It’s The End of Pluto As We Know It

I was reading the newspaper the other day and was shocked to read that Pluto is no longer considered a planet. It’s so strange to think that something you’ve long regarded as solid fact is now considered, well, not true at all!

I can still remember the mnemonic that my Science teacher in grade school taught us to remember the order of the planets: My Very Eager Mother Just Served Us Nine Papayas (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto). Now My Very Eager Mother (can) Just Serve Us Nine. Boo!

My birthday gift

I bought a birthday gift for myself today. I saw it last week, and I’ve been thinking of buying it since then.

I bought a stepper! It’s a pretty simple one – you can’t even change the resistance or anything – but what I like about it is that it swivels as you step, and it has handles (think ski poles) that move along with you as you step, so it can sorta work the arms as well. It was on sale too! Sticker price was marked down from $298 to $268 but I got it for $218 plus GST for a total of $229 – and they deliver!

I’ll have it inside our room, so there’s really no reason not to use it. If I can’t go to the gym, I should at least be able to find half an hour to spare here in my room, shouldn’t I?

I hope so.

The organizaholic

A place for everything, and everything in its place.

Sounds like a mantra for a person with OCD. And that was my mantra for today. As if to prove that there’s a silver lining in every cloud, I had to clear our desk to make way for the aircon technician to be able to fiddle with our now-blissfully-working a/c. And since I’ve been so annoyed at how our desk has been such an eyesore due to its mess, I breathed deeply and started working.

I started with the paper bags stacked with stuff outside the closet, throwing out the trash inside and keeping what’s needed. I wiped out all the stuff in the desk, and arranged them properly inside the previously under utilized closet. I wanted to kick myself for not taking the time before to fix stuff, but natural tendency is to just leave things the way they were – in short, a mess.

By the time Real Cool arrived, I had made our whole long desk spic and span. And as a bonus, I got to buy lots of bins to organize our desk (among others) even more when we went to IMM this afternoon.

What a satisfying feeling.

Hello, I’m Ellen and I’m an organizaholic.

Back to normal

Oh, thank heavens. Our aircon is fixed! Back to cool, cool, air.

The past weekend has been a really hot one. With only our borrowed kitchen fan to keep us cool in this tropical climate, and cold shower after cold shower, we have been desperately awaiting the arrival of the aircon technician.

It was some defective thingamajig, apparently, which they thankfully got to replace. I don’t really care about the whys and hows, only that it’s fixed!

It really makes you realize that you only realize just how important something is once you lose it! Thank God it was only the aircon, and that it was easily repaired, and not a person or a relationship, or some other important thing.

hot, hot hot

It is hot.

And not just because Singapore is so near to the equator. It’s hot because for some reason, the aircon here in our room just decided to conk out. Just when I had gotten a nice blanket from Ikea the other day to stop me from freezing when we go online at night, now it’s just terribly hot in here.

The thing is, we don’t even have a fan to fall back on, since whenever we feel hot, the a/c remote is just a click away. So now, we’re really at the mercy of the a/c service repair company, which can only come here on Monday. How we’ll survive the weekend, I have no clue. Maybe we can get the fan from the kitchen, but it sure can’t compare to 22C temp at night to keep us nice and cozy under our comforter.

It feels like how it used to feel when Manila used to get hit by brownouts everyday (remember that?), except that we still have lights. I’m just worried now of my laptop overheating..acck!

*cue music* Feeling hot, hot, hot!

Happy birthday and mucho congratulations, Pen!

Gifts!

Wow, I’ve got gifts!

So there I was, just reading the newspapers after having lunch when the doorbell started ringing, repeatedly. Turns out, it was the courier, and it was for me! Rare occurrence.

It was a package from my family, and they sent me a big box of D&G Light Blue (my favorite perfume – one I’ve been unsuccessfully looking for here in Singapore), Clinique face powder, and a white gold necklace with my name on it (a la Carrie in Sex and the City). So cool.

I knew my family would always remember my birthday, and they found a way to do so even if I’m so far away. Aww.

28

Last night, while eating dinner, H asked me where I wanted to eat next week. Absentmindedly, I asked why. In my mind, I was wondering, it’s next week, how would I know?

I looked at him blankly as he said, “What do you mean why?”

“I don’t know why,” I said.

“For your birthday, you silly girl!” he exclaimed.

“Oh,” was all I could say.

And then I remembered. I’ll be 28 this coming Friday.

To be perfectly honest, whenever thoughts of my birthday would flit through my mind, I’d quickly push them away. I don’t know how I’d celebrate it now, with a different family beside me.

While I’ve celebrated my birthday with H before, it’s always been in Manila, with my family. Where I knew how I wanted it: a free day with pancit or spaghetti at lunch, maybe some of my mom’s special kaldereta…my mom would buy cake (usually from Estrel’s) and we’d have loads of other cakes at home – from her office, from my dad’s office, from titas and relatives. I’d insist on blowing out the candles, someone would take a picture while my mom and dad and my sisters and H would be behind me. I’d open my gifts. Then we’d all go out for dinner to wherever I felt like going – Italianni’s..Conti’s, CPK, Mingoy’s…anywhere I wanted. Then a week or so later, my friends and I would go out and celebrate my birthday (Bubba Gump, Dr.A?).

How will I celebrate my birthday this year? I don’t know. He and his family do things differently. A lot quieter. And as of yet, I can’t think of a special place where I’d like to celebrate my birthday here. I can’t imagine celebrating my birthday without my family. It’s times like these that make me wish even more that I could be with my family. But I guess growing up means having to adjust to how life dishes things out.

Time to make new traditions, then.