it all started with 50 shades of grey. the movie. one of the longest movies i’ve seen in my life which had me choking on my popcorn when i wasn’t rolling my eyeballs over the exaggerated facial expression of ana, particularly when mr. grey touched her cheek on that very first day they met. (jeez. do women actually do that?!) frankly, i’m not crazy about the movie. i haven’t even read the book. never crossed my mind to do so. the only reason i found myself sitting there at dandenong reading cinemas the night before valentine’s day was ‘coz it was sort of like a family bonding with jeff’s cousins and friends. and also because of the popcorn.

i’m not exactly sure if the movie damaged a part of our brains (with jeff complaining to the barista and asking him if he had seen “fifty shades of GAY” while waiting for his drink) but one thing led to another and before you know it, we were suddenly making plans to celebrate valentine’s day with a little dinner here at home.

so that was that.

nothing fancy. just, you know, baked salmon and roasted chicken and fried pork and veggies and all that stuff you substitute for lechon for the simple fact that you’re not in the philippines anymore so lechon is out of the question. of course, as a salute to my newfound (and dare i say exceptional?) culinary skills, i made a significant contribution to the dinner table: mashed potatoes. very gourmet, i know. don’t hate me.

it was a very enjoyable dinner. somehow, even though i’m thousands of miles away from home, having jeff’s family around makes life here quite homey. they’re a loud bunch — sharing funny stories, mostly at nanay’s expense which she smiles off because she can barely hear. especially that. lol. but nanay is very well-loved. and i can’t help but love her too.

compared to his family, mine’s pretty much hush-hush. think quiet conversations while sipping on beer or wine, sharing ideas and opinions and thoughts about life. i know it all sounds boring (bordering on alcoholic) but that’s just how my family is and i love every moment of it. we’re kind of introverted like that. while jeff’s is more extroverted, minus the alcohol.

spent the rest of the night with the girls in the bathroom. trying to resuscitate my so-called makeup skills on these girls who offered to be my guinea pigs. truth be told, i haven’t been practicing on doing makeup for a very long time. it was particularly hard to do kb’s. my eyes gravitated more towards her chest than on her face. lol. lesbo alert.

meanwhile in the lounge room, the guys watched a dvd of the the transformers before we called it a night at around 1am.

it was a happy valentine’s day, indeed. =)

p.s. apparently, stripes was the motif of the day. the others probably didn’t get the memo.