BLURB
I looked up at the hundred-year-old ‘santol’ tree near the gate that had puzzlingly been raining hundreds of ‘santol’ fruit lately. ‘Nabubuntis ka pa?’ Suddenly the centenarian was fertile! Over-the-top fertile!
I had cornered my grandson, Rafa, who is into microbiology, to ask him what he was into these days. Oh, he answered, in a hurry to go elsewhere, “We are doing the gene sequencing of the protein in a tardigrade.”
Huh? I groaned, but he was gone.
Next day I stopped my apo Franco with his law book. What are you reading? I asked.
“I am checking the difference between the acts punishable under article 315 of the Revised Penal Code—estafa, and those punishable under Batas Pambansa Bilang 22, that’s the bouncing checks law, so please don’t disturb.”
I let him go.
Next, Carlo. He is studying abnormal psychology. I like psych. I was confident about talking to this apo. Carlo said, “I’m using statistical analysis software to calculate the reliability of a test by obtaining Cronbach’s OC and will perform factor analysis to see which personality traits load on which domain.” Entiendes, Lola?
Oh well. I better stick to my children, like Carlo’s mother, Wendy. She’s only a gardener at heart, talking to her will be a breeze. Well, said Wendy, “I guess you want to see my Hoya pubicalyx, the Hoya Merrilliland and the Hoya verticillata that are finally in bloom?”
They’re all in a different world! I gave up and retreated to my familiar garden. I looked up at the hundred-year-old santol tree near the gate that had puzzlingly been raining hundreds of santol fruit lately. Nabubuntis ka pa? I asked the tree. It had not fruited for several years but now suddenly the centenarian was fertile! Over-the-top fertile!
The groaning branches are just too high for anyone to climb, and neither could the gardener make a bamboo sungkit long enough to reach them. We can only partake of the laglag (fallen fruit), often split, sometimes half brown but always so sweet and juicy they were irresistible.
But what were the laglag fruit, after all, but grace from above? We only wish, as we grow older, that we could be as prolific.
Mar’s chicken
Our place attracts all kinds of birds. The newest song we heard was that of a rara avis, a coloratura. But only once and it never returned. Instead, the rare bird that came around was Mar’s chicken.
Mar is the caretaker of the empty apartments next door and is our newspaper dealer. He informed us that his chicken flew over the dividing fence into our yard. It was a native, free-range chicken that had never eaten anything but greens and grains and worms.
Everywhere in our garden that Mar and we looked, we couldn’t spot Mar’s chicken. Maybe it liked the big variety of greens and worms in our garden and roosted on a hidden branch of the santol at night. Even Mar was sure it would turn up and that we would be honest enough to give such a precious catch back to him.
Sure enough, on the third week of its AWOL, the dratted chicken flapped through the only unbarred window of my house. Which happens to be next to my bed!
I forgot I was lame and ran to close the window and the door and quickly locked myself in the bathroom. The help responded to my excited shrieks and were able to catch the chicken.
Tell Mar I expect a leg of that bird when it gets to be tinola, I told the maid. And I better close the window now before Batman comes in, too.
How they named me
I have only one name. No Maria before it, no Jane of Judy in between, no Jr. after it.
My father was a thrifty man. He wanted me to have a two-syllable name so I wouldn’t need a nickname. He mulled between my name and Etta (from Etta Kett, a smart working girl comics character of the time). I’m glad it didn’t catch on because my young friends called each other, say, Ning-pi for Pining or Da-linds for Linda, etc. Imagine what it would have been for Etta.
But my mother was more imaginative. She snuck in a second name into my album of pictures—one with two syllables and four vowels. Ouida was the pen name of Louise dela Ramee, the French-British author of “A Boy of Flanders,” a ’30s novel which she apparently liked.
Only my first cousins, Leonor, Helen and Rosalinda Orosa, used it and only until I was 10 years old. And they shortened it to “Ouide”—pronounced “Wide.” If I had needed a security name that would have been perfect—Wide.
Secret retorts
These are the comments I have a hard time hearing from other seniors without retorting:
“What do you mean you’re feeling lazy! That’s how people grow old! My aunt, who is 90, still goes to the farm on a mountain to plant things. And Mrs. Jimenez, you know Mrs. Jimenez, who owns that small supermarket! She’s also 90 and still sits behind the cash register. Her husband, who is older, drives her to work every day. And is it true that you need to be bathed now as well?”
(As well, I love going into my sunken bathtub and be soaped by my faithful Beni. If I could afford it, I’d fill that tub with warm milk and rose petals and bathe in it. Oh, the joys of old age!)
“Old! That’s a dirty word? Don’t ever use that word to describe me or yourself.”
(Okay, so now I’m Forever 21, how will I use my senior citizen card?)
“Memory lapses? There are so many ways to combat that! Like do crossword puzzles every day. Do sudoku! Play mahjong!”
(I hate all those. They give me narcoplexy.)
“You mean you still don’t know how to use the Internet, even to type your column? You mean you can’t access anything from Wikipedia? Or Google? You don’t have a Facebook? You’re out of touch with the world! Internet is just so easy to learn. I’ll teach you…”
(It’s more like I don’t want to learn those new skills. It will take so much time. To me it’s like learning Russian or ballet. By the way, why don’t you try painting? It’s so easy, like playing with mud. And it’s never too late to write a book. People do it all the time, hehe.)
PS. I can’t imagine how Freddie Arrastia’s name got erased last week from the list I made of contemporaries, 80- to 90-year-olds who were “nearer heaven.” I guess it must have been in the handwritten transfer from paper A to paper B. Not that Freddie had complained or even noticed.
Freddie, 84, is the handsomest male friend I have. He was one of the first boys and first friends who would visit in our house in Malate in the 1950s. Also Ernie Martelino and Benny Gana. Ernie is fine but Benny is gone. Marcelo Fernando started visiting with Ting Roxas a few months later, but he was more than a friend, and he died, too.
My special day
July 4 is our 59th wedding Anniversary. Unfortunately, I have no more bridegroom. I think I will just order a nice sugar-free caramel cake from Estrel’s and have it all to myself. Or maybe I’ll ask over whoever of my children are available.
PSS. Hear ye! Hear ye! The Apolinario Mabini Wheelchair Parade will be held at the Mind Museum, 3rd Ave. JY Campos Park, BGC, Taguig, on July 20, 2013. Assembly of 17 decorated wheelchairs will be in the canopy of Mind Museum plaza starting 3 p.m. At 4 p.m., weather permitting, the parade will go around Burgos Circle in the vicinity. If it rains, the parade will take place in the museum premises. Short program follows. All parade routes will be within walking reach of Mind Museum. No invitations needed. You are all invited and welcome.