I won’t quit, not just yet. Because you know why? I’m a great loss and I’m a threat. I will bid my time. The ball is in my hand. I’ll know when it is time.
Just like in other aspects of my life, they will only see my value after I’m gone.
And I’m having the last laugh. Good riddance.
No more feeling sorry for myself. No one can shortchange me again. I have everything; they’ve got nothing. Because I am me and they cannot replicate me.
I just want to quit. Quit this company. All I can say is you cannot make yourself small for somebody who refuses to grow up.
As I told a friend, I just do my job, keep my head low, get my salary, then jump when the opportunity comes.
I’ve been looking at openings but so far none stirred excitement inside me. I mean, none tugged at my insides yet.
Pita bread and curry. Photo by CallMeCreation.com Beef strips with enoki mushrooms that I made myself. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Since we’re stuck indoors again, I have been trying to cheer ourselves by cooking yummy food (and yes I am forcing my girls to eat Indian food). I no longer know how to make things better for the four of us (the other househelp already went home to her hometown and got married the other day) because…we are all tired of all of these.
I have already asked for a leave of absence for a few days this month before they announced the lockdown. I was initially planning to go to my hometown for a mini-break (bike to nearby towns and just chill) but I guess that won’t be happening anytime soon. So I will be stuck with nothing else to do.
Too many things happened the past week that I wasn’t able to write my thoughts about Hidilyn Diaz and Margielyn Didal making waves a the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Margielyn Didal of the Philippines in action at Tokyo Olympics 2020’s women street skateboarding finals at the Ariake Urban Sports Park, Tokyo, Japan onJuly 26, 2021. (Reuters/Toby Melville)
Margielyn was just a beautiful ray of sunshine in this dark, dark world. The Brazilians love her (and I’ve been seeing their tweets). She was just happy to be there competing and being friends with her competitors.
Meanwhile, that day was one of those days you just want to shut down and ignore the State of the Nation Address of Duterte. He was rambling for three hours, being his usual incoherent, unintelligible self. He even would not exert effort to read his prepared speech well. Then he would segue into one of his stream of consciousness that don’t make sense. When I caught him on TV (a rare moment that I watched TV, by accident), he was invoking China several times that I had hurled a string of invectives at the screen.
The irony later that day was that a woman–which Duterte looks lowly upon–earned the first gold medal for this country in a sport that as seen as masculine. And crushed China. How poetic.
This administration even demonized her when she asked on social media for private sector sponsorship for her bid in the Olympics because government support was not there. Then the DDS crucified her: how dare she challenge the government, the oh so benevolent Duterte! Then she was included by then-Presidential Spokesperson Panelo in the fictional matrix of destabilizers. Which the DDS trolls magnified and made Hidilyn fear for her life.
It gave me goosebumps. Kudos to you, Sgt. Diaz.
I had stayed with my cousin for three days and made sure her mom is stable before I went back home to attend to my household and work. My other cousin (the older one) finally arrived and they were able to make more arrangements in case my aunt turns for the worse. They were able to arrange for a priest administer the Anointment of the Sick (last rites) via video call (IATF protocol says no personal visits yet allowed? Or is this a parish decree? I don’t know) and funeral arrangement when the time comes.
Unfortunately, we will be going on a hard lockdown again a.k.a. enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) on August 6-20 so I don’t know how I would be able to go to my aunt when she…I was already assigned by my family as the first responder.
Speaking of lockdown, I did a lot of errands yesterday and today before everything shuts down. I contacted a plumber who charged me PHP 4,000 for changing faucets. And I had to redo all his work today because he did a bad job.
But it was a learning experience for me. I finally was able to do simple plumbing work like changing faucets.
Now that I know how to apply grout, I can chip away that dingy grout and apply a fresh one. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I had to change this as well because the whole pipe assembly leading to the shower was leaking. The reason why water is not bursting outside the walls is because the broken joint or whatever was being held together by cement. But it’s just as matter of time eventually the thing will give way and I would have a huge problem. We changed the original separate faucet and shower setup to a dual faucet shower installation so we don’t have to open up the concrete walls to install new pipes. This is cheaper and easier.
Unfortunately, the one we installed yesterday was a lemon despite the its hefty price tag. I had it exchanged for a better one and installed this one myself.
I changed faucets! Achievement unlocked.
The rains won’t stop. No chance to ride the bike before ECQ. *Sigh*. So I need to buy that can of paint so I can finally refresh my closets and doors’ paint because Kimchi loooooooooved scratching that corner of my closet. I need to find something to do indoors. The rains would not stop. Soon the strong typhoons would come after August or September.
Looks like a typhoon forming northeast that sucks the southwest monsoon. The dark rain clouds over Luzon have dissipated a bit though.
I went on leave yesterday to help my cousin, who is like my third sister, with–how do I term it? Her mom’s long goodbye? My cousin is not functioning well so I needed to be the one doing the rational thinking and the legwork because she couldn’t think straight. One thing is, she couldn’t let go. It hasn’t sunk in yet.
I told her the best option now is palliative care at home and make her mom comfortable. So I told her there’s no point in prolonging the stay in the hospital and we have to bring her mom home. We just need to set up a mini hospital there.
Which was not easy.
At a time of rising covid cases, looking for oxygen regulators is such an endeavor. I was told that Mercury is out of stock of O2 regulators because their supplier doesn’t have any left. I had searched for alternatives to Bambang, Sta. Cruz, Manila–the hub for mom-and-pop medical suppliers. Because I don’t wanna go there when it’s flooding all over the metro. Long-story short, I was able to buy an O2 regulator by going straight to the supplier’s house somewhere in Quezon City.
Now, the oxygen supply is another thing. I didn’t know that oxygen suppliers close early. Like 4 pm. And all I had with me was a 20-lb oxygen tank which I was told can last us the night. Wrong. It was only good for max of 6 freaking hours if the gauge was set up at 5! So I had to call people and begged to buy 50-lb tanks. One good-hearted guy took pity on me when I was almost crying and told him our oxygen will not last us the night and that my aunt was dying. So he relented and told his men to go to the factory and wait for us there so we can get 2 tanks, each one would only last probably 10 hrs or so. Each costs PHP7,000, just for the tank rental. The oxygen refill is another matter. We’ll just cross the bridge later today how to deal with supplies.
I had a long day and I still can’t sleep because of adrenalin. Driving around searching for medical supplies that are already dwindling. Hospitals that can increasingly cannot accommodate non-covid patients. Patients arriving at the ER, suddenly collapsing on the floor and dying.
I hoped to never use the PPE I had at home but unfortunately yesterday I had to.
Because my immediate concern was to get as much cash I could the quickest way possible to bring to the hospital, I totally forgot to buy surgical masks because we don’t stock up on it that much at home. So even if I have my PPE overalls, I was only wearing two cloth masks. I just hope I am not contracting anything.
So how do you tell a loved one that their whole world was dying?
You don’t.
My cousin dedicated much of her adult life taking care of her mom and could not bring herself do the paperwork for DNR. I didn’t point out to her that her mom’s heart already stopped twice, which may have already cut off the blood to her brain. And Lord knows what that could do. It still doesn’t sink in.
I just told her, we need to bring her home now. We will be running the hospital bill needlessly. That finally convinced her to ask the doctors if we can take my aunt home.
I’m still here in their house because anything can happen at any time. And she would be totally useless, which she already acknowledged she will be when the inevitable happens. I will be the one calling for the doctor’s medical certificate that will declare the probable cause, calling the funeral parlor or memorial service, arranging the filing of declaration to whatever government entities, calling relatives, arranging household concerns. Logistical issues. Like what I did when my father died. No one was functioning well enough to do those practical things.
Because I know how it is to die when grief kills you. You’re just blank.
I didn’t eat during the first few days after the break-up and after my dad died. It was only ice cream that sustained me because it was full of sugar, enough to fuel my cells, and it was the only thing that is a pleasure to eat because everything else tasted like paper. As I said in a blog entry after my dad died (and after my break-up with J) that every moment at that time was like floating in memories that were played back like a movie. And it doesn’t stop. It just goes on and on and on. The pain is excruciating that you want to just inflict physical pain onto yourself to take the edge off the emotional pain.
That’s how I know my cousin will not have human strength when death comes.
