BLOG BASKET 2


Okay, I'm sorry but I had to do this again cause I've been a delinquent blogger. *sigh* So much to do, so little time.


KUYA EL


First things first, it was my eldest brother's birthday yesterday. He's the father of my four nieces who are all named Karen something. He's a great guy, a terrific father and a devoted husband to who, I could only hope, is an equally devoted wife. Life's been tough on him too but he did manage to come out of the rain, the storm, the hail. He brought up his four daughters practically all by himself and that, with one daughter afflicted with Downe's Syndrome. To all of them, he's a father, a mother, the breadwinner, a friend. Maybe with so many things on his shoulder, he never had time to be much of a brother to us but that's ok by me cause he did have time left to be a son to our parents and for me, that's the more important thing.

Things are pretty much turning peaches for him this year. His youngest is graduating from gradeschool, and an elder daughter is graduating from highschool. His eldest is supposed to be graduating this March too from college but she wasn't able to complete her clinical requirements in time so we're looking on later this year for that to happen. She's going to be a dentist, just like him.

Sometimes I wonder if, put in the same situation, I would have measured up to it. See, my brother is quite the dreamer, a bit like myself, and dreamers like us can sometimes be easily daunted when things are unfavorable, unless we pull ourselves together and make up our minds to overcome whatever shit hits the fan. If I could do half of what he has done for his family, I would have learned as much patience, fortitude, humility and selfless love than I could muster in a lifetime.



HAPPY BIRTHDAY KUYA EL!


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WHAT DO YOU DO WITH A GUY LIKE THAT?


We've been married for 12 years, going on 13 this May. That's a lot of time I suppose. The thing is, and I'm not saying this is a bad thing either, to this day, it seems we still get surprised at those little things we keep discovering about each other. Or at least, for my part, that's true.

I've always known, among other things, that fafa Jay is a caring and considerate man. Although it doesn't crop up even in the most nonchalant of our discussions, nor in the most sublime, I know that from time to time, he denies himself a little something, to please me, to see me happy or at least see me smile. I've already said somewhere that that is all he really wants, to see me smile.

Since I started with KR, he's taken to cooking breakfast on weekends. See, even on weekends, I would still wake up at 3 am (if I manage to avoid those 10 minute extensions before actually getting up... if I don't, I usually get up an hour or two after... heh) to start my work. He would get up at... say, 8 or 9, try to find where I am in the house to give me my morning kiss. Then he would go about his own thing. If he sees that I'm on the computer or reading my book, he'd go about it really quite. At around 10, he would cook our meal so I'd get that extra hour or two for my work.

Last Wednesday, he came home from work and found me reading my book. So he said he'd cook dinner and I just go ahead and keep on doing what I was doing.

Last Friday, on account of the bad experience I had the day before, he gave me a real treat to help me get over it. It was nothing extravagant or profligate... something really simple but it sure made wonders for me. First we had cheesecake and coffee (lately we've been having this fetish for chicago cheesecake from Coffee Beans and the perfect match of course is a cup of coffee), then he took me out to see Big Fish, and then we had a late dinner at the new hawker center near our place where I could have my favorite steamed dumplings. That night, I slept with a smile and what happened that Thursday was diminished to something like a bad dream.

There are countless other random things, like bringing me a cold drink out of the blue, while I'm doing my work, just because he thought I might be thirsty... or whenever, if by chance, he gets up before I do on weekends, he would surround me with pillows (like I would fall off the bed or something), pull up the sheets so I'd be snugly warm and slink out as quietly as he could... or there's that odd surprise call in the middle of the day, just because... or that little something from the store whenever he goes out because he knows I'm such a snack jack... or when I've been doing house work all day and get really poofed out, he'd tell me not to prepare dinner, to dress up and he'd take me out to dinner instead, just so I wouldn't have to bother about it, and there's always that morning kiss, and when he comes home at day's end, or when he goes out to jog or ride his bike, sometimes even if it's only to go and bring out the trash.

Now tell me, what do you do with a guy like that?... except, to ponder on how much more you could love him back.


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I'M UNDERWEIGHT!


I always thought I weighed a 110. Now it happens I had to fill out this form and it asked for my weight. I could have put a hundred and ten but then I was really taking this thing seriously so I wanted to be sure.

I was so amazed to find out that I was only a hundred and seven!

Now I'm not sure but I always thought, too, that I'm 5' 2'' (okay, here's where you snicker, you ogres!). So that makes me weigh, supposedly, 110 lbs. The way to do it is (just in case you don't know), you allot 100 lbs. for your 5 feet and add 5 lbs. for every inch thereafter to get your ideal weight.

Well, 3 lbs. less isn't really much. What's good about this is... it means I could have more cheesecake! Woohoo!


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LINES THAT WON'T LEAVE ME


I've been wondering about this. I like reading a lot... well, fafa Jay still beats me on that but still. And sometimes, I would read a line that will get stuck in my memory long before I've forgotten the title of the book or its author. It doesn't necessarily have to be anything ethereally profound or spectacularly funny or heartwrenchingly poignant. And that makes it all the more odd cause, I mean... what does it take for a line to be so remarkable that I cannot forget it even if I tried anyway? Take this for instance...

'I cannot believe you actually lived with a person who will argue about who's pubic hair is clogging up the shower drain!' She beamed up at him with a smile she hoped wasn't too obviously forced. She'd die if he ever knew that person was her.

Here's another one...

'Add a pinch of rosemary. And that is not something you'd do when your wife's back is turned.'

Now that, I can't remember whether I got from a really wacky cookbook or a boring novel. But this one, I got from a friend's website...

Him: Why not? What's not great about a pencil fetish?
Her: Splinters?

Haha... I still crack up whenever it crosses my mind.


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SPAGHETTI SUNDAY


Once a month, we'd have spaghetti on a weekend. like we did last Sunday. I'd cook a whole bunch and we'd eat it the whole day. Often, we'd have something left for next day's dinner. That saves a lot of cooking time for me... heh.

Now there's something peculiar with the way we like our spaghetti. We like it better as leftover. For some reason, it just tastes better. So what I'd do is, I'd cook a whole bunch the day before we plan to have it, either on a Friday or a Saturday, coat the noodles with just enough sauce to keep them from sticking together, and let it sit in the ref overnight. The following day, we'd put some of the noodles on a plate, garnish it with a generous slosh of sauce and shove it in the microwave just before serving. Yummy! I've always liked home cooked spaghetti this way, and only lately did I find out that fafa Jay does too.

I don't know about him, but for me, it reminds me so much of the day right after Christmas. My Mom's spaghetti is a killer and me and my siblings just love it. So whenever she makes some for Christmas eve, she'd cook a whole lot of it. The following day, anytime anybody wants to eat, he can go and prepare his own food. I'd do that, and then take my plate in front of the tv. I'd eat it really slowly, maybe stopping from time to time. When it's all gone, I'd lay my plate on a table somewhere near, not letting anybody touch it, so I could use it again should I want more spaghetti. Hey, that was the only day in the year that I was allowed so much tv. I wasn't about to waste it washing one plate after another, now would I?

Oh well... I guess I haven't grown up a lot since those days... heh.


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TRACKBACK TO TRAVELS


Oh yeah, I'm still reading Travels and I'm still having trouble putting it down each time I pick it up. Although with KR, I'm able to do that only when I'm in the toilet or putting myself to sleep. Just to show you what I'm getting out of this book, here's another excerpt. Hey, I'm really generous when it comes to these kind of things. I really don't mind having to copy the stuff here. You'll never know when it might help some random someone. So here goes...

In short, where I would have struggled, the villagers simply accepted the situation and went on with their lives.

I began to realize how many times the trip had repeated that lesson for me.

The bees - I didn't like them, but I had to tolerate them, there was nothing I could do.

The low water on the river - I wanted to go upstream, but there was nothing I could do.

The absent animals - I didn't like not seeing them, but there was nothing I could do.

I couldn't make it rain, I couldn't fill up the river, or stop the jungle from flowering, or make wild animals appear. These things were beyond my control, and I was forced to accept that. Just as I was forced to accept the couple that wouldn't stop talking.

In fact, I began to realize that, although they couldn't stop talking, I had a much greater problem. I couldn't stop trying to control everything around me... including the couple. I couldn't leave things alone. I was an urban, technological man accustomed to making things happen. I had been taught countless times that you were supposed to make things happen, that anything less implied shameful passivity. I lived all my life in cities, struggling shoulder to shoulder with other struggling people. We all were struggling to make something happen: a marriage, a job, a raise, an acceptance, a chld, a new car, new life, new status, the next thing.

I'd lived in that frantic, active way for more than thirty years, and when I finally began to crack, when I tried to control everything about my life and my work, and the people around me, I somehow ended up in the Malaysian jungle and experienced a solid week of events over which I had absolutely no control. And never would. Events that reminded me that I had my limits - rather severe limits, in the greater scheme of things - and I had no business trying to control as much as I did, even if I could.

Yeah, Michael Crichton seems to have been a little cracked up at the start. Well, this is all too consistent with what I've always believed. See, personally, I think that the lessons on humility that life gives us are the hardest to learn. It would be great if life would be gentle in its instruction, but it doesn't always happen that way.