JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Awww. Our friend sent us a really, really late Xmas present (or a very early one!): a bunch of Hello Kitty eyeglass frames. They’re adorable.

We’re not likely to wear them (though our sister squeed and took the pink ones), not just because that would be terrifying, but because there’s a prophecy somewhere in the Apocrypha: “And lo, the abomination shall appeareth in the spectacles of a feline of the East that hath no mouth, and there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth, and those that behold the beast shall plucketh out their eyes and sing Air Supply songs…”

You know how very close friends sometimes quarrel over the most trivial things? The other night we were recalling how two of our friends had had a spat over a comment one of them made about the other’s outfit. Eventually they forgot what they had quarreled about and resumed being good friends.

“An insult over fashion?” we said. “Wala yan. Naaalala niyo noong nilait ako ng taong-grasa?” (That’s nothing. Remember when we were insulted by the homeless?)

We have these funny earrings we’re very fond of, made of empty super-glue tubes. One day we wore them to lunch with Chus at a cafe near Burgos. After the lunch, we were waiting for a taxi when we were approached by a homeless person completely covered in soot and grime. She walked up to us, stared at our earrings and said, with great concern, “Ate, bakit ganyan ang hikaw mo?” (Why are your earrings like that?) Yes, our fashion accessories were dissed by a street person.

After he had finished laughing, Leo suggested that we wear the super-glue earrings to a formal function or someplace where people are really dressed-up. As luck would have it, we had a lunch appointment with Toni and Martha the following day at Terraz in the new Zuellig Building on Makati Avenue.

We have been curious about the Zuellig Building, which not only has an arresting facade but is a certified Green building. It’s their corporate headquarters so we figured the people in it would be in business attire, i.e. not likely to be wearing earrings made of empty super-glue tubes.

So we found our super-glue earrings, which we haven’t worn since we were doing rugby coverage (They were an in-joke: rugby? super-glue?).

We were having coffee and dessert when the European man at the next table approached us. “I just want to say that I like your earrings!”

The moral of the story is—Well, there is no moral in this story. File under Differences in Taste/Cultural Differences: What may seem quirky/interesting to a foreigner can look like garbage to a street person. This is also true for cinema.

Shoes! The handmade oxfords in abel fabric that we ordered from Shoes by Kai have arrived. “Handmade” means “You have to wait two weeks, but they will fit perfectly.” We were wondering if the shoes would survive rainy weather—they did.

Box! The cats always get excited over cardboard boxes. We used to bring them presents in boxes, but found that they couldn’t care less about the contents. So we’ve dispensed with the presents and just give them the boxes.

Saffy and Koosi took turns curling up inside the box. Clearly they imagine themselves to be little kittens.

After we walked out of The Lone Ranger (It wasn’t as bad as we thought, but as far as we could tell it had no reason to exist), we wandered around the National Bookstore flagship in Glorietta 2. Beside the Illy Cafe on the ground floor is an Umbra store-within-store. Umbra is a Canadian houseware brand (Umbro is an English sportswear label) specializing in slightly whimsical items like the whiteboard globe above.

You can write reminders to yourself on the globe (It comes with an erasable marker) and feel like the ruler of the planet.

We also spotted some ring holders, which we need to dissuade the cats from playing football with our rings. The ring holders come in assorted animal shapes: these are the cat and the octopus.

Voila, our rings have been organized.

Memosphere whiteboard globe, Php1,000; Cat and Octopus ring holders, Php500 each at Umbra in National Bookstore Glorietta 2.

Yellow bead earrings from Iloilo and red bead crocodile earrings made by T’boli women in Lake Sebu.

Very large blue and gold glass ring from Murano in Venice. Also serves as portable crystal ball.

Toms, you were a good pair of shoes to walk around in, and we traversed vast distances comfortably. Unlike most trainers you were light and never made us feel like we were clomping around. Unlike tennis shoes we could wear you in the summer. You went well with everything, although we don’t particularly care whether our shoes match our clothes. Plus you had that Buy-a-pair-and-we-donate-a-new-pair-to-a-child-in-need hook, which made us feel virtuous even if we didn’t know if the shoes donated to needy children were also Toms.

But after one year of infrequent wear—we’d wear you every day for a week and then forget you for two months—we noticed a hole in the fabric. (Note: We only wore you on paved surfaces, not mountain crags or rocks.) Okay, maybe our little toe is too sharp so it poked out a hole. And then we saw the rip right across the top, exposing the lining. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Is that intentional, like pre-torn designer jeans? Is it supposed to rip, to enhance that socially-responsible world traveler look?

Fine, you’re a year and three months old and maybe this is what you consider normal wear and tear, but you cost around Php5,000. That’s more that we ever paid for Doc Martens, and our 15-year-old Docs are alive and fighting. That’s more than we usually pay for shoes, actually (We got you with GCs, the legal tender of the freelance writing set). If you had cost, say, Php1500 we’d think, Well, we got our money’s worth. In this case we feel a little gypped.

We’ll probably keep on wearing you till you fall apart completely, ignoring the stares of the finicky and fashionable, but we’re disappointed.