Author: crisn

I'm Cris Nacionales from the Philippines.

Love Earth, Wear Dirty Jeans

What I don’t do for my jeans saves the planet. If you don’t know what I am talking about, then it is time for you to read Mashable’s article about CEO of Levi’s earth-friendly advice–do not wash your jeans. Yes, you got that right. Do not wash your jeans!

This is the second time I have read an article that encourages what I have been doing all along. Few weeks back, Yahoo! also featured tips on how to extend the life of fabric simply by washing it less often than most of us are used to. In that same article, it mentions freezing the clothing to kill germs rather than the usual laundry. I nearly tried it the last time had I found a ziplock bag where my jeans would fit as except for an almost untouched pint of ice cream, a partially filled ice cube tray, and a small bag of hotdogs, our freezer could accommodate such experiment–yup, it’s that empty.

Now that a CEO has spoken about this earth-friendly idea once more, regardless if it some sort of hype for a material and process that require less water to manufacture a pair of Levi’s jeans, my excitement to get my pants dirty for the love of the environment is becoming stronger. I am no stranger to this, in fact there was once a time when I have kept my Levi’s–I can afford one back in ’96–unwashed and continued to wear it to work for more than a month. (I now recall that it was also when Shaggy’s Boombastic became the catchy commercial jingle of Levi’s.)

Today, while I cannot accomplish same duration of an unwashed jeans, I still make it a point to wear my pants more than once. There’s just this feeling of guilt whenever I throw a pair of pants to the laundry bin worn only for a day. Maybe because I am aware of the decreasing water levels in our dams or just maybe because I would avoid laundry if I can help it. Whatever the reasons are, I now feel that wearing dirty jeans is one of my many contributions to save mother earth.

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Mood: 2/10 Honks! (Will skip gym just to write this post.)

(Street) Smart?

This week is Marcus’ 3rd week of summer class and yesterday after he exits the classroom I was able to have a short talk with his teacher to check for progress.

Soon I learned that while he gets marked with stars on the back of his hand for doing a good job almost often since day 3 he seems to be fooling around–which I suspect happens when he is bored. His teacher said, “I know that he knows the answer but sometimes he would deliberately give the wrong one.”

Upon arriving home I had him reviewed using the Word Family House game with a very clear condition: for every wrong answer he gives I delete one of his apps from our Telpad tablet. The frustrating session began. He says ‘cup’ instead of ‘mug’, he says ‘punch’ instead of ‘hit’. The clues I’m giving weren’t just working. He lost three apps by lunch time.

Today at school before class I reminded him that there will be another round of review, just like yesterday, same rules apply. Excitedly, he told me, “Daddy, I have given to mommy some of my games. I have placed Talking Tom and Minecraft in her apps folder.” Those were his favorite games, now it his mom’s which I can’t technically delete this time. I’ll give to him. Street smart, isn’t he?

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Mood: 1/10 Honks! (Jack Bauer in 10 minutes.)

The Towel

I was in Bacolod last weekend and after a good Sunday lunch I borrowed my mother’s minivan to drop my father off at Robinson’s mall—his favorite hangout—and then to proceed to a reunion with my old biking friends. As I was driving out of the gate, I saw my mother’s helper running towards the creeping beige Rusco van.

“Wait, wait, wait. Your mom wants you have this towel,” the helper said in vernacular as he reached the driver side. “Why?” I asked puzzled with the urgency. “Just take it, she insists.” So I absentmindedly took the towel and drove off to go about my tasks on that lazy high noon.

More than twelve kilometers later at an average speed of 60 kilometers per hour, I parked at Sta. Fe Resort and saw my face at the rearview mirror almost soaking with sweat. That was when I realized the purpose of the neatly folded towel which I have tossed at the backseat. Thanks, nanay. You still know best.

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Mood: 2/10 Honks! (I still can’t believe I just paid PhP 7K for this blog to continue being online for the next 3 years.)

Slow Down and Stop

Most of us would agree that we hate being stopped. It is the reason we strain our necks to investigate what keeps traffic from moving, often times it is what causes us to blare our horns madly to coax that unsuspecting guy in front of us to step on it.

When sickness strikes, we desperately try to fight it off. We question the heavens why us, when will we recover. And we want that damn recovery fast.

At work, we get impatient when that dream job we have been applying for just doesn’t come so soon.

And in our family, our children or spouses bear the brunt whenever things don’t go our way.

Any sign of stopping we just immediately hate.  When something breaks our momentum and keeps us indefinitely stationary we become impatient, frustrated, and irrational.

But what we must realize is that there are always reasons, important ones, that we are stopped on our tracks. For one, it is the time we are given the opportunity to reflect, to analyze, and to reconsider. Being on the go makes us feel invincible, too proud, too detached from reality, and worse, from the very people who are supposed to be the main recipients of why we want to keep on moving.

On that note, this holy week, whether too pious or not, let us allow ourselves to slow down or come to a full halt and appreciate what we currently have, what we have achieved so far. Let us stop and remember to thank the divine power who in the first place has kept us going throughout the whole year.

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Mood: 1/10 Honks! (My last work day for this week.)

Food Strips

Wifey and Marcus are away for a vacation which left me no choice but to liver or rather survive on my own. Without wifey, there’s no one to cook food. Without Marcus, there’s no one around hauling Lego figures on the table during meal times.

So to fill that void I feel inside our house, I have come up with what I will start to call Food Strips where I integrate the Lego characters with my cooking skills–or the lack of it. Kudos to the trial version of Comic Life from Softonics and if I am satisfied using it I might pay for its full version after 30 days if the two still decide to stay put in Batangas.

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“Sometimes quiet is violent.” — Car Radio, Twenty One Pilots

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Mood: 2/10 Honks! (Weekend is near.)