one day

One Day by David Nicholls

This is one of those love stories that I hate to read, yet I cannot put down till it's finished.

After spending their graduation night together, Emma and Dexter seems to be destined for each other, but life interfered, and they spend the next twenty years in the periphery of each other's existence, secretly longing for each other.

Dexter becomes a minor celebrity, and he lives the glamorous TV life. Emma, with a double-first degree, becomes a waitress, then a teacher, and oh, I so hate Dexter when he says "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach." But I love Dexter when he writes to Emma, saying that she likes being mediocre, she likes to be an under-achiever, because then she can make a joke out of it, and not have to try so hard at being good in what she can do.

They get into relationships, they are hurt, they are successful, they laugh and cry and hate, and their thoughts always turn to each other, but they never seem to find each other.

Finally, when it seems it wouldn't become a love story after all, they do find each other. And it's beautiful, and like most love stories, it's sad.

Don't you just love it when you've got great friends (read: Jerry Colasito) who just route a book to you, trusting in their sound judgement that you'd read it and find it worth your time, and they turn out to be right?

Let me quote Jerry: It's sad, but life does not always have a happy ending. The good thing is, we can always find something good in a sad story.

battle hymn of the tiger mother

I think Amy Chua is what Wonder Woman would be like if she became a mom. Harvard-educated, with a high-profile husband, a lifestyle that includes frequent travels around the world, and children who are straight-A students and music prodigies. One child, a pianist, performed at Carnegie Hall. The other is a violinist who would later give it up to play tennis.

She has a family of super-achievers. Her story is both inspiring and daunting. It makes you think about the way one mother's force can make her children achieve glory, and it makes you want to say, Why not me? What mother would not want her child in the spotlight, the one being applauded instead of the one who applauds?

You have to give it to her for sheer persistence, but what I truly admire is the way she did it with her children. Learning piano and violin lessons with them, so that she could better teach them at home. So that they could practice to perfection. I cannot imagine holding a full-time job, then rushing off to one practice or another, and supervising the school work as well.

And then for all the effort, there's the question: who do you do it for? For all the trophy children out there, for the most part it's the parent who gets showered with praise. You did a good job! What fine children you raised! You must be very proud! There's an uncomfortable thought that you drive your children to achieve because it's proof of your greatness as a mother.

I once wrote a story in Reader's Digest, about growing up in my grandmother's house. I called her a tyrant; she was a 'Chinese mother.' I hated her for making me take piano lessons and ballroom-dancing sessions in the summer while the other children played. I hated her when I always had to get first prize in quiz bees. I hated her when she sent me to Manila when I was thirteen-- by myself-- to study high school there, while my classmates stayed in the little town and got boyfriends.

No, I did not become a famous pianist, or a great dancer, or the most expensive psychiatrist. I have not traveled around the world. I am only a working blogging mom with two daughters. But what the Tiger Mother says and what my tyrant grandmother taught me is that it can be done. A mother like that succeeds in teaching her child that one can always do more; one can always be more than what she is.

And what mother wouldn't love to do just that?

messenger

In the middle of the forest, far enough away from everything else, lay Village. It was a peaceful place, and a healing place. People from other places came there, but not just ordinary people. They were the ones who were hurt, or disabled, or ostracized. And Village welcomed them, made them well, and gave them a new life.

Village has Leader, a wise young man who could see beyond things. He had pale blue eyes, and maybe you'd recognize him from The Giver. Then they had Seer, a man who had been brutally blinded in his previous village. And they had Matty, who had not received his proper name yet, but who wished it could be Messenger. His job is to go places, bring messages, and navigate Forest, which no other person could do.

Forest is alive. It kills. It gives a Warning to people who enter it, and once you get a Warning, you should never enter it again. Seer has had that Warning. But Matty had never been harmed in Forest, and he considers it his friend.

Something ugly has come to Village. Kind people became cruel. There was sickness, and sadness, and hatred. And the people voted that Village be closed to visitors. Leader sent Matty to bring messages to the path and to the other places that Village will be closed. Seer sent him with a different mission: to bring his daughter Kira home.

Matty goes out on a dangerous journey, and it is where he discovers his true gift. It is where he is given his real name.

A lovely story to close the trilogy. But to me, The Giver is still the most amazing of it all. You keep wanting it to be more, to take you farther. You wish it were a thousand pages long, more like Stephen King's Dark Tower series. :-)

gathering blue

Lois Lowry's Gathering Blue gives you the life of Kira, a deformed girl living in a village that appears to be inhabited by the strong and the savage. When her mother suddenly died, she was rescued from certain death by the council of the Elders, who rule the village. She was taken care of, clothed and fed, and given her mother's old task of repairing the Singer's Robe.

The Robe is crucial, because it tells the story of the times before. It tells, in the intricate designs embroidered on it, of the start of time, when birds and trees flourished, and man was happy. Then man started building, and the bigger things he built, the greater was the destruction that followed. There was war, and ruin, and afterwards, man would build again.

Every year this story is sung by the Singer. He wears the Robe that Kira is repairing. But Kira, for all her incredible skills as a threader, did not have the color blue. There is an old woman who knows where the blue is, but it lies far beyond their village.

In the confines of the building where Kira is housed, she discovers Thomas the carver, whose work is the repair of the Singer's staff. The Singer carries the intricately carved staff to help him remember the Song every year. Kira also discovers Jo, a little girl whose songs are said to be magical.

Kira discovers a safe, comfortable life, where her every need is given to her, in exchange for her work on the Robe. She has her new friends, Thomas the carver and Jo the singer, and an old friend from her old life in the village, Matt.

Then Matt, a mostly wild, mostly neglected child, decides that he wanted to bring Kira the blue she needs. What he succeeds in bringing Kira shatters her comfortable world, and makes her question the things she had always believed in.

I read this book because I read The Giver, and I guess I was searching for answers on what could possibly have happened to Jonas. I still don't have the answers, but I was hooked on another great story. I read it all online, on OnRead.com. Check out their great selection. Next on my list, Messenger, still by Lois Lowry.

the giver

There's a place where there are no cars, only bicycles. A place where you have to request for a spouse, and a Committee decides if you're qualified to have one. You request for a child, and you are permitted only two: one boy and one girl. A child is not born to a family; it is issued.

In that place no one cooks; meals are delivered at mealtimes and trays are collected afterwards at the door. All little girls are required to wear hair ribbons. There are no birthdays. When you become a Twelve, your job for life is given to you: Nurturer, Laborer, Engineer, Birthmother, Storyteller.

The genetic engineers have made Sameness possible. There is no threat, no risk, no fights, no choice, no change in routine. There are not even hills in the community, no animals, no rain, no snow, no sunshine.

There's a person called the Receiver, who keeps the memories from back and back and back. He holds a very special position in the community. He advises the Elders based on the memories he keeps. He alone knows about colors, about music, about feelings. He alone knows about war, and pain, and hunger, and death. He alone knows love. No one else.

And there's a boy, selected as the new Receiver, who will be trained to be the new keeper of memories. And the boy decides to make a difference.

the blind lady on the bus

Last Monday I took the bus home. It was one of those rides where I waited 20 minutes for the bus to arrive, and when I boarded by the MRT Ortigas Station there were only five people in the bus. When we got to Crossing barely 5 minutes later, people were already standing in the middle of the bus. And Monday was a non-working holiday.

In Guadalupe a lady came to the bus, accompanied by a couple of friends. The conductor shouted, "Standing na!" One of the companions said, "Naku, hindi po sya nakakakita." Then they helped her up the bus steps and left her.

I was surprised. The lady obviously was used to traveling alone, because she boarded the bus confidently. The conductor said, "Paano yan, tatayo ka na."

The man sitting beside me, on the window side, immediately stood up and gave his seat to the lady. It would be a long ride; I would be one of the first to get off, and that's an hour away. The man was the kind of person I'd pay close attention to. He didn't look like someone I could trust. He had been eating when I sat beside him, and he was eating when he gave up his seat; empanada with catsup, peanuts, crackers. (But then, I don't trust anyone when I'm commuting. Even innocent four-year-old seatmates can vomit in your lap.)

The lady felt her way to the seat and I helped her. She started feeling around for her things; a wrist purse, a large bag from where she pulled a foldable cane, her phone. She called the phone and told someone she's on the bus; I noticed she used speed-dial.

She had a pleasant face. She had long eyelashes. You wouldn't notice that she was blind, only that she felt everything around her, the bus window ledge, the curtain, the bar in front of her, before she settled down. Then she pulled out a hundred-peso-bill. She asked me, "Ma'am, how much is this?"

The conductor eventually came, loud and overbearing, and she asked him where the last stop is. She wanted to know if the bus would stop by a certain subdivision near SM Dasmarinas. The conductor said no, the bus would stop only along the highway, and the subdivision is on the other side of the road.

It was quiet in the front of the bus as the people digested this. One person said it would be good if another passenger would take the same stop, so she could be helped. Another said that maybe there would be a traffic enforcer to help her cross.

The conductor counted out her change and gave it to me, along with her ticket. I counted the money again, told her how much it is, and gave her the ticket. She carefully put it in her purse, and thanked me.

Then the conductor said the bus could stop near the subdivision, and he would take her across the road. He then shouted to the driver if that was ok. The driver shouted back that it was.

The lady smiled and said thanks. Everyone looked relieved. Some of us were smiling.

Every now and then the lady would ask where we were now. A man, squeezed behind the bus door with his face almost in the glass, would answer. Near MOA. Coastal Road.

It was an unusual thing: a blind lady who takes the bus alone at night. But the more striking thing about it is the response of the people, people like me who are so used to the uncaring atmosphere of jampacked buses, the rude drivers and conductors who would scold you if you had too many bags, the men who looked like thieves or sex maniacs, your seatmate who gave you dagger looks if your kid wouldn't stop whimpering or-- heaven forbid-- vomited.

We all had worries, but for the moment, we were all diverted to the concern of one woman who had to get safely home, who entrusted her well-being to everyone around her. I had to get off the bus, and I told her so. I told her to take care. Another woman took my seat, and she told me that she could tell the blind lady if she was nearing SM Dasmarinas already. We smiled at each other, and I was gone.

It takes one blind lady on the bus, and you can still believe in the basic goodness of people.

do mosquitoes have souls?

"Mama, do all living things have souls?"

This is the question I have from my daughter at 5am today. We just woke up and technically I am brain-dead until I've had coffee. I could have answered a quick yes, but experience has taught me to be cautious; children's questions have a tendency to crucify people thrice their age.

I said, "Some people say yes; some people say no. It depends on what you believe in." Then I held my breath for the follow-up.

"Well, then, do mosquitoes have souls? What happens when we kill them?"

Oh, God.

Let's start with pets. If your puppy dies, Mama would console you and say that he goes to heaven. Same with rabbits and kittens. I, in my thirty-four-year-old wisdom, offer a quick prayer every time I see dogs and cats run over by cars in the road. It's always "Oh-God-let-the-poor-thing-be-in-doggie-heaven-and-thank-you-that-I-haven't-had-breakfast-yet." We get outraged over videos of little animals being tortured to death, and we have PAWS to defend animal rights.

Then how about the chickens and pigs and cows that we kill for food? We don't feel guilty about that, although as a child I never could eat chicken that my grandfather has slaughtered, because I had seen it flopping headless in the dirt, spraying blood all over the yard. But in India cows are sacred, so does that mean the issue of a cow's soul is in question?

How about crocodiles and snakes? They can kill human beings, so if we kill them, does that negate the question of having a soul?

Let's go to insects. When ants and spiders bite, we swat them. I gleefully spray insecticide on a cockroach while it waves its legs in the air. But I disapprove of children who take joy in pulling off the wings of a fly.

So in our roundabout way, we have established that we perceive an animal has a soul if it exhibits intelligence. When we see that a pet exhibits emotions and can relate to us, we assume that it has the same immortal spirit. When someone refuses to step on a spider, however, we equate it to the Yuck factor rather than the morality of killing animals.

Then, my daughter has concluded, if an animal does not help humans, or it doesn't love us back, it doesn't have a soul. A mosquito brings us dengue, so its life brings us no good. It doesn't have a soul.

I could argue that somewhere in the food chain of little animals, mosquitoes probably provide nutrition, so does that make it 'good?' But I'm exhausted. I am also confused.

Now, at 11am, I'm still contemplating the question. I think I'll go around, pretend I'm ten years old, and ask people the same question.

the lovelife of gohan the cat

Aside from the Siamese, we have another cat who lives in the garage. His name is Gohan, he is gray-and-white, and he has this tough, slightly dirty, kanto boy look typical of stray cats. He is forbidden to enter the house because he offends the tender sensibilities of Chloe the Siamese cat. He is sweet, though, and when someone steps on his tail he would just howl in indignation, unlike the Siamese who will bite, eyes flashing.

Well, life was peaceful until Gohan acquired a girlfriend. It was another tough, slightly dirty feline with a squinty eye who always looked pregnant. Now this girlfriend had taken to spending nights with Gohan in the garage, sharing his dinner of leftovers. And she has been with Gohan so often that my daughter has given her a name, Girlfriend. Gohan and Girlfriend would cuddle on top of the washing machine, or crowd inside the dog house with Andrew the Whippet. (The whippet is another strange dog; he actually sleeps with the cats.)

Girlfriend looks positively ugly to me. I don't know about cats' standards of attractiveness, but she must be hot, because for some reason she got another suitor, a much uglier orange tabby with an evil temperament. We called him Kalaban. This Kalaban is so shameless that he would come at night and actually drive Gohan away from his own food bowl. Sometimes I'd have to watch over the cats as they ate dinner, with a broom in one hand, while Kalaban glares at me from outside the gate.

And then they'd start their courtship. You'd be peacefully dreaming at 2 am when the cats would start to howl in discordant harmony, each one trying to outdo the other in bass, soprano, and falsetto Meeeooowwww. Since they're in our garage, it has become our obligation to go down and disrupt the proceedings.

We'd often find Gohan crouched behind Andrew the dog, howling to his heart's content, while Kalaban does his macho posturing in the middle of the garage. Girlfriend would be watching from the sidelines, purring and grooming herself. Then my husband would try to hit Kalaban with whatever is handy: a plastic chair, a slipper, a dustpan. He always missed, and Kalaban would run away, grinning. As a result of these nocturnal skirmishes, we now have a plastic chair with a broken seat, a long knife with a broken point, a chipped baseball bat, a broken pot. All for the sake of Gohan's lovelife.

Thankfully, the courtship has ended. Gohan, battle-scarred over Girlfriend, is now healing his numerous scratches. He has a sore on his neck that my nanny declares will develop into skin cancer if untreated, so we've resorted to applying Solcoseryl whenever we catch him. Kalaban rarely shows his grinning face, but it still irritates the hell out of us when we see him on the streets.

Girlfriend is, of course, pregnant. She doesn't visit so often now. The nanny has threatened to evict both cats if she gives birth in the garage. My daughter and I are waiting to see if she'd appear one day with the kittens. She'd be welcome in the garage if she comes with little gray-and-white kittens, but not little orange tabby ones.

my daughters' education

A long time ago, I have decided that both of my daughters will attend Ateneo. One is ten; the other is three. And so it turns out that this particular mother is preoccupied with computing how much she has to save in the years before they'd go to university, while she still has Promil Kid in the grocery list and PSP in the Christmas wish list discreetly posted in the cork board by the library.

My older daughter often forgets to do her homework. I can sense my husband's disapproval that I am not strict when it comes to schoolwork, and it translates to my daughter's lack of discipline. Sometimes whole weekends would go by and we have not opened a single book in my daughter's school bag, but we found the time to cook together.

My three-year-old can identify letters in the alphabet, but for some reason refuses to say the letter 'E.' She can count, but she only counts going up and down stair steps. The older relatives say it's too early to send her to school, but if it means she'll learn to share and make friends I'd gladly pay her Nursery tuition for another year, and never mind if she sings the alphabet without the 'E.'

And so it also turns out that I think I will be ready for Ateneo, but my daughters might not be. I sometimes remember that at 10 years old, I was studying alone, and my art projects always got the highest grades. I also won all the Spelling contests, because my grandmother expected nothing less. I was also a stressed-out, grade-conscious, anxious child with chewed-up fingernails, but I cannot tell my daughter that. When I was 10, all I had to amuse myself were old issues of Life magazine and Reader's Digest, and comic books, which were forbidden but which we smuggled in the house anyway. My daughter amuses herself by doing Pizap on Facebook, and she has declared herself bored with Angry Birds. She spends hours practicing the flute, and when we go to the mall she stays in Tom's World while I do the groceries.

I have not asked her what she wants to be when she grows up. I do not want her to be pressured with school, but I realize that she should not grow up in the shadow of my ambitions. When she goes to university and someone asks her, 'Why Ateneo?' do I want her answer to be 'My mother had decided that when I was five years old' ?

And so it has turned out that in contemplating my desire to provide for a good education for my children, I have overlooked the necessity to provide them with a choice. My job, it turns out, is to be there whatever school they may choose, and not freak out when they decide to be deep-sea divers or hairdressers.

Their education is not the four years in Ateneo. Their education is the things I can teach them every day, as they grow up, how to be all that they can be.

dashboard special

I commute to work everyday. And today, for lack of colorful old ladies and inspiring radio music, what fell under my scrutiny was the driver's seat. Specifically, the windshield and dashboard. All of us who take public transport look towards the front of the jeep. Do you actually see what's usually there, or do you gaze blankly until it's time to yell "Para!"?



1. The rosary. It's a staple. It hangs from the rearview mirror. Not only on jeeps, but also on cars, buses, tricycles, and trucks. In some cases there's also a tasselled plastic medallion of Our Lady of Good Voyage. My husband, though not particularly religious, plays it safe. The dangling rosary is from Jerusalem, and the medallion is from the church of Our Lady of Manaoag in Pangasinan.

2. The sticker. Often it's related to #1, because it reinforces the prayer of everyone on the road: God bless our trip. No matter if the driver is a loud-mouthed, foul-mannered, reckless son of a bitch, the sticker right in front of him proclaims it: God bless our trip. I often whisper a P.S. at the end: Lord, let me reach my destination in one piece.

3. The other stickers. Let's recite them, shall we? Barya Lang Po Sa Umaga, on a sticker sponsored by Hotel Sogo. No Smoking. Victoria Court. 91.5 Big Radio. Yes FM. Love Radio. That's for the jeeps. For the FX and commuter vans, let's add Every Drop Counts, Universal Studios, the logo of the Playboy Bunny. And for the cars, that's where you boast Baby on Board, Lawyer on Board, Doctor on Call, and the various universities where you studied. I had to fight to have one sticker of Ateneo Graduate School of Business somewhere in my husband's van. He didn't want any sticker anywhere, aside from the ones issued by LTO and the subdivision. I won, though, but by a slight margin. He pasted it in the van's rear window, partially obscured by the wiper. And he promised to remove it as soon as I graduate, so I'm postponing my thesis.

4. The nodding, bobbing things. There's the plastic dog that bobs its head and tail. There's the gold cat that waves its paw. And there's the little flower that looks suspiciously like what you'd see in Plants vs Zombies, which waves its leaves around. You can buy them from vendors along Roxas Boulevard, along with feather dusters and windshield shades.

5. The hanging stuffed toys. They're more common in vans, FX and buses, but yes, even jeeps sport them. They're the ones that you get from Tom's World, where you drop a token in the slot and let those claws come down on one plush toy. You used to get teddy bears and little dogs and Hello Kitty. Now you get Ben 10 and Doraemon and Spongebob. The jeep I took this morning had a Dora, so grimy with dirt it's actually gray. My daughter would have a hemorrhage if she saw it; it actually looks like a voodoo doll. And the taxis? They used to have all seven of Snow White's dwarfs! Now it's-- ehem-- Angry Birds!!

6. The painted decorations. If you've ridden the long noisy jeeps that ply the routes of Antipolo, Cainta, and Tanay, you've seen them. Flashy painting on the jeep bodies, pounding music that rattles your teeth, dark interiors with eagles and dragons and tigers on the ceiling, alongside images of Mama Mary. But the ordinary jeeps and taxis have their walls and ceilings printed with the imaginative names of all their family members. Mario and Elena and Mario Jr. and Marlena and Mario III. I've ridden one Pasig-Quiapo jeep which took it one level up; it had logos of airlines in the ceiling: JAL and Thai Airways and PAL and Emirates. And you don't have to guess it: proclaimed on the side of the jeep, in bold colors, was KATAS NG OFW! Classic!

7. The witticisms. They're so commonplace you barely notice them. They hang on those little painted boards right behind the driver's head, along with the sign that says No Student ID, No Discount.

God knows Hudas not pay. (Oh, Lord, forgive us for being predominantly Catholic.)
Ang katok ay sa pinto, ang sutsot ay sa aso, ang para ay sa tao.
Forgive me my darling, kung ikaw ang aking naging ikalimang first love.

My jeep this morning had this classic invitation: Basta driver, sweet lover!
But I didn't count on the disclaimer below it:

Miss subukan mo akong ibigin, pag ika'y nagutom saka mo ako sisihin.

so how was your weekend?

They ask you that in the office on Monday morning. You grin and invariably say, "Good! I just stayed home, playing with the kids."



But, ladies and gentlemen, a real Sunday at home looks like this:

5:00 am. My 10-year-old is shaking me. She wants to jog and play badminton in the local park. I groan, tell her we’ll do it next week, and promptly fall asleep again.

6:00 am. I get up and prepare breakfast: rice topped with taba ng talangka, dried squid and fish, salted eggs, and lots of coffee. My husband has started applying glazing putty on the bare kitchen cabinets, part of the now month-long home improvement project.

8:00 am. I attack the laundry while the nanny attends to the 3-year-old who wants to jump into the soapsuds in the washing machine.

9:00 am. I go to the market with my 10-year-old while the nanny continues the laundry. The 3-year-old is now watching Dora on DVD.

11:00 am. Both kids are bathed. I am not. It’s time to prepare lunch. The 10-year-old has repeated four times that I promised we’d cook maja blanca today and has scattered Angry Birds playing cards all over the living room. I seriously consider being an Angry Bird.

1:00 pm. I sand the double deck in the children’s room, prior to repainting it. The nanny has both kids in our bedroom to get them away from the dust, where they're probably wrecking my little library.

3:00 pm. I peel and slice cassava, which I will cook in syrup and butter, for the afternoon merienda.

4:00 pm. The nanny rushes off to get a pedicure in her favorite salon while the 3-year-old is sleeping. I am applying a second coat of paint on the double deck. My husband, freshly bathed, goes into the bedroom and turns off the aircon. The 3-year-old promptly wakes and starts whining.

5:00 pm. We’re all watching Dora on DVD, and we’ve memorized the parts where Swiper the Fox appears, and we all recite “Oh, man!” so he will stop swiping. The 10-year-old, sick of Dora, hides in the bedroom with a laptop so she can download song lyrics to Korean pop songs.

6:00 pm. I prepare supper.

7:30 pm. The nanny comes back with a new haircut and purple toes, along with the ingredients for the maja blanca, which I had hoped my 10-year-old would forget.

8:00 pm. I start cooking maja blanca with my 10-year-old. We’re done in an hour, and they start eating it hot off the pan. My arms are aching.

9:00 pm. I eat my own supper while Dora (what else?) drones on and on in the background. It’s now playing in the portable DVD player so that the others could watch something else on TV. Dora and Boots get somewhat tiring after three dozen DVDs.

10:00 pm. The nanny is still returning freshly folded laundry in the closets, which means I cannot relinquish the 3-year-old to her yet. We draw lots of ABCs, count pens, and go up and down the stairs (hoping she’ll tire herself out and drop to sleep). By 11:00 pm I’m ready to drop and the kid is still bouncing around.

12:00 mn. The 3-year-old has a bad cold and cannot sleep, so I have to nebulize her. I’m only lying down on the bed when I see my 10-year-old’s PE pants that’s ripped in the crotch, which she has given me on Saturday to sew. So I bring out my sewing kit.

1:00 am. I cannot find my cellphone, which is important because I have to set the alarm for 4:45 am, so I can prepare breakfast. I realize it’s Monday already, and I remember I have not taken a bath.

elizabeth taylor's jewelry

The estate of Elizabeth Taylor is putting up her jewelry collection for auction in December. Its estimated total cost is $30 million. Among others, there's the 33.19 karat diamond known as the Elizabeth Taylor Diamond, a gift from Richard Burton. It's expected to fetch $2.5 to $3.5 million.

A portion of the proceeds will go to her AIDS Foundation. Very noble.

I wonder how it feels like to wear a diamond like that, a diamond that has its own proper name.

I have a friend who keeps her jewelry in a safety deposit box in a bank. She takes out one piece to wear for a few days, gives it back to the bank for safekeeping, and takes out another one.

I have another friend who wore these nice gold ball earrings, and at P20,000 they're the cheapest thing in her collection.

Still there's another friend who asks a jewelry maker to come to the office from time to time. She checks out jewelry designs in the internet, then asks the maker to customize pieces for her, in white and yellow gold. The jewelry maker sometimes comes with finished pieces, which she allows to be bought on installment basis. The prices don't come lower than P50,000. I got tempted one time to order a piece from her, a custom-made cat pendant, in white gold.

I love accessories, but I'm not overly fond of pricey jewelry, mostly because I don't have enough money to start a collection. :-) I admire women who own beautiful jewelry, but I don't walk around carrying this hidden desire to wear Bvlgari or Cartier pieces.

The women in my family treat jewelry with reverence. I received jewelry from my mother as gifts on very special occasions, but only when I was old enough to take care of them. And the expensive ones are kept hidden, to be used only to impress relatives during weddings or old classmates during high school reunions.

I like owning things that I can use on ordinary days. In Special Things, I said that I don't have pretty dresses that I save for special occasions. I do have some nice jewelry, but they're not the kind over which I'd lose sleep if I misplaced them, and definitely not the kind over which I'd get killed if I wore them on my way to the office.

But yes, sometimes I daydream of jewelry. I'd also like to give my daughters gifts of rings and necklaces when they grow up. I'd like diamonds. They'll never go down in value, and no matter how small, they catch attention. They wink fire. I like to think a woman should be like a diamond, never insignificant or unnoticeable, and treated just as precious.

And a woman like Elizabeth Taylor? Oh, she deserves a diamond as iconic as her.

james soriano's article

James Soriano wrote this Manila Bulletin article on August 24, 2011. It's about English as the language of privilege.

To say it received plenty of attention would be an understatement. It generated thousands of reactions, forwarded on Facebook, blogged about (like what I'm doing now), and shared on Twitter. The day after it was posted in the Manila Bulletin site, I could not access it. There must be so many people wanting to get in on the issue.

They said it was very un-nationalistic. They accused James of 'arrogant elitism.' They said it's a shame that he, being a Filipino, could say all those things.

Personally, I think people took notice because it struck a nerve. But isn't it true? For most of us, we're working overtime to be able to send our children to private schools, where the medium of instruction is English. The best students in class are those who have good grades in English. When they graduate from college, they get interviewed in English, and I, who's in Human Resources, can tell you that companies put a premium on excellent English communication skills. We equate good breeding by the ability to speak English, and therefore, it equates to a good life. And in the Philippines, you might want to check out how many signages along the streets are in English. How often would you see a sign that says "Tindahan ni Juana?" Oh, no, it's always "Jane's Store," with a Coke advertisement on one side.

I'm guilty of thinking in English too. When my daughter comes to me with a homework in Filipino, I translate the directions in English so we can understand what needs to be done. I tell her "pandiwa" is actually a "verb," and she gives me a pained expression. Needless to say, her grades in Filipino leave something to be desired. We exchange text messages in English, and not the "cn i wtch dvd aft skul" version, but the complete words. Definitely not Jejemon, for that matter. And I used to find it funny that my daughter entered grade school without knowing the Tagalog words for "banana" and "crab" and "gate."

So does that make me less of a Filipino? No. Choosing to communicate in English meant that I had a better chance to compete in the real world, where salaries need to be earned and deals have to be made. Speaking English will allow my children to go places and experience things beyond the place where they were born.

James Soriano wrote a come-back article on August 31, Wika Bilang Gunita. And although I applaud him for his guts to write it, I must admit it took me twice as long to finish reading it. I almost wished it had an English translation. :-)

special things

A man opened his wife’s underwear drawer and found a silk paper-wrapped package. In it was something his wife got 8 or 9 years ago, but has never worn, saving it for a special occasion. He guessed it was a special occasion, so he put them with the clothing he was taking to the funeral home, for his wife had just died.

Maybe you also got that one from a forwarded email, with an inspirational reminder that if it’s worth doing or seeing, to do it now, because tomorrow is promised to no one. It goes on to say that we should live for today, and we should use our crystal glasses every day.

Here’s my take. I grew up in a house where a narra china cabinet occupies one whole wall, and Noritake dinnerware was displayed in matched sets. There were silver spoons, forks and knives, and the water glasses were so old and dainty that they shattered if you so much as tapped one with a spoon. There were teapots and teacups in fine porcelain, but I never tasted tea in that house.

My grandmother kept cans of imported corned beef and bars of imported beauty soap in a cabinet, to give as presents to visiting relatives. (I now wonder if she ever checked expiry dates; we seldom entertained and relatives rarely came.) My sister and I had Rainbow Brite dolls sent by an uncle from the States when we were little, but they stayed in their boxes and put on display for years. I stole mine when I left home to study in Manila when I was thirteen.

When I got married, I promised myself that my house will never have things set aside for special occasions. Well, we were poor to begin with, and that meant we did not have a lot of special things. The plates and glasses we received as wedding gifts were what we used in the house. We only had what we needed, from clothes to food to toys. But later, when things got better for us, we drank red wine for dinner and bought cake when we felt like eating some. We cooked special food on ordinary days, and one time we had plain grilled tilapia for New Year’s Eve, because we’ve used up the ‘holiday food’ menu in the days leading to the New Year.

But even if we could now afford bottles of perfume instead of supermarket-bought cologne, we only got what we needed. We're not yet filthy rich, after all. :-) We don’t have boxes of unopened underwear in our closet. My daughter has very few pretty Sunday clothes to hand down to her cousins, because all her clothes had been used well. We buy imported bath soap when we run out of them. We use wineglasses and water goblets for dinner, and my daughters have never broken one. We have Barbie dolls in the house; their hair is all mangled and they have missing shoes. One of them had already gone topless and had purple eyeshadow drawn with glitter pen before I realized it was a Collector’s Edition Barbie.

It doesn’t mean we’re leading an extravagant life by our standards, or that we’re not teaching our children how to treat valuable things well. I prefer to think that we chose to enjoy the nicer things so that we’ll have as few regrets as possible, so that we can get more out of life, learn more, be more. My daughters know spaghetti and ice cream is something they can have when I’m in the mood to cook and run to the store on a weekend, and not something they only eat at a friend’s birthday party, like when I was growing up. (Well, these days it's drive-thru food.) I wear my pretty dresses on Mondays.

We have special things, but only a few, and we use them well. If you had started a life of simplicity, it’s either you stuck with it by force of habit, or it made you greedy and you started hoarding imported corned beef.

to kill a mockingbird

I finished Lee Harper’s ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ today.

Atticus Finch just became my hero. His children were motherless, and he raised them rather wild, but they grew up reading newspapers and discussing editorials with him. He was a lawyer, and it was said he was the same man inside the house as he was on the streets. He spoke to the children as if they were grown-ups, and he listened to them.

His daughter, Scout, was seven, but he taught her to ‘wear someone else’s skin and walk around in it’ if she wanted to understand people. He taught her how to act with dignity, and how to fight her own battles. He asked an uncle to teach his son Jem to shoot because he said he was too old to bother with guns, but Jem would later discover that in his youth, he was a respected sharpshooter, and he can still shoot, and that sometimes it is wise not to flaunt what you have every chance you got.

Atticus is a work of fiction, but his life, in the eyes of a little girl, teaches you what it means to be a good person. Being good does not mean faultless. It means trying your best to uphold what you value, being brave enough to acknowledge your mistakes and catch the lessons, and standing up for something even in the midst of adversity.

As children, we are raised to never challenge the wisdom of parents. Parents are the absolute authorities, and we believed without question. But as parents, when do you start teaching your children that even parents make mistakes? As parents, how do you acknowledge that you may believe you are acting on the best interests of the child, but in the end, each person, even a little person, has to live his own life? How do you teach your child to stand up for himself without compromising the rules of the world he lives in?

Tough questions. The book does not answer them. The book made me evaluate some of the convictions I held, and some of the practices I do as a parent, simply because I thought it was expected of me. The book made me aware of what my child sees when she looks at me.

Atticus also taught his children that it was a sin to kill a mockingbird. You’d have to read it to find out why. It’s beautiful.

rain, rain, go away

I love the sun. I like doing outdoor chores, even if I got hot and sweaty. I would go to the beach in the summer not to frolic in the water but to roll around in the sand. I love the smell of freshly-washed laundry drying in the hot afternoon sun. I even like going out during my lunch break to get away from the constant 22 degrees in the office. I love being slightly baked and browned (and not just because my Western friends envy my color).

Consequently, I'm one of those people who get depressed by rain. And in the past two weeks, it seemed that we've had nothing but rain. Today turned out to be bright and sunny, so I'm celebrating the return of the sun by blogging what I hated about the rainy days.

1. I spend my lunchtime inside the building. Although I mostly eat alone and I often eat in the cafeteria anyway, it somehow makes me feel cheated that I don't have the choice to go outside and look at shoes.

2. I leave my umbrella in the garage to drip at night, and I find out in the morning that the cat has peed on it. Not the Siamese cat, but the stray ones that come at night, and I don't have the heart to kick them out. I feed them food scraps before I go to bed, and that's the thanks I get in return. The maddening thing is that I usually discover it when I start to stink in the van, on account of the umbrella in my office bag.

3. I rush around in the morning, getting my daughter ready for school, and I can't find her frigging rubber shoes on P.E. day. I search high and low, and just as the school service comes beeping, I find them behind the refrigerator, where the nanny has hung them to dry.

4. When it's raining we have clothes hung all over the house. They won't dry right, so the nanny hangs them on door handles and cabinet handles and towel bars and stair railings in the evenings. It's a strange sight when you emerge from the bedroom at 5am and there's a line of underwear hanging from a hook in the ceiling. Clothes that did not dry in the sun just don't smell right, no matter how much fabric conditioner you used and even if you spin them in the dryer for two hours.

5. I can't wear nice shoes when it's raining. I usually wear my five-inch heels on the rides to the office and going home. I feel good in them and (I think) I look good in them. But those shoes are too nice to get ruined in the rain, so I have to wear ordinary wedge sandals (but of course, with three-inch heels).

6. Now this one I don't hate so much. I get to wear little dresses on rainy days (but then I wear little dresses four days a week, so I guess it doesn't matter). It's because I don't like wet clothing. I don't like the feeling of wet pants plastered on my legs in the one hour it takes me to get to the office, and I don't like damp pants in the eight hours I sit on my desk. I must be the only passenger in those vans who wear sleeveless dresses on rainy days. All the rest are wrapped in jackets with hoods, bulky pullovers, and pants. If I wear a dress, I can just wipe off the water from my arms and legs, then wrap myself in a thick pashmina in the office.

Some people like rainy days, because it's cooler and you can putter around the house and get all the sewing done and you can snuggle in bed and download movies to death and read a book or make love the whole afternoon. You can cook champorado at 2pm and eat it in front of the TV.

Well, yes, you can enjoy them when it's raining, but I'll take a sunny day to read a book with the cat in my lap in the garage, and eat champorado too. For me, sunny days make the colors brighter, the people more cheerful. Hot days can make tempers boil faster too, but let's not go there. :-)

It's just as The Carpenters sang: 'Rainy days and Mondays always get me down...'

my daughter's music

When I was a little girl, a 'musically inclined' child was someone who had a piano and a guitar in the house, took music lessons, belonged to the school drum-and-lyre band, and was asked to actually sing in school programs, instead of standing at the back and just mouthing the words to the song.

My grandmother was very determined that me and my siblings would grow up to be cultured (sounds like bacteria to me), socially well-rounded persons, so aside from the summer painting classes, we had tutors for classic ballroom dancing, we recited (and wrote) poems, and we had piano lessons from the pianist in the church choir.

Let's jump to 2011, to my musically-inclined ten-year-old. She has 4GB of MP3s in her desktop computer, another 4GB of MP3s in her mother's laptop (as a back-up), and a little pink MP4 player with earphones featuring the Angry Birds. She downloads music videos on YouTube, watches the Myx countdowns at 6am on weekdays while eating breakfast, and could sing those funky Korean pop music even if she does not understand the words.

We have a videoke in the house. We sing together on weekends, and she has the nerve to laugh at me when I’m off-key. We have about six dozen DVDs of concerts and music videos. We don’t have a single musical instrument in the house.

And occasionally, she would hand me a piece of paper before I leave for work in the morning. It would contain a list of songs that she wants, with a careful little note to include the lyrics.
1. Bituing Walang Ningning
2. Greatest Love of All
3. Grenade
4. Closer You and I
5. Funkhouse
6. Danger
7. Fire
8. Lazy Song

By now I would be familiar with my daughter’s current taste in music that I know Grenade and Lazy Song are by Bruno Mars, but Bituing Walang Ningning and Greatest Love of All were a surprise. I didn’t realize she’d go for Whitney Houston, but then I didn’t know she knew Bonnie Tyler as well until she sang If I Sing You A Love Song on videoke. I agonized over Danger and Fire, until I found out they were K-pop. I pestered my other music-loving friends until they coughed out the MP3s they had. The others I downloaded at night.

I’d hand her the complete list, along with a flash drive and a print-outs of the lyrics. She would transfer the songs to the MP4 player, and sing along. She would mouth off those Korean words that sound like tongue-twisters, and I have a happy ten-year-old for about a week… until she hands me the new list. Sometimes there would be five songs; sometimes fifteen.

I do it because I want to know the kind of songs she likes. I do it because it’s fun when we sing together, when most of my friends don’t know Next To You by Chris Brown. I can smile with officemates who, like me, have little girls, and who, like me, have managed to memorize Justin Bieber factoids. I like knowing that there are two versions of Inside Your Heaven, and Carrie Underwood’s take is better. I like listening to Ordinary People by John Legend, both when Markki Stroem sang it in Pilipinas Got Talent two seasons ago, and when my daughter sings it in the morning. Singing my daughter’s songs, learning her kind of music, gives us a connection.

But sometimes the years between us show.

There was one time that her list contained Take A Bow. I was so pleased. I came home armed with the MP3 and the lyrics, and I started to tell her about how I liked the song too. I told her about the song This Used To Be My Playground, and a movie called ‘A League of Their Own.’ I told her I think it was good that she could appreciate songs from another era.

She listened to my ravings and nodded along, then she played the song. Her face fell.

She meant Take A Bow by Rihanna. Not Madonna.

motherhood 101

This morning my daughter and I got off to a rough start. We were both dressing when she asked if a flash drive would get a virus if it got wet. I was immediately suspicious.

Last month she told me that her Computer teacher required the class to bring flash drives for their computer exercises. The flash drives would be collected in a box, to be kept in the classroom. I bought her one, then told her flash drives are expensive, and if her classmates are not submitting theirs, she should keep hers in her bag. I had visions of the computer teacher greedily collecting 40 flash drives at the end of the school year.

She did not submit, and neither did her classmates. So after using her flash drive in class last week, she put in her skirt pocket, where it lay forgotten, until Ate Malou did the laundry on Friday, and was returned to her, dripping.

I was mad. I got the flash drive and was scolding her about being careless as she went out to her school service. I was also mad at Ate Malou for not checking the pockets of clothing before she started the laundry. I was also mad because I was running late on a Monday morning, and it was starting to rain.

As I was walking out the subdivision gate I saw the school service ahead. My daughter was in one of the windows, looking back at me. Her face was small and serious, and I could see her hesitating to wave goodbye. The van turned the corner and was gone.

And on the ride to the office, I was of course consumed with guilt. Too much of a fuss over a small thing. I could easily have said, ok, let’s check if it’s still working, reminded her to be careful next time, and we could have kissed each other goodbye like we usually do.

Being a kid is not easy, and I say that as I look back at my own childhood. I never got into trouble for losing my things in school, but I also didn’t have anyone to sew a button back in my blouse if I lost one. My daughter is so finicky about her skirts that I get to adjust the hook at the waist almost every week. One day it would be tight; the next time it would be loose, and she would hitch at it till I lose my patience and bring out the sewing kit while she eats her breakfast in her underwear. I remember going to grade school with socks that were held up at my ankles by rubber bands, because my grandmother could not be bothered to buy new ones; I got tired of asking her.

I could say my daughter is luckier than some, because her parents could buy the things she needs for school, and the things she wants as well. But I wonder who of us was luckier: me for being largely overlooked (and so learned to take control of her little life), or her for being so closely watched she sometimes feels the need to ask for permission to take a nap.

There has to be a balance somewhere, between telling children what you think is good for them and teaching them to stand up for their choices, needing to know what your children are up to and knowing enough to give them space, teaching them to fly and letting them test the wind on their own. We grope for the balance every day. Parents, as well as children, are always walking the tightrope, hoping love will be the net to catch them if they slip and fall.

As a child I also don’t remember being apologized to. Adults don’t say sorry, even if they’re wrong. I remember resenting the hell out of the unfairness of it all. Now that I’m an adult, I find it hard to say sorry to a kid, because when you’re a grown-up, it’s humbling to admit you’re wrong to someone half your size.

So now I take a break to send my daughter a text message:

Hi, honey. Your USB is working. Sorry for being mad at you this morning.

Love, Mama.

And if I’m lucky, we’ll get to do crosswords together tonight.

run away

Have you ever wondered what will happen if you just drop everything and run away? If you just packed up your bags and left? Have you ever wondered how much courage it will take to let go of everything you’ve worked hard for, your family, your career, your properties—everything that the world says would make you a successful person?

And before my friends out there start leaving messages on Facebook saying “Everything all right with you?” and “What’s all this about? Let’s talk.” And “Do you need a marriage counselor?” I’ll make a disclaimer and say this is just a figment of an overactive imagination. You guys pretend I’m into a story draft, and I’ll pretend the same way.

I have never been an impulsive person. Everything in my life has to follow a certain order, and I hate losing control of my tight little world. I plan the grocery list in the same way I plan my monthly office wardrobe and the next five years of my career progression. So if you were to imagine me running away, something has to be fundamentally wrong with my life.

And if I were to imagine myself running away, I think it’s going to be funny.

1. I would start saving a few hundreds each month, in cash. I could lie to myself and say it's my daughter's college money, but it will actually be my running-away money. I would have to start saving at least five years ahead of time before I'd be content with the amount.

2. I would start sneaking an item of clothing into the office, one at a time. I would not want a dramatic exit from the house, with eighteen pieces of luggage and a freaked-out cat. All my running-away clothing would be properly packed and in storage somewhere, long before the actual date.

3. I would plan on my destination. My best bet would be a place far enough away that there's no chance of running into relatives, but with existing internet connection so I can still discreetly check them on Facebook.

4. I would prepare for a new life by listing down the career options when I finally run away. I could become (i) a freelance writer for some women's magazine; (ii) a caretaker of some vacation house near the beach so I can still write when I'm not cleaning the house; (iii) a seamstress specializing in curtains and pillowcases; or (iv) a teacher in a far-flung area. Aside from (ii), I have to further prepare for the new career by taking technical writing classes, sewing classes, or getting a teaching license.

5. I would rehearse saying goodbye. I would kiss my children every morning and night, and cook their meals on weekends, and play with them as often as I can. I will also keep their medical records updated and their teeth cleaned twice a year, so that they'll be perfectly healthy when I leave.

6. I would worry about my children's college education. I would start computing and saving, so that I'd have some money to leave them when I run away. And I'd drop enough hints to my sister and my sisters-in-law, that if something happens and I'm gone, they have to check on my kids to see that they're not abused, they're not going hungry, and they're going to school.

7. When the running-away day comes, I will cancel my mobile phone service and switch to prepaid. There would be no tearful phone calls. Of course I would make sure that all the bills in the house are paid, the checking account has funds, and the fridge is full. Better yet, I could make it a Monday, because on Sundays I go to the market and I make sure that we have soap and sugar and coffee and cooking oil and milk. On Sunday night all the clothes are ironed, the laundry basket is empty, and the cat litter is fresh.

8. I will buy a first-aid kit, charge my Kindle, and label all the assorted wires and chargers that go with my gadgets. I will debate whether I will bring my laptop, or just buy an external hard drive to store all the MP3s, pictures, and story drafts. I will agonize about the shoes I'll leave behind, and whether I'll need five-inch heels in my new life.

9. I will check into a hotel for a couple of days to gather my thoughts, go over my lists, and fill a notebook with my thoughts about running away. I will analyze myself and determine whether I am sufficiently prepared, and decide where I want to end up. Well, of course I have the list already, and if I had considered going abroad I would already have my itinerary one year ahead of time.

And, armed with Excel sheets and 25-year plans, I would be so exhausted about planning that I wouldn't have the energy to actually run away. I knew it.

today is friday

Getting to the office today was a breeze. Since I had a good night's sleep (I had the whole bed to myself because my husband fell asleep on the living room couch while watching TV), I spent the whole ride to the office in a pleasant daydream. Here are the things worthy of note:

1. Number of people in the van who are still awake twenty minutes into the ride, by the time we reached Alabang - 2 (the driver and me)

2. Number of people in the van who are awake a short while later when the driver braked too hard to avoid a swerving motorcycle - All

3. Number of people in the van with earphones - 5
Hmm. Most days it's about ten out of eighteen passengers.

4. Number of people in the van not wearing jeans - 1
Me. Although Friday must be wash day in most offices, including mine, I'm wearing slacks and high heels.

5. Noteworthy cars: 1 green Mini Cooper (like Mr. Bean's car, which I adore) and 1 lady-driven black BMW along Commerce Road in Alabang.
The BMW is noteworthy because there was no other BMW alongside our van from Alabang to Ortigas, but there were 6 BMWs already in the open parking lot at 7:50 am.

6. Number of documents waiting for me - 18
Sigh. My desk was clean when I left at 6pm yesterday. My day will officially start at 8:30 am, so I'm going to get a nice cup of coffee to fortify me.

7. Things to worry about - 1
Send-off party at 3pm today, estimated 60 attendees of various nationalities, including one high-ranking Japanese officer, which causes anxiety because we don't know if he will eat chicken empanada and cheese sticks.

8. Things to look forward to - 2
(i) Penny's birthday lunch at Shakey's! I love it when I get to eat pizza and pasta for free! Haha!
(ii) 5:00 pm. Get it? :-)

the little bird's lunch

Lunch today was sautéed shrimp and onions from the Vietnamese counter, with some lettuce and rice in a microwaveable container. I decided to eat it in one of our small meeting rooms, instead of the cafeteria.

I preferred to be alone today, because I was feeling a bit down. You know, when the weight of all your worries crashes down on you and you can’t wait for 5pm so you can go home and crawl to bed and sleep it off. You’re logging documents and it suddenly dawns on you that you have a house to run, two kids to raise, groceries to buy, bills to pay, a thesis to finish, and an argument waiting to happen. Oh, and to top it off, you’re nursing a three-day cold.

The room looks out over a portion of the office compound with a tree in it. One whole wall is glass. I can’t see any cars because I’m in the second floor, only the upper half of the tree. It’s rather soothing.

As I started eating, a little brown bird landed on the window ledge. He was carrying something that looked like a bug, and he settled down to have his lunch. I was about three feet away, separated from him by a glass pane, and I don’t know if he can see me. Or maybe he thought, Hello there, how about a lunch mate?

He pecked a little here and there, then maybe he decided he’s too hungry to be dainty, so he tried to gobble the whole thing all at once.

I paused with a forkful of shrimp, and waited to see if the bird would choke. He shook his head this way and that, and then, with a little shiver, he swallowed it whole. Then he fluffed his body, checked the ledge for crumbs--maybe he dropped a bug leg or something, ugh--and then flew back to his tree.

Well, sometimes it's the same with life’s problems. Maybe they’d seem a little too big to handle, but if you shake it up a little, and peck at it a little, it becomes manageable. And maybe it looks like you’d choke, but see, God never gave a bird a bug it can’t digest.

I had to smile a little. Maybe the little bird had problems too. Maybe his tree was a bit shaky on windy days, and twigs were always falling on his head. Maybe his kids had flown the nest, gone off to bird college or wherever it is that they learn bird lessons. Maybe he was divorced and had been looking for a nice brown chick, but he didn’t have enough worms to impress her with. But see, he has to sit down and enjoy his lunch.

Trust me to philosophize over a little bird and an unfortunate little bug. But I figured that sometimes, when the big picture overwhelms you, it helps to step back and take a look at the little pictures that makes up the whole. Ok, so I’m stressed, but I’m still wearing nice clothes and pretty shoes. I’m eating a rather expensive lunch. My daughter has recovered from the flu. When I get home, dinner will be waiting because we have someone to cook for us. There’s always some small thing to be thankful for, something that lets you believe in a better day and the promise of all that’s possible.

Oh, and one last thing? On a lonely day, you can always use some companionship, even if it’s just a little bird.

food!

I'm not a picky eater. I usually eat what's on the table without scrutinizing if it came from a mammal. At home, I prefer simple meals. I'd be happy with fried fish and boiled camote tops dipped in soy sauce and calamansi. I like seafood better than chicken or pork, but fresh crabs and shrimps have gotten to be a luxury, it's sometimes easier to hit Jollibee and buy takeout food that my kids would enjoy.

But when we eat out, I go Italian. I even eat alone, at Sbarro in Megamall, and attack a slice of Chicago White pizza or a half baked ziti with a pinwheel.

At Amici, I'd go for vongole and the four-cheese pizza. At Green Tomato, I'd have the shrimp and feta pasta. At Yellow Cab, it's (what else?) the Charlie Chan pasta and the Manhattan Meatlovers pizza, with lots of Coke. At Pizza Hut, it's their garlic, shrimp and mushroom pasta, and stuffed crust pizza. Gumbo has a wonderful seafood pasta. And ok, I'd also eat the carbonara at Red Ribbon, and the Hawaiian Overload pizza at Greenwich.

I don't cook well. Hell, I seldom cook, and I have to be in a very good mood if you catch me cooking fried rice and fried Spam for breakfast. But I can cook spaghetti for my kids, although the sauce is never the same taste twice. One time I also tossed some canned tuna and grated cheese on pasta drizzled with olive oil, which my daughter pronounced non-edible.

So really, it's better to eat at all those restaurants that serve pasta and pizza, and drool over the menu, and remember which dishes I'd come back to. I also dream of an Italian vacation, where I'll visit all those places Elizabeth Gilbert wrote about in Eat Pray Love and eat pizza and pasta the whole day long. Unlike Monette , I can't blog about food; I end up making stories about my fellow diners.

But since I'm the only one in the family who actually got upset when we can't find the Yellow Cab in Imus, I sometimes relent and allow my husband to take me to dinner at Seaside in Daang Hari. We eat crabs and shrimps, and take bets on who will get hypertension when we grow old. Then when I'm in the office, I'd happily play eenie-meenie-minie-moe on which Italian restaurant in Megamall would fulfill me.

my new car

No, I didn't buy one. I'm talking about what I usually think about on those interminable rides to and from the office. I spend roughly 3.5 hours commuting, and when you're on the road, all you see are wheels.

I've made a game out of it too. I try to guess the make and model of the car before I get close enough to see the hood ornament. Most of the time, I'm correct about Honda Civic and Toyota Vios. And I could differentiate the Toyota Innova and Avanza. I could also easily spot a Fortuner, and a Nissan Frontier Navara. The flashy BMWs and Mercedes Benzes don't count, because you'd notice them even if you're not trying. I don't do car reviews, but I notice when the mags are hyped up. When the car windows are not tinted too dark, I check the seats.

And of course, I count the doors, because I love looking at two-door cars. The Hyundai Genesis is my favorite these days. I also notice the Ford Fiesta and the Mitsubishi Eclipse. I seldom see a Toyota Celica, but it's there. Where I work, I often see 2-door BMW sports cars, Porsche Boxsters, and Jaguars in the parking lot. But I'd strain my neck just to see a Genesis hurtling down SLEX at 10pm with no traffic. I just adore those sleek bodies in motion. No, I don't mean the drivers.

Ok, so here's what I'm waiting to see: the Honda CR-Z. It was launched in Japan in 2010 and is marketed as a sport hybrid coupe. It is the only gasoline-electric hybrid model offered by any car maker that can be equipped by a manual transmission (which means nothing to me, since I don't know how to drive). It ranked #15 in the list of Affordable Small Cars by US News and World Reports, and was Car of the Year 2010-2011 in Japan. It costs around $21,000, and currently available in Japan, Europe, South Africa and North America. It's scheduled for release in Australia mid-2011. I wonder when it will reach Asia... and how much it will cost in the Philippines by the time we're done burying it in taxes and other charges.

We have a standing joke at home: I will only take driving classes when I have my own two-door car. And since I cringe to think of me killing all the trash bins and guava trees in the neighborhood, and end up wrecking our gate every time I try to park (imagine if it were a Genesis, with a price tag of Php 1.8 million!), here's the car I'll buy:

A 92-94 Honda Civic hatchback, which I'll have painted red. (Honda used to have a metallic purple color in its Civics that I love, but I'm afraid the hatchback would look like an oversized eggplant in it.) I'll have Sparco bucket seats. No tint on the windows. A plate number that says REN 123. No mirrors under the hood, please, but I'll have a mean sound system. And I'll teach my Siamese cat to sit on the dashboard while I run for groceries.

Maybe I could dream of a CR-Z. Maybe one day I'll be able to afford it. But you know what? I think I won't buy one, because I won't need one. The Honda hatchback would be quite fine. It's not horribly expensive, I'm in no immediate danger of being carjacked in the SM parking lot, and if I hit a guava tree, my husband will still smile and fix the fender.

And while I'm driving it, why, I'll still crane my neck to count how many two-door cars are passing me, and be perfectly happy.

water for elephants

Jacob Jankowski's life as a would-be veterinarian with a city practice ended on the night he jumped a circus train. He became the resident vet for a traveling circus, the trainor for an elephant who understands only Polish, the surrogate mother for an affectionate chimpanzee, the friend of a circus worker who became paralyzed due to booze, and the lover of the circus manager's wife. All this at twenty-three, before he took his final university exams.

It was also the story of Jacob, who can't rightly remember if he's ninety or ninety-three, and who lives for the memories of the backbreaking work, the wonder of the performances, the animals, the stampede, the murders, the deep friendships, and the greatest love.

As with the other books, I won't be watching the movie version. I can close my eyes and imagine how it feels like to ride a circus elephant. It makes me want to try the real thing, even though a circus is not part of the Filipino way of life. But that's what makes books great, isn't it? They let you be more than you are, by showing you different kinds of lives, and for the moment, letting you live them. They are stories, yes, but for the most part, beautifully-written stories are crafted from real experiences, carefully researched, and told in words that catch your heart.

I read this book on the Kindle, on the way to work in the morning, on the way home in the evening, and for about an hour before going to bed. Took me 3 days. The pleasure is partly in the Kindle, partly in the great book.

Filipinos

These are the cookies. A colleague in the office brought them from Spain. He said they're sweet, like the real thing. :-)

I was tickled when I saw them. And yes, they're very sweet. But some of my officemates weren't thrilled. They wanted to find the reason why they named those crispy little doughnuts after our noble race.

I checked the website. www.filipinos.com is redirected to a Spanish site, where they have this promotion that gives you a chance to win gadgets, Peugeot motorcycles, and a trip for 4 to the US. (Why not a trip to the Philippines, then, where the winner gets to meet several million of the real thing?)

I checked Wikipedia. Filipinos are made by Kraft Foods. The entry says that in 1999, Congressman Heherson Alvarez filed a diplomatic protest with the Spanish government over this cookie, and even Erap reportedly called it an insult to Filipinos. I could find no other article online about what happened to this protest, or whether Kraft (Artiach in Spain) ever responded.

Personally, I don't feel an immediate need to kick a** just because I share the name with a pastry. It's not an issue of patriotism; it would be hard to say you're insulted when you go to Starbucks for a coffee and a bagel for breakfast (ok, so your mug says 'Starbucks Philippines'), use imported Dove and Irish Spring soap at home, and flaunt all those Italian leather bags and shoes.

In my mind it's something like, Ok, I'm a Filipino. Kenneth Cobonpue designs furniture for Angelina Jolie's offspring; he's a Filipino. Lea Salonga, Charice, and Manny Pacquiao are Filipinos. The world's shortest man alive is a Filipino. Imelda Marcos was in Newsweek's 'Greediest People of All Time' in 2009. The 'I love you' virus, which drove CIA and Pentagon to shut down its mail system in May 2000, was created by a Filipino. There are reasons for pride; there are reasons for shame. And oh, we got a cookie named after us, too.

I think I know my own worth, and it's enough not to become insecure of a tiny crispy doughnut that's actually quite delicious.

Would you take offense?

the psp issue

My daughter wants a PSP. Her cousin has one, one of her friends has one, and two of her other friends are discussing about asking their OFW fathers to buy them one. She asked whether we'd buy her one when we had some extra money.

I said no, because I think she has enough toys. We have a regular Playstation where she consistently beats her father at Street Fighter, a commercial quality videoke which actually came from those huge boxes in malls where you put five-peso coins to be able to sing really loud, a desktop PC (uh, ok, so it needs upgrading), and my laptop. She has her own cellphone with a postpaid line. Shall we count the Barbies and the current craze among her friends, the erasers shaped like food?

My daughter is not one to pester us about the things she wants. She knows we're not rich, so she's ok with one 'No.' Of course the question of getting the PSP is open for discussion, so after some consultation with the man of the house and various friends whose kids own one (I can't believe the number of two-year-olds who own PSPs!), I relented and brought up the subject again after a week, and told her she could have a PSP... if she saves up for it.

My daughter got excited. She designated a special wallet for the 'PSP money,' and negotiated for an amount that she would save every day, considering the fact that her allowance comes from me. She then proceeded to convince her father to add some more, to make the saving go faster. We're looking at getting it for Christmas, but at the rate of P20 per day, I think we're likely to buy it for Christmas 2012. Sigh.

I could easily have said, Ok, we'll buy it for Christmas. But she understands that we don't buy things just because we can afford them. She knows that a PSP will cost as much as an aircon unit for their bedroom, or equivalent to a dozen Barbie dolls, or her sister's milk for three months. (She doesn't know that it's equivalent to six pairs of her mother's pretty shoes.) Not because I'm trying to make her feel guilty about an expensive toy, but because she will put more value in the PSP if she saves up for it. Because I'd like to teach her that even a child has priorities, and the sweetest things in life are those that you work hard for. That applies to PSP, job promotions, and relationships.

I wouldn't want her to come to me after her college graduation and say, 'Mama, can you buy me a car?' But well... I can loan her the down payment. :-)

the amazon kindle!

I have lusted for this gadget for over a year. I have checked Amazon a hundred times (to see if the price will go down), read dozens of reviews, followed blogs dedicated to it, chased other bank staff who are Kindle owners and asked them questions about it, and finally, when they became available in the office library, queued myself to borrow it, loaded with e-books related to education and poverty reduction. Waiting time was usually two weeks, so as soon as I returned a Kindle to the Library, I promptly put myself in the queue again. And then the Kindle was mine again for a month.

The Kindle can store 3,500 books. Imagine that. My little house will not be able to accommodate that number of books, even if I kick out the cat, the dog, and my daughter's pet rabbit. The choices in Amazon's Kindle Store is simply overwhelming, with almost a million books. Add to that the other hundreds of e-books floating around in the internet, to download to your heart's content. It has built-in Wi-Fi too. For all other wonders this little thing holds, see the Amazon Kindle page.

I'm not a gadget lover. I have no intense desire to own an iPad or the Samsung Galaxy Tab, simply because there are just too many things to do with them. Goodness, I get a headache trying to get ahead of my 10-year-old daughter when we do Plants vs Zombies in my laptop. The laptop exists so I can (i) write stories; (ii) check my email and very occasionally update my Facebook account; and (iii) read Pdf books. My daughter, of course, uses my laptop to check YouTube, Facebook, and all the online games she could get her hands on during weekends (she never goes online unsupervised).

So why the Kindle? Because I love books, period. I have books in the living room, in the bedroom, Stephenie Meyer's The Host in the bathroom, Harry Potter 7 and Maeve Binchy's Quentins in the office for my lunch break, and a Readers Digest in my office bag for when I'm stuck in traffic. I can queue in the bank, supermarket checkout lane, or a local government office without losing my temper, if I have a book to lose myself in.

I have to wait a long time before The New York Times' bestsellers become available at bookstores. Remember Under The Dome? It also took me over a year to complete Stephen King's Dark Tower I to VII, by raiding Booksale, Powerbooks, and National Bookstore. In 4shared, all seven are available in Pdf, which took about half an hour to download. Add another 15 minutes, and your Kindle is loaded.

I also discovered that you can play MP3s in it. Although I'm one of those people who can block out conversation when I'm immersed in a book, it's a nice touch when you want to take a break; say you're in Kennon Road and you're just about to puke from reading all the way from Manila, you can play a couple of songs. Or you can click Text-to-Speech, which means your Kindle will read aloud to you. While you puke.

There isn't a lot of accessories to pretty up the Kindle. There are some very nice Kindle skins in Amazon, and of course they sell the covers too. The lighted cover costs $59.99, but you can always buy an Energizer reading light for P400 that works the same way. But if you worship your Kindle, there's a Kate Spade cover that costs almost the same as the Kindle itself -- $125. Cole Haan's Kindle cover is a bit cheaper at $119, but there's a Special Offer Kindle at $114.

Now the bookssss are just a couple of clicks away. And to quote my officemate Hasmin, it looks like an oversized calculator. You can read it while riding a jeep, and you won't get held up for that. That, fellows, is something you can't do with an iPad.

My entire library in a device that's 8.5 ounces and less than half an inch thick. I got it today. It's enough to keep me grinning for a week. :-)