Baby Talk

In my attempt to save electricity I inadvertently woke up my 3-going-4-year-old nephew Jian from his afternoon nap. (Seems his sleep cycle was attuned to the air conditioner being turned on or off.) I tried to keep quiet, hoping he'd still be too groggy and fall asleep again. No such luck, as he saw me and made half-opened eye contact.

The weirdness started when I asked him (quietly) to go back to sleep. "What?" he asked, eyes tearing up and mouth blubbering. Whuh?

I repeated myself. Ditto for him w/ the tears and blubber. What did I say to elicit this reaction, I thought? Maybe he was lying on one of Mr. Potatohead's appendages and it was digging into his back? Unlikely.

While he was still awake I couldn't just leave the room. But after I browsed enough books I decided to make a go for it and ask him to come w/ me downstairs. More sniffling from him, almost about to bawl. And for some reason he was pointing to the table by the wall.

Now to place some things in context. One: Jian is of the generation of toddlers who speaks English as a first language and in complete, academic textbook sentences, since that's what his preschool teaches him. So if I want to make sense of what he's saying (and his inability to pronounce the letter L) I speak to him like we were on an American sitcom (i.e. like a small adult, but patronizing.)

Two: As my brother BoiT has taken on the role of fun-loving, ready-to-play uncle to our nephews and nieces, I have resigned myself to being the stern-but-not-completely-unapproachable, no-patience-for-whining uncle (the latter role my sister has taken for her kids, as well). I'm always reminded of that scene in House where Hugh Laurie's character takes a firm tone to a crying baby and tells him to be quiet, and the baby complies.

While I haven't tried it on babies, it seems to work on toddlers who speak English in complete, academic textbook sentences. Our exchange:

ME: Jian! What? What is it?

JIAN: (Sobbing.)

Jian. Shoti! I cannot talk to you when you're crying.

(Sobbing, points to wall)

Jian! 3-Tsiak will leave this room if you don't stop.

(Stops crying.)

Ok. What is it? What are you pointing at?

(Blubbering, points to wall)

Is it the table?

No... (points in general direction of wall)

Is it the mirror?

No... (points in general direction of wall)

That's a vase.

No... (points in general direction of wall)

Those are slippers.

No... (points in general direction of wall)

Is it the wall?
Yes...

What? The wall?
No...

Is there something on the wall?
No...

Is there something inside the wall?
Yes.

Shoti, did you have a bad dream?
Yes...

Are you still asleep?
No.

So are you awake?

Yes.

Shoti, you're awake so there's nothing there.

No... (in denial)

Shoti. Shoti! Who's in this room right now?

(Points to me.)

Yes. And?
Shoti.

No-one else, right?

Yes.

Ok. Let's go.

Ok.

Go wear your slippers.

Let's see Mamet come up w/ better dialog than that...

DACS' Day

Baptismal party for my latest nephew, Darren Anthony Chao Santos, or DACS. I missed the actual ceremony, since Mary the Queen's baptismal room frowned on latecomers. Killed the half-hour w/ Mia and Ryan buying overpriced taho just outside the church. (Twenty bucks a glass? It's not Starbucks saggoccino.)

After mandatory pictorials and handshakes everyone headed for Agno for lunch. While the tacos didn't make as much impact at the DIY lumpia, I was particular to the crab drumsticks. The roast beef and stewed lamb weren't bad, either. Since it was Dacs' baptismal and not his birthday, cake was not in the dessert list. Halo halo and ice cream, on the other hand...

With the combined number of nieces, nephews, plus Boit and Dionne's friends and relatives' kids, it's a wonder we didn't hire a magician or clown for them. Hell, we didn't even set up a Wii. Good thing mababaw lang kaligayahan nila, so shooting hoops, short races and a game of Catch the Flying Pooh (trademark) sufficed. Save for one race-related injury (grazing, really) everything went smoothly, w/ the help of a bottle of Chinese Mercurochrome.

Now that everybody not directly related to us has gone home, all that's left is leftovers (mmm, tacos...) and cleaning up.

Bytes and Pieces

• Sick of having to wait our turn to use the office PC, BoiT first tried setting up a second desktop unit on my desk, but the CRTV monitor and crappy mouse proved too cumbersome. In the end Ma splurged for a Chinese mini-notebook. Wirelsss router was set up 2 days ago.

• Stopped by SM Centerpoint the other day to buy a multiport USB hub. The mall was still in flood damage cleanup mode so they were still clearing out the basement area. What really hit me was the smell. Every other area of SM Sta. Mesa had really bad case of halitosis, or if it had cavities a piece of food got stuck there and stayed stuck.

• Attended another Sy Association dinner last night. It seems these things are the opposite of weddings in terms of seeing familiar faces. At Tsinoy weddings I always manage to recognize someone in the crowd, proving the Small Tsinoy World Theory. But at clan association meets this theory is disproved. Worse, the mini-notebook's battery didn't get past the 2nd comic reading of the evening before it conked out. Portability is gonna be a problem if I have to start bringing a 2nd battery. If the ill-named youth choir (composed of 70% middle-aged member who really don't know when to quit) wasn't enough to make me regret coming, having the speakers blaring in our direction made me wish I brought my MP3 player instead to cancel out the noise. And as a final boring kic to the gut, Pa missed the raffle's cash prize by ONE DIGIT.

Remember, Rejoice, Renew (or, Thank Jehan for Free Tickets!)

Last Saturday Batch '84 hosted this year's Saint Jude Catholic School grand alumni homecoming and also celebrated their Silver Jubilee. Batches '89 and '94 were in their 20th and 15th year, respectively, so they each got 10 free tickets, and 2 of them ended up in my hands. Neither sisters Mona nor Melody could/would make it, but luckily batchmate (and one of my favorite phone-pals) Irene was nice enough to accompany me to SJCS (where she currently works at their Administration Office).

By the time we arrived the buffet dinner had already started. Irene and I deposited the gift bags the folks at the registration table gave us at her office before riding the elevator up to the 5th floor dining hall. Food was courtesy of North Park (other restaurant sponsor Gerry's gave meal coupons as raffle prizes), and there was even a photobooth set up. Ran into other batchmates Stonibert and Jean Agnes, both of whom were set to perform later. Their being cousins was the closest thing my batch had to a singing duo resembling the Osmonds.

After dinner we went up to the auditorium, where fellow alumni and current prep-school teacher Lourdes Tiu (and sister to my batchmate Paul Eric) managed to snag us seats near the stage. (Helps to know someone on the inside.) After the requisite "thru the years" video montages, tributes, song and dance numbers by various members of Batch '84, we got to the meat of the program (no pun intended).

One look at the Mocha Girl's outfits and I had to wonder (aside from "Are those real?") if whoever hired them knew that there were going to be kids in the audience. And priests. And nuns. And in general a relatively conservative Tsinoy crowd. Ah well, if the old guard of Tsao, Yang and Tchou were still in charge they wouldn't even have made it past the side curtains. Good thing the new guard was game, albeit reluctantly in the case of poor principal Fr. Nicasio. The Mocha Girls dragged him onstage, where he repeatedly looked up and half-jokingly (I hope) had his hands clapped in prayer postition w/ that "Lord, lead me not to temptation" look on his face. Good thing the whole bit came out more funny than risuqe, especially when the girls asked to give him his "first kiss." ("Never been kissed," he said. Also: "Why in front of so many witnesses?") In the end they settled for a group hug. Hooray for audience participation.

After a mock awards ceremony the program headliner came out onstage (after the "male" dancers). I first saw Ai Ai delas Alas perform a couple of years back at the Folk Arts Theater, and seeing her now I noticed a definite improvement. She was more energetic and confident with her body, if not her costume, as she kept pressing her hand to chest in case her ai ais jump out of her reverse-worn leather corset. And ang galing humirit. Only she could turn something as mundane as a scholarship awarding (where was just supposed to hand out prize bags to the scholars) into a laugh riot.

After Ai Ai's performance it was getting late and most of the people were ready to leave (especially since our hosts give their "wrapping it up" speeches), already accepting "special guest" Kiko Pangilinan's and billed 2nd Act Christian Bautista's no-show. But the announcer asked us to wait for the latter, so we did. When he appeared we were still calm. When he decided to sing alongside a die-hard fan she went gaga (w/ husband watching). When he sang Jose Marie Chan's Beautiful Girl while walking along the aisles the wimmen went gaga. All throughout the barely 3-minute song he stopped (or was held down) to take pictures w/ the audience. Even after the show he was gracious enough to stick around for more impromptu photo sessions.

Overall I'm glad I went, storm signal warning notwithstanding. (It seems every time we overprepare for a supertyphoon it never shows, or vice versa.) It was also a chance to see the latest renovations in the old school building (e.g., all the teachers' offices on the 2nd floor are GONE, as well at the stairways leading to the 2nd floor, and they have a sunken badminton court as deep as a well-built mineshaft). Didn't win any of the raffle prizes, w/c was just as well since I didn't really pay for anything tonight except the parking fee. Also I may have learned a thing or two about what not to do in a grand alumni homecoming program when our turn comes up in 2019 ("No more dance numbers from the 80s").

The Mysterious Lives of Bookshelves

I accompanied (not-so-willingly) Mom to SNR Pricesmart at Congressional because she wanted to buy some Lifetime tables going for (more or less) a thousand bucks off. (She also ended up buying an obscene amount --26 six-pack boxes-- Safeguard bath soaps.) As an indirect form of compensation I eyed a large chocolate-colored bookshelf and asked if we could get it for my room. She said Okay.

I wouldn't call the first store clerk Ma approached, "lazy." "Incompetent," more like it. First the guy first tells Mom that it's out of stock and only the display unit it left, then he removes the price tag so no-one else asks about it. While lining up at the checkout lane Mom confirmed to me that she asked the guy to check w/ other SNR outlets for the bookshelf's availability, but the idiot couldn't be bothered, or even delegate the task if he was too busy bossing around the forklift operator or something. I tried again, but this time went to the more helpful store clerks who took mom's orders for the Lifetime tables.

Lo and behold, not only were they in stock, they were stocked/stacked behind a different model bookshelf (silver-colored and twice the price). We had it wheeled over to checkout lane 13 for purchase.

Once home I was anxious enough to finish dinner early and get to work in assembling this heavy piece of room furniture. It took about 5 hours--procrastinating time included--, and STILL I was missing one long black screw. (It'll probably turn up. ) When finished the thing was taller than me and a pain in the back to move around (heavy mother...).

I was supposed to take some step-by-step pictures of the assembly-in-progress, but only remembered to do so after I'd fastened every ('cept that missing one) screw, hammered the flimsy plywood back panels in place, and moved all the books from the gray plastic bookcase (see 2nd pic) to their new home/shelf.

As you can see there's still plenty of shelf space, tho' that won't last.

Ondoy and Under (or, What a Floody Web We Weave...)

All things considered, my family was really lucky during the stormy weekend 48 hours past.

I was about to get the answer to a crucial question (How do you pronounce "Canaan?") when we lost power around 1:30PM Saturday, and it only came back around 6:30PM Sunday. (Sorry for the delay, Flixster Soulmate.) After that it was howling winds, leaky walls and a rainy afternoon.

That night (after using the remaining daylight to catch up on my reading), we were witness to Mother Nature's sense of Irony when an electical fire broke out at the neighboring shanty area 2 blocks from our house. (Oh, now the rains stop and winds pick up.) From my bedroom window I saw the fire raze westward and peppered w/ explosions (probably propane tanks or electric appliances). Looks were deceiving as the fire looked closer than it really was, prompting Aissa's paranoia to get our essential files and folders out of the steel cabinet and ready for moving. Firetrucks had trouble getting to the fire because some idiots decided to avoid the flooded streets by parking and leaving their vehicles in the middle of my street, effectively roadblocking it.

I killed time chatting w/ Eileen on the phone til' one in the morning.

Come next morning we were still w/o power (we'd only see the magnitude of the damage the day after online), and not having showered for over 24 hours I was feeling... sticky. Ma still managed to get to Makati to have her hair and makeup done, since the 'rents had a wedding to attend in the afternoon. I joined them afterward for the evening reception (yes, after bathing).

When we got to Makati Shang you'd think no-one had gone thru hell and high water (literally) to get here. Amidst RJ Ledesma's emceening (man, that guy's loud... why bother w/ the microphone) I saw a familiar face at Table 40, and my mind raced the entire evening figuring out who she was. Turns out it was Krishna from DLSU Englicom days, and to prove how small the Tsinoy world is, her dad and my mom turned out to be classmates in high school. Also ran into Ad Extremian Tracy Lim's sister Vanessa and her husband. While her voice hasn't changed, her hair grew. A lot.

*Sad Postscript: Words won't do justice to the level of sadness you can't help but feel when going through these pictures. (And speaking of sad, how is it Facebook has better photo coverage of Typhoon Ondoy than actual news media organizations?).

Imagine 2-meter high MMDA pink fences along SM Centerpoint riddled w/ torn plastic bags, giving you a clue as to how high the floodwaters were that day. Cars vertically piled in twos or threes after being washed into that position by strong currents. Beds and refrigerators ending up on high electric power lines, w/c were also being climbed on by people avoiding the currents. The lower half of 2-storey houes caked in mud. Road underpasses under water. People almost drowning trying to save their Sto. Nino statues.

Makes not having water nor electricity but at least high and dry seem frivilous, doesn't it?

Wedding Addendum (or Weddendum)

More details on my cousin's wedding last Sunday:

My other cousin Aissa (and my sister to some extent) was all giddy upon hearing that morning FM radio hosts Chico & Delamar were emceeing. Too bad for them that the program was more AVP/guest centric, so their fans didn't get to hear them say much except during the quiz portion.

Super-long AVPs are the bane of my wedding reception experience. If the goal was to have something to play in the background while the waiters served dinner, bravo, they succeeded. Otherwise, I get it: Baby pix, kid pix, jump-like-Jesus'-bible-bio-straight-to-adulthood pix, couple-pix. Continuity is fine. It's the length I have issues with. (Do you really need 3 songs to tell an already truncated version of your biography? I guarantee just one will tell and leave an impression just as effectively. It's like there'll be quiz afterwards.)

On the other hand, movie trailer-like on-site AVPs I adore. Michael Bay-ish sweeping pan shots are getting tiresome, though.

Aside from the string band they had an acapella group glee away the time while dinner went on. The highlight of the evening's entertainment was probably a performance by Johann's dad's Philippine Argentine Tango group (of w/c he's president or chairman). I half expected them to use Por Una Cabeza (aka tango number from Scent of a Woman and True Lies), but no, they went w/ something longer and more obscure. That said, everyone in the ballroom stopped in their tracks to watch.

Ran into a number of Ad Extremians, including now-published author Junius Yu. I joked w/ Melissa Tong how buti pa si Junius may libro na, while the two of us were blogging for bupkis. Tim Yap was also there, sporting a tiny tie, w/c Melissa guessed was left over from our 6th grade graduation period.

Matrimonial Non-Sequitors

My cousin got married last weekend. And a coupla days before that I met up w/ a girl my mom's cousin was trying to set me up with and w/ whom I've been corresponding lately.

(And now the details:)

She works as an on-board translator for our nation's flag-carrier in the skies. And she goes to the gym. And she looks cute, as her amateur modeling photos online would attest. After chatting and texting for the past couple of weeks we decided to meet up at the Book Expo at SMX (Convenient coinkydink, shut up.) After making the rounds (separately) on what was again another mediocre literary affair (no reflection on you, Lola), she bought a book but wouldn't tell me nor Lols the title. Weird.

We went for coffee and tea at CB&TL. And there it all began to unravel further.

While we got along better online, she seemed perturbed at some of my sincere questions about her work. (Because really, I'm curious what a not-quite-a-flight-attendant does when she's in the air for 3 hours on route to China, stays on the plane for the next 2, caps it off w/ another 3 hours on the flight back.) Her facial expressions seemed to connote a "Well, DUH, what else can you do but your job" message. Lovely.

Change subject.

I asked her about her singing experience because I saw pix of her recording an album w/ some Fil-Chi youth league, but she seemed to deny it happened, much less knew what I was talking about. I was thinking, seriously? But this was on your Facebook album.

Change subject.

Where do u go to gym? Fitness first, really? What do you get w/ your membership? Again, sincere question (I go to Slimmers). Again, that "Well, DUH" look on her face. The coffee meet was turning into a Mars-Venus First Contact scenario.

Mebbe she didn't like taking about her job, but after the meeting I've not seen her online since. Must be leaving. On a jet plane.

Now the reason I placed a picture of my cousin Eliza (COINCIDENCE, SHADDAP) and her new husband Johannes wedding reception at the Sofitel Ballroom (that's them on the projector screen, middle right), was because it's nice to know that at least somebody else I know had a nice meeting pay off for them this week.

Jehan, we are now cousins. Sort of. No, I insist.

To CineEuropa 12 Organizers*:

*Come to think of it, to all those organizing free film screenings for the general public:

If all you'll do is have people wait in long lines for long hours only to have a DVD movie projected unto a 40-foot screen, w/o any regard to diminished picture quality (or the DVD skipping), I'd sooner just download the freaking films and watch 'em in my living room. FOR FREE. AND NOT EVEN PAY FOR PARKING.

Mediocre Movie Weekend

Last week was better, when Lola and I caught District 9. It's up there w/ Star Trek in terms of great sci-fi films, only the shaky camera movements in D9 had me wishing that I took some Bonamine beforehand. By comparison Cloverfield looked like it was shot w/ a tripod.

Nope, this week after giving my brain a rest from watching Sir David Attenborough's documentary series Planet Earth in gorgeous HD, I finally caught up w/ some older flix, but after watching them wished I never bothered getting them in 720p:

Steet Kings. There's 105 minutes of my life I could've used on Yoga had I known this badly-dialogued, poorly plotted pointless flick ended the way it did. Really should've done IMDB research. Sure, I recognized most of the supporting cast (hey, it's Aidan from SATC, Sucre from Prison Break, Dr. House and The Human Torch!), but the screenwriter also wrote Ultraviolet, Equilibrium and The Thomas Crown Affair remake. Also bleh films w/ big-name stars.

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. I'm sorry for not listening to Lola when she said this film was bad. The first scene in B.P.R.D. headquarters made me wince and weary for the rest of the cast. Save for the fight scenes, colorful set pieces, Doug Jones' hand-acting (though if you pay too much attention to his fingers it can get distracting) and "glasshole" Johan Krauss (voiced by Family Guy's Seth MacFarlane), the story wasn't all that compelling. Hellboy is basically a bully, casually killing off characters like Tim Burton's Batman. That said, I never really liked the Hellboy comic (the B.P.R.D. spinoff series are a much better read), so I shouldn't be surprised the movie adaptations never caught my interest.