RT from cosmo bout Lady Di! #certifiedgleek

::inserts sprinkler dance move::

this morning i timed the sprinklers to go off around when i got back from my run.

best decision ever, i frolicked to my heart's content at 8 AM in our sprinklers. should've just brought shampoo out there. bet the neighbors would love that.

wine night.

last night was wine night.

rules:

• bring a bottle of wine
• bring a snack
• everyone introduces their wine (the name, the kind, why they bought it, and then read any excerpts on the bottle)
• choose something to toast to (or in leah's case just salute)
• everyone tries the wine

since we're classy and all, here is some of what we all managed to bring:

• tostitos and dip -me
• string cheese- sally (who formerly brought harvarti cheese to the last wine night, mispronouncing it as "haverty's", a furniture store)
• oreos -leah
• cheetos -eileen

we're not at all in need of etiquette classes.

doh!

i've developed a slight limp just now. the sole culprit is an unintentionally direct collision between my rear end and the edge of a table. I had leaned over to tie my shoe, so I was in a stance similar to the middle evolutionary piece between a monkey and man, when I suddenly stood up, forgetting the table was behind me, causing my butt bone to hit the table edge with the same sort of physical conviction a foot has as it makes contact with a soccer ball aimed for the end of a field.

at which point mom chooses to round the corner, not phased at all at the sight of me gingerly rubbing my bottom with a pained expression.

that's gunna bruise.

even smile in your liver

As tradition goes, today I got ice cream from the ice cream truck that still makes its rounds in our neighborhood of teenagers who are of course too cool to do anything remotely childlike. Instead they lean against their newly acquired cars and stare at the lone person waiting in line for ice cream, me. I clutch in my hand the change I excavated from old purses and backpacks as the truck comes to a stop in front of my house, its music, a rendition of "it's a small world" that unfortunately sounds like it came straight out of a horror movie trailer, echoing quietly in our cul-de-sac. Usually, I file in line behind 3 year olds. I guess they're all busy taking naps, or pooping, or being sweetly innocent and uncorrupted by this mad world of ours.

While I savor my cents' worth of ice cream, I peruse an Express magazine full of clothes I can't afford. Oh but wait. There's a coupon! "spend $100 or more and get $30 off". Well, that excitement was short lived. I rip up the coupon, all the while arguing vehemently with it (an inanimate piece of paper). Having sufficiently torn it to smithereens and dramatically thrown it away, missing the trashcan entirely of course, I head downstairs.

There I find dad sitting at the kitchen table, where we embark on one of our incomprehensible "are we bonding right now?" moments. aka, we talk about his life growing up in the Philippines and he reminds me how he accomplished so much on nothing, internally making me immediately shameful of the current going ons in my life. today, he recalls working out in the rice paddies. Naturally my mind cuts to what my friends' reactions would be, had they been flies on the wall for this conversation. They'd never resist the opportunity to envision me, in a comically huge stereotypical rice paddy hat, standing there, confused as hell as to how the actual mechanics of rice gathering goes. you mean you don't just stand around waiting for mulan to come by singing about hiding her gender from the boys, who are not yet men, surrounding her? who knew.

But as I direct my attention back to the conversation, dad is reminding me, that hey, it's just material things (money and such), which interestingly enough reinforces a quote i just read from Gabrielle Bernstein: "if your happiness is based on external experience, then, my darling, you are fucked." Slightly crass, yet completely true. (and yes I finished "this is where i leave you" in a day, owing to the absence of any impending paper or exam. and yes, i highly recommend it) So much as of late has been reiterating to me that yeah, in a few months i might be unemployed and s.o.l. in the finance department while a student loan bill lurks just around the corner, but somehow it will all work out and i will be okay, cuz hey, it's just material things.

most resourceful post grad award goes to...

the one and only. working on her box of "delicates."

mint chocolate chip. yerba mate. tropper. bon iver.

it's a rainy day in summer and i love it.

started a new book today! "this is where i leave you" by tropper (thanks to "a little lamb" 's recommendation) and i cant put it down! it has me giggling silently to myself while also pulling ever so slightly at my heart.

a good book. some tea. a lit candle. bon iver-esque playlist. and raindrops on my window. pure joy.

also, rumor has it this weekend i am finally learning how to make egg rolls!!!! it's pretty much the only thing standing in the way of me successfully completing i-am-filipino 101.

my last culinary attempt was surprisingly a success. (pansit) let's hope for the same outcome!!