✅ Drum for water

✅ Full gas tank for my car

✅ Fresh bread

✅ 10 L of gas for the Honda power generator for my mom’s house

I asked my cleaning lady to disinfect my buckets and remove all things in my yard and utility area that could be blown off by 212 kph winds.

According to some meteorologists that I follow, it is unfortunate that there are two high pressure areas that are pushing down the super typhoon further southwards. Landfall is now likely to be at Baler, Aurora instead of Tuguegarao. It means Central Luzon will be a direct hit, Metro Manila will sustain huge damage. If NCR is paralyzed, the whole country stops.

What happened to Cebu during Typhoon Tino was basically a man-made disaster waiting to happen. Mountains were denuded and there are too many mining activities in the area that loosened soil. Cebu can’t absorb that amount of rainfall.

We’re blessed that our mountain is a protected area so the rainforest is there to absorb that rainfall. The question is, how much can it absorb? Like 200mm of rainfall for hours?

I had to attend this large conference to get as many stories as I could because I anticipate that I wouldn’t be able to gather news by next week due to the super typhoon.

I think I have three or four stories with me now. It will be just a matter of whether or not I will have internet and enough battery power to allow me to write and submit stories.

After Uwan/Fungwong does its business in almost the entire Philippine archipelago, it will then wreak havoc in Taiwan. The center is expected to fall on Isabella-Aurora by Sunday evening to Monday morning and cross to Taiwan on Tuesday. Given its sheer size, we can say the entire Luzon will be ravaged over the weekend.

Learning from our experience with Typhoon Kristine last year, I am more prepared now. After I had dinner outside of the hotel, I went straight to Landmark Makati to buy a wash basin for my kitchen sink and a pail with lid to store clean water for washing dishes once we lose power. It’s more hygienic this way instead of disinfecting my wash basin and buckets that had been hanging around my utility/laundry area downstairs for two years. My laundry area is exposed to the elements so—you get my drift. Even though we have a water tank that could provide us with potable water for 3 days without replenishment, my house will still be waterless because I need power to boost water pressure so it will reach my second-floor dwelling.

Tomorrow I will drive to a nearby town to buy a skinny but tall water drum to put in my bathroom so we can have water to flush our toilet for number 1. We can bathe and do number 2 in my mom’s house because her 2 downstairs bathrooms don’t need high water pressure. Plus the toilets are connected to her rain water reservoir so there’s plenty of water for flushing. My sisters’ second-floor bathroom hasa a water drum that would last them a few days.

I also stocked up on candles and lighters. My only problem now is that my freezer is full. If I won’t have power for a week, my meats will get spoiled. Good thing I have a Styrofoam cooler but it is a question of whether I can buy tube ice for it.

My Bluetti battery pack could power my modem, a USB lamp, and my DC-power Acerpure air circulator. It can also charge our laptops and phones. It will last us a few days without solar charging. But assuming that the sun will start shining on Tuesday, hopefully we can juice up everyday so we can have emergency power indefinitely.

I just hope that my roof will not be torn off and the glass window panes will not be hit by flying GI sheets and whatnot.

This thing is massive!!! Bigger than Haiyan. Oh my God!

I had been buying gifts when I find time in between conferences or meetings. I want to be done with Christmas shopping by end of this month. But I think I’m done. All my US online shopping is also done, too, so I don’t have to wait for Black Friday drops.

I attended an event today and got two or three stories out of it. Hopefully, the second one will get past the night editor today. 😭

It was soooo hard getting back into workmode last Monday. I struggled with work yesterday so productivity was zero. I just watched videos yesterday and tried to talk to some sources. However, my brain was just dead. I’m going through a rather difficult PMS this week… I have to give myself grace and shouldn’t push myself because perimenopause is horrible. 🫠 Everything hurts physically and mentally I’m just a mess.

Drove my mom to the flower market  in prep for All Souls’ and All Saints’ Days this weekend.

Bulaklak at kandila.

Flower and candle.

That was the title of the short story I wrote that got published in a literary magazine of national circulation (since 1922) when I was in high school. It was about a college girl who was a candy striper (no such thing in the Philippines) who lost somebody important to her but she never had to courage to say what she needed to say. It was about the things that were left unsaid. Promises kept.

I had two published. I don’t know if it’s still existing—ok, I just Googled. It still exists but it’s just a website now, a repository of what it was supposed to be.

Anyway, the other story was about betrayal, which I wrote when I was already in freshman college. I forgot the title!!! But anyway, the protagonist was a girl who pretended to be a tomboy to repel guys. If I remember it right, she had an ex-bf who got another girl pregnant and the story started with the protagonist helping a toddler who tripped when he was running in a park. And the dad who came running after the kid was the ex.

That story was inspired by my older sister’s friend who broke up with her bf after she found out he got another girl pregnant. They were already in their third year or fourth year in college while I was still in my first year at university. I was able to translate her pain and anguish onto paper.

The tomboy part was partly me. During my first year in college I pretended to be a tomboy and it was easy because I played football everyday. I was trying to repel guys. Why? During that time, I had a blockmate who got close to me because he and I were on the same wavelength. He graduated from an art high school and majored in theater. So of course we jived. We had hung out a lot after classes. He disdained the shrilly girls who dotted the campus and I guess he gravitated towards me because I wasn’t one of them.

I didn’t know that we also had a blockmate who was in-love with him so much that she gathered all the girls who knew me and assassinated my character every chance she got. She was so jealous of me.

One girl, who was a friend, snitched and told me this. Then I told him. He laughed so hard and he said “Oh god, these girls are like high schoolers!” I said, I don’t know what the deal is but that’s the way it goes.

After several semesters, we drifted apart.

I still carried on with my tomboy image to avoid more situations like that. I was creeped out one time I heard that there were fratmen who watched our games because of me. I, with my deep-seated insecurity, thought that guys only wanted one thing from me that’s why they were like that. So to protect myself, I tried dressing up as a boy—baggy jeans, loose T-shirt (not the baby tees that dominated the era of Britney and the Spice Girls), turf football boots (or FG cleats), and baseball cap.

So that short story was a hybrid of me and my sister’s friend.

When did I stop writing fiction? 🙁