Birthday Call To Mom – 2011 Edition

Last week, I made my annual birthday call to my mom in the Philippines. I used to call her on my cellphone but this time I bought some international minutes from MagicJack and used internet telephony instead. I wanted to find out the difference in clarity between the two.

My timing was perfect because she just got back home from church. Mama said she received the birthday card and money I sent several weeks ago and thanked me for it. Whew! I’m glad that arrived safely. LBC has delivered once again. Mom reminded me that it was her 80^th birthday and was thankful for reaching that age. She had planned on buying her friends dinner at Palmeras Restaurant as a sort of thanksgiving for becoming an Octogenarian. So we got to talking and she mentioned that she and three of her friends visited Camiguin Island in August. Imagine that! I was happy to hear that despite the pain in her knees, she was still able to travel a little bit. I asked her if she was able to attend the recent Notre Dame grand reunion. Unfortunately she missed it because nobody informed her. I’m sure the reason for the most part is the lack of electronic social networking for the older folks. So I told her about my own electronic social networking with my former high school classmates. Of course I brought up the topic of Nangka-Nangka, tamarung, and durian. Mom confirmed that tamarung was a throwaway fish that nobody bought, but since President Cory Aquino pushed for developing that industry during her term, the fish became more popular and has gone up in price since then. Other than Nangka-Nangka, mom said there were also tamarungs plying their trade a few houses behind ours and when I was a little boy, I yelled “tamarung!” at some of them because I didn’t know any better what that meant then. Wow! That’s something I don’t even remember.

                Turning to the topic of durian, I told her that I had tasted durian again after about three decades. She said one our family friends has three durian trees and they bring her some from time to time when the fruit is in season. Dang! My mom eats better durian, goes on a vacation, and buys her friends dinner at one of the better restaurants in the city! She’s doing much better than I am, LOL!

                Anyway, we talked so much that my mom’s throat got so dry that she started coughing. This was after all the longest we’ve talked on the phone. We usually only talk for about half an hour to 45 minutes and this lasted an hour and 20 minutes. Maybe because we had more interesting topics to talk about. Before we said our goodbyes, I asked her how the call sounded and she said it was crystal clear with no lag or choppiness, in contrast to our previous chats. I’m sure this was all due to my faster internet connection. Although we could have talked more, she had to rest her itchy throat and prepare for the day ahead to celebrate her eighth decade on earth with her friends. Happy birthday again Mama, with much love <B

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Last Week's Sights and Sounds in Life

October 17^th to 23^rd, 2010

When I got home from work last week, I saw a man who was using one of those motorized scooter wheelchairs and he was dumpster diving. How physically disabled can he be when he can climb up, bend and reach over a dumpster to look for recyclable cans?

I called my mom on her birthday last week and it just occurred to me afterwards that we communicated mostly in Tagalog. Well, I grew up speaking Tagalog at home instead of our native Tausug dialect, that’s why. My mom was chattier than usual and we talked for more than an hour.

I must be getting old. I can’t understand text messages anymore especially the ones from the Philippines which come with a mix of English, Tagalog, and a slew of other dialects. And in shorthand to boot.

What feels good to me nowadays? When you can no longer take things for granted, you appreciate them more when you can have or do them. That’s why I savor every run I can do these days. Unfortunately I don’t have a Long Beach Marathon story to tell this year because I didn’t participate in it. As I mentioned previously, this was the first time I missed the race since 1999 so I can’t say that I partied like its 1999.

Yay! I got all my rewards for this year from Healthyroads.com for doing something I already do every day - exercising. A pedometer and weight training stretch band for signing up, a water bottle after working out for 12 days, a workout towel after 36 days, and lastly for this year, a t-shirt for finishing 72 workouts. The website doesn’t say if they are going to have another cycle of rewards next year.

After watching a movie with a convertible in it, I remembered that I used to drive one - a Volkswagen Rabbit Cabriolet which I had from 1984 to 1998. I remember driving on the freeway in downtown L.A. during the Olympics with my stereo blasting Olympics music from that year. The car was finally donated to charity in 2000 and I saw it one day on the 710 freeway. I thought it looked familiar and when I saw the license plate, it confirmed my sighting that it was indeed my old car.

                Last Friday morning I wasn’t in a Spinning class and I had no Spinning DVD. What I did was a self-propelled workout on the spinning bike consisting of a 10 minute warm up, then 40 minutes of 1 minute pickups, stand ups, and recoveries, plus a 5 minute cool down to finish. It’s a workout I used to do on the turbo trainer a long time ago. It helps to break it down to 1 minute segments of variable intensities.

Regarding recently fired Juan Williams’ comment about him getting nervous when he sees people wearing Muslim dress on planes, did he really think that suicide bombers would wear something so conspicuous as to potentially arouse suspicion, not to mention racial profiling? I would think a suicide bomber would dress so he/she would blend in with the crowd.

On my way home from work Sunday morning (please forgive me, this was the 24^th of October), I stopped by a gas station to buy my lotto ticket for the coming week. As I stepped out of the store, I espied a woman in a very short dress with nice long legs just outside the door. With a quick glance, I noticed the sharp features of the “woman” and it turned out that it was a man in drag. As I drove away I saw him “fixing” himself, you know, rearranging whatever he had stuffed in the chest area and also readjusting whatever he was hiding in his nether regions. It was indeed a bit of a shock to see a transvestite so early in the morning. 

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