starshadow_rivaulx | Relish the Day

Not that this entry has anything to do with pickles or anything of that sort. ::grin:: Today was one of those blessed days where most everything turned out according to plan.

Had a good breakfast, and then Ramon and I set off for the village clubhouse. Me to the post office to buy a couple of packing boxes, and he to the barangay dentist to set up an appointment. When we reunited, it turns out that the dentist works on a "first come, first serve" basis - if no one is in the chair, then just jump in and make yourself at home! So Ramon is thinking of getting himself checked out either tomorrow or Friday.

Then...Plaza San Antonio. Money machine first, to get a little extra cash. Then Mercury Drug, to pick up the prescription refill I phoned in before we left the house. Realized when we got home that we forgot to buy Glucerna, but we can pick a can up easily some time soon.

Off to Dr. Batungbacal, to pick up Ma's glasses. Dad's glasses were sent to the lab just yesterday, which means they'll be ready by Friday at the latest. Ma looks a treat in the new frames I picked out for her - she looked pretty much like an owl in the old frames she was using for her bifocals.

Then to Travel Plan in Ermita, where I popped in to renew Ma's passport. The agency folks said we had the option of applying for the brand-new passport with the readable data, BUT - first we'd have to get new ID pictures, with a blue background. Then we'd have to put Ma in the processing queue so she could be scheduled for a personal appearance. (????????????) No, I have no idea why they would want a senior citizen to go present herself. Younger people like me, maybe. But someone who is in their eighties? Eh? So I told them to just get the usual low-tech passport and save us all the aggravation.

Having finished with all the important tasks, we then headed off for lunch at the Mall of Asia. A simple lunch at Mann Hann (which I forgot to photograph, again!) that gave us a pleasant surprise. You see, we'd ordered a <i>lechon macau</i> (deep fried pork belly) to share, and two cups of jasmine rice, and two Diet Cokes. Ramon asked for the free soup that most Chinese eateries give as a courtesy to their customers. Instead of the usual cups of soup, we were given this hugeness bowl, a ladle, and two soup cups. Fresh and hot broth, yum! Oh, and we had <i>siomai</i> (steamed pork dumplings), too. ::beams::

Being that for once we were in one of my favorite malls without any errands to run, and that said mall was not crowded, and that it was a pretty day - I decided to "live in the moment" and take a slow ramble through the place. We ended up in the department store, where I paid one of the credit card bills (ok, so maybe there was *one* errand). Ramon picked up a couple of undershirts in the style he's been hunting down for ages now; and a peek into the record bar netted us three new bossa nova OPM albums - all oldies - Hotdog, Cinderella, and VST&Co. I love me bossa nova, it's so soothing!

Coffee at Starbucks, just in time to watch the thunderstorm. The barista was a wee bit distracted - I had to repeat my order for sans rival cake twice before she punched it in. ::shrug:: Ok, so maybe I kept them on their toes by saying I wanted brewed coffee...in a mug...a TALL mug, please...but still, the girl was kind of zoned out expecting me to pay when she hadn't rung up my final order.

Popped into SM Appliance Center to look up a good CD player. They don't make dedicated music players any more, it seems, they all play DVD/CD/MP3 discs. But what if all you want to do is play music? Hm? Walked out of there without anything - if we want a new player, we'll probably get it at the Appliance Center in SM Makati, or in the basement of Makati Cinema Square. ::shrug:: We'll see.

Went home before we spent any more money, had a light dinner, and the house is all settled down now. My tummy is having PMS conniptions, not knowing what it wants, but knowing that it wants *something*. I'll go see if I can't nibble on something later.

Switched from Opera to Vienna for newsfeed reading. Not bad, I think this is a newer version from the one I used before, and it works pretty neatly. So there's going to be a lot of happy online activity with that in the future, I'm thinking.

Thanks to hubby, I actually remembered to start the genset! ::loves on precious hubby::

Tomorrow, I stay home and get laundry done. As usual. Catch up on paperwork while the laundry runs, and maybe pound out an entry or two for posting on the travel journal. It would be *so* nice to finish it before the year ends, and thus have the fun of having completed two travel journals within the last twelve-month. ::grin::