Random Thoughts 3-2-07

Donna and I were working on the lawn this morning when I suddenly realized I don’t know what day it was! I quickly grabbed my cell to check. It’s already Friday! Well, like they say, how time flies when you’re having fun!

Time flies but now we have more time to literally stop and smell the roses and appreciate a sunset.

Like the way I noticed that my chico tree has sprouted some flowers. When we first got it, it had buds but they fell off as soon as I planted it on the ground.


My lone banana blossom has gotten quite small now shedding its petals as the days go by. Unfortunately, it’s a decorative variety so it doesn’t bear any fruits.

We had quite a bit of fruit trees in our old house in Norwalk. My father-in-law even planted a grapevine by the carport in front of our garage. I remembered it had the smallest and most sour of grapes but he still enjoys watching these inedible fruits. Our apple trees and oranges weren’t too bad though. The avocados gave us more than we can eat and don’t even get me started on our guava tree by the driveway. At that time I can’t really figure out why anyone would bother planting fruit bearing trees when anybody can get them at the local supermarket and they’re pretty affordable, even cheap when they’re on sale. On the other hand, when he visited (right before he passed away) my father could not comprehend why anybody would want to plant a tree that would not bear fruit, thinking that’s such a waste of energy. I still remember him standing by our tangerine tree just staring at it with its branches close to breaking due to the numerous fruits it had at the time.

Now I understand how he and my father-in-law had felt. I look at some of my plants and worry that they don’t have as many flowers. Am I watering them enough or too much? I can’t explain the sense of joy I felt the first time I noticed my banana blossom sprouting.



I guess with our situation, we now have time to notice the mundane, things that we’ve taken for granted in the past.

I use a pair of garden shears to cut my grass. Since we’re leaving in a few weeks I figured I’ll cut it short enough so it won’t need cutting for a while. It’s gotten so thick and spongy that I imagine shepherds shearing wool from sheep on those shows on public TV.

When we lived in the States, most of our friends make comments about the abundance and affordability of food in the land of plenty. Now that we live here, I think it’s almost sacrilegious to throw food away or let it go bad with so many poor people going hungry every day. So whenever we have some leftover, we either take it to the barrio or have Cindy, our cleaning lady, take it home. She’s a single Mom with five kids working as a supply clerk in a hospital earning P170 a day! Donna has her come in anytime she has a day off or in the afternoon when she works the morning shift.

We were walking one morning and we saw the cashew trees in the neighborhood starting to have ripe fruits.


One of our walking buddies had me shake one of the branches and three pieces of fruit fell. He picked them up and handed them to me. I was surprised on how juicy they were. I had one that day and it tasted much sweeter which is way different from the way I remembered cashews tasted when I was young in the barrio.

Then I realized that as a young boy, we really didn’t know we were picking fruits that are not ripe.



It’s Friday today so no chicken or meat of any kind. Yum, good for me, it will either be Sushi-Ya or Hanami! The latter being our new found Japanese restaurant in Angeles by Clark. Rachel’s cousin took them there for dinner when they were here last December. Their sashimi is of much better quality and bigger cuts albeit a tad more expensive.

Morning walks, workout, movies and two funerals

I’ve been debating within the last several days whether to blog about this or not and I’ve decided, “Hey, what else am I going to blog about?”

I’ve been IM’ing with Dan off and on for the last few nights and he’s been showing off saying he does a lot of pushups now. Not to be outdone, in addition to our regular morning walks and lawn work afterwards, I’ve started doing my shoulder and abs workouts. I do my best to do that every night at least. Before we moved in, I did it morning and night but I got lazy. So no, I haven’t done it since September!

Leda and the kids visited a few days ago along with Kuya Francis and Sister Gay. Lera has shown interest to learn to play the guitar again so while they were playing kwaho, I taught her how to play a song called ‘Hawak Kamay’, a song written and popularized by Yeng Constantino, the winner of the first Pinoy Academy, another version of Philippine Idol. They came on a Saturday, stayed the night and by Sunday she’s playing a pretty decent Hawak Kamay. She has to practice strumming and switching from one chord to another but with her drive, I think she’ll do ok. She complains of her left fingers hurting but I’m sure she’ll get over that as well.

Eli, one of Donna’s school buddies from Guagua had a birthday recently and we got invited for lunch. I think her name is Elizabeth. Anyway, it was held in one of her sister’s resort in Lubao and resorts here automatically have those videoke machines. Yup, you guessed it, I was singing for almost two hours. It was great because they have a lot of brand new selections. There was another lady there who was singing a little bit with me but for the most part I was the only one singing the whole time. It was pretty warm though, I was sweating profusely.

I was texting with my niece Jack one day, asked her how she’s doing and she said she’s stuck at home because her car’s battery burned out and she has no way to get one. So being a sucker for damsels in distress that I am, I volunteered to give her a ride. She promised to treat me with halo-halo afterwards. Since summer weather is here, halo-halo is pretty enticing. Donna was picked up by Ate Pie to school and I went to Guagua to pick up Jack and her friend Remy. We went to Angeles and she got her battery. By the time we got done with a couple more of her errands, it was getting pretty close to dinner time. So instead of halo-halo we ended up having dinner at Sushi-Ya in SM. After dinner we spent a few minutes doing Karaoke by the arcade.

I’m still bummed out because I missed Apocalypto but Donna and I have seen a couple of movies since – Music and Lyrics with Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore (chic movie) and Babel. I really liked Babel, it’s like almost watching a foreign movie (which I love), since it’s set in four different countries. I understand it was up for a bunch of Oscar nominations and won a couple.

My friend Ed sent me an eMail bearing sad news. At first glance, I thought it was our friend Imelda’s Mom who’s had a stroke and has been confined in a convalescent hospital. It turned out, it was her father-in-law who passed away here in the Philippines. He was in his early 80’s I think. He further said Imelda and Dan are coming for the funeral. As soon as I got done reading his eMail, I proceeded to send several text messages informing friends over here. Our friend Bert replied that his brother has also passed away. He’s their oldest, he’s 71 and he’s had lung cancer. He also said that their son Nicolo is arriving Friday from California. I gave him my condolences, he thanked me and said the burial will be Thursday the 22nd of February. Imelda and Dan arrived that night I believe. We’ve decided to go to her father-in-law’s wake after lunch Saturday. He was scheduled to be buried Sunday.

Donna and I drove to McDonald’s at the Intersection to meet our friends. When we got there, Alan and wife Neneng were already waiting.


We didn’t know that Marilyn was already inside the restaurant. A minute later, Bert pulled in. While we were waiting for the others, I went with Bert to nearby Gemsville so he can leave his car. We decided we’ll just ride in the Innova since a few declined to come for one reason or another. Alan parked at SM, packed the Innova and proceeded towards Apalit through NLEx. We didn’t know where it was but after asking around when we got there, we finally found the place. They had the wake at their ancestral house in Apalit on McArthur Highway behind the family’s dental clinic. Dan and Imelda met us when we got there and they offered us lunch. Donna and I have been having brunch almost everyday but it was already around 2 p.m. when we got there and I was feeling famished so we took the offer. We were having lunch in the dining room while the coffin with the deceased was in the living room. There really was no division between these rooms. Donna didn’t really eat a lot saying this is the first time she’s eaten during a wake.

Midway through our meal Myrna and Vir came.


We stayed for almost two hours and we invited Dan and Imelda to visit our place here in Sindalan. We left Myrna and Vir there but before we took off Myrna gave us some raisin bran cookies which she baked with NutraSweet and a bunch of apple mangoes which we shared with everyone. Imelda said she flies back Wednesday the 28th (which was yesterday) to California but Dan will stay behind for a couple of weeks more or so to stay with his Mom for a little bit.

Tuesday the 27th, we got a call from Imelda. She told Donna they’ll drop by the house around 2 p.m. after their visit to her relatives in San Fernando. I text’d Bert and Myrna about it. Myrna said she’ll try to make it but may not be able to because she has a doctor’s appointment. At around 1:45 Bert showed up and since they weren’t here yet, I took him to Sylvia’s so we can pick up some pansit and to Essel to get some much needed Diet 7Up and other soda. When we got back, they still haven’t arrived. So Bert decided to go back to the site at Lakeshore and just to “text me once they arrive”. A few minutes after he’s gone, Imelda’s nephew sent a text message and said they were on their way and they’re by San Agustin which is about 10 minutes away. I told Bert this but he said he got called to the Lakeshore office to settle something and told me to take them to check out his house under construction instead. Imelda and Dan arrived with Imelda’s cousin and nephew. Donna gave them a tour and per routine, I gave Dan a sample of a movie in the music room.


After having a meryenda of pansit and delicious and refreshing ube ice cream, we took them to Lakeshore. This was actually the first time Donna and I have seen Bert’s house since November. It’s on its finishing stage, and they’re almost done with the roof. It looked huge.



Last Wednesday, Feb 21 was Ash Wednesday which signals the beginning of Lent. I’m not sure what to give up for Lent other than having fish or seafood only on Fridays since Donna and I don’t eat pork and beef anyway. You can tell by the weather that Lent is indeed here. I’m really glad we’re leaving for the US soon so we don’t have to experience the oppresive heat of the Philippine summer. Yes we’ll be there on March 24. To our friends and relatives, keep in mind that we’re homeless now so be prepared to adopt us for weeks at a time when we’re there OK?