Wanderlust.

My little wanderlust of a daughter has packed her luggage again, this time on a nearby archipelago right below our own, in a land called Malaysia. Not a travel for pleasure but for work.

Sent me photos with Petronas Twin Towers as a backdrop, with her workmate, and the delightful food they consumed, the sunny side up egg looking luscious and the white rice cake with tropical oregano enticing.

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.

My Vanity Moment.

My hair has grown shaggy! I normally wouldn’t have cared about my appearance except when my daughter commented, while we were watching Top Gun 1, that my image seemed to have been left behind back circa 1986, like the leading lady’s coiffure in the movie. Perhaps I am onion-skinned and being branded antiquated somehow made me feel sad.

Thus I heeded and accompanied my daughter to the neighborhood parlor where we get our locks cut or trimmed, mine annually, I think. By the way, the term ‘parlor’ is also ancient, the new generations call it salon now. Salon, in my youth, is where cowboys come for beer, alcohol. and draw fights.

Anyways, for this person who believes in the Franciscan way of life, simplicity in every way, this moment of vanity is somehow refreshing. Hay! Yes,, it had been a long time now that my daughters hesitate to introduce me to their friends because of how I look. Oh well, still least of my worries. And nobody can make me dye my silver strands which, after the trimming and the relaxing, even the beauticians conceded my hair looks more glorious than weekly-dyed heads.

Bing, the parlor lady, who sang at the top of her lungs on my deafened auditory nerves, she’s in tune, deserves my gratitude. Thank you. Albeit she didn’t succeed at trimming my brows! Ha ha! Nice try, Bing.

To Lionel Messi from an Old Fan Girl.

My daughter subscribed to a new feed for my viewing, Still, the internet traffic jammed my humble connection. In a country not gaga over soccer, the World Cup isn’t a thing. Except for me, all because of Messi.

The brilliance of this wonder boy from a barriotic hometown in Rosario, Argentina oozed like crazy that when I chanced upon the display of his amazing skills in a news tidbit way back over a decade ago, I couldn’t help but search and follow. In fact, I even made an album on facebook to make my friends aware that there is a genius amongst the millennial generation who is creating a sensational script for a life story. Only one fb friend noticed. Which means my friends on fb are preoccupied with trivial matters.

My googling gave me a good background of Lionel Messi. It’s a bio coupled with challenges in the beginning. The little boy was inflicted with growth deficiency condition the treatment of which was beyond the family means. The tiny frame could have impeded the psychomotor genius from playing football but like in all good scripts, some form of divine intervention happen.

In little Lionel’s case, he had a grandmother who believed in him. And she aptly described the intelligence of her grandson in a simile: dribbling the ball with his feet is like singing to him.

Thus the tiny tot was pitched in – in a field where strength, stamina and speed define the name of the game – soccer.

Oh well, as I’ve known soccer only because the name of Pele always popped in crossword puzzles, I had to learn more. And learn did I when Pope Francis of the Vatican City sat Pope Benedict for a match between Argentina and Germany. The latter won but the crazy Argentina fans were wild with frenzy – totally frustrated the defeat failed to glorify a Maradona World Cup triumph back in 1986.

Sigh!. That was the year my own country was in turmoil – the EDSA Revolution and the succeeding coups that crippled our tiny nation. But yes, I heard Maradona in the news.

Yet Lionel Messi wasn’t even born then. His birthing came a year later, on the 24th of June, 1987, the feast day of my favorite Saint John the Baptist.

Perhaps little Leo, as he then came to called, is a precursor of good things to come. too. Like John the Baptist though, he had to suffer a tat more than the others.

Well, his journey has been well accounted for, his life an open book. But his script is unique in the sense that none compares to the the perfect beginning, rising, the climax, and the beautiful ending of a career. It’s like our God provided us of a truly wonderful story in the person of Lionel Messi.

Thank you, Lionel Messi, for the superb entertainment you provided us this World Cup 2022 month. I woke up midnight just to see you play. You are the athlete. The only athlete.

(credit pictures from the internet)

Staying Alive!

If the hair ain’t silver, it’s dyed. Either the classic black, a two-toned tawny brown, or even three-toned reddish ginger hair with rusty blond streaks. Whatever the crowning glory is, the faces are the same with wisdom lines concealed in foundation and more likely mistaken for laugh lines.

Yes, this batch from the late seventies seen the passage of years, and yet, when we meet up for an occasion like a birthday celebration, or a mini- reunion, we can’t help but laugh our hearts out.

We know better, of course, and we were confined to a party place secluded in a magical casa, but my daughter who was waiting for me said our girly giggles and loud voices reverberated all throughout the events compound. Sigh. It’s as if we were like teens back in the pergolas and corridors of our beloved alma mater in the boondocks.

Anyways, posted several shots of the group picture here, something we were deprived of when we were young because the camera films that comes in twelve or thirty-six shots are quite expensive. Now we can say cheese or butter for as many poses, formal, wacky, or natural, and delete the ones not to our liking.

What’s the occasion? A birthday party for our travel girl whose bucket list is almost done, except for the Holy Land.

Staying alive past the prime of our lives, it does feel wonderful to realize that the reflections may have changed a bit but the hearts are as young as when we were juvenile.

A Love Story.

At the rustic San Roque Parish Church, aka the Shrine of Nuestra Senora de Porta Vaga. in Cavite City, 15 December 1930, the nuptial of Porfirio Caraos and Natividad Manalac, took place. ‘Twas the eve of the traditional novena called Misa de Gallo, or the nine-day rooster’s crow Masses celebrated at four o’clock in the cold December mornings that started 16 December.

Thus the people were surprised when they heard the tolling of the bells that announced the wedded union of my beloved grandparents, they thought the church was beckoning them to come for an anticipated novena. Ha ha

Of course time has changed things a bit as the laity grew in numbers and necessitated more Masses for the workforce who can attend Masses only in the evenings. Now the Simbang Gabi commences 15 December, at eight or ten pm.

Just fascinating to muse upon that my grandparents foreshadowed a new tradition.

Here’s a picture of my debonair of a grandpa who swooned and swept my grandma off her feet. Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of my beautiful grandma when she was young.

Addendum: Beginning of the love story. Periong waited daily after the break of dawn and greeted Naty good morning as she opened her variety store. He claimed he needed a pencil every day. He was a merchant who scribbled a lot.

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.