have to open up the ceilings in the first floor as well to assess the extent of the damage. His buddy Bill arrived soon after and together, they sawed up the ceiling and all. Throughout the morning and early afternoon, they did some work. By the time they left, they had done the initial work in the bathroom upstairs and patched up the holes in the ceiling.

Earlier that day, MacGyver had gone off to pick up a TV which was being passed on to us. It was bigger and newer than the second hand 14" TVs we had previously received, and it showed promise of having connectivity to the Game Box we had brought from Manila. Since there was some pending work to be done in the lounge, MacGyver had temporarily placed the big TV right at the corner of the lounge right at the entrance.

Anyway, going back to GI.

GI takes the bus home from school and walks a short distance to get home. His brother and sister, who are studying in the primary school get picked up by their father while MacGyver is still able to do so.

Yesterday, when GI arrived, the two younger ones were already at home. The house was a-buzz with activity because while MacGyver picked up the kids from school, the package with the modem for the internet connection arrived. When they got home, MacGyver immediately got started on getting all the PCs online.

As GI approached the house, I saw him from the window. I opened the door to greet him. He fumbled to get his shoes off. I pointed at my cheek. He dutifully planted a kiss then proceeded to the lounge where his PC is situated. When he was told that we had wi-fi again, he was elated. He immediately powered up his PC and made himself known again through Facebook.

He noticed that the table and chairs were not in their normal positions and the patched up hole in the ceiling in the lounge. We explained that this was part of the work being done for the bathroom upstairs. He went about his usual activities then went upstairs to get his PSP.

As he was climbing the stairs, I told RD, "He didn't even notice the new TV."

RD didn't believe me. He called out to his brother and asked if he had noticed something new, if he had seen the new TV.

"I bet he didn't see the TV."

True enough, GI replied, "What? What TV?"

He ran back downstairs to look for the TV that he had missed.

He could only laugh when he saw the size of the TV he had walked passed and failed to notice all the time he had been downstairs.

"It's just like this video*", he said. And he led me to this youtube video.

So ... did you count correctly? But more importantly, did you see what I missed?

Weathering the Weather

Weather

Author: unknown

Whether the weather be fine,
Or whether the weather be not,
Whether the weather be cold,
Or whether the weather be hot,
We'll weather the weather
Whatever the weather,
Whether we like it or not!

I think we used to recite this poem. Or at the very least, we learned this poem when we were very young.

Growing up in a country where there were only two seasons -- dry and wet -- the weather was fairly predictable in spite the incompetence of our weather bureau. It was sunny most of the year but especially hot in the summer months (April, May and June). The rainy season came in July and August. The "ber" months signaled cooler weather as Christmas approached. If we were lucky, it would still be cool in January and February, only to bring more warmth in March as summer returned.

We have moved to a country where there are four seasons -- winter, spring, summer and fall -- and the Sydney Morning Herald Weather report is fairly accurate.

Summer -- December to February

Autumn -- March to May

Winter -- June to August

Spring -- September to November

Fortunately for me, it doesn't snow in winter here in New South Wales because even the chilly days of spring and autumn are enough to get me shivering.

As summer approaches, there are days when it gets so hot. Yesterday, they estimated that the temperature was highest at 41°C; today the expected high was 21°C.

I have yet to get used to these kind of weather swings. I am not complaining, mind you. I am quite happy for these sudden changes of weather, particularly when it goes from hot to cold because the sun out here can be quite harsh. (I think I have gone two shades darker since arriving here.) What eats me is the shift from sunny to rainy.

This sunny day to rainy day shift was particularly difficult for me when we were staying at my brother-in-law's place. Since theirs was a family of seven and ours a family of five, you can imagine the amount of laundry we generated in a week's time and the finite number of uniforms available for the children to wear. This required regular loads of wash to be done in a week.

Naturally I had to fit into our host family's laundry schedule. Mumoffive did their laundry on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. I could do the laundry on any of the other days of the week. Usually, I would do the laundry on Tuesday and either Friday or Sunday (or mini-batches on both days).

Since I had failed to do our wash one Friday, I needed to do at least one load of laundry that Sunday so that the kids would have clean uniforms for the coming week. It had been sunny all week but as luck would have it, the Sydney Morning Herald weather icon showed the sun hiding behind rain clouds that Sunday and the written report indicated that there would be a couple of rain showers in the morning and several in the late afternoon. The projected weather for Monday and Tuesday were both sunny but Monday was not my wash day and Tuesday would be too late.

What was I to do? I had to get those clothes clean.

What else could I do? I started off early Sunday with my first load. When it was done, I hung the clothes on the clothesline even if there was no sun.

Cloudy is not too bad as long as it does not rain, I thought.

While the washing machine was running the second load, it started to drizzle.

Shall I take the clothes out now?

Nah. The weather report did say a COUPLE of rain showers in the morning. Our clothes can take the drizzle.

The rain stopped for a while then resumed. It was still drizzling lightly when the washing machine beeped to indicate the completion of the second load, so I held off hanging the second set of clothes.

When the rain stopped, I decided that the rain shower quota had been fulfilled and the coast was clear. I hung the second set of clothes on the line even if I could see grey clouds all over.

Wrong move! After a few minutes, it started to rain again.

Shall I take the clothes out NOW?

Nah! The rain is bound to stop. This is already more than a COUPLE of showers. They must've put that sun in the weather report for a reason.

I held off retrieving the clothes for a while longer, hoping against hope that the sun would come out. Finally, when I decided that the clothes had had too much rain, I went out and started removing the clothes from the line.

While I was out there, as if to add insult to injury, the skies cleared and the sun came out.

ARRGGHHH!!!!

The sun didn't stay out for too long. It started to drizzle as I pulled off the last set of clothes from the line.

I decided enough is enough, these clothes are staying IN.

The rain clouds were gone by the early afternoon so I hung the clothes back and they eventually got dried. I pulled them off again before the late afternoon showers came.

(Perhaps the fickle weather had had enough fun with me for the day.)

As the poem goes, we'll weather the weather whatever the weather, whether we like it or not. But if you ask me, for rain falling on laundry days? NOT!

For today, it was the sun hiding behind the rain cloud again.

But guess what? I managed to save my laundry just in time.

No Luck. No Lock!

One of the things I noticed when we stayed at Mumoffive's place is that their bedroom doors don't have locks. Since we were staying in two of the three kids' rooms, I figured this must be one way to monitor the children. I assumed that the master's bedroom would have a door which could be locked from inside.

Then we moved to Northern Views. I had one of the most shocking discoveries when we were going through the place. It wasn't that the master's bedroom didn't have a lock (which it didn't) but it was that the BATHROOMS didn't have locks in the doors.

What kind of a house has bathrooms that don't have locks?

Well, apparently, this one.

Anyway, since everybody DOES deserve some privacy, we have devised a way to advise people whether it is safe to enter a room or not.

Check them out!

This one is on the door of MyGirl's bedroom. She made the sign herself.

(YES, you can come in)

(No, you may not come in.)

The sign in the main bathroom is for revision but this is the one in the downstairs in the laundry room, where the third toilet is located.

I Won! I Won!

By the time we moved into Northern Views, we had been able to inherit a dining table, two lounge chairs, a refrigerator, a rice cooker, a sandwich maker, 2 14" TVs, a queen bed, 2 single beds (plus one more coming), a box of plastic containers, a couple of frying pans and other useful items for the house. This was augmented by our introduction into the FreeCycle yahoogroups (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FreecycleSydneyNW/) which enabled us to acquire a table, a shelf, some speakers, some plates and other household items for free.

However, in spite all the generous hearts we encountered, we were still in dire need of a washing machine and chairs. So these were the items we would look for when we visited garage sales and logged on to eBay.

Though I failed to win the washing machine, I continued to try my luck at other things in eBay, adding odds and ends to my WATCHING list.

(Everyone knows women LOVE to shop for bargains.)

After a bit of window shopping, or should I say 'eBay surfing', I finally won some things.

These are some of the items I got for the house.

I wanted desperately to get this particular vacuum cleaner model.

It was being auctioned off by someone in Perth. Perth is a long way away from Sydney. It is so far, in fact, that it is in a different time zone from us (same time zone as Manila). But I really wanted this model that I went so far as to email a good friend in Perth to bid for this item on my behalf. Unfortunately, someone had placed an automatic bid much higher than my approved budget plus the fact my budget was slashed by the estimated postage to ship the thing from Perth to New South Wales.

Oh, well, you win some, you lose some.

So focusing on what we'd won, here they are in their new home. The table cloth is actually a Qantas blanket we bought at the Wesley church garage sale while the "rug" is likewise a blanket I got from Vinnies. The beautiful tulip placemats and cork hot plates were passed on to us by relatives of relatives. The tile trivets in the middle were part of odds and ends we got from a FreeCycler who passed on amps, speakers, clothes and some other household items we are now using.

Charlotte At Work

We are moving into Northern Views today. We signed the lease contract last Tuesday and got the keys to the townhouse right after we paid the two months advance on the rent.

Among the things I worried about with the new place is what size of washing machine we could get and whether I'd have enough room to hang the laundry. Eventually, I was assured that there was enough space for a decent sized washing machine and that there is enough space to hang our clothes.

When we were transferring things in preparation for moving in, one of the things I noticed was the spiderweb on the clotheslines. It must have taken the spider a very long time to build such a big web.

I knew I would eventually have to destroy this labor of love since I would rather have clean clothes than a work of art. I figured the least I could do was to take these pictures.

Optical Illusions

I will perpetually be fascinated with optical illusions.

This is for MyGirl, who shares this fascination with me.

Keeping eBay at Bay

I had my first close encounter with eBay last night.

I am in the lookout for a washing machine and was hoping to get a second hand one for a bargain. What better place to find bargains than at eBay, right?

At the onset, we were hoping to find one in a garage sale. Since it is spring cleaning time here, there are a lot of garage sales going on during weekends. At one garage sale we dropped by, we picked up an old microwave for $10 and we trying to haggle to get their washer for $40. The lady refused to give up her appliance for anything less than $50. We were lucky that she didn't because we found out that we were bidding for a DRYER and not a WASHER! (Ignorant newbies!)

So I am focusing my energies on eBay for the moment, until moving day comes when I would have to bite the bullet and acquire a new washing machine for hundreds of dollars.

Apparently, there is a science to winning in eBay. Of course it helps IMMENSELY if you are willing to place a fairly high bid on an item.

First you have to have an eBay account. Then you have to know what you are looking to buy. They have user friendly categories and sub-categories.

Plus there is an option to SORT the matches found.

For practical reasons, I always sort by DISTANCE : NEAREST FIRST.

Once the items which match your selected criteria are displayed, you can also see other details like current bid or the BUY IT NOW price, postage/payment options, time left and (if you're lucky) a picture of what is being sold. If you click on the item, usually there is some sort of description and history of the item being sold. The seller's username and the number of bids can also be found.

There is an option to WATCH THIS ITEM, where items you are interested in can be viewed in one of your tabs for quick reference.

Anyway, back to the science and back to the washing machine.

Anyone REALLY, really interested in an item would be logged into eBay and watching the TIME LEFT count down on the desired item. And that person would also be counting SECONDS, not just minutes, when placing a bid. The system allows a user to do AUTOMATIC BIDDING where one simply specifies the MAXIMUM BID one is willing to make on the item. The system will place an amount higher than the latest bid but not exceeding your maximum bid amount. For example, the latest bid was $1.00 and you put a maximum bid of $10.00, the system will queue a bid of $2.00 for you. If there is no bid higher than the maximum bid you posted, it is possible for you to win the bid at a price lower than your specified maximum bid amount. (In my example, you could get the item for $2 instead of your maximum bid price of $10.)

The secret is in clicking the CONFIRM button within the last few seconds of the bidding process so that hopefully no other bidder will have time to react and place a new bid higher than yours before the time runs out.

Earlier that day, my brother-in-law was logged on to place a bid for an orange shirt for my nephew. The current bid was $0.99 and the postage was about $7.50. Since their budget for the shirt was $25, he placed a $17.50 bid a minute 20 seconds before the 6pm closing bid time.

They won the bid and got the shirt for $0.99!!! (Essentially, they paid a total of $8.50 for the brand new shirt. A real bargain.)

Last night, we logged on using my account to place a $70 bid on a Fisher Paykel washing machine that was about 4 years old. My heart was pounding. I was hoping that we'd get the washing machine and get this whole thing over with. The second hand of the clock seemed to move slower than usual. We had synchronized the wall clock to the eBay clock. We were hoping to get the bid in at the last 20 seconds.

My brother-in-law entered $70.50 (just in case there was a $70 bid and we were tied at that price) and waited until about 15 seconds before hitting the CONFIRM BID.

We waited for a while until we saw the message flash saying that we had LOST the bid. Upon closer scrutiny of the details, we discovered that someone had entered a bid ten seconds after we had, a mere 4 seconds before the closing bid time. Surely the bid was higher than ours because the washing machine was sold for $71.50. If we had not come in and entered a bid, that washing machine would have been sold for $34.00. Now THAT would have been a real bargain.

Notice the AUTOMATIC BIDS. I was up there at $34. If the eventual winner hadn't entered a bid, I could have been the lucky one. (Oh well ... I guess I just have to try, try again.)