Four-eyes

I had LP see an ophthalmologist last week, and she was found to have slight astigmatism. The doc said it wasn't necessary for her to wear glasses, that her eyesight will eventually correct itself, but as the overbearing mother, I didn't want to take the risk.


So we trooped on over to the optical shop where she chose this pair of purple Disney-themed glasses:





She's never looked so cute, and so...angelic. Like she's not at all the rambunctious, loud, boisterous, unruly child that calls me Mommy.

What I did over the weekend

I've always wanted to make a meringue pie. The soft, cloud-like exterior always intrigued me. Is it soft? Is it stiff and crunchy, like those meringue kisses sold at the corner store? Is it really full of air? And what's underneath it? Just a lot more meringue?

I finally got the resolve to find out once and for all, through baking one myself. And the result was not one bit disappointing:

The topping is soft, like cotton, but firm to the touch. (Just don't poke it too much.) And yes, it is full of air. The cream filling was yummy, though.

Check out how beautifully golden-brown the meringue topping is. Doesn't it make you want to touch the screen? Vanilla cream pie. It was supposed to be lemon meringue, but the leftover lemon I had from last week's blueberry cheesecake got molded over.

Verdict? Really nice to look at, guaranteed to impress guests. Visually, anyway. As for the taste, it would really delight people who absolutely love sweets. I, for one, would be content with one slice.

Still satisfied, anyway. Pretty good for a first-timer.

As for LP, she was content to lick off the remnants of the whipped eggwhites from the mixing bowl.

True Colors

There's so much you can learn from children's encyclopedias. Or perhaps, I'm really more ignorant than I thought.

I was reading to LP one evening and the topic we I thumbed through was about vision. There was a small part there about color-blindness, and some pictures of dots that will determine normal vision or colorblindness.

LP looked at the first picture and said, "23".

Huh? I asked.

"There, I can see the number 23."

Where?

"There, can't you see it?" she replied, tracing the number 23 with her finger on the picture.

"Er, no," I replied. "You're pulling my leg." As mother to a perennially rambunctious, and imaginative seven-year-old, I vowed never to fall prey to her practical jokes.

There was another picture on the next page. Barely had my lips moved to ask what she saw in the dots when she blurted, "A sailboat."

What sailboat? I asked.

"There, mom," and she traces yet again another sailboat on the dots with her finger.

I decided to call in a responsible adult, Andolini. He had been fixing the ceiling in the other room and was not privy to what almost became a frustrating verbal tussle.

"Twenty-three," he points to the first picture. "Can't you see it?"

I scratched my head.

"And there's a sailboat," he goes on. LP giggles.

"Mom's colorblind!" she shouts with glee.

I felt...blind. Like I deserved the parking slots nearest the mall entrance.

The following day at the office, I Google-searched color blindness.

From this site, the following pics showed themselves.


Well, you're supposed to see a square, a circle, and a star. Everyone's supposed to see that, colorblind or not.

Next pic:

Try to find a circle, star and/or square within 3 seconds:


I found a square right away. But no star nor square. Surprise, surprise, colorblind folks will only be able to see a square. "Normal" people should see it, too, along with a faint brown circle. (Duh.)

Another pic:

See the boat? Damn! I only see dots!

I figured a second opinion of sorts (denial being the first phase of depression) was needed, so I checked out this other site.

This was the third pic, and I was happy to see the number 70.


Until I read that if you're colorblind, that's exactly what you should see. "Normal" people, like the rest of my colleagues in the office, should see 29.

On the last pic, the number 5 was completely clear to me. Can't you see it? It's so...VISIBLE.


To us colorblind folk, anyway. If you have my daughter's perfect vision, you'll only see a meaningless scatter of dots.

So not only am I nearsighted and astigmatic, I'm also colorblind. May I add, though, that it's not at all like I can't tell the colors of the stoplight, nor what color blouse I'm wearing now (red, FYI), nor that I wonder as to why they call it the White House. It just means I can't fly planes nor be an astronaut. Shucks. That seriously limits my career options.

Although that does explain why I wore green to an Ateneo-La Salle basketball game many, many years ago. I swore I was wearing blue. My friends insisted it was green. And so did the people we asked on the street. And the rest of the fans in the bleachers.

Because my boss is out...

Swiped from Punzi:

CATOLOGY
Q: What is your salad dressing of choice?
A. All hail Caesar!

Q: What is your favorite fast food restaurant?
A. Jollibee...they have everything, including thieves.

Q: What is your favorite sit-down restaurant?
A. Gullivers Steakhouse. *drool*

Q: On average, what size tip do you leave at a restaurant?
A. 20% standard. If the service sucked, no tip. If they waited on me as if I were Paris Hilton, I'd be more generous.

Q: What food could you eat every day for two weeks and not get sick of it?
A: Prime rib from Gullivers.

Q: What are your pizza toppings of choice?
A. Mushroom, pepperoni, and plenty of cheese.

Q: What do you like to put on your toast?
A. Butter, real butter, not Dari Creme nor Buttercup, because they're really margarine (Check the fine print.)

TECHNOLOGY
Q: What is your wallpaper on your computer?
A. Windows landscape. Got more important things to do.

Q: How many televisions are in your house?
A. Two. All hand-me-downs. My folks change TVs once a year, so now I have two flat-screen TVs that replaced two perfectly-working ones that were donated to two lucky Yayas.

BIOLOGY
Q: Are you right-handed or left-handed?
A. Right-handed. Rather uninteresting.

Q: Have you ever had anything removed from your body?
A. My appendix, when I was 18. Two wisdom teeth, apart from the baby teeth that everyone has to get rid of.

Q: What is the last heavy item you lifted?
A. Yesterday's purchase of one rotisserie chicken and rellenong bangus.

Q: Have you ever been knocked unconscious?
A. I once passed out because of the weather. Does that count?

BULLCRAPOLOGY (pardon the words)

Q: If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die?
A. Yes. So that I could compute exactly how much I should be saving up now for LP's inheritance. (She gets everything, assuming XLH doesn't get greedy.)

Q: If you could change your name, what would you change it to?
A. Paris Hilton because I look like her.

Q: What color do you think looks best on you?
A: Blue. Not because I come from the hill where the bright blue eagles fly, but I look most OK in it.

Q: Have you ever swallowed a non-food item by mistake?
A. Hmm...so far no one's put a surprise engagement ring in my dessert, if that's what you mean.

Q: Have you ever saved someone’s life?
A. I once caught a woman who collapsed while her boyfriend looked at her helplessly. Does that count? She could've hit her head on the pavement....

Q: Has someone ever saved yours?
A. Figuratively, perhaps.

DAREOLOGY

Q: Would you kiss a member of the same sex for $100?
A. Sure. Make it a hot lesbian and I'll have sex with her, too. I'll consider the money as icing on the cake.

Q: Would you allow one of your little fingers to be cut off for $200,000
A. OK.

Q: Would you never blog again for $50,000?
A. OK.

Q: Would you pose naked in a magazine for $250,000?
A. OK.

Q: Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1000?
A. OK.

Q: Would you, without fear of punishment, take a human life for $1,000,000?
A. OK.

DUMBOLOGY
Q: What is in your left pocket?
A. My skirt's got no pockets.

Q: Is Napoleon Dynamite actually a good movie?
A. Haven’t seen it.

Q: Do you have hardwood or carpet in your house?
A. Neither. Got marble floors.

Q: Do you sit or stand in the shower?
A. Stand. Haven't gotten around to getting a stool for the shower. Helps a lot when you gotta scrub hard-to-reach areas, and it lessens the risk of slipping.

Q: How many pairs of flip flops do you own?
A. Two, LP's always taking one pair with her.

Q: Last time you had a run-in with the cops?
A. None.

Q: What do you want to be when you grow up?
A. Rich.

Q: Who is number 1 on your top 8?
A. LP.

LASTOLOGY

Q: Friend you talked to?
A. Andolini.

Q: Last person who called you?
A. Andolini.

Q: Person you hugged?
A. Andolini.

Q: Person you kissed?
A. Andolini.

FAVORITOLOGY

Q: Number?
A. 17. It's the day when I was born, LP was born, and my parents got married. (All coincidental.)

Q: Season?
A: 2 of House, MD. Hehe!

CURRENTOLOGY

Q: Missing someone?
A. My folks.

Q: Mood?
A. Relaxed.

Q: Listening to?
A: The Cardigans.

Q: Watching?
A. The computer screen.

Q: Worrying about?
A: Money.

RANDOMOLOGY

Q: First place you went this morning?
A. Bathroom

Q: What can you not wait to do?
A. Hmm...Can't think of any.

Q: What’s the last movie you saw?
A. Bourne Supremacy. They send faxes face down there!

Q: Do you smile often?
A. Gotta soften my bitch persona.

Q: Are you a friendly person?
A. Yep.

Ten Things I Learned from Jason Bourne

1. NYPD patrol cars don't have airbags.

2. Security in CIA offices in New Yorkis so crappy, even the most wanted ex-spy can walk right inside the top honcho's office undetected.

3. You can afford to travel all over the world without a job.

4. You can emerge unscathed from a car that plunged six floors down, so long as it's an Audi.

5. Get an office right across the street from your favorite CIA operative's cube, and you can hear and see everything he/she does.

6. A book can literally save your life.

7. You can wrap a seatbelt around your arm and emerge unscathed from a three-car smashup. (The car doesn't even have to be an Audi, or have airbags, for that matter.)

8. There is no such thing as a concussion.

9. You can actually send faxes face-up!

10. Jason Bourne uses Google. Shouldn't you, too?

Exactly a month later...

Talk about schedules.

Yes, I gave birth to LP exactly one month before my birthday. That means everytime my birthday rolls in, I'm broke.

And so on my 31st, LP had a surprise waiting for me at home. She insisted that I come home early from work because she "missed" me. It was a crappy Tuesday afternoon and I figured I'd rather celebrate with a simple dinner with then-bungi LP.

Not that I was expecting anything. She had the lights out as soon as I got out of the car, and yelled "Surprise!" when I stepped inside the living room.

And this was what she was slaving over the whole afternoon:

Aww...really.

According to her yayas, LP was "problematic" about what to surprise me with. Good thing there was some flour in the fridge, and Yaya had some knowledge in baking and making frosting. Add a bag of Nips and a tube of chocolate from the corner store, an old picture of the two of us together (pre-digicam era), and there's LP's masterpiece.

Can you tell how much effort she put into lettering "Happy Birthday Mom"?

I really am lucky to have such a sweet, thoughtful daughter.