flowers for my nanay

as the earth would have it, these are flowers that were never meant to be given.
as the wind would have it, the gesture of appreciating nanay was tossed to nowhere.
may nanay feel in her heart that one soul down here had in one time fondly thought of her
on mother's day. i love you, ma.

3 takes

take 1. 10-second pose. oooops father was covered, ooooops serge covered.

take 2. timer started. ooh glen was hidden.

take 3. click!

with whatever household props our hands held onto, the best shot of the century was taken inside the small house in san jose. even our dog, serge, strikes a model pose, as if he listened to the directives. it took 3 takes to capture the natural, the fun, the memory of a lifetime. all happened in 10 seconds, one night, when father came to visit us.

bagong bukangliwayway*

*new sunrise

waking up early drags me since i was born (isip ko lang). i am not an early riser, though waking up at 7am is already late for me. that means, i usually wake up between 6 and 7am. waking up at 5am is a no-no for me. usually i feel like losing my appetite if i force myself to be awake earlier than my usual schedule. and feel like killing all moods if i wake up later than that.

ahem, actually the story above is supposed to be in past tense. the waking up between 6 and 7 am was a thing in the past, when the viruses in my body were still young and vibrant. biological clock of the teens, to include the twenteens, clicks late. otherwise, the ageing era of today could not have witnessed such new sunrise when the east opens its rays at past 5 in the morning.

this only leaves me something. to age is actually to venture into a wonderland. to age is actually to witness the morning glory of the east. simply put, to age is to shine.

so today i wake up anytime. i am not bothered. specially if what awakens me is the promise that the sun will rise new every morning.

pirated jumong, prison break, etc

pirated dvd collections

is it in the filipino psyche to accept and promote anything pirated?

after collecting these korean, japanese, fox television serials, i become an accomplice to the crime of filipino psyche, if ever this thing is a crime.

more days than one, morning dialogues in the office beat around jumong, prison break, full house, stairway to heaven, a rosy life, princess hours, jewel in the palace, etc.

example:

mama: my daugher is now complaining i am always watching tv. so i told them, here, you buy bigbang in the store.
daughter: but mama you told me it's not good for my teeth.
mama: no, it is not true. go, buy.
another mama: what i did was to scatter lots of coins on the floor and told my children to pick them up.

why these serials seem to be addicting all of us? one dvd, the pirated one, runs around 16 to 26 hours. i was absent a couple of times just to watch them. one officemate professed the time she was absent was because she watched jumong. another watched til midnight, woke up at 5am to watch again, and was late for work.

i am not talking here of the morality of piracy, nor the popcorn sales of these pirated dvds. i am just simply telling a story of how this captures us, and makes us live once again to the challenge of making the mundane extraordinary.

this gives us a better version of ourselves, of our lives, of our work, of our workplace. will this justify if by now we are an accomplice of this filipino psyche?

mabuhay ka jumong! mabuhay ka scofield!

dirty ice cream

ice cream peddler, airport road

all children's favorite, especially if one lives in the barrio.
when i was young, this was the end-all-be-all of my existence.
the sound of its bell, salivated the ones who heard.
but why we bought even if it was called dirty?
that's child's wonders.
i was not sure why it was called dirty ice cream.
maybe because the process was so raw unlike the boxed ones?
maybe because in the process sweat and all were also mixed?
maybe because it was sold in the street?
all i know was that it is an ice cream.

to be naughty sometimes

actual scenes

pardon me but i had, we had, tresspassed the private world of these two human beings who are probably more in lust than in love. my office's location is privy for such a vouyeuristic tendency. so pardon, too, the office which just happens to be a philippine agency located on top of a hill in a philippine soil, which side, below it, is a public park called, of all names, madonna of japan. the place known for aborted fetus, haven for cheap rest, cheap date and quick sex.

this happened 12noon past when we were about to take our lunch break from an official boredom. the heat of the sun probably contributed to the rise of hormonal temperature. not just of the two lusters, er, lovers, but as well that of the lunch breakers. succeeding scenes need not be told. suffice it to say, all of us had a great time, if only for the fun of it.

gotcha!

faxed telegram

actual communication received by an office

yesterday in the office, one employee of another office approached and requested me to give a telegram for transmission to our record officer who was not present. she came personally with the following conversation (translated in english for the inter-nationals):

lady: is mrs. j around?
me: oh she is in a conference.
lady: can u just give this telegram for transmission to her?
me: sure.
lady: actually we wanted this faxed, since your fax line is busy, i decided to deliver it personally.
me: ah ok...
lady: thanks.

when she left, the following conversation occured:

me: here's a telegram for transmission. i just imagine how the phone conversation be like if she had connected to the telephone line.
officemate: like, riinnnnng, rinnnng, riiiinnnng.
me: (name of my office), hello!
officemate: this is mrs. (her name), of (name of her office). we have a telegram for transmission, FAX tone, please.
me: huh?

no further entry.

to tisha's nanay with love

http://tishapia.blogspot.com/2007/05/to-nanay-with-love.html

happy mother's day to my nanay.

celebration & fellowship

for whatever reason, celebrate;

celebration inthe
house, birthdays,
christmas, and
what-have-you

whenever, wherever, fellowship.

fellowship for those

who have something in common,

in the house, in city hall, balyuan, name it,

by day, by night,

rainy, sunny

autumn in summer

yes you read it right. there is autumn in summer, and there is autumn in the philippines. autumn in summer onli hapens in da pilipins. really, unique country. unique characteristics. that includes autumn of solid wastes (take a closer look of the picture, there is a presence of nonbiodegradable materials in there). either you look at it as beauty in chaos and wastes, or there is waste in beauty. onli in da pilipins the pessimists and the optimists work well together. i call that uniqueness. i call that autumn in summer. whew!

nanay ko

i wonder what they were thinking when they thought of this theme...

after not voting, friends came by

friends from cebu and palo came by my house to laugh. yes, the purpose was to laugh. i am not sure if they too were tired of election, they voted yes, but surely for me it was a relief after not voting this election.

ban2t and rman are the two most wonderful company i ever have these days, not to mention i've been blessed with such friendship since years and years ago. the magic is there, the magic to laugh. our ability to laugh is actually a gift, because one word is enough to keep the ball rolling. since we are all working now, things have changed in as far as the frequency of our fellowship is concerned.

their visit was highlighted with pinasugbo, a pasalubong brought by arman from cebu. it was more of a gesture of hey i am home than of fondness for pinasugbo. in fact ban2t did not eat that, but i had a good time having pinasugbo all by myself. that is actually my favorite, especially if it is iloilo made.

the afternoon visit brought us to the airport to watch the airplane land and fly. of course, we made fun of the flying and landing, and made up stories of passengers walking by, finally home. (ang probably laughing too that they are now finally home.)

dinner was served earlier, thanks to gemma, my niece, who really now has improved a lot in her cooking skills. we ended up in jose karlos for a wonderful after-dinner coffee, though that did not make us coffee addicts.

ban2t parted ways at 10pm past. rman and i, while waiting for a jeepney going home, talked to our hearts content until 2:30am, in the corner, in a sidewalk. i observed that one san jose jeep passed by us for already 5 times before we finally boarded and called it a night.

i will miss such companionship. in fact, we already missed one companion who is now in thailand. we missed ate nila in pep talks and pep laughs such as the one we just have had.

life goes on.