The GMOA Experience

Four days into our hibernation keith and i left our comfort zone for the provincial capital for a change of scenery. Also because we didn't have any cash left and only the capital has all the banks, thus the mid-day (ad)venture. Oh, it's the first time we deliberately went to the capital! clap clap clap!


The capital has a new mall, they call it G-MOA, or more completely, Gaisano Mall of Antique. the MOA acronym was already made popular by the SM conglomerate when they built the atrociously huge gas guzzling building called Mall of Asia, MOA for short (but i still couldn't get the hang of it. I haven't been there and if people tell me they went to MOA there would be a blank "huh?" from my end and that storyteller would be forced to drop the more popular name "SM" then my face would light up.)


So Gaisano hitched a ride with MOA and called theirs G-MOA. yea, it's gonna be a hit to the brown skinned white trash.


I am just appalled at how these moneymakers underestimate our intellect. It's almost the same thing with the supposed-to-be-indie movie Sigwa, but that's a different topic (which i might be driven enough to rant about someday, yeah, when it's already stale).


Frankly, I didn't expect much from the building because Gaisano is well-known for their kabaduyan, anyway. However, i did hope they will spare my province from their disease, and apparently they didn't. The noise inside was just unbearable. The music from the cheap speakers were so loud and the PA system so bad it's like being in a nightmarish rock fest. 


Our kid, on the other hand, remained excited despite these little discomforts. Brown skinned and probinsiya as we are, Gaisano decided to cheapen us some more by not putting airconditioning at some parts of the mall. For one, the lobby of the supermarket was so humid. The smell and air was so bad Keith said it's designed to make you sick.


(a really bad segway coming) 
That's the good thing -- probably the best -- about being a kid. you're completely oblivious to the ugliness of the world, or gad, the GMOA, until you learn about good design, art, or cultural sensitivity. Education and knowledge is a double-edged sword that you have to learn to use properly. I think that's what university/college is for, provided of course, that you have educated professors.
(end of the bad segway) 


Unable to arrest the kid's hyperactivity we brought him to Mr. Donuts. I half-expect there would be local food stores other than Mang Inasal, Jollibee and Greenwich because we already have a of surplus of those in the City. Their junk is the last thing i'd like eat while i'm here. But none in GMOA, except for a couple that serve lunch fare, and we were too full for lunch. So coffee and donuts is it.


Anyhow, the kid wanted to order all the colorful donuts but i set the limit to only three and he ate everything like he just ordered 1 sungak-sungak meal, dine in, mind you, not talabunan*. not even to go.


"Why is it so noisy in here?" I said to his father. 


Christ. the store has its own pipe-in music and at that certain moment they were playing the baylehan dance music. The PA outside was gurgling announcements, competing with the stylized versions of christmas songs--the mall's own piped-in music. It's just noisy. noisy. noisy.


Gaisano, not all brown skinned white trash enjoy everything baylehan**. so please. we are all not without taste. 


And because we're just grocery shopping junkies, never department/boutique shopping junkies we capped our small tour by checking out the supermarket section. It lacked airconditioning although Keith said he liked that they are selling big cans of Baguio oil.***


"It's what our favorite supermarket lacks, i think."

"Yeah. But they don't have the Oishi potato chips. And the rest is just bad." 
(That comment can't be trusted because i don't live here anymore. and seriously, i can spend an entire month at home without having the need to go to a supermarket. really.)


"They also don't have tortillos." 


I did notice a lot of goods you'd get from the sari-sari store are missing from the shelf. For one, the junk food section looked like it just survived a season of panic-buying because there were a number of sections without display. 


I paid for the purchases and we decided to just head home. The noise sucked all the energy out of me.


"So that must be the reason for putting these junk food stores near the entrance. It's the only thing that's really "good" here. It's like candy from a pedophile." (Shit, i don;t know why i even thought of that analogy.)


Keith enjoyed it; he never had any of it being a city kid. The kid, too, he enjoyed the shebang, because kids are always happy until we tell them to stop being so. I was disappointed because really, I thought we were more than that.


But hell, this is Gaisano! (insert Gaisano jingle here)




--------


And here is the part that explains all those asterisks. 


*mah friends and i (which one, i can;t remember. Bobong, maybe) had this brilliant idea that instead of naming our combo meals 1-2-3 or merienda or kiddie or some over-used words we'll call it with local terms like "sungak-sungak" (a really big meal good enough to feed a giant), "talabunan" (meaning if you can't finish a meal, you may opt to borrow a "tabon" (cover) and come back for it later -- gross but funny), "2-days nagutman meal" (a meal good for somebody who have not eaten for two days, and you may opt to have it "talabunan", too!)


**not to diss "baylehan" as a culture or history. "baylehan" through times has evolved into something with negative connotation. but i have to do more in-depth research to be able to explain that. i don't have anything against this as i practically grew up going to these, if not watching these from our house second floor window.

***Incidentally, we're, like, fans of buying-things-in-big-packages because it's more economical and environment friendly that way. Oil for one, we usually buy it in 2-liter packages because i for one, believe that we waste a lot of the expensive cooking oil buying it in its iced-candy package. 

FIN.

Night Out Puto

My models happen to not want their faces on facebook. 

fin.

puto post

2010. 11. 28. 

Priming.

Gogol was trying the mobile rice mill. 

2010. 11. 29

This is it.

We are bringing them bamboos and them carpenters to the construction site. 

Tato Alex realized i was snapping pictures so he smiled. 

the bamboos are so long i can see them from the passenger seat. 

5-minute stopover at the plaza for some business. 

and 100 meters from the site the worst thing happened. 

the culvert was too narrow and the ditch too deep; the truck made a wrong turn and we're stuck.

"This way!"

 

But everyone helped so we are happy. 

despite the glaring 10 am sun. 

we got to the site just fine. 

bamboo bridge.  I don't see none of this anymore. 

 on this site will rise. 

Fin.

Why i shouldn't have done that

No, it's not a post about a failed love life.

This, in fact, is just a post about my swollen left foot toe-thumb (is there such a thing?). And why i shouldn't have done what i did.

i accidentally hit this big toe bigtime on our bamboo chair. why i hit it is a long story (it was about the pest control problem in our apartment) but i was trying to tip the chair so i can have a better look at it. Tipped, i did, and it was too heavy but it was also too late and in 1, 2, 3 intuition told me i should hold it steady with my foot and my foot hit something really hard i almost fainted from the pain so unbearable but what the hell, i should let it fall so so fall it did, just let it fall freely the rest of the 4 inches from the floor. it landed with a muffled thump 10 millimeters from my foot.

For 25 seconds my face looked like that face in edvard munch painting  "The Scream" but I didn't scream, take note, i didn't scream for help because i am a macho girl and i ended up hyperventilating and had to lie myself down on the floor lest i would fall on my head (and what, kill myself?). it was that damn painful. now 4 days after it's still swollen and can't be bent. the gray-bluish bruising is not visible, thanks to my wonderful indio skin color. when i walk it's like there's a lump on the big toe pad. yes, it makes walking uncomfortable but i'm patient and can easily tolerate life's little discomforts.

and when i tell keith i'm worried something must be broken he tells me:
"Toe (pointing at his toe), liver (pointing to where his liver is supposed to be located)."
evil grin.
Gad, i so hate that.
It's the same thing he did when i informed him about the rashes on my arms last night, afraid it must be peanut allergy. (i of course, googled peanut allergy just to be sure because i didn't want to die. in my sleep. last night).
well people die from brain cancer and the brain is certainly not the liver's next door neighbor.
GRRRR.

I should have stayed away from bamboo-chair-tipping.

So i started taking it on the kid. (Who's best to torment but the gullible toddlers!)

Tonight i again tormented my son over wasting water. I can never get the hang of telling my kid wonderful stories, like the one about the dead people (click that for the link). This time, I told him that if he doesn't stop playing with and wasting water, lakes will dry up and elephants will have no more water to drink.

To which he self-assuredly replied: "And they will then die." (Kag mapatay dayun sila.).

I could have laughed my heart out but laughing at toddlers' remarks is a "no-no" if you want to build their self confidence. hell yeah, the kid could conquer the world with all his self-confidence now.

This one is fun. This one i will certainly do again.

evil grin.

Moth ni Gogol: A lesson on death boxes.

Actually it's close to impossible to make a decent a taxidermy of a moth sans the chemicals. A week after its death, the moth starts to disintegrate if not properly treated/preserved. I won't go into the details of that as i am not a taxidermy expert...

But this is how this all happened...

In late October i brought Gogol to the cemetery to familiarize himself with the Pista Minatay tradition. I also wanted him to experience how it's like cleaning tombs as we were there to clean my grandmother's tomb in preparation for the November 1 All Saint's Day. The All Soul's Day is officially set on November 2 but it has been a tradition in our town to collectively visit the cemetery on the first of November.

To prepare his curious brain for the impending information overload (and of course to save myself from having to answer too many questions), on our way to the cemetery, i told him the story of death and of dead people being laid to rest in boxes. Expectedly, my story raised more questions than i could possibly answer so to prevent further confusion (and more tall tales from me), I resorted to this: Dead people died because they drank dirty water and had diarrhea and now they have to sleep in boxes in the cemetery. forever. end. of. story.

Meanwhile the kid got the horror of his life imagining that if he ate with dirty hands or drank dirty water he'd die from diarrhea and had to sleep in one of those boxes. forever. So somehow that cemetery trip did something good to us--he developed the habit of hand washing and drinking only from his own glass.

One morning after that short vacation cum cemetery visit, and some days after we're back to the City, i found an injured moth in our room. I did try to keep it inside the house and away from gogol (because last i heard, he unintentionally mashed a spider and wailed realizing he killed it), hoping it will recuperate on its own (because i didn't know how to provide care for an injured moth, sorry mothy). and it died.

and i found the chance to tell gogol more about death and dying and laying things to rest.

and was confronted by the question: "If i die, i will not fit in that box, nanay." He looked really worried. I can't remember how i survived that moment. maybe i told him, "We'll get you a bigger box."

With the small black box that used to contain japanese pastries, gogol and i carefully laid a piece of tissue for the moth to lay on. He held in his open palms 2 yellow push pins (which i realized were too big to use on the moth) as i carefully spread its wings. carefully, very carefully i fixed the delicate wings on the piece of cork glued to the box (covered by teh tissue) using the two push pins. A pen-type correction fluid was used to label the box while a blue pen with colored metallic ink was used in the label inside the box. 

Gogol bragged it for couple of days to people in the house. "Look at my moth! It's dead."

and then he forgets.

Good for him. 

PF Writing. Me writing on his writing.

PF is talking me into writing about the radio station that became so popular when we were still in high school. So good that it became our favorite. And everyone else’s, too. Much of our reunion conversations would have a piece on that, and the dj’s; some of them we actually interviewed for our fanzine. The local one closed in 1999. I have left Iloilo already and when I went back I was very surprised to hear my schoolmates, who never had any rock and roll nerve, gushing about the whole NU 107.9 Iloilo's last day event. I heard they even lit candles. Cheese overload.

Not a week ago PF actually mentioned writing about the station. It was when he was eye-ball deep with commitments (okay, I’m just exaggerating—make that armpit-deep) and I never took him seriously on that. I knew he’d never have the time for it. He’s even way behind schedule for his DAtE works. And since NU Main station reprogramming is also not so hot topic for me, I had little to no drive to feel nostalgic about it. 

I don’t listen to them anymore.

While Halloween vacationing at my parent’s place we sat with our backs to each other, absorbed by our own little world in cyberspace. I'd glanced and his his eyes are fixed on Form (uninteresting, he said), or an E-book (no El Croquis this time, I think). Or at pirate bay downloading porn for all I know. But this is how I came to know he was actually researching on his write up apart from ogling on architecture books and magazines--their total subscription cost more than our monthly rent.

PF: are you familiar with the band Anathema?

Me: No. what are they?

PF: and the Belly album in 1993.

Me: what? What the hell are you reading there?

(I thought he was asking me about a belly album in 1993 called anathema but before I could google it he said--)

PF: I’m making a list of albums released in 1993.

Me: Wow. You’ve really gone that far now. I’m still stuck to “Why Architects Drink” and you’re way beyond there, you’ve gone to music.

PF: and shakira already had an album released in 1993.

Me: meaning, she’s already old?

PF: because I thought we were of the same age

(who knows she was already bankable at 13?)

Me: is that for the NU thing?

PF: yeah. Why?

Me: wow extensive research you got there.

PF: well, you should write something, too. Then we post them together.

Me: Christ, is that serious?

PF: and you can tell BCG to do the same and we post together.

Me: How do you think we’re gonna proceed with that? We’re going home tomorrow.

(Back to our no-internet-therefore-no-wi-fi home, in these days of google-replacing-the-libraries)

PF: NU is changing programming on the 8^th, we still got about a week.

(No comment. Then I opened MS word and started typing, after sending BCG a message. PF turned to me to say something but he instead exclaimed --)

PF: what?! You’re already writing?

Me: well, of course. It’s not like it’s a term paper. And I’m just drafting. Unlike you I don’t abide by the FLW motto.

PF: (Laughs. Snickers. Chuckles. Or something like that.)

(amazed that I remembered that FLW comment. And he’s silent for a while then--)

PF: Help me remember Buffalo Tom.

Me: Summer. Taillights Fade. (as i tapped on my keyboards for youtube search)

PF: Nothing.

Me: Oh, Red Letter Day. That was popular.

PF: God. Still nothing.

(then silence. The dog outside howled. The baby in the room 2 meters away is sleeping like a log, I bet snoring. Then he asked me if I have--)

PF: Violent Femmes.

Me: what about?

PF: do you have violent femmes?

(because I almost played the buffalo tom only to find out that the mp3 is in our OTHER computer, which we left at home)

Me: no. except on mixed tape

(meaning cassette tapes. Where you use a cassette player to listen to it.)

(30 minutes after he asked me to call it a night. i played Buffalo Tom's i'm allowed for him to see, said he remembers now. Sad song, i say to him. Yea, that sounds really like something they'd play in NU in those days. Yea, i said. 

and gave my shoulder an assuring squeezed then off he went to sleep.)

More of it laterzzzz. God knows what he’s going to ask me tomorrow.