this is a list of ten books that i love. it is not the ultimate list. tonight i will probably wake up regretting not including one book or another. it is not listed in any particular order either. while looking over the list, i just realized i basically like books that have hollywood plots. see for yourself, there are no tuesdays with morrie or the notebook types of book here. most definitely no james joyce stream of consciousness dribble either. no focaults pendulum. no ayn rand. i've read some books like that. i don't feel like listing them in my "books i love" list. mainly because i don't believe i love them.




to kill a mockingbird
i love this book for many reasons but primarily because atticus reminds me so much of my father: the wisdom, respect for the dignity of other people, a sense of humor that is always teasing but never sarcastic, the love of the written word, the all-encompassing but never cloying love for his children, the sense of justice, the peripheral love for sports. they were both lawyers. my dad was a marksman too. my five sisters and i still battle on who gets to be scout. my copy of this book looks even worse than that on the photo.

heidi
this book has the most sentimental value. it is the first book that i read. i was grade three or four. my daughter jana has it and is suspicious of my claims to have read it so she quizzes me: what is the name of the friend of heidi who is invalid? what is invalid? where does heidi sleep in the alps? sometimes when i am feeling naughty (which is too often) i quiz her back: what is the name of the two favorite goats of peter ? what is the name of the city where clara lives? both question stumps her. the answers: swanli and barli and frankfurt.


exodus
all the girls in the family have a crush on ari ben canaan. i can't believe paul newman played him in the movie. i was hoping for someone taller, more rugged. paul is too pretty, in my opinion. this is the book that got me started on my obsession with books about jews. last saturday, after lunch at her house, mommy told me that while cleaning up the bookshelves, she discovered we had a total of three exodus books. all in embarrassing states of disrepair.


the chosen
i have read this book about seven gazillion times. it's a story about a young genius jewish boy, the son of a high ranking rabbi, who befriends a slightly less intelligent but more industrious jewish boy, the son of an esteemed hebrew professor. set in new york during the time right after world war 2, when the jewish world was divided over the creation of israel. i like stories about geniuses and i like stories about the jewish people. i guess books like this taught me that there is more to the world than the culture that i grow up with (long before i even knew what a culture was).


little women
because i am the fourth girl in the family, i have been assigned to be amy, the "maarte" one. i want to be jo, the heroine. so did all my other sisters. later on i decided i didn't want to be jo. i learned the author was jo and i didn't like that she made herself the star of her own book. i have a strong feeling my being assigned the role of amy has affected who i am today. i am after all maarte.


eats, shoots and leaves
this book on the other hand makes me laugh. this book taught me that it's okay to be anal about punctuation -- there are others worse off than me.

harry potter
i exhorted others to pirate illegal ebooks of this as i was always too impatient for the next installment to be released. while other parents campaigned to have this banned, i was up until 3am reading them so that rashdi can take over when he wakes up in the morning.


love story
you will cry. no jews here. but there are plenty of white anglo saxon protestant preppies, a demography which i also because borderline obsessed with. the concept of being born privileged was very fascinating to me.



the thirteenth tale
a fairy tale that is modern and ancient at the same time. i love fairy tales. actually i love fairies, period. you know, the kind that are little and have wings and are cute but scary. that kind. no such fairies in this book, mind you. but i love this book still. am rambling now, so moving on to the last book on the list...


island in the stream
if i were a novelist, i would want to be like ernest hemingway. if i were a man, i would want to be like ernest hemingway. if i were a human being, i would want to be like ernest hemingway (in the sense that he always seemed to live life to the fullest). he killed himself though. that i don't want to do.

et voila: ze human nature zamboanga branch!

after days on end of being forced to smell of eau de varnish et pintura, the construction is now over. well, a little fixing here and there, but at least, i can go home without smelling like i took a bath in turpentine. so this is how the store/office looks like now:

never have husband and me collaborated on a project as much we did on this. well, with the exception of our best projects of course, our children. those however are works in progress, construction on-going E-V-E-R-Y single day. unlike this Human Nature Branch, which i intend to keep as is for at least a year.

we had someone draft a design but we sort of modified that in a major way starting on the second day of construction. the designer had to keep up with us, instead of the other way around. you could say i am a designer's worst nightmare. my husband wanted to strangle me around seven times during the course of the two-week construction.

my husband was the contractor, you see. the original plan was to get someone else outside the marriage to handle the construction but we figured if we did it ourselves, we'll save more.

my request was pretty simple and straightforward i want everything to be white. and of course the workers fought me every step of the way for that:

yen: todo lang white manong.
manong: este door jamb?
yen: white.
manong: este molding?
yen: white.
manong: este shelves?
yen: white.
manong (panicky): nah! white lang todo? umalin se sale ma'am!

manong eventually got what he wanted, some colors, maskin poko lang. but i made him suffer for it a little pa, bad me. when everything was painted immaculate white, i asked for a light blue ceiling. the paint center delivered the very wrong color -- do you know there are seven hundred kinds of sky blue? -- so pintors and husband conspired to bring me to the paint center to supervise the custom mixing. they figured that way, i can only blame myself if the color was "umalin".

the room behind that wall is the mini office. behind the mini office is the mini conference room. most everything is mini because this is just a 40 square meter space. beside the conference room is the storage room.

they were so happy to show me this cubby in the mini-office. my instruction was one large shelf to serve as my desk and one narrower one above it to serve as a, well, shelf. then they thought, why don't we give our &^%$ task mistress more than what she asked for? let's give her a cubby with lots of cubbies!!!

i didn't have the heart to tell them i didn't like it. sigh. i need to sell a lot of stuff to justify a new desk.

then i requested them to threw in a little green here and there, the exact same green of the leaf on the wall accent above. that's a bulletin board actually but why settle for cork board of rubber matting when you can just wrap styropore in great but cheap cloth, di ba?

this is the conference cum meeting room. i love the table. it folds down the middle so you can tow it around.

this is the shelves in the storage room. this is not how it looks like now, thank heavens. our first major inventory is coming in this weekend.

and this is the working table in the storage room, where we can prepare orders: get them from the shelves, package them. this is how i wanted the mini-office to look like. sigh. blue and yellow is always good, no?

Noy and Yen: The Secret Pact

i have a very selfish reason for wanting noynoy's presidency to work: if noynoy delivers, then i don't have to go work as a nurse in the states.

i am a registered nurse both here and in the state of connecticut, that great bastion of american WASP-hood. my family's immigration application is on hold, allegedly because of retrogression. i don't know exactly what retrogression is. all i know is that every important decision ariel and i have made for the family since 2004 has been greatly informed by this phenomenon called retrogression: should ariel apply for work abroad or not? maybe not because what if the immigration papers arrive? should i get my masters or not? maybe not because what if the immigration papers arrive? and so on and so forth.

ariel and i offered our family to the american government for consideration, but they didn't want us. not in 2004. not in 2008. not in 2010.

i don't want to go to the states. others do want to go, and others do get to go but i don't. not when i was 16 and enrolling myself into adzu's bsn program. not now when i am 38 and teaching 16 year old freshmen for a living.

if i sound like i am sour graping, take it from me. i am not. and i have a feeling i sound callous and ungrateful to all the people who helped me with the immigration application, my sis girlie in particular. but i hope you understand what i am trying to say sister dear.

nor do i begrudge my mom for making me take up nursing. at that time, she thought that it was for the best. the cost of bsn is very high and i appreciate my mother for caring for me and my future so much.

i love that i have a sister there who sends us packages. but it would be perfectly fine too if she were just here and not sending me packages. girlie, this is not a signal for you to stop sending the bboxes.

i love that i have classmates based abroad who treat us to sumptuous lunches and dinners when they come home to zamboanga.

but me, i just want to stay here in zamboanga. and not work as a nurse. i don't like to work as a nurse in the same way that i don't want to work as an airline pilot or as a bank manager or as a mayor of a city. it's nothing personal against those practicing these professions. it's just a personal preference. i understand that others would also rather die than teach or write.

and at this point, i want to go back to the topic of noynoy's presidency. if he delivers on his promises, then the philippines will be better and all the reasons that we held on to as we prepared our immigration papers won't be there anymore.

why go to the states when we can earn a decent living here? a living that will allow us to shelter ourselves, feed ourselves good food, send our children to good schools?

i would love to visit the states, that's for sure. but i would love to visit europe more. but this is non sequitur, as my dad would say.

noy, i loved your inaugural speech. i want you to be better than both your father and mother. i want you to make the country better so my family does not have to go to the states. because i really don't want to work as a nurse. i'd much rather teach and write for a living. and sell stuff. para mo nang awa, wag mo akong piliting mag nurse sa states.

this is the reason why in the 2010 election i opted to support a candidate. ever since i could vote, my involvement with the election has always been non-partisan. eight years ago, i helped put together the Movement for a Better Zamboanga's voters' ed pamphlet called "choosing wisely" (about which my wiseass friends would say, sino si wisely, yen, at bakit sya karapatdapat iboto) and in the last national election, coordinating the news bureau of the local namfrel.

noy, you have my support. i have my own agenda for supporting you but you will not begrudge me it, will you? i swear, they are not the only reasons. i am thinking of our four kids too. i will grow old more gracefully knowing my kids are going to live in a better Philippines. don't give me wrinkles!

bloody week

jana was sick to the core yesterday at the prospect of having a pin prick her for complete blood count that she could not muster enough resources to produce a few ml for the urinalysis we were also required to do.

we spent 30 minutes in the hot, humid and crowded sia laboratory behind oro wonder drug near puericulture waiting for our turn as well as waiting for jana's bladder to cooperate. she used the time futilely, explaining to us how she wasn't sick any more, how she will never have a major allergic attack again because she will never ever eat tuna fish, egg, hotdog, chocolate, how her temperature at the neck is "cold" already, and so is the forehead, just please, let us not have blood test.

but her parents' hearts, they are not gold but diamond: cold and unpenetrable.

blood extraction she must have.

and it wasn't as if they needed to get a test-tube full (like what they did in WMMC lab before). they just needed enough to smear four slides and fill up a capillary tube. the CBC required only three slides and you can blame me for the fourth. i added blood typing to the list of tests at the last minute. i figured, best to do it now than have to convene congress again to pass a law requiring her to return to the lab in the future for yet another extraction.

when we returned an hour later to get the result, she was in a better mood.

jana: what's my blood type, mama?

mama: "O".

jana: ha? di ba last time it was "R"?

two weekends ago when she asked, i did tell her her blood type was "R". for Red. i had to shush her to make sure the lab tech didn't catch that but by the time that i did, she was already looking at us funny.

kath, sophie, jen, and yen

a couple of days ago, i got an unexpected but very welcome visit at the office from a college friend, kathy go. when she came in the door, her.......prettiness just blew me away. jeez. she was even more smashing now than she was in college and that is saying a lot as she was ms national sara lee poster girl.

of course we talked our heads off. about this and that and everything else under the sun. she's a stewardess with cathay pacific (see what i mean?) and when i asked her what she loved best about her job, her answer was simple: "everything".

and of course we took photos. since kathy is insisting on looking ravishing, i will insist on doing the same too:

that's kathy in black with me as sophie marceau and then me as jennifer connelly. don't we look equally exquisite?

kathy and i, between the two of us, held an election for our college class' officers. she nominated me muse and i nominated her president. we voted unanimously for both positions and we swore ourselves in. that made us both so very happy.

here's to you, kath! thanks so much for dropping by and i look forward to the next. maybe in that next one, we can do lunch already. :)

what is better than coppertone spf 50?

this is going to be a post of few text. my arthritic right hand is acting up, the network of nerves and flesh and cartilage from my wrist up to the tip of my thumb swelling up, aching, generally going haywire.

typing is an arduous process because i can't strike the spacebar without feeling electrocuted in that aforementioned part of my anatomy. and do you know how often you have to strike the spacebar while blogging? do you? after EVERY word. yes, after E-V-E-R-Y damned word. unless the word is at the end of the sentence. BUT THEN, you have to hit the spacebar again after the period or other terminal marks. unless you are one of those who like to annoy their readers by making the next sentence appear like it is part of the preceding sentence.like this.yes, just like this.do you see what i mean?

frankly, i am not very sure it's arthritis. but from what i learned during the time that i crammed for my cgfns and nclex, this is what arthritis should feel and look like. so i am going by that.

now, before i renege on my promise to keep this post as text-free as possible (hahaha. a girl can dream, right?), let me get on with the task at hand. that task being a compliance with the request of my sister girlie and my brother monching to post pictures of the holy week we spent at the beach in liloy, zamboanga del norte. they are not eager to see sports illustrated-like photos of me in my swimsuit -- there aren't any, in any case. they just want to see photos of the beach house, the beach, and the kids at the beach.



my nephew carlo was born on an easter sunday. during those years that april 20 does not fall on an easter sunday, he has two birthday parties. maita brought that cake from a factory, that white bougainvillea came from the garden, those little plastic toys (an orange motorbike, a green yoyo and something unidentifiable) came free with some junk food the kids bought from the sari-sari store earlier, and the name carlo was written with an ube-flavored chewy candy cut into long pieces, rolled and bent into shape, and et voila, a birthday cake!


the party people, from left to right: kimi, juliana, jana, mikka, carlo looking so happy, and diego. kimi and mikka are my JVP partner lara's sons. they are here on loan from their mom and pop in manila. the mendoza boys arrived thirty degrees fairer than they look here. three days of chasing hermit crabs brought about the exotic coloration. coppertone spf 50 can only do so much.


do you see the martha stewart worthy tin watering can to the right of the cake? so pretty, right? crazy baby gabriel urinated into that an hour before the party. he is his lola's grandchild, our gabriel. for the queasy ones amongst you, worry not, i washed and soaped it already.


the party people with the party sponsors, carlo's papa july and mama maita.


boys of summer...


boys of summer with a chick...


and the girls of summer with a boylet...


mikka mendoza is 7 and his brother kimi is 4. mikka is in grade 1 and he said that in this picture, he is wearing the uniform his team wore when they went to singapore to play in a football tournament. he said they won second place only on account of a stupid move by a team mate. he didn't use the word stupid. i did. mikka used the kinder word "fumble" to refer to his team mate's stupid move. mikka has encyclopedic knowledge about Formula 1. husband has found someone at the house who is willing to sit with him to watch abnormal cars race each other on abnormal roads.

kimi on the other hand does not seem to be very interested in anything sporty. he stayed inside the beach house the most. if allowed, he will have koko crunch and milk for breakfast, snacks, lunch, snacks, dinner, and snacks. like me, he does not like the morning sun. but unlike me, he breaks out in hives, especially on the face, when he gets exposed to the sun too much. i just turn orange all over.



taken near dusk at low tide. those rocks behind us would get completely covered by the sea at high tide, usually highest at this time of the year at around noon. when the water recedes late in the day, the rocks get exposed, along with the gazillions of weird sea creatures living in between and under them. a would-be marine biologist's dream land. or dream sea.



can't resist including this. not taken at the beach at all but during carlo's recognition day. ms. liloy 2022.

talking of carlo's recognition day, he was part of a production number at the program. here he is in costume, as a doctor! for those who have known carlo since toddlerhood, this is a phenomenon! all carlo ever wanted to be was a bus conductor. never mind his doctor mom or his accountant dad. nothing captured his imagination more than collecting fares from passengers of speeding air con rural transit buses. but then this happened to his mama and sort of deflated his will to become the best bus conductor the world has ever seen. this, my friends, is called tragedy.

belated happy easter eveyone!

p.s. 1/3 of the way in, i learned that i can bang the spacebar with my left thumb. i figured that out all by myself, would you believe?

husband's religion

my husband has two religions: the roman catholic church and the manny pacquiao church.

my late great dad, ramon p. blanco, was a boxing fanatic. one of my fondest memories would be of him and my tito bong, watching heavy weight boxing on the latter's black and white tv, the kind of tv encased in a large, coffin-like wooden cabinet. the one with real push buttons that you push to go to another channel and real dials that you really have to dial to adjust the volume. with your thumb and forefinger. at that time, people only needed six channels to live a fulfilling life and buttons 8 and 9 were really just superflous.

daddy and tito bong would watch the fight, sitting on their haunches on the arm chairs, head and shoulders jutting forward, their entire body weaving from side to side, ducking, careening, mouthing fighting sounds, their every movement shadowing the actions of their boxer of choice. fighting vicariously, if you will. us kids, we derived our fun from watching our fathers watching the fight. we thought it hilarious that our normally sober dads could turn into these comical creatures.

i have no love for boxing. it's a stupid game, if you ask me. husband knows this so he NEVER asks me. but it's not just boxing husband loves, it's manny pacquiao in particular. he says things like "i am so lucky i live at the same time that manny lives." i roll my eyes 'til my pupils make contact with the back part of my eye socket but he basically ignores the feat and goes on to say "i live at the same time he lives. ang swerte ko."

how pathetic is that?

i find no equivalent feeling in me for anyone or anything. i try to say "i am so lucky i live at the same time as miuccia prada lives" and "i am so lucky i live at the same time as sting lives" and "i am so lucky i live at the same time as jk rowling lives" and all three just ring false.

then this morning, my sister anna emails me an article on GQ about pacquiao. great article, articulate and insightful and all.

but, really?