Let's see if I can finish this. Haven't got much time but then...
Dec. 29 (Sunday)
It's a Sunday and everybody's home.
I don't know how it started. One moment I was requesting Ting to cook bulalo for me, the next moment, not only were we cooking bulalo but Tatang was also cooking the ubeng halaya he has promised me for the longest time. After brunch (yeah... people on vacation don't ever have breakfast... they never wake up in time... tee hee), Ting and Papa went to town to buy bulalo. As they were cleaning and preparing it, Tatang was setting up firewood stoves made of hollow blocks on the street fronting Lolet's house. Still, as Tatang was doing this, Lolet was boiling the yam for the ubeng halaya. Everybody was busy with something... and I was busy enjoying myself.
The ubeng halaya didn't take as long as my mom would cook it but turned out ok. When it was done, Tatang gave each family a share and everybody had their fill. The bulalo took the longest time to cook. They started when the sun was still bright at noon... for some reason, it was dark when it got cooked, and not until after speeding it up with the pressure cooker. As it was already dinnertime, I asked Ana to bring over the 2 kilos of liempo we had sitting in the freezer and Papa took charge.
There we were again... setting up 3 tables on the street, so fast like it's how we've always had our meals. This time, instead of using plates, I suggested laying down banana leaves on the table. The food would be dished out right there on the center and everybody would be sitting around the tables, each with his own part of the leaves to eat on. We ate with our hands of course and it was a feast. Everybody was so full that night, something I was pretty sure would happen when I suggested eating on the leaves... It was a novelty that definitely perked up our appetites... and all we needed then was the sea and we could have been on a beach... hmmm.
Dec. 30 (Monday)
Today is a holiday... it's Rizal day... so the girls watched a movie... in fact, we watched 2 movies. There was Lolet, Elena, Ana and myself.
Dekada Sisenta
I like this movie. It's about a family going through the uncertain times of the 70's... amidst riots and the advent of Martial Law. It's almost a documentary... but being a Filipino film, and a commercial one at that, one can't really expect it to be completely documentary. It was intense drama... most of it seeping through Vilma's facial expressions rather than hysterical dialogue (which is the kind I prefer), albeit still wanting of subtlety. There was a lot of emphasis put into the different relationships in life... husband and wife, siblings, mother and son, father and son, friends, sweethearts, and ambitiously, the relationship of man with the world around him.
Those years... it must have been tough to be a mother. I guess it's tough being a mother at any given time. But when times are harsh... the worries a mother has to go through, the fears, dimmed hopes for a bright future... it's too much to be asked to bear on the shoulders of a woman, let alone a woman who is hardly ever listened to by her family. Well, this discussion is a well-traversed path so let me not ramble...
Mano Po
Filipino-Chinese families living in the Philippines... oh, but this movie is so political. Let me illustrate...
The character of Ara Mina could easily be Rosebud, Richard Gomez the late John Campos, the military general who's a family friend to the clan could have been Ping Lacson, and Eddie Garcia would be the real life Lucio Tan.
Truth be told, this movie doesn't move me to say much more...
Dec. 31 (Tuesday)
So here it is... New Year's eve... the final touch. After this, we got exactly one week... 7 days...
Yesterday, before leaving for the movies, I started draining the cocktail fruits for the fruit salad I will be making tonight... 24 hours draining time, remember? It's due to be made at 7pm... that should give me enough time to freeze it before serving it at midnight. It'll be frozen good and creamy, just like ice cream. Elena will be making banana crepes and tacos so she's the one who's busy in the kitchen. I was just bringing ham, bread and of course, the fruit salad.
Jay and I slept a lot today. Like last Christmas, Lolet, Tatang and their families went down to visit relatives so we were left with nobody to chat with. Tet, one of our neighbors, invited us to a street party the homeowners were having at 8 pm. I didn't feel like attending cause we had our own thing going but Jay wanted to... for goodwill he said.
As it turned out, we had to go. It wasn't just a party... things were going to be resolved that night regarding issues concerning the community... like the security guards, collection of monthly dues and such. So we went... Well, one thing good about it is that guards will go on manning the gates of San Jose Heights and the homeowners got down to an agreement to continue the order of things... self-governance, so to speak. That, I'm happy about. You see, paying up for our house didn't come easy for Papa and me... especially for Papa, who had to come up with the monthly installments. It's not a big house, let alone a grand one. But we've made it as pretty as we could, and we've made it cozy for all who cared to come and visit. It's as comfortable as these things come and we've filled it with love and laughter. The most that we were counting on was to live in peace, quiet and safety... in harmony with our neighbors and, for posterity, have somewhere to lay down our roots. Now it's ours... after almost 4 years (if you count paying up for the downpayment), it's ours... our very own 120 square meters of earth in this whole wide world. And personally, I feel it's quite unfair that people around us would be able to threaten the simplest things that we could ever want because of personality play. Take away the guards and there goes our first assurance of safety. Take away the association and you can forget about harmony. Without that, fat chance for peace and quiet. Jay was one of the pioneers of the homeowners' association and he worked hard to get it started. It's unfortunate that we had to leave and it's sad witnessing how it turned out. Maybe things have a way of resolving themselves... maybe our neighbors will shape up... maybe somebody will come through for everybody and take charge. I don't know. All I know is that it's so *f-----* unfair that people would let it all come to this cause everybody's got an ego they can't blow enough.
Eniweis, after the street party cum meeting, we still pushed through with our own feast. Lolet cooked pansit this time and Tatang's contribution was palitaw. My fruit salad was a hit with Tatang who came short of rationing it around so he'd be sure there was some left for him to take home. Architect and Rose joined us again, so did Doc and Ate Aster. I stayed on until Tatang called it quits.
It was a nice, somber close to the year... I'm in bed, about to sleep. When I open my eyes again... it'll be 2003
... everything get's turned around
and I will risk my neck again
you can take me where you will
up a creek and through the mill
like all the things you can't explain
... like four seasons in one day...
Four Seasons in One Day, Crowded House
HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!
I will stop here for two reasons... first, time... second, it gives me a reason to remember it all another day...
Dec. 29 (Sunday)
It's a Sunday and everybody's home.
I don't know how it started. One moment I was requesting Ting to cook bulalo for me, the next moment, not only were we cooking bulalo but Tatang was also cooking the ubeng halaya he has promised me for the longest time. After brunch (yeah... people on vacation don't ever have breakfast... they never wake up in time... tee hee), Ting and Papa went to town to buy bulalo. As they were cleaning and preparing it, Tatang was setting up firewood stoves made of hollow blocks on the street fronting Lolet's house. Still, as Tatang was doing this, Lolet was boiling the yam for the ubeng halaya. Everybody was busy with something... and I was busy enjoying myself.
The ubeng halaya didn't take as long as my mom would cook it but turned out ok. When it was done, Tatang gave each family a share and everybody had their fill. The bulalo took the longest time to cook. They started when the sun was still bright at noon... for some reason, it was dark when it got cooked, and not until after speeding it up with the pressure cooker. As it was already dinnertime, I asked Ana to bring over the 2 kilos of liempo we had sitting in the freezer and Papa took charge.
There we were again... setting up 3 tables on the street, so fast like it's how we've always had our meals. This time, instead of using plates, I suggested laying down banana leaves on the table. The food would be dished out right there on the center and everybody would be sitting around the tables, each with his own part of the leaves to eat on. We ate with our hands of course and it was a feast. Everybody was so full that night, something I was pretty sure would happen when I suggested eating on the leaves... It was a novelty that definitely perked up our appetites... and all we needed then was the sea and we could have been on a beach... hmmm.
Dec. 30 (Monday)
Today is a holiday... it's Rizal day... so the girls watched a movie... in fact, we watched 2 movies. There was Lolet, Elena, Ana and myself.
Dekada Sisenta
I like this movie. It's about a family going through the uncertain times of the 70's... amidst riots and the advent of Martial Law. It's almost a documentary... but being a Filipino film, and a commercial one at that, one can't really expect it to be completely documentary. It was intense drama... most of it seeping through Vilma's facial expressions rather than hysterical dialogue (which is the kind I prefer), albeit still wanting of subtlety. There was a lot of emphasis put into the different relationships in life... husband and wife, siblings, mother and son, father and son, friends, sweethearts, and ambitiously, the relationship of man with the world around him.
Those years... it must have been tough to be a mother. I guess it's tough being a mother at any given time. But when times are harsh... the worries a mother has to go through, the fears, dimmed hopes for a bright future... it's too much to be asked to bear on the shoulders of a woman, let alone a woman who is hardly ever listened to by her family. Well, this discussion is a well-traversed path so let me not ramble...
Mano Po
Filipino-Chinese families living in the Philippines... oh, but this movie is so political. Let me illustrate...
The character of Ara Mina could easily be Rosebud, Richard Gomez the late John Campos, the military general who's a family friend to the clan could have been Ping Lacson, and Eddie Garcia would be the real life Lucio Tan.
Truth be told, this movie doesn't move me to say much more...
Dec. 31 (Tuesday)
So here it is... New Year's eve... the final touch. After this, we got exactly one week... 7 days...
Yesterday, before leaving for the movies, I started draining the cocktail fruits for the fruit salad I will be making tonight... 24 hours draining time, remember? It's due to be made at 7pm... that should give me enough time to freeze it before serving it at midnight. It'll be frozen good and creamy, just like ice cream. Elena will be making banana crepes and tacos so she's the one who's busy in the kitchen. I was just bringing ham, bread and of course, the fruit salad.
Jay and I slept a lot today. Like last Christmas, Lolet, Tatang and their families went down to visit relatives so we were left with nobody to chat with. Tet, one of our neighbors, invited us to a street party the homeowners were having at 8 pm. I didn't feel like attending cause we had our own thing going but Jay wanted to... for goodwill he said.
As it turned out, we had to go. It wasn't just a party... things were going to be resolved that night regarding issues concerning the community... like the security guards, collection of monthly dues and such. So we went... Well, one thing good about it is that guards will go on manning the gates of San Jose Heights and the homeowners got down to an agreement to continue the order of things... self-governance, so to speak. That, I'm happy about. You see, paying up for our house didn't come easy for Papa and me... especially for Papa, who had to come up with the monthly installments. It's not a big house, let alone a grand one. But we've made it as pretty as we could, and we've made it cozy for all who cared to come and visit. It's as comfortable as these things come and we've filled it with love and laughter. The most that we were counting on was to live in peace, quiet and safety... in harmony with our neighbors and, for posterity, have somewhere to lay down our roots. Now it's ours... after almost 4 years (if you count paying up for the downpayment), it's ours... our very own 120 square meters of earth in this whole wide world. And personally, I feel it's quite unfair that people around us would be able to threaten the simplest things that we could ever want because of personality play. Take away the guards and there goes our first assurance of safety. Take away the association and you can forget about harmony. Without that, fat chance for peace and quiet. Jay was one of the pioneers of the homeowners' association and he worked hard to get it started. It's unfortunate that we had to leave and it's sad witnessing how it turned out. Maybe things have a way of resolving themselves... maybe our neighbors will shape up... maybe somebody will come through for everybody and take charge. I don't know. All I know is that it's so *f-----* unfair that people would let it all come to this cause everybody's got an ego they can't blow enough.
Eniweis, after the street party cum meeting, we still pushed through with our own feast. Lolet cooked pansit this time and Tatang's contribution was palitaw. My fruit salad was a hit with Tatang who came short of rationing it around so he'd be sure there was some left for him to take home. Architect and Rose joined us again, so did Doc and Ate Aster. I stayed on until Tatang called it quits.
It was a nice, somber close to the year... I'm in bed, about to sleep. When I open my eyes again... it'll be 2003
... everything get's turned around
and I will risk my neck again
you can take me where you will
up a creek and through the mill
like all the things you can't explain
... like four seasons in one day...
Four Seasons in One Day, Crowded House
HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!
I will stop here for two reasons... first, time... second, it gives me a reason to remember it all another day...
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home