Pseudo-Aromatherapy Session

Today is the day we try to figure out and imagine how people in the pre-electricity era took their bath on winters (at least, if they ever had the chance to desparately need to have one).

No. In case you're wondering, this will be a purely decent discussion, and there will be no explicit descriptions of naked women covered in suds.. or for that matter, hairy naked men covered in suds.

Ok... We probably would've guess that they didnt have much baths on winter because of the inconvenience of heating up the water, as well as the fact that people dont sweat much when the temperature is cold. But I'd just like to say I've just had a similar experience today.

No, not with the not taking a bath part, people. About the taking a bath during winters without electricity.

Stop it already. Its a darn decent discussion to put in a blog.

You're testing my patience, aren't you.

Come along now, I'm trying to describe the way I took a bath today.

Winters. We've all hated the fact that ice cold water and freezing weather will concoct images of freezing, shivering experiences in the bathroom. Getting caught wet stationary without hot water on you will be an experience of "hell freezing over". For those located in the tropics, where winter is virutually non-existent, try to imagine taking a shower in an air conditioned room set below 10 degrees. Got that image in your head already? good.

I managed to get into that position today. Fortunately, the heater was still working so I didn't have to boil tons of water to get a decent bath. But there's this problem with the light in my bathroom - It broke down, and since on this particular day it was rather late already, and its already night, and all the bulb shops where closed, in the end, I would end up with a dark bathroom. And the result would be that I wouldn't very well see where the shampoo is as opposed to the conditioner and the liquid soap and the feminine wash. I wasn't about to cover my head with feminine wash, so to speak.

So I did the next best thing. I took out a couple of my tea lights and lit them up one by one enough to light the bathroom.

Reminds me of the times when I was still in the Philippines and there was an extreme power shortage. For almost 6 months (or was that a year?) every household had 4-8 hours of electricty every day. (I can't really remember the exact figures, but it sure felt like electricity didnt exist at that time) And since the government thought that people will eventually sleep at night, they decided that people dont really need electricity when the sun goes down. So everybody stocked up on boxes and boxes of candles. But that's way beside the point, I still had some sort of modern conveniences at this point, and I was only the light in the bathroom that was the problem.

So here I was, in the bathroom, wondering if the strategically placed tea lights would snuff out when I start turning on the hot water and steam starts hissing to cover up the small room.

< splash splash squeak squeak dammit its freezing! splash splash dress myself up ahhh >

There are some things I'd like to take note off at this point:
1. Lots of tea lights DO make up for the ambience.
2. Tea lights DO NOT snuff out even when the room is saturated with steam.
3. With so many tea lights, the heat generated is enough to make the cold weather a bit bearable.
4. Nevermind the ambiance, it will be an extreme hazard to light up more than 10 tea lights in a closed room, unless you want to risk fire throughout the building.
4. Substituting tea lights with normal bulbs WILL NOT help when you are exposed to EXTREME cold weather, unless you plan to conduct suicide by inducing hypothermia.

I am still wondering how people living near the poles take their baths without electricity though.

Just an observation. Maybe I should try lighting up tea lights in my room when its really cold... now if I fall asleep that would be a problem...

In any case. Should take note to try that before head off to my next life. Wouldn't want to miss any nice experiences.

Horoscopes +GMT

Here's my horoscope 2 days ago..

General

Unexpected news -- the kind that anyone would be just tickled to receive -- is en route. Whether it was intended for your ears or not doesn't quite matter at this point. You now officially know the scoop. What are you going to do about it? Well, for starters, you can't say a word. You know that. But you might want to think about how this will change things for you, especially when it comes to earning your daily bread.

Romance

Work your famous charms in your favor. Smile sweetly at your lover and get them waiting on you hand and foot.

Technical

Slow down a little or you're sure to lose steam in the home stretch. Let others set the pace for a change. Even leaders have to know how to follow.

I've been viewing these horoscopes online.. and sometimes I take a look at them for fun. Not that its extremely accurate, but I'd like to see how these astrologers do these things. Now, a couple of days ago I got this horoscope. It turned out that nothing happened the way this piece of horoscope said would happen.. and of course, I'm sort of taking this horoscope literally. So the whole day I waited for some sort of "under the table" news.. something that I would find exciting. In this case, I was hoping something work related. Because the past few days have been really busy for me, and I am just about to panic in my seat at times. Things HAVE been looking up at work though, its not as bad as I expected it to be. Which has been what the horoscopes have said for the past week. Check there.

Now, today I got a piece of news that might classify as "unexpected news" that I'd be tickled to receive. I found it pretty surprising that it actually hit target. Not that the news would make me ecstatic, but it did start me thinking.The horoscope seemed to be a day late. Would it be because these astrologers assume that I'd be from the States side rather than here in Asia?

hmm.. just a thought. *Ponder ponder*

Anyone out there have any idea how horoscopes work in relation to the locale in the globe?

Signing off, and still wondering...

A Day of Opportunities

Today, I had the fortunate opportunity to get out of the house.

I also had the opportunity to sit at the nearest local park.

And I also had the opportunity to grab a coffee that's well suited to my liking.

I also had the time to think things through on what I liked and hated, and I promptly had the opportunity to write them down and reflect on what I have become after 25 years. But that's another matter to talk about altogether. There are more important relevations than what I have morphed into after all my experiences and memories.

Because, I had the finest opportunity to see winter in action with external man-made objects - specifically, the pen.

Pen is indeed mightier than the sword, but it seems its no match for winter. As I hastily jolt down my thoughts in my notepad, trying to catch up my thoughts with my hand, sitting in the bench at the nice park with a cup of double shot Starbucks cafe latte beside, I finally realized this.

My favorite, commercially sold pen has its ink thinning out on me.

The cold weather has taken its toll and has finally triumphed on the pen. Whether it was the ball or the ink that lead to its temporary demise, I cannot tell.

I can never write in this cold weather, it seems. Besides, who has the sanity to brave the outdoors to sit on a park to write a few stupid memories while the rest of the town is freezing its ass off.

I put my pen down, tuck it into my backpack and enjoy the greenery.

What an opportunity to see life in action.

Note to Self on Blogging

I've always wondered how people put up with having to consistently write a blog a day. Its not that I don't like blogging; I do. As I've mentioned before, I find blogging interesting. Its just that how can these people find the time to update long entries and still be able to spend the day doing their living. I can barely put up with this already as it is. Just a thought. Have to take note of this.

Of course, for all you know, this is just a ploy to add in more entries in my blog so I can get to a-new-blog-a-day status... :)