tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65169548516791917602024-11-01T03:36:05.210-07:00MatamataMayette Q. Tabadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10141943030271421908noreply@blogger.comBlogger838125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6516954851679191760.post-47592256896382582572021-11-20T18:46:00.008-08:002021-11-20T19:34:26.136-08:00CruxWAITING for the veterinarian to arrive for Saturday appointments reminds the husband and I of the times we waited with other parents for our sons to be dismissed from pre-school. To be first in the queue, we are early birds and end up chatting with other early birds. Just as I once learned tips from using bright hues for body stamps (blue is cool; yellow is sissy) to holding 10-minute sanityMayette Q. Tabadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10141943030271421908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6516954851679191760.post-61758007813507540712021-11-13T18:29:00.000-08:002021-11-13T18:29:05.398-08:00LeavesTHE CARCASS was beside the highway. Due to its age and immensity, it looked like a boulder blasted from a mountain than a stump that had once seen a hundred years come and go.The husband said that ten men could not move that trunk. Still of use, its branches were carted away. Before we pulled away, my last sight was of a few leaves littering the ground near the stump.Yearends put to mind these Mayette Q. Tabadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10141943030271421908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6516954851679191760.post-61573752911204292482021-11-06T19:57:00.001-07:002021-11-06T19:57:07.140-07:00“Tabi”INTERESTING to follow are two foreigners who documented Visayans and the superstitions they believed at the turn of the century. Published in the July-September 1906 volume of “The Journal of American Folklore” is the paper written by W. H. Millington and Berton L. Maxfield on “Philippine (Visayan) Superstitions”.Millington and Maxfield hold that the beneficent effects of the free public Mayette Q. Tabadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10141943030271421908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6516954851679191760.post-48768096630492297872021-10-30T19:27:00.003-07:002021-10-30T19:27:29.851-07:00 “Butong” NOTHING different sets apart the husband’s “suki (preferred seller)” for coconut, the family’s shack surrounded by an oasis of dark green coconuts and browning husks beside the Sta. Rosa-Tagaytay Road.Ever since a Laguna pioneer returned home from working as a helper in the U.S. and used the plentiful coconut as substitute in making the local version of apple pie, “buko (young coconut in FilipinoMayette Q. Tabadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10141943030271421908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6516954851679191760.post-81401840834104431132021-10-23T16:35:00.001-07:002021-10-23T16:48:15.488-07:00Not a ghost storyUNLIKE the rest of the country, Cebu City will keep cemeteries open to fully vaccinated individuals during the “Kalag-kalag” days of Nov. 1 and 2. Defying the national government may make waves in the political realm. For souls, the closure of cemeteries is not an issue. There is no quarantining the dead.Clay covers of secondary burial jars from pre-Hispanic times feature two human figures Mayette Q. Tabadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10141943030271421908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6516954851679191760.post-35316128212642114062021-10-16T15:35:00.006-07:002021-10-16T15:35:59.525-07:00MemorabilisTHE DAY Kitkat’s last litter of kittens found their climbing legs meant a catastrophe of sorts for my books. She moved her four kittens to a corner near a bookshelf, where they broke their 24-hour napping and nursing to explore the vastness of our half-a-duplex unit.One of the books dislodged by feline curiosity was a slim volume that slotted perfectly between the shelf and a sack of rice where Mayette Q. Tabadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10141943030271421908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6516954851679191760.post-8825583731296767952021-10-09T15:29:00.000-07:002021-10-09T15:29:05.990-07:00PassageTHE FIRST time I stood outside the Lepanto chapel dedicated to the Birhen sa Sto. Rosario, the farming community of this upland barangay in Alegria, on the southwestern portion of Cebu, was preparing for fiesta.In the 1980s, I worked with communities to pilot a community wall news. It was my first job after college. A colleague handling community theater had the young and old flocking to the Mayette Q. Tabadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10141943030271421908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6516954851679191760.post-56012840991769196782021-10-02T18:40:00.002-07:002021-10-02T18:40:27.686-07:00Angels and demonsWHY cannot the Filipinos forgive and forget what the Marcoses did? It is the Christian way to forgive the sinner and condemn the sin. Ferdinand Marcos did some good for the nation, too. And he is long dead.My tita expressed these views online and in public. She gives me pause because she is not a troll, a web ‘bot, or a social media influencer. When she wrote, “Am a Marcos loyalist,” Tita Mayette Q. Tabadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10141943030271421908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6516954851679191760.post-30276546611086967462021-09-25T13:22:00.003-07:002021-09-25T13:22:52.532-07:00GaslightTO gaslight is to manipulate a person into questioning his or her sanity. This form of emotional abuse was first depicted in the 1944 movie “Gaslight,” featuring Charles Boyer as a husband plotting to drive his wife, played by Ingrid Bergman, to insanity.Based on the play by Patrick Hamilton, Boyer’s character switches on the attic lights, making the gaslights flicker. The husband convinces the Mayette Q. Tabadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10141943030271421908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6516954851679191760.post-43924978952842759952021-09-18T21:16:00.003-07:002021-09-18T21:16:34.342-07:00Labyrinth DON’T judge the book by its packaging. Yet, for the first time in five decades, I hesitated to unwrap a book, so enamored was I with the brown kraft paper wrapped around it like a drape of seaweed. I used to believe one discovered a book by happenstance: the stars aligned; actual bills, not receipts, fattened my wallet; and The Book was waiting in the darkest corner of a bargain bin on the Mayette Q. Tabadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10141943030271421908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6516954851679191760.post-91616510659258614712021-09-11T18:50:00.004-07:002021-09-11T18:52:06.251-07:00Home WHEN ants are on the move, pay attention. Days of incessant rain made me see my neighbors, the anthill, in a new light. I used to think summer requires that I scour the ground with my sight before setting foot in the garden. Silang in Cavite is blessed with rich, dark soil and lush Mayette Q. Tabadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10141943030271421908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6516954851679191760.post-21314962202275364562021-09-04T20:00:00.003-07:002021-09-04T20:00:28.640-07:00‘BerWHEN I was commuting before the pandemic, Jose Mari Chan was perpetually popping up and crooning “Christmas in Our Hearts” when the ‘Ber months rolled Christmas in sight.In queues. In smog. Squeezed in the bus and train. Jostling in mall and sidewalk. Before the pandemic, I sincerely wished to throttle Mr. Chan.Last Sept. 1, Jose Mari dislodged Led Zeppelin in my Spotify playlist. My Mayette Q. Tabadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10141943030271421908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6516954851679191760.post-21256996715383312972021-09-04T19:55:00.007-07:002021-09-04T19:55:51.830-07:00Covid coincidence THE PREFIX “co-” is diminutive but powerful. Attached to a noun, verb or adjective, the prefix creates a new word that implies “together” or “mutual”: we are co-producers, coexisting and cooperative.What about “Covid”? I remind myself that the co(rona)vi(rus) d(isease of 20)19 does not lead off with a prefix; it is an acronym officially entered on Feb. 11, 2020 by the World Health Mayette Q. Tabadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10141943030271421908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6516954851679191760.post-23645887360797807382021-08-21T20:25:00.001-07:002021-08-21T20:25:14.211-07:00The undead“STRANGE fruit hangin’ from the poplar trees/ … is a strange and bitter crop,” sang the great Billie Holiday in the timeless blues anthem to prejudice and hate.Mixed fruits the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) brings me although these are no less strange, rediscovered in their unfamiliarity in the jaundiced light of strange times, borne by a virus that feeds on people’s need for contact and Mayette Q. Tabadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10141943030271421908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6516954851679191760.post-85506150126575219312021-08-21T20:15:00.002-07:002021-08-21T20:15:36.680-07:00Waiting for vax I AM in the pale. In numbers, I belong to the 87 percent of the country’s population that have not been vaccinated against coronavirus disease (Covid-19), by choice or not.It is the latter in our case. The husband and I have registered when the local government units in Luzon where we live and work made the call for A3 and A4 groups, prioritized due to underlying health conditions and Mayette Q. Tabadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10141943030271421908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6516954851679191760.post-10972541478551254722021-08-07T20:01:00.001-07:002021-08-07T20:01:19.776-07:00Dead reckoningANXIETY is the siren wail that pounces in the middle of the day, with another spiraling in the void opened by the emptied highway, followed by another and another.It is a photograph of a shop posted by an entrepreneur that is moving out and returning to where he started: home. Anxiety is writing a tribute for someone loved and writing another for a different beloved before the week is over. Mayette Q. Tabadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10141943030271421908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6516954851679191760.post-53746448406180022802021-07-31T15:31:00.000-07:002021-07-31T15:31:04.876-07:00Lift LOVE came disguised as fear. Professor Madrileña dela Cerna had a formidable reputation even among the terror teachers undergraduates love to parody when they are unable to separate love from the farrago of fear and awe.Later, when I taught in the same campus, I respected from a remove a senior member of the faculty, research director, and advocate of causes from women empowerment to Mayette Q. Tabadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10141943030271421908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6516954851679191760.post-11525376133333508212021-07-24T17:31:00.002-07:002021-07-24T17:31:21.044-07:00Sayote with mangoI DISLIKED vegetables as a child. The dislike approached repugnance whenever I contemplated the “ginisang sayote (sauteed chayote)” my “tita (aunt)” spooned on my plate.My sister, cousins, and I were part of a lunch pool. Since we went to the same all girls’ school with their daughters, our aunts took turns picking us up for lunch.Don’t let the food wait. Eat vegetables. I grew up with women withMayette Q. Tabadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10141943030271421908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6516954851679191760.post-24023756317667986192021-07-17T15:24:00.004-07:002021-07-17T15:24:24.643-07:00Ways of seeing THREE materials I need to see in person: paper, wood, leather. I met Harley Dave Bahian Beltran because of a wood-and-metal installation that stood out in a crowded mall bazaar in November 2017.Upcycled galvanized iron pipes formed a stark scaffolding in a mall decked out for the holidays. Iron tubes forming letters spelling out “Harl’s” were set against repurposed pitted planks. The Mayette Q. Tabadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10141943030271421908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6516954851679191760.post-47312055637097227462021-07-10T16:08:00.002-07:002021-07-10T16:08:14.752-07:00Tilapia redux TILAPIA first crossed my plate in Quezon City. Once and never to return, I vowed.At the university canteen, I chose a nicely fried fish and was shocked when it came on a plate, camouflaged under an ooze of greens like a Hollywood actor penetrating a jungle camp. Because I skipped breakfast and lunch to finish a paper and was not facing evening class with a gut up in arms, I tackled the now Mayette Q. Tabadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10141943030271421908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6516954851679191760.post-8905366196126592672021-07-03T15:27:00.001-07:002021-07-03T15:27:16.930-07:00"Taal" I SCAN heaven for cues if I should water the garden. The husband checks his smart phone for the weather forecast.Last July 1, as the aspins (asong Pinoy) and I were tangling over the hose, a boa constrictor they may soon chomp to extinction, the husband asked me to go inside the house. Taal Volcano erupted at 3:16 p.m.In Cebu, I have lived near the sea for most of my life. When Taal VolcanoMayette Q. Tabadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10141943030271421908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6516954851679191760.post-15769281886156038602021-06-26T15:52:00.003-07:002021-06-26T15:53:21.093-07:00Love for womenWHEN I read the first social media posts about his death, I wanted to doubt the news.When I read the breaking reports from media I trust, my next thought was of his sisters. When he moved in the Bahay Pangarap in the Malacañang Park complex, his four sisters shared the official duties that, if he had married, would have been carried out by the country’s First Lady.Finally, when the undeniable Mayette Q. Tabadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10141943030271421908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6516954851679191760.post-51250960136320278992021-06-19T15:34:00.002-07:002021-06-19T15:34:46.790-07:00Fathers who cookPAPANG did not cook. My father-in-law did. The husband does.Papa Peking made “inun-unan (dish simmered in vinegar)” I can still taste: the fragrance of sauteed garlic and onion, the tartness of vinegar, the sly spice of ginger, softness of flesh after the scales peel away from the fish, and, overlaying all these, the sinfulness of pork lard, which he added as the finale, never measuring, just Mayette Q. Tabadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10141943030271421908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6516954851679191760.post-9329249830183430152021-06-12T19:03:00.003-07:002021-06-12T19:03:32.108-07:00Happy ever afterDID I get the vax?To the question asked by the vet’s assistant, I answered that the three aspin (asong Pinoy) puppies were due for the fourth and last jab of the 6-in-1 vaccine, which also protects them from the canine parvovirus.The assistant clarified that he was asking if the husband and I were already vaccinated for the coronavirus disease (Covid-19). Being a guardian of dogs and cats Mayette Q. Tabadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10141943030271421908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6516954851679191760.post-52495642789265602402021-06-05T20:09:00.000-07:002021-06-05T20:09:05.631-07:00KnittingIN my memories of sitting in her kitchen, food was the spice and stories, the staple. She was daughter, sister, wife, and mother in an age that had the expectations of and prescriptions for women traced and ready for applying to every woman, no matter what was in her mind and heart, like the cut-out clothes I used to punch out for paper dolls.She was the last of the siblings that included myMayette Q. Tabadahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10141943030271421908noreply@blogger.com0