Down the Rabbit Hole

Actually, this is the first time I've ventured outdoors since the shelter-in-place order was issued in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Imagine that, I have been indoors for the past 14 days!! And the reason that I went out was to go to my OBGYN appointment. The wee one's arrival is approaching and I'm visiting the doctor once a week starting from today. Although I can still drive myself to the clinic, Anna chauffeurs me instead because I might experience contractions en route... and it's difficult to concentrate driving when my belly is the middle of a contraction (I experienced this while driving on the highway from Lodi to Concord last month).  View this post on Instagram First time outside of the house since the shelter-in-place order was issued in the Bay Area. Destination: OBGYN visit. . 🤰🏽Week 3️⃣5️⃣ coming right up! A post shared by Rochie Cuevas (@rochiecuevas) on Mar 30, 2020 at 12:38pm PDT ...

Now that Mommy is used to her work-at-home routine, she requires less help from me. She's getting a hang of accessing her office desktop remotely (through the wonders of VPN technology and the remote desktop app in her computer). Val's been able to catch up on a lot of backlog. Anna has been helping Biboy take care of Gabriel while he's working from home (it's tough to do so with a toddler). Her school hasn't scheduled her final exam just yet. Daddy's still reporting for duty but he's not working overtime. A lot of changes have been going on but everyone's adjusting fast. It helps that the hoarding for basic needs (like tissue paper) has stopped; the stores have started replenishing them and anyone can buy these whenever our reserves are going low. I'm still the taong bahay , not allowed to go out of the house. But that's okay because this is the week that I'm entering the 34th week of my pregnancy. From this point forward, I can deliver...

Way before the COVID-19 epidemic reached the county where I live in, Mommy and I just finished one of her routine medical appointments and were looking for a place to eat (before I had to drive her to her office and then continue working from home). We were both craving for Filipino cuisine but were quite unwilling to eat at Island Pacific (because we buy our Filipino food fix there quite often). A quick Yelp search led us to a little hole-in-the-wall along Railroad Avenue called, very aptly, Lutong Bahay. For me, a trip to a Filipino restaurant is not complete if I don't order sinigang. But thanks to my pregnancy, I couldn't stand the taste of beef; so I was so happy to see that pork sinigang was available. And yes, my appetite has grown, enough to feed two people, which is quite literal; so on this rare occasion of me eating out, I had two cups of rice to pair with the sinigang. A serving of sago't gulaman easily satisfied my craving for boba milkshake. Mommy, on...

With the cases of COVID-19 continually going up in California, Gov Gavin Newsom has ordered residents in the whole state to shelter in place  last night. Daddy still reports to work because he's counted as an essential service provider. Mommy is slowly adjusting to the work-from-home arrangement she has with her office. Biboy is pulling double duty as daddy day care (with Anna supporting him) and as remote tech support in the hospital. Barbara hasn't been asked to report to work. Val is also working from home. And I am trying to finish the final technical paper in my  current consultancy; good timing because I only have a few weeks left before the baby arrives. I have to admit that the prospect of giving birth in these conditions is both exciting and worrisome. Val and I are finalising our baby's name, which helps us both focus on the positives despite the epidemic. But as the public health system, worldwide, gets overwhelmed by the sheer number of the sick and the de...

After my Week 32 OBGYN visit, Anna and I made a pitstop at Sharetea, another boba tea place in downtown Concord (aside from T4 ). We don't frequent it as much but the boba tea flavours are also worth going out of our way for.  When we got there, we noticed a note posted by the glass door: they were accepting to-go orders only and there are no indoor seating. True enough, when we got inside, the tables and chairs were all placed onto a cordoned off portion of the restaurant. So along with the other patrons, we stood a safe distance away from each other while waiting for our drink orders. But even before we were told to shelter-in-place , restaurants have started taking precautions. Starbucks announced that it would not allow patrons to use reusable cups starting March 6th and temporarily shifted to drive-thru and to-go serving models on March 15th. The T4 branch near the house even closed down for the meantime (I hope Sharetea is still open when I get a boba drink cravi...

Mommy was told that she's working from home during the three-week shelter-in-place period . Anna's classes have been transitioned to online delivery. Biboy's office is currently testing the effectiveness of working from home for IT staff. Gabriel's day care has closed temporarily. Daddy and Barbara have been called to work during this period; Barbara's on on-call basis (which means she only goes to the Superior Court in Alameda if her judge has a case), as I understand it while Daddy's supposed to report to work because his profession is categorised as essential services. Val is working from home in Los Baños too, with meetings with staff happening over Skype in the meantime.  Me? I'm still working from home, except that I have an officemate now (Mommy) and I am now her onsite tech support. Same old; same old... somewhat. As far as I'm concerned, there's not much of a difference in my daily routine, except that I have not attended barre cl...

When I began watching this film, I thought that it would have the same outdoorsy vibe as the Murder on the Orient Express . Instead, I found a film that was mostly confined in an elegant 1910s dining room. The wealthy Birling family was celebrating the engagement of the daughter, Sheila, to Gerald, a man from another prominent family. Inspector Goole, investigating the suicide of a poor woman called Eva Smith, gatecrashed the dinner and pointed out how each member of this privileged family made Eva's life increasingly desperate, leading to her taking her own life. The performances were superb but the movie made an impression on me because of what Inspector Goole said in the end about each of us being responsible for one another. I think that this message is relevant during this challenging time.  As the seriousness of COVID-19 reached the residents and the county officials in the  Bay Area , people have started hoarding basic supplies to the point that there a...

The year 2020 certainly started off with a bang. Val and I were chatting the other day about how challenging this year's first quarter has been so far—with the fires in the U.S. and in Australia, the sudden and accidental deaths of Kobe Bryant, his daughter, and their companions, and the eruption of Taal Volcano—when the next crisis arrived: the coronavirus dubbed as SARS-CoV-2 is causing an outbreak of pandemic (yes, pandemic!) proportions. The  coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic began in November or  December 2019 in a seafood market in Wuhan, China. Just three or four months later, 148 countries and territories reported over 160,000 confirmed cases of the disease. It has gained a foothold in Africa in February, with over 400 confirmed cases and 10 deaths in a span of four weeks.    Source:  https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/685d0ace521648f8a5beeeee1b9125cd   As I read reports and pored through prediction models (I haven't yet trie...

Before we visited Biboy, Barbara, and Gabriel (to give them some macarons from Bouchon Bakery), we made a pit stop at the V Marketplace. I originally just wanted to browse the truffle selections but I found gelato at Kollar Chocolates. View this post on Instagram Sunday afternoon: I went to @kollarchocolates to check out the famous artisanal truffles. But the gelatos caught my attention, so I ended up with stracciatella and vanilla bean scoops in a choco-dipped waffle cone. 😋😋😋 . The wee one was kicking up a storm while I savoured my gelatos; probably will develop a taste for fine dining and high-quality food. . My pregnancy ice cream game is strong. 😅 A post shared by Rochie Cuevas (@rochiecuevas) on Mar 8, 2020 at 3:58pm PDT The gelato flavours I tried were delicious! Even the wee one seemed to approve, based on how active he was while I was eating my gelato cone. Next time we're back in Yountville, I'm ...

Ever since my professional growth has led me to meet some of the world's best chefs  and my friends and I used to go the extra mile to eat at the best restaurants in the Philippines we could afford (including holes-in-the-wall, take note), I became curious about restaurant with Michelin star ratings. Source: The Michelin Guide's To the Stars and Beyond Because I'm now based in the SF Bay Area, I've been scouting for restaurants with Michelin ratings BUT have remained reasonably priced for regular folk. The first one I tried with Anna (as always, wanting to eat "sa masarap") was Bouchon Bistro in Yountville CA. We ended up talking ad nauseam  about how great the lunch menu was with our parents that they wanted to experience the one-Michelin star dining experience too. Take note that the food options there are within the same price range as the high-quality but not exorbitant restaurants in Concord. In other words, a place we could eat at once ...

I've been working (as a consultant, since August 2019) on a consumer behaviour project focused on food choices of the low- to middle-income demographic in two eastern Indian states: Odisha and West Bengal. Because of this project, I have been exposed to Indian cuisine quite a bit. But after moving to the Bay Area, I haven't eaten Indian food in a long time, so I decided to do so right after my Week 30 OBGYN appointment. The restaurant within walking distance was Naan 'n' Curry , about 20 minutes away (by waddling, take note). I enjoyed its paneer tikka masala during my first visit, around four years ago, so that's what I opted to take this time around.  View this post on Instagram Lunch consisting of Basmati rice and paneer tikka masala. Immersing into Indian cuisine downtown before analysing data about eastern Indian cuisine. A post shared by Rochie Cuevas (@rochiecuevas) on Mar 2, 2020 at 1:35pm PST ...