It was one of those harried, hurried let's-have-coffee moments, which my dear friend L talked about perfectly here. It's from her that I stole this photo from. Don't have time to do a montage like that these days, it seems.
But before I do some work, want to give a great big hug and lots of loving kisses to my best friend A! Happy birthday sweetie! Mwah!
So, OK, I am not, by no stretch of the imagination, a vegetarian. I like my meat. I like my chicken. I love eating! But goodness, seeing those roosters fight to the death was just too depressing.
As part of the fiesta celebrations in that far-off barangay in Pampanga, the men got to play their games at the tupada. It was the very first time that I ever witnessed a cockfight, and it was kinda scary.
Scary because, well, I was practically the only female at the place, save for an elderly tindera who sold snacks, and I tell you, it was kind of intimidating. The minute we walked in, these men started staring at me. And I was like, 'Do I have big, fat pimple on my face?" Of course, clueless me did not realize that I had intruded into he-man territory. And by the time I did, I was like, 'Who cares? I want to see the fight!'
Scary because the he-men started shouting their bets in a language I could not comprehend. After awhile, the shouts turned into some kind of chant. It was surreal seeing grown men in their puruntongs and their beer bellies chanting as if in a trance.
Scary because as soon as the fight started, it was every man for himself. Every he-man jockeyed for "front row seats," which meant I got elbowed by one particularly aggressive tupada fan. Whatever!
Scary because, well, these roosters really fought to the death. A fight lasts for only seconds sometimes. But in those few seconds, you'd see how precious life is--even for a rooster.
B tells me that the May issue of Yummy is already out. I've been so looking forward to this one because it tells how a bunch of us crashed into a small town fiesta at the foot of Mount Arayat.
Often enough, the back story is as exciting as the one published on the pages of the magazine. Take this one, for example. Because B wanted to come out with a fiesta story for May, we had to find one last February. The hunt, which had us surfing the Net, calling up DOT people, and texting friends, eventually produced one solid lead: a fiesta in some obscure barangay in Pampanga. This came from my good friend R, who got it from her stylist F at Piandre, who hails from there.
And so we went. Because the town was pretty out there, we could not book any kind of accommodation in advance. I thought, "Well, we'll just wing it. I'm sure we can find something." In truth, I didn't exactly know where we were going. I just had the name of the barangay and the name of the stylist's sister-in-law. That was it! Not exactly the ingredients of a good story, I know, but I love not knowing what's going to happen next!
Well, we made it. We met F and her family, saw a pig being slaughtered, walked with a marching band, watched an amateur singing contest, went to a tupada, and ended up sleeping at F's house quite soundly. They were truly so generous, and I could not thank them enough.
Here, some pictures from that adventure.
Went to the slaughter house first thing in the morning; what a way to start the day!
The amigas of Lola C, chopping kilos and kilos of pork. No, not the one you just saw in the tricycle.
Balloons and all sorts of favors
It's fiesta the whole year round for this band; they get invited to march in towns all over the country.
What would a fiesta be without a muse...
... and loads of food!
Check out the May issue of Yummy for the whole story :)
I am finally home! I miss my room. I miss the yard. I miss the light. I miss the kitchen. I miss the broadband. But most of all, I miss my bed!
For the past three nights, I've slept at my Mom's house. A couple of weeks ago, she asked me to babysit her house for a few days. She was finally going to Palawan-- something she had always planned to do but never got around to doing--so, of course, I said yes.
What was so special about her house that it needed a sitter? Well, first there are all her beautiful flowers and trees that need daily watering, and sometimes, a bit of talking to. Next, there is Muning, the house cat whom she inherited from our dear Tito Ernie. And last but not least, there is Poochy, their pet dog.
Yes, you read that right, a dog! If you're a good friend of mine, you'll know that I am not exactly a fan of dogs. There must have been some kind of gene that I was not born with, I'm not sure. Anyway, I was supposed to feed these little critters, make sure they're safe and satisfied till their "mom" and "dad" gets home. Fortunately, my son S went with me, and it was he who ended up feeding the pets.
Which didn't mean that I didn't have close encounters with them, more so with Poochy. Every time I had to get to the home office from the main house, there was Poochy looking at me through his sad eyes, begging to be fawned and fondled. For the life of me though, I couldn't make myself cuddle him. And so I just let him play with my legs, while I silently prayed that he already had all the necessary shots. And that became our routine: me scurrying towards the office, him running after me for some play time.
Today was my last day at Mom's. And this morning, before leaving, I didn't scurry out of Poochy's sight. I even managed to pat him slightly on the head while he played with my legs. Which is not to say that I've grown to like him, not really. But at least, I don't hate him, not anymore :)
My mom would love this place. Before the term shabby chic even became part of our daily lexicon, my mom already had that country feel going on at home. She had the sofa reupholstered in a flowery print, covered the tables with lace and doilies, and adorned the place with cute ceramics. Yes, I grew up in such surroundings, which maybe why I want my place to be as quiet as it could be.
When we went to Tagaytay a couple of weeks ago, we ended up at Cliffhouse. I totally forgot about this place, which would have made my mom smile. Well, next time.
Mom would like the garden...
.... and this
... and this
and maybe this ....
This I like: adobong kangkong with lots of chicharon bits!
Witty!
Class picture
Read about the Magdangals' Memory Lane on the May 2011 issue of YES! Magazine.
I’ve never been a breakfast person. Perhaps the fact that I usually wake up at nine or ten in the morning has something to do with that.
When my sisters and I were in grade school, our yaya would prepare four glasses of milk on the table, and that’s what we’d have for breakfast. That’s because we’d rather sleep than eat breakfast. To this day, I am still of this frame of mind. Hotel buffet breakfasts—they don’t exactly entice me—except when they’re open till very late, lunch almost.
One other thing that my Lola served, which I liked, was champorado. And I remember pouring lots of evaporada on my bowl, and then dousing it with spoonful upon spoonful of sugar. Technically, champorado is breakfast food but we usually ate it for merienda. Today, I cook my own version of the champorado—and my kids love it! “Chammy! Ma, are you cooking Chammy?!” It’s sweet and it’s rice; it’s a surefire hit.
But when I want it plain and simple, I go for an omelet. Just crack an egg, whip it, and cook with whatever you like: tomatoes, onions, cheese, ham, bell pepper, mushrooms, what-have-you. My dad has always had a good appetite. And one of my most vivid memories of him when we were younger was of him eating an omelet. It was a plain onion and tomato omelet but the way he dug into it, you’d think it was lechon or something. He put some catsup on it, sliced it this way and that, and ate it with slices of white bread. When the omelet was done, he mopped the remaining piece of bread onto the plate to make sure he got all the juices from the eggs, and the tomatoes, and the onions, and the catsup. Wonderful!
Here, the breakfast after the night before from The Big Night, a most unforgettable food movie. The characters don't speak all that much but the scene speaks volumes about what it means to be a family.
It's a beautiful day! Outside, the birds are chirping, hovering over the mango tree. I know, I talk about this mango tree a lot but that's because I just love it!
Anyway, the other day, I wanted something fresh and yummy to go with our Daing na Bangus and that's when I saw all those little Indian mangoes just ripe for the picking. And so, here we go:
How to Make a Summer Salad
1. Ask your sons to get some mangoes off the tree. Sounds easy, right? Well, not exactly, not when the tree is kinda tall and we don't have any tool to get at those fruits. It's called a panungkit, and we don't have one. So K and F and R, Baby S's yaya, ended up throwing rocks at the branches in the hope of shaking those fruits off. At my suggestion, F and K tried banging the branches with this long piece of wood that we had just lying around but, no dice. It was too heavy! Sorry, my bad!
The rock throwing worked (R is a great shot!), and we managed to get four mangoes. Yum!
2. Dice up some tomatoes, the really red, ripe ones. I love tomatoes! I like slicing them up and slathering them with lots of mayonnaise and some salt. This simple salad tastes great with fried anything: fish, pork chops, chicken. Getting hungry!
3. Get a couple of itlog na pula, take out the shells, and dice into bits while watching old episodes of CSI Las Vegas. I miss Grissom! Isn't he ever coming back?!
4. Now, mix the mangoes, tomatoes, and eggs together in a bowl. Chill. Serve!
Every so often, my sister M and I would have these marathon phone sessions where we try to squeeze in several months of our lives into several minutes of talk. Our last conversation was a wild one and peppered with much laughter.
While talking about the many shades of dating these days (casual, complicated, what-have-you), M blurted out, “Hindi na ko cool!” I replied right back, “Matagal na tayong hindi cool!”
I’ve never been cool to begin with, if your definition of cool is an au courant hipster. I’ve always seen myself as some kind of geeky cowboy. My sister M, however, is “cool.” She will forever be an artist with that “tortured soul” vibe about her.
When I became a mom, however, I was suddenly cool. When I get to meet my children’s friends, they’ll always tell me afterwards that their friends thought I was cool. Huh? Me? Cool?!
Is it because I knew how to take care of myself while the mommies of my kids’ friends started going losyang? Or is it because I was open to the idea of them participating in field trips, going on parties, or meeting up with friends? Or is it because I still liked hanging out with my kids? Or is it because I talk with their friends?
Maybe it’s all of the above or maybe it’s none of the above. But one thing’s for sure, I chilled out a bit because of all the things I learned from having kids. And I’m not just talking about their taste in music, which I make a point to listen to, or their sense of fashion, which I always take note of, or their passion for games, which I occasionally try to play.
No, I chilled out because I learned to relax. The obsessive-compulsive in me learned to let go because, really, how can you control everything when you have four different lives to think of? You can’t. And so I rock, and so I roll, and at the end of the day, I can sleep with my sanity intact to face another exciting tomorrow.
This brings me to a conversation I had with my sister M the other week. We were talking about how things are so different from when we were growing up as to how things are with our own kids.
For example, E enjoys the whole idea of tweeting. Like most kids of her generation, she likes the thrill of the instant. She likes being heard. She likes being seen. She likes being affirmed. What else is the “Like” button there for, right?
In comparison, I cannot get myself to tweet. And it took ages for me to get into Facebook. True, I blog, but that’s only because I like writing. And always, I check myself: "Am I sharing too much? Am I sharing too little?" In fact, my friend B observed, “How come you hardly post pictures of yourself? Why don’t you give out names?” And that’s how I ended up plastering a big photo of myself on the masthead Mwahaha
Instant communication is fine but somehow, it takes away from real conversations. That’s why I don’t like texting all that much. You can’t say everything you want to say. You can’t see the face of the person you’re “talking” to. And that person can always choose to ignore what you’re saying, which can be frustrating especially if you’re in stitches about something.
Call me old school but for me, nothing beats the thrill of talking to someone face to face, seeing his lips curl up in introspection or his eyes light up in joy. That’s definitely better than :)
My daughter E got all excited the other day. Every few minutes or so, her computer would go ping, ping, heralding yet another message on her Twitter account. Something was happening on the ethernet. It goes like this: a twenty-something blogger had said something not so very nice about Philippine fashion at a breakfast with Nina Garcia in New York. And the tweeting community of our local fashionistas stomped out in their stilettos and started tweeting away.
Everybody had to have their say: the girl is not an authority (From the way she dresses that's obvious), the girl should have thought of presenting her country in a better light (At her age, she might not have thought of that), etc., etc. But before long, the comments became a bit nasty: the girl does not know anything about fashion (In fairness to the girl, she knows something about fashion naman but maybe not a whole lot, yet), the girl is not famous (As if being famous has anything to do with knowing what's right or wrong, or what's good or bad), etc. etc.
It was like one giant catfight, pitting one camp against another. For a while, it was quite amusing. But when one 25-year-old girl turned bitchy and flashed the "c" word on one of the players, I was out of there. It was like "kanto" talk in more "sosyal" surroundings. Not nice.
And at the end of the day, nothing was resolved, nothing changed.
When I first took a vacation with my sisters many, many years ago, I had to be persuaded. At the time, the idea of going on vacation without my children was foreign to me. We always went everywhere together, which meant, of course, that I was never able to have a proper vacation.
It starts with the packing. I had to make sure that everybody had the appropriate number of shirts and shorts and jammies and undies. If we were traveling somewhere warm, then swimsuits and towels and sunscreen and burn ointments must be taken care of. If we were traveling somewhere cold, then jackets and pants are mandatory. We’re not even talking about their vitamins and medicines, and when we still had a baby, diapers and bottles.
It's one in the morning and I'm still working. The boys, they're sprawled on the couch watching Everybody's Fine. I so want to veg out with them but I can't. Because if there's anything that I learned from my mother, it is this: Work comes first!
Mom and Dad and my sister B and her husband A were just here. We were looking at the duhat tree and noticed that it has started bearing fruits, lots of them. The same is true for the mango tree. Neighbors, whom we do not know, have started coming around, asking if they could partake of its fruits.
I take a little work break and lie down with my son S. Seeing Robert de Niro's character traveling across America just to see his children, I go, "S! When I grow old, you are going to visit me, OK? You are all going to visit me!" "OK!" Sam says.
This reminds me of a conversation I had with my Mom just a few days ago. We were talking about life and how short it is, and how we should just do whatever we want to do. Eventually, she says nonchalantly that someday, she too will be gone. And I go, "Ma, I'm not ready. You may be ready but I'm not!" And we laugh. I laugh hard but deep inside, I was scared shitless!
I don't know why I'm talking about this now. Maybe because it's one in the morning. Or maybe because there's a sappy movie in the background. Or maybe because seeing those trees so pregnant with fruit reminded me of life and living and loving. Or maybe, I should best be sleeping.
