Lesson never learned: sleeping late and waking up early is no ambrosia from the gods.
While I know the implications of such a potent mix of sleeping at 1AM only to wake up roughly 3 hours later (interspersed with wakeful moments when your 1-year old daughter kicks your gullet as she helicopter-wise swivels beside you in bed), there are times when it can't be avoided.
And last night was another one of those times as a quick visit by my cousin, Reggie, jolted all of us into wakefulness. My cousin's infinite energy turned bedtime into playtime as she alternated playing between Ikai and Issa all the while entertaining us with what she had been up to the past few months. While mouthing out what has been the latest happenings affecting her while here in Manila and during her sojourns at Basey, Samar, she would tickle or cuddle or hug Ikai in her cariño-brutal way. With Issa, who does not easily open up to people, she took the gradual approach, working with funny faces first to gain the toddler's trust before tickling her feet and eventually getting to hug the young one (who ended up crying and calling for her Mama anyway).
It was a welcome visit from my cousin but it still resulted into a late night and I finally fell asleep way after midnight.
Now, I feel sluggish and my eyes feel sore. Will need to recharge myself tonight for another busy weekend.
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Just a few more pages and I'll be done with The Machine Crusade. Tonight, I'll be disturbing the relative of my bookshelf to take out the last book in the Legends of Dune series -- The Battle for Corrin. While my Butlerian Jihad and TMC are regular pocketbook-sized issues, my BFC is the UK version that is extra-large (sized like the Left Behind books I'm collecting). I think I bought it out of exasperation to finish the series and did not want to wait for the regular paperback edition. The minute I saw a copy on the shelf of the bookstore, I quickly snatched it up and for sure used the plastic to buy it.
That's a problem with me -- I'm an impulsive shopper of the things I love. I will squawk at a pair of pants or a polo that I think is overpriced and that I can get for a lower price if I went with another clothing brand but my financial-sensitivity-senses deaden when I encounter something that I really, really like. Most of the time, it's a book or books like the time I bought the Prelude to Dune Trilogy in one go (or one swipe of the plastic) or the other time I failed to resist buying the Redemption of Althalus even when I was severely cash-deplete and espied a copy of the book over at PowerBooks Alabang Town Center. I had been on the hunt for the book for years.
Other items I tend to impulsively buy are music CDs, graphic novels, PC games, and sometimes little gadgets (thank goodness for CDR-King and their less expensive offers).
Hey, a man's got to have his quirks and vices, right?
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Despite my apparent girth, one thing I don't impulsively spend on is food.
I don't go to those intimidatingly-named eateries that line the likes of Greenbelt 3 or 5 or Serendra or Power Plant or TriNoMa. I like to keep my gastronomical tastes simple. I will sometimes splurge, yes, especially if it's for an occassion or for a loved one or loved ones including trips to Max's or Shakey's or an occassional Kenny Roger's or Dencio's or Gerry's. But by lonesome, I'll most likely be eating at one fastfood or another (the reason why I grow fat and now in an ongoing struggle with the D) with the occassional trips to Chicken Company or Tokyo Tokyo as my most expensive one-man forays.
I once found myself at Delifrance and Metro Tokyo on two successive days (they have branches along Salcedo Street in Legaspi Village near the Indonesian Embassy) and have vowed never to return after a successive experience of P250+ lunches.
I know you've read before that I sometimes eat at Chilli's or Krazy Garlik or one other fancy resto but that's not on my personal tab. That's on the expense of someone else, someone who can most likely reimburse the said lunch affair.
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It's too darn cold at the Desk.
It's too cold that my brain just wants to shut down. The jacket I'm wearing isn't enough to insulate me from the numbing coldness and that's already being coupled with a corpulent body.
Often it's so, so cold that it hurts in the inside like your bones are being hit by pin-pricks of icicles. There was one time this week that I was already chilling and it was not because of any low-blood sugar attack.
And since the ventilation in the office is centralized, there's now way to up the temperature.
What's a cold, numb fella to do in such a situation? Take a hike, literally.
I take quick breaks and walk out of the office for a quick 5-minute walk-around-the-block. That helps me sweat a bit and helps in the body circulation because I think that continuous exposure to cold inside the office would result in me suffering from hypothermia. Imagine that? Getting hypothermia in the P.I.?
That's how cold it is in the office. I need a parka -- a quick trip to Baguio might be in order to get meself one of those parkas from BC's ukay-ukays :)
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Enjoy the weekend, folks!
