Time zones are getting blurred. Naps are no longer only during siesta time. I have just wakened up from one that lasted from 6 p.m. to 6:45 p.m. It was a misplaced nap and a slow wake for me, fin, by fin, by fin, until I am swimming on my bedspread. I plan to get up soon and write. It is a good intention. But it could begin way past midnight.
My husband never thought he ever did anything amiss in the upbringing of his children. I never thought I was ever doing right. Now that he was dead, I wanted the matter settled. Did I or did I not?
Never in Mom’s wildest dreams had she pictured herself becoming the ideal politician’s wife one day. It must have been farthest from her mind in 1939 when she, at age 15, eloped with the shy, soft-spoken 19-year-old pre-law student.
HERE’S THE BEST news I’ve heard this season: If at age 70 one hasn’t yet had a major surgery or—now, here’s something that should be widely resonant—is not yet a diabetic, chances are one could live to 90.
Why do they call it the flu bug? Even my doctor offered an opinion, in layman’s terms, that I must have caught the “bug” from my daughter who, incidentally, has always bragged about being “bionic.”
It is Autumn Down Under. I arrived in Sydney on the last few days of summer and we had blue skies and cool breezes. But the weekend turned from nice to nasty. From comfortable mid-70s we dropped to unseasonal 50s and 60s, making us reach for sweaters and shawls. Monday the sun was out. But the rains have returned and now we’re back to dreary.
One of our favorite topics to discuss is how our parents tend to be woefully clueless when it comes to the latest gadgets and how to use them. There’s the story of my friend’s mom who went to the Apple Store demanding to buy an A-phone—understandable, since A is for Apple—or the one about my friend whose daily morning routine consists of checking her dad’s e-mail, printing each e-mail one by one for her dad to read, and then typing out the reply herself.
The other week, in my backyard farm, I noticed ominous signs of pest infestations in the lanzones trees that I planted a couple of years ago. The trees shed all their leaves, and nothing but naked branches remained.
At a drugstore senior citizens’ line, I feel my eyes pop at the sight of a heap of pills of all sorts piling up in front of the man I’m next to. He must know something I don’t—a drugstore run perhaps? I stop a gasp when I overhear the counter-girl read the bill: P11,500.
I was in my room at Asian Hospital, due for an angiogram, when I heard the knock on my door. The door opened and there he was, a tall, happy priest smiling at me like an angel.