Vlog Ep. 209: Grocery Shopping

Tonight's very chill Sunday #BaduyPride topic was all about grocery shopping and all the quirks of this particular essential chore. Maybe at one point, it wasn't as fun an activity as it is now, but we certainly fully embrace how fulfilling it is, especially when you manage your own household or at least cook your own meals. And hopefully, everyone finds the joy in grocery shopping in their own time.

Of course, the funny bit about today was us talking about quite a number of pet peeves when it comes to our supermarket runs. I guess we're just very focused on being efficient and getting in and out of there with a minimum of fuss, especially with the pandemic far from over. But hey, we can't control everyone and we all just make the most of things.

This was a community-contributed topic originally shared by Kenny! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured in a future video.

Vlog Ep. 121: The One About Pets

This episode about #BaduyPride was all about pets. We're big animal people, even though we're not allowed to have pets in our current condo. But we still had more than enough experience to be able to talk about our experience with different types of animals and our tips and trips for being good pet owners.

Talking about animal care did have us thinking about Yoshi a lot. It has been a few years since he passed and we still haven't quite felt ready to go back to having a dog or any kind of pet just yet. Admittedly moving to this particular BGC condo was partly to force us to take time to consider things carefully since wanting to get a dog again would mean needing to move to a new place that would allow it. We'll get there.

While we chose today's topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!

Vlog Ep. 115: The Christmas Episode

For this #BaduyPride episode, we decided to beat the holiday rush and talked about Christmas today since we know we'll busy for the actual holidays. So this extra long (but still sober) episode had us looking back at Christmases past and citing all the little things that have made our Christmases special.

With 2020 being the year where all holidays feel less special because of the pandemic, it was really nice to go on this particular holiday nostalgia trip. As much as Tobie and I have already shared a number of these stories with one another, it was interesting to hear them again and discover new things about Tobie's childhood on top of what I already knew. 

And no, I can't explain my urge to sing all those Christmas carols during the show.

While we chose today's topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!

Vlog Ep. 100: Managing Relationship Diversity

Wow guys, we've hit 100 episodes for #BaduyPride. That's kind of amazing and sad all at the same time since we started this live stream vlog whatever show as a way to feel more connected with friends despite the lockdown. 100 episodes later and we're still in lockdown with the calendar year coming to a close.

But that's not the point. The point is our decision to finally talk about throuples and other more "diverse" relationship forms out there. In the end, a relationship is a relationship and it's always going to take a LOT of work to keep it going. And if everyone involved is on the same page and committed to making things work, then it totally stands a chance.

But what do we know? We're not like experts or anything. We're just two geeks who have no qualms about going online every night to talk about different topics for more than 30 minutes time and time again. 

Thanks for supporting the show. Here's to 100 more episodes! When do we get to do a show, not at our dining table? LOL

This was a community-contributed topic originally shared by our friend, Migs! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured in a future video.

Vlog Ep. 83: The Pre-Anniversary Episode

Last night's epic 3.5 hour #BaduyPride episode was so much fun and honestly felt like the best way to celebrate our upcoming 11th anniversary together with the special participation of our anak, Nico! We knew we'd have a fun time since we smuggled in Nico to join us live, but I don't think we were prepared for the many friends who join to join the stream and all the interesting and challenging questions they made us answer!

This quarantine period hasn't been the greatest time for celebrations, but everyone who have become regular viewers and participants in these live stream sessions helped to make last night's episode extra special. We love you all and we hope that we helped to make your Saturday night a little brighter.

While we chose today's topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!

Vlog Ep. 82: Our Sorta Lifehacks

We had to reschedule our special #BaduyPride episode featuring the fabulous O Diva Precious Paula Nicole to 27 November, so instead we ended up talking about our different little "lifehacks" (if you can even call them that) in terms of how we make our day-to-day routines at the Sietch a lot easier.

Beyond the typical domestic stuff that we had partly covered in other episodes like Who Does the Chores? and Cleaning Geekily. But we threw in some of the many ways that we also leverage online tools like YNAB and of course the different Google apps to cover all our bases. This episode may have also inspired a future episode dedicated to just talking to our Google Home Mini unit the whole night or something.

While we chose today's topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!

Vlog Ep. 65: Choosing Family Within LGBT Circles

A friend suggested we talk about "Cliques, Barkadas, and Family within the Community", but we figured that it was a little better to just focus on the concept of the LGBT tendency to create alternative families as a support structure to stay in theme with #BaduyPride episodes in general. 

Beyond inevitable references to our own family, Pamilya Egg, we also took some time to sort of go over our respective social journeys and how that may lead up to the friendships we've formed and fostered as LGBT individuals. And as this was a Friday session, it was pretty chill and maybe a little rambly once the alcohol kicked in. But on the whole, it was a fun session.

This was a community-contributed topic originally shared by our friend, Jobo! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured in a future video.

Vlog Ep. 57: Cleaning Geekily

I don't quite understand why a number of our #BaduyPride-watching friends are so amused about Tobie and me talking about the chores around the Sietch for some reason. But here we are with another episode about how we clean things because people asked for it.

To keep things interesting, I tried to focus go beyond just discussing our cleaning approach but also throwing in some tips in terms of what works for us. That inevitably resulted in a lot of discussions about the use of baking soda for cleaning different things, because I really love baking soda. Go figure.

This was a community-contributed topic shared by our friend, Kenny and Pico! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured in a future video.

Pamilya Egg 2020

It's only natural that this pandemic and the 200+ day lockdown that Metro Manila and other parts of the Philippines have been subject to has left me thinking a lot about our friends. A time of social distancing means that we don't get to see our friends in person anymore apart from maybe carefully arranged meetings while maintaining physical distancing and wearing several layers of personal protective equipment. And that isn't all that great an experience, especially when it comes to our circle of LGBT friends where hugs and other forms of somewhat more casual intimacy are normal ways to greet one another. 

This pandemic has really taken a lot away from us.

And this month really has me thinking about Nico and Pamilya Egg, because yes, this is still a thing. In this period where we have been kept away from our friends, then all the more I miss particularly important friends like our Anak. My friendship with Nico is technically older than my relationship with Tobie because he was our number one supporter even before we got together. You should know how the story goes by now.

It's amazing on so many levels that we've remained friends this long. And beyond that, we've remained as a sort of family as well. And it's not like this has manifested in us hanging out all the time or even talking all that much in the pre-pandemic period. But there's no questions that we're a sort of LGBT family, a family of choice that supports one another but also has a healthy respect for everyone living their own lives.

In a recent conversation, Nico mentioned that he can't even imagine us not being in one another's lives. And that's an amazingly powerful statement when you think about it. We often talk about romantic relationships as being something that should last forever, which is totally great. But how often do you really consider a friendship with a similar level of permanence? At least for me, I've never really made that promise often (or lightly). Being a good friend is hard and takes a lot of work and not everyone is built for that.

But Anak has the right of it - I cannot even conceive of a possibility that we won't remain good friends. He's very important to me and Tobie and I really enjoy spoiling him with the occasional gift here and there because he always appreciates them wholeheartedly. I've had the privilege of being around as he's gone through many life milestones and has worked his way up the corporate ladder and actually advanced his career quite well over the years. I guess you can call me a proud parent in this regard! hahaha

In this time of uncertainty and fear over a disease that seems almost unstoppable, we need to hold on strongly to the people who are most dear to us. And as much as so many friends have come and gone in our lives, Nico has stuck around for us and so have we in turn. And I feel amazingly blessed that this is the case. It is a gift to have a friend stay around this long and it's equally precious to feel this genuinely strongly for a friend as well. And this lockdown has reminded me to be thankful and remind Nico of this as well.

11+ years and counting, Pamilya Egg is still going strong. 

Vlog Ep. 54: Indoor Night Out

I guess we were inspired our first guest episode with Turing Quinto, so we ended theming this episode of #BaduyPride such that we can still have guests involved. In this case, we decided to talk about our favorite memories of nights out and asked our friends to jump in and share their own stories.

I have to admit, this quickly turned into a gathering of close friends that just happened to be online. We hope that you enjoyed a taste of the camaraderie we've formed at O Bar (primarily). This pandemic is a tough challenge for all of us but we can still find ways to stay connected with our friends and focus on the better times ahead. 

While we chose today's topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!

Vlog Ep. 30: About Relationship Goals

We brought out the long-sleeved shirts for today's #BaduyPride live stream vlog as (1) they're the last of our matching shirts and (2) tonight's topic was pretty important. Today we tackled the rather large topic of relationship goals, which is something people have either told us or left as a comment on some of our couple selfies.

Our approach to this ended up being outlining the sort of general categories or buckets of goals one might have within a relationship and how to make that work. Thus we ended up talking about goals related to communication, finances, geekiness, and plain old "traditional" goals. Not sure if we addressed the original spirit of the topic, but whatever we ended up with more than filled up the 30 minutes.

This was a community-contributed topic originally shared by our friend, Noel! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured in a future video.

Pamilya Egg 2018

I really like this photo from the weekend. Pamilya Egg still going strong, in a manner of speaking. We've all continued to grow in our respective ways and we're not quite the same people we were when this "family" started. But I love who we are and anak will always be a very important friend.

You don't let go of people like him.

A Month Without Yoshi

It has been a month since Yoshi passed away and the Sietch is a very quiet place without him. Tobie still lights a candle for him whenever we're home as his way of remembering him while also making it feel like he's still there. His dog bed still rests in the middle of the living room with his favorite stuffed toy Baboy still resting on it. The bed is pretty much where he passed away as well.

You don't ever fully "move on" from the loss of a loved one including beloved family pets. My heart still aches a bit when I think of close friends lost in recent years like Jayson and PJ, and now Yoshi is a part of that circle of departed loved ones now. It's easy to fall into the trap of second-guessing ourselves and wondering if we really did everything that we could have possibly done to help him. So instead Tobie and I do our best to support one another and focus on the good memories instead of the pain of his loss.

The last blog post that I wrote here talked about our treating our last days with Yoshi as gifts, and I still believe that. We got a good six months with him after he was diagnosed with chronic kidney failure and we were all the better for it. Yoshi taught me and Tobie many thing about ourselves through our care for him and those are lessons we'll carry with us for the rest our lives.

I still wish he was still with us, that goes without saying. I miss our happy little guy who'd help make any stressful day that much easier to deal with because of his unconditional love and affection. He really did something to change the way the Sietch felt like really added something that made us feel like even more of a family.

We miss you, Yoshi, and we love you so much. Hope you're having a good time wherever you are. Eat plenty of bananas and explore all the perfectly dry grass that you can find. I think you have Baboy with you, too, along with our love.

Each Day With Yoshi Is A Gift

A little while back, Yoshi's doctors said he about two weeks left to live. While we had long accepted that his kidney disease was going to be a life-long condition that we'd need to manage, it was still quite jarring for the doctors to already make that sort of a pronouncement.

Since then, we've been doing our best to support him and hopefully find a way to extend his life as much as possible without adding too much discomfort either. Thus our efforts exploring Traditional Chinese Medicine and trying to make him happier with better food.

We're already past that two week mark and we now try to remind ourselves that each new day is yet another gift of added time with Yoshi. If we're lucky, we'll get a few more months with him, maybe even finishing up 2016 or something. But for now we're just making the most of the time that we have and we continue to hope for the best. It's far better to celebrate each day instead of dwelling on the inevitability of thing end. All things must end eventually, after all. It's only a question of when. Given that, it feels like a lot more sense to take a positive view of things instead of giving up and expecting the worst all time.

We love you, Yoshi. We love you so, so much. And we're facing this together as a family.

Yoshi's Battle So Far

This is Yoshi's needle jar.

As part of his maintenance treatment for his kidney disease, we have to administer saline solution subcutaneously via IV every other day. Initially we'd have to bring him to the vet to get this done. In time they taught us how to handle it ourselves.

This jar represents all the needles we've used in the course of keeping Yoshi as healthy as can be manged despite his condition. After three months of treatment at home plus another just at the clinic, it looks like the jar is almost full. And we don't even get to handle every single treatment in the week. There are the one or so times that we have to go to the clinic since our schedule is too tight and we get worried we'll get home too late to keep Yoshi on schedule.

It doesn't get any easier to bring the needle to Yoshi's skin but we persevere because it is what's best for him. More than the money we've spent and all the medicines we've administered, this jar is, for me, the greatest reminder that Yoshi's life changed after his diagnosis last December.

But it's already April and we continue on and we couldn't be prouder of our little dog - even though he doesn't seem to think he's a dog. We do our best to manage things as best as we can despite his moods and his fickle appetite and all the other struggles.

We do all this because we love Yoshi dearly and for as long as he continues to fight, we'll fight right alongside him as well. It's all worth it in the end, even if we're only buying a few more weeks, months or years with him. Every moment is precious and we're fortunate that we can even afford to keep up with his treatments and his medications and all that stuff. But it's not like we're going to have kids anytime soon. We might as well invest in this little white dog who is much bigger than he seems.

Throwback - Congratulating PJ

The surprise death of our friend Paul John Gorieza Dasmariñas last Monday remains a shock to us all. And as Tobie and I struggle to make sense of so many emotions and our regrets that things didn't turn out differently, I wanted to take a moment to reflect back on happier times.

In September 2011, PJ got an opportunity to interview for a position at Malacañan Palace to become part of the President's kitchen team. Since he was based in Davao at the time, he actually ended up bunking with us at the Sietch during the interview process - he was always more than welcome in our home.

Naturally he got the job, and I wrote this entry back in my old LiveJournal, which has already been archived since then:

Yoshi's All Dolled-Up!

Yoshi had his very first professional grooming session! Boy, don't kids grow up so fast? And now he no longer resembles a mop head, hehe.

And thus this blog post - this is so a scrapbook moment. =)

Since PNoy Loves Copying Obama...

Given how our President, Benigno "PNoy" Aquino III tends to copy his US counterpart President Barrack Obama in a lot of things such as his campaign centered around tapping the youth vote, winning through popularity and his supposed savvy for social media and new communication channels, it would be interesting to see just how far PNoy will go to copy President Obama.

In an interview with ABC News' Robin Roberts, President Obama went on record to state his support same-sex marriage in the United States.

His statement as quoted by The Advocate:

“I’ve stood on the side of broader equality I hesitated on gay marriage in part because I thought civil unions would be sufficient,” the president said. “But I have to tell you that over the course of several years, as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that 'don't ask, don't tell' is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married,” Obama said.

So way to go President Obama! Sure, he could have done this a lot earlier in the term and words can seem cheap considering how he's dragged his feet with a lot of key LGBT issues, but that's in the past. What's more important is the fact that he has finally done something that no other sitting US President has ever done by making such a strong statement of public support for gay marriage. And that's something worth celebrate.

Your move, PNoy. Doesn't everyone deserve the chance to love whomever they want?

Three Months of FAMILY LOVE

Relationships are never easy, and no one ever claimed that would be the case. And for an especially a-typical relationship such as what Tobie, Prince and I share, there's definitely a lot of possible complications to deal with. It's just the nature of human relationships - each come with our unique character traits that sometimes work and sometimes don't when brought all together.

But here we are, still together and still strong after three months of being a family. And I know I keep talking about how conventional terms don't precisely describe our relationship, it seems the term family really does fit us best. We no longer think of ourselves as just boyfriends - we see each other as husbands, true partners in this relationship. We celebrate our passions together, even when we don't necessarily like the same things.  We face life's challenges together. We celebrate love, because that's what families do.

So as we officially mark our third anniversary together, allow me to go through a few of the events in the past month that mark our journey to this point.

Two Months of Being a Family

Today marks our second full month of being in one of the more unique relationships around. Instead of calling what Tobie, Prince and I share a "threesome" or a "ménage à trois", it seems the term family best suits us. In fact, we've started to refer to ourselves as the ASA Family, given ASA is an acronym of our last names Abad-Sunico-Angeles. This sort of replaces the old Pamilya Egg term, especially since Nico is now coming to terms with the fact that he now has an additional "dad" to deal with, hehe.

So what have we been up to over the past 30 days? Let's breeze through the photo memories, shall we?