거미 (GUMMY) - Love song (노래해요 그대 듣도록) | Do You Like Brahms? (브람스를 좋아하세요?)...

Do you like Brahms?  Not really - but this one brought me back to K-dramas.  

Ipeng and Kaguyahime

 

I sent this to image to Ipeng's Messenger last week.  She immediately asked me, "Ako ba ito Neng?  Saan galing na anime?" 

I answered yes but she used the branches as sling when she threatened to run-away when she was young.  Told her the image is from Isao Takahata's Kaguyahime.

[MV] WENDY(웬디) _ What If Love (Touch your heart(진심이 닿다) OST Part.3)

Currently watching this K-drama after Sky Castle.  I just realized that I can still appreciate FLUFF, ;)

Jollibee chicken palabok

Friday nights and I usually meet up for dinner with Melissa.  This week we can't have dinner together as she has to conduct an FGD on Saturday morning. Sent an SMS to some friends who might meet up with me.  After receiving 3 messages from friends who had already made plans - I decided to just spend this Friday night on my own.  

A colleague who walks with me to the train station wanted cheeseburger but I told her, I'll just have sundae as I'm not really a fun of the hamburger clown - I used to but I got converted into the Happy Bee with its "juicylicious" and "cripylicious" chicken together with the fiesta "palabok."  So I told Ate Bebot to take care and I'll be off on my own at Jollibee.

The line is always long and the place is always packed - rarely will you see a person seating on her own.  They're always with somebody - their friends or families.  So I lined up and got the one piece chicken with palabok - without the soda.  I asked for glass of water with ice and looked for a place to settle and eat.  I chose a corner table.  I squeezed the calamansi onto my noodles and started eating the fried chicken.  After two or three bites, I started crying.  Partly because of the taste but mostly because I thought of our tatay.  At the end of this month - it will be one year since his death.  I used to hate Jollibee chicken palabok.  I was the cheeseburger type.  But when he was alive and whenever I visit him, I need to bring any palabok dish as this is the only one that he would eat - Tropical Hut, Mang Inasal,  Kuya J, Goldilocks, Red Ribbon, Pancit Malabon, the panciteria in Ampid and Jollibee.  The last was his favourite.  When he became too sick and I can no longer bring him to the restaurant, he stopped eating the chicken.  But somehow, the noodles no matter how much he wanted to stop eating and thought of giving in to the disease - the palabok would give him enough reason to eat.  

I suppose it was because he used to bring his "apos" to Jollibee.  Maybe it was because Ipeng, my youngest sister who is in Canada and his favourite, would feed him palabok during her rare visits.  Or probably it was just Jollibee.

Letter to Momi

31 October 2017


Dear Momi,

I've been sick. I am still sick.  The doctor said it might be pneumonia and I have been taking antibiotics since Friday.  I suddenly get tired and my back aches.  I'm having problems sleeping.  I can't decide whether to leave the lights or tv on or off every night.  I have just been thankful that I'm taking medicines cause I think they put me to sleep.  But after four hours, I usually wake up.  Even though I try to go back to sleep - I  just can't.  I stay awake waiting for the morning, then I get up.

Tomorrow will be All Saints Day.  I'm not really inclined to go to the cemetery but Malmen said I should.  Early this week, I was thinking you'll talk to the powers that be there in heaven and my sickness would just go away.  I'll be cured and I'll be leading them all.  Now I'm not sure.  I just want to be sick, Momi.  I want to really cry....

I wanted to hear comforting music and was listening to the JMM cover version of Both Sides Now.  Then, I thought how about I typed in the search field "TED Talks on coping with grief."  There were actually six talks on the topic.  I listened to them all.  The last one - finding beauty in the awful - her mom also died of lung cancer.  She said that, somewhere in the space of time when she was down on her knees with grief you have to find something.  Since she's a painter, she painted.

So, hear it is - I'm writing you a letter.  There are too many things I wanted to tell you or ask you.  Here they are:

Are you comfortable there?  Is it true that death liberates you from pain?
Am I doing everything that you told me to do correctly?  Did you like your funeral?  Should I go visit your co-teachers as often as I can?  You have so many bags, is it right that I give them to all your friends? to your favorite junior teacher, Janella?
Should I increase my contribution in the family budget?
I just booked a flight to Maldives without thinking - I even made errors on booking, is it safe to go there?  Will I be cured by the time I have to travel?

Can you forgive me for not listening to you as often as I should have?  For letting only Kayzer take you to the doctors?  For being active only when you were diagnosed with Stage IV Endometrial Cancer?  Even taking a back seat as soon as Ipeng and Tita Ikol were here?   Then finally not letting you go back home or in your room that night?  Until the end I did not tell you how much I love you and how thankful I am.  I miss you a lot Momi.

When will things settle?  What is the new normal?  How can I get to that space she talked about?

Love,

Monet

Why I scolded our tatay for the first time

I have a sick 71-year old father.  He was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease six years ago, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's 11 years ago.  But he remains the tatay that I respect and look up to even on the three times that we have to confine him in the hospital.  

Yesterday, a week after Father's Day, I found myself lecturing him about finishing his food, not being picky and consuming all that we ordered from the menu.  The main reason - I paid for everything with my hard earned money.  I did not stop the lecture - I made him eat everything, told him how I have been having a hard time visiting him and having dinner with him every other day.  I ended up eating everything on the table just to emphasize a point - how hard it was to earn money so we could have dinner in a restaurant after his weekly shots at the nearby hospital.  Before leaving for home, I reminded him how one summer while vacationing in his hometown, he showed me how hard farmers work on the fields - planting, harvesting and drying the rice grains.  I narrated how I saw him rushing to rescue sacks of rice left to dry outside their house at the slightest drizzle.  Then how after that summer, I began to treat rice and all the people who produce it with utmost respect.   Ending my lecture with why the two years spent as graduate student in Japan, made me really reverent of their culture.   Because the Japanese say, "Itadakimasu,"  before each meal - showing respect and being thankful for those responsible for producing the food in front of them.

Then on my commute back, all the images of the day flashed back.  I could not help but cry - I do not know if it was because of the tiredness from the long commute or finally arguing and showing how I really felt about my tatay's prolonged sickness.  But the role reversal and the changes in dialogues from the characters - parent to child then child to parent - sunk in.  I am now the parent and my tatay is the child. 

Thank you, grandfather. Thank you mother. I'll hold on to tightly to this happiness. - Cha Haewon, Wonderful Days

It's almost my birthday and this quote made me realized that happiness is a gift borne out of other people's love and sacrifices. Happiness can be fleeting that's why we really have to cherish it and make sure that it lasts or at least sustains us.