15 February 2008

This morning I woke up before 5 a.m. Yesterday, much as I wanted to, I was unable to hear mass. I don't like leaving the house before my husband and son leave for school, which would be inevitable if I hear mass at 6:30 a.m. on a school day. Because then I'd see them only late in the afternoon, earliest or at 7 or after. In the evening I couldn't hear mass either as my son requested us to watch Sinta (in fact, he sold us tickets) because last night's show would have Maita, whom he considers the best Sinta so far, and Joseph, a very good Narding and my son's friend. One of the tatays was my husband's student in Grade 7. He's now one of the managers in a multinational company. The other tatay is taking up medicine. And Redentor was Mel Garrido aka Bill Cosme. It was the nth time I watched Sinta and so I knew the story very well. This made me decide to focus on the music rather than the acting. In particular, I watched my son and his reactions to what was happening on stage as it was he who led the orchestra. Poise my son is not conscious nor concerned about. He is so spontaneous he laughs when a scene is funny. Lucky for him he doesn't miss the cues or else there would be hell to pay.

After the show and after speaking to a few parents of the performers and some of the performers themselves, my husband and I drove off to our Valentine's dinner. Earlier in the day he had said we could go to a hotel but after the show, he didn't seem inclined to drive farther than Katipunan. So off to Teriyaki Boy. Hardly a venue for a Valentine dinner -- it was hardly decorated but for a few heart-shaped advertisements. Even Shakey's in our area no longer carries the heart-shaped pizzas on Valentine's. What gives? Has the commercial crap finally settled on more people's consciousness? A survey on QTV for instance revealed that 45 percent believe Valentine's should be celebrated, while 55 percent said no need. Anyway, when we reached Teriyaki Boy whom should we see but a family of three-- my sister's neighbor: husband, wife and daughter. I guess that too was their Valentine's dinner as they had just picked up their daughter from training. It felt good to see families rather than just couples celebrate Valentine's together.

Back to this morning... At around 6 I decided I would hear mass, so I called the maid to dress me up. She took forever and was scowling, but I wasn't too worried because even if she is called to do something for me at later hours, she has the same dour look. She took her time dressing me up even as she knew what time the mass would start and had the gall to say when we reached the church "nag start na ang misa." I wanted to ask, did you expect the priest to wait for us? Still the walk to church had been very restful. The sun was not blatantly out. The skies were gray and it looked like it would rain except that there were no clouds. I glanced at the neighborhood termagant's store but the wooden sheets behind the grills were still up. Apparently she hadn't opened her store yet nor smoked her first cigarette.

In church I saw mostly women but there were couples around and unaccompanied men. No children in sight, I guess because of classes. Oh, you might wonder, why was I able to hear mass on a weekday? Had I violated my own policy of not leaving my husband and son behind?

Husband had no work today, while my son's class was set to begin at 11:30 a.m. So there.

After mass, armed with a P100 bill which I deliberately brought with the intention of buying fruits, I saw a biker with a glass box of baked goods. Julie's the signage read. The pan de sal looked enticing as did the cheese roll, the Japanese pie, hopia and another slice that looked like it had the same filling as hopia. I chose a few of each and was billed P48. (Later when I computed at home, I ended up with a total of P39. I had been gypped. anyway...) Then I proceeded to the fruit carts. There were a lot of old women there and one glanced at me. She had a red umbrella and as she approached me she said, "o". By the grace of God (I always forget her face, see?) it occurred to me that she was the mom of a friend from college and luckily I was correct. She was stuffing lots of mangoes into her plastic bag and ended up with three kilos. I chose a bunch of anorexic looking latundan bananas and asked how much the star apple cost. P60, the man said. I got one though I would have wanted to get more. Why? Because remember I only had P52 left, and my friend's mom was around. She saw me quietly sitting and asked, "Pumili ka na." I said "I'm just waiting for my change." The bananas and one star apple cost P25. whew. The man didn't weigh the star apple after disgustedly asking the maid, "isa lang?" He then said, "P10". He took a long time to give the P25 change saying he had only P20. But we refused to leave so he asked the other fellow selling fruits for change. I notice how this practice is often subscribed to by sellers, I guess, in the hope that their clients would be too impatient to wait.

With just P27 left, I didn't have enough for the two newspapers I wanted to buy: Philippine Star and Inquirer. We had to go back to the house to get change for the two dailies.

Why did I title this blog entry thus? I guess because I'm expecting something to happen later? I prayed for the country at mass today. Beware the Ides of March is a well known adage. But why is it that in the Philippines February is more like the month of which we need to be wary?