Ang Pasyon...Bow!

I woke up to this sound this morning... How'd you like that, huh? I can't even understand a single word they're singing..or rather wailing. Forgive my blasphemous post.
I did not wake up happy, that's for sure.
But then again, I wasn't too happy with my dreams either. I was dreaming of a ghost. Darn that blasted ghost.

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What Have I Been Up To? Let's See...Where Do I Start?

Mommy typically has problems with helpers. They just do not satisfy her. She'd initially be pleased with the efforts of a help, but fairly soon enough she'd find hundreds of reasons why she think she needs to let go of the help. To be truthful, sometimes, I think my mother needs a robot. So, sometimes, I worry about our present helper leaving us without notice.

Anyway, yesterday, our helper did not come to work. I was worried that she might be leaving us and I was wondering if she mentioned anything to Riley's yaya about her leaving.

So, I asked, "Beck, suya si Manay She ki Mommy?"


Beck, who did not understand my question, answered, "Iyo po."


I was taken aback. Oh, geeze, I thought. So, I continued, "Tano daa?"


Beck answered, "Dai daa po kaya nagtratrabaho."


Huh? That's weird, I thought. Does that mean she expects Mommy to work? So, I asked, "Anong dai nagtratrabaho?"


"Sige lang daa po kayang tukaw tukaw sa baba?" Beck answered quite matter-of-factly.


At this point, I was already irritated. How dare she, I thought. But driven by curiosity, I just had to ask, "nagtutukaw sa baba?"


"Iyo po daa, sige lang hugay."


Did I hear her right?


"Si Mama? Sigeng hugay?!?!"


Beck then looked at me, confused.


"Naghuhugay po si Mommy mo?"


"Sabi mo baga sigeng hugay si Mommy?"


"Ay dai man po baga? Si Manay Sheryl po baga naghuhugay ta makuto."


Okay, at this point, I was really, really confused.


"Bako po hinahapot mo sako kung anggot si Mommy mo ki Manay Sheryl?"


TOINKS!!!!


*sigh


Anyway, check this out -

This is the tree

that bore the fruit - 

that Erbe is munching on. :)

Nice, huh? |The children in our neighborhood though have started to "steal" the fruits, which pisses the hell out of Mommy.  You can hear her screaming at the top of her lungs in the morning for the past few weeks, "Hoy! Mga Lintek Kamo! Barababa kamo diyan! Paparaikit na naman nindo mga prutas ko, dai pa ngani ako kayan nakakakan!"  


Yep, she's Mrs. Fruit Scrooge. 


She reminds me of this old lady in Cabusao who used to run around with a bolo, threatening us when she sees us stealing fruits from her fruit trees - for the life of me, I don't know why her balimbing trees bore the sweetest, most delicious fruits in the whole barrio. 


Cha Doreng. 


May she rest in peace. 


What happened to her? Oh, she was murdered in her sleep.


Seriously! Murdered probably by one of those kids she deprived of those delicious fruits in her backyard. Kidding!  But she was really murdered. Someone broke into her house and stole all her money and stabbed her to death.  I was so freaking scared when I learned about it. 


I used to dream of her screaming at me for stealing indian mango from her fruit trees. The dreams stopped when I started praying for her soul and asking for her forgiveness for the fruits I stole. Seriously, I'm that weird.


Anyway, I told Mommy she reminds me of Cha Doreng every time she'd scream at the kids.  She also screams at people who would steal the fruits of her banana trees.  It's another matter, altogether though when she's dealing with adults. Mommy generally lose her balls.


Mommy has kang kong planted in front of our house.  Every week, she'd see this old lady, harvesting her kang kong.  She tried to ignore it until she couldn't take it anymore and she approached the old lady who was busily harvesting the plants.


She informed the woman, "sako baga yan." (Please take note this is a senior citizen addressing another senior citizen.)

The old lady frowned at her and asked, "Sigurado ka?"


Mommy answered, "iyo, ako daw kayan nagtanum? Tano mo tigkukurua?"


She was taken aback and left speechless when the old lady answered, "Ibebenta ko. Maimuton ka man. Idadagdag ko lang man sa pambakal ming bagas. Para lang kayan, maisipun ka!"


I was laughing my ass off at the old lady's sheer audacity when Mommy told me what happened.  She really didn't know what to say after the woman accused her of being selfish. She kept asking me what she should have said.


Paige though guards Mommy's plants like their the jewels of the Crown of England.  Speaking of Paige, it's very fortunate that she has had her MMR shots; othewise, she could have ended up with German Measles like her sister - :(

Dr. Setay said that Riley has German Measles, which aside from her medical opinion, just makes sense because Mommy's chicken boys had German Measles too several weeks ago.

Getting free consult from Dr. Settie

She's feeling a whole lot better though - the rashes have cleared but there are dark marks on her skin. :(

This is a quite long post. I think I should just end this now and eat my lunch - Erbe's Chao Fan (yep, he cooked it). :)

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Laura

For almost a month now, we have Norman Sanchez working for us as our helper. He was initially hired to take care of Paige - or actually to follow Paige around. He is so freaking industrious, however, he puts every one of our helpers past and present to shame. He's a busy, busy ant all the time.

There are two things, however, that makes him distinctive:
1. He is gay.  He wants us to call him Laura - and so we do.
2. He has speech defect.

Earlier this morning, we were having breakfast and Mommy asked Laura for his family name. (Notice the irony here, the use of the word "his" after the Proper noun "Laura").

He answered, "Tantes."

We didn't understand at first and so we kept asking him to repeat the word.


"Tantes"

And so I said it just like that, "Tantes???"

He nodded vaguely.  Since, I was speaking softly, he didn't hear me.

Oh, yeah, that's the third distinctive fact about Laura, he is a little deaf, no scratch that, he is about 90% deaf. You really have to literally shout so he could hear you. So, don't think badly of my mother if you see her instructing Laura at the top of her voice, "Magbakal kang sarong kilong asukar sa tindahan!"

Anyway, I digress.

As I was saying, Laura nodded when I asked him if his family name was indeed, "Tantes".

I was wrong.

My cousin, who was having her breakfast too, asked, "Sanchez?"

Laura once again nodded vigorously, "Iyo! Iyo!"

Dabeng, my cousin, said, "Sanchez man ako"

Laura answered, "Ay 'ayop ta dai ta tatabi, pintan ta ka payan!"

Mommy and I were taken aback by the use of "ayop" but we started laughing. Yes, we're like that.

Laura continued, "pintan to itong atista ta tv."

I asked, "Si Sylvia Sanchez?"

He nodded, "o-ho"

I continued, "Si Korina Sanchez?"

He nodded again, "iyo! iyo!

Again, he turned to Dabeng and said, "dai ta tatabi! pintan ta ta!" He then promptly stood up and disappeared.

After several minutes, he returned with an ID of his mother. He turned to Dabeng and said, "hitingun mo, tantes."

Oh, yeah, the word Sanchez was clearly printed. What surprised me, however, was his mother's picture. His mother looked like a man. Apparently, his mother is as gay as Laura.  :)

Well, here's our Laura.

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Santo Beatico

We went to Cabusao for the Santo Beautico last Saturday. It has been a while since I actually went home and stayed overnight. I even brought Tinay with me because we had to meet up with Che and Nette the next day for a little outing. 

Aside from hanging out with Tinapay, the day went horribly wrong. Some of my relatives behave abominably and I was irritated with a couple of cousins. In fact, "irritated" is a tame word for how I felt. I felt murderous. We slept on the floor which sucked. We could have avoided it if Erbe agreed to bring our own bed. I wanted to. No, not the whole thing, just the cushion. And to top it all, Paige got really, really sick. In fact, she was sick for 3 days. Her fever just broke today. 

Anyway, I had fun chatting with Tinay. She was such a trooper. I love her.  She made the whole experience.. well, fun. :)  We giggled over the old biddies shouting at each other at the top of their lungs, "Iyo baga! Dai mo ako bistado??! Ako baga si aki ni Domingong Septimo!" We marveled at seeing a hundred year old lady who could shout as loudly as the rest of the old biddies.  We giggled over my 3 year-old niece who had her hair dyed a mahogany red color.  In fact, we were envious of the highlights.  And she helped me out preparing the sandwiches.

Anyway, here are some of the photos I took from our time there.

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Not AGAIN?!

Okay, after the encounter with the weird beggar yesterday, I was hoping I'd never have to see him ever again. EVER - you know, when-the-hell-freezes-over kind of ever. That kind.

Anyway, earlier this afternoon, we were on our way to pick up my busted cellphone from the repair shop when we had to stop because of the heavy traffic along the road in front of Bichara. Again, the car windows were open. When suddenly, a hand suddenly shoot up in front of me. Surprised, I turned and who did I saw? Yeah, right - the same old loony that I had a very pleasant encounter with yesterday. My first thought was, "Fuck! Not AGAIN?!"

Fate must have been having a helluva time laughing its ass off at my expense.

I started rolling up the window. Okay, I panicked. Forgive me, but the guy is scary. I swear! Anyway, I couldn't fully close the window because he stubbornly refused to remove his hand - and he was running along with the car. It was very dangerous, but we didn't want to stop because I was bloody scared. He didn't want to remove his hand and he kept running along with the car. Fortunately, we weren't really moving at a fast pace because of the traffic. Still, it was scary.

Seeing that the man fully intends to harass us until we give him money, I once again jumped onto the backseat. I'm pathetic, I know.

I miss Jack. Remember him? He wasn't scary. He was damn sweet. Yes, he could embarrass the hell out of you when he embraces you in public, but at least he didn't scare the hell out of me. And he was very happy with one peso.

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Preparing for Naga City Fiesta Civic Parade

This is a really amateur video. Erbe and I usually walk to Jollibee Centro for breakfast at 5 or 6 in the morning. We burn fats and then we gobbled our way to Fatdom Come again with Jollibee's breakfast meals.

Anyway, with the Civic Parade looming, we'd see kids from various schools practicing and strutting their stuff at the plaza. I thought it's fun to capture a minute long vid.

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Photolog: 5 A.M. Walk

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Should Have Kidnapped Her

She was pounding on the shoe store's glass doors.
She caught my attention because I think she's barely six months old.
She should be inside her crib.
She should be cuddled and showered with kisses.
It's a sad sight.
We see these things everywhere, but it doesn't make it okay.
I wanted to get her though. I always do.
I was just afraid I'd get in trouble if I do so.
But damn was I freaking tempted.

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Sotted Idiotic Drivers and Chicken Thieves

It was past midnight.

The neighborhood was silent. A few houses here and there had their lights on.
One household, in particular, was still up. Four boys had just unloaded boxes of coolers off a tricycle in front of the house. They left two on the street while they carry the rest inside the lit household. Halfway down the driveway, they heard two motorcycles approaching in full speed.

Suddenly, the motorcycles appeared several yards away. The two drivers were obviously racing. Like a scene from an action movie, one motorcycle went up in the air. Obviously, the driver did not anticipate the bump on the road and he lost control. He held on to his motorcycle and it landed on the street, skidded, crashed the water coolers (which also flew up the air - chickens and all) and the driver ended up in a huge tree in front of the lit house.

He was in a bad mess.

He laid there until help came along. He was in such bad state that it was hard to look at him. He had a crack on his head. He had one eyeball out of its socket.

All this happened yesterday evening. Paige and I were coloring books when we heard the crash. It was also our coolers - and we almost got in trouble for it. Fortunately, the police saw the skid marks and so they couldn't put the blame on the boy's alleged negligence for leaving the coolers on the side of the street.

Several chickens were lost. They flew up the air with the coolers. It was one of those things that I would have loved to capture in film. Dead chickens flying - who would have thought? We recovered a massacred few, but we saw some people carrying fresh and roasted chickens. We just shrugged it off and blamed it on the police who asked us not to recover the chickens. We were afraid to get them, fearing that we'd be charged with "obstruction of justice". Cleaning up the scene of the crime, you know. :)

We just hope the blasted chicken-thieves would like the roasted chickens so bad that they would buy from our stalls from now on.

The moral of the story?
Don't leave coolers with chickens on the side of the street.

Just kidding!

Don't drink and drive of course. :)
Yes, apparently, the drivers were sotted. Idiots.
UPDATE: They said he is in a 50-50 state. I hope he pulls through.

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SM

We went to SM yesterday morning. It was small which is quite disappointing to say the least. You could walk through the entire place in just 20 minutes. I was happy about the Brownies and Fisher Price though. You're right Jinx, I saw really cute toys. I'm planning to bring Paige there tomorrow. I have convinced Erbe to buy her the cooking set and the bike I saw - the flood has receded, so she'd have a place to bike around. It was a nice morning. SM is fairly small - and yes, Jinx, Legaspi's Gaisano is way much better - but it'll do. :) At least, may SM!

And oh, oh, X -- I don't know if you're reading my blog still since I haven't talked to you for a while -- I saw the wifey. Gorgeous, if I may say so. :)

So, for everyone not here in Naga -

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