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For the Iron Chef meets OTJ story. We don’t know how true it is, but it sounds exactly like a group of friends swapping stories over a meal. Congratulations, magilas, you can pick up your prize at the Customer Service counter of National Bookstore at Power Plant Mall, Rockwell (telephone 8974562) after Friday, 20 September.

the boomerang kid, your consolation prize for the previous LitWit Challenge will also be available starting this weekend.

The LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore.

The maid was coming over to clean the house and she’s afraid of cats. She has no problem with Koosi, Saffy and Mat because they’re antisocial and stay out of her way. But Drogon is very friendly and will twirl around the ankles of the nearest human. Not only would Drogon scare the maid, but he would skip out the door and wander around the building.

Our solution was to take Drogon to the mall, where we had chores to do and an appointment to keep. So we made Drogon wear his little harness (The one we bought for Mat and used exactly twice), put him in his carrier, and off we went.

We now feel a great sympathy for working mommies.

Drogon was thrilled to be at the mall, so thrilled that he started yowling in his carrier. When we opened the carrier he was vibrating with joy. He wanted to be carried, but he wouldn’t sit still—he kept turning around and squirming, trying to see everything. So we clipped the leash onto his harness and encouraged him to walk. He tried to drag us after him. “I love the mall! Look at the people! Food smells! Wow, a wall!”

A couple of shoppers asked us what breed Drogon is and we replied, proudly, “Pusakal, adopted stray”. While we paid our phone bill he tried to wriggle out of our arms and run down the hall. When we put him back in the carrier he screamed in protest. Every time we put him on the floor he tried to tow us. When we sat down, he got his leash tangled around our legs.

After an hour and a half of cat-sitting, we were exhausted. Our friend’s driver was hanging out on the benches by the car park entrance and he agreed to watch over Drogon in his carrier. And so, like many harried women juggling the demands of career with the responsibilities of parenthood, we heard ourselves saying, “Okay, there’s a nice baby, stay with Manong Driver while we do our work.”

Eloise, The Ultimate Edition by Kay Thompson and Hilary Knight, Php1395 at National Bookstores.

Between Sineng Pambansa screenings at SM Aura (Cabbie: Uma-awra ang mall na yan.) we went looking for a bookstore and found a National Bookstore on the lower ground level. It’s new and the fiction selection needs work, but in the design section we found this Eloise omnibus. Which we bought “for our 7-year-old niece”, wink wink. Then we decided that a 6-year-old girl who lives at The Plaza in Manhattan with her English nanny, dog and turtle, orders all her meals from room service, bothers the staff, and invites herself to all the functions at the hotel might not be a proper influence for a child who is innately maarte (“Mommy what’s thaaaat?” “It’s the Pasig River.” “Yuuuuuucccch!”) But for us, absolutely. So we’re keeping it.

DC Universe by Alan Moore, Php1015 at National Bookstores.

Then we found another Alan Moore compilation. Good shopping.

Our favorite art-collecting neurologist (neuroaesthete?) on what art does to your brain. He should know.

Admission to the conversation with Dr. Cuanang is free; make your reservations now.

Caged civets on Indonesian coffee plantations. Photos from the Guardian.

Coffee companies around the world still market kopi luwak along the lines of that original quirky story involving a wild animal’s digestive habits, many claiming that only 500 kilogrammes are collected a year, a scarcity that justifies its huge retail pricetag (usually between $200-400 a kilo, sometimes more). In fact, although it’s impossible to get precise figures, I estimate that the global production – farmers in India, Vietnam, China and the Philippines have all jumped on the bandwagon, too – is at least 50 tonnes, possibly much more. One single Indonesian farm claims to produce 7,000kg a year from 240 caged civets.

Wild luwaks – the trapping of which is supposed to be strictly controlled in Indonesia – are caught by poachers, caged and force-fed coffee cherries in order to crap out the beans for the pleasure of the thousands who have been conned into buying this “incredibly rare” and very expensive “luxury” coffee.

Read Civet coffee: Why it’s time to cut the crap, in the Guardian. Thanks to Jackie for this depressing alert. What’s next: celebrity crap coffee?

– What the hell is that!
– Saffy, you remember Drogon, don’t you? He used to live outside? He’s going to live with us now.
– (Saffy growls like a wild animal.)
– You’re being rude. Drogon is very nice and well-behaved. Look, he likes the toys that you don’t play with.
– Get it away from me! (Hides behind a shelf.)

– Stop being a mean girl. Drogon is staying and that’s that.
– I’m going on hunger strike! Look, I’m ignoring the food dish.
– Fine, let’s see how long you can hold out.
– I’m going to pee on stuff!
– You can’t scare us, we’re used to wiping up your pee. Here’s Drogon, he wants to play.
– I hate you! (Hisses and flees)

3am. Saffy curls up on our pillow.
– Why are you on the pillow, you said you hated us.
– Be quiet. I am sleepy.

6am. Sounds of munching at the kibble dish. Saffy is eating when she thinks we aren’t looking.