Driving nostalgia away

"One day more

another day, another destiny..."

-Les Miz

Another year will soon be over. How did it happen so fast? Nostalgia just hit me like a powerful kick in the gut. I don't need to close my eyes to see flashes of many happy Christmases in Carrascal, and to feel again the loss of something not mine when another year had ended.

An ending or a beginning? The new year is often a mass of conflicting emotions, like a rush of excitement to open a present but reluctant to put the beautiful wrapper away....I'll better contain myself. Who knows what terrible metaphors I would end up writing here if I wont stop being nostalgic right now? Besides, with nostalgia comes melancholia and I refuse to entertain it tonight.

Okay, just a little self- indulgence then. I will allow myself to travel down memory lane of 2007 but will only have four stops for moments or stuff that still crack me up. Happy happy, joy joy. :)

1. That woman who stole a tray of potted tulips along Francouzka here in Prague. As if the choice wasn't hilarious enough, she wore a pair of high heels for the job. Click here for the full story.

2. Hitchcock's movies. In just two months we covered 15 or 16 of his movies. No matter how packed with suspense they are, there are often scenes or lines that would make you howl with laughter. Unsolicited as it is, I do advice one who appreciates droll humor to see his movies. Start with "North by Northwest" and you'll know what I mean.

3. I've never read a book that is a masterpiece of unparalleled humor other than Roald Dahl's "My Uncle Oswald." One time I was reading some pages on the metro and I was trying so hard to stifle a laugh I was red-faced and near tears. I probably looked like someone heading for a mental facility.

4. The Fantomas* Chronicles. I have a kid at school, whom I will hide in the name Fantomas, who used to poop in his pants almost every day for one or two weeks straight. He was three at that time. The funniest thing about it was that he immediately bent like an acrobat with his palms planted flat on the floor everytime I wiped his bum. Regardless of how many times I told him he didn't need to, that I would see the target perfectly, he still bent as if his life depended on it. This never failed to crack my husband up. Usually A's first line when I got home was "So did Fantomas s*+@ in his pants again?" or "Did he bend 360 degrees again?" I probably have a weird sense of humor because for something that other people consider gross, I actually found those pooping episodes hilarious.

There, those four somehow drove nostalgia away. Happy happy, joy joy again. :)

*Fantomas is an old French movie that is dubbed in Czech and has been shown on TV here so many times. The absence of hair on his (Fantomas') head made A give my kid this monicker. And since we are on this topic, here's another funny moment with my little Fantomas at school; I made them listen to Simon Says and they had to touch whatever body part Simon was saying. When Simon said "touch your hair", my Fantomas didn't do anything. I asked why he wasn't touching his hair. He replied " Because Marielle, I have no hair."

I love this kid.

'Twas a white Christmas

It's been so cold here in CZ. Everyday the temperature is something below zero. But those who dreamed of a white Christmas especially here in Prague was probably disappointed. Christmas came and went, Jezišek (baby Jesus) and Santa already came bearing gifts but snow is still sorely absent in the capital city. And to rub it in their faces, hehe, here are some pics of my Christmas:

'Twas white and 'twas beautiful, but for me snow doesn't make Christmas. It's only a much welcome embellishment of the real thing.

Hodgepodge, hotchpotch

I woke up with a throbbing headache again, or the throbbing headache woke me up again. What did I eat? Did I lack sleep or overslept? Period? I gotta run to Interspar to have one last quick shopping for gifts, no time to ponder what caused this head to seemingly split. Green or "Dr. Migraine" tea? Do you know that lots of herbal tea are better than over-the-counter meds? Been drinking chamomile tea. No cramps during period but darn, this migraine is what I got. Cramps are better than migraine for sure. Six slices of toasted bread for breakfast again. This anaconda in my stomach will one day eat me. Have to pack, have to pack for Tisnov. Love Tisnov but always dreading the time spent carrying bags to catch the bus then the metro and spending three hours on a packed train. Gotta bake more cookies for Babi. Found a keeper recipe for a delectable and healthy nut and fruit bars. It will be a busy day for me. I look outside and all I can see is gloom, no streak of sunlight at all. The thermometer says minus 3 outside, which probably means it's minus 5. Cold cold day, warm warm hearts. Three days before Christmas. I smile as I leave the window. No amount of gloom outside can darken my day and my Christmas to come.

Finally, Schengen!

Yey, today the Czech Rep is already a part of Schengen! That means no visa (I still carry a Filipino passport) for me anymore when I travel to most parts of Europe. I can't wait for warm weather so we can do all the traveling anytime, anywhere.

For more about Schengen and its member states, please click here.

Life is

.. less complicated when you're older. I guess the hormones of youth can make one a drama queen. Found this undated "poem" written in my personal journal I sent A as a gift centuries ago. I barely recognized the "poet."

My lips taste like a hundred years
of bottled up bitterness
My ears hear cries of weary children
in agony of a life that shouldn't be
These hands I call mine
can only touch a world of wasted lives
Each bulging vein reminds me
of life spent in complete dissipation
including my own
My feet tread on acres of barren land
where the wind is chilling me to the marrows
of my breaking bones
My nose forgets the scent of a coming rain
in it permanently resides the acrid smell
of burning humanity
Dusk is settling to where my eyes see
a mass of vultures, of people
hungrily waiting for my fall
In the shallowest regresses of my soul
lies the shadow of a smile
And I wonder why did the love have to die
Why do we all have to sigh

Geez!

Calorific!

Czech Christmas cookies are totally loaded with calories. This I learned just by reading Mamka's recipes. Imagine all 250 grams of Hera butter plus more or less 300g of powdered sugar, eggs, couple hundred grams of ground nuts in just two trays of cookies. Caloriiiiific, isn't it? But who cares, really? Certainly not me. Gazillion calories notwithstanding, the husband and I baked two kinds last weekend. Then, as if suddenly hit by a strong feeling of success, he announced he would like to bring his officemates the products of his own labor. This drove me to bake the immortal brownies and choco-chip cookies to add some variety and for the husband to be Mr. Popular the next day at work.

And he got the title, of course, hehe.... The cookies in a shape of a flower and moon are my most fave Czech Christmas cookies. They are called "Linecke" ( which doesn't mean anything in Czech according to A). The chocolate ones are called " Medvedi Pracky" or Bears' Paws. They look totally harmless because of their size, right? Now I tell you, if you're constantly checking your waistline, immediately put these cookies to a place where the sun wont shine---like someone else's stomach. But if you're all for the season of giving and eating, have one or two, and then some more. After all, Christmas only comes once a year so eat and be merry!

Last Wednesday......

...was my birthday. Friends here and in PI are asking how I spent it. I was on day off that day so I enjoyed it more than I did last year. It was a quiet celebration, just enjoying the now..

- had lunch with A at an Indian resto on the fifth (?) floor of Palladium mall. Great ambience, delicious food, reasonable price. A must visit (again) place.
- bought a 6-foot pine tree and adorned it with "blings." I told you our tree will be up weeks before Christmas day.
- baked Christmas cookies with A. It was his third time to bake with me since my grand debut in the kitchen. Loved it a lot.

What did I get? Hmm... that's something for me to know and you to guess. :)

Making my own Christmas ornaments

Those Christmas ornaments, they are so expensive! Sure you can store and use them for more Christmases to come but still.... So I fixed this problem by making my own ornaments. Below are some products of my "creativity." Anyone is welcome to copy. :)

The wreath. I just wanted something simple and cheerful hanging on our front door. The simpler it is, the more expensive it gets. The cheapest I found was for over 200kč and they did look cheap. So I bought the materials and made one myself. The damage? One hundred and nine crowns. Only.

The wand. Just look at them, any 5-year old can do them. I bought the red one from Obi for 27kč. Later I made some with my kids at school. The gold one is my example. I took it home to give the red one a partner. Really it doesn't look inferior at all next to the professionally made one considering I didn't spend a single crown for it.

Our fridge is no longer lonely as its whiteness is no longer unadorned. I made the star. M, my co-teacher, one day thought of making stockings with the kids. She made one as an example and later decided it was too nice or too complicated for them. She ended up making one for me and one for A, another co-teacher.

The "ball." This idea just popped out of nowhere. Last week we had to decorate our Christmas tree at school. I made my kids choose pre-cut shapes from a cardboard paper. They had to cover them with aluminum foil then glue green and red small pieces of colored paper to look like a poinsettia. One tiny piece of yellow paper completed the look.

Making ornaments is fun. I enjoyed it so much I may quit teaching next Christmas and start a career in it. :)

Feeding the world

Hit by a cooking bug is how I am since learning to cook edible meals. I never pictured myself holding a spatula, not even in my wildest dream. So what happened to me? No one, not even myself, actually knows. I only know there's a force within me which drives me to whip, stir, steam, etc, as if I was on a mission to feed the world.

A few days ago a friend now residing in US left me a message on Tagged. I mentioned to her a day before the dinner I hosted for my friends last Monday. "Ug makabalo na diay kuno ka moluto ron?," she incredulously asked in Cebuano. (And you can cook now?) Well, I couldn't blame her for being skeptical. I was known in our circle as someone who couldn't even hardboil an egg. So Mama, below is for your eyes to feast on. To see is to believe, eh? He-he

Upper Left: Cassava cake. I found some grated cassava at the Thai/Asian food shop along Francouska. Upper right: "Bola-bola" is Philippines' answer to meatballs and Czech's "Sekana."
Lower left: "Siopao" or steamed pork dumplings. These are similar to Czech's "ovocne knedle." The difference is we stuff the dumpling with meat, they stuff it with fruits. We steam it. They boil it.
Lower right: The nameless starter. Maybe we can call it M's toast, hehe.

I also cooked fried rice but forgot to take a pic. Chef Lokreng prepared a very yummy tuna pasta enough to feed the entire Praha. Also not pictured are the chocolate muffins I baked. Two ended up in the bin later because the appointed resident pacman, A , couldn't eat them fast enough before they hardened like a rock.

How many were invited again? Only four and a 1/4 people. (Tekla has a 3-month-old baby.) Only three and one-fourth showed up. One was MIA so Mia missed the siopao!:)

Hambugera kaayo noh? hahahaha....

It's Christmas!

I'm a certified Christmas addict so naturally I'm very pumped up now that the season to be jolly is here again. I don't know if I'm contagious or what but I've easily convinced A to have a Poinsettia in our flat two weeks before December even started. It's been sitting in one corner of our flat, so pretty in all its red and green glory.

The other day I searched its origin or how it was associated with Christmas online so I can tell a story about this plant to my kids at school. It's apparently named after Joel Roberts Poinsett, the first US ambassador to Mexico, who introduced the plant in the U.S. in 1825. Legend has it that in Mexico a child who could not afford a gift to offer to Christ on Christmas Eve picked some weeds from the side of a road. The child was told that a humble gift, if given in love, would be acceptable in God's eyes. When brought into the church, the weeds bloomed into red and green flowers and the congregation felt they had witnessed a Christmas miracle.

Aside from a poinsettia there was nothing else that made our flat Christmasy. I wanted to have a Christmas tree as early as today but apparently they are not selling them yet. Czech Christmas tradition means having and decorating the tree one day before Christmas, but I'm a full-blooded Pinay so my tree will be up and about at least two weeks before D-day. Hmmm, maybe this weekend then.....

So what did I do to put Christmas touch in our nest? I went to the bathroom and came up with this:
I hope I'd still be able to hold the handles to open this cabinet, and I hope A's initial reaction when he comes home later today wont be "what the h........?"