Fall Comes to an End

Interestingly enough, as fall comes to an end, the leaves on the tree in our backyard are almost all gone.

I can't say that I'm looking forward to winter.

I can imagine myself turning blue already.

Warmth ... I need warmth!

Bruxism

I don't like that word, bruxism, especially since I was handed down the sentence of having it.

"Bruxism. You have bruxism. Google it." That was what my dentist said the other Saturday.

It was the first time I had heard the word. And what he said afterwards didn't help either.

He told me that I managed to crack four of my old fillings.

Oh, bummer!

This is what the google's PubMed Health site had to say.

Bruxism is when you clench (tightly hold your top and bottom teeth together) or grind (slide your teeth back and forth over each other) your teeth.

Causes, incidence, and risk factors

People can clench and grind without being aware of it during both the day and night, although sleep-related bruxism is often the bigger problem because it is harder to control.

The cause of bruxism is not completely agreed upon, but daily stress may be the trigger in many people. Some people probably clench their teeth and never feel symptoms. Whether or not bruxism causes pain and other problems may be a complicated mix of factors:

• How much stress you are under

• How long and tightly you clench and grind

• Whether your teeth are misaligned

• Your posture

• Your ability to relax

• Your diet

• Your sleeping habits

Each person is probably different.

Great! So aside from having my teeth fixed, I have to figure out how to de-stress.

A Moment on the Lips, A Lifetime on the Hips

Beware : MyGirl has a cookie press and she knows how to use it!

We like to make cookies in different shapes ...

sizes,

... and shades (apparently).

We make them in a different flavour, too.

These were our chocolate mint cookies.

The other night, MyGirl used a cookie cutter

and made them nice and fancy.

There are times we do away with the flour and forget about making cookies.

One day we just stuck with butter, milk and sugar ...

and made some pastillas de leche.

Here she is ... my partner in crime.

Stained Glass Windows

These were taken at St. Michael's where we caught mass today.

Tales from China

RD had to read Mao's Last Dancer for school. I had been wanting to watch the movie since last year. I decided I'd borrow the book from the library myself and read the book before I watched the movie. I got the Young Readers' Edition just like what RD had from school. I figured I was going to watch the movie anyway so there was no point going for the long-winded literary version, if such existed.

It was quite a good autobiography (I hope the movie does it justice). It is a story of a young Chinese boy, Li Cunxin, who was born into a poor family but had the good fortune of being selected to join one of Mrs. Mao's cultural programs, and train as a dancer.

The first part of the book is about his hard life as a child. The second part focused mainly on his training as a dancer in Beijing. And the last part was about his experience in the West which led to his eventual defection to the States.

I particularly liked the stories he incorporated in the book which I suppose are told to Chinese children as they are growing up.

p54

Once there was a Chinese emperor who loved cricket fighting. Each year the Emperor required the governors in every province to donate their best crickets. To win the Emperor's favour, each governor ordered his people to search for the best crickets all over the land.

Under a mountain in a small village lived a poor family with one ten-year old son. They named him Brave Hero. His father was a courageous hunter and his mother was kind. He was the sunshine in their eyes. One day the father came home from the mountains with his biggest catch, a beautiful cricket. He named the cricket Brave Hero, after his boy. The father was relieved -- he would have been fined heavily if he hadn't found a cricket within twenty-four hours. The young boy begged his father to allow him to look at it. At first his father said no, but the boy kept begging and eventually he relented. Just as the boy opened the bamboo tube in which the cricket was kept, the cricket jumped out and hopped away. Their rooster nearby ate the cricket. The boy's father was in such a rage over the loss of the cricket that he ordered his son to find another one or else never return. The poor boy went into the mountains. They found him next day lying on a big rock, almost dead. The father cried his heart out. As he picked up his son's limp body, a small and ugly cricket jumped on the boy's pale face. The father brushed the cricket off and carried the boy home.

The parents wept over their dying boy. They placed him a coffin in their living room waiting for the last breath to leave him. As they prayed in front of the coffin, they heard the faint sound of a cricket. It was the same ugly cricket the father had brushed away from the boy's face before. The father threw it outside.

Moments later the Governor came to collect the cricket and the father told him that he had none. Just as the angry Governor was ordering his guards to burn down the house, they heard a cricket singing from the house. Its sound was strong and loud. They followed the sound to a bamboo tube and found the same little cricket inside. The Governor thought the Hunter was playing a joke with him when he saw this ugly little cricket and he threw it towards the rooster. Just as the rooster was about to eat the cricket, it jumped onto the rooster's crown and after a brief struggle the rooster dropped dead. The Governor was very impressed. He asked the Hunter if he had a name for the cricket. The hunter told him that he called it Brave Hero. Brave Hero quickly became the number one fighter in the kingdom. He never lost a fight. He even beat the Emperor's fighting roosters. The Emperor treasured him.

Back in the mountain village, the boy was still breathing. As long as their son breathed the couple would keep him lying in their living room. As the cricket-fighting season drew to a close, the Emperor ordered the Governor to reward the original finder of the cricket with gold and silver because the cricket had given him such pleasure. But material things could not bring their son back to his sorrowful parents.

One day, Brave Hero mysteriously disappeared form his royal cage in the palace. On that same day the boy became alive again. The little cricket was Brave Hero's spirit. He had turned himself into the cricket to save his family.

I loved this tale. I loved the boy's bravery and wished that I too could turn myself into a cricket and save my family from poverty. What a shame Chairman Mao didn't like cricket fights.

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'Sit down, Cunxin,' Teacher Xiao said again. 'I want to tell you a story ...'

One of the guards in an emperor's palace went to his teacher. He wanted his teacher to make him the best archer in the land. The teacher told him to go away. The guard returned every day and begged his teacher to teach him. Day after day, week after week, month after month the guard came. He came in the rain and he came in the snow. After one whole year, the teacher was moved by the guard's perseverance and determination and finally accepted him as his student. The teacher asked him to pick up a heavy bow and hold it up. After a few minutes the guard's arms started shaking with tiredness. The teacher made him carry very heavy loads in each hand every day. After a while, when he picked up the heavy bow again it felt like a feather in his hands. One day he asked his teacher, when would he teach him how to shoot an arrow? The teacher told him that he wasn't ready yet and instead asked him if he could see anything far into the sky. He looked up and looked as hard and as far as he could but couldn't see anything. His teacher told him to look at a tiny little spider in a far-away tree that he could hardly see. He kept focusing on it with one eye at a time. Gradually he began to see the spider clearly and eventually when he used both his eyes the little spider seemed as large as his shield. His teacher said that he was now ready to teach him how to shoot an arrow. Soon the guard became the best archer in the land.

'Remember, Cunxin, nothing is impossible,' Teacher Xian said.

I'll tell you if the movie is worth watching.

A Taste of Home

The problem with being in another country is all the goodies which were just a stone's throw away back home are now beyond reach, either because they are not available here or because they are just way too expensive if you find them. As a result, whenever we have a yen for something from home, we check out the internet for recipes and determine whether they are feasible to make at home.

I know I would have no alternative but to shell out the money if I wanted to get MacGyver's favourite childhood snack of Jack 'n Jill Chippy, or to satisfy GI's yearning for Salt and Vinegar Cracklings or Nagaraya, or MyGirl's (and my) yen for Granny Goose Cheese Kornets.

Thankfully, many of the relations here are great cooks. They are able to whip up Filipino cuisine to match the ones we have at restaurants back home. So we do get the occasional sinigang, laing, kare-kare, dinuguan and crispy pata (not all at the same time, mind you) that makes us feel like we are back in Manila.

However, there are a sprinkling of items that are not commonly made. Some of these, we have tried to make at home ourselves.

After our taisan experiment, we tried another recipe and used muffin pans to make two dozen pieces of mamon. They were good chiffon cakes but still far from the ranks of Red Ribbon and Goldilocks. Nonetheless, I was brave enough to bring some to the office. (Sorry, no pictures this time.)

Last Saturday we tried to make lengua de gato for the first time. The recipe I used was truly excellent however the oven was quite uncooperative. (Did I mention that every First Saturday is 'test your smoke alarm day'? Well, as MyGirl said when we were making the lengua de gato, "We tested the smoke alarm on the designated test date ... again." Oh yeah. It seems I am the official smoke alarm tester since I do the job so well ... and so often.) We were able to salvage about half of the cookies although we had to work hard to peel them off the greaseproof paper in order to enjoy them.

On Sunday, which was Mother's Day, we made some siopao. I had previously tried my hand at making just the dough, essentially cua pao, and the kids were quite pleased. This time, I wanted to make it complete with the pork filling. The preparation for this meal had started the day before because the recipe called for the pork to be marinated for 5 hours. So I had purchased the pork on Saturday and it was marinating in the ref until Sunday. I made the dough on Sunday morning, let it rise in the oven for a couple of hours then cooked the pork filling on Sunday afternoon.

We assembled and steamed the siopao for dinner on Sunday night.

It was quite yummy.

Was it Kowloon quality? Did it taste like siopao from Chow King or Luk Yuen?

It didn't matter. The family enjoyed the siopao and that is what counts.

We made a total of 16 siopao (although the recipe said it could make 24). Sixteen divided by three equals five remainder one. We each had a "budget" of three.

MyGirl and I saved our third piece for our lunch the next day. RD was lucky, he claimed the 'remainder one' siopao. So aside from his alloted budget, he got a bonus siopao for his baon on Monday. (What can I say? He's a growing boy.)

I am quite happy I picked up that $3 steamer at the garage sale last February. Needless to say, the rest of the family agrees.

Where Does the Time Go?

I went out this morning and found this in the neighbour's front yard.

Last time I checked, the foliage was lush and green.

I have to admit, I have allowed the past few weeks to just pass me by. In truth, when you don't really pay attention to what is happening around you, things just change without you knowing it.

At times, this may seem the only way to go through life but in truth it is not the right way to live.

So don't let life pass you by.

When You Obey Road Signs

I guess sometimes this is what happens when you obey road signs ...

NO STOPPING

No stopping?

... If you say so.

Five Loaves and Two Fish

Friday (May 6): "They saw the signs which Jesus did"; Scripture: John 6:1-15

The First Friday homily was short and sweet.

Essentially the priest said, "If the little boy hadn't shared the five loaves and two fish, then the five thousand would not have been fed."

Remembering Pope John Paul II

For most of my life, the Holy Father in Rome was Pope John Paul II (Karol Wojtyla). His pontificate lasted from 1978 to 2005.

It was early morning in Manila when the news of his death was announced on TV. He died on 02 April 2005. I was in the middle of troubled times when that happened and I remember praying to him, asking him to help me from heaven to get through my crisis.

I survived 2005, thank God. And of course, special thanks to Pope John Paul II, Padre Pio (who the late pope had canonised in 2002), and family and friends who helped me, whether they knew it or not.

Earlier this year, the Catholic Church attributed the sudden recovery of French nun Sister Marie Simon-Pierre from Parkinson's disease to Pope John Paul II. This miracle has led to the recognition of his true holiness.

Today, on the Feast Day of St. Joseph the Worker, Pope John Paul II is one step closer to being declared a saint, as his beatification unfolds in Rome.

We can remember him by living his motto -- Totus Tuus (totally yours).

"Totus tuus ego sum, et omnia mea tua sunt" ("I am all yours, and all that I have is yours")