I've outgrown my Dungarees for Viktors but it spoke to me while I was hanging it out to dry:

This is what you can do to your regular pancit canton for a twist:

L'extraordinaire Pancit Canton
Good for you two

INGREDIENTS:

• beef steak (tenderloin or sukiyaki cut)
• 2 tablespoons dark soy sauce (just enough to smear the meat with)
  
• 2 teaspoons chinese cooking wine
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon sugar
  
• 1 inch piece ginger, peeled & shredded
• 2 packages Lucky Me Pancit Canton noodles
• boiling water
• Broccoli Flowers
• Sesame oil
• 3 tablespoons oyster sauce
• 2 teaspoons cornstarch dissolved in 2 tsp water
• dried chili (optional)
• lemon or calamansi
  

Break noodle blocks into boiling water.

Heat oil in a wok. Toss in broccoli, sprinkle with salt. Stir until it turns dark green. Set aside. Add a little sesame oil to the wok, stir-fry beef on ginger until no longer pink. Add the broccoli back to the wok. Add oyster sauce to the skillet and bring to a simmer. Stir in the cornstarch mixture and cook until thickened.

Throw in the drained noodles and stir and cook until evenly coated and heated through. You can crack dried chili onto the skillet for spice. Squeeze a quarter of lemon or two pieces calamansi for that citrusy bite.

Serve immediately in a bowl with two sets of chopsticks. There's your instant meal for two.

Lucky you if you have a partner who can share in your life's bowls of pancit. Lucky me I have one. I'm an ordinary pancit with pancit-y idiosyncracies and a pancit-an background. But with Cathy, this pancit is no ordinary pancit. I'm a Chow Mein.

Wo-yeah! Woof!

Plugged into: Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours"

meetjopeblack

There are two sides to a coin. Or more accurately, the number of sides depends on the shape of the coin. If you remember the old two peso coin--the octagon shaped one (or was it hexagon?)--the number of sides is as many as its surfaces. If you trust my basic counting skills, there arer 10 sides to an octagon-shaped coin.

So it is with reality. We experience the same thing but our perception of it is as varied and diverse as the number of persons experiencing it. One may see life as rosy while others may see it as devoid of meaning. Take cleaning the bathroom as an example. One may see it as part of regular home-hygiene. For others, cleaning it is similar to staying in a concentration camp--a suicide room--exposing one's self to cancer-enducing ritual due to exposure to deadly chemicals. And the list of perceptions can go on and on.

Which one of these then are right? All of them are. And the only reason we are able to understand each other is because we agree to call a thing such. We agree that calling a table a table is rational enough, coherent enough to make our world a little less absurd. That becomes our truth.

We call a relationship romantic (and loving and happy) because we agree to understand it according to that paradigm. But it can also be hell and a self-flagellating experience because we get ourselves trapped in a piece of paper or a declared vow. We accept something from a loved one as gift (oh so sweet!) but it can also be seen as a bribe or an incentive. Whatever we want to call it by or understand it with is a matter of faith and trust.

We agree by force of habit, or to avoid conflict, or to do exactly the opposite. Love, hate, peace, economics of war, heaven, hell, they are but variations of the same thing. It's up to us to choose what attitude to life we wish to run our lives by.

meetjopeblack

Last night, I was awaken by sobs from the person beside me in bed. Was she having nightmares? What's scaring her? What's bothering her? Was it something I did or did not do?

I gave her a tight squeeze and a warm hug--the most I can do to assure her that I'm right by her, beside her. That there's really nothing to be afraid of.

I asked her what's wrong. Part of me was laughing inside as she said it was nothing; another part was extremely anxious. What made her cry? What made her that sad?

In the morning she said it was because I left her for another woman. Was it about the future? Was it a blast from the unconscious? Was it an interpenetration of our unconscious selves?

Whatever the cause may be, she needed that release. For her to handle adult pain and pressure from work, relationships, and internal struggles so early in her life, the few seconds of uncontrolled emotional overflow is something she needs, something she deserves. And good that it happened in our deep sleep so she won't be bugged by me psychoanalyzing her or philosophizing her struggles.

I just hope that last night's touch of assurance was something consoling and not another pressure to burden her with.

Plugged into: P. Diddy's Last Night