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(Note:Pls. keep scrolling to the end to watch  a fun video clip of our laing preps.) Trying to frame a perfect view for a windy-rainy morning here on this side of the planet. It's a perfect day to cook a family favorite  ulam  which is none other than   the    delectable  laing.  And because   I hail from the province of Oriental Mindoro, I also call it  pinangat  or  pangat  for short .   The main ingredient of this   well-loved Filipino dish is the lowly  dahon ng gabi  that propagates in your swampy backyard or in your neighborhood's unkempt vacant lot. If you have a friendly neighbor — reword, if you are friends with your neighbor that grows a  gabi  patch, you can score it for free. The same situation applies to your  malunggay  and  dahon ng saging  cooking needs.  Gabi,  or taro in English,  is primarily a starchy root vegetable th...

A fishbowl photo from 2009. Bethany and Noah, seven and one year-old respectively, year 2007.   Year 2007, when I was "21" and Noah was one year-old. Ha! Happy birthday, Noah Bear😍 Last year, on the same month of July, our family went to a dinosaur museum  in Moscow to celebrate our Noah's 10th birthday.  It was a dream come true for him, a decade-long wait had been over. How time flies around here and now he turns 21 11!  He is our boy from the wild and below is a poem to prove it just in case you can't tell.  He's into poems lately. And I guess too much rain in the Philippines lately has been making him write poems to curtail the boredom that's starting to seep in. The Ocean By Noah Isaiah The deep, deep ocean Dark and blue Is teeming with life You never knew Underneath this world You will hear  The call of a Whale That is near Its scars, visible From the fight with a Squid And it is gone In its stomach, it is hi...

The Old Arbat Street is one of the oldest roads in Moscow dating back to the late 14th century. It is a cobblestone-covered pedestrian street that spans 1.25 kilometers and is  famous for its lively showcase of street artists and its rows of souvenir shops and coffee shops and restaurants and theaters.  We've been to the Old Arbat Street many times before during the summer of last year but there's always something to look forward to each time we visit here. For one is the diversity of people teeming this famous street. We have the red, the black, the yellow, the white, and of course, the brown race being represented here; everyone garbed in their most fashionable outfits making this bustling street their informal run-way; everyone here dressed well, in case I haven't mentioned it yet.  It felt like walking down the streets of Paris or Rome! (Though we've never been to Western Europe before.) Another reason we looked forward to going here  is the opportunity to just ...