The Armchair Critic

I heart chocolates. It all started when I was a young girl and my father, a dentist, brought me home a forbidden treat. A Mars chocolate from Norma's - the only PX goods store in the province. You see in those days, imported chocolates were available only in specialty stores or in stores around Clark Air Base. Needless to say, they were quite expensive.

Just like in that old toothpaste commercial, every afternoon I ran to meet my father and perkily asked him, "Ang chocolates ko?" Half the time, of course, I dreaded that he would pull out a tube of Crest toothpaste. Imagine how crestfallen I would have been then. (LOL)

My love affair for chocolates continues to this day. There is no depriving me of these babies. But through the years, I have become quite discriminating. I always like my chocolates to be smooth, creamy and a little minty. And please don't tell me eating mint chocolates is like eating toothpaste. How pedestrian!

Yesterday, the much-awaited balikbayan boxes from my sister in Illinois finally arrived. And oooohhh....the goodies inside.

I've got spools of ribbons, stickers, metal tags, toolkits, paper of different colors...everything a budding scrapbooker could need. I am in paper heaven.



But the best part is the small green box that my sister tucked in with all the scrapbooking stuff. So thoughtful. So delicious. Her one and only addiction, and now mine, too. Frango mints. My sister rewards herself with one of these bite-size goodies after she finishes a scrapbook page. I intend to do that too to stretch my chocolate supply . (Who knows when I will get my next box?) But first, I have to check if the chocolates survived the 4-week voyage to reach me. I have to make sure they hadn't melted.

But the cool minty smell did me in. I just gottta have one! (Or two, or three...) What the hey! I can always scrapbook later. In the meantime, heaven awaits.



Thank God for sisters.