OrangeinaPod #7: A Simple New Year's Wish

Play today's episode here:

Episode 07 - A Simple New Year's Wish
~ 9min 12sec

A blessed new year to everyone...

Featured song in this episode: "Thankful" by Josh Groban (from the album Noel)

How to Celebrate New Year's Eve the Filipino Way (re-post)

I saw this article How to Celebrate New Year's Eve the Filipino Way on eHow.com. It was funny, I don't know when this article was written or who wrote it. I laughed out loud when i came to steps 4 and 5 -- Step 4 - Serve sweet rice and ginger tea after the countdown; Step 5 - On New Year's Day, roast a pig over hot coals and serve with any number of Filipino dishes such as pansit, lumpia and adobo.

No one serves sweet rice and ginger tea anymore. If there are, just a few probably. What we usually serve on New Year's eve are hot chocolate, sliced bread, spaghetti (the sweet kind with sliced hotdogs and ground pork, topped with cheddar cheese), hotdog on sticks, pork or chicken barbecue, and round fruits like grapes, ponkan (mandarin oranges), and fuji apples (as they symbolize money according to belief).

And Filipinos can't afford to roast pigs anymore. Usually its the usual pansit, lumpiang shanghai, menudo, afritada, more pork or chicken barbecue, and whatever food was left from the night before. No one serves adobo on New Year's day. Adobo is not considered a 'fiesta' dish, probably because of its color.

And to this list, I want to add Step 6 - Bring out the karaoke or videoke machine, bottles of San Miguel/Red Horse beer (or Ginebra for the kanto boys... or Fundador for the more opulent magkukumpares) with matching spicy pulutan (or whatever's on the table). After a few bottles, expect to hear the tomadors belting out Englebert Humperdink or Frank Sinatra hits till the wee hours of January 2.

This is the traditional Filipino New Year.

Note for the re-post: Tell me how do you celebrate New Year's eve/day?

A Purrem for Midnight

Sorry I’m not much of a poet, just tried this ‘purrem’ app from Whiskas website and here’s what I was able to come up with…  for Midnight…

And the Heavens Smiled Upon Us

The sky smiled on Asia, December 1, 2008, when Venus and Jupiter came in close proximity to our beloved Moon. While Venus is actually 100 million miles away and Jupiter nearly 550 million miles from the Earth, this exact combination and the Moon in the perfect spot created this beautiful artwork in the sky.

Some people might not appreciate it, but remember that this will not happen again until year 2052.

Merry Christmas everyone!

(View Slideshow from Yahoo! News)

Where Do You Belong?

De-wormed!

Midnight went on a trip to the vet this afternoon to be de-wormed. It took only a few minutes and it’s done. The vet gave Drontal, a cat dewormer (half tablet as Midnight is only .5 kgs). Before we left, I asked the vet to check on the gender of the cat. Apparently, at Midnight’s age (8 weeks) it’s fairly difficult to check, but after careful inspection we found out that Midnight is a HE. Coming home from the vet I checked the internet for some information about Drontal. I found out that it’s one of the effective broad-spectrum dewormers (generic name: praziquantel and pyrantel pamoate) for pets by Bayer. Midnight will go back for another dose after two weeks. Meanwhile, I also found this interesting article about Drontal on the ‘net, see if you can make a sense out of it.

Midnight’s Territory

Milky Way is a new addition to the family and Midnight wants to make sure that it's still her territory. Frightened Milky Way hides in his box. They’re in separate rooms now giving both space and time to adjust with each other. Midnight is so feisty and hisses at Milky Way a lot.

I Won!

As was mentioned in the latest episode of OrangeinaPod, I joined Jessica Zafra's contest and wrote a story about the mysterious piano in the middle of the Philippine jungle. The readers voted for their choice entries and they chose my story... Yey!!!

Read about the contest and my story entry here (Comment #7).

Thank you to those who voted for my entry and who commented.

• Jessica Zafra’s website is www.jessicarulestheuniverse.com