Before I left for college, I used to go with my family to visit relatives who are a few hours drive from our place. We used to frequently visit relatives even in remote places where ATV Tires would be much appreciated. But more than 10 years of being often away from home, I am always at a loss every time my family mention my relatives. I no longer know majority of them and they don’t know me.

On my mother’s side, they have decided to hold a family reunion every year. Unfortunately, that falls on February so there’s only a slight chance for me to join them. My family loves to go around visiting relatives and I kind of miss this. That’s why if I do get a chance to go to Cebu, I would definitely drop by Bohol to visit my father’s relatives. So as not to break what my family used to do before my father died.

And I do hope that one day, I could join a family reunion.

None of my parents smoke. Neither do I. But my younger brother started smoking more than ten years ago. We have been trying to dissuade him to no avail. To make things worse, he consumes a pack or two each day, taken from our small store. He is the reason why we no longer sell the expensive brands. We were hoping he would slowly get rid of it when her daughter was born. Three years have passed, no improvement.I am thinking of bringing home a pack of cigarette from Singapore. Maybe the graphic warning would put some sense into him. If that won’t scare him a bit, an electronic cigarette? I wonder how that costs here, and where can I find one. I wonder if it could help. I just hope my brother would make the first step. The problem is, I don’t suppose he plans to quit.

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!

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?