starshadow_rivaulx | Dinners and Din

So according to my home page, it's been four days since I blogged anything. Have been living an unremarkable life since the last time I posted, though I've been on Twitter a lot. Well, wanting to jot down "Laundry done, must get to work on tidying the office space" is better done as a tweet than as a blog entry, IMHO.

Basically, the last major event in my corner of the world was the funeral observances for former President Cory Aquino. Well, no sooner did the country lay her to rest than it was up in arms over a dinner at Le Cirque, NYC, at which our current President, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo allegedly celebrated her wedding anniversary with a party of approximately 25-30 people, depending on who your source is. (And believe me, the sources, like the demons, are Legion.) The bill, as reported on the NY Post's Page Six, came up to something like USD 20K. Roughly Php 1M, give or take a few hundred thousand pesos. The tsunami of public outrage was not long in coming. It was felt among certain sectors of the population, that, had the meal been a business dinner for the purpose of courting investments, the mind-boggling expenditure might still be forgiven. But as it was a private occasion, it was considered an outrageous thing for it to be celebrated (a) in such a posh venue, when 90% of the country can't even eat, let alone even eat in a McDonald's; (b) with so many of the "official family" and political allies in attendance; (c) with the nation officially in mourning over a woman, whose simple lifestyle before, during, and after her term as President was a sharp contrast to the current administration's alleged way of living.

The debate is snowballing - as I write this, I discover that the headlines of the day are trumpeting reports of yet *another* expensive dinner, this one costing about USD 15K; and that the Ombudsman's office is going to investigate these anomalous dining events. So far, Malacanang has said that the Le Cirque (in true Pinoy style now referred to as "circusgate" on Twitter) dinner was not paid for out of the public funds, someone else footed the bill out of his private funds. Reaction to this ran along the lines of: "If you believe that, then there's this bridge in Brooklyn we all might want to buy..." Seeing that the generous someone else is also a public official - a Congressman - and that the common folk are thoroughly convinced that an expense of that magnitude is *always* paid for out of the public funds, one can understand the difficulty in suspending disbelief.

It gets more showbiz, the reporting, the more I look at the news. There was a story that Malacanang would not sue the NY Post for writing about the dinner the way it did. *rolls eyes* Look, when the leader of a Third World country sits down to dinner at one of the most elegant places in the world, it will be written about. When 25-30 other people also sit down with said leader? Man, you've just thrown discretion out the window. Not only will you be written about, but any newsman worth their salt will try to dig up a few things about you, and not all of them will paint you in a flattering light. Then, should you pay for the dinner IN CASH...good Lord, who carries around that much money in cash? And how did they ever get so much of it into the States when our Central Bank has laws about how much to take out, and the US has laws about how much to take in (USD 10K at the moment, I think)? Someone's got a lot of 'splainin' to do, definitely!

I saw something to the effect that one of the people present at the dinner (an ex-actor turned Senator) complained about its length and the vast array of cutlery at the table. *blink* This Senator has apparently stayed behind in the US because he has important discussions in Washington, I just don't know. The whole sequence of events is surreal and if I think on the issues too long, my head hurts.

Not wanting my head to hurt, I continue on to the more mundane things. Let's see. I thought my Linux Mint system was getting a bit sluggish from all the experimenting I did with it, so after backing up all my stuff on the external drives, I scrubbed the laptop and reinstalled the Linux Mint XFCE system - a much lighter desktop manager, so now things are faster and more efficient than they used to be. In less than an hour I was back online, and all the updates and tweaking were done in the background while I caught up with my online life. Sweet!

In non-geekery stuff, Ramon lost his one-tooth denture, as I reported earlier. He's been fitted for a new one, and will be in full-on smile mode again by Sunday.

I have made dinner arrangements at Italianni's Greenbelt; we shall be hosting friends of the family, all told we will be a party of 12. Full details in another post after the 18th.

Today I bought new books! Remember how I said the biggest regret of my life was allowing myself to be convinced that giving away whole collections of books that did not align with "Christian reading" was a very good thing? Well, today at National Bookstore Greenbelt, I found TWO! VOLUMES! OF LESLIE CHARTERIS "THE SAINT" STORIES OMGWTFBBQPOLARBEAR.

So sue me, but I *loved* the TV series in my growing up - both the Roger Moore and Ian Holm incarnations. And before that, the stories in the books of my middle school library (I wonder if IS Manila still has those volumes, or if they're too high tech for that now). When I saw those two volumes, I. HAD. TO. HAVE. THEM. And now I do. *beams*

I also picked up a copy of a book by Fr. James Reuter, SJ, about Marian stories. That is to say, stories about people's relationship with the Virgin Mary. There is a part of me that knows that someday, I will pick up my rosary again and start praying it properly; as it is, my once non-praying husband is now a man of regular bedtime prayer while I am somewhat the prodigal daughter in terms of Catholic rituals. But I have too many instances of God's hand in my life to discount his presence in it; when I call, he answers, and that's enough for me. Besides, whatever my opinion of certain members of the priesthood, I still retain my respect for the vocation. It is not an easy thing to renounce the world, and people like Fr. Reuter, who came halfway around the world to teach others what he knew of God and the Catholic faith, have my respect. Besides, I've always loved his writing style, and to have a book of his is a treat.

Ramon's old cellphone charger died, so we got him a new one. We were busy at Greenbelt - in fact, we managed to circumnavigate the entire complex, ending at the new Andok's outlet, where we got liempo and atchara for the dinner table. See, I'd told the maid that we might not be able to make it back for dinner, but our business at Greenbelt took less time than I thought. So knowing there was no provision for us, we decided to add to the family fun, and it did not disappoint. Yum!

Will be doing laundry tomorrow. Gracious, but the week has gone by so fast! I see that this is a lengthy post, so I'll stop here for the moment. Catch you when I catch you!