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Two weeks ago, Sorsogon celebrated its 115th anniversary as a province. There was the threat of yet another typhoon, and rains threatened to spoil the parade. But the skies cleared just in time, and we were treated to yet another traffic-stopping parade. (Traffic stopping is, of course, literal. The city has only two major streets, and everything and everyone stops whenever there is a parade.)

Street dancers from just about every town lent color to the parade. It seems that the surfeit of festivals has reached this far south as well. There must be some semblance of logic to half-clad bodies carrying religious icons, but then it made me wonder if the ancestors from whom the festivals were supposedly culled had to sashay down the streets in yards and yards of uniform synthetic silk.






Despite smirks from Snarky Sister, and despite the fact that after a while the streetdancers seemed to be but blurry variations of the others, it was a happy affair. Later that night, as I stood under the shade of the sprawling acacia tree and jostled with the crowd at the park, I felt a connection to the Sorsogon of old.

As the last of the fireworks colored the sky, it felt good to be home.

Unsent Tweets

I would have sent these from the conference room, but I had to pretend that I was so into the meeting. Maybe they really should come up with bureaucratic Oscars. :p

Unsent tweets hastily scribbled on scrap paper:

3:21 p.m. At a meeting, and all I can think of is harvesting my digital farm.

3:28 p.m. My view from under the table: white pumps that went out of style with sheena easton

3:29 p.m. Four-inch stilettos. Deadly weapon, if you ask me.

3:30 p.m. In-need-of-footscrub soles resting on rubber slippers. In the office?

3:35 p.m. Yehey! Thank God for chocolate!

3:59 p.m.: Just got back from a meeting that bored me to tears. Ayayay! The travails of a bureaucratic slave!

Burned

I thought I had some semblance of kitchen experience. That all those years of by-the-book cooking made me some sort of a kitchen goddess. I thought culinary disasters were behind me. That never again would I show up for work with oil splatter turned blister, or oven burns, or tales of kitchen mishaps.

My wanting to learn to cook has nothing to do with inner Julia Child aspirations. I just wanted to go where my mom has never gone (oh, she can command a kitchen army but can never cook). I just wanted to prove to the husband that he doesn't have sole command of the kitchen.

Alas, the kitchen and I--we do not belong. And this nasty burn on my right arm is a painful reminder that I should stay clear of the kitchen god's realm.

Eavesdropping On Yaya Row

I am at the school's Yaya Row, waiting for the bell. I don't want to burden the "regulars" with thinking up topics to lure me into their conversation, so I am pretending to write. Which is actually an excuse for doing what I do best: eavesdropping. :p

The yayas are, as usual, doing the cellphone talk, their dialogues peppered with "unli talk," "textmate," "callmate." They are obviously setting each other up with that faceless voice who might just look like Gerald Anderson. Funny, but the high-tech version of the age-old flirting and fishing game is very much alive even within the gates of this innocent-looking preschool, hehehe.

The more mature ones are trading recipes and rules on discipline. One's version of kinunot is making me salivate, especially after a not-so-filling lunch taken on the run. Another claims that Aling Dionisia's granules really works.

One youngish mother is feeding on her paranoia. Her daughter, she says, often complains that her classmates don’t “love” her, and she’s wondering if she should transfer her kid to another school. She hangs around the school all the time because she says she has a compilation of "yaya" horror stories. Ugh. But before I could wallow in the same cloud of paranoia, two loud thuds came from Gianna's room.

Two yelping girls with two ugly bumps effectively ended my "productive" hour on Yaya Row.

A Prayer

It’s a little past 4 a.m. There’s a hint of orange in the horizon. There is no trace of the Typhoon Parma, and the siling labuyo is safe. For now. In the quiet stillness, I say this:

A Sioux Prayer

Grandfather, Great Spirit, you have always been, and before you nothing has been. There is no one to pray to but you. The star nations all over the heavens are yours, and yours are the grasses of the earth. You are older than all need, older than all pain and prayer.

Grandfather, Great Spirit, all over the world the faces of living ones are alike. With tenderness thay have come up out of the ground. Look upon your children with children in their arms, that they may face the winds and walk the good road to the day of quiet.

Grandfather, Great Spirit, fill us with the light. Give us the strength to understand and the eyes to see. Teach us to walk the soft earth as relatives to all that live.



I hope everyone wakes up to a great morning!