All of Three or Six Years

Boracay 2010

When you're in a relationship with someone, friends will inevitably ask, "How long have you been together"and the first answer that comes to mind is, "It's kinda complicated." And that's because Tobie and had a bit of a break-up in 2012, which a lot of people like to make fun of whenever it comes up. Real friends get to tease you about moments in your life that people find kinda silly. We love you all dear friends.

The official answer is that as of today, Tobie and I have been back together for three years now. Another way to look at this is that Tobie and I have been living together since 2009, so that's six years of "being together". And while we did have a gap of a few months in 2012 when we were all single and such, a lot of people tend to ignore this fact and just take it that we've been together this long.

Our original anniversary was in April and now it's in November and the gap is almost the same as the gap when we were single. So maybe we should stop counting from 2012 and just count back to 2009, but still retain the November date and abandon the older April date? For all intents and purposes, we have been together six years after all.

But hey, counting only matters when you think about how long things will last. And I don't see an end to this "count" anytime soon. So maybe none of these dates even matter.

Happy Anniversary, Tobie. I love you.

Yoshi vs Thunder

Yoshi really doesn't like the sound of thunder.

To be fair, it doesn't make him bark or whine. He doesn't hide off in a corner nor does he run around. Instead he huddles as close as possible to any humans he knows, which is an interesting situation here at the office. This afternoon's thunderstorm had Yoshi going from person to person, huddling under desks right next to people's legs.

I even hoisted him up into my lap and he was perfectly content staying there while I worked. Of course this isn't exactly an easy position to balance and so working became a bit more difficult as Yoshi made himself all comfortable.

Eventually I just got him a chair and kept him beside me and for the most part he's been there, except to say goodbye to folks as they left the office.

Yet another reason we love this dog so much.

Rice Cooker Cooking

When Tobie and I first started out living together here at the Sietch in 2009, neither of us really knew how to cook. Both of us had at least fried stuff here or there and I knew how to cook rice both via a rice cooker or on the stove but that was it. But instead of just resigning ourselves to potentially years of ordering take-out, we both committed to learning to cook instead.

In that first year, the rice cooker was our primary cooking appliance. Beyond just making rice, we started a lot of experiments with what we could do with the rice cooker ranging from steaming items or actually mixing other things into the pot. Thus we had a lot of topped rice sort of meals like canned tuna over rice or some veggies mixed in. It was rather simple fare, but we were proud of what came out and we celebrated each mile like an extravagant feast.

Over the years, we've both learned a lot about cooking. I went back to my childhood and tried to explore the various dishes I grew up with. Thus a lot of classic Filipino soups like sinigang, nilaga and tinola and little home innovations like what my grandmother always called Mexican Relish. Tobie was a bit more daring and looked for interesting recipes online. Thus he's pretty handy now with baking fish and he can cook things like eggplant parmigiana and my favorite cilantro salad.

Together we come up with some pretty eccentric meals but at the end of the day we're really happy. We've long since retired the rice cooker since I prefer to cook rice on the stove, but it's nice to look back at our "history" of meals at the Sietch and appreciate just how far we've come.

Birthdays Are For Ice Cream

Happy Birthday, Tobie!

Yoshi says you can have more ice cream!

Non-Traveling Geeks

So I managed to get Maundy Thursday and Good Friday last week and thus I actually had a lengthy Holy Week vacation with Tobie. And we pretty much spent the long weekend at home with a few friends coming over to play board games and RPGs. It was a lot of fun even though we didn't leave the building this whole time.

The summer time is usually one invested in big out of town trips, as far as Facebook is concerned. This weekend alone we saw a good number of folks who hit the beaches of Puerto Galera, Palawan or Boracay. And yet you have geeks like Tobie and me who just stayed in the city.

And it's not like we're against travel or even against beaches - we have our fair share of time at the beach (even with Yoshi!) But it's just not something that comes up a lot. There is the desire to bring Yoshi back to a beach and see how he might react to the change in environment so many years later.

But the challenge of travel is, well, the traveling. We don't necessarily mind going to Singapore since the trip is pretty easy and then we get to stay with my sister while there. That makes it a nicely homey environment even when in another country. Beach trips, especially local ones, mean making the most of cramped environments and a lot less creature comforts compared to other locations.

But let's see - anything is possible and maybe we'll find the time to schedule something in the future. Although, WiFi or internet connectivity of some sort is rather crucial regardless of where we end up visiting. It's really hard not to have access to the internet, especially since I blog daily.