Happy Holidays!

Haha, hello again, everyone. It's 10 days before Christmas & we're right in the middle of another Mercury retrograde hoopla, which should be over by New Year's Day, but the shadow period will last around next month. Oh, well. Aren't you excited for 2011? & isn't 2010 such an awesome year at this point?

So far, ever since my last post, a lot of things have happened to me, & I'm really sorry for the backlog. But November was indeed a stellar month, & I'll try to squeeze everything into this post for the full story.

But yeah, happy holidays from PTE & SP Lovecraft! :D



Our Mystic Friday night was spectacular. I can't thank Francisbear & Jade enough for coming in early to help me out. I got in last, but I read for a dozen people quick, even it was rather hard keeping the reading time within 10 minutes, since everyone I read for wanted & could use more than brief advice. Most of them were very receptive, though, & it was nice to meet another Libra lawyer who became a believer in the cards. Aileen & the rest of her ALC-LEAP friends made sure our space was conducive for reading in a chilly separate room. So even if the rest of the excitement was in the cafe proper — as per the chakra-balancing, crystal work, & everything else paranormal et al via the Spirit Questors — we had a somber yet relaxing time with our querents that night. It was super nice seeing Ai again & finally meeting her very accommodating Libra hubby Kyle. If only Jade didn't have to go so soon (he still had to rush to work at the next building shortly after, haha, yay, powerhouse), Francisbear & I could've stayed longer. Too bad I didn't get to talk to Aileen about her cards. I so wanted to see her Crystal Tarot deck!



My querents were predominantly Capricorn; however, there was this awesome married young female Taurean entrepreneur with a lot of Fire energy & a young female Piscean architect who could use more Fire in turn to help her get moving with her career & then some. I'm really happy how they were very receptive to everything New Age. Actually, everybody else was that night. But those 2 young women were the most delightful to talk to! :D

So after us readers got a quick meal from our sponsors to help us ground ourselves, we then headed out for some tea. Jade had to finally go to work. Francis got himself some peppermint ginseng while I had peach ginger. Then we goofed off with his quirky webcam application, so voila. Haha. We were on the brink of dozing off in the cafe, but since the place was closing & the crowd in the fantastic nocturnal weekend food market Banchetto subsided a bit, we decided to check it out, & lo, & behold, the food choices were more overwhelming than in our usual daytime weekend markets in Makati. We had so much fun people-watching & trying out more food. We were there until a few minutes before sunrise, yay. It was crazy. We really should be there again more often. I used to hang out in the area often a few years ago, especially at the Podium, but no thanks to my old day job, I got too tired to go anywhere else beyond our good ol' CBD. I'm working to get my stamina up to go around the metro like crazy again. Though getting around is a lot more fun with a friend or so in tow.

The week after that, Francis & N joined me for another Tarot-rama afternoon, as I was hoping to get another workshop done with my regular younger students. Francis showed me his Dante Tarot deck (which was spectacularly surreal; I got mystical cards all throughout) & N brought his wonderful old cyber-goth-punk deck, which was rather left unused that time. We then headed to Bonifacio High Street + Serendra around dinnertime, & scoured the area for books & decks. I found my Legacy of The Divine Tarot deck there, & I had it reserved to give myself more time to think about it, because what I've always wanted from Ciro Marchetti was actually his Tarot of Dreams, sigh. Then we had dinner in the area & everything else was a blur. I'll have to blame them super sweet cupcakes + mango bellini for the sugar rush. I wasn't able to meet up with Jammi as a result.

Now for the Brown Bag Market + Green Drinks event, I decided to meet up with Francis again at BHS + Serendra first before heading there. I finally bought my Legacy of The Divine Tarot deck & it was a good buy after all. I didn't get to use it right away, though. But the book was a good read. I like the astrological transit associations for each card, & the spreads were potent.

I had silly floral nail art done (switched from red nail polish to black just because; coincidentally for my Venus return) & we checked out other fun stuff to get next time (I'm so hoarding Kimmidoll keychains, haha), then ate at this vegetarian bistro which has the best aligue pasta yet (I had a creamy tuna pasta dish, though) & power drinks. We're definitely coming back!

We also checked out ECHOstore for fab local organic personal care items, & I bought stuff from Z.E.N. like their leg-&-feet relief cooling gel & strawberry + licorice body scrub, then a really nicer-smelling insect repellent spray from GIGA. Yay, eucalyptus! I'm going back for more. But thank heavens for online shopping as well. Yup, I'll be happy to receive more of those as gifts this season! :P *hint*

When we got to The Collective, this small artsy haven tucked neatly away in the outskirts of the Makati CBD housing a few organic shops, clothing stores, kitschy food joints, & urban art galleries was already jampacked with people, but the crowd was actually already thinning down, as the market was wrapping up. I've visited the complex before last April & fell in love with the wall art along Vinyl on Vinyl, among the other things they had on display during that time. I'll go definitely go back for this awesome quirky vegetarian noodle house called Wabi-Sabi, that offers BOTH ramen & pho, yay, & other glorious things on the menu like gyoza, ginger beer, & mushroom siomai. Francisbear & I chanced on Punchdrunk Panda's booth with cute designs on footwear & electronic gadget accessories such as laptop sleeves/bags & camera straps, Ritual's take on sorbetes (ice cream), homemade square candles with seashells, & the highlight of the night: a shot of powdered wheatgrass drink with honey from a couple of part-owners of Good Spirits Cafe, Glecie (Scorpio) & her better half Foncy (Libra), hehe. Talk about green drinks, alright. I bought a very small sample from her, but I'll be coming back for more. What made me doubly excited was that when she told me Foncy's sister Mitchelle reads Tarot cards, too, & they have an astrologer on board! Dear Lord, I really need to be around this complex more often. So all in all, it was a wonderful night. To hop on over to The Collective, here's a map I gacked off online:


View Commuting in the Philippines 101 in a larger map

Thanks again, Francis, for that action-packed weekend!

It was a super month, yesiree. Venus returns are the best! ♥

"because it's fun being a girl!"

There's this new stint I've been into for about 3 months now, at least a couple of times per month, & I have to thank my fellow Tarot reader Jammi for the heads-up. It's G Mondays at exquisite NU.VO in Greenbelt 2 in the Makati central business district, a laidback yet fun just the same Ladies' Night with free-flowing sangria, awesome house music, & half-hour-long minimum Tarot readings from 10pm to 12mn (though sometimes, on a packed night, like a few days before my birthday, I'd be reading until 2am-3am, haha, yikes). Now just because it's Ladies Night, you can't have your men there with you. There's still an abundance of guys with their respective date & friends, & everybody's having fun, so far! After-dinner parties will never be the same with nights like this. Whoever said you can't ever party on a Monday?



So this is the only time ever that I ditch my usual girl-next-door tee-&-shorts getup. LBDs, here I go. But since I still can't manage to wear killer heels until further notice, I just go in dainty dressy flats & slip-ons (& oh, man, I need a wardrobe update; serves me right for living in designer flip-flops & sneakers for the longest time) so I can still show off my neat pedicure, haha.

Anyway, see you all there. (If not tonight, then most definitely next week! Jammi's a trusty reader, too, & she's so fun to talk to!) The place serves nice Italian & French food & they sure want to break the common notion now that they're only good for that. They have other regular events on other nights (with Manolet Dario, yo, squee) that you might want to check out.

it's easy being green!

Because the queen of organic, sustainable lifestyle among my roster of friends posted this idea for next weekend, & I'm kinda raring to go & check things out, as Mercury in Sagittarius is driving me crazy in my 3rd House this month, I might as well go, & maybe share the idea with you guys, especially if you're looking for a nice new cause or a fairly wholesome party, hehe. Besides, I miss The Collective, & if you haven't been there yet, I suggest you head on over. There's a whole buncha lovely artistic stuff to discover in that complex! :D





Schmoozing with like-minded people on a weekend sounds like fun.
& yeah, I do care about the environment & support fair trade.

Here's from the official website:

Every month people who work in the environmental field meet up at informal sessions known as Green Drinks.

We have a lively mixture of people from NGOs, academia, government, & business. Come along & you'll be made welcome. Just say, "are you green?" & we will look after you & introduce you to whoever is there. It's a great way of catching up with people you know & also for making new contacts. Everyone invites someone else along, so there’s always a different crowd, making Green Drinks an organic, self-organising network.

These events are very simple and unstructured, but many people have found employment, made friends, developed new ideas, done deals & had moments of serendipity. It's a force for the good & we'd like to help it spread to other cities. Contact your local node to get the latest info about coming along.

Yup, sounds like a plan. ♥
Let's all hang out & throw caution to the wind! :P