Received Twenty Likes! And a Heart! Wow!

I felt like a child surprised to see a notification on youtube, a red dot that when I clicked on it, saw that a simple expression of appreciation for a free movie I watched garnered twenty likes and a heart. That felt really good, like getting an ice cream treat on a hot, hot day.

Took a picture so I would remember, and here it is, where I could always go back to and smile.

I love receiving likes as much as I like giving it. Though I do it in other platforms where users need appreciation. With the like comes a prayer, of course.

Memorare This Difficult Time in Man’s Story

Eight days now that I had fervidly tuned in to the news about the ‘Sword of Iron,’ a war Israel declared on the terrorist group known as Hamas operating in the Gaza Strip, with the Gazan Palestinians as their shield. How can I not be so passionate when the massacre that transpired in the surprise incursion of Israel villages sounded so biblical…

Elderly friends sent me messages asking about the prophecies in the book of Revelation, especially Armageddon, which I would not dwell on because of a forewarning that no one should add nor subtract anything from that final book of the Bible. So, I’d let you read for your self..

What I would like to delve about is a prophecy from an Old Testament book called Ezekiel which foretold of the Gog and the Magog….

“14Therefore prophesy, son of man, and tell Gog that this is what the Lord GOD says: On that day when My people Israel are dwelling securely, will you not take notice of this? 15And you will come from your place out of the far north— you and many peoples with you, all riding horses— a mighty horde, a huge army. 16You will advance against My people Israel like a cloud covering the land. It will happen in the latter days, O Gog, that I will bring you against My land, so that the nations may know Me when I show Myself holy in you before their eyes.…”

Biblical scholars have studied that “Gog is a person who rules over the land of Magog (Russia). Magog means the “Prince of Rosh.” (Gog) Rosh is the old root word for the land of Russia. God informs Gog and Magog in Ezekiel 38:15, “You will come from your place in the far North” (the Hebrew word means “the uttermost part of the North.”

It was also foretold that nations will pepper down Israel till the small nation is down on its belly, and when Israel can no longer fight, help will come.

Just reminding everyone of this biblical prophecy so we know whose side must we be on, for Muslims have already amassed in key cities round the world in their so-called ‘day of rage!; What is the rage for when the terrorists of militant Muslims were the ones who decapitated babies, molested young ladies, and killed ordinary, peaceful citizens.

Let us call on the intercession of our Lady of Guadalupe, aka as Our Lady of Victory on this very difficult time in history. Let us pray the MEMORARE.

Remember of most gracious Virgin Mary

that never was it known

that anyone who fled to Thy protection,

implored Thy help,

or sought Thy intercession,

was left unaided.

Inspired by this confidence

I fly unto Thee,

O Virgin of virgins, my Mother.

To Thee do I come,

before Thee I stand,

sinful and sorrowful.

O Mother of the Word Incarnate,

despise not my petitions,

but in Thy clement hear and answer me.

Amen.

Amid Woke and Cancel Culture…

There’s a graver threat to humanity than AI. That is the wide proliferation of woke and cancel culture. Before we clearly understand the meaning of these two terminologies, I believe that I have sensed the advent of such as early as the 90’s. Back then, my life was a hectic juggling of motherhood to two inquisitive toddlers and a daily grind of tutoring achievers and teaching/nurturing preschoolers in my own nursery school. I contend those were the most wondrous years in my life, for the children, in all their innocence, challenged me and made me laugh. My observation sprung from those years when I noticed the fathers dropping off and picking up their children. Where are the mothers, I asked. They were at work. And the fathers were left to tend to the household and the children. A completely different scenario from the family picture, the father being the breadwinner, and the mother cares for the home. The glory was taken away from the fathers.

Simultaneous with that sad truth, the gays dominated the television sitcoms, crossdressing and blatantly asserting their gayness. The viewers absorbed a daily barrage of men displaying exaggerated femininity. Before long, many young teens have come to express their desire to be gay, even if they were not.

I was afraid of my thoughts, that eventually, the homosexuality would become a norm. Back in an exclusive for girls convent school where I had my education, the tomboys or potential lesbians were behaved, though we know that they were probably struggling and questioning their own gender.

The millennium ushered new generations – millennials, Gen Zee, Alpha Gen – who have come to accept the fact that fathers attend to the laundry and it is all right to profess one’s self gay.

Have I qualms about it? Probably. But I always thought that glory will be given back to the fathers, and people would eventually realize their biological gender and embrace it.

To the former, I think the fathers have come to terms with their roles in the family, but as to the latter, I was totally shocked with the LGBTQ waving a rainbow of colors and asserting homosexuality as a culture to contend with. If I know my Bible right, am sure Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed with sulfur and fire.

My daughters were cautious in reminding me that they have gay friends. I have no issue with that. I also had friends who were sexually challenged. And still they remained friends. My issue is with people telling me to accept the fact that a person’s being is his/her private truth, meaning it is simply all right to tamper with one’s body according to his or her own preference. And that the public comfort rooms must be deemed both for male and female, in order not to ostracize the transgenders and the queer. A man having sex change is his own truth, and so with a female changing into a man. Just to clarify, if we accept all these truths, does that mean nothing is false anymore?

Eventually, the world witnessed the Yemeni running on yahoo news in 2008, and the domination of dictators in the key corners of the globe. The Russian presented himself a debonair. Biochemical warfare became the name of the game. Who would not be shocked and distressed by what happened to Aleppo? A people was canceled, just like the Ukrainians are being canceled.

Cancel culture became a terminology, a phrase I only heard post pandemic when the newsmen were quoting it in their reports. I wondered what it was, and later learned that it is an attempt to change the true and the good by eradicating the proponent for morality. Obliterate the culture and exchange it for what the people like to see and hear.

What is woke. I asked. The young people I talked with couldn’t provide me an answer. As I googled through for the definition of terms, the origin of which has reference to a call to be awake regarding racism, eventually, the woke is now used to call for activism on the streets to call for equality and justice.

There lies the threat to humanity, man pitted against each other, as we see now in France, the police versus the people burning the cities, because a teen was shot and killed by the police over traffic. The killing is inexcusable, but would it not be proper to seek justice before committing arson.

By and large, woke and cancel culture are manifestations of godlessness, a deviation from everything that is moral. Correct me if I am wrong.

I posted a picture of The Carpenter and His Son because I still believe that if we get our truth correctly and work together, there might still be hope for the despicable events that must be deleted from the face of the earth.

Fourteen Years on Social Media!

Has it been that long? It seemed that it was only yesterday when my younger daughter, then in her first year of college, prompted me to sit in front of the computer and start a blog post. I was hesitant because I knew not the nature of the internet. But as I was already watching yahoo news about ‘Yemeni running’ because of persecution and potential civil war, I felt I could express an opinion or two about the current events. Thus I agreed.

Oh well, it was not as if I turned into a professional writer because I got comfortable with just writing about what preoccupied my mind at the moment, but mostly, I was not really a poet who could write pretty verses and prose, my works were much more like entries in a diary meant only for my own reading pleasure. That is why I was surprised when I learned that there came to be a new literary genre called journaling – that type of writing primarily entered in the internet that is not necessarily par excellence but from the viewpoint of an ordinary blogger.

Hence I could say that even if I have not written a book – a collection of poems or short stories, a novella or a novel, at least I have blogposts to boast about.

Nope, I have not much followers, and very often, when someone clicks like on a post, which is very rare, I am jubilant enough my heart beats at Mach 1 speed to the moon and back. Forever grateful for those who liked my stories. And those who responded positively. You are very kind.

Thank you.

Hollowed Grounds

Drone footages showed eerie stretches of brown arid earth gouged out, most likely up to six feet under the grounds, for the long line of dead people from the ghastly aftermath of the Anatolian Fault quake. Seven days now.

History books show this fault is Asia Minor, the modern-day Turkey, which just June of last year, changed its name to Turkiye.

The tally of the dead corresponds to thirty-three thousand as of last official report, meaning the mass graves could go miles and miles …

No coffins. No caskets. Just black body bags. Or yellow. Or orange. Or even blue.

No loads of mourners. Just grave diggers with shovels. And heavy equipment: backhoes and bulldozers.

Every now and then, a lone crier comes. Or two. Or three, Grieving for their beloved.

For the most, entire families, relatives, and friends, have perished. No one to mourn.

No candles yet, Nor flowers. Nor incense. Or whatever the culture dictates customary to burying the dead. The dead should simply be buried.

Eventually, there will be tombstones or markers, or even grass perhaps, to remind the living of what had been.

It is something that springs from a verse once spoken by a Great Teacher: Let the dead past bury the dead.

Life goes on. The living will find ways to thrive amid adversities.

The Turks, and the Syrians also, are of inviolable stock. The Syrians, though in strife for eleven years of civil war, have the mighty Assyrians in their lineage.

Two musicians composed pieces in honor of the Turks: Beethoven and Mozart. Beethoven’s sonata is mellow. Mozart’s march is rhythmic, perky enough to tell the strength of its people.

May the Turks and the Syrians find a way to peace..

Superstitions still persist this lunar year of the water rabbit!

The lunar calendar says it is the year of the white rabbit. Oh well, for one who was once fascinated by the twelve animals who came to the beckoning of Buddha, plus the essential elements of fire, water, air, and earth, I also got curious about the wood and metal elements, each, on its turn, becomes superior over the other. Of course, I later decided that though I respect nature and believe in its power, I wouldn’t be superseded by the superstitions that sprung from it, as the Chinese did.

Yup, once we called it Chinese New Year, but lately, we just say lunar calendar. We also were made to believe that Kung Hei Fat Choi meant Happy New Year, when decades after, we were educated and the greeting translates to ‘May you be rich!’

Thank you!

And this morning I learned that the red envelope given this Chinese New Year’s day doesn’t essentially need to have cash in it, it is the red envelope that brings luck!

I still have a stash of red envelopes in my bag, from last Christmas, each with a hundred peso bill, to be given to anyone in need. I just forgot to give one to the car aircon mechanic who fixed my old car this morning, oh well, he charged me a thousand bucks for the job anyway, so that must be enough. Pinch your self, Eileen, it’s the red envelope that matters!

Superstitions, superstitions! Emancipate me from such. It’s the solicitude that we must live by! When I get to pass him by, perhaps I’d remember to hand Ariel, that’s the mechanic’s name, one red envelope.

But when I got back home, my elder daughter has already fried some Chinese rice cake called ‘tikoy’ that I gobbled up in a jiffy, thus the photo up there has only three slices, all that’s left. By noon time, I had a tray of ‘pancit canton’, a stir fry so tasty that I crudely ate two bowls, against my better judgment. Hay!

Why the sticky tikoy? So the money will stick to my hands! And the pancit canton? So the long noodles will bring me long luck!

Now, I am sipping lemon ‘water.’ In the year of the water rabbit. No rabbit popping in my area! So anyone can send me one.

Day of the Dead.

Did you hear about the tragedy in Seoul, South Korea where a hundred fifty-five juvenile revelers perished in tragic surge of crowd crashing, leaving nary a space for breathing, consequently causing asphyxiation and cardiac arrest? In deepest sympathy we mourn with the bereaved, and a nation in shock.

In the same way we condole with India as some hundred and forty people also lost their lives after a bridge collapsed sending the festival attendees plunging into the deep waters.

What is it during this time of year that hapless people end in ill-fated circumstances?

In 2013, my daughter’s college mate Rachelle died in a motor cycle accident in the wee hours of the night right after a school Halloween event.

Perhaps my good college mate Lily Ang is correct, on the demise of artist Danny Javier, it is just inevitable that someone bites the dust….

Yet, we can’t help but think that there is some form of magnet that leads to death’s door, untimely. That is why it is important to caution the youth, and the merry makers, to think and discern before engaging in mindless revelry, most often called ‘good time.’

As Anlex Basilio, brother to another college mate Letlet Gloria, quipped.,

“If with young hearts I share without bounds all I know, all my skills and all my life experiences…they then take with them a part of me. I then become immortal.”

Yes, the youth needs guidance, like a snail that we must pick up from a path where it will be crushed, and set them on a place where it will live.

Whiling the Hours Like a Child.

Talk about counting days one just like the other, I found my self in an entirely different scenario the other day.

My younger daughter and I needed to while away four hours pending the result of a mandatory lab test. How best to do that than just sitting idle in the hospital lounge but stroll at the mall. Watching a movie in the theater is not an option. We decided on shopping for essentials such as wood glue, cement, car spray, and yes, fairy lights for Christmas.

It’s that time of year, as autumn leaves have began changing colors, so facebook friends in America delighted posting photos of the breathtaking scenes.

Thus there was a feeling of wonderment when I saw the most beautifully decorated Christmas tree at the atrium of the mall. It was surrounded by glowing mushrooms and vividly colored ribbons, magical ticking clocks and a teapot and a teacup large enough for me to sit upon. So I did. And like a child, I had fun posing for one picture too many.

It was probably a relief from the seriousness of life, a necessary reprieve from the monotony of constant barrage of ugly world news.

Yup, my daughter and I indulged ourselves with something expensive. Since the United Kingdom is going gaga over a new Prime Minister of Indian descent, we sat comfy at Cafe Breton and enjoyed those English Chicken Run. There was a buttered crepe, too, that changed my opinion of disliking saccharine sweet crepes.

Implosion!

Image from fb

Here’s a sixty peso take on what is currently happening now throughout the world, or many parts of it: AUTOCRACY IS IMPLODING!

Never have we seen such civil unrest occurring simultaneously as we do see in our monitors – from rallies in Nippon streets against a state funeral for Shinzo Abe, riots in Iran protesting the death of a young activist against morality police, to the unbelievable exodus en masse of Russians escaping Putin’s mobilization of civilians to fight in Ukraine.

The news from China has to come out yet but rumor has it, the Communist Party leader Xi is at the receiving end of a people who had had enough of repression.

It seems that the saturation point for the ‘dictatorship’ thing has finally come. The people are finally coming to terms that they can no longer be persuaded or compelled to obedience of something they do not believe in – one man’s absolute power.

A few hours ago, the British pound has come to an all time low against the US dollar. Perhaps a foreshadowing that despite the show of might after the death of its queen, the kingdom is not as formidable as it projects, and the monarchy outdated could not hold ground with a king unfit to rule. Chuck chuck chuck.

Despotism is imploding. Its a lesson that has been recorded throughout history. No one can impose an iron hand. The people will fight, even if it means their very lives.

Business names that tickle the mind!

Still fascinated with the genius of the Filipino in coming up with names for their businesses. I recall the bakeries called ‘Tinapayan ni Juan,’ one would wonder if the shop carries tapa (sun-dried sirloin cuts) or tinapa (smoked salted fish) or tinapay (bread), o ano man yung inilagay sa tapayan (or whatever is placed inside the jar). I really haven’t stopped to find out but presumed the ‘tinapayan’ was a pandesalan (bread of salt).

In time, other businesses opened up and were called: Tinabihan (beside the Tinapayan) and Tinapatan (in front of the Tinapayan). I, of course, do not know it those were also bake shops. Filipinos are quite competitive.

Then there’s the Bread Pitt @ Gateway, so named after the sexy American actor Brad Pitt.

A laundry shop beside the country’s state university was called] ‘Konting Koshkosh Ayosh’, a spoof of Osh Kosh Bigosh, an elite clothing brand, to make the poor scholars feel better about their tattered wear.

Now, this pharmacy I spotted along@ E. Rodriguez Avenue, on the way to St. Luke’s Medical Center, has a play of words: MED for medicine, ME for meron or mayroon. Mayroong ano?, Eh, di – discount.
Meron means ‘with.’

Pardon the intricate electric and telephone and wi-fi cable art. That’s courtesy of the callous owner of the city services companies who probably believes the people need to see the dark webs every single day.