Sunday night making yema

As I stirred the condensed milk in a pan late Sunday night, I was reminded of the days when I used to make yema after I’ve finished my homework when I was in high school decades ago.

I used to make yema, a homemade candy, which basically is made by reducing a condensed milk, mixed with some nuts and then wrapped in cellophane.

To augment my allowance when I was in Grade 8 I made yema and sell them during break at school.

I even had some girls selling them for me and I gave them a share for their trouble.

I didn’t lack the basic essential necessity growing up, but I knew there was no extra cash for other things, such as going to school trips, boy scout camping and other extra-curricular activities.

Unlike in North America, teenagers in the Philippines were not expected to have a job after school. Nobody hired someone who didn’t have work experience, but how a teenager like me would have the experience if no one would venture in providing them work.

I had no other source of allowance but my parents.

So to increase whatever it my mom gave me, I ventured into starting a small business of my own.

At times my dad would reprimand me for staying up late at night making yema.

He questioned why I had to earn extra cash. 

I didn’t say that what my mom give me wasn’t enough. It was enough to buy snacks, but that was all I could buy.

I didn’t have it that bad, because other students didn’t have money to buy snack. Their parents send them to a private school and that was enough. That should have been enough for me as well, but it wasn’t.

If I wanted to buy a nice stationery to write letters to friends I met at other schools, I would have to forego having a snack for two consecutive days.

I wanted little pleasures like being able to treat myself to a movie once in a while or buy pop instead of heavily diluted pineapple juice.

I thought of making yema Sunday night not because I needed to augment my earnings.

Christmas is coming again and my partner and I were planning our annual baking. We usually send my godson and goddaughter and their siblings boxes of cookies at Christmas.

Next week, it’ll be December.

A few more days and we’ll be inundated with the chores of preparing presents, shopping and wrapping them.

I have not made yema for a long time. I thought it will be a different treat this year.

Boyd is trying to perfect his biscotti and I think every batch he made is getting better and better.

I do believe in spending time making something to share with friends, although I know others prefer to receive items purchased from specialty shops.

With most people’s bottom line still beset by the financial times, including us, I think our kitchen will be very busy this year.

It may sound so overly romanticized, but I still think it’s the thought that counts most in giving.

As I cleaned up the kitchen before going to bed, I noticed my melon gear sitting atop a portable convection oven, dried up, lifeless, as news of Roughriders losing to Alouettes dominated the headlines.

Saturday’s self-frustration

I haven’t read The Bishop’s Man by Linden MacIntyre but I heard the award-winning author being interviewed in a CBC radio program Saturday.

I couldn’t help but feel a little bit sad, glad and mad at the same time.

I’m glad Linden wrote this fiction. 

I’m sad I’ve been too slow writing my memoir.

I’m mad now that I feel my story is not unique.

It saddens me that years are passing by and I’m still yet to finish the first draft of my memoir. I guess that’s part of what happens when you’ve told many people you’re writing a memoir. You end up talking more about writing it than actually stringing words that will take you to the finish line.

I haven’t touched my manuscript in more than a year now. And I’m afraid the next time I do, its focus will shift once again and take me back to the start.

I think I am more ambitious than I have the talent to actually produce another book. 

But that’s how everything starts. A writer has to start somewhere, has to have an inspiration that catapults him or her to the intense writing process.

What inspires me is the conviction that I have a story to tell, that my story is needed to be told and that it’s needed to be heard.

I guess where I’ve failed so far is my inability to actually find for my own self-direction and find out who is the reader of this book, who needs to be told about this tale and why it’s important to this unfound reader.

Linden described how he and his family are part of the story of this community where the novel takes place.

Although I don’t claim to be part of the church these days because I have purposely alienated myself from it, I was thankful that it was him who wrote the story.

I was glad that it wasn’t somebody who is an outsider and don’t really understand the nuisances of being a Catholic.

I haven’t read his book, but given that he’s a journalist, I do expect that he’ll be fair, honest and enterprising with the way he tells the story. And although he belongs to the Catholic community I do hope that he’s much more objective and his vista is unobstructed by personal issues.

I guess that’s the main problem why I haven’t progressed with my own book.

My vista has been obstructed by personal issues against the church and the more pragmatic Renato is totally engulfed by them.

Maybe, it’s not yet time.

Maybe, thing aren’t yet ripe.

Maybe, I haven’t distanced myself far enough to the events to be able to scrutinize them with a more objective and less emotional optics.

I’m sure, one day it will come.

For now, I will try and enjoy Linden’s book.

Nov. 28, 2009

Rewarding but snowy Friday

The tires of my 2002 Toyota Corolla were chattering as they tried to climb a small hilly road Friday afternoon. 

Calgary got a good dump of snow, and as the temperature dropped to about -10 C, many roads became exceedingly treacherous to drive.

“Hey, can you make me a drink, a fruity one but alcoholic,” I told my partner over the phone as I neared our house.

“I’m just six blocks away but I think it’ll be another 15 minutes.

That was after 1.5 hours of agonizing drive to home that, that usually takes about 14 minutes.

I thought for sure, I’m going to have to call my insurance after my car skidded and almost smashed into another car and a truck behind me.

Winter is back and I’m kind of glad. I missed it.

But I was caught off guard, because I was wearing runners.

Green runners.

Yeah, I’m still in that bleeding green mood.

In fact, I’m liking it.

It’s got to do more with the fact that people at work and people I saw today while I was at press conferences, indicated to me that they actually watched the Adventures video on the melon gear.

“Nice one on the melon gear,” said a CBC reporter, who ones told me while doing a stand up in a Crime Stopper re-enactment not to use the word homicide, instead say murder.

“But you got it wrong. Did you get a thousand e-mail saying you got it wrong?” he said.

“What did I get wrong?” I asked.

“You should have the inside of the melon gear lined with foil so you don’t get soaked by the juice,” he explained.

“I see. But that’s no fun. It’s more visually entertaining to show how I got drenched by the watermelon juice,” I said laughing.

“Fair enough. I guess that made the video more fun,” he said. “Is that your permanent gig now?”

Most of the videos he’s seen of me, are the Adventures. 

I told him I’m a city hall reporter, but I also do these videos once a week.

It feels good that other journalists actually follow my work, even if they’re not the ordinary serious type of journalism.

Every week, my fellow city hall reporters ask me what video is coming up on Friday. 

Even the mayor noticed the videos and while talking with him on Thursday he said, “You must be getting paid more for doing these videos.”

It would be nice if that’s the case, but not everything is about the dough.

A pat in the back and appreciation can sometimes make up for that.

Plus the fact that I’m still working in this industry and hasn’t been forced out, is a reward in itself – at least for the time being.

The Thursday I became a melon head

As the red flesh and sweet juice of a watermelon get dumped on a kitchen sink, my frustration the previous day with them Thursday morning.

I finally found a true-blue or should I say, true-green Rider fan who showed me principles in carving a watermelon headgear.

He told me how the iconic fruit became a symbol of the Riderville.

It’s all about some fans who wanted to be creative in showing their support to the Saskatchewan pride.

It was quite a laborious feat, but to those dedicated to the game, it’s nothing but fun stuff.

I learned that you’ve got to prepare the gear days in advance.

It involved not just carving the fruit and designing it.

You’ve got to let it dry, or else your hair is going to be soaking wet and sticky.

I didn’t have the luxury of time. The video had to be done, because it has to run Friday morning, which means that my editor has to have the footage today.

And since our photo department has been bust with everything Grey Cup related, I was trying not to become an added burden. I was attempting to shoot the video myself.

The problem was my melon gear tutor was a “giant.” 

Well, not exactly. But I was about half his size, so framing both him and I on video camera was required some cinematic skills, I currently don’t have.

I put the camera on a tripod, kind of towering both of us.

It didn’t work. All I could see was my thinning hair.

I had to call for help, from the lone photographer left at the desk.

He was glad to oblige.

I actually feel bad that I didn’t alert the photo department well in advance. Reads two hours earlier.

Like I said I tried to spare them the time of having to help me on something that I was trained to do.

However, there’s only so much one can do, especially if the person is vertically challenged, just like me.

The video shoot was done, I had my melon gear, and I became a pseudo-Rider fan.
On to my regular gig. 

I had to interview the mayor about a motion he is putting forward for the next council meeting.

I dashed off to the city hall and worked on a couple of stories.

Then, I got a message from my boss, asking if I were returning to the newsroom.

“They want to take your picture with your melon gear,” he said.

“And also, can you write me a 60-line first person column on your journey to becoming a melon head.? We’ll use it as a through to your video.”

Hey, who am I to turn that down.

I always find joy writing first person pieces. 

It gives me the avenue to actually say what’s in my head, which I can’t do when writing news.

I hope you’re able to get a copy of the Calgary Sun with my silly photo on page 3 and the first person piece I wrote about what it’s like being a melon head.

Nov. 26, 2009

A fan of no one on Wednesday

For hours I appealed to Roughriders fans in Calgary to help me make my melon headgear.

No taker.

That’s how I spent my whole day. Or maybe wasted is a more appropriate term.

I was led to believe I won’t have difficulty finding these fans because after all they’re here to boost their team’s morale heading into the football finals.

They’re supposed to be a dozen a dime, prowling Stephen Ave. signalling to start the festivities.

Well the festival hasn’t really started and all those supposedly booths that will save my behind, and provide the much needed Rider’s fans, weren’t there yet.

There were some all greened up fans walking around, but they’re willing to go in front of a camera and help me make my melon gear.

Why do they wear this juicy fruit again?

I talked to a fan from Regina. She’s supposed to know why and give me the history. She didn’t know shit. All she did was yap about her team.

I was in panic mode by 11:30 a.m. because I relied to the festival starting Wednesday and it really didn’t. The Grey Cup came, but not a whole lot of Rider’s fans.

I called up Calgary’s Saskatchewan pub.

The ladies I spoke with sounded nice enough and one of them, I think the manager, promised to call me back with a name and number of a raging fan within the next 15 minutes.

The 15 minutes became 30, then an hour, then two.

I called back.

She has left and didn’t leave any message for me. She has no obligation to call me back. It’s just polite to do so when you promised someone. I shouldn’t be judgemental. She might have gotten in an accident trying to move a truckload of watermelon.

But hey, she also doesn’t have an obligation to be polite to anyone, much more to a reporter who wants to be a pseudo-Rider fan.

Why the heck am I trying to be one?

Because I thought it would be fun. And also, I didn’t have a choice because neither of the two Alberta teams were good enough this year to be bearing the western flag to the finals.

While I’m waiting for that phone call from the pub manager, I strolled along Stephen Avenue, again hoping someone would be crazy enough to join me in making my melon gear on camera.

It’s already 4:20 p.m., my melon was still intact. Untouched. Unsculpted. UnRidered.

I even appealed to my Facebook friends, not that I have thousands.

But no taker as well.

Perhaps, it’s not worth it.

I think I’d remain a fan of no one.

Tuesday’s watermelon search

The middle-aged woman shopping at Sobeys in northeast Calgary Tuesday night couldn’t help but laughed and asked, “Does it fit?”

I met her jolly comment with a laugh.

“I will find out tomorrow, but I think it will,” I said giggling, as I surveyed the fruit section if somebody else noticed how I was comparing the large watermelon to my head size.

It took four trips to four different Coops, two Safeways, one Superstore and one Sobeys to find this seemingly rare commodity.

I was getting concerned I won’t find one for my video shoot tomorrow.

The big day is getting near and many football fans in Calgary, especially those from Saskatchewan are really getting pumped.

It’s the Grey Cup party or better still Canada’s Game, Calgary’s Party.

You should see how Stephen Avenue Mall is now decked for the coming revelry.

But I have no idea why Roughriders fans wear the thing, and I will be doing a video tomorrow, attempting to find out the history of watermelon headgear.

This is really my post-budget adventures.

I haven’t even started the shoot, but already one of my colleagues told me it’s a shame for an Albertan to be cheering for the nemesis.

That’s a given I suppose after the Riders beat the Stamps in the western finals.

However, he also thinks the project could be a good one.

I mean, seriously, watermelon for a headgear?

What botanical planet do they come from?

I guess, it’s a subculture on its own.

I have many friends from Saskatchewan. In fact some of them were among the first great folks I met when I first moved to Edmonton in 1998. 

I have nothing bad to say about Saskatchewanians, except a couple of them broke my heart. That’s another tale for another day.

Still I don’t get how football revellers use such sweet and juicy fruit for a headgear.

It’s part of the fun I guess.

Tune in tomorrow as I try to recall my experience of being a pseudo-Rider fan.

Nov. 24, 2009

The Monday last batch of tomatoes got consumed

My partner told me over dinner Monday night, a late one, that we’re having the last tomatoes from his summer garden.

I wanted to cry.

Not because we now have to buy tomatoes following the abundant harvest, but because I really didn’t have the appetite to appreciate the dinner he made.

Aside from the salad with the aforementioned tomatoes, he made a pasta dish with some aged, smoked chorizos we bought from the farmer’s market on Sunday.

It look appetizing and delectable, but I was bone tired following a marathon council budget deliberation that began at 9:30 a.m. and lasted till 9 p.m. with meal breaks.

It wasn’t the most complicated meeting I’ve ever attended. I’ve sat though days of oilsands regulatory hearings in Fort McMurray and Edmonton and a travelling provincial oilsands consultation, and I managed to absorbed information and spit it back in a more understandable fashion for our readers.

But when you’re listening, taking notes and trying to find the real story from a whole bunch of potential ones and there’s a looming deadline, almost all of your energies get used up and you’d have nothing left at the end of the day.

I wanted to cry because I failed to appreciate the fact that my partner didn’t have dinner, waited for me to finish work and then prepared the food for us to share.

“You didn’t like the pasta,” he asked me when he noticed that I only put a couple of spoonfuls on my plate.

“My stomach has high acid content right now, I can feel it,” was all I said.

He understands. 

He always does.

After we had our food, he asked me, “What do you want to do now?”

It’s always been me who asked that question after we had dinner and I know there’s still time to do something like go to a movie, a walk or visit his niece and nephew before they head to bed.

I didn’t know what to tell him either, what I wanted to do, after he fed me.

We didn’t do much, just tried to wind down from a crazy day, that I believe won’t be repeated tomorrow.

And so the thoughts of what if we had kids came to mind.

I’d be a bad parent.

I wouldn’t have time to tuck them in every night because I’m too engrossed with my work and all I can think of is what’s the next story for tomorrow – which by the way if you’re reading this and something city-related came across your mind, don’t hesitate to pitch to me. 

Work is all I think about, partly because I’m ambitious to get better at what I do. 

And although occasionally I have time to reflect about what to do with several baskets of tomatoes, I could also care less if rotten potatoes are residing in my fridge for a couple of months.

So do you have any video suggestion for me?

I’m sorry I think I should stop thinking about work and go to bed.

Nov. 23, 2009

Sunday memories of Christmas lights past

If we were following the Christian calendar for the Christmas season, it would be too early to put up anything Christmassy, including the bright lights.

But we’re not and I’m not making any apology for that.

Yes, my partner put up the Christmas lights Sunday afternoon at Elliot’s front porch.

They’re shining below the porch ceiling.

I was actually teasing him with the way he designed the lights.

“Hmm, I wasn’t sure it’s the way you described to me how you’re going to put them up,” I told him.

“That’s exactly how I told you the lights are going to be up,” he said.

“Well, you should have just told me that you want to design a look resembling a cheap bar’s entrance,” I said.

It wasn’t that bad. I was just being a pain.

I love Christmas lights. They are one of those things that my family couldn’t afford when we were little. They were a luxury sitting at the bottom of priority lists, next to Christmas tree.

Not that they were extremely expensive. But they were non-essential.

So as a kid, I got used to admiring the neighbour’s Christmas lights.

One Christmas my parents decided to give my sister and I a treat: a trip to Manila’s COD department store where there was a Christmas scene display.

The whole nativity scene was depicted outside the mall’s massive wall. Everyone was ohing and ahing at the mobile figures of the scene. The shepherds and sheep were shown travelling to the manger, as well as the three wise men.

I didn’t care about the mobile figures. 

I loved the lights and the popcorn my dad bought for me.

The twinkling red, green, yellow and blue lights looked like celestial creatures before my innocent eyes.

They were all I could think of that night.

Since then, I’ve been to different places sacred and not-so sacred, with similar lights and I know they weren’t celestial.

I still admire them, especially this time of the year when the ground is covered in snow and some hang on tree branches with the lights.

It seems magical to be driving down a snow-dusted road with lights glistening on all of the houses. 

It makes the world seem a little bit brighter and it tends to bring people a little more in harmony with each other. 

Perhaps, I’m just imaging all these, can someone illuminate me please.

Saturday wrinkles

The remaining sleepiness in my head was shaken when I faced the mirror Saturday morning.

I have eye bags and there are some wrinkles around them too.

For the first times in many years I feel my mortality became a threat. I felt I was getting old and it’s beginning to show on my face.

I have been going to bed late the past week and getting up early in the morning. My body’s requirement for sufficient hours of sleep was not being met and the results were beginning to show.

I know I’m not getting any younger and the inevitable reality of aging seems to threaten me for the first time.

When I was a young kid, I was impatient with myself. I wanted to grow up fast so I could do what adults were doing. One of them was staying up as late as I pleased and as my body would allow me to do.

I did that in my early 20s.

In fact, I once stayed up for 72 hours, literally not a bit of sleep. I fuelled my self-induced insomnia with instant coffee and cigarettes.

I was writing with a friend a collection of poems that we were going to enter in an annual literary competition in the Philippines.

Part of what we were writing was about insomnia itself.

So, we thought what better way to find the imagery, symbolism and cadence of phrases but by walking into the realm of such experience.

After three days with no sleep, my body gave up and I went to sleep for the next two days with no interruption.

I’m in my late 30s and nearing 40. I’m no longer capable doing what I used to in terms of being a night owl.

My body begins to show the repercussions of the abuse it has endured over the years.

My vision is no longer 20-20 all the time.

There are times that I could barely see images ten feet away from where I’m standing.

I know there’s a solution for that. 

Seriously, though. I’m just saying. 

Is it time for botox?

Nov. 21, 2009

Remembering my Wednesday’s forgetfulness on a Friday

I have a brother. 

That’s not news. He was born when I was 16 years old. 

I forgot his birthday last Wednesday and only remembered it Friday.

I guess that’s what happens when they’re out sight, they’re out of mind, which is sad in a way.

I wish have a larger brain, so I’ll remember everything that’s important, like birthdays of my siblings. 

My brother rarely shows up in one of my notes. We rarely talk, but I wish we do more often. I get nervous whenever one of my sisters passes the phone to him when I call home. I don’t know what kind of conversation I should have with him.

The age gap doesn’t help, but the fact the he grew up without me at home makes it worse.

I don’t know him that well and he doesn’t know me either.

More than a year after he was born I moved out to go to college. I’d see him at least every other month when I had a weekend off from the seminary. But that wasn’t enough to nurture a relationship and get to know each other.

When he was a teenager, I left the country, which made the chance of establishing a meaningful relationship with my brother became more difficult but not impossible.

There are so many things I don’t know about him and vice-versa.

We attempted to bond the first time I went home to the Philippines after being away for a decade. We went out for a beer, just the two of us. 

He attempted to confide to me girlfriends problems, although he knew that’s one of our dissimilarity.

I listened to him, I thought that was all he needed. I was right. He stopped moping the next few days after he’s told someone from his family about his woes. He usually talks to my sisters about his girlfriend, but he didn’t have any male figure to talk to.

He wasn’t close to my dad, just as I wasn’t.

My sister told me one time that my brother wished he had a different family, maybe he’d be happier.

My dad was hurt when he learned about this.

I wasn’t. 

I understood where he was coming from, because at some point in time I too wished that I had a different family, one that fits my personal requirements.

That’s not how it works. No one can choose which family to belong. You just do and sometimes you may decide to sever that belongingness, but that’s a different story and sometimes a sad one.

My brother is now all grown. He’s 22 years old. He’s trying to become a man of his own.

He told me last time we talked – that was three weeks ago by the way – he’s leaving the country as well. At least temporarily. He wants to make some money abroad and go back to the Philippines start his own family.

I’m proud of him because at his age he knows what he wants. When I was his age, I was confused, wavering about what I wanted in life.

Heck, at 27 I left my home country to find myself.

There’ll be more years to come, perhaps my disability to remember families’ birthdays would have been cured by then.