Picture These

Somewhere in the pre-digicam days are ads and signs that are permanently etched in my otherwise selective memory.  I can picture them still: hastily scrawled, without regard for advertising 101 aesthetics. 

These signs, recently spotted from my neck of the woods, deserve a place in my mental collection.  They certainly belong to the ranks of  Uling for Sales,  Hauze for rint,  We accept littering,  Naghahasa ng cerrcular sow.

Presenting:

(From a church bulletin board.)  Yup.  Your baon has to be patented, registered and titled.  And it must come with a tax declaration.

(At a therapy clinic) They put the "W" into "illness"

(A few steps away from the old school. ) The wayward apostrophe strike's again

One Fine Day

These feet were made for walking, and walk they did one fine day!  The more or less ten kilometer walk (should have been 20, but I cheated :p ) took me through fields of green, roadsides waking up for the day and mist-cloaked rivers and ponds.

I have always enjoyed walking.  There is something about taking to the open road on foot that clears the head (and the sinuses) of its many clogs and cares. Back in the reckless days when skin cancer wasn't a concern, my officemates and I would brave the midday walk from Emerald to Edsa.  The less than a kilometer walk, of course, was made longer by the endless prattle of post-college kids.

There are other walks as well--walks measured not so much in terms of distance but in terms of building friendships.  Bivouacs, treks, climbs, strolls made even more memorable by a heady mix of chatter and  semi-serious getting-to-know-yous. Comfortable silence among friends, too.

My legs felt like lead by the time I made it past the finish line. The sun, too, was scorching. No matter.  The feet will always find yet more reasons to walk.

Thankful

Today, I am thankful because ...

Despite the sticky keys and the slower-than-slow connection, I am still connected,

Despite the driving rain, I am safe and warm, And the roof is not leaking,

Despite the power outage, I am not in the dark

Despite a memory that needs some serious upgrading, I still remember the things that matter.

Despite the different time zones, we are still friends who revel in the here and now. And the once-upon-a-times.

Despite postponements and cancellations, life goes on.

I am 44 today. The hair is no longer jet black, and the vision nowhere near 20/20.  The statistics are no longer vital. (They never were, anyway!) Still, I welcome yet another year of laughing (at myself, mostly), living, learning and loving.

This business of growing older isn't so bad at all.

We Are Family

I wasn't particularly excited about our grand "clan" reunion.  Of course, I have fond black-and-white memories of summer bonding with cousins.  Make that lots and lots of cousins.  But the way two recent reunions ended somehow soured me to the idea.  After civil warlike quarrels broke out over such a petty thing as a Christmas star, I kinda believed that there are reunions that are better on paper.  Or online.  Or anywhere that don't require the "reuniters" to be physically present.

Last month's clan reunion had me bridging the great divide.  It was great to have the cousins around.  We have all grown of course, and it was hilarious to see ourselves now taking on the roles of our parents.  After the remember-whens and the almost endless sream of the little girls and boys that reminded us of who we once were, we had fun picking up where we left off.  In most cases, the transit point was the night of Lolo's funeral, when we took up the entire balcony of the moviehouse to catch the final screening of a Nino Muhlach movie.

With 20 children from three marriages, Lolo certainly was no RH advocate.  (The second wife, in fact, died two days after giving birth to Baby Number Twelve, and can very well be a case in point for the pro RH bloc..) The Dados have then gone forth and multiplied, and the recent reunion was proof of the clan's exponential growth.  Yay! We actually had to wear name tags and come in color-coded shirts to keep up with the parade of great and great-great grandkids

In true clan fashion, the almost weeklong reunion was NOT uneventful.  Youngest Uncle's First Wife showed up, and for a while we thought there would be an action scene between her and Recent Wife.  An "undocumented" cousin also made a guest appearance: he--and the rest of us--knew of his paternal roots only recently, thus his non-inclusion in the directory.

In all, it was a happy affair.  Tita T led the immortal LA Walk, the kids had fun running around and getting to know their cousins, and there was juicy chismis all around.  (If you knew how to mine, of course. :p)  The catfights were left for another day, and the present warriors were kinda civil.  Mini reunions have since been staged and the warring factions are at each other's throats once more.


No matter. Families are families, huh?

Grounded

In December, I was given the Loyalty Award.  Before I hear canned applause, however, let me qualify that loyalty is relative.  In my case, it means that I have been on the job for ten years.  Nothing more, nothing less.

Come to think of it, the fact that I am able to hold the same job for ten years is a personal victory of sorts.  (Applause, applause) A well-meaning boss once said that I thrive on "impermanency."  That routine bores me and that cubicles have a way of weighing me down. 

Oh well.  People and perspectives do change.  The bureaucracy, which I thought to be one long, endless routine of chasing paper and prolonged coffee breaks, has actually tamed my wandering spirit.  Sure, biometrics can be exasperating and office policies can be a drag.  Uniforms could use a little touching up and some people could use some gray matter.  But there is nothing "routine" about the people that come to the office every day.  Or about their stories.  Or about the friendships that have since translated into standing in as godparents many times over.  I have also realized that the bureaucracy is what you make it.  That if you go to the office day in and day out thinking that work sucks, it will.

The ten years have been a breeze.  Having worked in high-rises and in corporate jungles, I now find myself totally grounded.  And totally loving it.

Numbers

I've never been really mindful of numbers.  Mathematics and I--we have a serious relationship gap made worse by horrible grades in college algebra. Two things had me thinking numbers recently, though: my blog archives and car plates.

Of course I know that I've been neglecting Anna's Tasa. I just didn't realize I am down to virtually one post a month until I happened to scan the archives part. How I got from 100 to three (thus far) in five years says a lot about my (lack of) focus.  Most days, I'd much rather read about other people's happenings than sit down. sit still and write about life and its sometimes dizzying turns. So much for 2011 resolutions, huh?

As for car plates, the spanking, from-the-factory vehicles vrooming around in my city have P-edition plates. Come to think of it, most of the "latest" cars when I was in college bore license plates that started with the letter P, too.  N was okay, because the very, very few old N-plated cars that I still see around here are candidates for cameo roles in Pinoy action movies.  But P?  Suddenly, I feel that college was a generation ago.

And it is, actually. But I'm not too keen on taking out the calculator to compute. : p

Party Poopers

At our latest family reunion, Tita's eyebrows rose to the 30th floor when Cousin barged in with her obviously-not-on-the-guestlist friends. They made a beeline for the buffet table, stripped the poor lechon of its crispy skin, and after eating and making the requisite we-have-to-go-back-to-heaven-knows-where exit line, proceeded to dump food into their capacious bags. Tita naturally came close to a meltdown, and I think has crossed Cousin off the list of those who will do the LA Walk in the next reunion. 

Other than realizing that skinless lechon can be such a gory sight, I have also come to realize that the world is full of party poopers.  Among these are:

1. The Heapster. Those who border on gluttony and pile food on their plate as if the world is in danger of starvation.  And in kiddie parties, Moms and yayas who heap, heap and heap food on their kid's plates, ignoring the fact that the pint-sized junior cannot possibly digest two burgers, two jumbo hotdogs, two drumsticks, and two servingspoonfuls of spaghetti and rice in one sitting.  The result?  Left-overs that could have fed a starving battalion.

2. The Box-Out Queen. They who elbow out the rest of the populace for first crack at the bouquet, or the doves, or the souvenirs.  They are always on the lookout for the freebie. At the first hint of activity, they make a mad dash toward the souvenir table and grab every souvenir they can lay their hands on, never mind if the trinkets will just gather dust eventually. 
 
3. The Stripper.  The Box-Out Queen's cousin.  The Stripper scans the venue, waits patiently on the sidelines and when the party's almost over, strips the venue of every thing that can be carried--from utensils to styrofoam cut-outs to the cake stand to the centerpiece. 

4. The Nega Star. My hands-down favorite :p.  The Nega Stars gravitate toward each other, taking up a dark corner and making it even darker with the negative vibes.  They complain about the food and the venue and trade nasty chismis about the host/s and the other guests.

5. The Videoke Vampire. S/he latches on to the mic and there's no tearing her away from the blasted videoke.  Not even a coughing spell or a wayward insect or the threat of a major weather disturbance can stop her "concert."