The (Freeze-Dried) Little Things

A little more than a year ago today, I was in some bar and grill in Ortigas trying to talk a good friend away from doing something that would have made for great entertainment. Perhaps in another reality, I would be writing an entry about the best radio show episode I have ever heard.

A year later, and I'm still looking for that entry. It's a lot more difficult to write about things that would tug those elusive heartstrings, but I digress.

Instead, I'd like to share a photo of something nifty I ate recently - astronaut ice cream.

If necessity was the mother of invention, you'd have to ask why someone from amongst the best of the world's brightest minds - engineers, physicists, mathematicians - thought to create something like it. After all, at around ten thousand dollars per pound of space cargo, it's pretty hard to justify adding it to the long list of things to bring into the great black void in the sky. For all the important things they do up there that make our lives down here easier, it's easy to forget how it's mostly just them out there - away from the things they hold dear.

And yet, despite all that, they find ways to hold on to things that make life a little brighter everyday. Wouldn't it be wrong to say that we can't do the same, despite having everything and everyone we hold dear within our reach?

Remember that life is sometimes dark, difficult and gloomy, but it doesn't mean that we'd have to let go of the things that make us happy - things that make the little kid buried deep within our proud bleak adult hearts smile again. And if we find the few special people who manage to help keep us afloat in the sea of adversity that is life, whether they'd be family, friends or a significant other, maybe we should hold on to them too.

After all, we can only celebrate Valentine's Day so many times in our brief existence on this planet.

But you know, that's just me. Take it with a grain of salt.

P.S. It tastes like cookies and cream, but without the creamy filling - in case anyone was wondering. Imagine eating cookies and cream-flavored polvoron (or shortcake). Really, really dry polvoron. Heck, it's almost like meringue, but much drier.  So yeah, nothing like the real thing.