It’s a cat sanctuary, alright. Twin A told me she was able to speak with one of our neighbors when we were looking for Oyen when he went missing. She wanted to go look for him in another neighbor’s yard because that’s where my mom’s maid last saw Oyen. Twin A said we heard meows from that part so Oyen could be there. The neighbor said it’s hard to decipher which one could be Oyen since they have a sort of cat sanctuary there.

We never got back Oyen after he disappeared for the second time. He sneaked out of my mom’s garden and jumped into the neighbor’s yard. Hopefully, he got adopted or he is now with that cat sanctuary.

Now my curiosity is getting the better of me. I want to talk to our neighbors to see for myself how this giant catio looks like from the inside.

Meanwhile, the felled coconut tree trunk is still there, lodged between the branches of my pomelo tree.

Have to hire a tree/wood cutter to clear this one.

School got suspended today after two earthquakes shook the socks out of the school administration and the local government unit. Phivolcs said it was tectonic in origin, with the epicenter at Jomalig town in Quezon Province. The reports are inconsistent when it came to magnitude. Some earlier reports say it’s 5.3 then 5.6. The second tremor was around 5 then some reported it’s 4.9.

But when I was still with local media, the first thing we editors consult is the USGS earthquake tracker so that’s what I follow nowadays for instantaneous report. It says 5 and then 5.3 , while Phivolcs recorded them at 5.3 and 4.9. There were smaller quakes of magnitude 2 to 3.2.

I was still asleep when the two quakes happened. I was just awakened by the emergency alert by NDRRMC on my phone. I was just drifting off to sleep again when I felt the second quake.

I was a bit annoyed that they suspended classes just because of this. When I was still in elementary and high school, classes only got suspended at magnitude 6 and above.

But then authorities didn’t know immediately what’s the origin of the quake. Of course the first thing that they will think is it’s volcanic since we are technically at the foot of a sleeping volcano. Plus we’re surrounded by smaller volcanoes.

Ok I forgive them.

Then I realized how nonchalant I am, up to the point of callousness, when it comes to earthquakes. I always take it for granted because it happens frequently. “It’s normal, no need to panic,” is my first thought.

However, I shouldn’t behave like this. As I said above, we live at the foot of a volcano. I lived to see how Pinatubo blew up—and it was mistakenly described once as an inactive volcano. As my mom said, there are no extinct volcanoes in the Philippines—they’re just inactive. Anytime they can blow up as magma shifts.

And 😱 Phivolcs identified our mountain as a “potentially active” volcano and not just plain “inactive.”

I should prepare like the Japanese. You know, they have their earthquake emergency bags.

1. Dune

I know we had a copy of Dune in our old house when I was a kid. It’s one of those paperbacks in our cabinet with glass doors. The Dune novels are just right up my alley but I couldn’t figure why I haven’t picked it up. 🤔 Maybe when I take my long break…

2. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep

This novel’s adaptation is Blade Runner, a cyberpunk movie also right up my alley. As a lifelong fan of Ghost In the Shell anime movie/s and series, this book should have been on top of my reading list. Dystopia and questions about what makes a human, human, is always interesting to me. Is empathy solely a human emotion? <<< something that will always nag at the back of my head.

3. The Giver

I have had The Giver in my basket several times in book stores but somehow I prioritize buying another book over this. I don’t know why. Maybe because I always thought this book will still be available when I get back.

Next time I will finally buy this. The problem is when will I have the time to read this?

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I started refilling my Pilot Namiki fountain pen cartridges and oh boy, the process is so messy. I know there’s an art and science to this but I haven’t figured it out just yet. 😩

I just love writing with fountain pens. Drawing with it is fun. However, watercoloring with it is a hit or miss affair because inked drawings bleed when colored.

I just realized today that the second floor our neighbor constructed was a giant catio or a huge cat house. This morning I saw a couple of cats hanging out by the screen wall. There are also cat trees. I wonder if our neighbor is rescuing cats. 🤔

However, the skeptic in me could not shake the feeling that my neighbor is probably getting stray cats to feed a python, like this zoo in Masbate.

Geez, I hope not.

Twin I pointed out that 1) why would our neighbor spend so much constructing this entire second floor to keep cats just to feed a snake/s? 2) Why would they install ceiling fan for the cats if these cats are just going to be fed to the snake?

She has a point.

It’s just that I have so much distrust on humanity that I always think the worst of people when it comes to animals, especially companion animals.

In the following days I will try to investigate. I will be a Marites.

The local government has suspended classes a day before so we took our sweet time getting out of bed. The wind was a bit violent and snapped the dead coconut tree trunk in the garden. It fell on my pomelo tree, hit and torn off the branch that had three pomelos that I had been trying to ripen naturally. I saved the grown fruits but the small one is… *sigh*

Good thing we didn’t lose power today so I was able to work, while my girls are able to attend online class. Or do their school work asynchronously.

I had been seeing videos and photos of flooded areas in Cavite and Metro Manila since last night. A friend from Cainta, Rizal tried going to his office in BGC but had to turn back because of the severe flooding in the area. He had to abandon his car along Felix Ave and walk back to his house because there was no way he could push through the high waters.

Rizal province is the most devastated province today because of Typhoon Enteng (International Name: Yagi).

Northern provinces have also been submerged, like this one in Bulacan.

Significant flooding in the province of Bulacan, Philippines from tropical storm #Yagi (#EntengPH). #tropicswxpic.twitter.com/dOUbg7lEB5

— StormHQ ☈ (@StormHQwx) September 2, 2024

Marikina River overflowed…

#EntengPH | Evacuation prompted as Marikina River
water level hits 2nd alarm.

🎥Manny Palmero

for more news update: https://t.co/nqoA0hNvVd pic.twitter.com/0fC2W4AXlR

— Manila Standard (@mnlstandardph) September 2, 2024

And as this article from Fortune said:

The biggest lesson from Warren Buffett isn’t his stock picks or market maneuvers—it’s his child-like spirit and focus on doing what he loves. Now, you don’t have to become a competitive Bridge player or drink Coke daily to follow his example. Instead, savor the present and do what truly makes you happy.

As Buffett said in a 2017 CNBC interview, “I think happiness makes an enormous amount of difference…in terms of longevity. I’m happier when I’m eating hot fudge sundaes or drinking Coke.”

My other bff, L, went to my rescue last night by coming over for dinner, with a bottle of Moscato, to talk some sense into me. I was already sinking into an episode because of my demon of a boss. I already wanted to quit even without a job.

L told me I have to face the reality that I can’t just do that. I know that, which makes my situation more excruciating because I’m trapped. To keep my sanity intact, she told me I should:

1. Pay no heed to my boss. It’s hard, yes, but it’s harder to be without a job while being the breadwinner. Don’t take what she is doing to me personally, even though she shows she doesn’t like me, until I found another job.
2. Have my passion somewhere else. Not on my job. Do not place my passion and identity on my work. Let it go. Not until I have another job.
3. Find other sources of happiness, to keep me sane until I find another job. Find pockets of sunshine.

And this is what Warren Buffett is saying. Have small doses of happiness. Do things that make me happy.

So what are those? I may have to take a leave of absence for that. Assess my life. Take a break from work. Find myself.

I was also chatting with a friend who used to be a journo and shifted to corporate. She quit her job even though she didn’t have anthing lined up yet. She just got burned out. It was more than the crappy boss. It’s the overall corporate culture that she couldn’t take anymore. She told me she is full of anxiety because she has no income and it’s quite jarring when for the longest time she has been the breadwinner before she got married and after she got married and had a daughter. She is also in the process of assessing where she wants to go, what else she can do well, whether she still wants a corporate setup or be her own boss…

Maybe I need to go on a sabbatical. Without pay. I think I can afford a month or two of not receiving my salary. I have to figure this out soon.

P.S. Why do I always get screwed over by Koreans? 🤬

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So here we are pursuing stories, chasing people…

… And my boss kills my story even though the editor whose specialty is that specific topic I wrote about says it’s a story worth publishing. He is rescuing it and will tackle it Monday.

She is really out there to get me.

Right now, I am wondering if I could transfer to a sister publication just to escape her. But what good will it do? What if the rival company comes back to me with an offer?

The question is how long can I stay like this? How far can I take this?

To soothe myself, I went to a salon at the Mall of Asia (the nearest one from where I was), just to make me feel better.

I’m staying as long as I can in the mall, not because I’m crazy about shopping, but because it’s Payday Friday. The roads are terrible tonight.

A little art perhaps to soothe my soul?

I was late by almost an hour to the presscon that I was supposed to attend in Rockwell so I just skipped it and went straight to another presscon at BGC. The roads were hell today. Just add water = cars multiply like gremlins when it rains. Yes, it’s my fault for not alloting another hour to my travel time because I underestimated how rain can truly mangle traffic.

I’m just spoiled by where I live right now since destinations are reachable under 30 mins.

Once I arrived at Uptown Mall to park my car, I never left the area. I just walked to the venue because BGC is such a car trap: too many intersections and stoplights, too little parking areas. And oh, my parking fee was over PHP 300.

Funny thing here is that I was the most senior journo there already. The conglomerate’s head of comms greeted me and lamented that it has been a while since she saw me. I said, yeah I seldom go out these days because we have Kr to do most of the legwork and look after the other markets. It just so happens that there was an overlapping event that she had to attend today.

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My car, Wendy, is still a fine old lady. Save for the wear and tear, which is to be expected, this car has been running well for almost 20 years. I just bought a new pair of Michellin tires again yesterday so that Wendy will run with four new shoes. I will have her fuel line checked to make sure it’s not clogged, clutch line checked, aircon cleaned, and everything else underneath greased.

It has carried pieces of furniture that were Tetris-ed, survived many house moves, even ferried several hundred kg of Rockwool insulation when my house was still under construction. Survived 48-hr drives, island hops, and five children (mine and my brother’s).

Yes, that’s how sturdy manual transmission cars are. The reason why we chose a car that is “everything manual” is because it is easy to repair. From windows down the transmission. When it plows through floods, I have no fear that the electricals will get shorted and die.

I will always choose MT over AT. Unfortunately, only a few models offer MT nowadays. Oh well, only a few of us can survive a zombie apocalypse—those who can drive stick shift can drive any getaway car. Those who can’t would just have to outrun the zombies. 🤣