Bisdak Babbles

It’s still August and yet my mind is full with Christmas thoughts. It’s too soon to think about Christmas but not for me, and I guess for many OFWs like me. I have already booked my tickets two months ago. How I wish I could start my Christmas shopping soon but that would be impossible. Well, the most important thing is, I’ll be spending it again with my family in the Philippines. I’m looking forward to a three-week vacation, this means no more leaves for me before December.

With that, I already have one major project in mind: turning one of the spaces at home into a playroom/study room for the two cute little angels (my daughter and my niece). I just hope I could find discount laminate flooring in our small city. Children’s table and chairs would be hard to find, too. There are lots of good ones here in Singapore but the shipment would cost more. Back to the real world, I seriously need to keep my excitement down because now, the days seem to pass soooo slow.

Just one of my countless delayed posts. Just like every visitor here in Singapore, I took Shaynna, my mother and my sister to the Merlion. As expected, it was hard finding and grabbing a spot where one could take an exclusive photo with both the huge and the little Merlion.

The bridge to the Merlion park is as crowded as ever that it was so hard to take a photo with the Marina Bay Sands as a background…

Shaynna had a blast and could not stop talking about the “lion na nagbugwak bugwak ug tubig” (not really sure how to put it in English, but literally, it means “the lion with water gushing forth from its mouth”).

I received a flyer months ago about ITalkBB. It caught my attention because it was stated there that I only have to pay 14.99SGD a month for unlimited calls to the Philippines! I do admit I spend a lot for my long distance calls and I desperately wanted to cut it down. We do have internet connection at home but then it’s quite inconvenient for my family to use that overly slow Pentium III computer. Shaynna talks to me longer when on the phone. If we were to chat, she has to stay right in front of computer and she doesn’t like that.

Two weeks ago, I have finally decided to sign up. I was really lucky to do it recently because they are having a promo: no sign-up fee, free BB Box leasing, and free delivery of the BB Box to the Philippines! Without the promo, I would have paid 20SGD for signing up and 15SGD for delivery.

Last Saturday, my family received the BB Box, I played the role of a CSR guiding them how to set it up, and now, I no longer make long distance calls home! VoIP makes it possible for my home in the Philippines to have a Singapore number. Only S$0.019 is charged for calls from that phone to any number here in Singapore.

Because it is so convenient, Shaynna is the one making the calls now. Thank you, VoIP!

I don’t have spare keys to all the door locks in our apartment but I make sure that I have one for my bedroom. Well, I’m not someone who keeps misplacing keys but it’s better to be sure, more so because it’s not that “easy-to-swipe” type.

But at home in the Philippines, most of the people in my household seems to be often absent-minded. You can often witness lots of finger-pointing as to who got out of the house last, thus should be the one who keeps the key. It really gets noisy that I often think of replacing the common lock with the pin-activated ones!

It’s been ten years since I first tasted green tea. I almost threw up because the taste was just so different. And I did not even like the usual tea we had at home. After spending a few years in Japan eventually made me got used to it as green tea is more commonly offered for free in the restaurants there. I’ve read lots about the benefits of green tea, including faster metabolism, even as one of the natural bad breath treatments. But still, I can’t get my family to trade up their Coca-cola for green tea. I’m still trying and I hope that later on they would like it.

I don’t know if many business establishments in the Philippines have this cat, but this started to catch my attention when I was in Japan. This cat is called the maneki neko, the “Beckoning Cat”, “Welcoming Cat”, “Lucky Cat”, “Money cat”, or “Fortune Cat”. Pick any term but it is believed to bring good luck to the owner.

You see, my mother has a small sari-sari store. She’s always loved running one for as long as I can remember. But, it just usually sticks as being a sari-sari store. Unlike the successful businessmen, they all started with push-carts, then a small grocery store, then finally, a big mall! OK, I have to admit, there are still a lot of things that my mother is doing wrong. But I still want a maneki neko for her store. Before I think about business insurance, I want to bring her good luck first. Anyway, I do find maneki neko cute.

Holy week is supposed to be a time for reflection, fasting, soul-searching. So I grew up knowing that during Holy Week, we are not supposed to go out, make noise, nor play. I used to tag along my grandmother who spends the Holy Week at the church. I thought that all people do the same. Along the way, I’ve learned that what people do during the Holy Week greatly varies. To those who can afford, they go abroad, like Carmina Villaroel and family who are now in Singapore. Many go to Boracay and other beach resorts, leisurely taking in the great scenery together with their perdomo. As for me, though it’s a Public Holiday here in Singapore on Good Friday, I’m going nowhere. I really miss spending my Holy Week in the Philippines. We don’t totally fast. We just abstain from eating red meat. My mother usually prepares a huge pot of “ginataan” (”binignit” in Cebu, “tabirak” in my hometown). We don’t eat meat but we spend Holy Thursday and Good Friday eating tabirak! Care to share your tabirak with me?

My mother is still in her mid-fifties. But she is already complaining about painful joints. In fact, when I was in my teens, she suffered a kind of arthritis that kept her bedridden for days. Thank God, she recovered from it. I didn’t know until I last came home that she had a little accident: she fell off from a habal-habal (motorcycle). My cousin told me that my mother had a painful dilemma after the accident, walking around like a 90-year old. Each step she made was clearly painful to her. She had to undergo therapy to make her walk normally again. Until now, she complains about painful joints, maybe also because she’s getting older. I want her to try out a joint supplement but I think she needs more than that. She moves around much but I think she needs to have some kind of exercise. I still need to convince her to do just that. Above all, she really needs to follow a healthy lifestyle.