I am having a bad week.

A REALLY BAD week.

I feel like it's my fault too. All the non-chanting (I feel) has started to catch up with me. But despite the horrible-ness of my life now, I feel I have to mention that I saw Penn Badgley and Blake Lively right outside the restaurant waiting for a cab. As in they were like 3 yards away from me. I feel like a dork for even mentioning this but I fucking watch their show every week so I think it's appropriate for me to get starstruck. I was too dumbstruck to even move, I half wanted to run out and take a photo and half stood there with my mouth hanging open when they decided to cross 7th avenue and try their luck at a cab elsewhere. Blake was wearing a flower printed mini (as in really mini) skirt which proceeded to flap and fly up as she walked across the street revealing to a dumbstruck Paul (who was standing beside me this whole time) her perfectly smooth white ass in a (butt)cheeky boyshort underpant, TWICE. Penn was as Dann Humphrey as he can get in a typical v-neck white shirt and jeans with long-ish curly hair.

I should have chased after them.

Nararamdaman ko nang kulang ako sa chanting. Unti-unting gumugulo ang paligid ko. I've been a bad buddhist and have failed to chant regularly the past few weeks. I will need to get back to my regular habit and expel life's poison's away.

Nam Myoho Renge Kyo.

I spent a lot today but I really don't care. I felt like I needed a good shopping spree so I headed to SoHo. I went to Topshop, Aldo, Steve Madden and Uniqlo and made off with 3 pairs of shoes, 2 pairs of pants, and 5 tops. My wallet and atm account is significantly lighter but I scored such good stuff that it's worth it. When I got home, I set aside a bag of clothes I no longer use to sell to Beacon's Closet so I can get some of my money back. Hurray for thrift shops!

I've been in search of a good and affordable thai restaurant in the city since I can't very well keep travelling to Sripraphai in Queens just so I can have my thai fix. I found Pinto on yelp.com. It's gotten a lot of good reviews and is conveniently located up the street from work so after all the shopping and walking I headed there to scarf down some good thai food. Everytime I go to a new thai restaurant, I always order two things, chicken satay and green curry. These are two very basic thai dishes and I feel that if thai resto cannot do either of these things right, then they do not deserve a repeat visit from me. I won't even bother trying anything else. One thing I can say is, Pinto will definitely see me again...and again...and again. OMFG. The chicken satay is at par with Jatujak's in MOA and the thai green curry (I got shrimp) was spicy and sonuvabeetchitwasfuckinfantastic. I also had the papaya salad with citrus lime dressing that I scarfed down with gusto. I am SO taking Louiie and Angel here in August.

Mica arrived yesterday but slept in Queens with her family for the night. She came back to the apartment today bearing Ging's pasalubong for me. WHEEEEE!!! THANK YOU GRACEYLOU!!!

She got me three bags: (photos by Graceylou for FabManila)

I have the gold one infront.

Laptop Bag
I have this in black patent.

I was much excited by this one. I immediately placed a couple of peaches, Goldilocks mamon (mica's pasalubong) and will prepare a sammie and lemonade for my baon for work tomorrow. Yehey!

Photos from the past few weeks, captured through my phone. Somehow, my owning a camera phone has turned me into a lazy photographer. I don't bother bringing out my camera anymore, even for the food shots I used to take.

In no particular order:There was a fire alert beside the resto about two weeks ago. Two fire trucks came rushing to the apartment beside us. They used the fire hydrant on the corner and could not shut it off after they used it. It took them about 20 minutes to shut the water off during which gallons upon gallons of water flooded 7th avenue.

There were about 20 firemen standing around watching one man attempt to shut off the hydrant.

Kona Mocha in the comfort of my own home.

The morning after 4th of July I opened my curtains to find an ambulance and cops across the street below. There was a Police Line Do Not Cross tape around this particular space. I'm not quite sure what happened but based on the facts [1.) police line tapes indicate death or a crime 2.) ambulance means something happened to someone] I figured someone was found dead across the street. May have been a homeless man who slept and never woke up, or at least I'd like to think so.

Went to Ikea the Sunday after July 4th despite my morbid hangover and bought new sheets, a new plant and new wall art. It's my room's summer make-over.

One of my lunches during my day off. Pan-grilled chicken breast in rosemary and thyme with grilled veggies and mixed greens topped with crumbled herbed feta. I tried to replicate Jad's dressing (shallots + onions + salt/pepper + balsamic vinegarrette) but I prefer my usual balsamic vinegarette + honey combo.

I'm making nobody's mouth water here except myself. People who read this who like green mangoes with bagoong have better access to it in Manila. I dug through the bottom of the mango barrel in the corner fruit stand to find the hardest one I could find and scraped what's left of the bagoong in the fridge.

If you have been bothering to check here, I'm sorry for the non-updates. I've been meaning to write and my head is actually full of posts I would have written if I had the time to actually sit down and write them. My stay in front of my mac has been limited to selectively reading emails, referring to google maps and updating my Netflix queue. Even my Facebook account has been ignored, with status updates being changed through my phone. I will (hopefully) give a better rundown of the past week or so, beginning with my Trasformers movie date with Omee (photos from that day were taken through my phone and accidentally deleted so no visual aids for that).

I spent my first ever 4th of July crashing at Rann's. He, Oli and Erica prepared a feast which I so graciously devoured. Their apartment building has a great view of the city from the roof so we enjoyed picture time and the fireworks later that night. Photos from that day can be seen here.

Rann's feast.
I was told he slaved in the kitchen for hours that morning.Oli and Erica's Pie with home-made custard.

I will write more soon. Got lots to tell from a man being found dead in front of my apartment building (seriously) to Louiie and Angel coming to visit me soon.