Nostalgia
Across me sits my husband, pen and notebook in hand, doodling computations for something I will never be able to understand.
There’s a typhoon coming, so we’re making the best of the still more-or-less-normal weather (what passes for normal in this humid, polluted city).
I’ve been told that it’s 26 days to Christmas. We’re not putting up a tree or hanging decorations or anything remotely Christmassy. It’s not that I like it this way — it’s that Kim likes it this way: no fuss and frills. I could insist and get a tree and hang a small lantern, but it wouldn’t be any fun because I’ll be on my own doing all the appreciating ("Ooooh, isn’t it pretty? Well? Well? Say something, goddamit!").
I miss the feeling I used to get whenever December was coming around. I used to feel all quietly, tingly happy thinking that Christmas was around the corner. I used to love racking my brains and figuring out what to get my parents and my sister Majalla. I liked picking out the wrapping paper, the boxes, stashing and hiding the loot in the aparador, under the piles of socks and t-shirts. I liked writing Christmas cards, and going all the way to the Main Post Office in Liwasang Bonifacio to get stamps, etc. I liked picking out Christmas music tapes and CDs and playing them…
Now, well, every thing’s changed; or more aptly, I’ve changed, and it’s sad because I miss feeling like a kid all breathy and happy and looking foward to December 24 midnight when I would give out my gifts and hope hope hope that my parents and sister like what I got them.
Christmas is really for kids. Sigh.
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Watched Happy Feet the other night. I haven’t made it a secret how much I love Emperor penguins; and ‘Happy Feet’ made me love them all the more. Imagine a penguin chick tapdancing; all fat and round and fluffy and tapdancing!
The movie tries for an environmentalist twist; but it falls a bit short because all it points out is that there’s too much fishing going on in the Antarctic and the penguins are starving because of it. Still and all, it was a good effort (kahit medyo pilit) because the children in the audience at least learned that ‘it’s wrong to throw garbage in the sea’ and ‘big ships catch too many fish that’s meant for penguins.’ In the documentary ‘March of the Penguins,’ it was pointed out that one of the biggest threats to the survival of Emperors and other species living in the poles is global warming and pollution.
I have a mug with a design of five penguins trying to rollerskate. It’s 10 years old and it’s my favorite mug ever.
Gad, I don’t feel too smart tonight. I suppose my brain is tired from trying to think of too many weighty things all at the same time. I just want to sit here and drink tea and watch cartoons and eat junkfood and wish that I could control my temper better. I have been advised that I should eat more bananas because bananas help fight depression and sluggishness. I wonder if monkeys are the happiest creatures on earth?
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Things bothering me right now
1. The Philippine National Police is demanding that Ka Bel be taken out of the Philippine Heart Center and transferred back to Camp Crame.
2. Administration allies are hell-bent on holding a constitutional assembly before the Christmas break.
3. Outgoing defense chief Avelino Cruz admits that Macapagal-Arroyo wanted to impose martial law last November and February, only she didn’t because the US didn’t agree and said that it would not support the move.
4. Typhoon coming. More death and destruction and the national government will not be able to provide immediate relief to the would-be victims (nothing unexpected or suprising about that…)
5.The European Union says it willing to give training and funding to help solve the political killings (send in the CSI teams from Las Vegas, New York and Miami).
6. Our electricity bill has reached P980 when the kilowatt hours we used up this November was the same as last month’s, but we’re being charged TWICE the amount as October’s bill.
