There’s a stall on Timog selling Pambansang Lechon. How can any nationalistic soul pass up a product like that! I told my driver to buy one-half kilo. Before we sat down to eat I made my grandsons put their hands over their chests and recite:
I love the Philippines
It is the land of my birth;
It is the home of my people
It protects me and helps me to be strong, happy and useful…
Then I read in Krip Yuson’s column that there’s a bespoke beer called Katipunan. That’s a bit harder. Do we prick our fingers to put a few drops of blood into the brew before drinking it?
What’s new about all that? said Bong de la Torre. Meron na ngang Pambansang Kamao (Manny Pacquiao), Pambansang Ena-Momi Dionesia, Pambansang Bakla (Ricky Reyes).
Excuses
Later on, my two naughty grandsons were suggesting “gracious” excuses I could give for refusing attendance to some event:
“She’s having a tattoo.”
“She’s having her navel pierced.”
“She’s got Mad Cow disease (Madali ’yan lola, matagal ka ng meron niyan!)”
“She’s planning an insurrection.”
“She was summoned to the Vatican.”
“She’s communing with the lilies.”
“She’s out of body.”
Furious at Facebook!
I am just sitting here utterly minding my own business when I find that I have three Facebooks, none of them opened by me! Isn’t it a cybercrime to open a Facebook pretending to be someone (me) and even answering letters people send (me)? Irony is, I can’t even find out what’s in them because I have no true Facebook of my own!
I ignored it for a long time, hoping those Facebooks will die a natural death, but they didn’t. Then one day an old friend from Malabon, whom I hadn’t seen for several decades, wrote me an open letter in her Facebook, citing several specific locations in Malabon where my relatives live… I think that’s dangerous!
A lot of nice people I do know have even asked to be my “friend.” I wonder if the keeper of those fake sites accepted them, and, if not, do my friends think I’m snubbing them? If someone is answering them, who is it? And if he or she does, what does that awful creature say?
This multiple impersonation has been reported by us to Facebook. They cancelled one, but it was soon replaced by another! I am fuming and demand an answer!
Chicken eggs corn feed?
Laid Poultry Supply
Contact Rhorie
Words
I’m still wondering how these current corruptions got so popular: “No worries” for “don’t worry”; “Sakto!” instead of “Exacto!” Did its users get it from the Coke commercial, or did the commercial get it from the people? “Okay na pu ito?” to mean, “Are you through?” or “Shall I take away the used plates?” from waitresses and maids alike.
Lanelle’s birthday
Many, many Sundays ago was Lanelle’s 58th birthday party in Crescent Moon. It was a lugaw party with 58 condiments, from century eggs, to tofu of all kinds, to pickles, to salted fish and shredded pork and beef and chicken. And the table stretched from end to end.
More or less 300 guests came, and I met the Antipolo cream and some Manila cream (and custard, too) and they overflowed to the garden by the carp pools.
Lanelle and my departed son Bey’s older daughter, Majalya (Jali), is now in Zanzibar (Africa) on a practicum for the course she’s taking up in Washington; it has to do with some sustainable environmental ek-ek, and she’s very excited about it.
The younger girl, Chin Chin, is out of the country, too. She is a UP graduate of drama, specializing in dance. She is in Hong Kong for a contractual Disneyland dancing job. I told her she would die of cold in those short tutus and she will starve because she can’t eat any of that nice Chinese food because she has to keep to a certain unreasonable weight. But her friends all think it’s a dream job so she won’t listen to me.
They’re my first apos who are staying abroad for longer than usual and I was so sad about it. They are both single and very pretty. Who knows if they will not fall in love and marry some dumb foreigner and never come back!
Leaves
The winds have brought down the red-brown leaves of the old santol tree. They are rolling all over the cement of the carport and the stones of the garden with a sad, dry rustle. Curled up and withered, the leaves remind me of old age and make me sad. Soon they will go into the compost pit to decay.
Above, however, the bower has sprouted small orange flowers, attracting some of the new migratory birds. They are swifts, tiny and impertinent, and go ssssst! ssssst! with a kind of whistle, just like sassy street boys trying to attract attention. Since I’m all alone I assume the whistle is for me, and I smile.
Soon, however, the resident fantails, the noisy tarat, frighten the swifts away with their ratatatat. They claim back their feeding station. I sigh and go back to my newspaper and its bad news.
Mango of my pie
Let me end on a happier note with an anonymous “poem” I once got by e-mail.
You are the
Apple of my eye
Mango of my Pie
Palaman of my tinapay
Teeth of my suklay
Blood of my atay,
Bubbles of my laway
Sala of my bahay
Foundation of my tulay
Seeds of my palay,
Clothes from my ukay-ukay,
Calcium in my kalansay
Calamansi of my siomai
Knot of my tie
Toyo of my kuchay
Vitamins in my gulay
Airplane of my Cathay
Stars of my sky
Hammer of my panday
Sand of my Boracay
Sultan of my Brunei
Highland of my Tagaytay
Mole of my Ate Guy
Spinach of my Popeye
Sizzle when I fry
Wind when I paypay
Tungkod when I am pilay
Feeling when I’m high
Shoulder when I cry
Wings when I fly
Prize when I vie
Cure to my “aray”
Answer to my “why”
The life after I die
Leftover paintings
I am inviting those who are interested in purchasing, at low prices, my old paintings left over from former shows to tea on April 5, 3-5 p.m. Please leave name and telephone or cellphone with Aiko or me (tel. 4113048).
Have a good rest-of-the-day!
