I’m in this weird situation where I’m happy with the now. I don’t know why but I am. The photo above is how my room looked like before sleeping. It makes me happy. I’m comfortable, rested, and a bit stress-free. I don’t have any ambition now professionally or I’m already in this state where I can just take whatever comes my way. That I may be done chasing and going up the ladder.
My cousin, who’s a journalist in New York, emailed me that her friend’s friend works for National Geographic and is looking for a Philippines-based freelancer to contribute. I would have loved the chance to contribute there! NatGeo was the reason why I wanted to go into science/environmental journalism. However, given the work load that I have and I am moving up, I have to give it a pass and give the gig to a friend. And I was fine with that. Years ago I would have kicked myself for letting an opportunity like this pass. But maybe I’m already satisfied with life? I don’t know. Maybe I don’t have anything to prove anymore? Let’s just say, if that is meant for me, it will come my way again when I am less tied up. I have to balance things and my priority is my day job because it provides for my family. I cannot stretch myself too thinly and make a mess of my day job and the dream gig.
One day.
I’m still stabilizing myself. Recovering from a life-changing heartbreak is not easy. I have to take it easy and not be too greedy.
But I’m happy that I’m in this position now that I can choose and say no to a dream gig. That’s quite something. The power to choose.
I cooked egg fried rice with seaweed and meatballs on top this morning because Twin I was inspired by Uncle Roger, who was disgusted by how egg fried rice was made on BBC Food.
Anyway, I cooked the egg fried rice the proper way. First, I used leftover rice chilled overnight in the fridge. By the way, you don’t wash rice like how that lady did or even drain water from rice like that. YOU DON’T COOK RICE LIKE THAT!
How can you anyone eff up fried rice? It’s basically a way to recycle food. So this video by Jamie Oliver is the worst egg fried rice that i have seen. Packet rice??? You put water while frying rice??? Jam in rice?! WTF is he doing?!
For lunch, I made gimbap. Because my girls wanted to go to a Korean store to buy gimbap. I knew I could make one so I did. I just lost my sushi rolling mat so I used aluminum foil…which somehow did the job but not really that great.
Photo by CallMeCreationI was surprised that this is already a heavy meal. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Everything was going well today…except for Twin I accidentally locking my bedroom door. With the cats inside. We couldn’t pick the lock and calling a locksmith at night with omicron raging is out of the question. We had no choice but to smash my door.
I fucking destroyed my door that I lovingly painted a few months ago. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I destroyed my door. Now I have to spend thousands for a door and a door knob that isn’t even mine. Sigh.
I used my credit card points to exchange for Lazada electronic gift checks that were enough to buy me a mini washing machine for PhP 2,000.
Its capacity is 2 kg and a little bigger than our plastic pail. Photo by CallMeCreation.com The brand is Union. It washes for maximum of 15 mins per load. Photo by CallMeCreation.com It fits under our clothes hanger. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I bought this primarily to wash our foot mats and rags that we use to clean up counters–because I don’t want to wash them by hand and spend my entire weekend brushing rags/ foot mats. I experienced the entire Christmas break just soaking these rags/mats in detergent and were just in basins for 2 weeks until Ate C came back.
So when I tried it today, I loaded it with two foot mats and just enough water (about half of the tub) and washed it for 15 mins. Then I let down the drain tube to let the water out (it doesn’t automatically drain) then poured water from the bucket into the tub for an initial rinse for 15 mins.
It doesn’t have a spin dryer so you have to manually wring the water out from the rags/clothes and hang to air dry.
My girls asked why can’t we use our 8 kg automatic washing machine to wash our rags? I said I don’t want dirty rags/mats to be washed in the same tub where we wash our clothes. Nope.
This mini washing machine is ideal for small condo units and for dorms, if you’re not fond of hand washing your undies and some shirts. I reckon you can wash 3-4 adult T-shirts in one load or 5 boxer shorts. Some reviewers on Lazada said they bought this to wash baby clothes.
My brother’s wife wanted to buy this too because while they use laundromats for their clothes, there are some items that needed to be hand washed like my brother’s undies (tee hee!).
A colleague’s daughter suffered a three-hour seizure episode and had a hard time getting admitted to any ER because every hospital in the metro is full of Covid cases. She is intubated and on life support now, in the FEU parking lot because there really is no space for her. She is around 7 years old or younger.
The cost now of hospitalization is very high as he posted on FB:
Right now, she’s confined in one of the tents in FEU. Because of COVID safety protocols, the bill can reach PHP 50k (USD 1k) per day because PHP 4k per PPE plus PHP 5k per swab of each doctor and nurse watching over her on rotation. I don’t know yet how much the intubation, bloodwork, x-ray and other tests would cost. I no longer have the strength to ask. As long as G’s condition stabilizes, that’s all I want to hear. But we may still be far from that.
I contacted his boss (this colleague isthe Philippine correspondent of a sister publication so he’s not under me) to inform him of what’s going on and to ask if something can be done to help ease his financial burden, like a salary advance or loan from our mother company or maybe the company employees pass the hat. This afternoon my colleague showed me his running bill for 24 hrs and it’s already more than PHP 100k. He told me that apparently his daughter has been having seizures for 24 hrs but they just didn’t know because those were just ticks and they were sleeping so they weren’t aware. Because of that, her brain may have been deprived of oxygen.
The child’s mother (also a friend) posted on FB that the doctor said she may already be brain dead; she hasn’t woken up yet.
I have asked our journo organization here to extend financial help to ease his worries. The current president is a good friend of mine and he said he will raise it to the board.
I know how it is when your child/children are on life support, fighting to see another day. I didn’t have the strength to cry at that time whenever I saw my twins full of tubes, watching their monitors, hoping that I won’t see a flat line. I held up and didn’t allow myself to be weak because once I start crying, I will crumble and never function anymore. I never rested; the day I got released from my hospital confinement after my Caesarian section, I traveled to my twins’ hospital everyday. CS mothers are usually given enough time to rest; I didn’t allow myself to rest. I needed to be with my babies everyday and express breast milk because they needed to be fed via gavage tubes since they were too premature to suck on their own.
I couldn’t think about hospital expenses at that point; my thoughts were on my children’s survival. I saved money to prepare for my children’s birth but I didn’t expect that they would be spending 31 days in the NICU. It’s hard to think about bills when you don’t know whether the doctor will just suddenly come to you and say your child/children have flatlined and are never coming back.
You cling to hope. To hell with hospital bills.
So I’m doing everything in my power to help this colleague.
As part of this reflection about life and death, I started writing ahain on my old-school journal so I can finally close this 2021 chapter. I needed to fill up the gaps from the moment I stopped writing in July to my Covid episode, to my reflections of 2021. So I can leave it all behind.
My 2021 journal. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Why do I bother doing it? So that my children can have something tangible to hold on to when I die. My memories will live with them. Twin I declared, no Mommy, you are immortal. You will live forever.
Yes darling, I said in my head, I will live on these pages, and on my blog.
I don’t know if I should be upset but I have recurring dreams about or set in our old house where I grew up. It was a small house in an area that J would have called ghetto. But it was a place where I learned how to deal with people from all walks of life. My father was obsessed with home ownership as he grew up materially/financially insecure. Home ownership was something my parents worked at even though they were struggling PhD students/candidates, assistant professors working on their tenure, putting four children though private school. So that was they all could afford–a small house in a neighborhood that you had to access through an esquinita (street corner turning into an alley). But as early as 1984 they were already working on building a bigger house right inside the university so they knew we won’t have to stay there that long.
Anyway, for the past few weeks or months, I had vague dreams set in that place or a similar-looking place. I cannot remember what exactly those dreams were but I knew by feeling it was set there or it was about it.
It was sort of…comforting. It was familiar, it was like being in a womb. After waking up, I have some kind of feeling similar to what I feel when I hear the song “These Dreams” by Heart.
I don’t know…maybe I’m looking for some kind of comfort because I’m just a fraud. I pretend and put up a front that I am brave and a strong single mother and I get things together but in reality I’m just scared and insecure. Maybe I just want to feel protected. Maybe I’m just tired being strong.
This is also probably why Kimchi keeps on sleeping near me or with me. It’s familiar, it’s comforting. It’s like being in a womb. She can just let go because she knows she is protected.
I was working today when I found Kimchi tucked in between my comforter, sleeping soundly, like everything is alright in the world. I don’t know how she managed to get herself wrapped around my sheets but there she is, savoring the smell of her human mommy. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
It must be the confinement, the crappy feeling I have because of the booster shot, or maybe I had a dream that I no longer remember now that triggered that melancholic feeling I had earlier today.
I suddenly missed him.
I tried quelling that feeling the entire morning so I just stayed in bed, answering emails on my phone. Took a nap just to get rid of the feeling or else I would be bogged down the entire day when I have deadlines.
Well, I lost half a day. I promise to be better tomorrow. This confinement is not good for my healing.
Thank God for cats. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I want to have a dog again. Once we transfer to my hometown, I’m gonna get me a rescue dog.
