Already a Month in California!
I just dropped off Donna at her work in Fullerton to fill out more paperwork so I thought I’d take advantage of the situation and blog.
We’ve been here a month and since we arrived, I’ve met and talked with several people, friends and relatives alike whose first comment the moment they see me is, “I read your blog all the time and am always looking forward to the next post!” Don’t get me wrong, this feels great, yet it creates a certain amount of pressure to blog! However, I have to admit, if I have to say so myself, I’m surprised at times that I’ve kept it up and on going all these times.
In my Internet haunts, I’ve come across eKsite through Wikipedia.org. eKsite is some sort of a ‘gathering place’ on the Internet where Kapampangans share stories (in Kapampangan and English) mostly about Pampanga but not always necessarily so. I've read most of the articles in it and there’s not too many because it’s a fairly new site. I think it’s only been started a couple of months ago. One thing I noticed about the contributors, they’re all experts in their fields and a highly educated lot. And it shows in their style of writing which is pretty impressive. I’m trying to think why I don’t/can’t write that way. Like the phrase “in terms of” for example, I’ve always admired the way it’s used, but for some reason, I can never find a spot in my writings, or in conversation for that matter, to use it. Then I realized, I write and talk the way I feel and somehow it comes out the way it is. I’m sure some professional editor out there can go through my writing and leave it unrecognizable with all kinds of marks in red! But I guess, my point is, just as long as we understand each other, then who cares if I have such limited vocabulary right? Ok, let me put away my tiny violin and get on with life!!
Nido and I went to the triple A office in Anaheim to get our International Driving Permit for our trip to Spain/Europe and after an hour or so dealing with a bubbly and over enthusiastic receptionist, we’re now eligible to drive a four wheel vehicle from Spain to England and Italy and back! While we were there, we got to talking with the lady and she suggested I renew my passport now, which is due to expire in December warning me that since US citizens are now required to have passports to go to Canada and Mexico, there’s an influx of passport applicants, which backlogged the system. Hopefully mine won’t take too long since it’s a renewal. We’ll just get our booking as if I’ll have my passport in time and if it doesn’t, we’ll just have to deal with it then.
I mentioned in my previous posts of my allergy situation upon our arrival here, which is limiting some of the activities I want to do and accomplish. Last week, for some reason I got a little depressed coupled with homesickness! It got so bad I wanted to pick a fight with Donna! Yeah, I have a dark side too, you know!!?? I think part of the reason is the realization that we may not be able to go on some of the trips we planned to do, due to financial constraints. You see, we had our taxes done and we found out we owe the IRS a whole heck of a lot of money to be paid right away. Otherwise, it gets worse because they put so much interest into it, if we send it to them in payments. Long story short we figured out a way to deal with that. A week or so later, we got a letter from them saying we failed to declare in our 2005 returns a fairly big amount of Donna’s winnings which set us back almost five more grand! Whew! Like they say, when it rains it pours! I suggested to Donna to attend her reunion by herself so we can save a little money but she wouldn’t go for that idea at all. And Nido didn’t help by encouraging me to go.
I even lost some interest in going to our planned road trip up north. But I guess Donna noticed how bummed out I’m becoming so she took the liberty of reserving the car rental herself so this Sunday the 29th, we’re scheduled to leave early to go to San Francisco and perhaps even to Lake Tahoe. Gerald, son of Rose and Rey (from Japan) who manages the Enterprise branch in Fullerton hooked us up with the rental. We should be back here on Saturday in time to take my brother Kong Orling and his wife Ate Pie to San Diego on Sunday May 6. They’re coming here Friday May 4 from my niece in the Chicago suburbs to get a respite from the cold weather of the windy city and they’re going back there after a week or so.
It’s Nido’s birthday this Thursday and we told him we should celebrate but since he’s working, we thought we’d do it Saturday instead and since we’ll be gone, we'll celebrate my birthday and our Anniversary at the same time. Nido doesn’t care for anything big since he’s still down dealing with the kids’ “teen” issues so it’ll probably be just us and the boys.
Last Sunday April 15 we had a little get-together here at a nearby Chinese Buffet restaurant with some of our JASHS friends. Ed came along with Josie and Rey, as well as Bert and Merlyn. As usual it’s always good to see them. My cousin Josie picked up the stuff that her sister Alma had sent her.
As you can see, when Donna and I aren’t running around doing errands and stuff, I spend a lot of time in front of the PC. I tease Nido, I’m making the most of their DSL bill since they hardly use their computer here. In the process I’ve been chatting with a lot of people, mainly my niece Jen in Chicago, sometimes with Eph and Dan and Rach, other times with JASHS friends Dan Garcia from Macabebe, Ned Canlas and Mike Estacio from San Fernando. Which reminds me, I was chatting with Ned last night and being the President of the alumni association in the Phil., he gets all of the information regarding our classmates. He informed me that Frida Sabado’s father passed away so please say a little prayer for him. And our friend Jess Masa who suffered a stroke is in need of some financial assistance.
I’ve also been sending and receiving emails from everyone and lately the common subject of emails is the candidacy of Catholic priest Father Ed Panlilio who’s running for Governor of our province Pampanga opposite incumbent Mark Lapid (son of former Governor Lito Lapid,) both of whom are movie actors, and Lilia Pineda, wife of alleged gambling lord Bong Pineda. I’ve received a couple of emails opposing Father Ed from running but the consensus seems to be for Father Ed to win although a survey held in Angeles City still favors Gov Mark Lapid to win.
I went to our dentist in Norwalk Dr. Pabalan, the day we got our taxes done and had a much needed cleaning. We used to have it done every six months but since I’ve been in the Philippines all this time I haven’t done it. Which prompted her to ask, “You haven’t been to a dentist in the Philippines right?” I told her no. I guessed the plaque build up is quite evident. I also had a loose crown fixed and re-cemented. Sorry if all this is a little too much information! But hey, you’ve been with me all these months so I think I can get personal!
Donna’s re-application procedures with Davita has been pretty smooth so far, she’s been through a drug test, a physical and today was supposed to be the last hurdle and she can be scheduled to work afterwards. Poor thing I hope she doesn’t feel obligated to work too much due to our encounter with the taxman.
We’ve been going out to dinner and/or lunch with Eph, Rach and Dan here and there, mainly with Dan whom we call all the time to drop by here in La Mirada after work to have dinner with us. He says he’s gained weight since we got here! He and I both! It’s good that my brothers take me walking every once in a while. But I was surprised Donna has invited me to walk with her a couple of mornings now and we’ve done it for almost two hours each time. We haven’t even walked that much when we were in Greenfields. But then again the weather here is of course not as harsh and La Mirada Regional Park where we walk around in is such a beautiful one, with a fairly good-sized man made lake in the middle with ducks and geese and all kinds of wild birds.
I asked a guy fishing if they’re migratory and he said some of them have been there for 5 to 6 years. Not sure how he knows! There’s a little section near the lake that’s cordoned off with yellow police tape and we saw a goose sitting with several eggs underneath. Then we noticed a litter (not sure if this is the right term) of 3 chicks each following 2 groups of geese, one waddling along and another swimming in the lake. We’ve come across a couple of guys who caught carp, catfish and trout.
Jose invited us for lunch last Saturday April 21. He used to work with Donna at the Gambro Dialysis clinic in the City of Commerce. He acted as our tour guide when we went on vacation and traveled to Mexico in Merida and the fabulous beaches of Cancun a few years back. That’s when we visited the magnificent Mayan and Aztec pyramids of the Yucatan Peninsula. I still consider that trip as one of our best.
They used to always visit us on Christmas Day when we were in Norwalk. His sons Daniel and Michael are the only non-Filipino kids that I know of who don’t say “Ewww” and “Yuk” upon seeing ube (purple yam) and actually like to eat it!
Jose picked us up here from La Mirada with his wife Wendy, and pretty little daughter Estrella -nicknamed Tita, who adopted me as an Uncle when I agreed to play with her imaginary friends and talk on her imaginary cell phone! She’s going to be ‘graduating’ from Kindergarten and she proceeded to sing me (of all things!) their song Octopus’s Garden. I think she was pleasantly surprised when I sang along with her probably wondering to herself why this old gray haired guy knows the words! Incidentally I was wearing my Beatles T-shirt at the time and I asked her who sang that song. Duh, of course she doesn’t know. So I pointed to my T-shirt, and double duh, of course she has no idea who these longhaired guys are! They also have their son Julian and baby son Justin with them. They took us to this Cuban restaurant in Downey where I had my first taste of Cuban cuisine.
We got a call from Stacy, Emy’s older brother Nestor’s daughter and my goddaughter from Arizona. She finished school, has moved to her own home in Tucson and is working for a company that requires her to travel making presentations, I assume, of their product to other companies. She had a meeting Monday in Long Beach but we talked her into coming in Sunday instead so we can spend more time with her.
Sunday, at church we had the chance of seeing one of my Mom’s surviving sisters, Imang Ester, with her son Koyang Frank. The other one is Imang Glo who’s in her 80’s and resides in Sindalan. Imang Ester has been here since last year and she seems to be doing fine. She stays with Kong Frank and his wife Susan at their place in Norwalk.
After church we went back home and waited for Stacy. Once she arrived we proceeded to go to another of Emy’s brothers Nelson. His wife Myrna invited us for lunch since Nelson is in town. They moved into a brand new house in West Covina after selling their house in Bell Gardens. The house is gorgeous. He had us watch a pirate DVD of Manny Pacquiao's latest bout in Texas where he beat that Mexican's butt in the 8th round!!
We went back to La Mirada around 4:30, Nido had to have his sleep and the kids have to go to church. Daniel showed up at dinner. He’s got all kinds of ribbing because he was supposed to go to West Covina with us but he had excuses here and there. Stacy told him, he’s there just for the food!
I still haven’t had the chance to watch Grindhouse but have seen a few DVD’s in between: Freedom Writers Diary with Hillary Swank as a teacher in a Long Beach high school teaching gang bangers and juvenile delinquents, Pursuit of Happyness, a sappy story with Will Smith and his real life son (forgot his name), Holiday with Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet (a totally chick movie!), Notes on a Scandal with Kate Blanchet and Judi Dench (great performance by the latter!). The first two were based on a true story.
I was playing an OPM CD that I brought from home when I started writing this blog listening to Sugarfree, “Tulog na, mahal ko!” among others and it made me more home sick. So I went to youtube.com and I’ve been listening to Queen, The Eagles and ABBA! Great music, the 70’s!
We’ve been here a month and since we arrived, I’ve met and talked with several people, friends and relatives alike whose first comment the moment they see me is, “I read your blog all the time and am always looking forward to the next post!” Don’t get me wrong, this feels great, yet it creates a certain amount of pressure to blog! However, I have to admit, if I have to say so myself, I’m surprised at times that I’ve kept it up and on going all these times.
In my Internet haunts, I’ve come across eKsite through Wikipedia.org. eKsite is some sort of a ‘gathering place’ on the Internet where Kapampangans share stories (in Kapampangan and English) mostly about Pampanga but not always necessarily so. I've read most of the articles in it and there’s not too many because it’s a fairly new site. I think it’s only been started a couple of months ago. One thing I noticed about the contributors, they’re all experts in their fields and a highly educated lot. And it shows in their style of writing which is pretty impressive. I’m trying to think why I don’t/can’t write that way. Like the phrase “in terms of” for example, I’ve always admired the way it’s used, but for some reason, I can never find a spot in my writings, or in conversation for that matter, to use it. Then I realized, I write and talk the way I feel and somehow it comes out the way it is. I’m sure some professional editor out there can go through my writing and leave it unrecognizable with all kinds of marks in red! But I guess, my point is, just as long as we understand each other, then who cares if I have such limited vocabulary right? Ok, let me put away my tiny violin and get on with life!!
Nido and I went to the triple A office in Anaheim to get our International Driving Permit for our trip to Spain/Europe and after an hour or so dealing with a bubbly and over enthusiastic receptionist, we’re now eligible to drive a four wheel vehicle from Spain to England and Italy and back! While we were there, we got to talking with the lady and she suggested I renew my passport now, which is due to expire in December warning me that since US citizens are now required to have passports to go to Canada and Mexico, there’s an influx of passport applicants, which backlogged the system. Hopefully mine won’t take too long since it’s a renewal. We’ll just get our booking as if I’ll have my passport in time and if it doesn’t, we’ll just have to deal with it then.
I mentioned in my previous posts of my allergy situation upon our arrival here, which is limiting some of the activities I want to do and accomplish. Last week, for some reason I got a little depressed coupled with homesickness! It got so bad I wanted to pick a fight with Donna! Yeah, I have a dark side too, you know!!?? I think part of the reason is the realization that we may not be able to go on some of the trips we planned to do, due to financial constraints. You see, we had our taxes done and we found out we owe the IRS a whole heck of a lot of money to be paid right away. Otherwise, it gets worse because they put so much interest into it, if we send it to them in payments. Long story short we figured out a way to deal with that. A week or so later, we got a letter from them saying we failed to declare in our 2005 returns a fairly big amount of Donna’s winnings which set us back almost five more grand! Whew! Like they say, when it rains it pours! I suggested to Donna to attend her reunion by herself so we can save a little money but she wouldn’t go for that idea at all. And Nido didn’t help by encouraging me to go.
I even lost some interest in going to our planned road trip up north. But I guess Donna noticed how bummed out I’m becoming so she took the liberty of reserving the car rental herself so this Sunday the 29th, we’re scheduled to leave early to go to San Francisco and perhaps even to Lake Tahoe. Gerald, son of Rose and Rey (from Japan) who manages the Enterprise branch in Fullerton hooked us up with the rental. We should be back here on Saturday in time to take my brother Kong Orling and his wife Ate Pie to San Diego on Sunday May 6. They’re coming here Friday May 4 from my niece in the Chicago suburbs to get a respite from the cold weather of the windy city and they’re going back there after a week or so.
It’s Nido’s birthday this Thursday and we told him we should celebrate but since he’s working, we thought we’d do it Saturday instead and since we’ll be gone, we'll celebrate my birthday and our Anniversary at the same time. Nido doesn’t care for anything big since he’s still down dealing with the kids’ “teen” issues so it’ll probably be just us and the boys.
Last Sunday April 15 we had a little get-together here at a nearby Chinese Buffet restaurant with some of our JASHS friends. Ed came along with Josie and Rey, as well as Bert and Merlyn. As usual it’s always good to see them. My cousin Josie picked up the stuff that her sister Alma had sent her.
As you can see, when Donna and I aren’t running around doing errands and stuff, I spend a lot of time in front of the PC. I tease Nido, I’m making the most of their DSL bill since they hardly use their computer here. In the process I’ve been chatting with a lot of people, mainly my niece Jen in Chicago, sometimes with Eph and Dan and Rach, other times with JASHS friends Dan Garcia from Macabebe, Ned Canlas and Mike Estacio from San Fernando. Which reminds me, I was chatting with Ned last night and being the President of the alumni association in the Phil., he gets all of the information regarding our classmates. He informed me that Frida Sabado’s father passed away so please say a little prayer for him. And our friend Jess Masa who suffered a stroke is in need of some financial assistance.
I’ve also been sending and receiving emails from everyone and lately the common subject of emails is the candidacy of Catholic priest Father Ed Panlilio who’s running for Governor of our province Pampanga opposite incumbent Mark Lapid (son of former Governor Lito Lapid,) both of whom are movie actors, and Lilia Pineda, wife of alleged gambling lord Bong Pineda. I’ve received a couple of emails opposing Father Ed from running but the consensus seems to be for Father Ed to win although a survey held in Angeles City still favors Gov Mark Lapid to win.
I went to our dentist in Norwalk Dr. Pabalan, the day we got our taxes done and had a much needed cleaning. We used to have it done every six months but since I’ve been in the Philippines all this time I haven’t done it. Which prompted her to ask, “You haven’t been to a dentist in the Philippines right?” I told her no. I guessed the plaque build up is quite evident. I also had a loose crown fixed and re-cemented. Sorry if all this is a little too much information! But hey, you’ve been with me all these months so I think I can get personal!
Donna’s re-application procedures with Davita has been pretty smooth so far, she’s been through a drug test, a physical and today was supposed to be the last hurdle and she can be scheduled to work afterwards. Poor thing I hope she doesn’t feel obligated to work too much due to our encounter with the taxman.
We’ve been going out to dinner and/or lunch with Eph, Rach and Dan here and there, mainly with Dan whom we call all the time to drop by here in La Mirada after work to have dinner with us. He says he’s gained weight since we got here! He and I both! It’s good that my brothers take me walking every once in a while. But I was surprised Donna has invited me to walk with her a couple of mornings now and we’ve done it for almost two hours each time. We haven’t even walked that much when we were in Greenfields. But then again the weather here is of course not as harsh and La Mirada Regional Park where we walk around in is such a beautiful one, with a fairly good-sized man made lake in the middle with ducks and geese and all kinds of wild birds.
I asked a guy fishing if they’re migratory and he said some of them have been there for 5 to 6 years. Not sure how he knows! There’s a little section near the lake that’s cordoned off with yellow police tape and we saw a goose sitting with several eggs underneath. Then we noticed a litter (not sure if this is the right term) of 3 chicks each following 2 groups of geese, one waddling along and another swimming in the lake. We’ve come across a couple of guys who caught carp, catfish and trout.
Jose invited us for lunch last Saturday April 21. He used to work with Donna at the Gambro Dialysis clinic in the City of Commerce. He acted as our tour guide when we went on vacation and traveled to Mexico in Merida and the fabulous beaches of Cancun a few years back. That’s when we visited the magnificent Mayan and Aztec pyramids of the Yucatan Peninsula. I still consider that trip as one of our best.
They used to always visit us on Christmas Day when we were in Norwalk. His sons Daniel and Michael are the only non-Filipino kids that I know of who don’t say “Ewww” and “Yuk” upon seeing ube (purple yam) and actually like to eat it!
Jose picked us up here from La Mirada with his wife Wendy, and pretty little daughter Estrella -nicknamed Tita, who adopted me as an Uncle when I agreed to play with her imaginary friends and talk on her imaginary cell phone! She’s going to be ‘graduating’ from Kindergarten and she proceeded to sing me (of all things!) their song Octopus’s Garden. I think she was pleasantly surprised when I sang along with her probably wondering to herself why this old gray haired guy knows the words! Incidentally I was wearing my Beatles T-shirt at the time and I asked her who sang that song. Duh, of course she doesn’t know. So I pointed to my T-shirt, and double duh, of course she has no idea who these longhaired guys are! They also have their son Julian and baby son Justin with them. They took us to this Cuban restaurant in Downey where I had my first taste of Cuban cuisine.
We got a call from Stacy, Emy’s older brother Nestor’s daughter and my goddaughter from Arizona. She finished school, has moved to her own home in Tucson and is working for a company that requires her to travel making presentations, I assume, of their product to other companies. She had a meeting Monday in Long Beach but we talked her into coming in Sunday instead so we can spend more time with her.
Sunday, at church we had the chance of seeing one of my Mom’s surviving sisters, Imang Ester, with her son Koyang Frank. The other one is Imang Glo who’s in her 80’s and resides in Sindalan. Imang Ester has been here since last year and she seems to be doing fine. She stays with Kong Frank and his wife Susan at their place in Norwalk.
After church we went back home and waited for Stacy. Once she arrived we proceeded to go to another of Emy’s brothers Nelson. His wife Myrna invited us for lunch since Nelson is in town. They moved into a brand new house in West Covina after selling their house in Bell Gardens. The house is gorgeous. He had us watch a pirate DVD of Manny Pacquiao's latest bout in Texas where he beat that Mexican's butt in the 8th round!!
We went back to La Mirada around 4:30, Nido had to have his sleep and the kids have to go to church. Daniel showed up at dinner. He’s got all kinds of ribbing because he was supposed to go to West Covina with us but he had excuses here and there. Stacy told him, he’s there just for the food!
I still haven’t had the chance to watch Grindhouse but have seen a few DVD’s in between: Freedom Writers Diary with Hillary Swank as a teacher in a Long Beach high school teaching gang bangers and juvenile delinquents, Pursuit of Happyness, a sappy story with Will Smith and his real life son (forgot his name), Holiday with Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet (a totally chick movie!), Notes on a Scandal with Kate Blanchet and Judi Dench (great performance by the latter!). The first two were based on a true story.
I was playing an OPM CD that I brought from home when I started writing this blog listening to Sugarfree, “Tulog na, mahal ko!” among others and it made me more home sick. So I went to youtube.com and I’ve been listening to Queen, The Eagles and ABBA! Great music, the 70’s!
posted by reyjay @ 8:03 AM
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