Down in the Dumps

And then, just like that, Xmas was over.

Pinoy Store

Pinoy Store loot.

Oddly, the danggit is sweet... but it was on top of the longganisa.

Does it mean the longganisa there is salty?

Hmmm.

Early January

H and I had quite a busy week after New Year's. 

Princesse Mia, looking cute while throwing a hissy fit :)

After seeing the Montels across the Seine (who couldn't party hardy because they just had a baby), I took H with me to hear Epiphany mass at the 8th Arrondissement. 

St. Joseph's Church is under a residential building so it could be tricky to spot. But on Sunday there are a lot of Filipinos going to the church - so if you want to go, just follow the trail of Pinoys on Ave Hoche.

St. Joe's is just a stone's throw away from the Arc de Triomphe.
Not that we recommend lobbing stones at national monuments here.

After the mass we finally, finally, FINALLY had our dinner-and-a-movie date. 

No more watching Gremlins at home for this couple! 

We saw the Harry Potter movie at the nearby UGC on Champs Elysees. The audio sucked eggs, and H left during the last ten minutes of the movie to complain about the sound and when he came back all he saw was the last shot before it went black. Not that he missed much. It was too bad because I wanted to join their movie club - 20 euros, watch-all-you-can for a month! Great on paper, annoying caveat.

The highlight of the evening was dinner. We walked for almost an hour looking for an Indian resto he attested to - which, for all I know, could be imaginary. I wanted pizza, to be honest, but the line at Pizza Pino was dishearteningly long; so we "settled for" an Italian resto next to the cinema. The clientele for the night was 90% Italian tourists ordering French food. Then came a gang of women with orange tans, solid black lashes and implants popping out of their bustiers (a Jersey thing?); accompanied by one oily but muscular stud. I swear, I saw my first porn stars.

A few days later we went to a galette des rois party where I practiced my French and got crowned! Not for my improved speaking skills, but because of the galette des rois. The rules of the cake stipulated that I distribute the slices, and by luck H got the "feve" or the little figure in the almond galette. This made him ad hoc king, and me, de facto queen.

Royal Couple

A few days later we went west, near Versailles, so he could race a Ferrari and ride shotgun with a true blue French racecar hero. It was a parting gift from his previous job. 

He showed me the place where he used to work, which was nearby. (It also occupies a page or two in the book Paris Vu Du Ciel.) Then we had lunch at Montigny-le-Bretonneux, in one of the Yveline's best kept secrets.

To kill time we went to Galignani, the first English book shop in Europe, where I incidentally found a contemporary Man Asian Literary Prize-winning Filipino novel... in the Chinese section. (I left my copy in Manila; was on chapter 4, I think.) I also got two paperbacks:

My new bedside companions. 

They're booty from a wager between Mrs. Dominican College (me) vs. Mr. Cambridge (him), who thought he knew the past tense of a certain word in English.

Then we met up with H's close friend from his peach fuzz days in Oz. We had tea with her at Palais Royal and she gave us an album of the wedding as a gift (she took the picture on the banner of this blog!). My brother and cousin kept taking pictures of her at the wedding because she looks like Filipina film legend Cherie Gil. But she's a real cherie, a true sweetheart.

Picture by H

Next day, a reunion with Jay, a close friend from Manila. He was supposed to be at the wedding too, but a busy career in a booming network held him back. This I used as leverage to get him to answer for breakfast at Ladurée.

Where the macarons are legendary... and fashionable.

For the sake of captioning: This is an egg.

And I went home with a box of St. Honoré. It was liberated before this picture.

It was a surprisingly clear day and we walked all the way to Tuileries to go inside Musee de l'Orangerie which houses Claude Monet's Nympheas...

Even the sky looked like a Monet that day :)

 

One wall of The Nympheas, which occupy two rooms on the upper floor of the museum.

Photo nabbed from Jazel.

And featured a Heinrich Kuhn retrospective. This man has haunted me since Photography 101 at university. I had finally come face to face with the photograph I'd been trying to capture with my inept Nikon F10 and pathetic dark room skills for 20 years: Verres et Carafe. I got sassed for taking a picture, but my skills at looking dumb saved the day!

by Heinrich Kuhn

The following day I worked until evening (to make up for all the free time I need to see friends in the next couple of days) and an unidentified cat hopped inside the house. Chasing the cat around was the highlight of my day.

On Wednesday I met up with Jay O and Jazel at Alma Marceau for the "Yearend" talk and then went to Trocadero so they can catch up with a friend who runs a hotel at Benjamin Franklin. It was quite nostalgic because I was with Jay O and other close friends the first time I saw the Eiffel Tower, aaand I was single at the time. 

Whether from the train or from the streets of the 16th Arr., the sight of it still makes me quiver. I wonder if I would pine for her if H and I ever decided to leave Paris.

Filched from Jay's Facebook. Pahiram, Jay!

After that, H picked us up for champagne and chit-chat at "Cherie's" party at Montmartre. A wonderful evening with a roomful of citizens of the world. 

When The Going Gets Tough

Last week H accused me of having winter depression and, girl, I had to clutch my pearls. Me? Depressed? But today I think I do have it. It's been a bad day for me, rainy too. So I did what usually cheered me up while I was still in Manila: eat chocolate, play Monty Python and Sesame Street songs, and sip nilaga. Almost like the French stew le pot-au-feu, nilaga also has beef, potatoes, carrots, cabbage and onions. The perfect soup for a cold day. Because when the going gets tough, the tough make nilaga.

Feeling better now :)

2010 1er Partie

Compared to the year before, 2010 was a vacation. As a matter of fact, it was. 

I left my job in August and threw caution to the wind: sailed the azure coast, got hitched, lived in Paris with practically zero plans.

It was the year I let my instincts guide me. It was the year of irrationality. It was a year of letting go what weighed me down. It was a year of prematurely saying goodbye to the life that I loved. It was the year to test what I had learned from the ordeals of 2009: Keep calm and carry on. No matter the snafus, no matter the arguments, no matter the deadlines, no matter the emergencies - I kept calm and I carried on. (Most of the time.)

And now, it's time to look back.

January. 

H took me to a surprise vacation in the Alps where I got to touch snow for the first time; and soon enough, snowboard and go on a sleigh ride. But the biggest surprise was when he took out this ring and asked me to marry him. A few days later it was decided that the wedding would be in Gigouzac in the summer.

February.
I started the legwork on my wedding wingdings and visa requirements as soon as possible. The invitations, the dress, the party gimmicks; I even scouted locations with my brother for the Pinoy-side renewal of vows planned for 2011. The road trip was a nice way to bond with my younger brother, eating mushroom burgers, getting lost and going to places that reminded us of our dad.

My friends from uni were quick to throw me a party, even throwing a second one when H went on a spur-of-the-moment trip to Manila a few months later. They were happy for me, but shocked because I was a complete boy in college :) Girly, with her organizing skills and eagerness to help, immediately became my wedding Girl Friday.

March.
The month of my last few shoots. The news ident brainstormed over breakfast at Sct. Borromeo a year ago (H was in the Philippines so he was in the meeting too, hee hee) was finally in post-prod.

We also shot a series of awards plugs for shows I handled. Another shoot was filmed at the edit room where I started my career in public affairs. It was also the first time I got to be at the receiving end of a news anchor's diva outburst; which made me respect her co-host even more - though I was a converted fan the first time I worked with him 4 years ago. At least he didn't need to be prepped to answer questions about his commitment to viewers. Maybe I was lucky, I had been in the presence of industry greats for ten years (and no, famous does not mean great) without being shouted at.

Some of the best friends I got from my first TV stint had moved on, as I have, from production assistants to editors, to writers, directors and producers - but some of them stretched their abilities further on to become TV personalities themselves. One of my last shoots involved them as talents in their own show, a nostalgic moment that felt like the closing of a ten-year cycle.

Not pregnant!

April.
All necessary papers and a birthday gift sent to Paris just in time for my April Fool's birthday. Consequently, the gears of the French marriage system whirred into action so I could get my visa requirements by June (for this we thank the mayor of Gigouzac unreservedly). In April, things had started to look up. I worked extra and was able to pay off the hospital loan which would have kept me in servitude for a year more, plus leftover money for my insurance. I was also able to pay for summer vacation in May.  

May.
As a birthday treat, I took my brother to the Tears for Fears performance in Manila which was, in many ways, newsworthy. I met up with Abbie and Nerissa who got seats next to us. The woman behind me is the bitch who pulled my jacket to make me sit down. It's a TFF concert, lady, not the effing Royal Flemish Philharmonic. Bitch.

After a few weeks, H joined me for a weekend in Bohol.

Alone on Alona Beach

And I thought I could have a chance to work on my tan... which I didn't.

In the short week that he was here he saw the house I grew up in, the people who love me, the world I was leaving for him. Pressure!

Aaaaand WE'RE BACK!

On Christmas Monday, we went to the nearest city to buy ingredients for the adobo H promised I would make. (Sya talaga nagpramis, no?) I was willing to make menudo, kaldereta, even morcon; but NO. He wanted me to make adobo.

So I stood in the kitchen for about an hour and a half, making sure I don't burn the chicken because I had to live up to my brother's adobo which the others had a taste of last summer. Well, I didn't burn it alright, but I think it tastes better with a little carbon :)

The next day was special because it marked our fourth month as Mr & Mrs Dumonster. He wasn't planning on doing anything but since we had an argument a day before Christmas eve, I was in the position to ask for a special monthsary evening. Heh heh.

All I wanted was dinner outside, simple, maybe just a brasserie and a movie; but we found out that they don't play movies in English in that neck of the woods. So he took over the itinerary which started at 12nn with a haircut for us both.

After lunch, we went to the spa because his mom told him the california massage there was good. It sat in the middle of nowhere, built on what used to be a farm.

We waded around in the pool, sweat it out in the sauna and then relaxed in the jacuzzi - but since there was only one attendant that day I had to wait until his hour-long massage was finished before I could get my facial.

So for an hour I went back and forth between the sauna and jacuzzi. It was nice to float around in the hot water while the world shuddered outside. The massage prices in that region are much lower than in Paris so we had to profitez ou il est pas cher (enjoy it where it's cheap).

And then, at last, our first real evening date in a really long time! After getting married we mostly ate home-cooked meals or ordered take-away, so this evening out with just the two of us was really special. I felt like an adult again! This also meant he could get a few days of peace from me :)

The following day we went to La Creuse and spent the night so H can help reshingle the roof.

 I went promenading with my constant walking partner, Gael.

But with fog this thick...

You can't hope to get too far.

By Thursday evening we were back in Paris, watching the third installment of Superman. It was duller than I remembered, and they wasted Richard Pryor. H fell asleep on the couch and woke up with a stiff neck on New Year's Eve day.

On this side of the planet, the 31st is St. Sylvestre's and you never greet anyone "Happy New Year" until midnight.

"Ginger" was my New Year's alias :)

We had a small gathering at home to greet 2011, but we had an argument just before the guests arrived. After five months with him, his panic attacks were beginning to wear my patience thin. But I stopped being angry long before midnight. Kissed and made-up, we rang in the new year together as husband and wife.

Happy New Year!

Bonne Annee!

Maligayang Bagong Taon!

The Lost Weekend

We drove down to the south of France to spend Christmas with H's family on one of the worst snow storms this season. The highway was frozen and a slow-moving caterpillar made of cars carefully inched through the one lane that was defrosted. Guess where Mr. NeedForSpeed piloted us through?

(I added music for dramatic effect. 

We were listening to some Eurodance shit on the radio, really.)

But we made it out alive, and got to the house just in time for champagne, gifts and dinner.

Christmas Day, we took the quad out back with the snowboard. H and his brother took turns pulling the snowboard with the quad.

I was busy shivering in my mother in-law's galoshes and making snow-balls that could have been a snowman had H not fallen on his ass. And knees. I think he rolled around a bit too and made a more successful snowman than me... so back home we went.

This was where we had cocktails on our wedding day. 3 inches deep in snow.

And the thyme we used when we had time to barbecue.

And farther back, the woods.

And this was where my family slept in the summer.

The next day, the sun was out and all the little critters were back in the garden, leaving traces in the snow.

It was such a nice day that we decided to go to see the ruins of a castle from the middle-ages, the very castle on the cover of an old French paperback of The Lord of The Rings: Fellowship of The Ring.

Chateau Bonaguil, built around the 1200s and destroyed by Thermidorian radicals.

There are pretty traces of Marguerite de Fumel's Extreme Makeover: Chateau Edition in 1761.

But the rest is left to the imagination.

It is the perfect setting for a story of magic, mystery, and discovery. Secret passageways...

Silent towers...

Cold landscapes...

And magical sunsets.

On our next issue: Aaaand We're Back!

Postscript: The title of this entry pertains to a 1945 Billy Wilder film about an alcoholic trying to fight the urge to drink for 4 days, which I kind of was because from Christmas Eve until New Year's day, I had liquor in me. I forgot to write this little tidbit in maybe cause of the residual alcohol. Tee hee.