Monday, March 30, 2020

FLAVORS OF QUARANTINE

On the second week of the plague, Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf obliged us with an adventure through digital space, hopping through a myriad of routers that brought us to Vitoria-Gasteiz where The Kraken ran and intercoursed in the silence of the white city before a quick snack of txantxigorri with Baztan's invisible guardian.

In Chaosan, our eyes and ears feasted on a spread of rice noodle strips, marinated crabs, bouncy beef and fish balls, fresh Jingzhou oysters, an array of raw and boiled fish, handmade tofu cakes, fresh mussels and a variety of hotpot that were all garnished with olive fruits, dried seaweeds, preserved radish and tempered with brine, Puning bean paste, Chaozao orange, fish sauce, chopped galangal, Chinese motherwort and Hakka tea.


And in Yunnan, the centerpiece is sliced Xuan Wei cured ham, fried and stewed, with mashed nan pie vegetables and sa pie meat slices sauteed in lacquer seed oil, pickled sow thistle, strips of Dali cheese and rice cakes made from salted flour on the side that were finished off with a dessert of sour fruits and boiled Musa bananas with sticky rice.      



We also got to play with young Simon in San Mateo and were with him when he apprenticed in Madrid and spent a mournful debauchery in Paris, prepared his notes as he organized his first rebellion in Caracas and during his exile to Jamaica, and cheered his victory against the Royalist army in the decisive Battle of Boyaca where appratently, his forces were nourished with dried beef (and sometimes horse) jerky.

We broke through quarantine to find 5 days of solace in the trails and for 7 days, subsisted on brunch and linner, with french toast for late evenings when we feel the need to eat, preparing just enough for us and the dogs, alternating between fish, chicken, pork and beef garnished with rationed vegetables because these are uncertain times with restricted access to food sources.     

Monday, March 23, 2020

LOCKED DOWN

This was our last lunch out before the lockdown, in an almost empty mall where I have my phone fixed after paying our insurance premium and before an eternity of waiting for a ride back home.


We got locked down the next day so we stocked up for a week's supply after each of our daily bike rides: fruits and vegetable from the wet market, frozen food from Alfa Mart, groceries from Jo's and our daily dose of pineapple juice from 7-11. 

I got my Home Quarantine Pass and obeyed the curfew hours except one night of discreetly celebrating our barangay fiesta. 

We worked from and stayed home as ordered.

And turned off the TV whenever our uninspriring leader goes on air for his incoherent ramblings. 


We got though Week 1 of a month-long lockdown and that for me is sufficient reason to celebrate and violate the first night of the liquor ban.

At home of course.

Monday, March 16, 2020

THE GLADIATOR

I own the fucking bike trails!

And he does, at least as far as Equitem Tenuem's duel with the winds is concerned, vengeful like Spartacus and as horny as Gannicus can be, driven by a hatred of the sugar and cholesterol thickening his ageing blood, inspired by 200 Vitality points that will pay for his son's monthly phone bill.   



Then legions of venomous substance descended in between apologies and gratitudes, the ludus shaking in Crixus' orgy with Doctore's unforgotten love, breasts of all sizes intercoursing with an assortment of uncircumsized tails, wine consumed from mid-day to dusk to ward off the pestilence.

He, The Gladiator, must survive to ride, drink and fuck another day...     

Monday, March 09, 2020

A WAR IN POBLACION

Ike XXXIV hated Uncle Ho so Jack XXXV sent advisers, first through encouraging food crawl reviews until LBJ XXXVI escalated by opting for Makati as the first preference, that was until Dick XXXVII's localization spawned a gentrification of the whorehouses, a misrepresented umami chicken from the aptly named Bad Bird and Kermit's deplorable mojito slurpee slipping through the "day that will live in infamy" and earned a declaration of war on Poblacion and its overrated restaurants and lousy cocktails, intense enough to force Jerry XXXVIII's capitulation.


The war rages, Poblacion to be forever expunged and consumed by a pandemic, the parchment to the Lowlands tainted, a burger rinsed in Australian horse pee shrouding the bad news of young age.


Gooks advanced from the countryside to encircle the city but the last marines escaped from a rooftoop on Friday night when poison flowed and preluded the spectacle of jesters pissing down on their sons.  


I own the trails, and I owe a blind man the lesson of winning your battles amidst darkness, of losing a war yet victorious.


Monday, March 02, 2020

THE CRASH HAS LANDED

YOON SE-RI 1 [thinking to herself while munching on ittip and nilingta nga kamote]: "Oh my gawd, kailan ko kaya siya makikita na naka-oblation? Sure akong bigalou ang chopopo. Puede ba, sawang-sawa na ako sa biogesic"!   

RI JEONG-HYUK 1 [thinking also while adjusting his funny hat]: "Paano ko kaya sasabihin sa kanya na hindi pa siya nagtutubras mula n'ung lumanding siya sa amin," [nods to Se-ri then went out to attend the 38th public installation of the Munoz Bodies that crash landed a year ago on a relieved outgoing Venerable Master].     


Four days later...

YOON SE-RI 2: "Nasilip ko ang mga karruba na nagluluto ng samgyeopsal. Meron yatang may birthday. Tara mag-gate crash"!

RI JEONG-HYUK 2: "Sila 'yung mga Mistah. Nagpabunot ng ngipin si PVM at may pasok sina Ateng kaya hindi sila nakasama sa Casiguran. Si Kuya Shubert yung nakatayo na may hawak na tinuno na nakabalot sa dahon ng kung ano-ano. Timawa sa alak 'yan"!


Every other day dialogue:

YOON SE-RI 3: "Ano ba naman yang bisikleta mo. Mga sarplas na pinagsawaan na ng mga Hapon! Bumili ka n'ung katulad ng kay Kuya Shubert"!

RI JEONG-HYUK 3: "Alam mo bang utang 'yan na isang taon niyang binayaran? Na kaya madalas siyang magbisikleta ay para makakuha ng libreng P200 na load sa Vitality bukod sa nabuburyong na siya dahil hindi makabiyahe"!

Nearby, someone turned on Netflix for the 10th episode of a Korean telenovela...