ROTFL

Excerpts from my youngest sister's blog:



"after a week of pondering on Hana Yori Dango, i finally got the moral of the J-dorama:

Hurt the ones you ought to like and they will adore (love) you in return.

...which definitely makes sense to me.

one of my older sisters, the one i used to shout at, kick, punch, push away, pull out the hair, and kick some more back on my bullying days (that is, physically) turned out to be a generous gift-giver to me, the one who bought me my tablet pc, my laptop, my mp3 player, most of my Emily Strange tee shirts, accessories, and now, our payment for the supposedly internet monthly bill plus 100 bucks since march.

amazing?

terrific!"

Guess what? It's ME who she's talking about. Just like in fairy tale books, the ugly ones are always abusive to the pretty ones....hahahahahahaha! =)

New pics:


Friday Celebration at Outback Steakhouse

My co-workers final days at Nin-teen-duh

Finally

Ok, just got off the phone with an HR Rep informing me that,



"I GOT THE JOB!!!!"



Weeeeee I mean Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!! =)

See, I'm no P.I.!

"Inhabitants of the Filipino islands, although technically bordering the Pacific Ocean, do not fall under the definition of "Pacific Islanders" because such islands are not located in any of the three regions of Oceania (Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia), and are therefore classified as "Asians" on the U.S. Census. Despite this, a growing number of Filipino-Americans have denied the classification of being "Asian", instead claiming to be "Pacific Islanders", which has provoked dismay among some Pacific Islanders who actually belong to the Oceanic cultures comprising the commonly accepted definition of the term, and has also prompted allegations of cultural denial from other Filipinos, the worldwide majority of whom identify themselves as being Asian (as the Filipino government has stated since its foundation that the Philippines is a part of Asia)."



- Wikipedia

To the street fair!

Skagit's Annual Street Fair
in downtown Mount Vernon
It's only a 5-min drive from my brother's house.

Merchandise booths

Dry goods being sold are rather pricey (I'm converting it to PhilPesos!? hehehe) but of mediocre quality.

My US$5/pc
dingleberry kabob

Did I just say dingleberry? Hahaha. Never mind. I was also holding a choco-dipped strawberry kabob that belongs to Madires.

Mama Sita
este Madires

People were staring at us... because of what we're eating. Ikaw ba naman ebak este dingleberry ang kinakain mo. An old Caucasian guy even shouted at us, "Hey! That looks yummy".



Here comes the interesting part - I caught a Filipino family with a middle-aged white guy in tow, looking at me. Of course, I took off my sunglasses and smiled at them. Now, that's sarcasm! Hehehe. Two of the daughters (very Filipino-looking but with blonde hair) were whispering at each other's ears with matching fingers pointing at me. Let me guess, they said, "Lookie! That's like a Filipina who doesn't even look like us. She's like not dyed her hair, blonde and like shaved like her eyebrows like to a thin like line. Ewww... a F.O.B!"... Hahaha kidding!

Native Americans playing
celtic-sounding songs

They're selling their album/cd for only US$15.00.


A few pics here.


Nothing really interesting in the said fair so we left an hour later.



Allow me to introduce a new photo blog of an online friend. It features Pinoy style, South Beach diet foods:


http://passionofmyeyes.kadyo.com/



Galing nila di ba?

Catch me if you can

Two nights ago, I got pulled over by a patrol officer for driving 36mph in a 30mph speed limit zone. This happened around 1am in downtown Mount Vernon. Although the officer asked for my driver's license, he didn't issue me a speeding ticket. Whoooops!



I read somewhere that people back home are going gaga over Moc Crocs?
Dito ini-isnab lang sya ng mga tao kasama na ako dun! Heh! Panget panget naman. It's just one of the overhyped, expensive footwear next to Havaianas.

Bed of Tulips

Location: Right across from Roozengaarde Tulips Farm in Mount Vernon, Washington.
(Free admission and parking !)

emo-tera

my third time to visit
this farm!

More pics here.

Juanita Beach Park
in Kirkland

A few pics here.

Getting rusticated

Hurrah for Spring! Once again, it's the time of the year when tulips are in full bloom, sakuras abound and that I get to frolic outdoors!

Burst of green and yellow
(at the front lawn of my bro's house)

Look Ma, I can fly!
(A japanese family smiled at my silliness)

View more pics here.




It was sunny earlier (thank God!) so I, my siblings and Madires seized the opportunity to attend nearby festivals.



First stop : Alpaca Ranch and Tulips Farm (Free parking & admission)
Alpaca looks like a cross between a camel and a sheep. It sells for no less than US$10,000. Yes, ten thousand dollarsss!!!

taken while inside a
moving automobile

Alpaca

Just an FYI, Alpaca makes a funny sound while it wiggle its nose. That sound is akin to a Filipino parent potty training a child, the "uhmmm" sound (a.k.a "ebak" training) ... no kidding!



A few kawaii pictures here.


To satisfy our cravings for salmon, we headed to Hillcrest Park for the Kiwanis Club's Annual Salmon BBQ. For US$11.00, we devoured on these:

- Alderwood-grilled salmon
- Baked potato
- Garlic bread with butter bar
- Coleslaw
- Fruit Punch
- Chocolate Ice Cream bar

It's actually an annual fundraising event. The volunteers (cashiers, grillers, servers, etc) were all senior citizens!




Mama Sarah or anyone, drop me a note if you would like to attend the Tulips Fest.




Before I bid Adieu, let me leave you with a so-called "Kodak Moment" taken last April 14 in Mt. Vernon.

Rainbow and a prism (!?)

Three more pics here.





Babush!

Overplayed Song

There's one song that keeps on playing in my head but let me just quote my favorite lines:



You've got your dumb friends
I know what they say
They tell you I'm difficult
But so are they
But they don't know me
Do they even know you?



- Avril Lavigne's My Happy Ending

Freebies for me!

This mug given to my supervisor by his manager only to be passed on to.....me!











A Latino co-worker holding a Christmas Elf (carrying two fresh, red roses) plushy passed by my workstation. This guy confessed a few weeks ago that he has a crush on me so I joked, "Is that for me?" Bah, he walked towards my direction to hand me the stuffed toy. Akin nga! Kamukha ko daw kasi. Ay, bastos!

I'd rather starve than...

My credit company (Oh! it's Bank of America!) is giving me a headache for the third time, charging me a fee for some credit card protection syempre pa, without my consent. As much as I want to get my problem resolved via e-mail, I just cannot. From my experience, nothing gets resolved in an e-mail/chat support. For them, resolution meant providing the call center's contact number. Kaya nga much-coveted ang posisyon na yun eh! Hehehe. I have no other option but to give them a call. So, I dialed their Customer Care number, entered my achuchuchu, waited for 10 minutes..... Got connected to a live person...yehey di ba!? NOT! He transferred me to another rep, who transferred me to another. Hay naku!




What happened was, two years ago I signed up for a Credit Report Monitoring feature (costing me US$129/year). This added feature goes hand-in-hand with a RGI Card Protection which unfortunately is not for free. It's US$49.00/year!




I'd rather starve than work in a call center....again!



Pag hindi ako kinonvert ng Nin-teen-do sa permanenteng position, lalayasan ko sila. Bah, dami ko nang nai-contribute sa kanila. Maglilinis nalang ako ng mga banyo banyo. Malaki pa kita. Hahaha.

Something fishy about it

Fish Cafe in downtown Kirkland. There we spent our last chance to partake in the 25 for US$25 deal. Ryan and I had high hopes of getting the same exceptional service as we had with Barking Frog. To our dismay -



= their food was bland (my bistro salad has little traces of vinaigrette)
= horrible service (it took forever for our food to arrive)
= we got an unintelligible server (she didn't do well in describing their "Char" (fish) so Ryan settled for a lamb instead)


The only consolation was we got a magnificent, nearly-bird's eye view of Lake Washington.




Ryan had ginger potstickers, braised lamb and choco vanilla creme brulee
I had bistro salad, braised lamb and strawberry rhubarb torte



Fish Cafe - never again!

at the lobby

A few pics here.