Meet the Fockers

Its hard to come up with christmas gift suggestions, especially when its from one company to the other, and because of the december rush last most, most christmas gifts coming for our business wont come in til the first week of january. I was in manila the first working week of the year, and it all started with this guy johnny who now ran their company after his brother got shot at gunpoint last month (he survived though). It was the first time I met this johnny guy and he was as hell friendly and he had a better set of teeth from his brother whom had his eroded from smoking too much nicotine. For a starter, johnny gave me a box of canned porridge with mixed tubers for christmas, I didn't know where he came up with that gift though I never tried them anyway. His gift was heavy and I carried the goddam thing around as I met other associates and hell it gave everybody the idea that I liked cold canned porridge, and days after that back home I started receiving from our cargo crates of assorted canned beverage from those associates who that day were all thinking I was like the father bear from goldilocks who loved his porridge cold, everything was canned but they weren’t all porridge though. Remind me next year january I’ll be carrying a beer six pack around when meeting those people again.

I was planning to go back home thursday but I changed it to a friday because my parents are coming to manila on thursday, and I thought of taking them to dinner with this girl I had my eyes on for a year. That night I was to meet up my parents at rockwell center while I picked carelle up, it was the only place that came to my mind that was close to both her place and my parent’s hotel. Elle came home from work almost 8:30, I was telling her the night before to wear for dinner this green blouse I got for her some months back that had this little green rose on her right chest, she looked pretty on it but she told me she had already worn it, that night she was still wearing green anyway. I was kind of stiff when I introduced her, and hell I was still stiff into dinner, elle was doing most of the talking and my parents were asking us lousy one-liners like how did we both meet and they would just stop the conversation right there after they got the answers. One of the more stupid remarks I made over dinner was that the chicken on my plate tasted like fish, I was only having potatoes, corn and diced carrots before that because they were easier to swallow whole, my mother had some of my chicken and said it did taste like it got frozen after it was cooked, elle then just had to share me her chicken and she had to whisper almost in laughter

“you just couldn’t think of anything better to say”

My parents went back to their hotel after dinner, they were heading to cebu in the next few days to see this summit of pacific nations thing, me and elle walked for a while then caught a cab and I took her home. I checked out from my hotel earlier because I was going to sleep over at my parent’s hotel tonight which was almost four grand a night, I was going to sleep at the floor anyway yet the floor will feel expensive too. I got there at almost 11:30, my old man was still up watching the fashion channel, I took off my shirt and went straight to the bathroom to wash my face and placed on a new plain shirt and told my father I was going down to the lobby for a while, then he said

“NO, no more beers for tonight”

Smoked Statue

I flew back to manila yesterday morning, I just planned to go back just the day before at 3 in the afternoon. The early monday flight was full but my old man booked me a seat for that flight and I got the first seat in the plane -1A, and it made me feel so goddam important, like if the plane crashed and they made a body count of the dead passengers, my name would come out first. And I was facing the seats of the stewardess too, there was this stewardess who was sort of pretty but I don’t feel like staring at somebody pretty head on, I had to lean my head sideways and stare into the window as if the stupid clouds outside were more interesting to watch, and sometimes I browsed the inflight magazine over and over when watching too much cumulus became too blinding. It was the first monday of the year and I could smell panic from the passengers at the airport when I landed, the line to the taxi stand was hell long and it took me almost half an hour to wait for my turn to grab a cab and I ended up with a driver who was new in driving around manila, I had to give him directions to m hotel and keep an eye on the road else we’d be driving in circles. I was tired though, hadn’t had much sleep the past three nights, slept from 2pm thereon.

I had some people to meet for work today but I took the time off high noon to see this religious tour de force up close which was going on some two districts away from my hotel. This celebration is called the feast of the black nazarene and is in honor of this wooden statue of christ struggling his way on the road to calvary, legend has it that this statue a long time ago survived a fire that burned the church upon where it was kept, the church was left in ruins by the fire but the statue was still in one piece, except that it was smoked to a darker complexion, kind of like somebody having fifth degree sunburns, or perhaps christ having empathy to the skin tone of the indigenous people in this country. Anyway the black nazarene celebration falls in this day in january, and incidentally too it lived to see its holiday for the 400th time, it was far from being the hajj but the wave of pilgrims flocking to the black nazarene was another demonstration of the power of religion, pilgrims by the thousands, notwithstanding the crowd, sweat, old age and certain stampede, were surging to the church to make contact with the statue, perhaps with hopes of achieving the same fireproof-ness should they go to hell soon. One of the unusual traditions from the black nazarene statue is pilgrims taking home a piece of its divinity, pilgrims throw away white towels unto the sentries guarding the statue and they wipe these towel about the statue’s face and throw it back to the pilgrims with this myth that these towels are now of miraculous value.

I got to the place and I just stood a good distance from the crowd since I was only there to see the force of faith from as close as I can get anyway. I got there on foot with a maroon shirt and pants, plus my scarf and 200 bucks in my pocket should I go hungry, I left my mobile phones, watch, wallet and anything else expensive in me, though I knew I was going to religious event I have to doubt the morality and values of these people around the place. There was a replica of the smoked statue being carried around which I chanced upon a few blocks away from the church, it had less pilgrims crowdind upon its feet since it was just a replica, though they too threw away their towels to be wiped on the statue's face since they think it will probably do their towels miracle anyway, and since it was just on my path, I threw away my blue grey scarf into the statue and the sentry wiped it to the statue's face and threw it back to me.

Place this scarf on my head the morning after and it will probably take the hangover away.

2007

Before it was just gardens

now guess what's hanging at babylon?

The iraqi fate hangs in balance