what's in a name?

My daughter has a quirky sense of humor when it comes to naming pets. Our family is attached to an assortment of animals, and so it has become her solemn job to conduct the naming ceremony.

We adopted a stray puppy when we moved to Cavite. It was ugly, but it looked like it had the potential to bite thieves, so it stayed. My daughter named it Bruno. We soon realized that Bruno is actually a girl, and my daughter promptly changed the name to 'Brunei.' Soon Brunei had puppies, and they were named Brownie (because it was brown), Whitey (because it was white), and Cutie (because... you guessed it, it was cute).

She also had a pet white rat, named Stuart Little (from the movie, of course). Stuart Little was left in the terrace one night, and in the morning we found the overturned cage, with the culprit still napping beside it. The criminal is Blacky the Cat, whose picture also graces this blog. You don't have to ask me why he is named so.

We also breed African love birds. We have Mulan and General Shang, Jack and Jill, Ariel and Prince Eric. When the birds multiplied, she said it was too much trouble to keep track of all of them, and so they became generically identified by color: Blue and Green, Yellow-Green Pair, White Pair.

And yes, we have Gohan the cat, so named because my husband and daughter are avid fans of Dragon Ball Z, and also because Gohan has this capacity to fly when kicked. For that, he earned one blog post dedicated to him.

My husband also keep fighting cocks. My daughter would inspect them and briefly considered naming each one, but they all looked the same and weren't very friendly, so she gave them up for a lost cause in the order of names. They were just "Hoy, Manok! Kumain ka na!"

She bought a fighting fish for Christmas, bright red, and named it Cutie. She also recycles names, you see, since Cutie the dog had been given away when it turned out to be another girl (and therefore had the capacity to reproduce, which is undesirable in our house). Cutie died of overfeeding one week later. I have a suspicion it also died of exhaustion, because my daughter sometimes stirred the fishbowl with a straw so Cutie could exercise.

Because she did not want to be heartbroken over the demise of Cutie the fish, my daughter got a guinea pig for New Year. It is white, with brown ears. It eats a whole carrot in a single afternoon and pees with abandon. My daughter insists that each pet be called by their proper names. So yes, I cringe whenever I refer to the darned guinea pig.

You see, she named it Angel Locsin.

memento mori

I saw an accident yesterday morning while I was on my way to work. A car hit a woman who was crossing C-5 Road. The road was slippery because it was raining; C-5 is notorious for road accidents because the road is so wide and people constantly disregard warnings not to cross.

The impact was hard enough for the woman's body to totally break the car's windshield, then she was thrown over the car. When we stopped she was lying crumpled behind the car, and people were just running over to help.

I saw too many details. Her hands were fisted and they were gray. She was wearing a blue-green blazer and skirt. She was wearing stockings, and the bottom of her feet were dirty. When we passed the car that hit her I saw her shoes, flat black ones with bows, lying where her feet must have been when the car struck her. And a few feet away, her little pink purse that must have contained makeup, toothbrush, and office keys.

I didn't see her face (thankfully). But the thought that struck me was that she could be a mother who forgot to say goodbye to her kids that morning because she was running late (otherwise, why would she cross the road on a rainy morning when there was a pedestrian overpass some distance away?). And I wondered if she would see her family again.

It also struck me that life is really too short. In a moment you could be gone, never mind if you planned a really grand anniversary trip to Singapore next year. You never really know if you're still coming home in the evening. You never know if this morning's kiss is the last kiss you'll ever plant on your baby's face.

It's funny how the human mind processes these things. One road accident seen up close, and I start thinking of 'Carpe diem.' Yes, seize the day. There's even a better one: Memento mori. Remember that you are mortal. Life is short and time is fleeting.

for monette

The Things My Best Friend Taught Me:

1. Two people can work side by side together, even if one is listening to Maroon 5 and the other to Air Supply.

2. It is all right to go crazy about a guy if one has a friend nearby.

3. A father can cry. (That's a whole different story.)

4. A woman with no kid can dispense the soundest motherly advice, if she’s taking up an M.A. in Teaching in the Early Grades.

5. One can juggle a masteral degree, an obsessive-compulsive boss, a globe-trotting husband, blogging, laundry, and thrice-weekly swimming sessions, and still be beautiful.

6. Best friends finish each other’s sentences, whether you’re drafting minutes of the meeting or talking about sex.

8. Best friends look beyond huge mistakes.

9. Brutal honesty can hurt, but coming from a friend, it can heal.

10. You may part ways, but time and distance matter little. The heart will always remember.

Because Monette is very different from me, having her as a best friend is like living another girl's life. Read her blog at http://monette.sumulong.com/ She writes beautifully-- like me. :-)

Why do girls need best friends? They will be there when you cry over philandering boyfriends (and later, husbands); they will help you with your term paper if it meant staying up the whole night; they will get drunk with you on your bridal shower and become your child's godmother; they will convince you to wear two-piece bikinis, bulges and all, and even make you feel good about it; they will celebrate your first published work and promote you in their blog. Hihihi. The best friend tells you to be tough, to take chances, to stop being stupid, to laugh some more.

Yes, there's a best friend so you can have someone to giggle with about the funnier things in life. But more importantly, there's a best friend because she will allow you to be you.

be hands on!

Last night I attended the book launch of Be Hands On!, a book sponsored by Hands On Manila Foundation, Inc. (http://www.handsonmanila.org.ph/). It was held in Powerbooks Greenbelt. Hands On Manila held a writing contest last year for the most inspiring volunteer stories. They received about 120 entries, then they decided to publish a book that contains the ten winning pieces.

I was not feeling well, but I came. I also had not taken my lunch. But I forgot my flu and my hunger when I saw the names in the book. Aside from the winning entries, the book featured celebrities and well-known people who were involved in volunteer work. A broadcast journalist, a beauty queen, a surgeon, a stage actress... and they are real people, selfless volunteers whose stories are testimonials of the power of giving.

And they were there for the book-signing. I was starstruck. I was also in awe of the people who attended the by-invitation-only launch; they were high society, and they were so passionate about Hands On Manila. I tried to act cool; I had every right to be there. But by 7pm I could not resist it-- I had my picture taken with Marc Nelson and Chris Tiu! Hihihi.

And why was I there? My contribution is in page 149.

It was my first book-signing. It felt good to be up there on stage with all the others whose names are in the pages of the book. We signed about 150 books and none complained of tired fingers.

The book is now available at all Powerbooks branches. It would make a perfect Christmas gift, and you'll be helping a worthy cause.

As for me, for four hours I knew what it felt like to be a celebrity. I would like to believe that the day would come when I will autograph my own book and give it to my friends for Christmas.

One can dream on.

on writing

When I was in high school, I told everyone that my dream was to become a Nobel Prize winner in Literature. Big deal. Most of my classmates have not even heard of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. My grandmother was outraged and told me that writers die of hunger, and I should be a lawyer instead.

And since my parents would be the ones to pay tuition, I obediently took up Psychology in college.

But I wrote. I still think that some of my best stories and poems were written when I was in high school. True, most of them were influenced by Mills & Boon love stories, but I also read Gabriel Garcia Marquez when I was 14.

And so time and fate interfered, and my forays into writing were little adventures, depending on who I read: The Guardian was done after I read Pet Sematary. I wrote less poetry as I grew older, and the stories matured. I also got married and had children, and by that time I was keeping my diaries in the computer. I also blogged. :-)

But I kept them all hidden. I wrote for my own pleasure, and very few people knew about them.

Then last year, I came across an article written by Butch Dalisay in Philippine Star, about 'Writing for Others' (see http://www.penmanila.net/). I wrote him an email and he wrote back. He inspired me to submit what I wrote. He said that the real recognition would come from my readers.

My submission was for Reader's Digest's My Story section.  I got the surprise of my life when it was accepted.  I bet Butch Dalisay won't be surprised.

On Monday, I went to National Bookstore to get the November issue of Reader's Digest. My story, 'The Grand in Grandmother,' is in page 11.

And yes, I bought five copies for posterity's sake.

working mom blues

My friend Ann is 27 years old and is not yet ready to get married. She says it is daunting to raise children these days. I agree. Most girls don't realize what mothers go through until they become mothers themselves.

I am a working mother. I have often envied those mothers who stay home and take care of their kids, the ones who know exactly why little Lisa hates the color yellow and can recite the names of all Lisa's 25 friends in kinder class. I am with my kid exactly 2 1/2 hours per day. I get up in the morning and her yaya has already prepared her for school; I get home at night and she's fed, washed up, and ready for bed. By the time I finish dinner she's already sleepy. For the rest of us who work, it's always a choice between raising the child ourselves and helping provide for the needs of the family. When my daughter asks me why I need to work every day, I tell her it's so we will have enough money for her food, clothes, and home. She goes to the mall on weekends and has a Barbie doll collection because her parents have good jobs.

My daughter's friends tell me that I'm always glamorous and their mothers are not. My daughter says it's because I go to the office, and the other mothers don't look so good because they stay home and take care of the kids. Very early on the children get this sense that when both parents work, their parents look good and the children enjoy more luxuries. Stay-at-home parents are less dignified. But you ask my kid if she's happy that she only sees me in the evening. You ask her if a dozen Barbie dolls is enough companionship in the afternoons after school.

And it goes beyond providing for the children. Every day you're faced with the realization that everything you do is shaping her personality and character. And every day you're put to the test: your patience, your judgement, your sense of what's right for her, your stand on discipline. You cannot reason out that you cannot play because you're dog-tired at the end of the day, because then your seven-year-old would ask if your job is more important than her. And you cannot buy new shoes on impulse because a little voice is telling you that the price of the shoes is equivalent to a can of baby's milk.

When tempers run short and I feel like throwing the girls out of the window, I think about how lovely it must be to be single, earning my own money, and living as I wish. I daydream about condo living, weekends at the beach, and writing. But you know what? It's tough, but I will not exchange my daughters for a life like that. It's worth every dragging second of my office-girl-life, to come home in the evening and smell a well-fed sleeping baby in my bed.

Even if the baby wakes up screaming at 2 a.m. because she does not recognize you.

the wish for a library

You know what I've always thought of when I daydreamed about having my own house? Having my own library. I will have my own little room with floor-to-ceiling shelves of books, and no one can enter without knocking. The room will have soft piped-in music. It is where I will do my writing.

All the places I lived in had a little corner designated to display my books. In my grandmother's house, my three-hundred-or-so pocketbooks gather dust. They are the product of my high school and college years, when I would patiently raid the book sales (because I could not afford brand-new paperbacks) and I would grab a frayed and yellowed copy of Firestarter because I was dying to read all the books Stephen King wrote. That first library also display how my taste in books 'matured,' from the Mills and Boons, to the Readers Digest Condensed Books, to Sidney Sheldon and Danielle Steel, to John Grisham and Robert Ludlum. Surprisingly, I've had Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and Gabriel Garcia Marquez even then.

When I went to college and had to live in a boarding-house, I kept piles of paperbacks under my bed because I didn't want my mother to find out that that's where my allowance goes. I sometimes went without lunch if I found a book I had particularly searched for.

When I got married and had to run a boarding house to keep ends meet, I kept a few of the books near the bed, handy for when I couldn't sleep. Some are in huge plastic boxes under the bed. The rest I would periodically send to my grandmother's house when there was no more space. Eventually my books sat side by side with my daughter's Little Golden Books and Winnie the Pooh stories.

We moved to a nicer, bigger house in Cavite three years ago, still renting, and I was in heaven. The master's bedroom had a corner-- no, a little room, that was perfect for my library. It even had an open shelf along the wall. That was when I started buying brand-new paperbacks. I read them once, then I displayed them. It felt good to have them because I could already afford to buy the new ones that would take years to get to the book sales.

Now we're moving again, this time to a house all our own. It is a tiny townhouse, and although I'm excited to have a house truly our own, my biggest disappointment is that I will not have a library. With two daughters to raise and barely enough space for the queen-size bed, somehow a library sounds superfluous. Again I thought of shipping my present collection to my grandmother's house.

But then, I'd be living in the townhouse until I grow old (unless I'll get myself a condo unit that I can fill with books!). Perhaps in a year or two, I'll convince my husband that we really need a third floor. I will outfit it with glassed-in shelves all around, and haul all my books from wherever they are scattered. I can hide there when I feel like screaming, or when the kids drive me crazy. Then I will lock the door, play me some The Corrs, and reeeeeaaaaaaddd.

little children

I finished the novel "Little Children" by Tom Perrotta the other day. It was the story of young parents in a suburb, all of them with little children. They meet in the playground, exchange notes on parenthood and the impossibility of raising kids, and they either make friends with each other or they secretly hate each other.

Sarah stays home and takes care of her problematic little Lucy. She is not exactly sure of what she wants from life, but she thought she had it easy until she discovered her husband hugging mail-order woman's underwear-- another woman's used underwear.

Mary Ann was some sort of a control freak that even her lovemaking nights with her husband are scheduled on Tuesdays.

Todd was a stay-at-home husband whose wife is a high-profile woman. He is quite handsome and is nicknamed the "Prom King" by the playground regulars. He has failed the bar exam twice but his wife still thinks it is the ticket to a better life.

Sarah and Todd strike a friendship that soon leads to an affair. They then plan to run away, leaving what they perceive as miserable family lives behind: Sarah's husband's fixation on online pornography and Todd's wife's too-high expectations.

All this is complicated by the return of a convicted child molester to town, and one ex-cop's almost obsessive hounding of the man.

It is not your ordinary love story. It is a very real tale of how marriages get broken for a host of little reasons that accumulate and become bigger than one can handle. It is about raising children, teaching them how to love, and loving them to distraction. It is about how, despite all the love in the world, things still go wrong between married couple.

I found it good reading because one can so easily relate to the characters. I am of the same age range as the young parents in the story; I have little children. The troubles that beset them are too common in the household. And in every page I could stop and wonder, What if it was me? What would I have done? It makes you re-think, in the deeper recesses of your heart, if all your right reasons for marrying your husband will remain true for the years to come. It makes you think about the many times your heart was broken by the ones you love most. It makes you think about the things you would give up, and the things you would do, in the name of love.

the guardian (1)

The cat sat there, its long black tail swishing lazily on the Persian rug. It watched as the little girl wound up the toy car and released it, sending it careening against the leg of the coffee table. The girl ran after the car, picked it up, sat down on the floor and wound it up again.

The girl squealed with glee when the toy car shot off again, running over the cat’s tail. The cat sprang up, now whipping its tail back and forth. Then with a little purr, it settled down again and seemed to grin indulgently.

After a while, the girl got bored. She kicked the toy car under the couch and ambled to where the cat lay. She scooped him up in her arms.

“Oof, you’re heavy,” she said. “Mom would have said you need a little exercise, Marshmallow.”

The cat flattened its ears a little. The Mistress had called him Duke. A grand, stately name for a grand, stately cat. But the Mistress is gone, and now he serves the Little Mistress who refuses to call him Duke. Although there was nothing marshmallowy in him—he was pure black from the tip of his pert ears to the end of his sore tail, with a temper to match—the name stuck. When her father complained, the girl patiently explained that he was the softest cat in the block, in the whole city perhaps, and it was actually an honor for him to be renamed Marshmallow, really.

Now they went upstairs, the girl becoming a little short of breath, cradling the cat a little too tightly in both arms. The cat did not wriggle, did not demand to be put down. They reached the door of her room. “Down, you heavy baby,” she said.

The girl pushed the door open, went in, and then held the door for the cat, who entered with his tail in the air.

She plopped down on the bed.

“I miss Mom, Marshmallow,” she said. And suddenly there were tears in her eyes.

The cat moved quickly. He rubbed himself against her, rumbling. He put his face under her chin, leaned against her chest, nosed her hands and legs. The girl did not cry in great gasping sobs. The tears just ran silently down her cheeks, with a hitched breath and a few sniffles. She looked older than her five years.

“I miss Mom,” she repeated, “why did she have to die?” The cat rumbled more loudly, twining himself around her.

“And I love her, and I miss her, and it hurts here.” The girl put one fist against her heart. The tears kept on falling, wetting the cat’s fur in spots.

The cat sat in front of the girl, watching her face with glittering green eyes.

“Who will take care of me now?” the girl asked plaintively. “Daddy says he loves me, but he goeas away everyday, and then there’s Miss Rose, but she leaves at night.”

Still the cat watched her.

“And then there’s you.” A pause. “Yeah, and you never leave.”

The sniffles tapered, then stopped.

“And you will take care of me, right, Marshmallow?” She gave a tentative watery smile. She held out her arms. The cat jumped right into them.

The father came about an hour later, and when he peeked in the girl’s room, she was sleeping peacefully. The cat sat at the foot of the bed, watching.

“Well, Marsh, don’t you think you could leave the princess and go chase birds or something?” The cat paraded past the man, his tail stiff with indignation, and went downstairs.

The father sat talking with Miss Rose, the part-time nursemaid.

“How is Christine these days?”

“Very quiet, and very sad.”

“Does she say anything about… ah, her mother?”

“She does not speak much. Sometimes she seems to forget herself and plays a little. Then she goes all gloomy and goes up to her room to cry.”

“I wish I could spend more time with her,” he sighed.

“You are doing the best you can,” she consoled. “You have your job, after all. And she seems to be coping very well.”

“You have no problems with her?”

“None. Well…”

“What?”

“The cat. I am only concerned about her health. He leaves fur all over her bed, her clothes. Sometimes she kisses him.” She gave a delicate little shudder.

“Oh. Him. They’re very close, that’s all. She feels he’s all she has left of her mother, and I don’t have the heart to separate them.” He smiled apologetically.

“Yes, they are very close. Maybe I just don’t like cats that much.” And he watches things too much, she didn’t add. He watches people too much, it sometimes feels creepy.

“Well, you are good to her,” said the father. “Thank you very much.”

“She will get over it. Give her a few months. Too bad she doesn’t have any grandparents, or cousins to play with.”

“Too bad,” he agreed.

the guardian (2)

Christine was outside, watching five or six of the neighborhood kids at play. The cat sat at her heels.

“Hey, look at the cat,” one of the kids said.

“I don’t want to look at no cat,” another said.

“Well, he’s Christine’s cat, and I bet he’s nice,” said a third. One by one the kids drifted to where Christine stood on the sidewalk.

“Is he black all over?” a girl with a missing front tooth asked.
Christine shook her head. “His tummy is all white.”
“I want to see,” said a bigger boy.
“I bet he doesn’t want you to. I bet he won’t let you pick him up,” a small boy in a too-big shirt piped in.
“Maybe not,” Big Boy allowed, “but I still want to see.”

“Don’t touch him,” Christine sai. “He’s mean.”
Big Boy squatted before the cat and poked a dirty finger in its ear. “Kitty, kitty, do you have any titty?”

Some of the kids giggled. The cat looked at the boy with flat green eyes.
“What an ugly cat,” the boy said. He straightened up. “Do you know what they say about ugly black cats?”

“He’s not ugly!” Christine said, hotly.

The boy ignored her. “Black cats are witches’ familiars.”

“What’s a familiar?” asked a girl. “An assistant,” Big Boy explained. “The witch sends it out to spy on people, and to bring back something that belongs to a person, say hair or nail clippings, that she can use to make spells. Like make all your hair fall out in a clump.”

“Ooh, scary.”

The boy now had an audience. “Does he go out at night, hey, girl?” he asked Christine. “Does he come back smelling all funny and looking all tired?”

“No,” said Christine. “No.”

“Where did he come from, Christine?” the gap-toothed girl asked.
“He is my mother’s cat.”
“Does that make your mother a witch?” the girl asked again.

“I heard her mother is strange. Talked to birds and sang to plants and all that,” the small boy said, plucking at his too-big shirt.
And she sang to me too, thought Christine. Now she could feel tears starting.

“My mother’s not a witch!” she cried.

“How would you know?” snickered Big Boy. “She’s not from around here. My mother says she likes to fool around with leaves and roots. If your mother’s a witch, then you’re a witch too.”

Christine was angry. “Take that back! My mother is a bot—botanist and I’m not a witch!”

The cat, unnoticed, was now standing alertly, its ears flat against its head, its eyes glittering. It was looking keenly at Christine.

“Witch! Witch!” Big Boy started to chant. The others took it up. “Christine’s a witch! Witch! Witch!”

Christine suddenly rushed at the capering boy, hitting his chest with one balled-up fist. “I said take it back, take it back, you jerk!”

The boy stopped chanting. He took a menacing step towards Christine. “Be careful who you’re calling a jerk, pig-face.”

Christine stood her ground. “Be careful who you’re calling a witch and a pig-face.”

“I’ll call you a witch and a pig-face and a turd anytime I want to.”

Then he pushed Christine roughly. The girl sat down hard on the sidewalk, her teeth clicking. She bit her tongue and tasted blood.

And then the cat launched itself on the bigger boy’s back, spitting and growling. The boy gave out a startled, pained yelp and tried to shake the cat loose.

Marshmallow held on, his claws deep in the shoulders of the bully. He was puffed up and he looked wild. The other kids stayed a respectful distance away from the prancing boy, now screaming for his mother.

Miss Rose came out the front door to see what the commotion is all about. She saw a burly boy, waving his arms wildly and screaming incoherently about the devil. There was something black on his back. She saw Christine stand up. She said, calmly and without emotion, “That’s enough, Marshmallow.”

The black thing unlatched from the boy’s back, dropped to the ground, and walked towards the house. Miss Rose stepped aside to let the cat pass. She thought it might be the sun, but the cat’s eyes looked too bright, too green.

The children scattered. Christine’s shoulders slumped. Miss Rose waited by the door until the child came nearer, then enfolded her in a soft hug.

“I want my mom,” Christine said in a small, hurt voice.

the guardian (3)

The father came home with a woman. She was slim and beautiful, and she wore tasteful clothes. Christine looked at her suspiciously. Her father introduced the woman as his friend. Then they retired to the living room while Christine was sent upstairs to play with Miss Rose.

She was the first. All the women were nice to Christine. They smiled a lot, they brought her candies and toys and books. They stayed for dinner, and had coffee afterwards. Some smoked, some did not. They did not talk to Christine a lot, but they pecked her on the cheek before they left. They all smelled nice. They all said she was a pretty girl.

One woman came for dinner more often than the rest, and after a while she was almost always at the house. When Christine and her father went out to the park, or to the zoo, or watched a movie, she sometimes came. Her name was Laura.

One afternoon Christine came in from play, and Laura was in the kitchen, wearing Christine’s mom’s old apron, making cookies, with flour up to her elbows. Her father was sitting on a stool, and when Christine entered the kitchen he had been laughing, his head thrown back.

For some reason Christine had not liked it. She had not liked the way her father laughed, and she did not like Laura wearing her mother’s apron. She fled to her room and refused to come down for dinner.

Miss Rose sat her down for a talk. She talked about loneliness, about how a man needs a woman to look after him, about how a five-year-old child needs a mother to take care of her.

Christine insisted that she already had a mother, and she did not need Laura. She did not love Laura. In fact, Laura could go to hell.

Miss Rose said that it did not matter if Christine did not love Laura. Christine’s father loved Laura, and he might marry her. And she reminded Christine, gently, that her mother had been dead—been gone—for almost a year now.

Christine cried herself to sleep, rocking Marshmallow back and forth. Marshmallow listened to every word, to all her hurt and confusion and nameless fear.

the guardian (4)

Marshmallow sat on the arm of the sofa. Laura eyed him.

“What an ugly cat,” she muttered.

The cat got up and stretched, sinking its claws on the upholstery. Then it yawned, showing a mouthful of teeth, small but sharp.

Laura was looking at it warily. She moved a little farther away. “Shoo, cat,” she said. Then she picked up the glass of tomato juice.

Perfect.

The cat snarled. It flattened its ears, shook out its tail so it looked like a huge black brush, and made the fur along its back stand up. Its eyes flashed green fire and its claws were out. Laura thought the cat looked ready to kill. Marshmallow hissed at her for good measure, and took a step closer.

Laura shrieked and jumped up. The juice spilled down the front of her white summer dress. She started screaming for Christine’s father.

Marshmallow sauntered nonchalantly away. The voices followed him.
“PATRICK! Your daughter’s cat hates me!”
“Hates you? That’s absurd!”
Then: “Oh, my God, whatever happened to your clothes?”

Miss Rose met the cat in the front hall on its way out. It looked as if it was grinning.

Christine’s father married Laura soon after. Once her things had been moved to the house, she stopped being nice. One by one, Christine’s mother’s things disappeared. The curtains were replaced. In the living room, there were now metal sculptures where there used to be vases of white roses. The plates were now blue, with matching blue water glasses and blue placemats on the table. To Christine, the worst thing was that the potted plants and ferns disappeared from the house. It was as if Laura was erasing every trace, every bit of her mother from her father’s memory, from the house itself.

And she did not like Christine. When they were alone, she became a little bit mean. Laura was a writer for some fashion magazine, and she did most of her work at home. She squinted at the computer for hours and sipped mug after mug of bitter coffee.

It seemed to Christine that Laura was always waiting for her to do something wrong, to slip, so that she could give her a piece of her mind. Or a little pinch. Or a little slap on the bottom. Of course, it never showed when her father was around. Laura was then very sweet and would often kiss Christine’s hair.

The little pinches, the little slaps, came more often. Now Christine was afraid of Laura. When Christine cried after a slap or a pinch that was a little harder than the one before it, Laura warned her not to tell her father. Or she would hurt Christine for good.

Marshmallow watched everything, and snuggled close to Christine at bedtime.

the guardian (5)

Christine was pounding away at her mother’s old piano. Marshmallow was dozing in a patch of sunlight from the open window, looking as if he was hearing Chopin or Mozart. Laura came out of the study, a pencil stuck in her coiled hair, her eyes squinted against the bright afternoon light.

“For God’s sake, can’t you shut that racket up? I’m trying to work in here!”
Christine recoiled. She stopped playing and put her hands in her lap. She sat there, not moving, not looking at Laura.

“It’s not music, Christine,” Laura continued. “It’s noise. Noise. Honestly, one would think your mother taught you something useful.”

Christine looked at her clenched hands, and a small flare of anger—no, of hatred—blossomed in her chest. That hateful tone. That hateful voice. That hateful woman.

Mom, her heart cried out. Mommy!

Marshmallow, half-lidded and drowsy, suddenly shot to his feet. A strangled little meow! came out of his mouth and his fur stood on end.

Laura, about to go back to the study, stopped in mid-turn and gaped at the cat.
“What in hell has happened to that stupid cat?”
In spite of herself, Christine began to giggle. “He sees his pet dinosaur. It’s invisible.” And she giggled again.

Now Laura looked quite cross. “Nonsense. You have cotton for a brain.”

“No,” said Christine, serious now. “Sometimes he looks at nothing and rumbles for hours, like a motorboat. Daddy says he looks like he’s in love when he does that. Marshmallow sees things we don’t see.”

“You would want to stop it, kid,” said Laura. “That’s a lot of bullshit. I might be in a hitting mood today.” She walked over to where Marshmallow crouched. The cat’s muscles were taut, trembling. It stared at her with a fierce intensity that Laura did not like one bit.

Laura kicked the cat. It was hard enough to send him tumbling, sprawling across the living room. He landed near Christine’s feet, looking comically surprised.

Seemingly in one motion, Christine was up and in front of Laura. “You don’t kick Marshmallow! You are mean! My mother would not do anything like that to a cat!” she screamed.

Laura stepped back, and a flicker of unease crossed her face. Then it took on a calculating look. A hating, hurting look.

“Your mother," Laura said, "I’m sick of hearing about your good, kind mother. If she was so bright, then maybe she wouldn’t have been run over by a truck in the middle of the morning, would she? And I wouldn’t be your father’s wife. Which brings me to the point. You watch your mouth. Your mother is dead, and I run the house now.”

Christine felt something bitter come up her throat, seemed to see Laura through a film of red. Her face was flushed and her fists were clenched so tight the knuckles were white.

“You can never be my mother,” she said. “You might be Daddy’s wife, but you can never be what she is. You can never take my Mommy’s place, even in this house.”

For a moment, Laura was totally, unexplainably afraid. Then, pale and shaking, she hit Christine openhanded across the face.

The child fell, stunned. Her hands groped and found Marshmallow, tugged at him, held him close. Laura’s fingers were imprinted on her cheek. The tears were not coming yet.

The cat stared at Laura, its green eyes momentarily flashing fire.

the guardian (6)

That evening, while the house lay quiet and sleeping, something moved in the upstairs hallway. In the dark it was unseen because it was black, but its eyes glowed in the dark. It was pushing at something, pawing something that slid on the floor with a light scratching sound, pushing it towards the stairs. It nosed the thing over and it made a pattering sound as it fell and rested on the fourth step from the top.

It was there when Laura got up at two a.m., because Laura was an insomniac and had the habit of getting a glass of water when she woke up and could not sleep again.

It was there when she started down the stairs.

Laura screamed as she fell, but her scream was cut short as she hit the landing. There was a dull crack, like a brittle branch breaking.

The lights came on, Christine asking “Dad? Daddy, what is it?” Patrick rushing around, calling Laura’s name, was she alright, was it a thief, and Laura-Oh-my-God-Laura-CHRISTINE-CALL-THE-POLICE-OHMYGODMYGOD!

The police came, and then the ambulance, and the cat watched serenely from under the coffee table as he pawed at some toy, a broken wind-up toy car that looked like somebody stepped on it. The men in blue clothes carried something wrapped in a white sheet on something that looked like a bed with handles on both ends.

Voices eddied and ebbed around him.
“…wonder what scared her so bad…”
“—such a fall from so high up—“
“…broke her neck cleanly, though she didn’t have any other scratch—“
“—poor guy. And the kid so silent, man, it’s creepy.”

Marshmallow batted the toy car lightly. It skittered across the floor and went under the couch, where it will lay undiscovered, to be batted out again by a playing cat when morning comes, pushed and nosed towards the door, towards the sidewalk, towards the storm drain.

Yes, Mistress, I took care of that. I take care of the Little Mistress all the time. As I promised you before you went to the other world, I will let no harm come to her. Nobody will hurt her again.

Yes, Mistress, I understand. I will watch over her until she is old enough to fend for herself. And you will give me more strength, isn’t that right? I will live beyond my time. I will be with her when she cries, we will laugh together, like we did when you were just a little girl yourself.

The cat sat there, staring dreamily at the piano stool with his strange green eyes. He purred and purred. Miss Rose watched the cat from the doorway. Her hair was standing up on end, and goosebumps were running down her arms.

once there was a whore (4)

I told myself I was relieved. My pad returned to its normal, rather disheveled state. I immersed myself in paperwork and stayed late in the office. I started going out with Iris, and there were nights when Iris would come home with me. By the time Iris’ clothes started appearing alongside mine in the closet, my mother became ecstatic and started hinting at the prospect of grandchildren.

I was also very unhappy and I did not exactly know why.

One night after dinner, I found Iris browsing over Jane’s pictures on my laptop.
“You know, you should delete these,” she said.
“Leave that alone.”
“So tell me. What did you see in her? I always wondered about that, your call-girl girlfriend.”
“I’m not in the mood for a discussion.”
“She must be good in bed. How much did you spend on her?”
I surprised myself by being angry. “I did not pay her for the sex. Let’s not talk about her.”
“Touchy, touchy,” Iris said, twining her body around me. “So, can she carry an intelligent conversation?”
“Why? So you could congratulate yourself for being a high-handed bitch?”

Iris looked at me long and hard. “Oh, forget it, Mike. Let’s go to bed,” she said.
I removed her arms from around my neck. “Maybe you should go home tonight, Iris.”

Iris then laughed, and her laughter was mocking. “Oh, my God, you’ve fallen in love with a whore!”

I could not say anything. I guess I was stunned. “And you’re not even man enough to admit it. Some kind of hotshot lawyer you are.”
She started to walk away, then she turned to me.
“You know, I’m not here for the sex alone. Get over her, then call me. If you can’t get over her, you’re too smart to be just sitting here doing nothing about it.”

And finally I had to face the truth. I hurried back to Jane, hoping I wasn’t too late.

But of course I was too late. Jane had killed herself. She had thrown herself from an overpass, taking with her all her silent dreams. I cursed the heavy rain that hid my tears; I cursed the briefcase of work that caused me to arrive at her house only three hours late. I cursed the society that damned the Janes of this world to indignity and humiliation. I cursed myself for being weak, for being ashamed, for holding back.

Her note was short. It said, ‘You shouldn’t have taught me to dream. Fuck you, Mike, but I loved you.’

I’m back at the bar, nursing a drink in a little tribute to her. I’m half drunk and half praying to see a lady in a tight black dress, alone and beautiful in the smoky dark.

And if I did, God, I will walk up to her. I wouldn’t care so much about what people would think or say, about my nice little lawyerly world, about educated guesses and social standing. I would worry less about bad sexual habits and more about singing in the shower. I wouldn’t be so scared to accept all that she is.

And I would dare her to dream. I would dare her to fall in love with me. And I would tell her I love her.

once there was a whore (3)

What surprised me more was my immediate pleasure at the thought of having Jane near, all the time.

Jane moved in with me. The change was, to say the least, cataclysmic. She left her underwear in the most inconvenient places: under the seat cushion, in my pants pockets, served beside my morning coffee. She laughed too loud. She sang horribly off-key songs in the shower. She washed my clothes and sorted my shirts by color. She redecorated my living room in pink and orange and was amused by my outrage. She poked around in my files and pretended to be fascinated with legal talk.

I hurried home in the evening to a hot supper and good sex afterwards. I woke up in the morning with a smile and a warm woman wrapped in my arms.
I told my friends Jane was a long-lost sweetheart. I made up her background and painted a sorority sweetheart with the correct connections. Jane’s eyes would grow wary, but her smile remained brilliant.

Somehow my mother found out about her. She knew I was living with a woman, but she thought it was Iris. Jane, who never learned the correct manners, opened the door to her in her underwear while I was out. Mother later stormed the law office and extracted a confession from a terrified secretary about the ill-bred, half-naked woman in my house. She then threatened to tell all her ballroom-dancing friends, my tied-and-tucked lawyer friends, and my father’s politician friends if I didn’t send Jane packing. A week later, she investigated and found out that Jane was still at the house. She told everyone as promised, and then she sent Iris.

Iris had polished nails, designer clothes, and a character backed by twenty years of exclusive schools. She had a sharp mind and a sharper tongue. She also placed third in the bar exam we took together, and we slept together the day the bar exam results were released.

Jane fled. Before she left, she broke every single plate in the house and smashed a dumbbell through the tv set.

once there was a whore (2)

She did not like flashy gifts. It was always hard cash, which she put away in the bank. She explained that she would not be beautiful forever, and when she settled down, she would need the money. If a client were especially generous, she would allow an afternoon at the spa and salon, or membership at a gym. The client would then be rewarded with a special night with the fresh and revitalized Jane.

Jane was especially fond of an aging congressman who wanted to give her a car and was persuaded to convert it to cash. He had considerably fattened her bank account. Jane indulged herself with a weekend in Boracay and caught herself three ‘big fishes’ in the bargain.

She was bright and funny. I went to see her often, sometimes just to share a drink at the bar, sometimes to bring her back to the pad. Jane always looked ready to have an orgasm when she saw me, but then perhaps she could do that to a dozen other men.

One night, several months after we met, I asked her why she wouldn’t marry. “There must be men who have offered you marriage,” I said.
She looked at me with tired, sad eyes. They were eyes that had known a thousand rejections.
“In the real world, Mike, girls like me get fucked. Then the men leave. I can’t dream of loving men like you.” But I could see that she did want to dream.
“Don’t you love me?” I asked.
“Of course I love you,” she teased. “You pay well.”
“Then why can’t you live with me?”
“Because then I wouldn’t be able to earn, and you won’t pay me anymore.”
“You can afford to do that for a while. Remember your fat bank account?”
She looked at me. “Why would you want me here?”
I said, half jokingly, “So you could cook me dinner and I could be your dessert.”

To my complete surprise, she said, “I would like that.”

once there was a whore (1)

She sat alone at the end of the bar. She was wearing a black dress, cut low in the back and cut high at the hem. Her legs were shapely and smooth in the dim light. A lone gold bangle glittered in her arm when she lifted her drink. She caught my eye and smiled slightly. Her makeup made her eyes huge and mysterious.

That was how I met Jane. I brought her to my pad and paid two thousand pesos for the night. She was, as she called herself, ‘a first-class call girl.’

I saw her again a month or so later. It was a particularly difficult day, and I longed for female companionship. I remembered the bar, and I remembered the girl.

She chose her ‘clients,’ she said. She was careful not to get pregnant, and she had monthly check-ups to make sure she did not get STDs. Most of her clientele came from the professional working class. She preferred bankers, lawyers, and senior college students with flashy cars and money to spend. She attended social gatherings as an escort of not-too-important politicians. She read the newspapers a lot; not tabloids, but major dailies. She said it helped her English vocabulary, for when her clients were foreigners. She was also discreet. She has never told me a single name of her clients, though she regaled me with outrageous stories about the men.

Dyesebel

Channel 7 starts its newest television series 'Dyesebel' tonight. The media hype in the past few weeks has been intense, with unveiling of billboards along Edsa, nightly teasers, and yesterday, a launch in their noontime variety show. Needless to say, children of all ages who became avid fans of the Marian Rivera-Dingdong Dantes loveteam from 'Marimar' can hardly contain their excitement.

Including my daughter. It is her seventh birthday this week, and she has been doing her countdown, crossing out the days in the calendar, adding and subtracting guests to her hypothetical birthday party, listing down the gifts she would like to receive, . As is customary, she is allowed to request for one gift (aside from the surprise ones). It is usually a Barbie, which means she now has 6 Barbies from her 6 previous birthdays. She is torn between a new winged Barbie, a robot, and a bike. That is, until Dyesebel came along.

After watching the Dyesebel launch yesterday, she announced that she would like a tail. Not just your ordinary costume, thank you, but something that she could use in the pool. And so this harassed mother rushed through her lunch to drop by at Toy Kingdom in search of a tail. The only one there is Ariel's tail with a matching little bra, from Disney's The Little Mermaid. I almost choked when I saw the price tag: P1,000.00. The saleslady helpfully said that it's been selling like crazy, and the one in my hands is the last on stock that would fit a 7-year-old.

After a serious consultation with two girlfriends and an exchange of text messages with the nanny, it was decided that it would be better to buy the cloth and create the tail ourselves. Of course we needed a bra, and Dyesebel did have a pearly headdress. I seriously considered having mussels for dinner so I'd have some real shells to work with, then I remembered that Kultura Pilipino sells pre-packed polished seashells. Then by way of sharing the misery, my girlfriends agreed to create tails for their own daughters as well. At least we could compare notes.

My daughter's birthday party is on Saturday. Today is Monday. One could sympathize with the crazy things mothers put themselves through, all for the love of their children. I know I'll try my damnedest to create the nicest tail , even if I also know that in a week's time it will probably be in the farthest corner of my daughter's closet.

the 92,000-peso bag

The items in the online buy-and-sell corner at the office today:

1. A 2004 BMW motorcycle for P765,000
2. A Nokia 6280 for P5,500 (negotiable)
3. A 2003 Honda CRV for $13,500
4. Lacoste perfume for P3,400
5. Sweet kittens looking for a home, free
6. HP Pavilion DV6000 laptop for P65,000
7. A house and lot at BF Homes Paranaque for P3.6 million
8. A Chanel medium-sized white bag for P92,000

I thought about the Chanel bag for a while. The post says it comes with a certificate of authenticity. And I thought a Liz Claiborne bag at 1,500 is already very expensive!

To the average Pinoy 92,000 can pay for the following:

1. 6 years' tuition in a respectable semi-private grade school
2. Down payment for a two-bedroom townhouse in the outskirts of Metro Manila
3. Jollibee birthday parties for 13 kids, having 30 guests each
4. 92 dresses from Karimadon (and let's not think about just buying from SM Department Store)
5. 1 complete tricycle to provide income, with something left over to pay for one year's worth of electric bills
6. 76 1-kg cans of baby formula, enough to last 19 months
7. 18,400 pencils, enough for 368 Grade 1 classes

But then, probably the seller (and the interested buyer) are not your average Pinoy. Expensive is also a matter of perspective.

a lesson on kindness

Last Saturday was my first experience in bloodshed. After dinner we heard some commotion from a neighbor's house. Since the couple over there occasionally fight noisily, I thought nothing of it. My husband disappeared from the house and I thought he went to see a piece of the action, so I wasn't really concerned until he called my phone and said that someone got stabbed in the neighbor's house, he is taking the wounded person to the hospital, and could I send someone to bring him clothes since he was only wearing boxer shorts when he left the house.


And then the drama started. In a few minutes there were policemen and a lot of the neighborhood men looking for the suspect. Perpetrator might be the better word, because my husband said he stopped the man from stabbing the victim further by hitting him over the head with a broom handle. And this man was just outside our gate a few moments earlier, looking listless. I thought it was because he was drunk.


I asked the nanny to bring my daughter to her room because it was the only upstairs room with window grilles. Then I turned on all the lights in the house and inspected all the rooms, bathrooms, and closets. I made sure all the windows were locked, then I went out to follow my husband.


He took the wounded woman to a hospital that's about half an hour away. I found my husband in the hospital parking lot, in his boxer shorts and with blood smeared on his body. The woman needed to be transferred to a government hospital because the present hospital was private and would not admit her without a deposit. The hospital was asking for someone to pay for the emergency room charges before they would release her. The woman, whom we did not know, had sixteen stab wounds, mostly on the back and the neck, and a deep gash on one cheek. But she was alive.


I paid the bill and then we were rushing home because the nanny called and said that the suspect might be trying to get in the yard. That was when I started to get upset. If he got inside and my daughter was harmed in any way, I would castrate him. Never mind if I was eight months pregnant.


Fortunately, the man was not in our house. We settled down at past one a.m., tired and shocked but unable to sleep. My husband and I both had heavy knives under the bed. We knew the man (let's call him Joe). He was often at the house; he took his meals with us. He wasn't exactly a drifter, but he had no job and had a way of getting into fights when he was drunk, which he did at least every other day. When Joe was sober, he was quiet, polite, and helpful. I know my husband gives him money for the odd jobs around the house, and I know that Joe listens to my husband whenever he gets into a fix and needed some help making peace with the people he managed to offend while drunk. But now he had tried to kill somebody.


After a few minutes the dogs started a racket again. There were men outside the house, and flashlight beams criss-crossing the little tree park in front of our house. There was an empty fishpond there, a failed project of my husband with Joe and a couple of other neighborhood guys. There were sounds of struggle, and suddenly the policemen came out with Joe, who had been hiding in the bottom of the fishpond. Joe was brought to the police station, where we heard he was beaten up and jailed.


Joe had not tried to flee. He circled back twice to get close to our house. If he had run away in the first hour, the policemen would not have caught him. The village is very large, sparsely populated, and had lots of trees and grassy spaces for cover. We thought that he came back to ask for assistance, perhaps for money so he could get away, and he was just waiting for everything to get quiet before he would try to get to my husband somehow. And I was thinking, would he have hurt any of us if he got in and found out that we used all the money to pay for his victim's hospitalization? Did he really believe my husband would help him get away? If he got away that night, would he have returned in two, three days to get what he wanted? What if he came back to the house and only my daughter and nanny were there?

People ask us how we could have befriended a character like Joe. My husband says it was a way of being kind. When someone has no place to go, even if you don't exactly trust him, you have an opportunity to help. He says you don't pay for a stranger's hospital bill or help clean up the blood in the neighbor's house (or stop someone from getting killed) just because you think you'd get in the headlines. You do it because you know that at some other time, in some other way, the kindness will be returned. And at the moment, it is better to be the one who could offer help than be the one needing it.

I don't think my husband was playing hero, but that night I loved him more. And oh, if he had gotten just one little wound in that incident, I would still try to castrate Joe, even if I had fed him countless times in my kitchen.

flowers for algernon

I went to the bookstore earlier to browse for books to add to my want-to-buy list. Aside from Wilbur Smith's African adventure novels, I wanted Thomas Harris' Hannibal Rising and Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth. I saw Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and Frank Herbert's Dune. And it gave me a jolt of pleasure to see, on the shelf, Daniel Keyes' Flowers for Algernon.

Charlie is a mentally retarded man who becomes a genius after an experimental brain surgery, a procedure which has been tested only on mice. It is written in the voice of Charlie, and it becomes a heart-wrenching journey when he realizes that his intellectual capacity will diminish after some time, and he is as alone as when he was dim-witted. The book had won a Hugo and a Nebula award. Like Dune (which also won a Hugo and a Nebula) and The Handmaid's Tale, I read Flowers for Algernon when I was thirteen.

Now I'm thirty-one, and the book is on the bookstore shelves again, with raving reviews. And seeing it has made me excited. I wanted to tell the other people there to grab it because it's a damned good book, and it can make you cry.

Good books are like your childhood sweetheart. They steal your heart, and when you see them again after some time, your pulse race just a little bit, you smile a wistful smile, and you think, Hello, good-looking. I've known you some time ago, and boy, wasn't it marvelous.

my nine west guilt trip

My friends on the third floor are passionate about shoes. They have Ferragamo, Nine West, Naturalizer, Charles and Keith. Their bags are Prada, Coach, Fendi, and Louis Vuitton. Ada has eighteen pairs of shoes under her workstation, and none of them costs below 5,000 pesos.

I adore shoes, although my taste is not as expensive as theirs. I raid end-of-the-month sales for those good finds that do not wreck my budget. And since I often have to weigh the need between a new pair of high heels and a can of infant formula, I treasure my shoes.

Every night I walk from the office to where the shuttle is parked. I cross a mall and an overpass. And every night, there are little kids there, begging for money. They are very dirty and they usually block your way when you try to walk past them. Sometimes, when they're in a bad mood, they even kick you when you don't hand them money. They are barefoot.

I try to ignore them, citing excuses such as the anti-mendicancy law, or that they use the money to buy drugs anyway, or that I don't have small change. But I never fail to notice their dirty feet. And I think that these kids have never heard of the difference between Michael Kors and Naturalizer. They're probably more worried about the whipping they'll get when they go home without money. And every time I see them I remember my friends' shoes.

I have nothing against expensive shoes. I have one pair of Nine West wedges, a pretty blue-green, with ribbons that you tie up. I like it very much. I only wear it in the office, because it's too expensive to use when I go traipsing all over the mall or when I commute home.

Call me a hypocrite, but somehow I feel I cannot cross the overpass wearing a pair of shoes with a price tag that could feed the barefoot child a hundred lunches. :-)

ANTics

I sat under the mango tree today with a pad and pencil, planning to draw, while my husband watched a rerun of Voltes 5 dubbed in Filipino. It's a nice hot afternoon, and it seemed such a waste to spend it indoors.

I was distracted by one intrepid red ant traveling along the back of the plastic chair where I had put my feet up, and before it could reach my leg I smashed it flat with my daughter's Barbie ruler. Soon enough, another ant came aong and stumbled upon his dead friend. I assumed he freaked out. He sniffed around, felt along the dead ant's head and tail, and then he commenced to drag it by the neck, back up the chair and on to the chico tree where the chair was tied to.

I repeated the murder of the ant. As soon as I whacked one ant, another would carry it off by the neck. I've known that an ant can carry twice its own weight, but I didn't know they followed a protocol for carrying their dead.

"The neck! The neck! It's crucial! Hoist your comrade up your back, lift, and heigh-ho! Back to the nest we go!"

News must travel fast among these red ants. When quite a few lay squashed, a crowd of their colleagues came and inspected them. They tend to gather more around the half-dead ones, as if unsure of what to do with them.

"How do we carry them without injuring them further?"
"Splint for broken legs!"
"But all six legs are broken!"

I have smashed five again; there are at least 30 ants gathered round the casualties. The two really dead ones have already been carried off, always by the nape of the neck.

I prod one of the bystanders with the tip of my pencil. It reared up its bottom and bit the lead. I put the pencil in the middle of five ants who are probably arguing who will carry their maimed friend. All five, with their butts in the air, attacked the pencil. I pinned one of the ants down and flattened its tail. When I lifted the pencil, seven ants converged on the tail. Much as I want to believe that the seven are trying to apply first aid, it certainly looked like they were drinking the moisture from the smashed tail. And then the fallen ant was carried off, still struggling, by the neck.

Now there are more ants. Are they waiting for more casualties? Are the dead ants brought back to the nest as food? Do the maimed ones recover, or are they eaten? It's summer; I suppose they are gathering food stock, but I don't remember seeing in Animal Planet that they eat their own kind.

Now a whole squad of ants is marching down the tree trunk. Someone has reported to headquarters about this mysterious enemy: flat and transparent, with little pink human lettering that spells "Mattel, Inc. All rights reserved."

I've been watching the ants for over an hour. I try to smash another ant, but quick as a flash this one dodges the ruler. He climbs up and onto my hand. I try to shake it off, but it goes up my arm, up my shoulder, and takes a quick bite on the back of my neck. I slap the ant-- dead-- but my nape stings.

Sweet revenge, he must have thought. I wonder if he planned to commit suicide. I get up to find something to put on the ant bite. I think I will watch the cat next time.

medical city

I am one of those people who, by some stroke of luck or good genes, rarely get sick. The last time I was hospitalized was when I delivered my daughter seven years ago. So I am not a fair judge when it comes to comparing hospitals or medical services.

On Thursday last week, after a rather heavy lunch, I had a stomach ache. It was the kind that told you you had to go to the bathroom and free some space, so I went. I was in the bathroom for almost an hour, and was unsuccessful. By that time I was already miserable and sweating and my stomach was tight as a drum. Since I am seven months pregnant I went to the clinic to ask if I may be given a suppository so I would not strain so much, but when I got there, the medical staff got very busy with me. They said I was already having contractions. Fifteen minutes later I was in an ambulance, going to the emergency room of Medical City.

The doctors said I was going into pre-term labor. I was admitted, hooked in an IV drip with a uterine relaxant, and confined to the bed. The private room I picked had cable TV but no fridge, since I thought I would go home the following day. I understood that I needed the supervision of an OB-Gyne so that I would not push the baby out by straining to defecate (let's be delicate here). I thought a night would be fine. I called my husband, and the nanny came that night with a couple of books and a change of clothing.

Being on bed rest was strange. Since I could not go to the bathroom, I had to do my business in the bedpan all the time, and it was not funny. There was so much food. Medical City gave you three square meals and two snacks, and since there is a food court in the second floor, you could have Pizza Hut, Red Ribbon cake slices, Max's take-out, hotdogs, leaf-wrapped meals. (Good thing they did not restrict my diet.) The drugstore was stocked like a convenience store. A nurse gave me a sponge bath, and I honestly don't remember ever getting a sponge bath in my 31 years on earth.

The doctor said I should stay one more night to finish the drip, so I was scheduled for discharge on Saturday noon. I was already feeling fine after the sessions with the bedpan, and I was bored. Then the time to settle the bill came. I only had to sign the statement of account because the bank will take care of it, but still 15,000.00 for 2 days came easy to swallow but hard to digest.

The hospital charges were carefully itemized, from the gloves and syringe down to the washtowel and basin used for my sponge bath. The nanny reacted to items (1) cotton balls at 16.00 (which she does not remember being used) and (2) micropore tape at 57.00 (which she says I only used two short strips and therefore we should ask for the remainder of the roll!). The doctor must have stayed in my room for a total of 5 minutes in two days, asked a few questions, and signed the clipboard, and the charge for her service was 5,000.00. We brought home the pillow, the basin and washtowel, the bedpan, and the 'welcome kit,' which the nanny says are souvenirs of my stay. What, am I going to bring out the bedpan when we have guests and say, 'Look, I got this from Medical City! And my washcloth has a logo!'

Medical City is a hospital that puts the patient first. You really feel pampered. Not once did I see a nurse who is not smiling or pleasant. It's as if you're the only patient they ever had. The food, though bland as hospital food goes, was hot and very prompt. When they put you on bed rest, you literally don't lift a finger. When I was discharged, someone accompanied me to the Billing Section and out to the van that would take me home. My medical certificate was handed to me even before I left the room.

The hospital does not come cheap. But if you have money (or if someone else will pay your bill), the stay is worth the price. More than making you well, the staff makes you feel good. You are treated with respect, and you know you're in the hands of competent human beings.

So there goes my Medical City experience, and all because I wanted to poop.

gohan the cat

My husband brought Gohan home in a shoebox when I said I wanted another cat. When I saw him I thought he would die in two days; he was scrawny, a bit dirty, and he was trembling all over (but I guess that was because his shoebox was tied to my husband's motorcycle and the ride home took about half an hour). But stray cats are tough.

Gohan is white with black-gray spots and a long black tail. His eyes are a pretty blue green. He is mild-mannered and he got along well with my other cat, Miminchi. However, he did not like our dogs, unlike Miminchi who still cuddles up with the dalmatian on cold nights.

Gohan discovered the joy of sitting beside the stove burner. Of course, it would be warm when we had something cooking, and it is a common sight on most mornings to see Gohan curled up beside the kettle of hot water on the burner, his fur all singed and smoking on the side closest to the fire. Sometimes his tail would catch fire, and he would look comically indignant, as if wondering how in hell such things could happen to a cat trying to stay warm. The kitchen often smelled of charred hair.

Gohan would always try to sneak inside the house and find the most convenient lap. Often it's the person sitting down for breakfast. He would first twine around the legs, then he would stretch and put his paws on the person's knees. If the victim did not react, he would jump up and squeeze between the person's back and the chair. Then he would try to do it one paw at a time, slowly, slowly, until the beleaguered person would become so exasperated with swatting the cat that he would sigh and relent. Then Gohan, with his blue-green marble eyes, would grin and settle down. He would then stretch his nose, one inch at a time, until he could taste what was on the plate. I've never seen a cat with such persistence. If he was a kid, he'd be black and blue from the swattings he got even before he succeeded in getting to the lap.

Of course, when the baby came, there is less patience around the house for Gohan's antics. You would often see Gohan flying out the door, because my husband kicked him out again. Gohan loved to sleep in the baby's stroller, so imagine the father's wrath. Much more so when the baby is in the stroller, because then Gohan would try to catch her wriggling feet out of sheer insecurity.

He also liked to stalk birds, but not your ordinary brown birds that come flocking at all times of day. He particularly likes my husband's African lovebirds. They're all in their cages, and it makes a fun sport for Gohan to see them fly around while he try to kill them through the bars. When he is caught, he has the nerve to look aggrieved, until he learned to do it when my husband is not around.

So on most days you'd hear these dialogues:

"Gohan, if you don't get down from there, I'd fry you with the chicken!"

"Gohan, what are you doing in the washing machine? I'm going to spin dry you!"

"Gohan, do you want to fly again?!"

the footprints of god

The Footprints of God, a novel by Greg Iles, treads the thin line between science and religion. In the tradition of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, it combines killers, scientists, secret agencies, religious hallucinations, and computers. A secret group of scientists, all Nobel laureates, join forces to build a super-supercomputer capable of-- dig this-- not duplicating the human brain, but reasoning like a human being. It is so powerful that it can decode a 128-bit encryption instantaneously. The supercomputer, called Trinity, worked by having a neuromodel loaded into it, which is accomplished by obtaining a super-MRI scan of the person. Trinity would then have all the memories, stock knowledge, and reasoning power of that person. It has released the intellect from the human body, and that mind will live on forever.

So there's this ethical scientist, Dr. Tennant, and his tag-along psychiatrist (who eventually fall in love with each other) who are driven to stop Trinity from taking over the world. He does this because he has dreams remembering he was Jesus. The psychiatrist goes with him because he has narcolepsy attacks, and because she was convinced he had Jesus-delusions. Because they were trying to get away from the killers, they go to Jerusalem and there he has an epiphany of what God is all about. They return to America to find it about an hour away from annihilation because Trinity triggered commands for nuclear warheads to rain on American cities. Dr. Tennant, of all things, decide to talk to Trinity.

The suspense builds up to something that you hoped would give a big bang, but the ending is a bit... deflated. The mercenary, Geli Bauer, was there since the beginning, as the all-knowing, all-merciless guardian of the secret, but at the end you think she got lost somewhere. Trinity becomes some kind of a benevolent grandfather computer. With all the buildup and the exhibition of its apparently unlimited power, of it becoming like God, there is a little disappointment.

It's a good read, though it did not make me question my faith in God, it did not make me fear the prospect of computers ruling the world, it did not wrench my heart. Most of the book is dedicated to killers chasing the hero and how he got away.

duma key

My brother gave me Stephen King's new book, Duma Key. Edgar Freemantle was a wealthy builder who met an accident in a construction site that left him one arm less, a divorcee, and a bitter, angry, self-declared outcast. He goes to live in Duma Key and discovers a strange new talent. Edgar painted frightening pictures of the sunset from his house, and his paintings carried power. He could make things come true when he painted them. Before long he learns that an ancient evil was working through him, through his talent, through his paintings. And when he sought to stop it, the evil awakened and started killing.

I didn't like it that Edgar's favorite daughter had to die, but it has always been things like that that makes Stephen King's novels horrifyingly human. Like Gage Creed's death in Pet Sematary, Charlie's dad's death in Firestarter, Susan becoming a vampire in 'Salem's Lot, and Susan's death in Dark Tower V. It's the death of these loved ones which usually proves to be the undoing of the hero, because the evil uses this to weaken him.

I read one time that Stephen King's novels take the ordinary things in life and twists them into something that scares the daylights out of you. You could almost say 'It could so easily happen to me.' Cujo was like that. In Duma Key you see a broken man redeem himself, becomes a talented painter, and almost succeeds in recovering his life, only to have everything shattered by an evil that he did not understand.

It is, as usual, a masterpiece.

state of fear

I finished reading State of Fear by Michael Crichton. The book revolves around the concept of global warming, how the threat might or might not exist, how it is hyped up by the media and environmental protection groups. As with some of Michael Crichton's books, it is filled with references to actual scientific journals and articles, graphs and very technical discussions that deals with the geothermal layer, the formation of clouds, cavitation technology, the movement of tides, temperature levels, tsunamis, the philosophy of 'state of fear,' and such stuff.

It is not a very compelling book. I read it over a period of two weeks (as opposed to Pet Sematary, which I read in a single sitting of 10 hours, with a few toilet breaks thrown in and a horrible migraine afterwards). The mind has to rest from a concept as big and as vague as global warming and its far-reaching (albeit fabricated) implications. It starts with a lawsuit to be filed on behalf of Vanuatu because it is in danger of being swallowed by the ocean because of the damage to the ecological balance brought about by global warming. Just recently I read that the island nation of Vanuatu indeed floods, but it's not solely because of the rising level of the ocean. There are factors such as it is built on a bedrock of coral, which is porous and is easily affected by rising tides, and the fact that it is slowly becoming industrialized and drainage systems have become clogged.

The novel does not make clear resolutions of the problems presented. What happened to the billionaire Mr. Morton after he was discovered alive after all? What happened to the issue of global warming? What about Nicholas Drake and his manipulations of the organization? Did our hero fall in love with Sarah or with Jennifer? Ted Bradley was eaten by cannibals, but his role in the whole thing was not exactly clear.

Did I like it? Not really. I liked his novel Prey better, if we're talking of nanoparticles and swarms and high-tech terrors. His novel Next is also a bit interesting, but not as hard to put down as the earlier ones like Jurassic Park and its sequel The Lost World.

the loving wife

My husband says is coming home late tonight. There was a time when I would have worried about his safety on the road, or about the friends he goes out with, but we've been through a lot of similar nights that it doesn't bother me anymore. I'm not worried if he chooses to come home drunk, or if he chooses to come home at all. Like a lot of things in married life, the best way to handle disappointment is not to expect too much.

Em's husband is cheating on her. They have a 20-year-old son. Em is now 48 years old; her husband is 9 years older. Em looks like she's 35, she's a devout Catholic, and a dedicated, old-fashioned wife who still believes they can grow old together even if she has known about the other woman for 3 years now. And one can ask: why do these things happen?

Dee's husband comes home from abroad once or twice a year. He came home last year, and on his first week home he went out and slept with a girl from a bar, while Dee woke up her policeman friend to help search for her husband whom she thought was held up or killed on a roadside somewhere.

It is a sorry excuse, but you often hear 'Men will always be men.' I don't mean it's been wired into them from the very beginning, but it is difficult to believe they will stay faithful. They are bound to cheat sooner or later, and intentionally or unintentionally hurt the wife. Who knows what they say or do when they're with friends? Or for that matter, who knows if they are really with friends when they stay out late or don't come home at all, citing overtime or field work? Who knows, while you're deluding yourself that the reason why there is less sex these days is because he is concerned about your pregnancy, when he could be busy exploring other dark and tight places ?

But you cannot sit back and anguish over the lies he might or might not have told you. You cannot lose sleep thinking where you went wrong, or what faults you had, or how ugly you have become to make him lose interest. In the end, the choice is still the wife's. You can choose to remain beautiful even if your heart is breaking, or you can prove to him that you've truly gotten ugly inside and out. You can hold your head high or you can lose your dignity. You can get over it, or wallow in misery.

Being a good wife goes beyond cooking a man's meals, giving him children, and being ready for sex even if you're dog-tired after keeping house. It's also about keeping your own space and respecting yourself. It's about knowing your worth and letting him know it too. It's about treating him like a king, but knowing you are the queen of your own destiny. Happiness is a choice, not a circumstance. If it's about love, fine. People do great things for love, but people also do the stupidest things for love. It's still about choosing how much you should love yourself.