Daily Report: Full House Redux

I was up early and had a good morning of work.


Inday, Doreen, and Dimple
enjoying the swimming pool
out on our balcony.The rest of Epril's family (Mom, Dad, Dimple, Doreen, and Aunt Vicki) showed up at about 8:00. First, there was the obligatory sweeping of the floor by Epril's mother. I don't know why she does that, but every time she comes to visit, she sets about cleaning up right out of the gate. After that was grocery shopping at SM, where Epril discovered that they were selling strawberries — albeit strawberries the size of grapes — for 75 pesos per plastic box.

Before lunch, I drove with Epril back to SM and bought 12 more boxes of strawberries to put in the freezer. (I use strawberries for my margaritas, and they need to be frozen.) I figure that I'm going to have to learn how to hoard the things that are most precious to find in Cagayan. I might go out and buy myself a second freezer for that purpose. I also found that they had gotten in a stock of dry Vermouth (low, low price of 480 pesos), so martinis are back on the menu again.


Humbe: Pork belly in a sauce of black
beans, bay leaves, vinegar, sugar,
and a bit of Mountain Dew. (There
was no 7-Up in the house, I'm told.)For lunch, Epril's mother pulled out all the stops. There was the obligatory big steaming bowl of pancit guisado (Filipino Lo Mein), humbe (pork belly in a sweet black bean sauce, made with vinegar and Mountain Dew, of all things... and was so delicious), pork steak, and ginagmay (pork cut into long slices with potatoes and carrots in tomato sauce).

In the afternoon, I got back to work, and in the evening we ate some birthday cake, and watched television. Everyone is sleeping over again, but Epril and I are letting somebody else deal with the sleeping acrobat, Doreen, tonight.