Earth Hour

Earth Hour started in 2007. It was conceived by WWF and The Sydney Morning Herald. The idea was to turn off all non-essential lighting for an hour. In the year that followed, other cities around the world adopted the event. It takes place on the last Saturday of March.

We joined the Earth Hour initiative by turning off our lights last night.

As early as mid-February, MyGirl had asked if she could have glow sticks to play with for Earth Hour. I promised her I'd get some so I bought a pack last Thursday evening. The pack had 50 glow sticks which was more than enough for the fourteen kids that usually gather for Saturday evening dinner at the Parkway (at Mumoffive's brother's place).

At 8:30 pm, the lights were turned off and some candles were lit. The kids spent the whole hour in the living room dancing around with their glow sticks. Some of them looped the glow sticks to make bracelets, anklets, necklaces, and even earrings. Others swung the sticks around to make designs in the dark. There were a lot of big circles and spinning loops in a rainbow of colours to be seen last night.

By and large, the kids had a lot of fun. The adults essentially stayed in the dining room with their respective gizmos and gadgets. (There were at least two people playing Angry Birds and another two checking their email or FaceBook pages.)

When we got home, MyGirl gave me hug and said, "I told you the glow sticks would be a good idea."

"Yes, MyGirl. I'm glad you thought of it."

(I took a picture of MyGirl with her glow sticks last night but unfortunately I had taken the photo while my SD card was out of the camera. Now the photo is kind of in limbo since I don't have a cable to move the file out of the camera's built in memory. SIGH!)

Slicing Mamon

A couple of weeks ago, my half-Filipina boss brought some Filipino goodies (c/o her parents that visited from Manila) which included Choc-Nut, peanut brittle, dried mangoes, barquillos and mamon.

There was only one piece of mamon which she divided into four. (There are actually five of us in the team but one of our team members arrived late that morning so he didn't even get to taste the mamon. Too bad for him.)

When we were in Manila, getting mamon was a simple matter of driving to one of the Red Ribbon or Goldilocks branches. Here in Australia, although there are a lot of popular pastries and goodies, they don't have anything similar to mamon.

When I got my mamon quarter, my taste buds sent signals to my brain (and my tummy) reminding me how good mamon could be. At that moment, I knew that one of my next baking experiments had to be mamon.

Over the next few days, I surfed the net for recipes and eventually I noted down a couple for mamon and taisan. (I don't have mamon molds here so I figured taisan in a loaf pan would be simpler.)

MyGirl and I decided to make our taisan last Sunday. It seems that there is no such thing as cake flour here in Australia so I used all purpose flour instead. The two loaves turned out beautifully (biased opinion, of course).

When I called the rest of the family to taste the taisan, I asked my standard question, "Shall I divide it into ten?"

(My rationale : with ten slices, we could each have two slices -- one for now and another one for later.)

It seems that RD had a different idea. You see as soon my question came out, he quickly responded, "No, FIVE!"

The others expressed their concurrence and I was obviously outvoted.

Needless to say, the taisan was gone in a flash.

(Should I have taken a picture of an empty chopping board and added the captions BEFORE and AFTER? Well, this was a pretty short-lived state for the taisan BEFORE we sliced it into five.)

Yes indeed, I had 1/5 of a loaf of taisan. And it was good!

I seriously believe we could have finished off the two loaves in one evening if I let them slice the second one. (We had the second one the day after.)

What a big difference from the time I sliced off one SINGLE mamon (yes, one piece of mamon, not one taisan loaf) into nine, or possibly 12, pieces to make little squares and wedges. We were having a batch meeting and people were supposed to bring some snacks to share. There was a lot of different goodies and I wanted people to have the option to take some mamon yet have enough space to have other things as well.

All I managed to do was to shock everyone in the room not only because I sliced up the mamon into tiny pieces but because I didn't even open the packaging and had used a ruler to do the slicing.

The Sound of Pi

My High School Computer Science teacher posted this link on FaceBook. I hit LIKE right away.

If the youtube link doesn't work, try THIS one.

π = 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510

and not really equal to 22/7 as we were led to believe in grade school.

Today is 3.14. Have a great PI day.

Man Who Orders Three Beers

An Irishman moves into a tiny hamlet in County Kerry, walks into the pub and promptly orders three beers.

The bartender raises his eyebrows, but serves the man three beers, which he drinks quietly at a table, alone.

An hour later, the man has finished the three beers and orders three more.

This happens yet again.

The next evening the man again orders and drinks three beers at a time, several times. Soon the entire town is whispering about the Man Who Orders Three Beers.

Finally, a week later, the bartender broaches the subject on behalf of the town. "I don't mean to pry, but folks around here are wondering why you always order three beers?"

'Tis odd, isn't it?" the man replies, "You see, I have two brothers, and one went to America, and the other to Australia. We promised each other that we would always order an extra two beers whenever we drank as a way of keeping up the family bond."

The bartender and the whole town was pleased with this answer, and soon the Man Who Orders Three Beers became a local celebrity and source of pride to the hamlet, even to the extent that out-of-towners would come to watch him drink.

Then, one day, the man comes in and orders only two beers. The bartender pours them with a heavy heart. This continues for the rest of the evening - he orders only two beers. The word flies around town. Prayers are offered for the soul of one of the brothers.

The next day, the bartender says to the man, "Folks around here, me first of all, want to offer condolences to you for the death of your brother. You know-the two beers and all..."

The man ponders this for a moment, then replies, "You'll be happy to hear that my two brothers are alive and well... It's just that I, myself, have decided to give up drinking for Lent."

====================================

I couldn't resist. I found this joke pretty funny. It was part of the priest's homily this morning, reminding us to give some things up for this Lenten season.

Dream On

You know how you sometimes have a dream home. And in this dream home you have your dream furniture. Well, if I am allowed to have some dream furniture in my dream home, I'd like a couple of these, please.

(Thanks RD for sharing this link.)

Ivory Carving

We checked out the Powerhouse Discovery Centre on the second Saturday of February.

I found these ivory carvings fascinating.

This one reminded me of the ivory carved ball Mother has.

I particularly loved the solihiya pattern in the overturned basket of this one.

The Discovery Centre is only open on the second Saturdays of the month. We hope to catch the Japanese tea ceremony this Saturday.

Cross Country Running Tips

RD had cross country running at school today. According to wikipedia, "The course, typically 4–12 kilometres (2.5–7.5 mi) long, may include surfaces of grass and earth, pass through woodlands and open country, and include hills and flat ground."

He and his classmates went outside the school campus to run.

They went around the route twice. The boys went first, then the girls.

The more precise route mapped below. (Follow the blue arrows.) First they went around the oval, then went outside and went through the trail twice. Upon returning to school, they used a different gate (check out the orange arrow).

I don't know exactly what distance they covered. He described the route as having portions with uphill and downhill paths. They were not expected to run the whole way; they were allowed to walk.

RD came in 52nd out of 77 among the boys. Not bad. Last year he was something like 60+.

These were his tips for me :

a) Walk uphill. Run downhill.

b) Run with others because they help you keep a decent pace. (When you get tired, just let them go ahead and walk for a while.)

c) If you are walking with other people and they start to run, start running too. (Again, when you get tired, just let them go ahead.)

d) When you are feeling tired, just walk. But if you see a teacher nearby, start running.

Keys

GI and I walked to Towers last night after dinner. All I brought were my keychain and a credit card. I figured that was all I needed for our trip.

It was past eight so most of the stores were closed. The only stores open were K-Mart and Coles. We went around K-Mart first before heading for Coles. At Coles, we picked up several grocery items then made our way back.

Having already used one of the two items I had brought with me, my thoughts turned to the other ... my keychain ... then to keys.

I thought of my maternal grandmother. She used to have a set of keys that hung off the pocket of her duster. She had a special clip that is hard to describe but it allowed her keys to be clasped securely. There were at least ten keys there. After she passed away in 1973, I don't think we ever figured out what all her keys were for.

Back in Manila, I had so many keys in my keychain. One for the padlock for the gate in Makati, another for the small door in the gate, one for the main entrance, and another for the master's bedroom. Plus I had keys to help us get into both our folks' places at Quezon City. That would be a total of six, at least, because I can no longer recall if I kept other keys in my old keychain. (I might have had a spare key to the car in that keychain, I don't know anymore.)

Here in Australia, the garage door opens using a remote while the bedrooms (and the bathrooms!) don't even have locks on the door. So when we got home, it didn't matter that my keychain only had one key in it. That was all we needed.

Reach Out and Touch Someone

It was 6:30 AM when the alarm went off. My first thoughts were 'What time is it in London?'

It was the birthday of my aunt Tita SIS (big sis) yesterday. She lives in London. I wanted to give her a call to greet her a happy birthday.

Last time I checked, about lunchtime yesterday, it was 1:30 AM in London, Tuesday, 01 March. Nobody calls at that ungodly hour unless it is an emergency. Then I forgot to check the time again until 01 March passed in my time zone. I had gone to bed on Tuesday and by the time I woke up, it was Wednesday already.

When I consulted the World Clock of my Nokia, it said that it is still 01 March in London. Just my luck, it was still Tita SIS's birthday in her corner of the world! In fact, it was a decent 7:30 PM in London at that very moment. (Hurrah!)

I quickly brought her record up from my Address Book button and hit the CALL button.

I was happy that she answered after the first ring. We were able to chat for a bit.

She sounds just like my mom. What did I expect? She IS Mother's sister. (I have often been told that I sound like my siblings. In fact, on one occasion, I was told that I sound like my BROTHER!)

After talking to her, thoughts of being connected to siblings crossed my mind. I know for a fact that Mother loves her sister a lot and in spite being oceans apart, they are still very close. I love all my siblings dearly. Mother knows Tita SIS's number by heart. Sadly, I can't say the same for me and my siblings' telephone numbers. (In my defense, I do have the disadvantage of having nine siblings while Mother just has one.)

When we were younger, Mother used to have our birthdays listed in the back of a family photo she kept in her handbag. There are six of us married now and our combined efforts have brought thirteen children to this world. I think Mother would need to keep an 8R photo in her bag if she wanted to retain the list in the back of a family picture, not to mention that she'd need a pretty big handbag to put it in.

I am happy to announce that I know all the birthdays of my siblings and children. I'm not saying that I will still remember all these dates in twenty years but at the moment I can still say that I remember these. However, I must admit that this is the extent of my memory, and that my memory has a lot of support in the form of my Book of Days, Facebook, YahooGroups calendars, etc.

Unlike Mother, I would not be able to dial any of my siblings' numbers even if my life depended on it (except maybe for Z's because she still lives at home). I do not even know what time it is in their sides of the world. Fortunately, technology has come to my rescue. My cellphone takes care of both these issues. Family members' telephone numbers are in my cellphone Address Book while the World Clock tells me what time it is in different parts of the world. Aside from my phone, I have back-ups -- a spreadsheet with family members addresses and telephone numbers, plus the ever reliable (as long as there is electricity and the internet connection is up), World Time found in the side of this blog c/o timeanddate.com.

So (belated) Happy Birthday to Tita SIS and a special thanks to Alexander Graham Bell.

(No, this is not the family picture Mother keeps in her bag with all of our birthdays. This picture was taken on Father and Mother's 25th wedding anniversary in 1986. I think this was the last one we have that has all twelve of us together. )

ImPRESSive Cookies

We had an old cookie press at Cebu Avenue.

Did it belong to my mother or to her mother? I honestly don't know. All I know is that the thing fascinated me. (I'm sure I considered asking for it before we moved to Australia.)

I think we made cookies using that gadget a long, long time ago.

A few weeks before MyGirl's birthday, I saw a cookie press at Victoria's Basement while I was browsing. I wasn't sure she'd appreciate one so when we went out and chanced upon a similar one, I asked her in passing whether she was interested in the thing.

I should have known that her answer would be an enthusiastic YES.

First chance I got, I bought her the cookie press for her birthday.

It was almost the end of February and the cookie press was still idle in MyGirl's closet. I figured I owed it to her to note down a recipe we could try, so I noted one down in our "orange notebook." (The 'orange notebook' is yet another of my recipe notebooks. I started this one close to New Year with the intention of diligently trying the recipes I would write there, as well as placing comments so that I would remember if the recipe was worth repeating or not.)

Among the recipes currently found in the orange notebook are mamon and taisan. I had the urge to make these when I got one-fourth piece of a mamon last week. The parents of my boss (who decided to retire in Manila) had just arrived for a three week visit and brought a lot of goodie (Choc-Nut, Nagaraya, barquillos, peanut brittle, mamon, etc.) for their family which she was kind enough to share with us.

So last Sunday, when MyGirl asked if we could bake something, I asked her if she wanted to make mamon/taisan or the caramel spritz cookies using the cookie press.

I should have known that the answer would be cookies. (In all honesty, I am the one craving for mamon/taisan.)

So it was settled -- cookies then.

"Bring out the butter and the eggs, MyGirl."

MyGirl did most of the work. The cookies turned out perfectly. We managed to make about 75 cookies so we had a "budget" of 15 cookies each.

YUM!

I would have wanted them a tad sweeter, but that is just my sweet tooth talking.

They turned out beautifully. MyGirl brought some to school to share with her classmates. When they saw the cookies, they asked her if she BOUGHT them.

Isn't that just the best compliment? Ü