Let's Go A's

Yipee! The Oakland A's won!!!
(And even though we're SF folks, I think for the sake of "standing tall", we're taking the A's side. "We" means the EY TSRS audience filling up Section 103 of the McAfee Coliseum at Oakland City, CA.)

Just got home from a really awesome baseball game. The Oakland Athletics were great and they won over LA Angels, 5-4, giving the hometown crowd a "Wow" end to a Friday night. The game finished with jaw-dropping and "ooh-worthy" fireworks display at around 11 PM. Most of the crowd gathered and filled up the cordoned part of the baseball field in what seemed like a picnic under the stars...another picture perfect American tradition.

My SF link has some of the game's pix (Just go to the "Let's Go Oakland" album): http://genefelsf.shutterfly.com/
(Feel free to visit anytime to check on new collections; this one's more updated than my blog - much easier to upload than blog huh?)

...It was just what I expected: a great game, wonderful and responsive hometown crowd and lots of food (Our tickets - pass and food - are free, by the way, thanks to our TSRS partner, Lionel Yee; he dropped by to say 'hi' during the game and maybe check on his TSRS team, hahaha). I got myself a furry bear in a little "Athletics" jersey for a souvenir and ofcourse the Oakland A's green souvenir cup (no, not the baseball cap, I'm not really a CAP person =). And after everything else, I'm soo exhausted but can't help saying "That was really fun!"
Hope to see more baseball games ahead! Til then...I have to doze off 'cause I only have a few hours 'til my "planned" jogging by the Ferry grounds (I really hope this pushes through). Good night my furry bear (I'm christening you as "Ace" right now). Sweet baseball dream!

The Adventure Series

A sample... --->
Whew! So, after weeks of delinquency, I am soo back (you didn't expect me to blog daily, right?). And I've had so many things to say that...I'm thinking what about saying them in a thousand words? Or a hundred pictures?

I know what you'r thinking ("am such a lazy fella")...but I'm sure you'll love these...

Want more? So here goes:
genefelsf.shutterfly.com

Enjoy!

My Weekend Catch-up Posts

Okay, since I've been delinquent for about two days, I'm gonna make up for it with some really funny moments:

The OC's grocery
Last Thursday, I immersed into one guilty pleasure: nourishing my obsessive-compulsive behavior. Since we were preparing for our Colorado meeting next week, we were busy putting together binders and materials. And yes you guess, I found the OC's heaven: a whole room of office supplies just for us - from paperclips, dividers, labels to binder folders. What more could I ask for? I logged in to avery.com and downloaded some templates for my labels so I just type and print them directly into the tabs and voila...labels for my dividers: neat and so cool! I also found this really cool three-hole puncher where I just slip in the papers and the machine takes care of the punching; perfect and no more pounding on top of the table. Haha, I know my pleasures are trivial nowadays, and yes, you must be gauging my naiveté. Oh go ahead, as long as I seal my day with an OC touch, I'll be fine =)

Skaterboi
On my way to work, I found myself seated beside one of those typical skater boys while waiting for my BART train. As usual, these guys are chatty, only that he quite scared me since he was too chatty and carefree for someone at the other end of what I'd call my usual conversation. And the MUNI reminder just kept repeating in my head: "Information gladly given but safety requires avoiding unnecessary conversation. He looked okay actually, but knowing this country, dangerous creatures more than usually look okay. He told me he skateboards his way throughout California - Berkeley and back. When I asked him if he does skateboarding everyday, I got an affirmative response. He's happy with his recent acquisition of a pair of shoes (which he proudly showed me along with that joke that he shared about the weird people riding Pittsburg-Baypoint...which I couldn't laugh at since I was too wary). He promised, more like to himself, that he's gonna get this particular brand of shoes someday (the brand I now couldn't remember). When we finally boarded the train (turned out we're both boarding the Richmond train), he was still analyzing if I was a psychiatrist or not (his guess was that I am not since I had a scarf (huh?)). Good thing that I didn't have to sit through his analysis because there were no adjacent vacant seats for two, so I found my own seat and he found his. When I finally got off at my station, he was already dozing off beside his seatmate that the latter had to step over to get off (another good thing). Other than that silent scare creeping into me, my heart went out for this guy. Poor thing, I wonder where skateboarding will take him from his last stop (and he does that everyday?).

Yey it's Friday!
I'm off early since I finished what I had to do as early as 4PM. Everyone in SF gets really crazy when the SF Giants play baseball. On my way back from work to my apartment on a Friday, all crowds lead to the AT&T stadium ( a few blocks from my apartment). They have "Giants" all over their shirts and have loads of goodies to last them the entire game. Well, I still don't feel like joining in. So I just did my grocery at Safeway (discovered another ready-to-eat meal for $1 each - I took 10 'cause they're on Safeway sale; bought 20 yoghurts of all sorts of imaginable flavors for 20/$10) and had a wonderful time talking to one of my apartment's receptionist, Nita, who's also a Filipina. Then had fun watching Animal Planet. There's the tribute for Mr. Crocodile who recently passed away (stabbed by a stingray, sigh) and the cutie daily diary on Meerkats Manor.


Saturday = Laundry
It usually takes about a little over four hours for my one-week laundry from the washing, rinsing, spinning, drying and de-wrinkling. Though I would say, it's such a breeze for working gals like me. The machine is perfect: you don't get wet at all; it's so easy to operate and hassle-free. In the four hours that my laundry was spinning through this morning, I was able to:
...watch an episode of the Dog Whisperer
...cook and eat my breakfast of bacon and egg with RICE-A-RONI, toasted bread with strawberry spread and orange juice
...prepare my ground-turkey-with-lettuce lunch
...watch half a movie of King Solomon's Mines and almost finished Merlin's Apprentice (courtesy of Hallmark)
...after everything else, maybe I'm gonna have a snack now =)

Whew!

Zyne had an accident early this morning on her way to work...she was speeding downhill and wasn't able to anticipate her turn so her car crashed with blocks of big rocks at the side of the road. She told me that the front part of the car was wrecked, almost ripped, the radiator broken, the oil leaking and her one tire flat and broken. I'm just glad that she went home okay though I told her to have herself checked just to be sure. She'd be commuting to work for the next few days; just to give her a break from driving 'til she's ready again.
Anyway, my day was thankfully great...Our partner Kailesh treated us to lunch today. We all had a fun chat about everything from the movie Eight Below to baseball and basketball in the Philippines. I had a helpful serving of chicken, rice (ofcourse) and fruit selections (grapes, apples, oranges, watermelon, etc.) and mango soda (if I can call it that). Really filling (since I only has two cookies for breakfast (shush) courtesy of my apartment's daily breakfast treats (they had coffee to-go which you can take with you but I'm slowing down on coffee right now; in fact I hadn't had one for about 10 days 'til this early AM). I finished early on what I had to do for the day, and Molly, my co-team member, even encouraged me to call it a day. But given my penchant for the OT hours at SGV, I stayed for almost an hour more doing some admin stuff.
Then I headed off to the transit station where the station agent, Victor (yeah I know him by name, haha) greeted me, "Good to see you"... California folks are really friendly, huh; he helped me out in getting through that BART ticket machine last week and even ran through my ticket for me (poor tourist, haha, deciphering the dime from the quarter). And I gained a friend. If only there are some nice station agents like him in Manila's MRT. Well...
The view of the Bay Bridge at Folsom street under the late afternoon sun is BEAUTIFUL...I wish I brought my camera. Maybe on a weekend, I'll take that picture.
At the end of it all, can't help but say, "Whew! Tomorrow is another day."

After work, the good girl, before sleep

I was goody goody girl today (haha). I went home just in time, after another smooth work day. I threw away the trash (there's a designated trash room in each floor which is really neat; you just take your trash with you into that room, open that little steel door and dump the tied up package in; sealed tight delivered right down below). I vacuumed my bedroom AND the living room (the vacuum was a little heavy though; it's called Eureka, The Boss; talk about an oxymoron). I prepared by take-away lunch for tomorrow: bacon and rice. So I think I just deserved a delicious dinner...broccoli and chicken adobo, and Spanish rice courtesy of my new fave, RICE-A-RONI (can't just stop raving about it, sorry). With clean floor carpets and kitchen, am sleeping tight soon (not until I finish this Dr. 90210; it's like Nip/Tuck, about real cosmetic retouches and surgical makeovers, to say the least - gross, intriguing and no-I-am not-doing-it, all at the same time). For now, ciao!

For the Glory of the Oyster Sauce

Fortunately my weekend commuting is just as easy since I have BART Plus (BART is short for Bay Area Rapid Transit) which gives me unlimited free rides in MUNI and cable cars, among others. A blond-haired lady (in pink workout clothes) in the MUNI was smiling at me throughout the ride and when we got off, she approached me and told me, "You are so beautiful". I said my "Thank you", thinking, "Well, foreigners are always beautiful 'cause they come in different shapes and colors, haha".
Ok, so after the Sunday mass (which was soo non-traditional btw; Zyne and I promised to try another church next Sunday), the target was the OYSTER SAUCE. We couldn't find one in Safeway so we crossed our fingers and scouted Chinatown. It took us more than 30 minutes and a looong walk before we found Pacific Street where loads of vegetables and fruits are sold by the pound. Cheap, huh (but I already finished my veggie grocery at Safeway so it was just oyster sauce for me; anyway, prices are not so different when you consider the MUNI fare and Safeway's limitless discounts). We walked back to MUNI Powell station which seemed liked thousands of steps away. We were soo exhausted by the time we reached the intersection of Market and Powell that Burger King was just so hard to resist (yeah!). So Zyne had her Tendercrisp and I had BigFish, which were both really big burgers, big enough for lunch! So there, a short trip to the apartment, a little chitchat in the net, and I was dozing off...

Hello San Francisco

Surprise surprise! When I arrived at the San Francisco International Airport on the 24th, I learned that I will be assigned in San Francisco, instead of San Jose...Yey! 'Cause SF seems like a wonderful and promising place to stay in for six months.
I just finished writing my "manual" diary...I may not feel like repeating some triviliaties I logged in there, here (sorry, it took me so long to remember my username and password here, hehe)
My body clock (which includes my sleeping time and digestive system) went crazy for the last 9 days or so. I eat and sleep at weird hours, but I'm already adjusting right now. My client is Kaiser at Oakland, so I take the MUNI and BART (a lot like the MRT back home) to get there in 30 minutes or so..and two good things: the MUNI station is right outside my apartment and transits are not as congested as the MRT even during rush hours ( I can even seat my laptop bag right beside me)...
We're having a long holiday weekend: from Friday to Monday, part of their Labor Day weekend. Right now, I'm having breakfast...thanks to RICE-A-RONI, it's such a blessing. It's ready-to-mix rice grains package which I mix with about 2 1/2 cups water and 2 tbsps. butter, then microwave for about 17-20 minutes, then I stir in the special seasoning and microwave for another 1-2 minutes. And it's ready! It comes in different flavors too ( I got them at Safeway for 10boxes for $10 which is available to Safeway Club members, and I am). So far, I tried the Parmesan and Mexican. I'm having Mexican style right now, also turkey with lettuce, mushroom and broccoli I stir-fried myself...So good and a beautiful day ahead..