Be Still! This I repeat to myself when I see my 14 year old son transform his hair to “manga” hair. No not the fruit, but the japanese comic book genre usually in black and white where they have all those over stylized characters mostly refered to as ‘anime’.

Our grocery list includes a wax specifically for Manga hair and Lynx cologne (which is probably the twin of Axe in PI).

I could of course stop buying him this stuff but that wouldn’t stop him from using his dad’s cologne or mine. He could also just start creating a gel made out of cooked rice and glue and that would cost me heaps too (ala Dexter’s laboratory)

As it is, he uses my hair dryer and iron. He wakes up early and does a ritual of drying his hair & ironing it to style, then comes the wax part that seems to take forever. If we wanted him to come with us to some event, we have had to tell him at least 2 hours prior so he would have time to complete his hair do. The hub calls it his mini antennas.

He twitches his head as he walks which really looks so Gay for me. He thinks it is cool. I was once a teenager and I did crazy things to my hair but Insoy tops the hair category.

No typhoon or tsunami will get his hair down. *kidding* of course.

Oh, for the sake of vanity, I close my eyes and keep still hopeful that 5 years from now, his obsession will somehow die down and we would laugh at all his pictures come his wedding day. Oh, I can’t wait. :p

Happy Birthday La.

It has been 16 years but I still terribly miss you.

Your cooking, your kind of loving and most of all your fire within.

Wherever I go, you remain (pointing to my heart) with me.

Each year, ever since my grandparents died, we would gather at the cemetery and it felt like Christmas. Lots of food, laughter, mahjong, piat-piat and teasing that does not end until someone cries. The same thing happens each year. And the teasing continues from where we left…

Funny but we actually look forward to Kalag Kalag day with the same excitement as waiting for Christmas and New Year.

Mom emailed narrating how it was sad that they did not put up a tent this year. They did not have the usual revelry. The family have become smaller. Popoy, Karen and Keiko now in the US. Us here in Auckland while Dino is out there somewhere.

Because we are a small family, one person not showing up matters in a big way.

My sister, Micmic, who usually organizes the activities of the day have lost heart. For her, it is not the same. She doesn’t even feel like celebrating Christmas this year. Putting up the parol has become a tradition but then again, she may just do a mini one this year.

Yes, we are a melodramatic bunch. It just didn’t seem the same anymore without everyone in attendance.

Last Sunday, we made a list of our dearly departed. We were shocked to have filled up a long list. Wondering, if they have met one another up there. Masses will be offered in their behalf for the month of November.

Yes, it was a sad non-event Kalag Kalag day for us here as well.

I wish we could somehow rise above this change in circumstances. We need a major Kalag Kalag uplift. mmmm, what to do? a Kalag Kalag net conference perhaps? Do they have WIFI sa Cempark? Just isn’t the same. It is occassions like this one when the miles separation intensifies.

Together now! WAAAAH

Yes! 1.8 kilos of weight lost in 1 month. Still in the obese range but closer to the overweight category.

A spin class on Mondays and Tuesdays

Megadanz on Wednesdays

Salsa on Thursdays

Zumba on Fridays alternate with Hip Hop and Jazz classes

3 days of circuit training in between each week. Need to do weights I suppose to firm up.

Weekend hikes and heaps of fruits and vegetables now on my diet.

Definitely going for 3.0 in next months Green Prescription review.

Rachel and Nevi, my support team, is cheering me on.

1.8 is a good number to start with. Thinking positive I can keep this up.

Winter this year have been quite mean and so now that spring is here, we couldn’t wait to get out and enjoy the SUN. Coming from the tropics, you would expect that we would have had enough of the heat but I guess our skins and spirit will always long for days out in the SUN.

We have been lucky to have wet weekdays and SUNNY weekends.

Oh, and for 2 weekends in a row, we got our dose of SUN vitamin.

A week before, we went hiking along the rain forest of Waitakere. It was still chilly but we can’t wait to get out. Laagan we are.

And this week, we had fun at the Farmer’s Market of Matakana. It was a lovely SUNNY day. We had lunch across Goat Island and stopped by a pottery barn. We had gelato at Charlie’s and had a fun time out in the SUN up the winery.

Hmmm, and we certainly did have Jin in mind when we took this warrior photo because I cannot bear to disappoint our friend who wanted an updated blog. =) mwah

Here is the link to more photos on Facebook.

]]> http://quarantedeux.wordpress.com/2009/11/01/jins-sun-warriors/feed/ 4 konsuy IMG_0181 http://quarantedeux.wordpress.com/2009/10/10/beauty-talk/ http://quarantedeux.wordpress.com/2009/10/10/beauty-talk/#comments Sat, 10 Oct 2009 20:39:42 +0000 konsuy http://quarantedeux.wordpress.com/?p=376 ]]>

This is my definition of BEAUTY written for Chelo (because I heart her) in true Miss Sitio Kamanggahan fashion…

Beauty is a feeling that reveals itself in the outside. When you feel beautiful, the world will feel beautiful with you. You achieve this by being happy, having a grateful heart, achieving your goals, being prayerful and having a positive attitude always. When you wake up in the morning, look at the mirror and say ‘HELLO BEAUTIFUL ME! That is the best way to start your day. I thank you!

I grew up believing i was very very very beautiful. Blame it on grandparents who gave me  a lot of reason to believe so. Being the first Creekside Princess (my one and only beauty title) and living in sikatuna by the ’sapa’ felt i had a kingdom all of my own. Never mind that my sister teases me forever about this.

When I was exhiled to Banilad where my parents lived during my teenage years, the confidence wavered a little bit because after all there were very pretty girls in pink on our block that hoarded heaps of boyfriends.

I believed I was one of the boys. The boys played tubig tubig with us but played footsies with the pink girlaloos.

And so each year, I turned very beautiful to very plain. That is because, I measured myself against the number of boyfriends to be had. I wasn’t that rediculous but I was not the kind that made it to the Penshoppe or Gaw billboards (the era that Chin missed). Oh yes, I had boyfriends but that is another horror story.

When the kids came, that was when I went from plain to very ugly. My body never bounced back to pre pregnancy state. I did not want to go out because I hate to answer the question (from evil ex-friends)  ‘What happened to you?” as if I turned into a monster.

For many years, I stayed in my invisible bat cave. Socialized with people who did not care about looks but cared about the brains. It was so much fun but the carbohydrate overload, the late nights, and a sedentary life turned me into Mrs. Fatso.

And so, I woke up one day. Look at the mirror and said to myself. Hello Beautiful Me. I said it several times to convince myself.

I asked the hub. “Gwapa ko? (Am I beautiful?) ” And he would reply – “of Course, you are very beautiful! “

However, our mirror sees an overweight woman in her 40s. And so I decided, I will have to re-define myself. The Creekside queen in me wants to do a come back.

I picked up a book on yoga. Enrolled in a gymn. I am joining jazz, zumba, hiphop and salsa classes. I am walking more, drinking more water for my skin and most of all I look in the mirror more. I whisper “hello beautiful!”

I am doing this for myself and not for anyone else. I am dancing because I love to dance. I am happiest when I am dancing. When I see myself in the mirror that fills the whole wall, I see me doing this forever.

The only way to be beautiful is to breathe beautiful.

Watch out World! Meet Beautiful Me (ka ubo! ubo ubo ubo…)

Kevin is Roland’s 6:00 pm. He works together with Peter (an NZ soap opera dakilang extra). They are tasked to move Kevin so he does not get bed sores and give him a shower or sponge bath.

Kevin is a giant of a man – an ex rugby player. It takes a lot of muscles to move him about but it is not the pulling and the pushing that is a challenge but rather the mood swings and the grumpiness that his caregivers will have to endure.

One day, he will love you to pieces, even gives you the honor to be the one to clean his dentures. Yes, cleaning his dentures is a task only given to the one he favors. But the next day, he will go totally balistic and if you are not careful, a punch at the waist or the neck or any place his hugeness of an arm lands. While he can only deliver uncoordinated punches, it is the heaviness of his arms that you will have to escape away from. Imagine moving him and restraining his arms at the same time. Good luck to that.

And so he is Caligula to us. The meanest of them all. He is critical to everything you do to him and mumbles words that you can comprehend only to be swear words starting with ‘rubbish’.

Many caregivers (that I have talked to) would hands down agree that it is not the patient that is difficult to work with BUT the family. Kevin lives with his wife which we have given the monicker of ‘Arwana’ the fish. Her eyes are like the arwanas’, gawking at your every move. She is quite haughty and I suppose she is doing this as part of her servitude to the hub.

On a good day, Arwana would cut out old newspaper clippings that showed articles with Kevin on it. Kevin looked really handsome and kind then. Photos of her with her flight attendant friends on tour where the airline tooked them. She was tall, already haughty looking but was always with company. With friends at the park, with family on a boat, with Kevin beside her…

Oh, and she always wore dark macabre outfits. It enhances her fair skin and ivory hair. (very conservative, I reckon)

She fuzzes about how Peter and Roland would put Caligula into a hoist for pulling him up. She follows your footsteps to make sure you have clean feet or socks. Either that or she just loves bossing people around. The work is a challenge with her checking their every move. Yet, Peter and Roland have withstood the longest where others could only handle for a day. They found friendship. Roland helped Peter get the top caregiver award. Peter humors him with his television stints and auditions (“never the lead role, buddy!” that is his line)

As for Caligula and Arwana, oh well, they are just characters in this journey.

Father Mary fills 1 hour of Roland’s Saturdays starting at 8:00 am. I think he is really Murray (it is a common name here) or Mari (as this could be a man’s name) but everyone calls him Mary or at least that is how they pronounce his name. Fr. Mary is 92 years old. He was an Irish soldier at 20 and fought some war. He got his foot endured in battle so he was moved to a farm in Italy where he worked and they made cheese to be sent out to feed the soldiers. It was only at 32 when he found his calling to priesthood. He spent most of his masses at parishes in Australia. He is a Redemptorist priest. He also spent some of his years in Samoa before moving to New Zealand. The Mother of Perpetual Help parish in Glendowie is home to him and his other brothers in Christ. A younger priest takes care of the older priests. On Sundays, they hear the 8:00 am mass at the backside of the pulpit. There are about 6 of them of the same age and is not able to say mass anymore. They are sent via wheelchair to hear mass and brought back to their rooms after receiving communion. Fr. Mary stays in his bed all day. He has a television set in his room and during meal time, the younger priest wheels them to the dinner table where all the priest gather and eats together. They do not have family to visit them. In fact, the parishioners may not have even seen them. Fr Mary is very familiar with the Filipino culture as the Redemptorist have been very active setting us parishes in the Philippines. He knows a lot of Filipino priests and some few ’swear’ words that his friends have taught him. He takes his bath by himself but Roland needs to accompany him because one of the older priest slipped in the bathroom and died. Now, the house rule includes always having someone around when a priest (as old as Fr. Mary) does their bath. Oh yes, it is only on Saturday mornings that he does his shower. On other days, he is given a warm sponge bath by another caregiver.

Fr Mary can’t wait to be called up to heaven. When that day comes, he says he will be very happy to meet Peter at the gates. He can’t wait to be home.

Anna is Roland’s 5pm. She lives in Epsom by herself and she is 95 years old. His grandson visits him daily, joins her for dinner and leaves. He says she is old enough to take care of herself. (grrrh) Indeed! As Anna would always say — “I am not old.” period.

The first day Roland came to her house. Her neighbors came to check on her. Making sure she was safe with this newbie. They watch each others back. Lovely, isn’t it?

Anyway, she is a fit and sane golden girl. She just needs help with the cleaning of her kitchen. She has a huge kitchen after all and you would think she was into parties during her prime. (It will remain a guess).

She fusses a lot about her kitchen. Bones should be wrapped in tissue paper and placed in plastic containers, kept in the refrigerator until it is time to throw the trash. This to keep the trash odorless. (amazing!)

Only 1 drop of liquid soap. One drop per washing. Manual washing is to be done to save on electricity. And she keeps track of her spending too. Smart woman.

You cannot fault her for being super critical. How can one not fall for her ‘Oh, I hope I did not hurt your feelings’ line everytime she starts to lecture.

Roland fits in cooking, cleaning and closing her home in one hour. Roland cooks her soup and making sure that the medicine is dropped in. She takes her prescriptions this way. While having her dinner with his grandson, Roland starts cleaning her oven and keeps a mental list of all her requests or rather demands.  And oh, even the clearing of the table has a set routine.

After dinner, the grandson leaves and Anna (or Nana) goes to her room and Roland completes the kitchen clean up, turns off all the lights and closes the house. The locks are through a series of number codes to close the doors. She is literally locked in her own home.

Another person comes in the morning to open up and clean the house for her. And what does Nana do all day? She watches the news. Walks in her garden, and talks to her friendly neighbors. She refuses to think of her age. She says she will out live her 28 year old grand son. She walks gracefully. She tells Roland that she was a dancer.

She choses topic to talk about but never about her life. The news, yes. The neighbors, yes. The weather, yes. The grand son and the girl friend she never met, yes. But never about how she lived her life.

Only a picture of her children sits by her bed side. Her house is very pretty (clean and in order) but stripped off of things that links to her. A photo album perhaps, photos of her husband perhaps or trinkets that tells a story of her — you will not find there.

Maybe that is the secret to her life. To never hold on to things and people. Or keep memories. (I will just have to pressume)

For what we know is only that she was a dancer and that the kitchen is her sanctuary.

And oh how she loves Roland’s bisaya soup. The version Roland made for her made her sweat. =)

Frank is Roland’s 4pm. The couple live in Meadowbank near Mt. Carmel church. They have a lovely 2 story home and Frank spends long hours in his study slash garage downstairs while Crissy (his wife) does the grocery, cleaning up, cooking and moving about. Frank has alzheimers (or dementia). He only remembers summers he spends in his hometown 6 hours away from Auckland. He keeps on repeating memories with his mum by the sea, fishing with his brothers and takes very long hours in the toilet getting lost in his memories of youth. He loves watching ‘Who wants to be a millionaire.’ When he takes too much time in the loo, Roland would put the volume of the TV up so he can hear the ticking of the tv show’s timer for contestants to answer the questions. This always works. Frank immediately moves into the lounge to watch his favorite show. The couple have 2 children. One lives in Melbourne and the other in Wellington. They have been together by themselves for more than 20 years since the children have left home. Frank’s brother also has dementia and is taken cared of by the wife.

One day, Crissy have decided to put Frank in a home. A retirement home. It was heartbreaking for her. She called this – “the beginning of the end”.But she can’t take care of Frank no more. He has started to be stubborn like a 4 year old. He takes longer hours by himself as if in another world. She can’t leave the house knowing Frank will be all by himself. She tried so hard to be in his new world but she is a stranger.

It was heartbreaking. Roland was there when she told Frank he had to go to another home.

Frank loves history. He loves to listen to Lapulapu & Magellan’s story (Roland’s version). Never mind that Roland repeats the same story. He listens to it with excitement as if it was the first time he hears it each time.

On weekends, Roland picks up Crissy from their home and they drive together to the rest home which is a few blocks from his Meadowbank home. Crissy always brings food along and looks forward to feeding Frank.

 There are Filipina nurses in this facility. Frank has all their attention. He has introduced Roland to them as his son.

One hour filled with story telling, foot massages and feeding. Dinner time at the facility is at 5:00. Frank tells Crissy she has to leave. Some days, he does not recognize her. Some days, he says he misses his wife. But most days, it is summer at his beach home with his mum and brothers.

I have yet to meet Frank and Crissy. Their story comes alive at our dinner table. I’m sure if I meet Crissy, I would give her a tight hug. I heart her strenght and I am sure Frank had been a good man for her to care for him up to this day.