POX-siyet!

Kaeiy is listening to: Give - UrbanDub

Last night, I had a craving for Chicken Joy so Jen and I went to an outlet near my place. A stone's throw from the outlet is a residential place for...errr... relocated (if you want to be PC about it) folk. I picked out a table near the AC, as the summer sizzle has the Metro in its fiery grip. I walked over to the table and my reflexes made me jump back a couple of feet.

Lo and behold! In the next table was a little girl of about 4... covered with varicella lesions in its initial stages of healing. The damn kid had chicken pox! Fuck! How much worse could the day get?

You see, I've never had chicken pox. Nobody in my nuclear family has ever had chicken pox. I haven't gotten my shots this year and chicken pox is not something I would want to have in this lifetime or the next, for gawdsakes. Being in an enclosed AC environment made the transmission of varicella a great possibility.

But of course, hunger won over pestilence (?) so Jen and I settled for sitting at a table the farthest away from the said poxy girl. Before the PC police descend on me and pummel me to a pulp,let me explain. I know it's not the kid's fault. Damn if she knew she was contagious. It's her parents I want to clobber with a medicine textbook. Chickenpox is at its peak during the summer and their negligence is going to make it worse.

If I get chickenpox within the next week, you know who to blame. It's that pudgy bald man and his fat wife with a skinny daughter.

Pag ako, nagkaron ng bulutong... mga POX-siyet kayo!

-o-o-o-o-o-

"The moment I give is the moment you take
You're less than forgiven
The moment I wake is the moment you sleep
You're always receiving"

Summer Is HERE!

Kaiey is listening to: First of Summer - Urbandub

The sun is baking the city and frying our skins to a crisp. Yes, summer is definitely here and with that comes a myriad things we usually associate with summer.

1.) Holy Week - Every year, we all look forward to this "holiday", not because we are a pious lot but because we'd like to go out of town, soak ourselves in pools and beaches and maybe have a dangerous liaison or two. Admit it, you don't REALLY commemorate the sufferings of Christ. The most pain you go through is that pounding headache from demolishing a whole bottle of Cuervo all by yourself the night before! But hey, this is when we visit seven churches (or 14, as I did a couple of years ago. Meron akong panata noon, may hinihiling ako that's why I ended up in 14 different churches but I'll be opaque on this one and I won't rehash the squalid details), go on the "Stations of the Cross" and maybe even do penitensya (NOT for the faint-hearted, I tell you! Imagine being splattered with blood and gore from self-inflicted wounds).

Last year, I went to the boonies up North for some R and R so I got to celebrate Holy Week boonie-style. They create these cottage-like structures called abong-abong where real people act as statues to depict the different scenes from the last days of Christ. I always got a kick out of the crucifixion scene. One can count the many ways to affix one's self on a wooden cross short of actually driving nails through the wrist.

A bit of trivia: contrary to what most would see in Catholic churches, nails were not driven through Christ's palms. These nails would've ripped right through bone and tendon and the man would've been slumped down on the ground in an unglorified heap before dying. The nails were driven through their wrist, right where the radius joins the ulna. This way, there is something to support the body. The nails appear to be on the palms because the ligaments and skin on the wrist tore and the whole body slid down because of the weight. Also, crucified humans do not die of the tetanus. They die of asphyxia. Simply put, being in the cross position with arms raised the way they are (about 40 degrees off the line of the shoulders) cramps the chest cavity(is it the serratus anterior that cramp? Could anyone correct me on this?), making it hard to breath. In order to breathe, they must raise themselves up on their feet, extending their knees, to make the arms parallel to the ground and allow chest expansion. To hasten death, their knees are broken so they can't support themselves anymore and they die because they can't breathe.

Going back to regular programming, Holy Week is a time when malls are closed, TV programming sucks and Video City makes a killing. This year, my Holy week will be summed up as follows (providing they all push through): Wednesday-Thursday will be spent in Anilao, Friday-Saturday will be spent in Pagsanjan, Sunday-Monday will be spent in Bataan. Or Jen and I might just end up vegging out in front of the TV, watching Prison Break and the entire first season of Grey's Anatomy from Friday to Monday.

2.) Circumcision- Otherwise known as "tuli", this ritual of (mutilating the) manhood is usually done in the summer, since school is out and the little boys can waddle around like ducks in skirts without much embarrassment. It is actually something to be proud of. It means a piddling little boy can now boast of being a man after his foreskin has been surgically cut, folded and sewn in a sterilized environment, regardless of how much he moaned, whined and cried during the whole thing.

On the topic of tuli, Jen and I watched the movie "Tuli" on dvd yesterday. It stars Bembol Roco, Desiree del Valle, Vanna Garcia and Carlo Aquino. Ping Medina was also in there. The story goes: Desiree is the daughter of the little town's manunuli, played by Bembol. Like all men in the town, he is an alcoholic. Little boys come to him with a gift of liquor to have their tooties mangled. Desiree assists the operation, wherein she is the one who makes pukpok on the blade to cut off the offending skin. Like the traditional little towns, women are slaves to the men and must conform to societal standards of being housebodies who bend over backwards to satisfy the patriarch's every whim and fancy. If not for the fantastic reviews, I would've tossed the TV out the window when Bembol made the young Desiree kneel on salt. Grrrr... Anyway, Vanna is Desiree's childhood friend, with whom she plays bahay-bahayan. Naturally, Desiree is the tatay while Vanna is the nanay. When they grew up, Vanna agreed to do the nasty with Ping. As I understood, she got preggy so she and Ping were betrothed but she miscarried and Ping could not stand to be married to her so he runs off to some undisclosed location. Meanwhile, while comforting a distressed Vanna, Desiree proposes that she will marry Vanna. Cut to a scene where a group of men are singing harana to the two girls and Desiree feels up Vanna. Ooohhh lala! Vanna's dad sees the girls' love letters to each other and cuts Vanna's hair, prompting the poor girl with layered locks to run away to Desiree's house. Meanwhile, Desiree's dad is diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver (a disorder of the liver due to excessive alcohol consumption) and he expires while Vanna eats out Desiree in the next room. So Vanna and Desiree cohabit with Desiree's widowed melancholic mom. The two girls decide that it would be best that Desiree get pregnant to give her mom a grandchild. So Desiree seeks out Carlo, the only uncircumcised male in the town. They do the doodie and Carlo reveals that he witnessed the murder of his father, which is why he never got circumcised. Desiree gets pregnant, bad luck falls on the town and is blamed on the two women, a group of townspeople come after them but is saved by Carlo, whose fatherhood is revealed and that settles the whole conflict. So the baby is christened Ferdinand Magellan, Desiree circumcises Carlo and the movie ends.

It was a good movie. The audio leaves something to be desired but the cinematography was superb, the shots executed beautifully. My favorite shot (aside from the love scene between Vanna and Desiree... so sue me!) is a particularly poignant one wherein Desiree applied lipstick to Vanna's lips (the horizontal ones!) after her locks were just shorn off haphazardly. Vanna's face was framed by a hole on the mosquito net; everything is a blur except for her face and she was wearing an expression of complete rapture.

3.) Swimming - As I mentioned in item 1, most don't really reflect upon the life of Christ during Holy week and I am no exception. This week, I plan to roast myself under the sun and go swimming! The first of many trips is due on Wednesday. Yippee! Anilao, here I come!

-o-o-o-o-o-

I quit my job last Friday. No more papers, no more books. No more students, dirty looks. Two weeks from now, I will be a certified paper-pusher... or rather, a keyboard pianist. Gah... Will I survive or will I run screaming from the office and go back to screaming with the kids? Stay tuned, my one or two avid readers!

-o-o-o-o-o-

"Go anywhere with you
drive me away coz
Tonight just feels right
Take me away with you tonight..."