maximine and minerva’s owl

XXX Airlines has this limited offer/promo: for 450$/ pax, book six seats to any US cities and you get one gratis (moi is the gratis). And because I have 2 weeks off from my high school teaching job, I asked the manangs at the city hall if I could interest them in going holidaying in New Yawk for about a week or 10 days maximum (I thought of the grand manzana because no one in the class has ever been there and someone I know has an ulterior motive [moi is that ’someone’ I know]) - I have always wanted to go back and visit my ate E’s old apartment there and make nostalgic munimuni and savor the remnants of memories of her; and maybe to say hi na rin to old friends and former classmates. As I had expected I got enough number of people required + 2, and things are looking up and everybody’s getting excited. A good friend of mine has a house on Long Island and he offers to rent it to us for a week for a very measly fee and so I thought everything is swell. But now I’m having second thoughts, make that double second thoughts. The excitement and the hype about seeing New York again got the better of me and made me not realise the risks and the perils of being the lone babysitter for 8 post menopausal past middle-aged and way way past middle-aged women, though they’re all very nice and very capable and robust , still, that little tiny voice from my corpus callosum keeps on whispering to me, ‘don’t do it, don’t do it! naghahanap ka lang ng sakit ng ulo.’  

I have vivid mental imagery of the possible mishaps that could occur: what if one of them got lost on the platform of E train and was never found again; what if one accidentally hit her head, suffered from amnesia, completely forgot about her identity and ended up wandering in central park, like, forever; what if one fell off the ferry on the way to the staten island and drowned….what if one broke a ribcage while ascending the statue of liberty and became debilitated for, like, forever, what if…what if….?

I would be held responsible. I would be punished. I could go to jail. *There you go Miss Pessimist, your career as a travel tour conductor hasn’t even started yet yet it’s already doomed* hahaha… 

 that’s our class and a close up of my hinlalaki on hopyang gulay ng hapon, masarap yan!

 *_*   *_*  *_*  *_*  *_*  *_*  *_*  *_*

Theses kids come to my house every Wednesday late afternoon and I teach them Reading and Phonics; they’re fun. The little girl on the right, Akari chan, had her birthday last Wednesday and I made her a ‘cake’, well, it’s just rice krispies made with chocolate-flavored rice puffs and melted marshmallows.

Sometimes when they get bored with the lesson I turn off the lights and I tell them horror stories that I make up on the spot. They would scream at the top of their lungs whenever they hear the scariest part.

  They’re smart and fun to be with and I always have a great time whenever they come.

*from ‘oh say can you say?’ by dr. seuss 

love from Hellenic land

grazie arigato very mucho shaluv for this box of goodies!

 7 songs I’m currently listening to:

1. Flamenco song(s) [I dance to it everyday kaya I listen to it everyday]

2. How do you do?  (Lena Horne and Grover from Sesame Street’s 35 Years of music)

3. Your Smiling Face (James Taylor)

4. The Christmas Song (Nat King Cole)

5. Blackbird (Sarah McLachlan)

6. Kung Tayo’y Magkakalayo (Rey Valera)

7. Fields of Gold (Sting)

tag from Thesserie. i’m tagging nyuninaf, nyoyak, nyadaday, medusa, pocahontas, gabriela silang, joan d’arc, mary wollstonecraft, susan sontag, pippi longstocking, janis joplin, andres bonifacio, et al. and if YOU want it, YOU got it!

*

Wanna go for a traysikol ride? 

ano ‘to?

merthney ng anenyuninaf ngo ngayon (march 29th). hammy, hammy merthney anenyuninaf!

By the time they played Bartok’s ‘from the diary of a fly’ after vivaldi’s ‘the four seasons’ I had already run out of croc tears. The fly music was particularly charming; at one point I had felt as if it had momentarily brought transmogrified me into a bangaw fly-like existence. Powerful music affects me in such a way.  Save for that Bartok piece, I was crying the entire 2 hours. I don’t know, perhaps because it’s spring and beethoven’s minuet brought me a lot of good memories of my childhood and my family. Memories of me particularly in the early summers of my young life on my paternal grandmother’s house’s roof playing with soapy and slimy concoction of tide and crushed gumamelas that produced gigantic bubbles while my father’s turntable was on with beethoven in the living room. Music is one of the most powerful triggers of memory, second to smell, methinks.

That was an expensive and cheap date to where my hubby took me today. Expensive I say because of the front seat japan philarmonic string quartet affair, and cheap because of the dinner he chose: yaki ika and okonomiyaki yatai (a street food stall that offers all kinds of gastronomic delights such as barbecued baby squids and cabbage and noodle pancakes with topped with bonito shavings, which were delicious and could easily give an ultra pretentious (japanese) frenchy resto a run for their precious baguette and foie gras; we washed it down with plum wine on the rocks and sweet potato wine so strong and tangy you’d think you’re drinking kerosene drizzled with sugar cane syrup, 40% alcohol, inday! ). On the whole, I am one happy bangaw fly, and tipsy. I got a present too, a spanking new hot-pink bicycle! and that’s only because my old bicycle is really old now and already giving up on me. 

maiba naman, 

to maintain harmony in the home and be able to continue a smooth sailing husband-wife co- existence relationship:

kailangan daw ng: 1) effort 2) patience 3) giving up - that’s what Sumi chan said. Sumi chan is a 50ish student of mine and we sometimes discuss very, very profound and sublime things in class hehehe…you know, like how typical japanese husbands become after a minimum of 7 years of marriage (read:cold,indifferent,chauvinistic more than ever,unexciting,FLACCID etc, etc.) and what more after 25 years or so? “sometimes life feels like a very bad dream,” she laments.

#’s 1 & 2 I understand but #3 is a little fussy, I must admit. My sordid other self possessed me and without an iota of appropriateness I articulated the very sarcastic question that had brewed on my malicious mind: does it mean if you run out of 1 & 2 you then do 3? hindi daw ah! ang ibig sabihin pala ng ‘giving up’ ay you give up on yourself, you become selfless; yeah, like the way of buddha. you devote yourself to your husband and to your children and if your husband is the first born you devote yourself to his parents as well. you have to put these people’s well being before your own, you have to be constantly at their beck and call, catering to their every whim and fancy. 

*hmmmnn… masalimuot talaga! mamumura naman ako ng mga hapon nito pag naging critical ako sa systema nila, tama na nga.*

people fall out of love as often as they fall in love, that’s a given. if you’re past middle age and have been married for many years without children and the former happens to you, what do you do? where do you go? kung suswertehen ka at makakahanap ka ng bagong makakasama mo sa pagtanda mo, mabuti at magaling. pero kung wala at magiging mag-isa ka lang sa paglakad ng panahon, medyo malungkot di ba? maraming ganyan dito; kung kailan pa tumanda at saka pa nagdidiborsyo, may mga anak man o wala. yung mga misis nabubwisit na sa mga asawa nila at sila ang humihiwalay. para daw silang nabunutan ng malaking tinik pag hindi na nila kasama ang asawa nila. nakakalungkot naman na marinig ang ganoon.

Here’s a song dedicated to all of you.: anenyuninaf , ate ligaya tiririt ng maya & ate teachertitdaday of UP Lagoon, anabans and tilds of koreanicland, mamapugngo &pugngo of tulipland, steluv creator of excellentgrub, atekiwibeth of underdownunder, cheh-pie d’sexymomma ng Germanicland, ShaSha cooker of food for the gods of mt. olympus, Sachi the amorous glamorous from the sun of the rising land,Ajayprettymomma,Delishsexy,ErnieA, manongtek, Foxyboxy,Jinggabellissima de pais tortuga, and all the lurkers and anonymouses.Thanks for dropping by and leaving uplifting comments. And, belated Happy Birthday to ate Bengganda of Deutschland.

Seems to help   

photo by S. Agnona