Candy Candy

This is yet another blast-from-the-past post :p

The change-your-profile-pic-into-a-cartoon-character campaign over at Facebook has certainly brought back happy memories of growing up in what I thought to be a big, big world.

It was the late '70s, and so that we could wise up to the ways of the world, our parents would pack us off to Manila every school break. There were aircon PNR coaches then, and the 12-hour night trip past rice fields and coconut plantations shimmering in the moonlight was a cinch. The Paco Station--our final destination--would be teeming with people, an indication that we have arrived in the big city.

Of course, Manila wasn't as sweltering then. Depending on arrangements, we would be shunted from Makati to San Juan to Quezon City, getting our fill of pop culture. We'd take afternoon strolls to Cash N' Carry, Unimart, or COD, see a movie at the Coronet and ride the Ferris Wheel at the Fiesta Carnival. Most days, though, we would just bond with a coterie of cousins in front of the TV screen.

And so it was that I learned to wash the dishes courtesy of Kulit Bulilit and Imee Marcos (!), sat through endless screenings of LVN black-and-whites and gushed over the younger and slimmer Sharon Cuneta. But what I really looked forward to--other than Voltes V, Mazinger Z and Ronron the Flower Angel--was Candy Candy.

Candy Candy defined my big city summers. The midday walks to Dairy Queen or UniMart would be made to the tune of the Candy Candy Theme. And my first cartoon heartbreak was over Anthony!

Over time, I outgrew TV and realized I liked summers in Sorsogon more. I could have outgrown Candy Candy, too. Except the theme song is sticking to me like the amorseko of those carefree summers.

Blast From the Past

To me, nothing spells childhood summers more than this ice shaver. It was my going-on-sixth-grade summer when this thingamajig became the rage in our kitchen. You see, except for my dad, all of us weren't Bobby Flay clones. In short, we thrived on instants.

Blue Teddy made our protracted summers super easy. We only had to raid Ma's mini grocery for a can of fruit cocktail and Frisian Girl, grab ice cubes from the fridge, crank the handle and presto: halo-halo! And then, it would be off to the corner sari-sari store for a peek at the (contraband) komiks-for-rent or to the streets for a game of "football" or siato.

Thirty or so years later, Blue Teddy still works. The blades are as sharp as ever, and the eyes still roll, much like Tita T's, when she is about to spew some hush-hush family chismis. The daughter has somehow staked her claim on the shaver and has since resurrected it from the kitchen cupboard.

A blast from the past, the thingamajig may be. But it looks like it'll still be around for very, very long.

Internet Cafe-ing

My Wednesday-afternoon-at-the-internet-cafe ritual started innocently enough.  Between chatting up a storm with parents-turned-yayas and spending quiet me-time at the museum, I took the road frequently traveled by Counter Strikers and took up a corner at the internet cafe.  Considering my addictions (coffee, Farmville and eavesdropping), I was naturally hooked: life does have a way of happening at the internet cafe.

Today, my wandering ears zeroed in on this girl who was giving her (I presume) husband a running and tiresome documentary of their financial whatnots.  The husband couldn't probably get a word in, because for the better part of an hour, it was just her talking about budgets and expenses and the high cost of living.  And how his remittance would be most welcome. blah blah blah.

A group of college kids came in and drowned out the girl's protracted soliloquy.  They're talking Counter Strike, terrorism and weapons of  mass destruction here.  Before I could morph into the Goddess of Strife, however, they run out of internet-cafe cash and leave, plotting, perhaps, their next terror attack.

I am now left to eavesdrop on the guy who is chatting away in hopes of coming up with the perfect Super Lotto combination.  He has 30 minutes, he says, before he has to stand in line at the lotto outlet.

Alas, I had to leave before he could spew out the "perfect" numbers.  

Major, Major Mode

While I was away...

... Baby James has morphed into Bimby

... PNoy has gone from Shalani to Liz

And the world turned ... and turned.

Meanwhile, I was--and am--left to deal with raging issues.  Issues like: why, oh why am I suddenly in a beauty-pageant mode? And why do I have to sit through three-hour meetings every other day to get Miss Sosogon off the ground?

Me, who had my major, major heyday in the forgotten '80s and whose only "titles" were Miss Thailand in my school's United Nations week celebrations and the Reyna Elena '86 (which I won because, as my sisters would always remind me, it was a money contest)!

As I am in the habit of debating with myself, I had two ready answers:  The office order that is now tucked in my 201 File and karma.  I won't get into the workings of the bureaucracy so let us leave the office order alone.  As for the karma part, I think this is what I get for taking to the streets GABRIELA fashion in the '90s in jeans, sneakers, batik and tubao.  And for causing monstrous traffic jams in the periphery of the Quezon City circle.

Karma is, of course, inescapable. And so excuse me while I powder my nose and hie off to the conference room.

Just Stuff

A couple of months ago the house where my parents keep tons and tons of stuff was broken into. Bakal-bote boys must have been eyeing the house for the longest time. It was, after all, unpeopled and most often unattended.

Why my parents need a whole house for things that have long outlived their purpose has always been the subject of debate. All this hoarding could very well be a projection of their war mentality: they don't like the idea of throwing anything away. And so the stuff kept piling up: furniture from five houses ago, wedding presents (oh yes, those dreaded punchbowls) that none of us wanted, clothes that have gone out of--and back in and out again of--fashion, books, long-playing albums, videotapes and things that I forgot we had.

Oh well, most of the stuff are gone now. I don't exactly mourn for the lost things, but I cringe at the thought of other people invading and breaking into our turf. I haven't checked in on the house since the burglary, knowing that I would feel a degree of violation. The thought of strangers rifling through things that are supposed to be private can be very unsettling, although by now I should be used to people poking their noses into other peoples' lives.

The stuff are just stuff. They have been forgotten for so long, and the universe has found a way of getting them out of our lives. I just wish, though, that the loss didn't come with this sense of invasion. 

The Official Name Game

This I have to say: the e-census service of the National Statistics Office is really efficient. Three days after completing my online transaction, I got a copy of my official birth certificate. I didn't have to do the requisite table hopping that is the norm in most government offices, I didn't have to wait in line and I certainly didn't have to wait out the lunch break in the virtual company of Tito, Vic and Joey.

Having said that, I still believe that we put too much faith in the hands of mere mortals who are supposed to safeguard the records of our lives. My birth certificate--the data on which are hand-written (which in effect pegs my era as pre-Olympia and pre-Microsoft)--had the generic "Baby" before what I thought to be my real first name. And to think I used to laugh at my two aunts--the two "Babys"--who are now senior citizens!

It will take a court hearing and subsequent publications--and the corresponding fees, of course--to get rid of the offending "Baby." Clerical error, they call it, which doesn't exactly say much about our clerks.

So now I join the ranks of those with horrific stories about their vital records. A friend who is obviously female had to go through a sex change on paper: she was registered as a "he." Another friend married a girl who was born in Taiwan. On the marriage certificate, he became the "Taiwanese."

And then there's Sister Number Four, whose baptismal records showed that our Dad is not her father. This, of course, did not sit well with my Mom, who was this short of hieing off to a nunnery in her younger years. When she checked the church logs, it turned out that the record keeper skipped an entry, and all the children on that page had the "wrong" fathers. :p

The Great Tights Chase

I am a certified last-minute shopper. Stores--especially the part where the clothes are--sting my eyes and I end up all red-eyed and puffy. So I usually wait, and wait, and wait, for that now-or-never moment to venture into a clothing store.

Last week had me weaving in and out of places that I haven't been to in a long, long time. The daughter needed tights for a school program, and I guess I gave the department stores hereabouts way too much credit. I figured I'd have a pair in 15 minutes--with enough time to spare.

Alas, things were not meant to be. As the minutes wore on, and as the stores I went to became more and more of the stores of my childhood (think Sampaguita, Hollywood, D'Best and Goodwill Bazaar!), I began invoking the saints and the muses of dance. To no avail, of course.

An hour later, I gave up and begged Teacher to allow my daughter to dance in leggings. Of course I could have made the hour-long trip to Legaspi but the husband doesn't like spur-of-the-moment drives and the two of us are not exactly Amazing Race material. :p

On the day of the performance, more than half of the girls were IN leggings.

What do you know? I am not the only last-minute shopper in Sorsogon!