incessant rambling

I have an aversion for family-related socials. I am sure many of you single-something-twenty five year old-poor souls have had to endure the endless questions about your being single or other inane and ultimately inappropriate questions from a host of uncles, aunts, cousins, wannabe relations, total strangers and the occasional stalker. Am sure this topic has been covered in numerous angst driven discussions but the matter takes on a different turn when the socials we are referring to is a funeral wake. To be more precise, the funeral wake of my mother (ma, am sure you're going to get a great big ha ha ha from this one so bear with me). There must be some rule about asking really stupid questions in a funeral. Let's see... how about "The coffin looks really good (pause), I wonder how much it costs?" If you're silently sitting beside the source of irritation, I won't be surprised if you find your hands "accidentally" around the neck of the idiot. I h...

Waking up at 4 in the morning so I can take the early 5 am bus trip from Kabankalan, Negros to Cebu City is hard. As in really hard. Unfortunately, no airconditioned bus leaves Negros that early so I had to take the regular bus. It really did seem like a good plan. It was an innocent enough start, few passengers, the occasional early chicken making a mad dash accross the road. Hmmm... the early chicken gets the early worm. In any case, the usual routine of picking up passengers along the way turned into something absolutely ridiculous when we first made our major stop and had to pick up a fellow who loaded up 12 bags of livestock feed on top of the bus. It took thirty minutes just to secure the bags with a rope and tie it up so it doesn't fall over when the bus hits 100 fucking crazy kilometers an hour. From Mabinay we made our way to Bais City and stopped for some passengers waiting with a herd of goats along the road. I thought... hmmm... isn't that sweet? the family is sendi...

Just a quick note, for a suit that's impervious to a gattling gun pumping away at Syoops chest, the doctor had no difficulty ripping it off in the operating table. Uh, I guess it comes with invisible zippers. And that hair, that hair is absolutely stooopid. If you were to slow it down frame per frame you'd probably see Syoops pulling out a jar of Gatsbys and carefully curling it with a super heated curling iron. The disguise is absolutely ridiculous as well, I mean, fearless reporter Lois Lane, Pulitzer winner couldn't even figure out that the only difference between syoops and clark is a pair of glasses. Oh uh.. forgot, yeah... the trunks worn on top of the tights. Nuff said.

A Strong Woman. Throughout her life my mother, Patricia Abanilla Ponce Tagamolila has sacrificed her own comforts for those that she loves. She’d be the first to give up her own needs for the sake of the family. My earliest recollection of how she worked hard to get us through our difficult times was when she would wake up early morning to cook some sweets, this she would sell in front of the school fronting the town plaza (ERAMS?). The irony of the situation is that she comes from a family that is well off in her times. It was never really clear how it came to be, but from what I remember my Spanish-Chinese grandparents were against her marrying into my dad’s family. It was probably from the fact that my dad already has a son from a previous relationship. My dad is not exactly the favorite of his family either, as a consequence they started their lives in a very modest living condition up in the mountain-farm of Kanjakap - a piece of land that my father was given to till. My elder sib...

2 July 2006, I find myself in church listening to the gospel about Jairus daughter who was sick and was healed by Jesus (Mark 5:21-24) and about a woman who through faith and a mere touch of His robe was cured of her sickness. It would seem like an ordinary gospel reading if not for the fact that my own mother is dying at this very moment and it would seem my faith is not holding up. I've accepted the reality that she is dying - it is the only certainty in this uncertain world, death is the end of everything. I close my eyes and pray with all my heart that she is taken up by the Lord Jesus and is spared the pain. That is the only consolation I can ask for. I sometimes ask myself, am I willing to give up my life for my mother? Fearful thoughts run through my head and though I think "it", I know I don't have the strength to really ask of that boon. A selfish thought one might surmise, but in the end, I am held by my own human desires and need. That is why when God gave ...